Here are 36 books that Quarter to Midnight fans have personally recommended if you like
Quarter to Midnight.
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I walked to the library every Saturday to find a new mystery. I think I read everyone and read some more than once. As I matured, I discovered the mixture of romance and suspense I was hooked. I literally read every book in the genre’ at my local library.
A romantic suspense with an unlikely hero with a dark, murderous past and a female FBI agent with a history that haunts her.
It is packed with action and an ending that will shock you. It’s a story of redemption, self-forgiveness, and righting wrongs. A real page-turner.
Alex Parker has become one of my all-time favorite characters. A former CIA agent and now a computer wizard is forced to kill those that escape justice to settle a debt.
She's an FBI agent hunting her twin sister's killer. He's an assassin who'll die to keep her safe. His secret will destroy them both.
Read this award-winning novel from a New York Times bestselling author with over five-thousand 5-star reviews on Goodreads!
FBI agent Mallory Rooney spent the last eighteen years searching for her identical twin sister’s abductor. With a serial killer carving her sister’s initials into the bodies of his victims, Mallory thinks she may finally have found him.
Former soldier Alex Parker is a highly decorated but damaged war hero with a secret—he’s a covert government assassin who…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’m an author of over seventy romance books and have been a romance reader all my life. I think the first book I wrote (at the age of eight) featured a kiss. Yes, I was precocious, but in my defense, I was spying on my much older sister and her boyfriend at the time. Reading and writing romance is my passion, and I love spending my days creating independent, intelligent, and feisty heroines and hot, smart, modern men. I’m lucky enough to spend my days doing what I love. I hope you love the books on my list, and that they bring you as much pleasure (and an escape from reality) as they did me.
Another romantic suspense, this is a fabulously nuanced ex’s-reunite book.
Callie Dunbrook is an archaeologist on a dig on land that is said to be cursed. She has to unravel the history, and the mystery, while dealing with her irritating ex-husband Jake. The book has several sub-plots, with interesting characters. It deals with some tough subjects cleverly, and I think it’s Ms. Roberts's best book.
When five-thousand-year-old human bones are found at a construction site in the small town of Woodsboro, the news draws archaeologist Callie Dunbrook out of her sabbatical and into a whirlwind of adventure, danger and romance.
To begin with she must try to make sense of the cloud of death and misfortune that hangs over the dig - fuelling rumours that the site is cursed. She must also cope with the presence of her irritating - but still irresistible - ex-husband, Hake. But when a stranger appears, claiming to know a secret about her childhood, Callie is forced to also question…
I walked to the library every Saturday to find a new mystery. I think I read everyone and read some more than once. As I matured, I discovered the mixture of romance and suspense I was hooked. I literally read every book in the genre’ at my local library.
The damaged heroine and the cocky MC. The dialogue and writing are fun and the ‘who-dun-it’ kept me guessing. The beauty of the Grand Tetons is so well described you feel like you there and in awe of the backdrop.
The sole survivor of a brutal crime, Reece Gilmore is on the run, desperately fighting the panic attacks and the nightmares that haunt her. She doesn't intend to stay in the sleepy town of Angel's Fist one second longer than she needs to, despite its friendly - if curious - inhabitants, and the irresistible attraction of local writer Brody.
However, on a hike into the mountains she witnesses a couple having a vicious argument that culminates in murder. Faced with a lack of evidence, the authorities in Angel's Fist find it hard to believe Reece's story. But when a series…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I walked to the library every Saturday to find a new mystery. I think I read everyone and read some more than once. As I matured, I discovered the mixture of romance and suspense I was hooked. I literally read every book in the genre’ at my local library.
This is an older dark
romantic suspense but well worth the read, especially if you like conflict.
A
serial killer and two wounded souls. The conflict and suspense are off the
pages. It is an older book, but I re-read at least once a year. Superb writing.
Superb storyline. Jack and Laurel are broken in different ways.
Jack is the bad
boy you want to cheer for and Laurel the wounded former prosecutor who sees the
good that Jack believes doesn’t exist. All this whle a serial killer plays cat
and mouse with Laurel.
Bad Jack wants no one to care for but can’t help being drawn
to Laurel.
In the rural parishes of Louisiana's French Triangle, young women are disappearing one by one, only to turn up on the banks of the bayou, strangled and cast aside where they are sure to be found. But there is one trophy the killer prizes above all others, one woman who must be silenced forever....
