Detective Horror

Weird Tales magazine is known for launching a number of sub-genres of fiction—cosmic horror, swords & sorcery, dark fantasy, and others. It has also greatly added to existing genres like science fiction, horror, and—a personal favorite of editor Jonathan Maberry—weird mystery stories. Or, as they became known—occult detective tales.

A dark bridge to the past . . . Dirk sets out on a long-shot quest to recapture a cherished childhood memory from a unique animatronic pizzeria. Mandy finds something lurking in the files of her favorite horror game and opens herself up to a haunting. In light of her son’s fascination with Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, Sylvia buys her son a unique birthday present—a Freddy Fazbear mask that’s the genuine article . . . in more ways than one.

Hours after throwing a third birthday party for their twins Kathy and Kelly in their Connecticut home, Margaret and Steve Frawley return home from a dinner in New York to discover the police in the house, their daughters missing, and an eight million dollar ransom note. The Frawleys meet the kidnapper's demands, but the abandoned car they're led to contains only Kelly, the body of the driver, and a suicide note, saying he had inadvertently killed Kathy and dumped her body in the ocean.

After finding himself caught up in one of Louisiana’s oldest and bloodiest family rivalries, Detective Dave Robicheaux must battle the most terrifying adversary he has ever encountered: a time-traveling superhuman assassin.

Detective P.T. Marsh was a rising star on the police force of Mason Falls, Georgia - until his wife and young son died in an accident. Since that night, he's lost the ability to see the line between smart moves and disastrous decisions. Such as when he agrees to help out a woman by confronting her abusive boyfriend. When the next morning he gets called to the scene of his newest murder case, he is stunned to arrive at the house of the very man he beat up the night before. He could swear the guy was alive when he left, but can he be sure?

They didn't mean it. They didn't mean to hit the boy. There was a party, and it was an accident... that wasn't who they were. They were pre-law, a football player, bound for New York. No one could know, so Barry, Julie, Helen, and Ray swore one another to secrecy. But now, a year later, someone knows. Julie receives a haunting, anonymous threat: "I know what you did last summer." The dark lie is unearthed, and before the four friends know it they need to outsmart a killer... or they will be the next to die.

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord's daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life. Against her stern father's wishes and society's expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle's laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.

Have you ever had something stuck in your head . . . ? After a session in the VR Booth at the Mega Pizzaplex, Kai can't shake the feeling that the tiger animatronic somehow has stayed with him . . . A new attraction at the Mega Pizzaplex leaves Kane's mind full of intrusive thoughts not his own . . . And Danny's idea to get the attention of his high school crush comes with unimaginable consequences. . . In the world of Five Nights at Freddy's, truth is often scarier than fiction . . .

Dan, Abby, and Jordan remain traumatized by the summer they shared in the Brookline asylum. Much as they'd love to move on, someone is determined to keep the terror alive, sending the teens photos of an old-timey carnival, with no note and no name. Finally, Dan receives a list of coordinates pointing to abandoned houses in the town near Brookline, and he is convinced that the only way to end this nightmare once and for all is to return to New Hampshire College and follow the trail.

Emma Porter is 40, fat, frumpy, and a passionate amateur gardener. When her longtime lover dumps her for a younger woman, Emma escapes the cloying sympathy of family and friends by setting out on a summer-long driving tour of England's glorious gardens. A Dimity-contrived coincidence brings her to Penford Hall, a sprawling Gothic mansion in Cornwall, where she finds a duke in search of a missing lantern with extraordinary powers.

Ricky Desmond has been through this all before. If he could just get through to his mother, he could convince her that he doesn't belong at Brookline. From the man who thinks he can fly to the woman who killed her husband, the other patients are nothing like him; all he did was lose his temper just a little bit, just the once. But when Ricky is selected by the sinister Warden Crawford for a very special program - a program that the warden claims will not cure him but perfect him - Ricky realizes that he may not be able to wait for his mom a second longer.

Claire Hendricks can see ghosts, but she can't see herself having a fun vacation. Yet when her new friends/found family, Basher and Alex, insist, Claire and her dead BFF, Sophie, pack themselves off to a remote Irish island. This tempest-tossed isle is indeed full of noises: not only is the hotel where the gang is staying double booked with a posh private party, the island's crumbling old fort is being fought over by rival ghost pirates. In death, as in life, they're vying over a legendary stash of loot, supposedly hidden somewhere on the island or in the surrounding rough seas.

Marzana and her best friend are bored. Even though they live in a notorious city where normal rules do not apply, nothing interesting ever happens to them. Nothing, that is, until Marzana's parents are recruited to help solve an odd crime, and she realizes that this could be the excitement she's been waiting for. She assembles a group of kid detectives with special skills - including the ghost of a ship captain's daughter - and together, they explore hidden passageways, navigate architecture that changes overnight, and try to unravel the puzzle of who the kidnappers are.

Selling two million copies in earlier editions, this is the second of the rediscovered Sherlock Holmes adventures. "Acquired" from a widow whose husband was descended from the distaff side of Holmes's family, this mystery finds Holmes solving a double murder in London's theater district.

Would you ever cut corners to get what you want? . . . Outsourcing their storytelling to artificial intelligence comes with unintended results for the executives of the Fazbear Entertainment board of directors. . . Taking some creative liberties in a series of articles for his school newspaper shows Drew that truth really can be stranger than fiction . . . And Abe's journey to find the first generation animatronics causing problem for his Bobbiedot home assistants lead him to believe he should have never moved into his new apartment . . .

All they need to do is get out. Alissa, Sky, Miles and Mint are ready for a night of fun at the Escape Room. It's simple. Choose their game. Get locked in a room. Find the clues. Solve the puzzles. And escape the room in 60 minutes. But what happens if the Game Master has no intention of letting them go?

Tonight, Riverview Theaters is closing forever, the last remaining business in a defunct shopping mall. The moviegoers have left, and Jo and her six coworkers have the final shift, a shift that quickly takes a dark turn. First a stranger arrives with a chilling accusation. Then the power goes out and their manager disappears, along with the keys to the lobby doors and the theater safe, where the crew's phones are locked each shift. The crew's tension turns to terror when Jo discovers the dead body of one of her co-workers.

Booktrack Edition: Following the grief and horror of her discovery of Jack the Ripper's true identity, Audrey Rose Wadsworth has no choice but to flee London and its memories. Together with the arrogant yet charming Thomas Cresswell, she journeys to the dark heart of Romania, home to one of Europe's best schools of forensic medicine...and to another notorious killer, Vlad the Impaler, whose thirst for blood became legend.

No phones. No internet. No social media at all. That's what it's going to take to finally get serious about school and focus on exams. Noah, Jaye, and Ella even rented a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere so they won't get distracted. After that, everything can go back to normal. But they aren't alone. Someone is watching them from the forest. Someone who knows their secrets. Someone who wants revenge. And things will never be the same again.

For 16-year-old Dan Crawford, a summer program for gifted students is the chance of a lifetime. No one else at his high school gets his weird fascinations with history and science, but at the New Hampshire College Prep program, such quirks are all but required. Dan arrives to find that the usual summer housing has been closed, forcing students to stay in the crumbling Brookline dorm - formerly a psychiatric hospital.