Forensic Mystery Fiction

"With the roar of thunder and the speed of a galloping horse comes the tide to Mont St. Michel", goes the old nursery song. So when the aged patriarch of the du Rocher family falls victim to the perilous tide, even the old man's family accepts the verdict of accidental drowning. But too quickly, this "accident" is followed by a bizarre discovery in the ancient du Rocher chateau: a human skeleton, wrapped in butcher paper, beneath the old stone flooring. Professor Gideon Oliver, lecturing on forensic anthropology at nearby St. Malo, is asked to examine the bones.

Celia de Gray makes inroads as the first saleswoman for Felding-Roth Pharmaceutical Company, but uncovers scandals, including inadequate testing of new prescription drugs and false advertising. She finds that her work, and her marriage to Dr. Andrew Jordan, pose difficult choices she didn't expect.

The best-selling author of Hotel and Airport, Hailey here unlocks the doors of the giant drug industry for a frank, revealing glimpse of drugs, discoveries, deals, and deceptions.

It's a story tailor-made for the nightly news: Dylan Meserve and Michaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting students, vanish on the way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the two of them are found in the remote mountains of Malibu, battered and terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor.

To Senior Midwife Lucy Ryuan, pregnancy is not an unusual condition - it's her life's work. But when two kidnappings and a vicious stabbing happen on her watch in a university hospital in Manhattan, her focus abruptly changes. Something has to be done, and Lucy is fearless enough to try. Rumors begin to swirl, blaming everyone from the Russian Mafia to an underground adoption network. Lucy teams up with a skeptical NYPD detective to solve the case, but the truth is far more twisted than a feisty single mom could ever have imagined.

In geneticist Elizabeth Demauer, Jenna sees her best chance to conceive a child. But in Jenna’s unmistakable resemblance - and healthy body - Elizabeth sees much more: the sister she never knew existed, the perfect vessel for motherhood, and the chance to finally have the child she desperately craves.

After she and her new friend, Tim Brown, gain entrance into this dream school, everything soon becomes a waking nightmare as student after student begins behaving as if they were brainwashed. Now Quinn and Tim must hurry to uncover the dark truth before it's too late . . .

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.

Zahra Kane is a brilliant and daring archaeologist. The former British Army Intelligence linguist has used her fluency in a laundry list of languages, as well as her combat training, to succeed at the highest level. The intrepid adventurer isn't afraid to get her hands dirty or blow past the point of no return to obtain her prize. Late one night, she receives a frantic phone call from her estranged brother, an Egyptologist who's been tasked with examining a newly discovered tomb and the prize it contains: the original Book of the Dead-a scroll made of human skin and penned in human blood.

Dunja Hougaard has gone underground to covertly investigate her former boss, Sleizner. For months, Dunja and her team have been gathering information. When a high-ranking man within the Danish intelligence service and an unknown woman are found dead at the bottom of a lake outside Copenhagen, the trap is finally ready to close. The only question is: whom will it catch? And meanwhile, on the other side of the strait in Helsingborg, the Swedish police Fabian Risk detective receives a message that changes everything.

When Claire regains consciousness after a stranger causes her car to crash in a snowstorm, she is frantic to discover that her nine-year-old daughter, Emma, is missing from the back seat. Then Emma is found in the woods nearby, unharmed but cradling a child’s skull. She claims it ‘called’ to her – and she can hear another voice nearby. Meanwhile, forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is trying to discover the identity of a corpse found badly burnt in a skip. The two cases are linked in ways they could never have imagined.

If you thought fiction couldn't get darker then think again. Nineteen Seventy Seven, the second instalment of the Red Riding Quartet, is one long nightmare.Its heroes - the half decent copper Bob Fraser and the burnt-out hack Jack Whitehead - would be considered villains in most people's books.

The onset of summer brings predictably steamy weather to the Body Farm, Dr. Bill Brockton's human-decomposition research facility at the University of Tennessee. But Brockton's about to get more heat than he's bargained for when Angie St. Claire, a forensic analyst with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, asks him to help prove that her sister's death was not suicide, but murder. Brockton's quick consulting trip takes a long, harrowing detour when bones begin turning up amid the pines and live oaks of the Florida panhandle.

When America is hit with a pandemic - soon finding out it was a viral and biochemical attack from terrorists - the population is both shocked and relieved to quickly have a vaccine on hand to save them. Untested and rushed to market, the people don’t care. In droves they line up, hoping to avoid the deadly virus. Too late, they discover there is something much worse than the virus unleashed on the United States; something so hideous and terrifying, it will make the virus look like a bad case of the flu.

Aimee Bregman had an enviable job as head of marketing for an up-and-coming CBD-infused beer that was taking the tri-state area by storm. Everything was going right. But when her longtime mentor, Rita, sets up a business meeting with an important influencer, her life crashes all around her. The casual meeting over drinks suddenly devolves into a shouting match between all parties, and any chance of a new business relationship is over before it begins. Hours later, the NYPD shows up at Aimee's apartment, questioning her about Rita's abrupt disappearance - foul play suspected.

Ten years ago as an undergrad, Joan Mason escaped an arsonist’s fire. Shaken, she fled the small collegiate Montana town, leaving behind friends and not looking back. Now a Philadelphia homicide detective, Joan’s trying to put her traumas to rest. It’s not easy. Elijah Weston, the classmate who torched her house, is out of prison and returning to Missoula. Gut instinct tells Joan he’ll strike again. To stop him, she must return to the past as well. To face not only the man she fears but Detective Gideon Bailey, too. The man she loved and left behind.

Eleri and Donovan are back! Nightshade’s newest agents are in LA to bring down a burgeoning terrorist cell. To make matters worse, it's not just one terrorist cell, it's two. Or is it three? There is little to go on, only links between missing army munitions and a veteran named Cooper Rollins. On the surface the cells seem unrelated, each with separate perpetrators and different motives. But they are all linked by Rollins and the very disturbing passcode: “Fracture Five”.

As the Great Depression presses down around him, Archer teeters at the edge of a precipice. He must choose between his hard-won career and the sacred oaths he took as a doctor and scientist—before all his choices are lost forever.

AJ Docker (Doc) and his guard dog, Banshee, move to a small town in the mountains for a slower-paced lifestyle. Doc settles into the idyllic setting with a rewarding job and enriching colleagues, as well as with a romantic interest who leads him to contemplate marriage. His new life seems perfect, until he begins to uncover the town's dirty secrets. A serial killer hunts in the woods, and dirty money flows throughout the town.

Twenty-one-month-old Cassie Jones is bright, energetic, the picture of health. Yet her parents rush her to the emergency room night after night with medical symptoms no doctor can explain. Cassie's parents seem sympathetic and deeply concerned. Her favorite nurse is a model of devotion. Yet when child psychologist Alex Delaware is called in to investigate, instinct tells him that one of them may be a monster.

The master of medical suspense brings us another novel of controversy, biology, and human greed. Internist Matt Rutledge has spent the last five years trying to find links between the deaths of his wife and his father. He suspects the Belinda Coke and Coal Company has released toxic chemicals into the environment that have caused the "Belinda Syndrome," a miasma of symptoms that include violent and deadly paranoia in some, Ebola-like hemorrhaging in others. But he lacks proof.