Books like 'Paradise, WV'

Readers who enjoyed Paradise, WV by Rob Rufus also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

mystery  horror  serial killer  cults  crime  fundamentalism  southern-gothic  spooky  rural  gothic 

  • Opening Moves by Steven James

    Opening Moves by Steven James

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Milwaukee, 1997. In a city reeling from the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, a series of gruesome kidnappings and mutilations draw authorities into a case like nothing they've ever seen. Cops think a Dahmer copycat is on the loose. But Patrick Bowers, working as a homicide detective, suspects this is more than an ode to the infamous cannibal...
  • Bitter Falls by Rachel Caine

    Bitter Falls by Rachel Caine

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    She’s investigating a cold case no one else could—by going places no one else would dare.In spite of a harrowing past still haunting her, Gwen Proctor is trying to move forward. Until a new assignment gives her purpose: the cold-case disappearance of a young man in Tennessee. Three years missing, no clues. Just Ruth Landry, a tortured mother in limbo...
  • Becoming the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar

    Becoming the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar

    Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    A riveting, haunting sequel to the New York Times bestselling thriller Chasing the Boogeyman—a tale of obsession and the adulation of evil, exploring modern society’s true-crime obsession with unflinching honesty, sparing no one from the glare of the spotlight...
  • Psychopath by Jeff Menapace

    Psychopath by Jeff Menapace

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    The final game is here… A decade has passed. The Lambert family is thriving. Amy Lambert is a successful entrepreneur and in a promising relationship with Allan Brown. Caleb Lambert is a respected member of the United States Marine Corps. Carrie Lambert is a flourishing college student. Or so they wish. Nothing could be further from the truth...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  book  fiction  horror  murder  mystery
  • The Secrets of the Shadows by Helen Phifer

    The Secrets of the Shadows by Helen Phifer

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Sophie 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...
  • Never Walk Alone by Willow Rose

    Never Walk Alone by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    The world is on lockdown due to a virus that originated in Miami.A woman is kidnapped from her apartment, and Detective Harry Hunter is on the case.At the same time, his sister shows up after they haven't seen each other in a year.As it turns out, Harry's sister knows more about the virus than she lets on. Soon, he wonders if the virus is connected to the missing woman...
  • Il était deux fois by Franck Thilliez

    Il était deux fois by Franck Thilliez

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    En 2008, Julie, dix-sept ans, disparaît en ne laissant comme trace que son vélo posé contre un arbre. Le drame agite Sagas, petite ville au cœur des montagnes, et percute de plein fouet le père de la jeune fille, le lieutenant de gendarmerie Gabriel Moscato. Ce dernier se lance alors dans une enquête aussi désespérée qu'effrénée.Jusqu'à ce jour où ses pas le mènent à l'hôtel de la Falaise..
  • The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale

    The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    The narrator of The Bottoms is Harry Collins, an old man obsessively reflecting on certain key experiences of his childhood. In 1933, the year that forms the centerpiece of the narrative, Harry is 11 years old and living with his mother, father, and younger sister on a farm outside of Marvel Creek, Texas, near the Sabine River bottoms...
  • Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor

    Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Photographer Isla Wilson is thrilled she’s landed her dream job, but the clients who hired her are getting stranger by the day. It sounded so perfect - a month‘s assignment at the misty, sprawling Scottish Highlands property of brilliant architect Alban McGregor, and his wife, Jessica. But deep in the woods, there is a chilling playhouse...
  • The Last Party by A.R. Torre

    The Last Party by A.R. Torre

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    A loving mother. A notorious murderer. They both have reasons to hide their secrets in a novel of escalating shock and suspense by New York Times bestselling author A. R. Torre.Perla Wultz lives with her husband, Grant, and their precious daughter, Sophie, in a gated Pasadena community. Affluent, sociable, and accomplished, Perla plays the part of loving wife and mother to perfection...
  • Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

    Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

    Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars
    · 19 ratings
    An extraordinary novel inspired by the real-life sorority targeted by America's first celebrity serial killer in his final murderous spree.January 1978. A serial killer has terrorized women across the Pacific Northwest, but his existence couldn’t be further from the minds of the vibrant young women at the top sorority on Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee...
  • Psycho by Robert Bloch

    Psycho by Robert Bloch

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 32 ratings
    The story was all too real-indeed this classic was inspired by the real-life story of Ed Gein, a psychotic murderer who led a dual life. Alfred Hitchcock too was captivated, and turned the book into one of the most-loved classic films of all time the year after it was released.Norman Bates loves his Mother. She has been dead for the past twenty years, or so people think...
  • The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock

    The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock

    Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log...
  • Brimstone by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

