Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2021 - One Word Titles (Mystery/Thriller)
- Mahogany S.
- Tuesday, October 12, 2021
Collection
Books with One Word Titles span genres. Here are some Mystery/Thriller titles that are only one word.
Learn more about the Broader Bookshelf challenge and see more lists here.
Micro
A Novel
Published in 2011
Three men are found dead in the locked second-floor office of a Honolulu building, with no sign of struggle except for the ultrafine, razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly invisible to the human eye. In the lush forests of Oahu, groundbreaking technology has ushered in a revolutionary era of biological prospecting. Trillions of microorganisms, tens of thousands of bacteria species, are being discovered; they are feeding a search for priceless drugs and applications on a scale beyond anything previously imagined. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, seven graduate students at the forefront of their fields are recruited by a pioneering microbiology start-up. Nanigen MicroTechnologies dispatches the group to a mysterious lab in Hawaii, where they are promised access to tools that will open a whole new scientific frontier. But once in the Oahu rain forest, the scientists are thrust into a hostile wilderness that reveals profound and surprising dangers at every turn. Armed only with their knowledge of the natural world, they find themselves prey to a technology of radical and unbridled power. To survive, they must harness the inherent forces of nature itself.
Deliverance
Published in 1994
Four suburban businessmen take a canoe trip along a Georgia river, an odyssey that pits their courage against the river's raging rapids and the most primitive human impulses of fear, lust, and murder
Room
A Novel
Published in 2010
Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful--and attempts a nail-biting escape.
Entombed
Published in 2006
Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper works to uncover a link between a serial killer and a body that has been discovered in a nineteenth-century brownstone formerly belonging to Edgar Allan Poe.
Reflections
Published in 2017
"They thought they had the right serial killer behind bars, but when another teenage girl turns up raped and murdered in Harlem, investigative reporter Nicole Watkins and her fiancé, homicide detective Andre Moore, team up to exonerate Andre's long-lost twin brother (Mirrored Half) and find the real killer. As the investigation intensifies and the tension mounts, Nicole reveals a disturbing secret that threatens her future with Andre and sets sinister forces in motion. Will Nicole be able to mend her broken heart while piecing together clues to solve not one but two crimes? Or will she lose the only man she has ever loved--and her life?"--Publisher's description.
Absolution
Published in 2018
"It is 1997, eight months since vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker fled South Africa after his explosive testimony to Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Paris, Rania LaTour, journalist, comes home to find that her son and her husband, a celebrated human rights lawyer, have disappeared. On an isolated island off the coast of East Africa, the family that Clay has befriended is murdered as he watches. So begins the fourth instalment in the Claymore Straker series, a breakneck journey through the darkest reaches of the human soul, as Clay and Rania fight to uncover the mystery behind the disappearances and murders, and find those responsible. Events lead them both inexorably to Egypt, where an act of the most shocking terrorist brutality will reveal not only why those they loved were sacrificed, but how they were both, indirectly, responsible. Relentlessly pursued by those who want them dead, they must work together to uncover the truth, and to find a way to survive in a world gone crazy."--Publisher's description.
You
A Novel
Published in 2014
"Love hurts... When aspiring writer Guinevere Beck strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe works, he's instantly smitten. Beck is everything Joe has ever wanted: She's gorgeous, tough, razor-smart, and as sexy as his wildest dreams. Beck doesn't know it yet, but she's perfect for him, and soon she can't resist her feelings for a guy who seems custom made for her. But there's more to Joe than Beck realizes, and much more to Beck than her oh-so-perfect facade. Their mutual obsession quickly spirals into a whirlwind of deadly consequences. A chilling account of unrelenting passion, Caroline Kepnes's You is a perversely romantic thriller that's more dangerously clever than any you've read before"-- Provided by publisher.
Sugared
Published in 2017
"Wedding bells are ringing in Luzzi Land! The church is booked, the decorations are set, and the cakes--all ten of them--are ready to be frosted. Lacey Luzzi is getting married, and her grandmother finally gets to cry those tears of joy, gosh darn it. Until one phone call changes everything. When the Violet Society's newest recruit is found dead at the St. Paul Cathedral, Lacey Luzzi is the first to be notified, and she's not happy about it. After all, the bride-to-be is supposedly on vacation from all things unlawful. Even worse? She's scheduled to be married at the scene of the crime in exactly one week. After the police rule the death a suicide, however, Lacey pushes aside her wedding dress and sets down her bouquet. The whole situation reeks of foul play, and Lacey's determined to bring her friend's murderer to justice--if it's the last thing she does before walking down the aisle. Lacey, Clay, Meg, and Anthony have seven days to find the killer. If they fail, they'll be changing out wedding invitations for funeral arrangements faster than Anthony can say I do. Assuming "until death do us part" doesn't happen first"--back cover.
