Forensic Mystery Fiction

When a mass grave containing 18 mutilated female corpses is discovered in Shanghai, detective Li Yan is sent from Beijing to establish if the bodies are linked to an unsolved murder in the capital. Here, Li will be working with Mei Ling, deputy head of Shanghai's serious crime squad. Mei Ling is a formidable woman: a fact that is not lost on Li's on-again, off-again lover, forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. But when Campbell learns that the victims were subjected to "live" autopsies, she swallows her pride and joins Li Yan and Mei Ling in the hunt for the murderer.

Kate Bennett - a bright hospital pathologist with a loving husband and a solid future. Until one day her world turns dark. A strange, puzzling illness has killed two women. Now it endangers Kate's closest friend. Soon it will threaten Kate's marriage. Her sanity. Her life. Kate has uncovered a horrifying secret. Important people will stop at nothing to protect it. It is a terrifying medical discovery. And its roots lie in one of the greatest evils in the history of humankind.

Dr. Brian Holbrook - former football star and disgraced chief of cardiology - is given the chance of a lifetime when he gets a call from the prestigious Boston Heart Institute. They need him to join an elite team testing the new miracle drug Vasclear. With his father suffering from a dangerous heart condition, Holbrook seizes the opportunity to save his reputation, and also his father's life. However, when patients start dying mysteriously, and colleagues begin to disappear, it's up to Holbrook to find the truth before it's too late.

Inside Boston Doctors Hospital, patients are dying. In the glare of the operating room, they survive the surgeon's knife. But in the dark, hollow silence of the night, they die. Suddenly, inexplicably, horribly. A tough, bright doctor will risk his very life for a dedicated young nurse who unknowingly holds the answers.

"Dog days and the fresh bodies are arriving once again." So begins the fall term at South Carolina Medical College, where Dr. Jacob Thacker is on probation for Xanax abuse. His interim career - working public relations for the dean - takes an unnerving detour into the past when the bones of African American slaves, over a century old, are unearthed on the campus. Out of the college’s dark past, these bones threaten to rise and condemn the present.

Dr. Theo Cray has a legendary mathematical knack for catching serial killers. Until his exposure to a mind-altering pathogen knocks him off his game. It has upended an investigation, destroyed his reputation, and left him to question his own sanity. One person still trusts him to finish the job. His former professor Amanda Paulson is helping point Cray down a logical path to his prey: a nomadic health-care worker whose murder spree stretches back decades and whose victims number in the hundreds.

Der junge kalifornische Paläontologe Levine ist von der Idee besessen, dass die Dinosaurier gar nicht ausgestorben sind. Und als aus Costa Rica das Auftauchen von ungewöhnlichen Echsen gemeldet wird, besteigt er sofort das nächste Flugzeug, um die Tiere vor Ort zu studieren. Noch ahnt er nicht, dass es sich bei diesen Sauriern nicht um Wesen aus der Kreidezeit handelt, sondern um Überbleibsel einer gezielten Genmanipulation.

When Dr. Alex Taylor opens her eyes, she is hooked up to an IV, is bound to an operating table, and her legs are raised in stirrups. Disoriented and alarmed, she assumes she's been anesthetized and brought to surgery after being in an accident. But the man standing over her is no doctor she recognizes at the hospital where she works as a successful and respected doctor. He’s a stranger - and he’s calmly and methodically telling her how he's about to attack her. Before Alex can even scream for help, she succumbs to another dose of anesthesia, rendering her unable to defend herself.

Dr. Julie Rees, a toxicologist and ER doctor, is stunned when her emergency room is flooded with teenagers from the same party, all on the verge of death. Julie knows the world of opioids inside and out, and she recognizes that there’s nothing typical about these cases. She suspects the teens took - or were given - fentanyl. But why did they succumb so quickly?

When the body of 28-year-old social worker Kera Jacobsen shows up on Chief New York City Medical Examiner Laurie Montgomery's autopsy table, at first it appears she was the victim of a tragic yet routine drug overdose. But for Laurie and her new pathology resident, the brilliant but enigmatic Dr. Aria Nichols, little things aren't adding up. Kera's family and friends swear she never touched drugs. Administrators from the hospital where Kera worked are insisting the case be shrouded in silence. And although Kera was 10 weeks pregnant, nobody seems to know who the father was.

Nick Heller is at the top of his game when he receives some devastating news: His old army buddy, Sean, has died of an overdose. Sean, who once saved Nick’s life, got addicted to opioids after returning home wounded from war. Then, at Sean’s funeral, a stranger approaches Nick with a job, and maybe also a way for Nick to hold someone accountable. The woman is the daughter of a pharmaceutical kingpin worth billions. Now, she wants to become a whistleblower, exposing her father and his company for burying evidence.

She’s broken free. But danger is in hot pursuit. And rescue is nowhere in sight.... Eve Duncan is on the run. Kidnapped by Jim Doane, a mysterious man who wants her to complete a sinister forensic sculpture, she now has no time to savor the victory of escaping from him. He’s back on her trail and closing in fast. At the mercy of the Colorado wilderness, she struggles to outwit and outrun him, but the odds are stacked high in his favor.

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.

Tortured and left for dead at 16, Evelyn Talbot turned her personal nightmare into her life’s work - studying the disturbing psychopathy of some of the world’s most vicious serial killers. Now a leading psychiatrist at Hanover House in a small Alaskan town, she tries to believe the past will never come back to haunt her - until a woman goes missing from a cabin nearby, and every clue points to the man who once brutalized her....

DEA Special Agent Peter Malloy is no stranger to the devastating impact of drugs. So when six bodies turn up with surgical ports implanted in their spines, he's sure a potent new opioid is the culprit. But when lab tests show zero evidence of any known narcotics, he fears something far more sinister. Allison Stevens thought she knew everything about her boss. But after he disappears, she's stunned to discover his secret genetic research in pain tolerance. When she becomes the target of the FBI's investigation, Allison has only one move.

Eve Duncan is the most sought-after artist in the field of forensic sculpting. Dedicated to her work ever since her daughter, Bonnie, was taken and killed at the age of seven, Eve feels a sense of duty to those whose lives were lost and whose bones are now in her hands.

Gwen Marcey has done a good job keeping the pain of her past boxed up. But as she investigates the case of a missing child in Lapwai, Idaho, details keep surfacing that are eerily similar to her childhood traumas. She doesn't believe in coincidences. So what's going on here? No one knows more about the impact of the past than the Nez Perce people of Lapwai. Gwen finds herself an unwelcome visitor to some, making her investigation even more difficult. The questions keep piling up, but answers are slow in coming - and the clock is ticking for a missing little girl.

What started as a flu outbreak on a military base proves deadlier than Ebola. Sympatico Syndrome is unlike anything the world has ever seen. Victims' behavior is changing to accommodate the rapid spread of the virus. Former Navy epidemiologist Cole Evans is well aware of the rare, infectious diseases the military studies. He also knows the government's stance on sharing information with the public, so if the media has already learned about the disease, then it's too late to contain the outbreak.

A successful entrepreneur in the mushroom industry, Jaakko Kaunismaa is a man in his prime. At just 37 years of age, he is shocked when his doctor tells him that he's dying. What is more, the cause is discovered to be prolonged exposure to toxins; in other words, someone has slowly but surely been poisoning him. Determined to find out who wants him dead, Jaakko embarks on a suspenseful roller-coaster journey full of unusual characters, bizarre situations and unexpected twists.

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.