I hear that sleep is overrated, said no one ever. Nevertheless, sometimes you need to stay up late into the early morning hours, watching a young one; perhaps you have the night shift at a creepy hotel; or you’re a security officer at a new building complex where someone was murdered; or maybe you’re the hired help for a family in a safe house, and it’s up to you to stay awake no matter what. Sure, there’s coffee and other fancy heart-racing drinks to stave off the sandman, but one tried and tested method is a gripping murder mystery that will have you on the edge of your seat, and your senses on high alert for any strange sounds. Here are six murder mysteries guaranteed to help you do the job.
Elise’s parents were taken from her in a horrific car crash and now she remains hidden in her home and knows it like the back of her hand: every nook and cranny, crawlspace, crevice, and hideout. Eddie enjoys living in the house with his family, except for the girl he sees out of the corner of his eye every once in a while. Is she really there? Is she real? Is he just imagining things? But when she’s also seen by his brother, they have to decide what to do about the girl who might or might not exist.
Brooke Holland has a sedentary, peaceful life with her family on a rural farm. Times are hard, and sometimes they barely scrape by, but she’s happy to be away from everything in the peace and quiet, where her past cannot come back to haunt her. But then Stephen Cawley, an escaped criminal, attacks them at the farm and Brooke does what she needs to protect her family with her hidden talents and skills. Then she needs to bring Cawley to justice so she can get the reward to help her family and keep her dark and bloody past buried.
In the second installment of the series, Michael Gannon is hiding out on a friend’s ranch deep in the heart of Utah where he hopes no one will find him after his previous dealings. But when his friend’s brother is found murdered near Grand Teton, he has to decide whether to keep a low profile, or help out his friend, and see if the murder may be linked to the strange killings happening at various national parks around the country. Gannon finds himself teaming up with FBI agent Kit Hagen to get to the bottom of it all.
Life seems to finally be going well for Laney Bird in the haven of Sylvan, New York. Three years ago after her cover was blown in a racketeering case that involved the Russian mafia, Bird had to flee with her son with her life in peril. Now she’s finally starting to relax, but then her son suddenly goes missing and she knows her demons have come back to haunt her. The police are dismissing it as a runaway, but she knows there’s more to it. As she digs deeper into her son’s disappearance, she discovers he and a friend were meeting with a stranger who has also gone missing. As a snowstorm sweeps through, Bird will need to keep working to find out what happened to her son if she has any hopes of getting him back alive.
Sera loves podcasts, in particular true crime podcasts. She can’t get enough of them, and on some level, she feels she has been in training after listening to them for so long. Then one of her favorite podcast hosts named Rachel goes missing, and she takes this as a sign of her true calling. Sera begins to investigate, combing through the true-crime episodes for clues and details and pieces of evidence that will lead her somewhere. They do eventually, to an old ranch near her hometown, but as she digs deeper she discovers that Rachel may not be the first woman to disappear.
It is the summer of 1933 and Louisa Cannon is joining the Mitfords on a wonderful cruise, where she gets to rub elbows with the rich and famous. What more could anyone want? Except Louisa has made a deal: on her wedding day, she was approached by someone incognito and told to spy on Diana Mitford and confirm her supposed illicit affair with Oswald Mosley. The cruise is brought to an abrupt halt when a man is found murdered, and the case is taken up back in London by Tom Mitford. Louisa will find her honor and emotions rent asunder as she must decide what is the right thing to do.