Serial Killer Thrillers Fiction

Bestselling true crime writer and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee turns his attention to a new kind of victim: the wives and partners of serial murderers who remained unaware of exactly who they had fallen for until after their other half's arrest or, in some cases, conviction. When finding out the truth, these innocents have to face the grim reality of betrayal and deceit and often experience guilt for not having recognized the killer in their home.

Renée Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago. The arrested man is only twenty-four, so the genetic link must be familial: His father was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles. Meanwhile, Ballard’s badge, gun, and ID are stolen.

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.

Across the Pacific Northwest, a twisted killer stalks victims representing ancient archetypes: The Ruler. The Warrior. The Scholar. The Priest. Four are dead, leaving FBI investigators puzzled by the macabre, color-coded shrines the killer left behind. And clues now point to a fifth victim.

Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him. Hannibal’s uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle’s beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki. But Hannibal’s demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn. He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death’s prodigy.

Madison Colson knows deep down that her father—a convicted serial killer—is innocent. Duty calls her back to Fog Lake, Tennessee, where terrifying events begin to unfold. The Good Samaritan Killer—or a copycat—is back. FBI Special Agent Shane Townsend is determined to stop the deadly rampage that has sent the tight-knit community into a frenzy. But he needs to earn Madison’s trust first. The task feels impossible, especially considering his father is the one who put her dad in prison.

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.

Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse, or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.

Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He’s a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likable: he only kills bad people.

Midnight Jones is an analyst trained to understand the human mind. But everything changes when, in the course of her work, she discovers Profile K’s file – because K stands for killer, and she knows that someone more dangerous than she could have ever imagined walks among them. Midnight knows what Profile K is capable of before he even commits his first crime. But as the news rolls with the brutal murder of a local woman, no one believes what she tells them. Profile K will kill again – and Midnight realises that the moment she found his file was the moment she became his next target.

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.

She calls herself Lady Justice. And once she has chosen a man as her target, she turns herself into a tall blonde or a curvaceous redhead, makes herself as alluring and seductive as possible to them. Once they are in her grasp, they are powerless. The first victim is wealthy businessman Nigel McEnroy. His company’s human resources department has already paid out settlements to a couple of his young victims - but they don’t know that his crimes go far beyond workplace harassment. Lady Justice knows. And in one shocking night of brutality, she makes him pay a much steeper price.

When the body of a bookseller is discovered, collapsed in a pool of blood in his Bristolian bookshop, it is immediately clear that he has been murdered. What is unclear is how someone could have met such a violent end in this quiet, peaceful place. DS Cross is adept at dismissing red-herrings but a worrying development in his personal life has left him hopelessly distracted, leaving his usual means of deciphering evidence challenged.

Struggling with her demons, Darcy moves her family to Genoa Cove. With the sadistic killer she captured serving a life sentence, she hopes a peaceful life along the ocean will end her nightmares. Then a body surfaces along the coast. And the evidence points to one man: the killer Darcy put behind bars three years ago. Either Darcy caught the wrong man, or an apprentice serial killer stalks paradise. Then the murderer takes another life, and the nightmare of three years ago rushes forth to claim Darcy.

Eat Pray Love meets American Psycho in a seductive and sinister debut literary thriller. Food critic Dorothy Daniels indulges in her homicidal urges by murdering her lovers and devouring their organs in this intense, visceral, and lushly told tale of food, sex, power, and the pursuit of a very particular taste set between New York and Italy. Please Note: A Certain Hunger contains adult language and depictions of violence. Discretion is advised.

Paul Sheldon is a best-selling novelist who has finally met his number-one fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes, and she is more than a rabid reader - she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also furious that the author has killed off her favorite character in his latest book. Annie becomes his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house. Annie wants Paul to write a book that brings Misery back to life - just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on.

Everyone in the small town of Central City, Texas loves Lou Ford. A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers - the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between - as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday. But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen.

One moonlit night, the bodies of two young people are discovered lying entwined on a blanket in the woods. The young man is clutching a red rose. It appears to be a lovers' suicide pact.... Until Detective Nikki Galena and DS Joseph Easter look more closely. Romeo and Juliet, as they decide to call them, were murdered somewhere else and brought to the woods. But why? Then another young couple are found dead, again beautifully posed as lovers.

When the body of forty-four-year-old Karen Simmons is found abandoned in remote woodland, journalist Kiki Nunn hopes this will be the big break she so desperately needs. Because she has a head start on all the other reporters. Just a week before Karen was killed, Kiki interviewed her about the highs and lows of midlife romance. Karen told her all about kissing strangers under the stars, expensive meals, roses. About the scammers and the creeps . . . While the police appear to be focusing on local suspects, Kiki sets out to write the definitive piece on one woman's fatal search for love.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot. Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet. Then the brutal murder of a young woman—the latest in a string of deaths across the coast—confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.