Attorney Laurel Chandler did not come back to Bayou Breaux to seek justice. That once-burning obsession had destroyed her credibility, her career, her marriage—and nearly her sanity. But when a ruthless predator strikes too close to home,…
I’m a firm believer in Jesus Christ, and I’ve spent the majority of my life reading Christian fiction, but one day, I felt Jesus drop a story onto my heart. And I wrote it. And He gave me more inspiration, and I kept writing. I always say Jesus gives me my stories. I must obey. The world needs more Jesus, and not every Christian book has to fall under “Christian romance.” The Christian fiction space needs warm, Christian family stories, and I pray God continues to let me write them. I hope you enjoy the Christian family books on this list as much as I did!
I absolutely devoured this book in just a few hours.
This Christian family drama crosses over into mystery/suspense. In a family with three sisters and one brother, no one seems to be able to get it all together. One sister is a writer, but she’s being blackmailed for what she’s writing about. The other sister is notorious for one-night stands, the third sister is mostly stable with a husband and two kids.
Their brother? He’s going through a divorce. Only problem is that when he went to visit his soon-to-be ex-wife, he found her dead. With a shared son and a dying mother-in-law, who should have custody over the child? It seemed simple until the brother was listed as a person of interest for his wife’s death. The sisters all put on their detective hats to help their brother out.
I laughed at the sibling rivalry in this book and…
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling suspense author Blackstock asks, When truth doesn't make sense, will lies prevail?
"Crisp prose, an engaging story, and brisk pacing make this thriller another home run for Blackstock." -Library Journal, starred review
Cathy Cramer is a former lawyer and investigative blogger who writes commentary on high-profile homicides. When she finds a threatening note warning her that she's about to experience the same kind of judgment and speculation that she dishes out in her blog, Cathy writes it off as mischief . . . until her brother's wife is murdered and all the "facts"…
Having taken up the brush myself, I can attest to some sort of mystical, out-of-body experience that sometimes surfaces as an artist creates. Emotions and senses become directly connected to one’s hands, releasing the unconscious, allowing the artist to bring something to life that was buried deep inside. My favorite class in art school was Aesthetics, which explored the philosophy of art – what possessed the artist to paint – and what passions and beliefs were behind some of the art movements, including Surrealism, Dadaism, and Futurism. Books that delve into the craft and passion behind great works of art are my favorite reads.
Peter Lovesey’s detective discovers the power of art in this recent mystery set in Bath, England.
This book in the series is unusual, since most of the story is told through the eyes of a cheap private detective, who views Diamond as a grumpy old man. A body found in an antique sarcophagus and the disappearance of the antique dealer is at the start of the mystery, but the piece of art which was purchased in an antiques roadshow drives the plot.
Greed and ambition, stirred by the provenance of the art, results in several murder attempts which confound Diamond’s and the private detective’s investigation.
Of all the weird characters Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond has met in Bath, this one is the most extreme: a twenty-first-century private eye called Johnny Getz, whose office is over Shear Amazing, a hairdressing salon. Johnny has been hired by Ruby Hubbard, whose father, an antiques shop owner, has gone missing, and Johnny insists on involving 'Pete' in his investigation.
When Diamond, Johnny and Ruby enter the shop, they find a body and a murder investigation is launched. Diamond is forced to house his team in the dilapidated Corn Market building across the street. His problems grow when his boss…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I am fascinated by all that was happening in the world before WWII. Amidst a silent, looming economic collapse, many social norms were turned on their head, women broke out of their molds, and art, literature, technology, and music all flourished. And a heady mix of cultures blended not altogether seamlessly to influence the Roaring Twenties like no other decade before it. The juxtaposition of this exciting yet challenging tumult lures me into reading books and writing immigrant-forward stories about this period—and as an author with deep roots in the boot—I particularly enjoy doing so through an Italian lens.
I fell in love with Miss Phryne Fisher on TV first, then in all of the books only after binge-watching all the seasons in short order. Her attitude, her clothes, her wit—all of it makes her adventures so fun to read. Besides, what list of Jazz Age mysteries is complete without this bobbed-hair socialite and her gaggle of misfits helping her to solve mysteries? Add in a spa vacation for Phyrne and I was hooked to see how she solved a murder while on holiday in some fabulous resort town. After 7 years, my Phryne drought is over!
'. . . there is no doubt Phryne is back at her best.' The Book Muse
When a mysterious invitation arrives for Miss Phryne Fisher from an unknown Captain Herbert Spencer in Victoria's spa country, Phryne's curiosity is excited.
