Serial Killer Mystery Fiction

FBI Special Agent Mackenzie White finds herself stumped. Victims are turning up dead, unrecognizable, their bodies hurled from the highest of heights. A deranged serial killer, obsessed with heights, is killing his victims from the highest locations. The pattern seems random. But is it? Only by entering into the darkest canals of the killer’s mind can Mackenzie begin to understand what his motive is - and where he will strike next.

A long, hot summer in Salisbury is broken by a sudden downpour. Flash floods and burst riverbanks bring something sinister to the surface - a partial human skeleton. When forensic testing matches the bones to a man named Lee Hall, reported missing some fifteen years earlier, the case is passed to DI Matt Lockyer. Hall was a known criminal and drug user. It looks like a simple case of accidental overdose, but Lockyer isn't so sure.

Victims are turning up dead in the woods, their bodies arranged with a serial killer’s signature. But what message, exactly, is he trying to send? Can brilliant FBI agent Ilse beck decode it in time before he strikes again? Or will his trail lead her straight into a trap? This case, tougher than she could have imagined, brings up dark memories from Ilse’s own past. But the clock is ticking, and she has little time to waste. Can Ilse battle her own demons and solve the twisted puzzle before time runs out?

For elite assassin Nena Knight, eliminating dangerous players on the world stage is part of the job. The Tribe, a powerful business syndicate in Africa, ensures that she has those opportunities. But for Nena, the Tribe is more than just her employer; it’s an organization that supports the African people—until it turns on itself.

When the body of a teenage runaway is found hidden inside someone else’s grave in a small-town cemetery in the Lake District, an urgent call is made to forensic pathologist Beth Adams. Still traumatised by a recent attempt on her own life, one look at the beautiful girl’s broken body is enough to bring Beth out of hiding for the first time since her attack. She’s the only one who can help her trusted friend, Detective Josh Walker, crack the most shocking case of his career.

Everything Elka knows of the world she learned from the man she calls Father, the solitary hunter who took her under his wing when she was just seven years old. He has taught her how to shoot, track, set snares, and start fires - all the skills she needs to survive in a frozen, lawless land where civilization has been destroyed and men are at the mercy of the elements and each other. But the man Elka thought she knew so well is harboring a terrible secret. He's a killer. A monster.

Tensions have been running high in White River as it approaches the anniversary of a fatal shooting of a black motorist by a local police officer. The economically depressed, racially polarized city is on edge, confronted with angry demonstrations, arson, and looting. In the midst of the turmoil, a White River police officer is shot dead by an unknown sniper. As the town spirals out of control, local authorities approach Dave Gurney to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting. But when he zeroes in on peculiar aspects of the individual murders that follow, his involvement is suddenly terminated.

Evelyn Talbot, a psychiatrist at a maximum-security prison in Alaska, studies some of the world's worst serial killers. But she's about to meet her most elusive patient at Hanover House yet: Dr. Lyman Bishop, aka the Zombie Maker, given his fondness for performing icepick lobotomies on his victims. A brilliant cancer researcher, Bishop is either the most cunning psychopath Evelyn has ever encountered - or he is wrongly convicted.

The first victim is discovered on the edge of the park. Young. Female. Beautiful. Or at least she was before her face was destroyed. Homicide detective Frank Bennett suspects that this is a first kill. And it won’t be the last. To stop a serial killer in the making, Frank will have to place his faith in his beautiful, dangerous partner Eden Archer - a cop who moonlights as a killer.... Eden knows the temptation of evil. Her intimate knowledge of the relentless forces that drive a killer gives her a unique edge.

Nine months ago, DCI Matilda Darke survived a bullet to the head. The brutal attack claimed dozens of lives, including those she loved most, and the nightmares still plague her every waking thought. Now, she’s ready to get back on the job. But a new terror awaits. A woman is found murdered and her wounds look eerily similar to several cold cases. Desperate to find a lead, DCI Darke and her team must face a terrifying truth: a serial killer is on the loose in Sheffield.

