Serial Killer Mystery Fiction

A closely guarded secret, lying in a shallow grave for years, is under threat of being revealed and no one seems willing to face up to their past... least of all, Duncan McAdam himself. Duncan has a decision to make, one that will impact not only his life but the lives of those he cares about the most. Does he have the courage to follow his instincts? And just who is he acting in the interests of... the people he loves, or purely for himself?

Russell Walker retreats from the shock of his wife's death by becoming a hermit in the woods of British Columbia. There he finds himself thrust into a precarious role as intermediary between a telepath called Smelly, so sensitive he can't stand to be near most people, and Constable Hilda, a skeptical police officer who needs Smelly's insight to track down a monstrous serial killer.

The youth theatre cast are in their places but Gus Lynch’s female lead is missing, that is, until she’s found in the boot of his car. Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay and Sergeant Gordon Hunter are assigned to head the murder enquiry, meanwhile violence is escalating on the Starling Farm Estate as police battle to contain the latest outbreak of joyriding. Is the death of Gabriella connected to the events at Starling Farm? When another death occurs, investigations suggest a possible link, and Ramsay realizes what could have provoked someone to kill...and kill again.

Emma is the one that got away. The only survivor of a serial killer known in the tabloids as “The Hairdresser”, because of the trophies he takes from his victims. The police aren't convinced. Nor is her husband. She never actually saw her tormentor properly, but now she recognizes him in every man she sees. Haunted by the horrifying incident and unwanted notoriety, Emma gives up her job as a psychiatrist and retreats from the outside world to recuperate at home, where it’s quiet. Where she can be anonymous and safe. Where no one can hurt her.

An innocent family are the latest victims of a grisly series of hideous sacrificial killings that no one understands, and no one can stop. Nobody lives to tell of the unimaginable carnage. Only the blood-stained walls bear witness. All hope rests on Special Agent Will Graham, who must peer inside the killer's tortured soul to understand his rage, to anticipate and prevent his next vicious crime. Desperate for help, Graham finds himself locked in a deadly alliance with the brilliant Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the infamous mass murderer.

He slips into their homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, unaware of the horrors they soon will endure. The precision of the killer's methods suggests he is a deranged man of medicine, propelling the Boston newspapers and the frightened public to name him "The Surgeon". The cops' only clue rests with another surgeon, the victim of a nearly identical crime. Two years ago, Dr. Catherine Cordell fought back and killed her attacker before he could complete his assault.

Twenty-year-old Kendele Byers is savagely killed and buried in a shallow grave. She had a violent past, a bizarre, kinky line of work, and the suspect list grows longer every day. But when another woman is murdered, Detective Mitchell Lonnie realizes that there's something much more sinister afoot: a connection between the two murders. Both victims had received a clue hinting at their oncoming demise several minutes before they were attacked. There's a serial killer in Glenmore Park.

Called in to examine what is left of a person thought to have been struck by lightning, Tempe traces an unusual tattoo to its source and is soon embroiled in a much larger case. Young men—tourists—have been disappearing on the islands of Turks and Caicos. Seven years earlier, the first victim was found in a strange location with his left hand hacked off; subsequently, two other visitors vanished without a trace. But, recently, tantalizing leads have emerged and only Tempe can unravel them.

No one in Heppleburn has a bad word to say about Alice Parry...but here she is, murdered in her own backyard on a bitter St. David’s Eve. When detective Stephen Ramsay starts asking questions in the village, a more ambiguous picture begins to emerge. Yes, old Mrs. Parry was loved by everyone, but sometimes her kindness had caused trouble. Yes, her two nephews were devoted to her, but they didn’t really want her interfering in their rather complicated personal lives.

After a string of brutal murders in Las Vegas, Cassie Hobbes and the Naturals are called in to investigate. But even with the team's unique profiling talents, these murders seem baffling: unlike many serial killers, this one uses different methods every time. All of the victims were killed in public, yet the killer does not show up on any security feed. And each victim has a string of numbers tattooed on their wrist. Hidden in the numbers is a code—and the closer the Naturals come to unraveling the mystery, the more perilous the case becomes.

