Serial Killer Mystery Fiction

On a cold icy morning, a mother wakes to find her daughter’s blood-soaked body frozen to the road. Who would carry out such a horrific killing on the victim’s doorstep? Straight off her last harrowing case, Detective Erika Foster is feeling fragile but determined to lead the investigation. As she sets to work, she finds reports of assaults in the same quiet South London suburb where the woman was killed. One chilling detail links them to the murder victim - they were all attacked by a figure in black wearing a gas mask.

Though the cat-and-mouse chase between these two lethal adversaries has seemingly ended, the sophisticated, deadly thrill of Eve and Villanelle's relationship is far from over.

Outside the house where Wexford investigated his first murder case—a woman found strangled in her bedroom—he noticed a short, muscular man wearing a scarf and walking a dog. He gave Wexford an unnerving stare. Without any solid evidence, Wexford began to suspect that this man—Eric Targo—was the killer. Over the years there are more unsolved, apparently motiveless murders in the town of Kingsmarkham, and Wexford continues to quietly suspect that the increasingly prosperous Targo—van driver, property developer, kennel owner, and animal lover—is behind them.

Dr. Tessa McGowan had never seen anything quite like it. But the mutilated bodies on her exam table tell a stunningly macabre tale: someone with a twisted mind is kidnapping women and altering their faces to resemble real, life-size dolls. As a forensic pathologist, it's her job to aid the agent leading the case—even if that agent is her estranged husband.

Fourteen years ago, Kaitlin Roe was the lone witness to the abduction of her cousin Gina. She still remembers that lonely Virginia road. She can still see the masked stranger and hear Gina’s screams. And she still suffers the guilt of running away in fear and resents being interrogated as a suspect in the immediate aftermath. Now Kaitlin has only one way to assuage the pain and nightmares—by interviewing everyone associated with the unsolved crime for a podcast that could finally bring closure to a case gone cold.

Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever. Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more.

Anna Koray escaped her father’s darkness long ago. When she was a girl, her childhood memories were sealed away from her conscious mind by a controversial hypnosis treatment. She’s now a decorated sheriff’s lieutenant serving a rural county, conducting an ordinary life far from her father’s shadow. When Anna kills a man in the line of duty, her suppressed memories return. She dreams of her beloved father, his hands red with blood, surrounded by flower-decked corpses he had sacrificed to the god of the forest.

In The Boy Who Followed Ripley, Highsmith explores Ripley's bizarrely paternal relationship with a troubled young runaway, whose abduction draws them into Berlin's seamy underworld. More than any other American literary character, Ripley provides "a lens to peer into the sinister machinations of human behavior." (John Freeman, Pittsburgh Gazette).

Victims of a new serial killer are found with strings, tied up to look like puppets. What is the killer hinting at? Who will he strike next? But time is running out, and Maya’s sister’s life is on the line. Can she solve the case in time? Or has she finally met her match?

Genervt davon, ihre Freundinnen mit deren Ehemännern und Kindern in die Vororte verschwinden zu sehen, findet Hannah in einem Internet-Forum für True-Crime eine aufregende neue Beschäftigung. Die Community hat es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, die Morde an vier Frauen aufzuklären, die in einer Schlucht außerhalb von Atlanta abgelegt wurden.

Tout débute par la mystérieuse disparition d'une lycéenne, dans une sinistre bourgade située en bordure d'une forêt aussi impressionnante qu'inquiétante L'inspectrice Paula Beyer, est envoyée au cœur de la petite ville allemande de Freidorf pour élucider cette alarmante disparition.

Czechoslovakia, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a newly trained psychiatrist who studied under Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle surrounded by forests, on a site that is well known for concealing dark secrets going back many centuries. The asylum houses six inmates - the country's most treacherous killers - known to the terrified public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect.

The fourth thriller in the number one best-selling crime series from the award-winning Stuart MacBride. Panic grips the Granite City as DS Logan McRae heads up a manhunt for 'The Flesher' - one of the UK's most notorious serial killers. The case was closed. Until the killer walked free.... When an offshore container turns up at Aberdeen Harbour full of human meat, it kicks off the largest manhunt in the Granite City's history.

Officiellement mort, le Bourbon Kid pourrait en profiter pour couler des jours heureux en compagnie de Beth, son amour de jeunesse enfin retrouvé. Encore faudrait-il que sa nouvelle identité reste secrète, sans quoi ses nombreuses victimes et ses ennemis, plus nombreux encore, finiraient bien par s'unir pour se venger. Mais quand Beth est kidnappée, et qu'il s'avère aussi être le seul à pouvoir sauver Santa Mondega d'un terrible bain de sang, le Bourbon Kid n'a plus qu'une solution : revenir d'entre les morts. Plus sauvage et plus impitoyable que jamais. Un quatrième épisode des aventures du Bourbon Kid, encore plus déjanté et jubilatoire que les trois premiers.

Seventeen years ago. That was the last time Mercy Callahan saw Ephraim Burton, the leader of the twisted Eden cult where she was raised. But even though she escaped the abuse and terror, they continue to haunt her. When her brother Gideon discovers new evidence of the cult's - and their victims' - whereabouts, Mercy goes to Sacramento to reconnect with him. There, she meets Gideon's closest friend - homicide detective Rafe Sokolov. From Rafe, she receives an offer she never knew she needed: to track down Ephraim and make him pay for everything.

Tonight, Riverview Theaters is closing forever, the last remaining business in a defunct shopping mall. The moviegoers have left, and Jo and her six coworkers have the final shift, a shift that quickly takes a dark turn. First a stranger arrives with a chilling accusation. Then the power goes out and their manager disappears, along with the keys to the lobby doors and the theater safe, where the crew's phones are locked each shift. The crew's tension turns to terror when Jo discovers the dead body of one of her co-workers.

Daisy-Mae is now sure she’s awake. It’s not the cutting breeze or the musty smell that has her convinced, it’s the pain. You can’t dream pain. She is being held down, something tight over her arms, her chest too. She turns her head for a different view: a whitewashed wall, faded by time, scuffed to add to the impression of a building deserted in a hurry. But there is something in the room that looks fresh: graffiti. The letters spell out three words that are enough to have her retching again: DON’T WAKE UP. The next day Daisy-Mae’s friend also disappears.

Each time he struck, he took two victims. He waited for the first body to be discovered - a body containing all the clues the investigators needed to find the second victim. The clock ticked - the police were never in time. Years have passed and the game begins again. Two girls have disappeared...and the clock is ticking. Rookie FBI agent Kimberly Quincy knows the killer's deadline can be met. But she'll have to beat a criminal at a game he's had time to perfect.

The people of Penrith are delighted when local businessman Hal Mulberry succeeds in his childhood dream of buying the world famous painting, Buttermere at Dawn. And he’s determined not to keep it to himself, but to bring it back to the Lake District where it belongs and put it on show. Hal has a plan to turn Penrith Village Hall into a cultural hotspot – with the painting at its heart. But not everyone is pleased.

Leo Stone is a ruthless killer or the victim of a miscarriage of justice. A year ago, he was convicted of the murder of two women and sentenced to life in prison. But now he's free, and according to him, he's innocent. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent are determined to put Stone back behind bars where he belongs, but the more Maeve finds out, the less convinced she is of his guilt. Then another woman disappears in similar circumstances. Is there a copycat killer, or have they been wrong about Stone from the start?