Literature Fiction Mystery

Four young women have been found murdered—tortured and strangled in their own beds—all victims of the same brilliant monster. Using a skilled hand and the latest technology in forensic medicine, Kay Scarpetta begins the process of gathering the microscopic clues the latest battered body has to give.

Ten years ago, Rose made a promise to help her goddaughter, Eloise, if she was ever in trouble. A promise she may live to regret. But she meant every word...until the night Eloise turns up on her doorstep covered in blood and asking for the unthinkable. Rose has buried secrets before. Only this time, they’re about to come back and haunt her.

In Hot Blooded, she transports listeners into the heart of New Orleans, where a deluded murderer is on a holy quest of vengeance. Dr. Samantha Leeds hosts her own late-night radio talk-show on WSLJ. One day she receives a menacing phone call at her home, while miles away, a prostitute is strangled to death. Seemingly unrelated, nobody connects the two events until more murders occur under similar circumstances.

Zoe didn't meet her daughter the way most mothers do. She finds five-year-old Maddie alone and dirty on a countryside road. Frightened for Maddie's safety, she picks her up and takes her back to her father, not knowing what she's about to step into. Because Maddie wasn't just lost; she was there to lure her serial killer dad's new victim. After escaping from the clutches of Maddie's dangerous father, she bonds with the little girl. Only Maddie knows what it was like to be at that house. And when no family members come forward to claim Maddie, Zoe decides to adopt her.

When the dive team is called in to recover a body from a submerged car, they aren't prepared to find an encrypted laptop - or an unsettling connection between investigator Adam Campbell and the dead accountant. Adam turns to his friend Dr. Sabrina Fleming - a professor at the local university with unparalleled computer security and forensics skills - to recover the files from the laptop. But the deeper they dig, the deadlier the investigation becomes.

Psychologist Margot Scott has a picture-perfect life: a nice house in the suburbs, a husband, two children and a successful career. On a warm spring morning Margot approaches one of her clients on a busy train platform. He is looking down at his phone, with his duffel bag in hand as the train approaches. That’s when she slams into his back and he falls in front of the train. Margot’s clients all lie to her, but one lie cost her family and freedom.

The day Adam Dunne's girlfriend, Sarah, fails to return from a Barcelona business trip, his perfect life begins to fall apart. Days later, the arrival of her passport and a note that reads "I'm sorry - S" sets off real alarm bells. He vows to do whatever it takes to find her. Adam is puzzled when he connects Sarah to a cruise ship called the Celebrate - and to a woman, Estelle, who disappeared from the same ship in eerily similar circumstances almost exactly a year before. To get answers, Adam must confront some difficult truths.

Can you ever really know someone? When Deborah, an unpopular 17-year-old, meets the charming and handsome Larry, he sweeps her off her feet. The trouble is, Larry has a secret. Then a series of grisly murders casts a shadow over everything. As Deborah's world starts to fall apart, she begins to suspect the man she loves of a terrible betrayal. And to keep their marriage alive, sacrifices must be made.

Imagine nine women meeting. Tea and cake are on the coffee table. They’ve come together to share their love of books. They are friends. They trust each other. It’s a happy gathering. What could be more harmless? Scratch the surface and look closer. One is lonely, one is desperate and one of them is a killer. When the body of a woman is discovered on a Cambridge common, DCI Barrett and DI Palmer are called to investigate. But the motive behind the crime isn’t clear...and it all leads back to a book club.

Separate incidents with two common threads - a first wife who took her own life, and a secret the victims took to their graves. Stephanie Coburn has barely recovered from her sister's mysterious suicide before her brother-in-law and his new wife are murdered, her face disfigured beyond recognition. Stephanie never met the bride, has never even seen a clear photograph. But she knew her sister, and she knows something is desperately wrong.

Someone is committing random murders across Chicago—and making sure detectives Billy Harney (Aaron Paul) and Patti Harney (Krysten Ritter) are first on the crime scene. What connects the victims, and why is the killer leaving clues behind with each body? Billy and Patti are scrambling to stop the next killing when their father, Chief of Detectives Dan Harney (Beau Bridges), is kidnapped. But in their race to track him down, they uncover pieces of his past that simply can’t be true. Could their own flesh and blood be covering up a dark secret?

