Serial Killer Mystery Fiction

Florence. Autumn, 1539. Cesare Aldo was once an officer for the city’s most feared criminal court. Following a period of exile, he is back but demoted to night patrol when only the drunk and the dangerous roam the streets. Chasing a suspect in the rain, Aldo discovers a horrifying scene beneath Michelangelo’s statue of David. Lifeless eyes gaze from the face of a man whose body has been posed as if crucified. It’s clear the killer had religious motives. When more bodies appear, Aldo believes an unholy murderer is stalking the citizens of Florence.

Tim and Susannah have ordinary lives on the surface. He's a mortician for whom death is a serious business, and she's a chef who really knows her way around a knife. And if the neighbors in their small Midwestern town knew of her dark hobby, they'd run for the hills. Raised by an apathetic mother and a cruel father, Susannah was bullied and pushed to her breaking point long before she met mild-mannered Tim, and learned to channel her murderous impulses into a strange form of art, which keeps her clueless husband safe...for now.

Rooker Lindström is a reluctant consultant for the Minnesota PD. He can provide a window into evil. His horrifying past gives him the edge. When the body of a woman—missing for eight years—is pulled from the lake, evil comes knocking again. This time with a note meant just for Rooker: Won’t you come out and play?

When a local criminal defense attorney turns up dead, Sheriff Billie Gray arrives on the scene. At first glance, the lawyer’s death looks like suicide. But Billie knows better: this was murder. To assist with the investigation, Billie calls on her old friend Solomon Shepard, who isn’t so eager to accept. After a traumatic attack left him mentally in shambles, Solomon is on indefinite leave from the county attorney’s office. But Billie needs him. And he can’t say no to Billie.

Shane Scully and his partner are assigned to the case of "the Fingertip Killer"—a serial murderer preying on homeless veterans in Los Angeles. Every two weeks he strikes: he beats his victims, then shoots them in the back of the head. Once they're dead, he cuts off their fingertips, closes their eyes, and tosses them in the river. The latest killing, however, does not quite fit the pattern. It appears to be the work of the Fingertip Killer, but Scully suspects an elaborate copycat murder meant to hide a criminal conspiracy.

Struggling with his new role as a detective chief inspector, John Tanner is warned of a convicted psychopath’s early release. When a couple is found later that day; the man stabbed to death, the woman with her throat cut, he's forced to assume the convict is responsible. But when the male victim turns out to be heir to a global pharmaceutical company, and his twelve-year-old son is nowhere to be found, he has to start looking closer at the victim’s family, and their sprawling stately ancestral home.

Julia Miller puts her teenage daughter on a plane, secure in the knowledge that she will see her again in a few days. But when the plane lands, Anna is nowhere to be seen. She definitely got on the flight, but then she just…vanished. Julia’s world is about to be rocked. Because when the truth comes about what’s really happened to Anna, nothing will ever be the same again. And time is running out to save her daughter…

Two decades ago Marissa Mo escaped a basement prison - the only home she’d ever known. At twenty-seven, Marissa’s moved beyond the trauma and is working under a new name as a freelance photographer. But when she accepts a job covering a string of macabre murders in Portland, it’s impossible for Marissa not to remember. Everything is eerily familiar. The same underground lairs. Sad trinkets and toys left behind, identical to those Marissa had as a child. And then there is the note meant just for her that freezes Marissa’s blood: See you soon, Missy.

Warren Bullock always thought he was a decent person. But lately he's been haunted by a sinister voice in his head urging him to commit unspeakable acts of violence against the people around him.

A murder happens on a ship, two days out of Panama and in the middle of the Pacific. The cruise operators decide not to turn the ship around as it goes out of helicopter range and into the Pacific Ocean, but to consult Hunter Witowski and Kieron Philips. They have just started their Miami-based cruise crime investigation unit after successfully overturning a drug cartel's attempt to use a ship—at least, that is how it looked in the press. Another two guests are killed, and the decision is made: They have to fly out and drop into the ocean.