Five years ago, Tessa Chamberlain was the lone survivor of a beach house massacre that left three of her friends dead—and Tessa with an inescapable, unending dread. Now she’s going back to face her fears. Renting the same beach house where she almost died, Tessa returns to lonely Cassadaga Island off the coast of Maine long after the tourists and summer residents have departed for the winter. But as the fog rolls in and the nights grow longer, she wonders if she made a terrible mistake. There are footsteps on the porch, creaks from the second floor, and an unsettling feeling of being watched.

Sommerfeldt ist wieder da, wo er ganz am Anfang war: auf der Flucht! Gejagt von Polizei, BKA, mehreren Profikillern und Gangsterbossen. Raus aus der Klinik und weg aus Ostfriesland. Nach ihrer Hochzeit am Strand hatte Frauke sich ihre Flitterwochen anders vorgestellt. Anstelle von Champagner und Gourmet-Dinner im Luxushotel heben die beiden mitten in der Nacht in Gelsenkirchen-Ückendorf ein Grab aus. Hier hatte Sommerfeldt Papiere, Bargeld und Waffen deponiert, um jederzeit untertauchen zu können.

The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year's Eve ball, a woman is attacked as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is assaulted. Both victims' shoes are taken by the offender . . . Roy Grace soon realizes that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. Dubbed 'Shoe Man', the perpetrator was believed to have attacked five women before murdering his sixth victim and vanishing. Could this be a copycat, or has Shoe Man resurfaced?

Back in her natural habitat, Dr Nell Ward heads to a woodland pond to survey local newt populations. She's shocked to discover a car submerged in the water - with the driver dead behind the wheel. Nell recognises the dead man as professional racing driver, and tabloid love rat, Jack Rafferty, whose performance on (and off) Finchmere's racetrack had earned him enemies. Suspecting this isn't the tragic accident it appears DI James Clark calls upon Nell and her ecological skills to help find the murderer.

Seventeen-year-old Chloe Smedley walks out of the school gates and waves to the person waiting for her across the road. She smiles and hurries towards them… and is never seen alive again. Detective Jackie Cooke is first on the scene when Chloe’s body is found, posed upright at a garden table. In her gut, Jackie knows she’s searching for a monster and it’s only a matter of time before they strike again, but no one will listen.

Women are turning up dead on the rural outskirts of Virginia, killed in grotesque ways, and when the FBI is called in they are stumped. A serial killer is out there, his frequency increasing, and they know there is only one agent good enough to crack this case: Special Agent Riley Paige. Riley is on paid leave, recovering from her encounter with her last serial killer, and, fragile as she is, the FBI is reluctant to tap her brilliant mind. Yet Riley, needing to battle her own demons, comes onboard.

Als frisch gebackener Vater eines kleinen Wunderbabys namens Lilly-Ann fasst Dexter den Entschluss, ab jetzt ein anständiges Leben zu führen und seine blutrünstigeren Hobbies an den Nagel zu hängen. Als dann jedoch ein junges Mädchen verschwindet und die verdächtigte Gruppe äußerst merkwürdige Praktiken an den Tag legt, hilft der Rechtsmediziner doch wieder seiner Schwester Deborah bei der Aufklärung. Zumal bald der Verdacht des Kannibalismus im Raum steht.

It was supposed to be a simple case: a young man arrested for armed assault. But it was just the beginning. As Rodney Middleton awaits trial, Detective Jack Warr is warned by his mentor DCI Ridley that they have only scratched the surface of the man's crimes. Then DCI Ridley is suddenly removed from his post. No one is to contact him - and no one will say why.

In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged for a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims’ families, but its impact travels even further: into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes. Highway Thirteen, Fiona McFarlane’s newest collection, takes murder as its starting point, but it unfolds to encompass much more.

Colette “Coco” Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where, twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft—writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy, considering the number of elderly folks who are dying on the island. But as Coco learns more about these deaths, she quickly realizes that the circumstances surrounding them are remarkably similar....