When Matt Ballard was starting out his career, three boys were murdered in the same area, the remote and bleak Gibbet Fen. When the main suspect was killed in a hit-and-run, the killings stopped. But Matt was not satisfied that the real murderer had been caught. Over 25 years later, Matt gets a photo in an unmarked envelope. It's of the Gibbet Fen crime scene. And the picture was taken before the murder took place. More photos arrive, relating to the historic murders, as well as intimate pictures of Matt's very secret private life.

The sequel to Winter Dark sees the return of Winter – and this time she has her work cut out. With only a week to go until the world's leaders convene for a summit in London, she is hot on the trail of the Guardsman, Firestorm’s top hitman. What is he planning for the summit and what are the disturbing experiments he is running? From London to Virginia, Marseille to Moscow, just how do all the strands connect? What is the final countdown and who can she really trust?

Thanks to a series of unfortunate events - and one backstabbing frenemy - home is exactly where I'm headed. Back to Winterspell Lake, where magic runs rampant and humans are outlawed. Faster than you can say hocus pocus I'm unpacking my bags and settling into the guest room of my parents' house, trying to ignore the creeping sensation that I'll never break free again. The one thing Winterspell has going for it is the sweets shop in the center of town, a bakery filled with magical creations designed to enchant the taste buds and charm even the pickiest of connoisseurs.

Reports of a haunted house soon have amateur sleuth Agatha Raisin snooping around, only to discover the victim of the haunting is a universally disliked old biddy on whom someone is playing a practical joke. But then the old lady is murdered and, for Agatha, solving a crime is much more fun than ghost-busting. Very soon she’s up to her usual tricks, involving the villagers, local police, and, naturally, her handsome new neighbor.

What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for aging spies who can no longer remember their secrets are secret? Or are senile spies taken care of in a different, more permanent fashion? These are the paranoid concerns of David Cartwright, a Cold War–era operative and one-time head of MI5 who is sliding into dementia, and questions his grandson, River, must answer now that the spy who raised him sometimes forgets to wear pants. But River, himself an agent at Slough House, MI5’s outpost for disgraced spies, has other things to worry about.

Debauched, divorced, and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days across the American Southwest, he travels from from hell gig to hell gig in search of a reason to keep living in this bleak and violent glimpse into the psyche of a thoroughly ruined man. Ex-inmate, ex-husband, ex-father - comedian is the only title Schafer has left. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray knows the answer to the question: What happens when the opportunity doesn't come - or worse - it comes and goes?

The night that throws a wrecking ball into Abby’s life starts out perfectly at first. There’s still a hint of summer sun in the purple-streaked sky. Abby and her best friend, Sienna, look on fondly as their two husbands laugh under the garden gazebo. None of them know it’s the last time they will be together again. What starts out as just a little fun has devastating consequences for the couples. Alone with Sienna’s husband, Greg, Abby finds him unexpectedly charming. Caught up in the moment, she reveals a secret she swore never to tell.

When Lord Peter hears of an elderly woman's sudden death, dismissed by authorities as perfectly ordinary, his razor-sharp instincts detect something amiss. Teaming up with the ever-reliable Detective Inspector Parker and his clever secretary Miss Climpson, Lord Peter unravels a chilling scheme rooted in greed, manipulation, and hidden motives. As secrets come to light, Wimsey must race against time to prevent another murder and expose a ruthless culprit.

When 14-year-old Zoe Johnson doesn't come home on a Monday night in early December, the alarm bells in Kings Lake Central police station do not ring straight away - after all, she's from the Dockmills, one of the toughest estates in the town. But for Detective Sergeant DC Smith, due to retire in just three weeks' time, there are some strange echoes of the case that has haunted him for the past 13 years. Maybe it's simply his over-developed sense of irony, or maybe, in his final days as a police officer, Smith must look once more into the eyes of a serial killer.