Books like 'Lying About Last Summer'
Readers who enjoyed Lying About Last Summer by Sue Wallman also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery psychological action / adventure horror thriller season-summer plot-twist grief realistic
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The First Death by Kendra Elliot
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Wall Street Journal bestselling series.For a search and rescue expert, the buried remains of her past are a dangerous obsession in a twisting novel of suspense by a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author.Rowan Wolff was five years old when she, her brother, and their babysitter were kidnapped by a serial killer in the Pacific Northwest. The babysitter was murdered... -
The Night Window by Dean Koontz
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 20 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz brings Jane Hawk's one-woman war to an explosive climax as the rogue FBI agent wages her final battle against a terrifying conspiracy--for vengeance, for justice, and for humanity's freedom."Jane Hawk is arguably the best character Koontz has created. Simply put, wow... -
Our Stolen Pieces by James Hunt
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen the morning after a slumber party reveals two missing girls, a newly minted Detective and a young veteran are assigned the case. Recently partnered, the pair of detectives must set aside their troubled pasts to recover the pair of girls who may have been coerced by a stranger who had kidnapped before... -
Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe, Gwendolyn Druyor
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsListening Length 13 hours and 4 minutesShe looked alive, her hair drifting freely in the water, her red lips gently parted, as if to let her final breath escape. A small locket floated by her face, attached to her neck with a silver chain…When Detective Kay Sharp first left Mount Chester—population 3,823—in her rear-view mirror, she promised never to look back... -
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Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThey’re hunting a killer so silent, so invisible, that his unspeakable crimes are the only proof he exists.A car submerged in a remote pond. The bodies of two girls strapped into their seats. The mystery of their mother, vanished without a trace, leads Gwen Proctor and Kezia Claremont into dangerous territory... -
Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the first book in bestselling author Lisa Regan’s new series, a one-night stand sets a detective on the trail of a terrifying unsolved crime.With his career on thin ice and fresh ink on his divorce papers, Sacramento PD Detective Connor Parks goes searching for solace at the bottom of a bottle…and winds up in the arms of a beautiful woman... -
Criminal by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsKarin Slaughter's new novel is an epic tale of love, loyalty, and murder that encompasses forty years, two chillingly similar murder cases, and a good man's deepest secrets. Will Trent is a brilliant agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Newly in love, he is beginning to put a difficult past behind him... -
Gallery of the Dead by Chris Carter
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 19 ratings‘Thirty-seven years in the force, and if I was allowed to choose just one thing to erase from my mind, what’s inside that room would be it.'That’s what a LAPD Lieutenant tells Detectives Hunter and Garcia of the Ultra Violent Crimes Unit as they arrive at one of the most shocking crime scenes they have ever attended... -
The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAgent Pendergast faces his latest challenge in this next installment of the #1 NYT bestselling series by acclaimed authors Preston and Child, the second in the Leng Trilogy.Following the events of Bloodless, FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast and Constance Greene return. Against all odds, Constance has found a way back to the place of her origins, New York City in the late 1800s... -
Looking Glass by Andrew Mayne
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsProfessor Theo Cray caught one of the most prolific serial killers in history using revolutionary scientific methods. Cut off from university research because of the shroud of suspicion around him after the death of his former student and the aftermath of catching his quarry, Cray tries to rebuild his life but finds himself drawn into another unsolved case...Categorized as:
law-enforcement thriller action-adventure adult amateur-sleuth audiobook book contemporary -
Fallen by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThere's no police training stronger than a cop's instinct. Faith Mitchell's mother isn't answering her phone. Her front door is open. There's a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother's house, gun drawn... -
Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe serial killer isn't on trial.He's on the jury.It’s the murder trial of the century. And Joshua Kane has killed to get the best seat in the house – and to be sure the wrong man goes down for the crime. Because this time, the killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury.But there’s someone on his tail...Categorized as:
law-enforcement realistic thriller 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsA gripping and emotional novel that will leave you wondering about the neighbors next door...On a cold January night, Sharon Lemke heads outside to see a lunar eclipse when she notices something odd at the house behind her backyard. Through her neighbor's kitchen window, she sees what appears to be a little girl washing dishes late at night... -
Killman Creek by Rachel Caine
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsEvery time Gwen closed her eyes, she saw him in her nightmares. Now her eyes are open, and he’s not going away.Gwen Proctor won the battle to save her kids from her ex-husband, serial killer Melvin Royal, and his league of psychotic accomplices. But the war isn’t over. Not since Melvin broke out of prison. Not since she received a chilling text…You’re not safe anywhere now... -
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The Whispering Room by Dean Koontz, Elisabeth Rodgers
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratings16 hrs 52 minsJane Hawk—fiction's most relentless, resourceful, stunning new heroine—continues her battle against a murderous conspiracy in the riveting sequel to The Silent Corner. "No time to delay. Do what you were born to do. Fame will be yours when you do this...Categorized as:
law-enforcement thriller action-adventure adult audiobook book conspiracies contemporary -
Missed Connections by Alexandria Clarke
