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Desert Wives

Betty Webb · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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The Righteous

Michael Wallace · 330 pages

Deep in the Utah desert, the small polygamous community of Blister Creek has a history of protecting its own. Even when a young woman is brutally murdered just blocks from her home, the residents of the conservative enclave close ranks. But just because they don't want outside law enforcement in their business doesn't mean the murder will go unpunished. More than a thousand miles away, Jacob Chris

CultsDesertMysteryThriller
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City of Veils

Zoe Ferraris · 379 pages

DesertDetective ProtagonistMysteryThriller
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Among the Wicked

Linda Castillo · 348 pages

"Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called upon by the sheriff's department in rural, upstate New York to assist on a developing situation that involves a reclusive Amish settlement and the death of a young girl. Unable to penetrate the wall of silence between the Amish and "English" communities, the sheriff asks Kate to travel to New York, pose as an Amish woman, and infiltrate the community. Kat

CultsDetective ProtagonistMysteryThriller
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People of Darkness

Tony Hillerman · 287 pages

Loaded with e-book extras (not available in the print edition), including Tony Hillerman's running commentary on his work, his series heroes Leaphorn and Chee, and a special profile of the Navajo nation.An assassin waits for Officer Jim Chee in the desert to protect a vision of death that for thirty years has been fed by greed and washed by blood.Who would murder a dying man? Why would someone ste

CultsDesertDetective ProtagonistMystery
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The Naturals

Jennifer Lynn Barnes · 308 pages

Young Adult thriller book series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes about a classified FBI program that recruits teenagers with exceptional abilities to solve cold cases. The protagonist, Cassie Hobbes, joins other gifted teens, including a profiler and a statistician, in this program. The series combines suspenseful crime-solving with personal danger as the Naturals find themselves in a lethal game of cat a

CultsDetective ProtagonistMysterySeries
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The Sleeping Doll

Jeffery Deaver · 591 pages

California Bureau of Investigation interrogator and body language expert Kathryn Dance works to recapture a dangerous escaped killer with the help of three victims from his former cult and the lone survivor from a family he slaughtered.

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Name of the Devil

Andrew Mayne · 411 pages

"In this electrifying sequel to Angel Killer, magician-turned-FBI-agent Jessica Blackwood must channel her past to catch a killer consumed by a desire for revenge. When a church combusts in rural Appalachia, the bizarre trail of carnage suggests diabolical forces are at work. Charged with explaining the inexplicable, the FBI's Dr. Ailes and Agent Knoll once again turn to the ace up their sleeve: A

CultsDetective ProtagonistMysterySeries
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The Devil in Jerusalem

Naomi Ragen · 315 pages

Two brothers are admitted to Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital with horrific injuries. Their mother, a young American, devoutly recites Psalms at the bedside, refusing to answer any questions. Brought in to investigate, Detective Bina Tzedek follows a winding path that takes her through Jerusalem's Old City, kabbalists, mystical ancient texts, and terrifying cult rituals, until she finally uncovers th

CultsDetective ProtagonistThrillerChild Abuse
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Ritual in Death

J.D. Robb

A Eve Dallas Investigation In Death Lieutenant Eve Dallas plunges into the violent aftermath of a ritualistic murder--and into the mind of an alleged witness who can't remember a thing to save his life. When a high-society party is crashed by a naked, knife-wielding, blood-covered man who "thinks" he might have killed someone, Eve Dallas must track down the crime, and the criminals. Everythi

CultsDetective ProtagonistMysteryThriller
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Orchid Blues

Stuart Woods · 374 pages

Holly's wedding festivities are shattered-by murder-and Holly vows to find the culprits. With nothing to go on but the corpse of an innocent bystander, Holly discovers evidence that leads her into the midst of a clan whose members are as mysterious as they are zealous. Holly's father, Ham, a retired Army chief master sergeant, is her ticket into their strange world. What he finds there boggles the

