Books like 'Cruel'

Readers who enjoyed Cruel by W.L. Knightly also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

legal  suspense  crime  thriller  law-enforcement

  • Judgment Cometh (And That Right Soon): A Legal Thriller by Scott Pratt

    Judgment Cometh (And That Right Soon): A Legal Thriller by Scott Pratt

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    A Supreme Court Justice is found cut into pieces in the back of a pick-up truck. Three other judges have already gone missing. In the eighth installment of Scott Pratt’s bestselling Joe Dillard Series, Dillard is hired to represent the man driving the pick-up. As Dillard delves into the case, he comes to believe his client is not guilty...
  • In Cold Blood by Caroline Mitchell

    In Cold Blood by Caroline Mitchell

    Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    WHEN THE HUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED…DI Amy Winter faces her toughest case yet as a serial killer couple kidnap and hunt their prey. After capture, the victims are released from an unknown location each day. But freedom does not come easily as the victim’s injuries become more severe, and if they haven’t escaped by day four, they won’t live to see the fifth...
  • The Client by Janet McAlpin

    The Client by Janet McAlpin

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Mark Sway is eleven and he knows a terrible secret. He knows where a body is hidden. Some secrets are so dangerous that it's better not to tell. But it's just as dangerous if you don't. So Mark needs help fast - because there isn't much time...
    Categorized as:
    crime  legal  suspense  thriller  adult  book  fiction  killer
  • The Conviction by Robert Dugoni

    The Conviction by Robert Dugoni

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    In this exhilarating legal thriller from Robert Dugoni, the #1 Kindle bestselling author of MY SISTER'S GRAVE, attorney David Sloane must take the law into his own hands to save his son from a corrupt juvenile detention center. As David Sloane continues to piece his life back together in the wake of his wife's vicious murder, he also struggles to handle his difficult teenage son, Jake...
  • Murder One by Robert Dugoni

    Murder One by Robert Dugoni

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    In this riveting legal thriller from Robert Dugoni, the #1 Kindle bestselling author of MY SISTER’S GRAVE, attorney David Sloane takes on his first criminal case…defending the woman he loves. Recovering from the shock of his wife’s murder the previous year, David Sloane returns to Seattle after some much-needed healing time in Mexico...
  • Cold-Blooded by Lisa Regan

    Cold-Blooded by Lisa Regan

    Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Fourteen years ago, high school track star Sydney Adams was gunned down in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The investigation yielded useless clues, and the case went cold. But homicide detective Augustus Knox never gave up on finding Sydney's killer...
  • Legacy of Lies by Robert Bailey

    Legacy of Lies by Robert Bailey

    Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    A small-town attorney takes on prejudice and corruption in this powerful legal thriller. Small-town lawyer Bocephus Haynes comes home late one night to find District Attorney General Helen Lewis waiting for him. Her ex-husband has just been killed. She’s about to be arrested for his murder. And she wants Bo to represent her.There’s a lot working against them...
  • So We Lie by Willow Rose

    So We Lie by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Eva Rae Thomas is in over her head on her first assignment as an FBI profiler in multi-million-copy bestselling author Willow Rose’s nail-biting mystery.When the mother of two, Arlene Wood, crashes her car against a tree at four in the morning, the case seems pretty straightforward.But evidence found in the remains of the car soon raises the question of whether this was really an accident...
  • Death in Dexter by Blake Banner

    Death in Dexter by Blake Banner

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    There hadn’t been a crime in Dexter, upstate New York, since 1865. It was a long time coming, but when it came, on the 21st September, 2012, it was ugly. It was murder.It was the murder of a seventeen year-old girl, beaten, raped and strangled, then stabbed in the heart with a hunting knife...
  • Belsay by L.J. Ross

    Belsay by L.J. Ross

    Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Christmas can be deadly. After a long year of crime-fighting, DCI Ryan and his team are looking forward to a peaceful Christmas filled with festive treats - including the occasional turkey stottie, or three. To celebrate a job well done, the entire team are treated to a party at beautiful Belsay Hall, a spectacular country estate on the outskirts of the city...
  • Three Small Bones by Jennifer Chase