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHow far would you go for revenge? Veronica Bauer isn’t above homicide. Twelve years after a ruthless attack killed her mother and put her father in prison, she embarks on a mission to bring the real culprits to justice. As bodies start to drop, Detective Sheila Arden is assigned to the gruesome case, but she soon discovers that the truth is more complicated than she thought...Categorized as:
law-enforcement thriller mystery suspense fiction crime police-procedural contemporary -
Catch Me by Lisa Gardner
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsDetective D. D. Warren has four days to stop a killer in this “shocking…‘must read’”* from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner—one of Library Journal's Best Thrillers of the Year.Charlene Grant believes she is going to die. For the past few years, her childhood friends have been murdered one by one. Same day. Same time... -
A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsA chilling thriller of serial murder and dark secrets that will leave you wondering, is the past really in the past?Three Chicago women have been found strangled, embalmed, and posed as if still alive. Doubting the findings of the local PD’s profiler, The FBI calls on forensic psychologist Zoe Bentley to investigate...Categorized as:
law-enforcement realistic thriller action-adventure adult audiobook book contemporary -
Find Her by Lisa Gardner
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsLisa Gardner's runaway New York Times bestseller--a fast-paced thrill ride featuring Detective D. D. Warren. Seven years ago, carefree college student Flora Dane was kidnapped while on spring break. For 472 days, Flora learned just how much one person can endure... -
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 101 ratingsHarriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of iniquity and corruption...Categorized as:
family law-enforcement realistic thriller 21st-century abuse action-adventure audiobook -
The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsNear an isolated mansion lies a beautiful garden.In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens...Categorized as:
law-enforcement plot-twist realistic thriller 21st-century abuse action-adventure audiobook -
These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNo electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness... -
The Summer Children The Collector, Book 3 by Dot Hutchison
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsSeries including The Butterfly... -
The Secrets of the Shadows by Helen Phifer
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSophie was afraid of the man in the shadows. He terrified her, but he would always disappear when someone else came. But one day in June 1984, she didn't escape. He took her. When a young woman is found draped over a gravestone in a chilling murder, police officer Annie Graham experiences a familiar sense of dread... -
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The Girl in the Snow by Alexandria Clarke
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA retired FBI agent. A heartstopping tragedy. Carolina Caccia, a divorced mother of two, confronts her worst fears when her son goes missing during a family ski trip. As she discovers her son has been taken, she must revisit her dark past to rescue her child...Categorized as:
law-enforcement family thriller mystery suspense contemporary season-winter young-adult -
Vanish by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsA blessed event becomes a nightmare for pregnant homicide detective Jane Rizzoli when she finds herself on the wrong side of a hostage crisis in this timely and relentless thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Body Double. A nameless, beautiful woman appears to be just another corpse in the morgue... -
Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsA savage crime has rocked a working-class neighbourhood of Boston; four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father is lying in an intensive care unit, his survival in doubt. He is the principal suspect. Female police detective D.D. Warren, however, is not one to take things at face value... -
Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWe don’t pick and choose what to be afraid of. Our fears pick us.Tash Carmody has been traumatised since childhood, when she witnessed her gruesome imaginary friend Sparrow lure young Mallory Fisher away from a carnival. At the time nobody believed Tash, and she has since come to accept that Sparrow wasn’t real. Now fifteen and mute, Mallory’s never spoken about the week she went missing...Categorized as:
family law-enforcement thriller action-adventure book coming-of-age contemporary crime -
What Hurts the Most by Willow Rose
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsASIN B018A097LO moved to the most recent edition hereYou will never guess the ending!Am I pretty? Imagine being asked that question standing face to face with a killer. What would you answer? While her life is going from bad to worse, journalist Mary Mills receives a phone call from her father telling her that her brother has been arrested for murder...Categorized as:
law-enforcement thriller action-adventure adult amateur-sleuth audiobook book contemporary -
The Dark Corners of the Night by Meg Gardiner, Hillary Huber
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsListening Length: 11 hours and 45 minutesI am the legion of the night …He appears in the darkness like a ghost, made of shadows and fear—the Midnight Man. He comes for the parents but leaves the children alive, tiny witnesses to unspeakable horror. The bedroom communities of Los Angeles are gripped with dread, and the attacks are escalating... -
The Vanished Ones by Donato Carrisi
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWe call them the sleepers...At the elite Missing Persons bureau of the Federal Police, Mila Vasquez is tasked with finding the hundreds of lost people who have vanished from their former lives. However, the longer they are gone, they more they are forgotten by the world. Now they are returning... -
The Dark Bones by Loreth Anne White
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsShe’s come back to solve the mystery of her father’s death and confront her own dark past. When Detective Rebecca North left her rural hometown, she vowed never to return. Her father’s apparent suicide has changed that. The official report is that retired cop Noah North shot himself, knocked over a lantern, and set his isolated cabin ablaze. But Rebecca cannot believe he killed himself... -
Looking Good Dead by Peter James
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTom Bryce did what any decent person would do. But within hours of picking up the CD that had been left behind on the train seat next to him, and attempting to return it to its owner, he is the sole witness to a vicious murder. Then his young family are threatened with their lives if he goes to the police... -
Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsJazz Dent has never been closer to catching his father.Jazz has been shot and left to die in New York. His girlfriend, Connie, is in the clutches of Jazz's monstrous father, Billy--the world's most notorious serial killer. And his best friend, Howie, is bleeding to death on the floor of Jazz's new home... -
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Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller.She can’t ignore a cry for help. But in this remote hunting town, it’s open season.Gwen Proctor escaped her serial-killer husband and saved her family. What she can’t seem to outrun is his notoriety. Or the sick internet vigilantes still seeking to avenge his crimes. For Gwen, hiding isn’t an option... -
The Last Child by John Hart
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he'd been taught since birth to trust... -
The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsTwo girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind.Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father—Pikeville's notorious defense attorney—devastated... -
Game by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsBilly grinned. “Oh, New York,” he whispered. “We’re gonna have so much fun.”I Hunt Killers introduced the world to Jazz, the son of history’s most infamous serial killer, Billy Dent.In an effort to prove murder didn’t run in the family, Jazz teamed with the police in the small town of Lobo’s Nod to solve a deadly case...Categorized as:
family law-enforcement realistic thriller abuse action-adventure anti-hero audiobook -
Stranger Still by Michaelbrent Collings
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYour sins are Legion… and now you belong to him.Legion is a teacher. An avenging angel. A murderer. A madman. Born in the blood of a dying mother, raised in the underground lair of an insane father, he travels the world looking for those who keep secrets and sins. He finds those who have fallen short, and teaches them the lessons they need to leave their mistakes behind... -
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsWhat have we got? A missing little girl named Maggie Rose . . . a family of three brutally murdered in the projects of Washington, D.C. . . . the thrill-killing of a beautiful elementary school teacher . . . a psychopathic serial kidnapper/murderer who is so terrifying that the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police cannot outsmart him - even after he's been captured...Categorized as:
family law-enforcement realistic thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
The Elephant Tree by R.D. Ronald
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsMark Fallon is an overworked detective investigating a spate of attacks at a string of high profile city centre nightclubs. Scott is a dejected 24 year old struggling to make ends meet working for his brother and supplementing his income with a small-scale drug dealing operation...Categorized as:
law-enforcement realistic season-summer thriller 21st-century action-adventure book classics -
Messiah by Boris Starling
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA former reporter and a specialist in kidnap negotiations releases a debut serial killer novel that reveals the making of a mass murderer. Three bodies are found with their tongues cut out and replaced with silver spoons. The killer's motives and methods are so elusive that talented investigator Red Metcalf must search the darkest corners of his own soul to stop the killings...Categorized as:
law-enforcement thriller action-adventure adult audiobook book british-isles contemporary -
The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Thefertility of Hill's imagination, the range of his power, the sheer quality ofhis literary style never ceases to delight." —Val McDermid,author of Fever of the BoneIn a stand-alone psychological thrillerfrom acclaimed mystery master Reginald Hill, a mysterious ex-con returns to hisremote childhood home on a deadly hunt for revenge... -
Abandoned by Cody McFadyen
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFor FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett, her colleague’s wedding is cause for celebration. Until a woman staggers down the aisle—incoherent, wearing only a white nightgown. A fingerprint check determines that she’s been missing for nearly eight years. Her coldly efficient captor toyed with her mind and body, imprisoning her, depriving her of any contact with the outside world... -
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Sønnen by Jo Nesbø
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThe author of the internationally best-selling Harry Hole series now gives us an electrifying stand-alone novel set amid Oslo's hierarchy of corruption, from which one very unusual young man is about to propel himself into a mission of brutal revenge. Sonny Lofthus, in his early thirties, has been in prison for the last dozen years: serving time for crimes he didn't commit... -
Blood Memory by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsForensic expert "Cat" Ferry has a stellar reputation until a panic attack paralyzes her at a New Orleans murder scene. Praying the attack is a one-time event, she continues working, but when the same killer strikes again - raising fears that a serial killer is at large - Cat blacks out over the victim's mutilated corpse... -
The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratings#1"New York Times "bestselling author Tami Hoag explores the devastating consequences of the secrets families keep in this powerful thriller. As the dreary, bitter weather of late fall descends on Minneapolis, Detective Nikki Liska is restless, already bored with her new assignment to the cold case squad... -
A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThe third pulse-pounding novel in the Grant County series from New York Times bestselling author Karin Slaughter.Sara Linton, medical examiner in the small town of Heartsdale, Georgia, is called out to an apparent suicide on the local college campus... -
Deeper Than the Dead by Tami Hoag
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsCalifornia, 1985. Four children, running in the woods behind their school, stumble upon a partially buried female body, eyes and mouth glued shut. Close behind the children is their teacher, Anne Navarre, shocked by this discovery and heartbroken as she witnesses the end of their innocence... -
The Blackhouse by Peter May
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsA brutal killing takes place on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland: a land of harsh beauty and inhabitants of deep-rooted faith.A MURDERDetective Inspector Fin Macleod is sent from Edinburgh to investigate. For Lewis-born Macleod, the case represents a journey both home and into his past.A SECRETSomething lurks within the close-knit island community. Something sinister...
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