Suspenseful Small Town Crime Fiction Books
These small towns are anything but quiet. Characters race against time to uncover secrets that threaten to upheave all that they’ve known and to save their loved ones’ lives. Solitude and rest are traded for high-stakes adventures that will not only change these characters’ lives forever but tear up the roots of these towns and their people, shattering long-established systems.
In mourning and racked with guilt, Max Rupert has left his position as a homicide detective to live in solitude. But former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, desperately pleas for help after the disappearance of his daughter Sandy and his six-year-old grandson Pip. Lyle is sure Sandy’s ex-husband Reed is behind it but the new sheriff has refused to investigate. Max hesitantly agrees to investigate and the closer Max and Lyle come closer to evidence, the slyer Reed becomes. It ultimately reaches a climax when Reed makes a break for it with Pip in tow to the Boundary Waters wilderness. They must face the most dangerous type of criminal – a desperate father—through a treacherous landscape in hopes of justice and bringing a child home alive.
As a reporter who’s behind the scenes in crime, Paddy Meehan is no stranger to murder. But when her former boyfriend and fellow journalist Terry Patterson is found hooded and shot through the head, Paddy knows she will be of little help to the police. She hasn’t seen him in more than six months. So imagine her confusion Terry’s will has left her with his house and several suitcases of notes. Paddy is unknowingly drawn into a labyrinth of secrets and lies that may be the most important, and dangerous, story of her career.
Pinecrest Estate, a manor house in Florida Keys, has become a place of horror for Lexi after a terrible death from her teenage movie debut. Since then, she vowed to never return. But her daughter escapes to Pinecrest to search for answers years later when a Category 4 hurricane hits the southern coast. Lexi now finds herself back on the ravaged island with the few that had remained behind and soon her life starts resembling the plot of her most famous horror film.
Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is close to getting everything she’s ever dreamed of. Now, Diane, her ex-best friend after revealing a terrible secret, stands in her way after discovering something equally damaging to Kit’s reputation. They shared an ambition that made them inseparable, but how far will their ambition take them now to get what they want?
Two teens break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs. They stumble on Emmett Burr, who has kept his secrets in the basement for over two decades and who will do anything for it to stay that way. Former police officer Ben Packard returns to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake for a fresh start. As a sheriff’s deputy, he leads an investigation for missing teens that are motivated by a family connection. Their trail slows down and as time runs out to save them, Packard is forced to reveal his own secrets to dig deeper into the town’s dark past.
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Henry Meloux, an ancient Ojibwe healer, brings a stranger and his great niece, Cork O’Connor’s wife, to safety deep into the Boundary Waters, a location he's called home for more than a century. On route, they must do their best to avoid deadly mercenaries who follow. In the meantime, Cork works feverishly to identify the hunters and their motives in Aurora despite having little to go on. He desperately begins to track the killers using his own skills as a hunter, skills tested by nightfall and a snowstorm. It’s a game of cat and mouse as he races to save those he loves.
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Emily Hoang is a writer and editor, who is obsessed with haunted houses, ghosts, and dreams. More info can be found on her website.