    Three Small Bones by Jennifer Chase

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Smoke curls from what’s left of the beautiful family home on the edge of the woods. The heat is unbearable as she descends the stairs to the basement, past a set of bicycles––two big, one small...
  • The Harry Bosch Novels, Volume 1: The Black Echo / The Black Ice / The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly

    The Harry Bosch Novels, Volume 1: The Black Echo / The Black Ice / The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly

    Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    The Black Echo:For Harry Bosch - hero, loner, nighthawk - the body stuffed in a drainpipe off Mulholland Drive isn't just another statistic. This one is personal. Billy Meadows was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat," fighting the VC and the fear they used to call the Black Echo. Harry let Meadows down once. He won't do it again...
  • Misjudged by James Chandler

    Misjudged by James Chandler

    Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    When a disabled veteran takes a new job as an attorney in a small Wyoming town, he is thrust into a mysterious murder case.Sam Johnstone was hoping for renewal when he took a job at a boutique law firm in rustic Wyoming. The mountains and streams of the west would be a refreshing, quiet place to start over after years of war and turmoil in his personal life...
  • Grimm Up North by David J. Gatward

    Grimm Up North by David J. Gatward

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    Welcome to Wensleydale, where the cheese is famous, the scenery beautiful, and the locals have murder on their minds …Detective Chief Inspector Harry Grimm is forced to take leave from Bristol’s Major Investigations Team when his boss, tired of Harry chasing the ghost of his murderous father, sends him north on secondment...
  • Necessary Decisions by Giacomo Giammatteo

    Necessary Decisions by Giacomo Giammatteo

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 11 ratings
    Gino Cataldi is a man hanging on by a thread. Cancer took his wife, and drugs put his son in rehab. All he has left is his badge. When a teenage girl is kidnapped, it brings back nightmares from the worst case he ever worked—the one that tore his life to shreds and forced him out of Philadelphia. Gino doesn’t want this case, but he knows he has to take it...
  • Tell No One / Gone For Good by Harlan Coben

    Tell No One / Gone For Good by Harlan Coben

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    From New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben comes an unforgettable duet of classic novels—two top-notch thrillers filled with the author’s signature storytelling genius.TELL NO ONEFor Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams...
  • Grant of Immunity by Garret Holms

    Grant of Immunity by Garret Holms

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Current Edition for ISBN-10: 1503114783; ISBN-13: 978-1503114784WHEN EVIL HIDES BEHIND A BADGE, NO ONE IS SAFE . .. It’s 1976, Los Angeles. Sarah Collins, a young mother of two, is brutally raped and murdered at the Hollywood Reservoir. For nineteen years, the murder remains unsolved and the case goes cold...
    Categorized as:
    crime  law-enforcement  legal  suspense  thriller  adult  book  family
  • State vs. Lassiter by Paul Levine, Luke Daniels

    State vs. Lassiter by Paul Levine, Luke Daniels

    Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars
    · 17 ratings
    Jake Lassiter is crazy about the new woman in his life...His law practice is booming...His delinquent nephew is getting A's in school.Then Jake is charged with murder. It's supposed to be a romantic weekend at the Fontainebleau for Jake and Pamela Baylins. Then they quarrel, and Pamela--who's Jake's banker as well as lover--accuses him of stealing from clients. Hours later, she's found strangled...
  • Truth or Dare by M.J. Arlidge

    Truth or Dare by M.J. Arlidge

    Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Do you want to play the game?A crimewave sweeps through the city and no-one is safe. An arson at the docks. A carjacking gone wrong. A murder in a country park. What connects all these crimes without causes, which leave no clues?Detective Inspector Helen Grace faces the rising tide of cases which threatens to drown the city. But each crime is just a piece of a puzzle which is falling into place...
  • Accused by Mark Gimenez

    Accused by Mark Gimenez

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 19 ratings
    'Scott, it's Rebecca. I need you.'After years of silence, Texan lawyer Scott Fenney receives a devastating phonecall from his ex-wife. She has been accused of murdering her boyfriend, Trey - the man she left Scott for - and is being held in a police cell. Now she is begging Scott to defend her.Scott is used to high-stakes cases, but this one is bigger than anything he has handled before...
    Categorized as:
    crime  legal  suspense  thriller  adult  book  fiction  killer
  • The Juror by George Dawes Green

