Forensic Mystery Fiction

Forensic genealogist Morton Farrier agrees to take on a case to identify the biological mother of three foundlings, abandoned in shop doorways as newborn babies in the 1970s. He has just one thing with which to begin his investigation: the three women’s DNA, one of whom is his half-aunt. With just six days of research time available to him, his investigation uncovers some shocking revelations and troubling links to his own grandfather, and Morton finds that for the first time in his career, he is advising his clients not to read his concluding report.

En route to Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan receives a call from the Charleston coroner. During the storm, a medical waste container has washed up on the beach. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Chillingly, Tempe recognizes many details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec 15 earlier.

There’s a body crushed under a load of pipes on a San Francisco construction site, and medical examiner Dr. Jessie Teska is on call. So it’s her job to figure out who it is - and her headache when the autopsy reveals that the death is a homicide staged as an accident. Jessie is hot on the murderer’s trail, then an earthquake sends her and her whole city reeling. When the dust clears, her case has fallen apart and an innocent man is being framed. Jessie knows she’s the only one who can prove it, and she races to piece together the truth.

When Owen Galloway, the track star son of a prominent US senator, is found dead of an overdose in his bedroom, LAPD Detective Cari Garcia suspects that he’s just another teenager who hid a drug addiction. In Vancouver, Dr. Julie Rees, an experienced toxicologist, notices a growing number of overdoses among the eating disordered and body builders, and mentions it to her boyfriend, Detective Anson Chen.

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.

Convicted serial killer Carrie Grethen has escaped from a psychiatric hospital with plans for revenge. Wary and shaken, Scarpetta also has to investigate the death by fire of an unknown woman. The post mortem reveals that the woman was stabbed before the fire was started, and soon Scarpetta and her colleagues are called out to the scene of another fire and another murder.

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.

Dolphins are magical creatures: They comfort the heartbroken, rescue the lost, even heal the sick. At the Hope Key Dolphin Assisted Therapy center in Florida dolphins use their healing powers to help autistic children communicate and to soothe other troubled people. But what if you don't want help? What if you've gone so far down the wrong path that you can't go back? Katy Grant can't see any way back from the path her life has taken. And she doesn't really care. Working at Hope Key keeps her out of jail. And it just might give her the chance at revenge she wants on the man who ruined her life.

In the tightly knit world of Boston medicine, the Randall family reigns supreme. When heart surgeon J. D. Randall’s teenage daughter dies during a botched abortion, the medical community threatens to explode. Was it malpractice? A violation of the Hippocratic Oath? Or was Karen Randall murdered in cold blood? The natural suspect is Arthur Lee, a brilliant surgeon and known abortionist, who has been carrying out the illegal procedure with the help of pathologist John Berry.

John Lowery was declared dead in 1968—the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Hemmingford, Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice, and how did an American soldier end up in Canada?

A vehicle crammed with dozens of dead Chinese immigrants is found in Southern Texas. Forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell must put aside her horror and find out why. Detective Li Yan - an even more unwelcome memory for Campbell - has arrived stateside to investigate a link in the case to a lucrative trade in illegal laborers. Li and Campbell will soon find that the crime scene hides another secret: a biological time bomb linking traffickers, politicians, and migrants in Beijing, Washington, and Texas - posing multiple countries one very singular threat.

New York City medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton return in this stunning novel from the “master of the medical thriller” (New York Times)—a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of an innovative doctor’s dangerous downward spiral.

Forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny lost his wife, Shay, to the very serial killer he’d hunted for five years. When Nathaniel Conrad—known as the Alphabet Man, for his love of tattooing codes onto his victims’ bodies—was condemned to death row, Callum thought the game of cat and mouse was over. But just before execution, Nathaniel drops a bombshell: he’s not the one who murdered Shay.

Organ donation is in its infancy, and Daisy Howard, who is giving a kidney to her aunt, is in the hands of a pioneering surgeon. After the operation, Daisy is desperate to get back to her family, yet the days go by and she remains in the hospital. Meanwhile, an old friend keeps visiting with news of home, and Daisy becomes increasingly uneasy.

For untold years, the perfectly preserved mummy had lain forgotten in the dusty basement of Boston’s Crispin Museum. Now its sudden rediscovery by museum staff is both a major coup and an attention-grabbing mystery. Dubbed “Madam X,” the mummy–to all appearances, an ancient Egyptian artifact–seems a ghoulish godsend for the financially struggling institution. But medical examiner Maura Isles soon discovers a macabre message hidden within the corpse–horrifying proof that this “centuries-old” relic is instead a modern-day murder victim.

The double murder of a married couple in a small Washington town draws FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto into an investigation that mirrors a decades-old crime. Twenty-five years ago—to the day—Alex Parker murdered his parents, then took his own life, leaving behind a note admitting everything. Raisa, paired with forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny, uses her skills to read between the lines. Especially now that paranoid postings on a conspiracy thread suggest that Alex was a victim himself.

Senator Ashley Butler is a quintessential Southern demagogue whose support of traditional American values includes a knee-jerk reaction against virtually all biotechnologies. When he's called to chair a subcommittee introducing legislation to ban new cloning technology, the senator views his political future in bold relief; and Dr. Daniel Lowell, inventor of the technique that will take stem cell research to the next level, sees a roadblock positioned before his biotech startup.

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.

Here, Michael Palmer has created a cat-and-mouse game where one woman must confront a conspiracy of doctors to uncover an evil practice that touches every single person who ever has a medical test. With unforgettable characters and twists and betrayals that come from the most unlikely places, The Second Opinion will keep you guessing...and looking over your shoulder.

Cameryn Mahoney works as the assistant to her father, the county coroner of Silverton, Colorado. But if thats not hard enough, her long-lost mother has made a surprise return to Cameryns life. When her mother picks up a mysterious young hitchhiker, Cameryn senses that the girl is running from something. But before she can find out more, the girl is found deadwith a gun in her hand. Is it suicide? Or something even more sinister?