Mystery Thriller Fiction

As a child, Henry Cadmus lived on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry's experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams are ones he associates with his childhood... and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals... and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

The new installment in the “relentlessly engrossing series” (The Wall Street Journal) finds Karen Pirie and her team investigating the murder of a journalist paved under a motorway—but was it his work or his private life that put him there? Scotland, 2025. When torrential winter rain...

After a tragedy too painful to bear, former novelist Lily Albrecht has resigned herself to a dull, sexless life as a rare-book dealer—until she gets a lead on a book that just might turn everything around. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a 17th-century manual on sex magic, rumored to be the most powerful occult book ever written—if it really exists at all. And some of the wealthiest people in the world are willing to pay Lily a fortune to find it, if she can.

Imagine investigating a case where each of the several victims had type O blood, drove an obsolete car, and hummed a nursery rhyme before committing murder and then suicide. That's young criminal psychologist Kit Franklyn's assignment and the solution just seems plain impossible. Her obese, jovial boss, chief medical examiner Andy Broussard, is just as baffled as she is. Together they devise strictly scientific possibilities.

Fuelled by anger and decision-impaired by gin, Patricia boards the world’s finest luxury cruise ship for a three-month tour of the world … and awakes to find herself embroiled in a thirty-year-old priceless jewel theft. Less than twenty-four hours after setting sail, she’s accused of murder and confined to her cabin. Thankfully, she is staying in the royal suite and that means she has a butler to help her. When he recruits his gym instructor BFF, Barbie, the trio turn detective to find the real killer.

Two cousins, devastated by a childhood prank, reunite 20 years later to renovate a castle in Eastern Europe. The fortress has a bloody history that stretches back hundreds of years. Amid extreme paranoia and eerie silence, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results.

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them - for a price.

In the epic fifth installment in this “compulsively readable” (People) series, Galbraith’s “irresistible hero and heroine” (USA Today) take on the decades-old cold case of a missing doctor, one which may be their grisliest yet. Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family...

When a hurricane slams into western North Carolina, Carver decides it's time to leave his remote mountain cabin and head to the beach. Before he can get far, his pickup is taken out by a landslide, along with all of his weapons and equipment. Now he's on foot in gale force winds and pouring rain. He soon discovers that the area is swarming with escaped prisoners and mercenaries using the storm as cover for an insidious plan. A plan that involves turning a natural disaster into a full-scale apocalypse. Carver would rather be on the beach, but there's no way out.

For vibrant, lovely Jean Suttman, the fellowship to study in Rome was the culmination of her dreams, until she undertook an innocent expedition to the ancient Temple of Mithra. From the moment she stepped into the pagan darkness and discovered the corpse of Albert, one of her fellow students, she was afraid. Not even the comforting presence of the perceptive and practical Jacqueline Kirby could erase the fear that was nourished by one small accident after another, "accidents" that came dreadfully close to killing her.

This lush and haunting novel tells of a city steeped in decadent pleasures and of a man, proud and defiant, caught in a web of murder and betrayal. It is 1833. In the midst of Mardi Gras, Benjamin January, a Creole physician and music teacher, is playing piano at the Salle d'Orleans when the evening's festivities are interrupted - by murder. The ravishing Angelique Crozat, a notorious octoroon who travels in the city's finest company, has been strangled to death.

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

Together with his gorgeous sidekick, psychologist Kit Franklyn, the two make a powerful, although improbable, mystery-solving duo. Among the dead collected in The Big Easy floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina are three nude female bodies, all caught in the same brush tangle, none with water in their lungs. Broussard knows in his ample gut that this was not an act of God, and not the work of Katrina. But Broussard has perhaps the biggest challenge of his colorful career.

Gabby Ashford has just survived an attempt on her life. Detectives have connected her story to two other cases in the area: Professional women drugged at a bar, brought to their homes, and drowned in their bathtubs. Gabby, who miraculously woke up in her own bathtub unharmed, could be the key to finding a serial killer on the loose - but she has no memory of the attack. Gabby admits herself to a high-end rehabilitation center to recover, and to seek the help of a psychiatrist renowned for his work with memory recovery.

When the beautiful Kit goes to meet an anonymous stranger - who's been sending her roses - the man drops dead at her feet before she even could even get his name. Game on. Andy Broussard soon learns that the man carried a lethal pathogen similar to the deadly Ebola virus. Soon, another body turns up with the same bug. Panic is imminent as the threat of pandemic is more real than ever before.

Harry attacked his commanding officer and is suspended indefinitely, pending a psychiatric evaluation. At first he resists the LAPD shrink, but finally recognizes that something is troubling him and has for a long time. In 1961, when Harry was 12, his mother, a prostitute, was brutally murdered with no one ever accused of the crime.

In Dressed to Steal, hot young designer Alicia Adams is opening a boutique in her hometown of River Heights. The press is all over the event. When the big day comes, tons of people show up, but when the crowd presses forward, the store window is smashed and people are injured. Later Alicia's most expensive dress is destroyed, and her store is vandalized. Nancy may not be into fashion, but this is one case she's ready to size up.

An illegal immigrant is killed in a hit-and-run on a frozen mountain road in the town of Fairview, Colorado. No one is prosecuted for his death and his case is quietly forgotten. Six months later another illegal makes a treacherous run across the border, barely escaping with her life. She finds work as a maid and, secretly, begins to investigate the death of her father. But she isn't a maid, and she's not Mexican.

Jesuit Priest Michael Dominic’s assignment to the Vatican’s legendary Secret Archives results in his discovery of a hidden papyrus: the unpublished writings of Mary Magdalene - a lost record buried in Rome’s deepest recesses. The forgotten relic’s heretical revelation threatens the Vatican’s very legitimacy, and pits Michael against ruthless and powerful enemies. Desperate, he reaches out to Hana Sinclair, an investigative reporter with a record of tackling contentious subjects.

A world-famous vintner is dead. And when a heartfelt plea to look into the matter is paired with an exclusive gourmet event in BC’s stunning wine country, Cait Morgan cannot resist. She is sure the owner of the family-run vineyard was murdered. But her companion, Bud Anderson, is convinced that the woman took her own life. That is, until death strikes once again. Uncovering obsessions and murderous thoughts among the victim’s wacky neighbours is a start. But, as Cait unravels the clues, she realizes that more lives are at stake.