Forensic Mystery Fiction

Forensic geologists Cassie Oldfield and Walter Shaws investigate one way: trouble on the canyon's Colorado River. Stranded raft. Life vests unused. Rafters missing. The only clue to the fate of the rafters is a bag of pebbles caught in the bowline. Following that clue, the geologists uncover a hellish scheme. Not only are the rafters in peril, but the river itself is under attack. The race to stop it takes Cassie and Walter deep into the canyon, and onto the mighty river, putting their own survival at stake.

In a Tennessee prison, Efrem Judah Goode draws haunting portraits of women he claims he has killed. Around the country, desperate families of the missing seek answers in his eerie drawings. And on darkened back roads and New York City streets, a new killer poses duct-taped bodies at the sites of Goode’s murders. Two serial killers are locked in a twisted rivalry. To stop the brutal slayings, FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix must unravel the connection between Goode and the Broken Heart Killer.

In the near-future United States, where advanced technology can create eggs or sperm from any person’s cells, celebrities face the alarming potential of meeting biological children they never conceived. Famous singer Trace Thorne is tired of being targeted by the Vault, a black market site devoted to stealing DNA. Sick of paying ransom money for his own cell matter, he hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to ensure his biological safety.

The Chinese police have once more been forced to enlist the services of American forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell, this time to investigate a series of four horrific ritual executions in Beijing. Detective Li Yan is determined to discover just how one of the victims in particular, an American diplomat, became caught up in the slaying. And he is arguably even more determined to have nothing to do with Campbell, whom he finds simultaneously too foreign and too... familiar. The personal polarity that once attracted Yan and Campbell again strengthens their professional partnership.

Seventeen months after the Parkman case, Dr. Hartford has returned to Chicago to finish her surgical residency. But when she is contacted out of the blue by Solange McClelland, the only survivor of a decade-old triple homicide, Emily is compelled to dig deeper. She doesn’t know the details of the event but remembers it as one of the few cases her deceased father never solved. On her thirtieth birthday, Solange opens a long-forgotten safe-deposit box and is entirely baffled by what she finds.

When the phone rings in the middle of the night, child psychologist Alex Delaware does not hesitate. Driving through the dream-lit San Fernando Valley, Alex rushes to Jamey Cadmus, the patient he had failed five years before - and who now calls with a bizarre cry for help. But by the time Alex reaches Canyon Oaks Psychiatric Hospital, Jamey is gone, surfacing a day later in the hands of the police, who believe Jamey is the infamous Lavender Slasher, a psychotic serial killer. Wooed by a high-powered attorney to build a defense, Alex will get a chance to do what he couldn't five years ago.

It’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s birthday, and she’s about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge house. Is this a kids’ game? If so, why are all of the coins dated 1981 and so shiny they could be newly minted? Her cellphone rings, and Detective Pete Marino tells her there’s been a homicide five minutes away.

What the world dreads most has happened because of a mutated avian bird flu (H5N1) pandemic. It has ravaged the globe. Only 2% of the population has survived. A dying mother knows that her young child is among the few remaining immune to the virus. What will she do to ensure his survival before her own coming tragic death? Meanwhile, Graham has buried his last remaining family member. Following his father's advice to make it to the family cabin, he meets with triumph and tragedy; learning new rules along the way.

In the remote, frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean, the high-powered and technically advanced submarine U.S.S. Montana is in peril. Adrift and in flames, the boat - and the entire crew - could be lost. The only team close enough to get to them in time is led by Marine doctor and bio-terror expert Joe Rush.

A tipsy young woman seeking aid on a desolate highway disappears into the inky black night. A retired schoolteacher is stabbed to death in broad daylight. Two women are butchered after closing time in a small-town beauty parlor. The ultimate whodunits, these crimes demand the attention of LAPD detective Milo Sturgis and his collaborator on the crime beat, psychologist Alex Delaware.

Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a devastating turn for the worse. Accompanied by the newest member of the Women's Murder Club, Yuki Castellano, Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer probes deeper into the incidents. Could these cases just be appalling coincidences? Or is a maniac playing God with people's lives? When someone close to the Women's Murder Club begins to exhibit the same frightening symptoms, Lindsay fears no one is safe.

Dr. Carrie Bryant's four years as a neurosurgical resident at White Memorial Hospital have earned her the respect and admiration from peers and staff alike. When given the chance of performing her first unsupervised brain surgery, Carrie jumps at the opportunity. What should have been a routine, hours-long operation turns horribly wrong and jeopardizes her patient's life. Emotionally and physically drained, Carrie is rushed back to the OR to assist in a second surgery.

From New York Times best-selling author Mira Grant comes the second book in the terrifying Parasitology series. The SymboGen-designed tapeworms were created to relieve humanity of disease and sickness. But the implants in the majority of the world's population began attacking their hosts, turning them into a ravenous horde. Now those who do not appear to be afflicted are being gathered for quarantine as panic spreads, but Sal and her companions must discover how the tapeworms are taking over their hosts, what their eventual goal is, and how they can be stopped.

Determined to help her amnesiac patients recover their lives, Boston psychiatrist Cristina Silva is achieving near-miraculous results by prescribing Recognate, a revolutionary new memory-recovery drug now in trials. She understands her patients’ suffering better than most, because she’s lost her memories, too. Desperate to become herself again, she pops the same experimental drug she prescribes to her patients. And, like them, she remembers a little more each day. Until one of her patients, a successful accountant, jumps from an eight-story window to his death.

Eve Duncan returns in a thriller that pits her against the most evil mind she has ever encountered: a ruthless killer who taunts her with his every move...and who has a special affinity for blood. When a Georgia senator's daughter is found murdered, and her body drained of blood, Eve Duncan is drawn into the web of Kevin Jelak - a serial murderer who is on Eve's short list of killers who might know something about her missing daughter Bonnie.

Morton Farrier was no longer at the top of his game. His forensic genealogy career was faltering and he was refusing to accept any new cases, preferring instead to concentrate on locating his own elusive biological father. Yet, when a particular case presents itself, that of finding the family of a woman abandoned in the midst of the Battle of Britain, Morton is compelled to help her to unravel her past.

It starts with the death of a teenage runaway, killed when she leaps from a motorway bridge into the speeding traffic below. The girl's identity remains a mystery - until the discovery of the dead girl's details matches the profiles of three other girls; all recently have been reported missing. A further shocking discovery causes the whole file to be handed over to Greater Manchester Police's Counter Terrorism Unit, with leading detective constable Iona Khan in charge.

Ten years ago in California, Daniel Pell, a self-styled Charles Manson, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering an entire family: husband, wife, and two children, plus one of his young male followers. He is brought to Salinas, California, to interview with Kathryn Dance after he is implicated in yet another killing. Things go terribly wrong during an interview break, and Pell escapes, intent on killing again.

In the dead of night, a man’s body is found strapped to a chair in Glasgow’s Elder Park, his identity unknown. As forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod examines the scene, the violence on display suggests a gangland feud could be the cause. At the post-mortem, a bullet engraved with a snake’s head is found in the man’s stomach, lending weight to the theory. Elsewhere in the city, a major Hollywood movie is being filmed but comes to a standstill when its lead actor is reported missing. As the news spreads, Police Scotland believe the two cases may be connected.

Four babies have been kidnapped from four different maternity wards in Tel Aviv. With not a single lead to follow, all investigators can do is wait patiently for the suspect they call ‘The Babysitter’ to make their next move. Four weeks earlier, on a quiet street, a medical student went out for a run and was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Then a second student went out and never returned. Daphne Dagan, a young, talented police officer, is first to realize that the hit and run and the kidnappings are related.