    Brimstone by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    Art critic Jeremy Grove is found dead, his face frozen in a mask of terror. His body temperature is grotesquely high; he is discovered in a room barricaded from the inside; the smell of brimstone is everywhere... and the unmistakable imprint of a claw is burned into the wall...
  • Slash or Pass by Tylor Paige

    Slash or Pass by Tylor Paige

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    When you get told to run, you get up and don’t look back.We had one shot to get out of the Sinister Minister’s grasp, and we took it. Hand in hand, Kansas and I fled in the middle of the night, with a promise that we’d never tell a soul about what happened at that house, and how Constantine died...
    Categorized as:
    religion  cults  spooky  spirituality  romance  horror  dark  mystery
  • Last Call by J.A. Konrath

    Last Call by J.A. Konrath

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    A retired cop past her prime...A kidnapped bank robber fighting for his life...A former mob enforcer with a blood debt...A government assassin on the run...A wisecracking private eye with only one hand...A homicide sergeant with one week left on the job...And three of the worst serial killers, ever.This is where it all ends...
  • Deity by Matt Wesolowski

    Deity by Matt Wesolowski

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    A shamed pop starA devastating fireSix witnessesSix storiesWhich one is true?When pop megastar Zach Crystal dies in a fire at his remote mansion, his mysterious demise rips open the bitter divide between those who adored his music and his endless charity work, and those who viewed him as a despicable predator, who manipulated and abused young and vulnerable girls...
  • Profile K by Helen Sarah Fields

    Profile K by Helen Sarah Fields

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    He’s going to kill you. He just doesn’t know it yet. There’s something wrong with me. For years I’ve hidden it. Suppressed it. Blended into society. But The Test awoke something within me. It was just a routine application designed to get to know me better – with results that would show me everything I was capable of...
  • The Laughing Dead by Jess Lourey

    The Laughing Dead by Jess Lourey

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Two murder investigations, decades apart, threaten to expose a cold case agent’s darkest secrets in a pulse-pounding thriller by the Edgar Award–nominated author of The Taken Ones.The bodies of three teenage girls are found in central Minnesota—each with her mouth fixed in a ghoulish grin, smiling at a deadly joke no one can hear...
  • The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb

    The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb

    Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Inspired by serial killer Harry Powers, "The Bluebeard of Quiet Dell," who was hung in 1932 for his murders of two widows and three children. This best-selling novel, first published in 1953 to wide acclaim by author Grubb, (who like Powers lived in Clarksburg, West Virginia), served as the basis for Charles Laughton's noir classic...
  • Vengeful Games by Jeff Menapace

    Vengeful Games by Jeff Menapace

    Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    PLAYTIME IS NOT OVER...In Autumn of 2008, the Lambert family headed to western Pennsylvania for a weekend getaway to the family cabin.They visited hell instead...The Fannelli brothers. Two psychopaths who believed themselves exceptional, put on this Earth for the soul purpose of tormenting others for their own amusement. To make people play their twisted games...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  book  fiction  horror  murder  mystery
  • Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale

    Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Inheriting one hundred thousand dollars and a small hiccup of a house in a dilapidated district is not so bad, and Uncle Chester made a nice gift of it to his nephew Leonard... though the clean-up is intensive, the floor is Rotten, and the neighbors are something from a nightmare. It is one thing to renovate a house to sell it...
  • Ich vergesse nie by John Marrs

    Ich vergesse nie by John Marrs

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 21 ratings
    She’s chasing a killer. He’s watching her every move.He hides in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment. Each kill is calculated, planned and executed like clockwork.Struggling to balance her personal and professional life, young DS Becca Vincent has landed the biggest case of her career—and she knows that it will make or break her. But she can’t catch the culprit alone...
  • The Occupied by Craig Parshall

    The Occupied by Craig Parshall

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    As a youth, Trevor Black unleashed spiritual forces he couldn t comprehend. Years later, Trevor is a high-flying criminal defense lawyer in New York City, with a six-figure Aston Martin and a trophy wife. But in an extraordinary turn of events, he receives a burdensome gift: the ability to perceive the invisible. And the dark forces he now sees are all gunning for him...
  • The Art of Dying: A Ray Hanley Crime Thriller by Derik Cavignano

    The Art of Dying: A Ray Hanley Crime Thriller by Derik Cavignano

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    When the bizarre death of a mob foot soldier sparks an escalating war between Boston's Irish and Italian mafia, Detective Ray Hanley's relentless search for the truth uncovers evidence of a serial killer obsessed with the art of human suffering...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  book  fiction  horror  murder  mystery
  • High Cotton by Joe R. Lansdale

