Contemporary Urban Horror

Try these books if you’re looking for:

     • horror
     • adventure
     • urban setting
     • contemporary setting

The Strain
Guillermo del Toro
F TORO Strain #1
The story begins onboard a grounded plane that has just landed at New York's JFK airport. Police and emergency medical crews are called to investigate the possible outbreak of a mysterious disease, which has killed all but four of the plane's passengers. Unknowingly, something more ominous is responsible for the carnage, which now threatens the city and soon the entire country.

House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski
F DANIELEW
When House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper. Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Jeffry P. Lindsay
MYSTERY LINDSAY Dexter #1
Dexter Morgan, who hides a secret life as a serial killer while working as a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami police, is intrigued by the work of a new serial killer whose style mimics his own.

Odd Thomas
Dean R. Koontz
F KOONTZ Odd Thom #1
Over the course of two days, Odd Thomas, his soul-mate Stormy Llewellyn, and an assortment of allies make their way through a dark, terrifying world in which past and present, and life and death collide as they try to avert a cataclysm.

Koko

Peter Straub

F STRAUB Tim Unde #1

"KOKO..." Only four men knew what it meant. They were Vietnam vets-a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. They were as different as men could be. Yet all of them were bound eternally together by a single shattering secret. And now they have been reunited, on a quest that will take them from the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York...as they hunt something inhuman from the past that has risen from the darkness to kill and kill and kill....

Modern, Urban Lit

Try these books if you're looking for:

• chick lit
• urban lit
• modern settings
• some mystery

Still Life 
By Joy Fielding
F FIELDING
Casey Marshall had everything, a successful business, great husband, friends, until...a car smashes into hers. Waking up in a hospital unable to move or speak, she observes some curious things. Is it possible her "friends" are not whom they claim to be and maybe her accident was not actually an accident. Joy Fielding has the ability to create well defined relatable characters plus keep the plot twisting and the reader in suspense.

After All These Years 
By Susan Isaacs
MYSTERY ISAACS
Rosie Meyers, 47 is a high school English teacher. The day after her 25th wedding anniversary party, her husband announces that he is leaving her for another woman. Later Rosie finds him dead in the kitchen stabbed with a butcher knife. Rosie becomes prime suspect. In hopes of proving herself innocent, Rosie goes on the lam before police can arrest her. Friendships and characters are believable, especially the feisty and witty Rosie.

Crossing Places 
By Elly Griffiths
MYSTERY GRIFFITH Ruth Gal #1
Thirty-something forensic archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway lives in remote Norfolk, England along with her 2 cats. When the bones of a child are found in a marsh, Galloway is called in to help. Are the bones from the decade old cold case that the Chief still gets taunting letters about or are they ancient bones? Outspoken Galloway gets drawn into the case when another child goes missing.

Coldest Winter Ever 
By Sister Souljah
F SOULJAH
This urban novel is the first for Hip-hop star Sister Souljah. Laced with the ruthlessness and tragedy that the drug world can bring, it tells a rough coming of age story about Winter Santiaga and her family.

Fast-paced, Urban Stories

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Fast pace
• Urban setting
• Contemporary time period
• James Patterson read-alikes with less language

Where Are You Now?
By Mary Higgins Clark
MYSTERY HIGGINS
Driven to solve the mystery of an older sibling's disappearance ten years earlier, young lawyer Carolyn MacKenzie investigates a bizarre community of people who choose to disappear, embarking on a quest with life-threatening consequences.

Tell No One
By Harlan Coben
MYSTERY COBEN
It's been eight years since Dr. David Beck's wife, Elizabeth, was murdered by a serial killer. When Beck receives a message containing a phrase only Elizabeth should know, he falls apart. Either someone is playing a sick joke, or his wife is still alive. After being warned to tell no one, Beck sets out in a desperate search which leads him toward a deadly secret.

Dating Dead Men
By Harley Jane Kozak
MYSTERY KOZAK
As part of her research for talk show host Dr. Cookie Lahven's upcoming book, How to Avoid Getting Dumped All the Time, Wollie Shelley is dating forty men in sixty days, but her assignment is complicated by an unexpected corpse.

Acceleration
By Graham McNamee
YA F NcNamee
Stuck working in the Lost and Found of the Toronto Transit Authority for the summer, seventeen-year-old Duncan finds the diary of a serial killer and sets out to stop him.