Phryne accepts Spencer's invitation but from their arrival, she and her loyal maid Dot are thrown into the midst of disturbing Highland gatherings, cases of disappearing women, murder and the mystery of the Temperance Hotel.
Meanwhile, Cec, Bert and Tinker find a young woman floating face down in the harbour. Tinker, with Jane and Ruth, Phryne's resilient adopted daughters, together decide…
I’d always known about the Lady of the Dunes. I’d read about how she was found in the dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, on July 26, 1974. I didn’t know about the tens of thousands of other unidentified victims like her, stowed around the US in the back rooms of morgues and unmarked graves. As a journalist who has always given a voice to those who struggle to be heard, I feel compelled to research and write about these Jane and John Does and the people who work to keep their cases in the public eye. I share a unique bond with writers who do the same.
Many get obsessed with cold cases involving Jane and John Does, and Sue Grafton was no exception. After a chance encounter with the forensic pathologist who investigated a Jane Doe who had been discovered near a quarry in Santa Barbara County, California, in 1969, Grafton incorporated the true story into one of her iconic works of fiction.
Sue Grafton delivers an intensely gripping mystery based on an actual unsolved murder in this #1 New York Times bestseller featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone.
She was a "Jane Doe," an unidentified white female whose decomposed body was discovered near a quarry off California's Highway 1. The case fell to the Santa Teresa County Sheriff's Department, but the detectives had little to go on. The woman was young, her hands were bound with a length of wire, there were multiple stab wounds, and her throat had been slashed. After months of investigation, the murder remained unsolved...
My love of British crime fiction began when, as a young teen, I discovered Agatha Christie on the shelves of my local library. With Scottish grandparents, I was already well indoctrinated in the “everything British is best” theory, but it was as a student at St. Clare’s College, Oxford, that I fell totally under the spell of the British Isles. No surprise, then, that my Kate Hamilton Mystery series is set in the UK and features an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. I love to read the classic mysteries of the Golden Age as well as authors today who follow that tradition.
Since the publication of Dorothy L. Sayer’sThe Unpleasantness at the Bellona Clubin 1928, London’s gentlemen’s clubs, bastions of upper-class male privilege, have been fertile ground for murder and mayhem. Huang’s debut novel is set in 1924. With the memory of the Great War still fresh in everyone’s minds, the prestigious soldiers-only Britannia Club is rocked by the stabbing of a member within the club vaults. The killer must be a fellow club member, but when Eric Peterkin, descendant of one of the club’s founders, witnesses the Scotland Yard detective tampering with evidence, he is forced to launch an investigation of his own.
The year is 1924. The streets of St. James ring with jazz as Britain races forward into an age of peace and prosperity. London's back alleys, however, are filled with broken soldiers and still shadowed by the lingering horrors of the Great War.
Only a few years removed from the trenches of Flanders himself, Lieutenant Eric Peterkin has just been granted membership in the most prestigious soldiers-only club in London: The Britannia. But when a gentleman's wager ends with a member stabbed to death, the victim's last words echo in the Lieutenant's head: that he would "soon right a great…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I grew up in New York City, practically within walking distance of the Broadway theatre district. My first show was the original production of 1776. Everything grabbed my attention: Ian McKellan in Amadeus, Patrick Stewart in Macbeth, Richard Dreyfuss in Julius Caesar, and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. In high school, I was an eager, if not especially talented, member of the theatre club. I became curious about the whole theatre scene, and what could be a better place for a mystery, where actors, directors, and scene designers are already creating an alternate world.
Few authors could delver more perfectly into characters than Allingham. Although she created excellent puzzles, the beauty of her books is in the incisive portrayals. Here, she does a magnificent job of stripping away the glamour and finding the pride and jealousy behind the lively theater world. And it's impossible not to be engaged by the shrewd and mysterious sleuth, Albert Campion.
When song-and-dance star Jimmy Sutane falls victim to a string of malicious practical jokes, there's only one man who can get to the bottom of the apparent vendetta against the music hall darling - Albert Campion.
Soon, however, the backstage pranks escalate and an ageing starlet is killed.
Under pressure to uncover the culprit and plagued by his growing feelings for Sutane's wife, Campion finds himself uncomfortably embroiled in an investigation which tests his ingenuity and integrity to the limit.
"Allingham's work is always of the first rank." (New York Times)
"The real queen of crime." (Guardian)
"Allingham captures her…