Seasoned
A Lacey Luzzi Mystery
Published in 2016
"It's a few days before Christmas, and Lacey Luzzi & gand are at a dead end in their search for Jackson Cole. So when Lacey receives a job offer from none other than the rich, the glamorous, the Hollywood-bound Miss Harriet Elizabeth Morgan the Third, she says yes. This holiday season, Lacey, Clay, Meg, and Anthony head out to the land of palm trees and fake snow, tasked with providing top-notch security for an upcoming, high-profile movie premier. But when her client receives threatening messages, a difficult job only gets tougher, Lacey turns to her friends for help, But Clay is occupied with his clandestine computer program, Anthony is tied up at home with a mysterious "project," and Meg is ... well she's Meg. Add a stunt driver with a pile of secrets as loing as Meg's Christmas list and new information surfacing around Jackson Cole, and Lacey's plate is not full--it;s overflowing."-- Back cover.
Shaved
Published in 2018
Lacey Luzzi is excited to enjoy a family vacation, until an explosion occurs in her hotel leaving someone dead. Now it's up to her to find the culprit and save her vacation.
Sprouted
Published in 2018
A blonde, a brunette, and a red-head walk into a bank ... and rob it. As Lacey waits for Baby Luzzi to make his or her appearance, she's decided to cool her jets on the whole "chasing criminals" lifestyle at her husband's insistance. She's settled in comfortably as part-time help at her best firend's bar and, though the work might be a tad boring after years of explosions and car chases, it's a safe job, relatively sanitary, and uneventful - for most people. Lacey isn't most people.
Damage
Published in 2011
His career derailed by the vengeful billionaire Curtlee family for his part in convicting one of their number for murder, former homicide detective Abe Glitsky learns that the killer has won a retrial at the same time a star witness has been murdered.
Possession
Published in 2021
"Katie Lowe's Possession is a psychological thriller novel about a woman whose husband was murdered ten years ago, and the true crime podcast that digs up all the secrets from her past she'd tried to keep buried.."-- Provided by publisher.
Re-coil
Published in 2020
Carter Langston is murdered whilst salvaging a derelict vessel--a major inconvenience as he's downloaded into a brand-new body on the space station where he backed up, several weeks' journey away. But events quickly slip out of control when an assassin breaks into the medbay and tries to finish the job. Death no longer holds sway over a humanity that has spread across the solar system: consciousness can be placed in a new body, or coil, straight after death, giving people the potential for immortality. Yet Carter's backups--supposedly secure--have been damaged, his crew are missing, and everything points back to the derelict that should have been a simple salvage mission. With enemies in hot pursuit, Carter tracks down his last crewmate--re-coiled after death into a body she cannot stand--to delve deeper into a mystery that threatens humanity and identity as they have come to know it.
Scarecrow.
Published in 2005
As 'Scarecrow' Schofield watches his mission to eliminate a Siberian turn into a bloodbath, he realises he has been tricked - and now become the prey rather than the predator. For a shadowy consortium of staggering power and wealth has included his name on a list of fifteen targets to be eliminated without fail by twelve noon that same day. Now every high-powered bounty hunter on the planet is on his trail, while he must simultaneously track down the perpetrators of a conspiracy about to reduce many of the major cities of the world to ashes. From Arctic Russia to the Afghan border, to France's Atlantic Coast, to a speed-of-light conflict over the Suez Canal, every form of ultra-tech weaponry comes into play in a spellbinding action drama unfolding within a mere twenty-four hours.
Seawitch
Published in 2013
When a boat that vanished twenty-five years prior returns to its old berth in Seattle with a cabin containing symbols drawn in human blood, Greywalker Harper Blaine investigates what happened to the ship's passengers and crew.
Ghosted
A Novel
Published in 2018
Sarah thinks she has met the love her life in Eddie--until he disappears after leaving for a long-booked vacation.