Detective Serial Killer Fiction

Psychology student Olivia Eriksen’s family is notorious among true-crime buffs. Faced with a legacy of psychopathy that spans generations, Olivia has spent much of her academic life trying to answer one chilling question: Nature or nurture? Although she’s kept a safe distance from her blood relatives for years, Olivia agrees to attend a weekend reunion. After all, her fiancé is eager to meet his future in-laws, and the gathering may give her a chance to interview her elusive grandfather about the family traits.

Hidden deep in the forest, schoolgirl Felicity Parker is found carefully laid out on a rock with nothing but a freshly picked bunch of flowers next to her lifeless form. Detective Jenna Alton is called in to investigate the gruesome discovery. With the body found just off a popular hiking route, Jenna believes the killer is a visitor to the town...until a second local girl is discovered.

A stunning, erotic thriller by the bestselling author of Whiteness of Bones. Following the gruesome murder of a young woman in her neighborhood, a self-determined woman living in New York City--as if to test the limits of her own safety--propels herself into an impossibly risky sexual liaison...

A new thriller starring Alabamian police Detective Cooper Devereaux, who confronts a murderer dubbed the Birthday Killer. A woman disappears on the way to her 20th birthday party. Three days later her body is found neatly laid out in the grounds of a Birmingham cemetery. The following week, a second woman disappears on her 21st birthday. Her body is discovered in a crematorium parking lot, and grisly forensic evidence leads Detective Devereaux to make a high-profile arrest.

Winner of The Gilpin Hotel Prize for Fiction 2023 Eyes down to find a killer who’s playing to win… An irresistible slice of murder and mystery – there’s a killer on the loose in the Lake District, and the members of the Penrith Bingo Club have decided they’re the ones to catch the...

When five-year-old Ava Sawyer goes missing from a birthday party at a local garden center, the police are bewildered by the lack of leads. That is, until two years later, when Ava’s body is found and another little girl, Audrey Briggs, goes missing. Audrey also attended that party. Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward. A mother of two teenagers, this case chills her to the bone and is a disturbing reminder of the last job she worked on. One that still keeps her awake at night.

The rain had been falling for weeks when Black Rock Falls Sheriff Jenna Alton receives a panicked phone call from a local forest ranger. The lifeless body of a woman has washed up on the banks of a swollen river. Rushing to the scene, Jenna and her deputy, David Kane, find the young girl laying face up in the dirt, her long brown hair spilling out around her, her perfect pale skin showing no signs of struggle. Leaning in for a closer look, she finds a jack of hearts playing card tucked into the girl’s underwear. This was no accident—someone killed this innocent soul.

Saturday morning, a rare day off for Detective Maddie Ives. She's about to have a relaxing shower with her boyfriend Vince when she gets the call: There's been another one... Ron and Sandy Blackman's brutalised bodies are found in the hallway of their isolated rural home. They've been stabbed multiple times; Ron's hands are tied tightly behind his back; Sandy has several fingernails ripped out. The safe has been forced open. This is the second house of horrors that Maddie and her team have been called out to in a matter of days.

As a local biker war rages - seven shrink-wrapped corpses have been found buried on a farm just outside of Dundurn - an ambitious waterfront project meant to revive the dying industrial city is underway. Dredging is nearly complete when six more bodies turn up at the bottom of the lake. With the body count rising, the situation in Dundurn escalates as a serial killer begins targeting the city's successful young women of colour.

DS Kat Ballantyne came to the crime-writing festival for an escape. Instead she’s walked straight into a murder scene. Moments before he’s due on stage, a famous novelist is found dead in a locked room. It looks like natural causes, but Kat sees tiny clues that suggest murder. As she investigates, she uncovers literary rivalries, personal vendettas and hidden agendas. Is there anyone who didn’t have a motive to murder Mark Swift?

From two #1 bestselling masters of crime fiction comes an extraordinary thriller about family, murder, and the secrets that refuse to stay buried. It’s been more than a year since LAPD detective Jacob Lev learned the remarkable truth about his family, and he’s not coping well. He’s back...

“Screw a fresh lightbulb into your bedside lamp, lucky reader, and snuggle in for a nonstop, cover-to-cover ride.” -The Vancouver Sun “A wonderful, dense and detailed story ­ with murder, mayhem and a serial killer. … [In Acts of Murder,] everyone has a past.” -The Calgary Herald...

Rachel Goldman writes mysteries in which Duffy Madison, consultant to the county prosecutor's office, helps find missing persons. Rachel is busy working on her next book when a man calls out of the blue asking for help in a missing person case. The caller's name? Duffy Madison. Is this real, or has she lost her mind? She doesn't have much time to find out, because a serial killer is on the loose, kidnapping and murdering mystery authors. And Rachel may just be the next target.

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.

She’d been running for so long, it felt like her legs were on fire. Her heart was pounding so hard, she was sure it would give out. Around her, the snow was falling, casting an eerie silence over the town. A crack behind her, a foot snapping a branch, it warned her that he was still coming. She whipped around and saw the knife gleaming in his hand....

They are waiting for death. He is waiting to kill them. In May 2020, fourteen-year-old Andrew Golding went out for a walk following a row with his mum. He was never seen again. Four years later, when the press discovers police errors in Andrew Golding's case, DI Ridpath is called in to...

A young couple in their prime is found dead in the marital bed. As they lie naked, staring at each other with eyes wide open - filled with fear, his colleagues assume a double suicide, but Detective Andrew Deans senses that darker forces are at work. Deans is facing an awakening - a spiritual birth, but he is stuck in a living nightmare. Those around him are watching...judging...expecting him to break.

A tortured body is found in a basement. Drug dealing and people smuggling is on the rise. Then police start going missing! There seems to be no connection between the crimes, but Detective Caelan Small senses something isn’t right. Plunged into a new investigation, lives are on the line. And...

On a cold winter's morning, the body of a young boy is discovered in Epping Forest. The body is pristine and peaceful, his head resting gently on a pillow, an angel pendant clenched in his small fist. It is a murder as carefully planned as it is brutal, and there's one person DI Bishop needs back on his team to help solve such a calculated crime. Holly Wakefield, clinical psychologist for the Met Police, is better than anyone Bishop knows at getting inside the brains of psychopaths.

When the body of a man is found in the dense forest surrounding Black Rock Falls, Sheriff Jenna Alton immediately sees disturbing similarities with a past case - the same murder weapon, the remote beauty spot, and the way the victim is perched against a tree with no sign of a struggle. But the killer in that case was jailed for life.