CultsDetective ProtagonistMysteryThriller
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Jupiter's Bones

Faye Kellerman · 448 pages

Once Dr. Emil Euler Ganz was a preeminent astrophysicist with a world-renowned reputation. But then he vanished without any warning to his family or colleagues. Fifteen years later, he reappeared as "Father Jupiter," the founder and charismatic leader of the scientific cult, The Order of the Rings. And now he's dead--a vial of sleeping pills and an empty bottle of vodka standing near his lifeless

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Desert Heat

J.A. Jance · 256 pages

From the New York Times bestselling author comes the gripping novel that first introduced one of the most remarkable protagonists in contemporary suspense fiction: Joanna Brady.

DesertDetective ProtagonistMysteryThriller
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Darkness on the Edge of Town

J. Carson Black · 258 pages

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Cemetery Dance

Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child · 577 pages

Pendergast-the world's most enigmatic FBI Special Agent-returns to New York City to investigate a murderous cult. William Smithback, a New York Times reporter, and his wife Nora Kelly, a Museum of Natural History archaeologist, are brutally attacked in their apartment on Manhattan 's Upper West Side . Eyewitnesses claim, and the security camera confirms, that the assailant was their strange, si

CultsDetective ProtagonistMysterySeries
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The Chosen One

Carol Lynch Williams · 213 pages

In a polygamous cult in the desert, Kyra, not yet fourteen, sees being chosen to be the seventh wife of her uncle as just punishment for having read books and kissed a boy, in violation of Prophet Childs' teachings, and is torn between facing her fate and running away from all that she knows and loves.

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Fields of Wrath

Mark Wheaton

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The Mephisto Club

Tess Gerritsen · 443 pages

The Latin word is scrawled in blood at the scene of a young woman’s brutal murder: I HAVE SINNED. It’s a chilling Christmas greeting for Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli, who swiftly link the victim to controversial celebrity psychiatrist Joyce O’Donnell–Jane’s professional nemesis and member of a sinister cabal called the Mephisto Club. On top of Beacon Hill, the

Detective ProtagonistCultsMysteryThriller
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Never Never

James Patterson, Candice Fox · 347 pages

Detective Harriet Blue needs to get out of town, fast. With her brother under arrest for a series of brutal murders in Sydney, Harry's chief wants the hot-headed detective kept far from the press. So he assigns her a deadly new case - in the middle of the outback. Deep in the Western Australian desert, three young people have disappeared from the Bandya Mine. And it's Harry's job to track them dow

DesertDetective ProtagonistMysterySeries
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Before the Frost

Henning Mankell · 384 pages

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Say You're Sorry

Karen Rose · 614 pages

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Gathering Prey

John Sandford · 448 pages

When his adopted daughter's friend reports that someone has been killing off a circle of nomadic panhandlers, Lucas travels to North Dakota, where he encounters a dangerously violent subculture. "The extraordinary new Lucas Davenport thriller from #1 New York Times-bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-winner John Sandford. They call them Travelers. They move from city to city, panhandling, commi

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Sulfur Springs

William Kent Krueger · 320 pages

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Tularosa

Michael McGarrity · 308 pages

Retired Santa Fe policeman Kevin Kerney's investigation into the disappearance of his godson uncovers a military conspiracy that snakes like a desert wind, from the tight-lipped world of White Sands Missile Range to the cutthroat alley of a Mexican border town.W. Norton & Co.

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God Is a Bullet

Boston Teran · 306 pages

From Publishers Weekly Strung-out on junk and tattooed with the dates of helter-skelter-style deaths they've caused, the kids who walk "The Left-Handed Path" talk Satanic talk and spread terror through the very Christian Southern California town of Clay. This tautly paced and harrowing debut thriller begins with the cult's murder of desk cop Bob Hightower's ex-wife and her husband, and the kidnap

CultsDesertThrillerFemale Lead

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