Forensic Mystery Fiction

At first, Alexa Glock's initial case as a traveling forensic investigator seems straightforward - her expertise in teeth helps her identify the skeletal remains of a hunter found on the remote Stewart Island of New Zealand. But when she realizes the bullet lodged in his skull was not self-inflicted, and then a second shark-ravaged body washes up on Ringaringa Beach, it's clear that something dangerous is lurking in the beautiful waters surrounding the island. The disturbing sight seems to confirm what locals have hashed out in the pub.

There are 206 bones in the human body. Forensic anthropologists know them intimately, can read in them stories of brief or long lives and use them to reconstruct every kind of violent end. 206 Bones opens with Tempe regaining consciousness and discovering that she is in some kind of very small, very dark, very cold enclosed space. She is bound, hands to feet. Who wants Tempe dead, or at least out of the way, and why? Tempe begins slowly to reconstruct...

Despite all her years determining the fates of families, judge Hope Willis couldn't save her own. Her daughter taken, she's frantically grasping at any hope for Krissy's return. Desperate, Hope calls upon an unconventional team of experts for help.

Edgar Award winner Jonathan Kellerman once more explores the corruption of California's golden coast and produces a novel of complex characterizations and nonstop suspense. By the time psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware reached the school the damage was done: A sniper had opened fire on a crowded playground, but was gunned down before any children were hurt. While the TV news crews feasted on the scene and Alex began his therapy sessions with the traumatized children, he couldn't escape the image of a slight teenager clutching an oversized rifle.

From the jungles of Indonesia to the very heart of New York City comes a plague that kills 100 percent of its victims. Medicine's greatest nightmare, this modern Black Death is caused by the most virulent and uncontrollable mutant virus humanity has ever witnessed. And medicine can do nothing to stop its merciless spread.

Richard Parnell is one of the leading minds in gene therapy research, and he expects the job at Dubette, Inc., to be his first step to a Nobel Prize. But when he arrives at the American pharmaceutical giant, he finds himself shut out of the main avenues of research, isolated from the cutting edge in a way he has never been before.

Morton Farrier’s life has been turned upside down by the recent addition to his household. Despite his perpetual exhaustion, he is determined to crack his latest genealogical investigation: the mystery of one Grace Emmerson, a militant suffragette. Salso happens to be his wife’s great-grandmother. Using a range of genealogical skills and resources, Morton sets out to discover Grace’s secret past.

In the lockdown ward of a psychiatric hospital, Dr. Nadine Lavoie is in her element. She has the tools to help people, and she has the desire: Healing broken families is what she lives for. But Nadine doesn’t want to look too closely at her own past because there are whole chunks of her life that are black holes. It takes all her willpower to tamp down her recurrent claustrophobia, and her daughter, Lisa, is a runaway who has been on the streets for seven years. When a distraught woman, Heather Simeon, is brought into the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit after a suicide attempt, Nadine gently coaxes her story out of her - and learns of some troubling parallels to her own life.

Morton Farrier was no longer at the top of his game. His forensic genealogy career was faltering and he was refusing to accept any new cases, preferring instead to concentrate on locating his own elusive biological father. Yet, when a particular case presents itself, that of finding the family of a woman abandoned in the midst of the Battle of Britain, Morton is compelled to help her to unravel her past.

Eleven years ago, the Co-ed Slayer murdered nine female students on the Oregon State University campus. Lacey Campbell barely escaped his attack, but lost her best friend whose remains were never found. As the sole surviving victim, Lacey helped send the sadistic serial killer to prison for life. Now a forensic odontologist examining teeth and bones for the state Medical Examiner, Lacey is devastated when she arrives at a crime scene and identifies the skeletal remains as her college friend’s.

Two patients in comas, not expected to live: when they both recover, sharing the same bizarre symptom of blue urine, it’s a medical miracle that Dr. Roger Clark cannot explain. One of the patients happens to be Sharon Wilder, a beautiful Hollywood starlet. When she offers Dr. Clark the chance to accompany her to the private Caribbean island called Eden, he has to accept—if only to learn more about the bioengineering company Advance, Inc., and their promise to make your wildest dreams come true.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer-genius niece, Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost 20 years ago. As Scarpetta watches she begins to learn frightening secrets about her niece. That film clip and others sent soon after raise dangerous legal implications that increasingly isolate Scarpetta and leave her confused, worried, and not knowing where to turn.

Morton Farrier, the esteemed English forensic genealogist, had cleared a space in his busy schedule to track down his own elusive father finally. But he is then presented with a case that challenges his research skills in his quest to find the killer of a woman murdered more than 180 years ago. Thoughts of his own family history are quickly and violently pushed to one side as Morton rushes to complete his investigation before other sinister elements succeed in derailing the case.

When the phone rings in the middle of the night, child psychologist Alex Delaware does not hesitate. Driving through the dream-lit San Fernando Valley, Alex rushes to Jamey Cadmus, the patient he had failed five years before - and who now calls with a bizarre cry for help. But by the time Alex reaches Canyon Oaks Psychiatric Hospital, Jamey is gone, surfacing a day later in the hands of the police, who believe Jamey is the infamous Lavender Slasher, a psychotic serial killer. Wooed by a high-powered attorney to build a defense, Alex will get a chance to do what he couldn't five years ago.

Powerful entertainment from the crime fiction superstar who combines riveting authenticity with witty, elegant prose. Best selling author Kathy Reichs "keeps the twists coming, and by the novel's climax, she has skillfully interwoven her many subplots and red herrings into a satisfying puddle of sex, sleaze, greed and gore," says Publishers Weekly.

Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a devastating turn for the worse. Accompanied by the newest member of the Women's Murder Club, Yuki Castellano, Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer probes deeper into the incidents. Could these cases just be appalling coincidences? Or is a maniac playing God with people's lives? When someone close to the Women's Murder Club begins to exhibit the same frightening symptoms, Lindsay fears no one is safe.

Dolphins are magical creatures: They comfort the heartbroken, rescue the lost, even heal the sick. At the Hope Key Dolphin Assisted Therapy center in Florida dolphins use their healing powers to help autistic children communicate and to soothe other troubled people. But what if you don't want help? What if you've gone so far down the wrong path that you can't go back? Katy Grant can't see any way back from the path her life has taken. And she doesn't really care. Working at Hope Key keeps her out of jail. And it just might give her the chance at revenge she wants on the man who ruined her life.

Dr. Morton Handler practiced a strange brand of psychiatry. Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old Melody Quinn.

DS George Cross can be rude, difficult and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and dogged pursuit of the truth means his conviction rate is the best on the force. So when his police colleagues dismiss the death of a man as a squabble among Bristol's homeless community, Detective Sergeant George Cross is not convinced.

Keeping watch over the Easter Sepulchre, where the Host and crucifix are stored between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, is considered a privilege. So it is shocking when it is discovered that Odo, the priest’s clerk, has abandoned his post. But as the hours pass and Odo is not found, Hugh de Singleton is called upon. It is Hugh that finds the dried blood before the altar, and fear grows for the missing man … Will Hugh be called upon to investigate another murder, or will the man be found hale and hearty? But if so, where has the blood come from?