    The Juror by George Dawes Green

    Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    This is a psychological thriller about a young woman threatened by the Mafia who must return a verdict of 'not guilty' to ensure the safety of her son. The book has been turned into a movie, featuring Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore...
  • The Last Coyote / Trunk Music  (Harry Bosch, #4, #5) by Michael Connelly

    The Last Coyote / Trunk Music (Harry Bosch, #4, #5) by Michael Connelly

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    A two-in-one, this volume includes The Last Coyote in which suspended LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch investigates the unsolved murder of his mother, and Trunk Music which finds Harry returning to the force to investigate the murder of a movie producer with Mafia ties...
  • The Victim of the System by Steve Hadden

    The Victim of the System by Steve Hadden

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Twenty-two years ago, Ike Rossi’s life was shattered when his parents were murdered in cold blood. He surrendered his football scholarship and returned home to find their killer and raise his nine-year-old sister. Now, the crime of a local ten-year-old genius, Jack Cole, threatens to unearth old wounds rather than provide the closure Ike desperately wants...
  • A Murder Under The Bridge: A New "Broken Lawyer" Legal Thriller by Donald L'Abbate

    A Murder Under The Bridge: A New "Broken Lawyer" Legal Thriller by Donald L'Abbate

    Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars
    · 11 ratings
    A NEW "BROKEN LAWYER" NOVELWhen a mentally disturbed homeless man, charged with murdering a teenage boy under a Manhattan bridge, refuses to speak, can a veteran attorney who has battled his own demons save him? Facing seemingly overwhelming odds, the lawyer slowly begins to uncover the homeless man's secrets...
    Categorized as:
    legal  thriller  crime  fiction  book  adult
  • Ten Little Girls by Willow Rose

    Ten Little Girls by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Every Mother's Worst Fear! Imagine waiting for the school bus, waiting for your daughter to come home, looking forward to spending the afternoon with her, but as the bus stops and the children start to come out, your daughter isn't there. Ten little girls go missing on the same day in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Ten little girls all from the same school...
  • The GirI Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by David Donaldson

    The GirI Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by David Donaldson

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    NB: This is NOT the novel by Stieg...
  • Expert Witness by Rebecca Forster

    Expert Witness by Rebecca Forster

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    After Hermosa Beach attorney Josie Bates successfully defended sixteen-year-old Hannah Sheraton against murder charges, she took the girl into her own home. Now, just days before becoming Hannah’s legal guardian, Josie Bates has disappeared and Hannah must enlist the help of Josie’s lover, Archer, to find her...
  • Inmate 1577 by Alan Jacobson, Christina Traister

    Inmate 1577 by Alan Jacobson, Christina Traister

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    National Bestselling Author Alan Jacobson brings back renowned FBI Profiler Karen Vail in an intelligent thriller that bridges time and space. When an elderly woman is found raped and brutally murdered in San Francisco, Vail heads west to team up with SFPD Inspector Lance Burden and her former task force colleague, Detective Roxxann Dixon...
  • Hunting Delilah by Anne Baines

    Hunting Delilah by Anne Baines

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 15 ratings
    Con artist. Get-away driver. Thief. Delilah makes her own way in a crooked world.Desperate for money after a heist goes south, Delilah breaks into a rich man's home. But instead of cash and jewels, she discovers a severed head and a serial killer...
  • The Perk by Mark Gimenez

    The Perk by Mark Gimenez

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Beck Hardin returns to his Texas hometown - and his estranged father - after the death of his wife leaves him with two children to raise. The town is still reeling from the murder of sixteen-year-old Heidi, whose father - Beck's old college friend - asks Beck to help him find Heidi's killer before the statute of limitations runs out...
  • The Good Client by Dan Decker

    The Good Client by Dan Decker

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Criminal defense attorney Mitch Turner is awoken in the middle of the night by a message from his nerdy law school employee, Timothy Cooper, begging Mitch for help. Uncertain about the problem from Timothy's cryptic texts, Mitch Turner slips into his suit and heads over to visit Timothy, unable to imagine any reason why Timothy would be calling for help at such a late hour...
    Categorized as:
    crime  legal  suspense  thriller  adult  book  drama  fiction
  • The Silent Conversation by Caro Ramsay