    High Cotton by Joe R. Lansdale

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    This collection of Joe R. Lansdale stories represents the best of the “Lansdale” genre—a strange mixture of dark crime, even darker humor, and adventure tales. The stories are varied in setting and theme, but they are all pure Lansdale—eerie, amusing, and occasionally horrific. In “The Pit,” modern gladiators square off against one another using Roman methods...
  • The Cove by Malcolm Richards

    The Cove by Malcolm Richards

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Carrie thought her son was dead. She was wrong. She’d only taken her eyes off him for a second. But that was all it took for a perfect day at the beach to turn to horror. Cal disappeared beneath the waves. His body was never found. Seven years later, Carrie has a new family. But her life in the sleepy Cornish town of Devil's Cove is about to be torn apart again. A boy washes up on the shore...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  book  evil-places  fiction  horror  murder
  • Last Call by Sean Costello

    Last Call by Sean Costello

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    THIS BOOK is RATED-R FOR LANGUAGE by the publisher.In the space of a single day, twenty-year-old Trish West purchases her first car, gets accepted into veterinary college, and finds her rockstar father, Jim Gamble, a man who vanished into the streets before she was born and now clings to life in a Toronto intensive care unit.Eager to establish a relationship with Mr...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  book  domestic-drama  fiction  horror  mystery
  • Peek A Boo, I See You by Willow Rose

    Peek A Boo, I See You by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    ASIN moved from less recent editionThe body of a woman found in front of Nordby City Hall has a message for Emma Frost carved into the skin. Behind this ruthless murder stands a ghostly figure that likes to play childish games. Soon, this killer brings a reign of terror to the small Danish Island and especially to the life of Emma Frost...
  • The List by Kiersten Modglin

    The List by Kiersten Modglin

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Ten years ago, the small town of Bates, South Carolina was changed forever with the appearance of a slip of paper.Six names.Six people set to die.Six months later, they were gone. But the list maker was far from done with their town.Like clockwork, new lists come out every six months. To keep their names off of them, the citizens go to extraordinary lengths and keep terrifying secrets...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  book  fiction  horror  murder  mystery
  • Tortured Dreams by Hadena James

    Tortured Dreams by Hadena James

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    When the US Marshals Serial Crimes Tracking Unit comes knocking at Aislinn Cain's door, she is given a chance to use her past to save other people's futures. She has survived attacks by two different serial killers and devoted her life to studying the darker side of human history. A new killer is using medieval torture methods to slay his victims...
    Categorized as:
    crime  spooky  thriller  adult  audiobook  book  contemporary  fiction
  • Seven, Eight... Gonna Stay Up Late by Willow Rose

    Seven, Eight... Gonna Stay Up Late by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    She thought she could keep it a secret. Just fourteen years old, Amalie thought she could take off and go to the festival with her best friend without anyone knowing it - without her parents finding out. She thought she was safe when she met a man offering her drugs. She thought she was safe when she went alone to her tent to take the pills...
  • Terrified by Kevin O'Brien

    Terrified by Kevin O'Brien

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Truth Megan Keeler died years ago—or so everyone believes. In fact, she disappeared to escape from her sadistic husband, Glenn. When dismembered body parts were found near their home, Glenn was convicted of his wife’s murder...
    Categorized as:
    crime  literary-fiction  thriller  abuse  adult  book  dark  female-mc
  • Hit the Road Jack by Willow Rose

    Hit the Road Jack by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    New series from the Amazon Bestselling author Willow Rose.  Ben is supposed to be in school. It's Monday morning but his parents are still asleep after a night of heavy drinking. Ben Waits patiently, even though he knows he is missing out on today's field trip to the zoo...
  • Broken Dolls by James Carol

    Broken Dolls by James Carol

    Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Jefferson Winter is no ordinary investigator.The son of one of America's most renowned serial killers, Winter has spent his life trying to distance himself from his father's legacy. Once a rising star at the FBI, he is now a freelance consultant, jetting around the globe helping local law enforcement agencies with difficult cases. He's not got Da Vinci's IQ, but he's pretty close...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  audiobook  book  contemporary  fiction  horror
  • The Asylum Confessions: Merry with all that Murder by Jack Steen

    The Asylum Confessions: Merry with all that Murder by Jack Steen

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    They arrive alive. They always leave dead.But first, they give me their confessions, and this one has to everything to do with Christmas.Merry Ho-Ho and all that holiday cheer. This book has it the cozy, loving, gift-giving while chomping on cookies right before you die - type of feels you know you'll read with one of my confession books...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  horror  mystery  fiction  suspense  murder  holidays
  • Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

    Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

    Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars
    · 46 ratings
    An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell...
  • The Bad Seed  (P.S.) by William March

