Serial Killer Thrillers Fiction

Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind---addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind.

On a frigid December night, Karen sits at the edge of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, dressed in a flowing gown, like a visitor from the distant past. A beautiful and shining young woman, she gazes up at a bone-white winter moon like a fairytale princess. At first glance, one might not even notice that she is dead, coated in a patina of ice. Homicide cops Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano take the lead on the case, uncovering a plethora of eerie clues, each more warped and spine-chilling than the last.

Vampires may not walk among us, but FBI agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter know real monsters exist. They’ve witnessed firsthand the worst humankind has to offer. They’re still catching their breaths after the apprehension of two such monstrous killers when they’re met with horrific news: Stephan Dante, the self-proclaimed king of the vampires, has escaped from prison, followed only by a trail of blood. All too familiar with Dante’s cruelty, Della and Mason know the clock is ticking. But as Dante claims more victims, a chilling message arrives.

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.

Police Constable Matthew Riley is called to an emergency on a hot day in Langthorne. He is forced to read out words live on police radio. Then he is shot dead. Someone is killing the officers of the Langthorne Police one by one. And in a sadistic twist he makes each victim push their radio panic button before they die, thus broadcasting their last moments to the entire force. And as the police face this ruthless adversary, detective George Elms is in no fit state to help. He can barely keep his life together and is desperate to sort things out with his estranged wife and daughter.

In the Maya Gray series (which begins with book one, Girl One: Murder) FBI Special Agent Maya Gray, 39, has seen it all. She’s one of BAU’s rising stars and the go-to agent for hard-to-crack serial cases. When she receives a handwritten postcard promising to release 12 kidnapped women if she will solve 12 cold cases, she assumes it’s a hoax. Until the note mentions that, among the captives, is her missing sister. Maya, shaken, is forced to take it seriously.

When Detective Erika Foster receives a tip-off that key evidence for a major narcotics case was stashed in a disused quarry on the outskirts of London, she orders for it to be searched. From the thick sludge the drugs are recovered, but so is the skeleton of a young child. The remains are quickly identified as seven-year-old Jessica Collins. The missing girl who made headline news 26 years ago.

Returning to the Broads after nearly two years at sea, John Tanner moors up next to a boat to find the body of a man whose five-year-old daughter is nowhere to be seen. As a torrent of unwanted memories begins flooding through his mind, an attractive Broads Ranger arrives at the scene with a disturbing tale; one of children being taken by a ghostly figure, standing at the helm of an old wooden boat.

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.

Saffy Huntley-Oliver is an intelligent and glamorous socialite; she also happens to be a proficient serial killer. For the past fifteen years, she’s hunted down and dispatched rapists, murderers, domestic abusers—bad men all. But leading a double life has left her lonely—dating’s tough when your boyfriend might turn out to be your next victim. Saffy thinks she’s finally found a truly good man in Jonathan Desrosiers, a true-crime podcaster who’s amassed legions of diehard fans for cracking cold cases and bringing justice to victims.

When a tech entrepreneur from Shoreditch is found dead in a construction site, along with three skeletons which are discovered to be over a hundred years old, Detective Kamil Rahman sets out to prove himself on his first case for the Met Police.

Hours later, the man’s cold body lies in the city mortuary, alongside the woman he couldn’t save. And his sister, unconventional nurse Gemma Tate, tracks down troubled police inspector Sebastian Bell to unravel the truth. Sebastian has enough pressure to solve the murder of an aristocratic heiress without Gemma meddling in his case. But the cryptic sentences she brings him from her brother’s notebook could be a crucial lead. If only they knew what “milky way” meant.

Portrait of the Medical Student as a Young Body Snatcher. Yet I must insist that in the end, this is not a story about Death. It is perhaps a Life story, or even—yes—a Love story. It is the story of how I clawed my way from the decay of a crumbling legacy into the modern era of Reason and Science. It is the story of how I escaped the prison of archaic superstition to the freedom of enlightenment. It is the story of how a rose can blossom from even the bloodiest soil, of how light can grow from shadow, how love can grow from despair.

Tracy Crosswhite is reopening the investigation into Seattle’s Route 99 serial killer. After thirteen victims, he stopped hunting and the trail went cold, stirring public outrage. Now, nearly three decades after his first kill, Tracy is expected to finally bring closure to the victims’ families and redeem the Seattle PD’s reputation. Even if it means working with her nemesis, Captain Johnny Nolasco.

He appears in the darkness like a ghost, made of shadows and fear - the Midnight Man. He comes for the parents but leaves the children alive, tiny witnesses to unspeakable horror. The bedroom communities of Los Angeles are gripped with dread, and the attacks are escalating. Still reeling from her best friend's close call in a bombing six months ago, FBI behavioral analyst Caitlin Hendrix has come to Los Angeles to assist in the Midnight Man investigation and do what she does best - hunt a serial killer.

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?

A demented serial killer, who calls himself "The Will of the People", has gained a wide audience by sending warning letters to the New York Daily News. When "Will" names a prominent criminal defense attorney as his next victim, P.I. Matt Scudder suddenly finds himself protecting an old associate. Matching his wits against the wily murderer, Matt must race to uncover "Will's" identity before he loses his lawyer friend.

Two years ago, Maria Fontana, the head of the Psychology Department at Columbia University, sat on a jury for one of the most depraved cases ever to pass through the hallowed halls of City Hall. Wyatt Butler, an antique watch restorer and alleged serial killer, was portrayed in the courtroom as a brutal monster. But Maria had to make the tough choice.

Alex Mercer and his fiancee Zoey have weathered many storms, but this latest one might be too much for even them. She's hiding a secret she fears will send him running for the hills, and she has to tell him before he finds out on his own. Time is definitely not on her side. But with his busy hours at the police academy, there hardly seems a moment to open up to him.

In 1993, Marie Gesto disappeared after walking out of a supermarket in Hollywood. Harry Bosch worked the case but couldn't crack it, and the 22-year-old woman never turned up, dead or alive. Now Bosch is in the Open-Unsolved Unit, where he still keeps the Gesto file on his desk, when he gets a call from the DA. A man accused of two heinous killings is willing to come clean about other murders, including the killing of Marie Gesto.