    The Silent Conversation by Caro Ramsay

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    When DNA evidence links a present-day murder to the disappearance of a young boy four years earlier, detectives Anderson & Costello are plunged into a baffling mystery. It's been four years since four-year-old Johnny Clearwater disappeared without trace one hot summer afternoon. Now, a new TV documentary series is revisiting the case, dredging up memories perhaps best left forgotten...
  • The Biker Series Mega Boxed Set by Cassie Alexandra, K.L. Middleton

    The Biker Series Mega Boxed Set by Cassie Alexandra, K.L. Middleton

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Written by USA Today Bestselling Author Cassie Alexandra Save big with this MEGA boxed set! An Amazon bestselling biker romance series. Included: Resisting the Biker Surviving the Biker Fearing the Biker Breaking the Biker Loving the Biker Phoenix Rising Luring the Biker Christmas with The Biker What readers are saying - They need to make it into a movie. I would definitely watch - Nikki T...
    Categorized as:
    thriller  crime  suspense  fiction  book  adult
  • Hollywood Killer by M.Z. Kelly

    Hollywood Killer by M.Z. Kelly

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    HOLLYWOOD KILLER – A HOLLYWOOD ALPHABET SERIES THRILLER Just when LAPD Detective Kate Sexton thinks maybe she’s finally found the man of her dreams, she gets a call that will turn her world upside down. Kate learns that the family of the high-profile host of the TV show Hollywood Nation has been murdered...
  • Hollywood Lust by M.Z. Kelly

    Hollywood Lust by M.Z. Kelly

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Hollywood Lust, the twelfth book in the Hollywood Alphabet Thriller Series, is a high-octane thrill ride that’s three mysteries rolled into one. While Kate tries to untangle a deep mystery that’s at the center of her family life, she and her canine partner Bernie work with cold case Detective Leo Kingsley to try and solve a ten-year-old murder that’s tied to the current homicide of a young woman...
  • Blake Pierce Mystery Bundle: Once Gone / Before he Kills by Blake Pierce

    Blake Pierce Mystery Bundle: Once Gone / Before he Kills by Blake Pierce

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    A free two-book mystery bundle by #1 bestselling author Blake Pierce, author of ONCE GONE, a #1 bestseller on Amazon with over 350 five star reviews! Here is a bundle of the first books in two Blake Pierce series—the Riley Paige and Mackenzie White series—all here in one convenient place. This bundle offers a great introduction to Blake Pierce’s series with over 140,000 words of reading...
  • His Other Lie by Ava Strong

    His Other Lie by Ava Strong

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Stella Fall, still reeling from the trauma of her deceitful fiancé and her failed engagement, has decided to pursue her dreams, follow in her father’s footsteps, and throw herself into law enforcement. Upon graduating from the FBI’s academy, she isf placed in the FBI’s Connecticut field office...
  • Hidden Justice by Nolon King, David W. Wright

    Hidden Justice by Nolon King, David W. Wright

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    The bestselling authors of Yesterday's Gone , Pretty Killer , and No Justice bring you a brand new unforgettable thriller that blends mystery and suspense into pulse-pounding, revenge-seeking, fast-paced thriller action.Frank Grimm is a retired detective who breaks into his neighbors' homes searching for clues to find the man who murdered his daughter...
  • Severed Relations by Rebecca Forster

    Severed Relations by Rebecca Forster

    Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars
    · 13 ratings
    Murder behind the gates of Fremont Place was unusual; two children and a nanny slaughtered in the home of a rich young lawyer and his beautiful wife was unheard of. When Detective Finn O'Brien, recently cleared of murder charges in the death of a fellow officer, catches the call it creates a political nightmare...
    Categorized as:
    crime  suspense  thriller  legal  mystery  fiction  murder  book
  • Sharko by Franck Thilliez