    The Bad Seed (P.S.) by William March

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Now reissued – William March's 1954 classic thriller that's as chilling, intelligent and timely as ever before. This paperback reissue includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested reading and more.What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March's classic thriller...
  • The Collector by John Fowles

    The Collector by John Fowles

    Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars
    · 35 ratings
    Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him in time...
  • Crucifix by Richard Montanari

    Crucifix by Richard Montanari

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    The scene is carefully set--a teenage parochial school girl, artfully posed in death with her arms chained around a graffiti-scarred pillar, clutching a rosary and a picture of a religious painting by Robert Blake...
  • Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell

    Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    LEGENDARY THRILLER WRITER DAVID MORRELL TRANSPORTS READERS TO THE FOGBOUND STREETS OF LONDON, WHERE A KILLER PLOTS TO ASSASSINATE QUEEN VICTORIA.The year is 1855. The Crimean War is raging. The incompetence of British commanders causes the fall of the English government. The Empire teeters...
  • The Asylum Confessions by Jack Steen

    The Asylum Confessions by Jack Steen

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    They arrive alive. They leave dead.But first, they give me their confessions.Fans of Stephen King, Joe Hill and like to read books like The Bird Box, The Haunting and can't get enough stories about serial killers are going to enjoy reading the deathbed confessions from The Asylum...
  • In My Father's Basement by T.J. Payne

    In My Father's Basement by T.J. Payne

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    A must-read psychological thriller for anyone who's fascinated by serial killers. A 60-year old handyman goes on a murder-spree, abducting and torturing people with hand-tools.After he's caught, the media wants to hear his story. What made this old man snap? Why did he do the horrible things he did? What really happened down there in his basement? The public fascination in The Handyman swells...
  • Run Run as Fast as You Can by Willow Rose

    Run Run as Fast as You Can by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Simone Beaumont is having a rough day. She is exhausted. Her baby is crying non-stop, she is in a fight with her husband and hasn't spoken to him since last night. A big part of her want to just leave everything. To run away from it all. To vanish...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  book  female-mc  fiction  horror  killer
  • L'Âme du mal by Maxime Chattam

    L'Âme du mal by Maxime Chattam

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Pas plus que sa jeune assistante, l'inspecteur-profileur Brolin ne pense que les serial killers reviennent d'outre-tombe. Fût-il le monstrueux bourreau de Portland qui étouffait et vitriolait ses victimes avant de les découper avec précision. Mais le bourreau est mort et le carnage se poursuit, identique : un même rituel horrible...
  • The History of Things to Come by Duncan Simpson

    The History of Things to Come by Duncan Simpson

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    The mind of a genius can hold the darkest of secrets A razor-sharp thriller A Bosnian gangster is gunned down in a packed London restaurant. In his possession is a notebook once belonging to Isaac Newton. This is just the latest in a series of shocking crimes connected to objects once belonging to the famous scientist. The police are stumped and the pressure for an arrest is mounting...
  • The Cold Calling by Will Kingdom

    The Cold Calling by Will Kingdom

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Life isn't easy for Detective Inspector Bobby Maiden. Death is even harder. When Maiden is revived in hospital after dying in a hit and run incident, his memories are not the familiar ones of bright lights and angelic music, only of a cold, harsh place, he has no wish to revisit - ever...
  • 13:24: A Story of Faith and Obsession by M. Dolon Hickmon

    13:24: A Story of Faith and Obsession by M. Dolon Hickmon

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    THE HEART-POUNDING, RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES THRILLER HONORED WITH A STARRED REVIEW IN PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S BEST BOOKS OF 2014 SPECIAL ISSUEDetective William Hursel has worked countless murder cases, staring down the cruelest deeds humanity has to offer...
    Categorized as:
    crime  religion  spirituality  abuse  adult  book  dark  drama
  • The Laughterhouse by Paul Cleave

    The Laughterhouse by Paul Cleave

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    From the internationally bestselling author of Blood Men and Collecting Cooper comes an unforgettable new thriller featuring private detective Theodore Tate.Theodore Tate never forgot his first crime scene - ten year-old Jessica Cole found dead in 'the Laughterhouse,' an old abandoned slaughterhouse with the 'S' painted over. The killer was found and arrested. Justice was served...
  • Webcam by Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath

    Webcam by Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Librarian’s note: This is a previously-published edition ofKindle ASIN: B01CVWSXCQ. Someone is stalking webcam models.He lurks in the untouchable recesses of the black web.He's watching you. Right now.When watching is no longer enough, he comes calling.He's the last thing you'll ever see before the blood gets in your eyes...
    Categorized as:
    crime  thriller  adult  audiobook  book  drama  fiction  horror
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