Police Suspense Thrillers

When a body is found on a lonely cliff top path, the angelic face of a murdered teenager lies facing the rising sun. Strangled by the hands of an unknown killer, it falls to DI Tom Janssen and his fledgling team to find out how she came to be there. Destined for a career in medicine, one to rival that of her parents, Holly Bettany’s future was as bright as it had been privileged. Seemingly, all that could threaten this promising teenager’s life was Holly herself.

Defense attorney Mickey Haller is back, taking the long shot cases, where the chances of winning are one in a million. He agrees to represent a woman in prison for killing her husband, a sheriff’s deputy. Despite her conviction four years earlier, she still maintains her innocence. Haller enlists his half brother, retired LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, as investigator. Reviewing the case, Bosch sees something that doesn’t add up, and a sheriff’s department intent on bringing a quick search for justice in the killing of one of its own.

A year ago, local philanthropist and millionaire Nathan Lyon died a natural death in his sprawling mansion, a 150,000-square-foot converted mill, surrounded by his loving, attentive family. Or so it seemed at the time. Now Joe Gunther and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation team has discovered that almost nothing about that story was true. Nathan Lyon was actually Nick Bianchi from Providence, Rhode Island. His money came from Mafia-tainted sources. And his family now seems to be dying themselves, and their deaths are now revealed to be murders.

After tracking down a crazed sniper last year, homicide detective Mike Houston opted to leave Boston for the isolated mountains of Maine. He adjusted nicely to chopping his own firewood, relaxing in his log cabin, and simply enjoying the solitude of the mountains. But then his former partner, Lt. Anne Bouchard, pays him a visit and dangles the words serial killer in front of him. And suddenly he finds himself back in the game beside her - though not "officially".

Who killed Gray Mitchell? Gray Mitchell’s body is found buried under fresh snowfall in the early hours of the morning outside Stromford Cathedral. DI Jim Neal and DS Ava Merry are called in to investigate. It seems that a number of people had motives to kill him, including Mitchell's partner. Then another shocking act of violence occurs, also connected to the cathedral. Detectives Neal and Merry’s investigation reveals an intricate web of secrets connecting the crimes. But there is something the detectives have missed, the dark secret which can break open the case.

The best mysteries have one thing in common: a memorable perpetrator. For every Sherlock Holmes or Sam Spade in noble pursuit, there's a Count Dracula, a Lester Leith, or a Jimmy Valentine. These are the rogues and villains who haunt our imaginations - and who often have more in common with their heroic counterparts than we might expect. Now, for the first time ever, Otto Penzler gathers the iconic traitors, thieves, con men, sociopaths, and killers who have crept through the mystery canon over the past 150 years, captivating and horrifying readers in equal measure.

In L.A., Cassie Black is another beautiful woman in a Porsche: except Cassie just did six years in prison and still has "outlaw juice" flowing in her veins. Now Cassie is returning to her old profession, taking down a money man in Vegas. But the perfect heist goes very wrong, and suddenly Cassie is on the run - with a near-psychotic Vegas "fixer" killing everyone who knew about the job.

A British journalist is invited to Malmö to interview an old university friend who is now one of Sweden's leading film directors. When he discovers the director's glamorous film-star wife dead in her apartment, the Skåne County Police are called in to solve the high-profile case.

Looking forward to routine police work after her last terrifying case, Kate finds herself on the trail of vigilantes targeting abusive men in the San Francisco area. Kate has just returned to active duty after being injured on the job. Her girl-friend, Lee, has moved back into their home, and their relationship is on the mend. But the calm, predictable life Kate's looking forward to doesn't materialize.

When human bones are found beneath an old chapel in the woods, evidence suggests the remains could be linked to the decades-old case of missing teen Annalise Jansen. Homicide detective Jane Munro—pregnant and acutely attuned to the preciousness of life—hopes the grim discovery will finally bring closure to the girl’s family. But for a group of Annalise’s old friends, once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media, it threatens to expose a terrible pledge made on an autumn night forty-seven years ago.

Kelly Roth, FBI profiler, returns home to Syracuse to stop a sadistic serial killer. Three murders in three separate jurisdictions in central New York State have the same pattern: women killed by fatal headshots from a hunting rifle. Kelly Roth is sent from Virginia to help the local police. Each victim was found murdered in a remote area or in a quiet park. The media call him “The Park Killer.” But Kelly doesn’t think the killer lurks in the bushes. She thinks he hunts his victims somewhere else.

When a badly mutilated body washes up on the shores of Loch Ness, DCI Jack Logan's dream of a quiet life in the Highlands is shattered. While the media speculates wildly about monster attacks, Jack and the Major Investigations Team must act fast to catch the killer before they can strike again. But with Nessie-hunters descending on the area in their dozens, and an old enemy rearing his ugly head, the case could well turn out to be the most challenging of Jack's career. And, if he isn't careful, the last.

Widowed van driver Bob Naylor is prodded into joining the Chichester Writers' Circle by his teenage daughter. Bob writes limericks and jingles, and fears he will be out of his class amongst the literati. But the members of the circle come from all walks of life and practice many forms of writing, from fantasy to household hints. There seems to be nothing about any of them to incite a serial killer. However, there is an arsonist in their midst, burning his victims to death, and Bob becomes a suspect.

Across Brattleboro, Vermont, rich people (some with dark secrets) are waking up in their high security, alarm-equipped homes to find a Post-it note stuck to their bedside tables reading, “You’re it.” There is little sign of disturbance anywhere, nothing stolen (that anyone admits) and only a bit of expensive food eaten as a signature. The press loves the story and dubs the burglar the Tag Man. But who is he? And what’s he actually doing?

Constance Greene confronts Manhattan’s most dangerous serial killer, Enoch Leng, bartering for her sister's life—but she is betrayed and turned away empty-handed, incandescent with rage. Unknown to Leng, Pendergast’s brother, Diogenes, appears unexpectedly, offering to help—for mysterious reasons of his own. Disguised as a cleric, Diogenes establishes himself in New York's notorious Five Points slum, manipulating events like a chess master, watching Leng’s every move…and awaiting his own chance to strike.

Joe Gunther, a Brattleboro, Vermont cop, is the head of the new Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI). In The Marble Mask, the VBI's first case takes the force north to Stowe, where a 50-year-old corpse has turned up in a crevasse on Mt. Mansfield. When the frozen stiff turns out to have been a big-time Canadian crime boss named Jean Deschamps who disappeared after World War II, Joe and his gang cross the border to work with the Mounties, the Surete, and the local cops in Sherbrooke.

In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Vice Questore Patta asks Brunetti to look into a minor violation committed by the mayor’s future daughter-in-law. Brunetti has no interest in helping his boss amass political favors, but he has little choice but to comply. Then Brunetti’s wife, Paola, comes to him with a request of her own. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaners has just died of a sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing him, or helping him.

On the night he celebrates a big win, defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a former client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is immediately charged with murder but can’t post the exorbitant $5 million bail slapped on him by a vindictive judge. Mickey elects to represent himself and is forced to mount his defense from his jail cell in the Twin Towers Correctional Center in downtown Los Angeles.

Rookie crime reporter Jason Wade, a troubled loner from the wrong side of the tracks, pursues the story of a murdered Seattle nun. The case leads him to a hermit nun who founded a mysterious religious order; and ultimately to the dark secret that has tormented his ex-cop father for decades. It culminates in a life and death struggle against the clock. With time running out, Jason and his father battle the odds to confront a terrible truth.

Mickey Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers - they're all on Mickey Haller's client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence; it's about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it's even about justice.