Rookie cop Carrie Santero has always been fascinated by serial killers. As a teenager, she wrote a letter to Charles Manson in prison - and received a chilling reply. Then she came face to face with a child murderer in her small Pennsylvania town, an encounter that haunts her to this day. Now, as a detective in training, she finally has her chance to make a difference; to hunt down a psychopathic sadist who embodies the very nature of evil itself.

Carmen Sanchez is a tough Homeland Security agent who plays by the rules. But when her sister is attacked, revealing a connection to a series of murders across Southern California, she realizes a conventional investigation will not be enough to stop the ruthless perpetrator. With nowhere else to turn, Sanchez enlists the aid of Professor Jake Heron, a brilliant and quirky private security expert who, unlike Sanchez, believes rules are merely suggestions. The two have a troubled past, but he owes her a favor and she’s cashing in.

Josh Baxter, the man behind the wheel, is a virtual stranger to Charlie. They met at the campus ride board, each looking to share the long drive home to Ohio. Both have good reasons for wanting to get away. For Charlie, it’s guilt and grief over the shocking murder of her best friend, who became the third victim of the man known as the Campus Killer. For Josh, it’s to help care for his sick father - or so he says.

Perla Wultz lives with her husband, Grant, and their precious daughter, Sophie, in a gated Pasadena community. Affluent, sociable, and accomplished, Perla plays the part of loving wife and mother to perfection. It seems an ideal life, if not for a decades-old crime that has become Perla’s dark and consuming secret obsession. Twenty-three years ago, Leewood Folcrum confessed to murdering two young girls during a birthday party. Though he’s been condemned to a life sentence, his crime is not forgotten.

An airport killer targeting pilots expands his scope. Alex Cross Must Die. “Drop whatever you’re doing, Detective Cross, and head to Reagan Airport,” DC Metro Police dispatch says. “A jet just crashed and exploded on the runway. The chief and the FBI want you and John Sampson there pronto.” Cross and Sampson race to the crash site. The plane didn’t fail—it was shot down by a stolen Vietnam War–era machine gun.

Bret Easton Ellis’s masterful new novel is a story about the end of innocence, and the perilous passage from adolescence into adulthood, set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city.

“One of the most likable vigilante serial killers” ( The New Yorker) faces his ultimate adversary…an evil so terrifying it scares away Dexter’s inner monster - and nearly dries up his sense of humor - in this wickedly witty, darkly suspenseful novel.

For Dorothea Cassidy Thursdays were special. But one Thursday in June was to be more special than any other. It was the day that Dorothea Cassidy was strangled... As the small town of Otterbridge prepares for its summer carnival, Inspector Stephen Ramsay begins a painstaking reconstruction of Dorothea’s last hours. He soon discovers that she had taken on a number of deserving cases – a sick and lonely old woman, a disturbed adolescent, a compulsive gambler, a single mother with a violent boyfriend and a child in care – and even her close family have their secrets to hide.

Invite Hannibal Lecter into the palace of your mind and be invited into his mind palace in turn. Note the similarities in yours and his, the high vaulted chambers of your dreams, the shadowed halls, the locked storerooms where you dare not go, the scrap of half-forgotten music, the muffled cries from behind a wall. In one of the most eagerly anticipated literary events of the decade, Thomas Harris takes us once again into the mind of a killer, crafting a chilling portrait of insidiously evolving evil - a tour de force of psychological suspense.

Someone is murdering high-ranking Vietnamese government officials, so the head of Saigon's homicide division, Captain Chyang Fang, a troubled Chinese Vietnamese man, is given the task of finding the killer. Hated by almost everyone in Saigon and an outcast in both Chinese and Vietnamese circles, Fang has to rely on his wit, biting sarcasm, and not-so-capable assistant, Sergeant Phan - a man who would rather play on his smartphone than work - to find the killer who leaves toy cobras on the bodies of his victims.