    Sharko by Franck Thilliez

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    " Sharko comparait toujours les premiers jours d'une enquête à une partie de chasse. Ils étaient la meute de chiens stimulés par les cors, qui s'élancent à la poursuite du gibier. À la différence près que, cette fois, le gibier, c'était eux. " Eux, c'est Lucie Henebelle et Franck Sharko, flics aux 36 quai des Orfèvres, unis à la ville comme à la scène, parents de deux petits garçons...
  • Bum Luck by Paul Levine

    Bum Luck by Paul Levine

    Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Thirty seconds after the jury announced its verdict, I decided to kill my client. Second-string linebacker turned trial lawyer Jake Lassiter squares off against his toughest, most unpredictable adversary himself. The downward spiral begins when Jake’s client, Miami Dolphins’ running back Thunder Thurston, is cleared of murdering his wife...
  • On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill

    On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Into thin air...Three little girls, one by one, had vanished from the farming village of Dendale. And Superintendent Andy Dalziel, a young detective in those days, never found their bodies--or the person who snatched them. Then the valley where Dendale stood was flooded to create a reservoir, and the town itself ceased to be . . . except in Dalziel's memory...
  • Secrets Girls Keep by John Ellsworth

    Secrets Girls Keep by John Ellsworth

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    GOT A KILLER IN YOUR GUEST ROOM? Michael Gresham is a criminal attorney whose priest has fathered a son. The boy is now seventeen, acting-out, and arrested for first-degree murder. The priest asks Michael to take his son into his home so he can be released on bail. Michael and his wife agree and the boy, with his snake and mice, moves in...
    Categorized as:
    crime  legal  suspense  thriller  adult  book  fiction  financial
  • The Firm / The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

    The Firm / The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    THE FIRMThe law student He was young and had dreams. He'd qualified third in his class at Harvard, now offers poured in from every law firm in America The Firm They were small , but well -respected. They we prepared to match, and then exceed Mitch's wildest dreams - eighty thousand a year, a BMW and a low interest mortgage. Soon the house, the car and the job are his...
    Categorized as:
    crime  legal  suspense  adult  book  fiction  mystery
  • The Worm in the Bud by Chris Collett

    The Worm in the Bud by Chris Collett

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    A puncture wound in the arm of a local journalist found dead in his home gives testimony to his death by lethal injection, and the cryptic note by his side—“no more”—suggests suicide. To DI Tom Mariner, however, there is something a little too staged about events, especially given that just that evening Mariner had witnessed the journalist—Edward Barham—pick up a prostitute in a bar...
  • Lassiter by Paul Levine

    Lassiter by Paul Levine

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    "Take John Grisham's courtroom skills, add a dash of James Patterson's action and a pinch of Harlan Coben's humanity...and you've got LASSITER."Eighteen years ago, Jake Lassiter crossed paths with a teenage runaway who disappeared into South Florida's sex trade...
  • Her Last Wish by Blake Pierce

    Her Last Wish by Blake Pierce

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    FBI Agent Rachel Gift, 33, unparalleled for her ability to enter the minds of serial killers, is a rising star in the Behavioral Crimes Unit—until a routine doctor visit reveals she has but a few months left to live.Not wishing to burden others with her pain, Rachel decides, agonizing as it is, not to tell anyone—not even her boss, her partner, her husband, or her seven-year-old daughter...
  • Presumption of Innocence by Stephen Penner

    Presumption of Innocence by Stephen Penner

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Homicide prosecutor David Brunelle faces the most difficult case of his career. An innocent young girl is murdered in a heinous, unforgivable way. The only evidence against the killer is the full confession of his accomplice--another young girl he also victimized. But the accomplice is charged with the murder as well, which means she has the right to remain silent...
    Categorized as:
    legal  crime  suspense  thriller  mystery  fiction  pulp  murder
  • The Case Against William by Mark Gimenez

    The Case Against William by Mark Gimenez

    Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars
    · 17 ratings
    Criminal defence lawyers must make their peace with one harsh fact of life: most of their clients are guilty. Yet when William Tucker, a celebrated and self-centered star college football player, is suddenly arrested and charged with the brutal rape and murder of a college coed two years before, his broken-down, drunken estranged father Frank can't believe he's guilty...
    Categorized as:
    crime  legal  suspense  thriller  adult  book  fiction  mystery
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