A taunting letter, claiming violence and death to the vile people of Washburn County, puts Sergeant Jade Monroe and her staff of detectives on high-alert. The letter states they will see the author's work soon, but, without forensic evidence, Jade has no way of knowing who wrote the letter or its validity. When the first victim is discovered, the carnage promised in the letter is realized, and as the body count escalates, so does the depravity of the murders.

Dexter meets Secretary in Michael J. Seidlinger's provocative, disturbing literary thriller that reinvents the serial killer genre, exploring the psychology of desire. Claire studies forensic science, Victor is the gentleman killer. Subverting expectations, Clair seduces Victor and keeps him in her apartment as her pet, her darkest secret. Beautifully written and provocative to listen to, Seidlinger delves into Claire's motivations and impetus to present a compelling psychosexual portrait of a woman obsessed with performance, power, sex, and gore.

Just when Alex Cross thought his life was calming down into a routine of patients and therapy sessions, he finds himself back in the game - this time to catch a criminal mastermind like no other. A spate of elaborate murders in Washington, D.C., have the whole East Coast on edge. They are like nothing Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, have ever seen.

Psychologist Susan Pulaski, who has a near-empathic gift for understanding the thought processes of criminals, is a consultant for the Las Vegas police force. When the city is galvanized by a brutal murder case, stemming from the death of a young woman who has been buried alive, Police Chief Robert O'Bannon calls on Susan's services.

The peace of Kielder Water is shattered when tourists open a barrel they found floating in the reservoir at dawn. Detectives Stone and Oliver are called to examine the skeletal remains inside. The tourists are eliminated from the investigation, but that same day a second body is discovered - this one with skin. Have the police let the killer leave the scene? While Stone investigates the remains, Oliver travels to Iceland to gather evidence and track down the tourists who have fled. Someone will do anything to protect the secrets of the past.

When a body is pulled from the dank and dangerous fens on the outskirts of town, everybody assumes it was a tragic accident. But Detective Tara Thorpe, newly joined and determined to prove herself, suspects there’s more to the story. Tara is desperate to investigate further, but her supervisor Patrick Wilkins has other ideas. He would rather die than let this ambitious upstart show him up - even if it means some digging in Tara’s secret past to keep her under his thumb.

A young woman is found dead in her isolated town house in rural Red Creek, an up-and-coming wine tourism destination outside Sydney. No forced entry. No signs of struggle. And her geologist husband has an alibi, though it’s not exactly solid. While a tabloid journalist is quick to spin her own damning narrative, homicide detective Rose Riley is questioning everything she sees—especially in a rapidly developing community that already seems on edge.

Los Angeles homicide detective Dinah Marino may have a complicated relationship with her family, but her psychiatrist husband, Joe, makes her feel safe, secure, and happy. She couldn’t want for a more loving or trusting man. But throughout their ten-year marriage, she’s been keeping a secret from him—a secret she’d take to the grave. Dr. Joe Marino loves his wife more than anything in this world, but there are things he’s learned to keep close to the chest.

DS Kat Ballantyne came to the crime-writing festival for an escape. Instead she’s walked straight into a murder scene. Moments before he’s due on stage, a famous novelist is found dead in a locked room. It looks like natural causes, but Kat sees tiny clues that suggest murder. As she investigates, she uncovers literary rivalries, personal vendettas and hidden agendas. Is there anyone who didn’t have a motive to murder Mark Swift?

FBI Agent Rick Clark and his forensic psychologist sidekick, Marty Robin, are investigating a number of brutal serial murders committed within a three-year-period. All of the victims are women, and their backgrounds are similar in one important way. One important way, that is, in the twisted brain of the serial killer. While Rick and Marty speculate on personal events that may have created this moral monster, the listener becomes, if not sympathetic to the perp, at least more understanding of the role the past plays in creating a cold-blooded killer on a mission to save lost souls.