Serial Killer Mystery Fiction

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.

Retired from the force, Detective Superintendent Jeffrey Brandt goes native. He stabs a woman but holds back from killing her. Frustrated that no one takes any notice, he ups his game. Next time, he'll kill. Brandt fully knows how the police work. He'll use this knowledge to win a sick game; after all, he's chosen the rules. The crime scenes are spotless, Brandt's covered his tracks. There is no forensic evidence. Yet each killing has his unmistakable print. Faced with the challenge of discovering his identity is DCI Stella Johnson. She rises to Brandt's macabre challenge.

A local man has fatally overdosed on fentanyl at the ice cream parlor after polishing off a salted caramel cone. No history of drug use, no needles, no signs of addiction—only a body filled with poison. Rebecca suspects something far worse than a tragic accident. But how does fentanyl find its way into a dessert? When a father and his two children are poisoned by fentanyl after eating at a local diner, Rebecca comes to a startling realization. A sadistic killer is playing a dangerous game of chance, turning routine moments into fatal traps.

Catching a ride may not be as safe as we thought. Find out why when a couple of rides shares take a deadly turn.

Writer Karen Walker knows more than most about murderers. Her first love went on to become The Bagman, a notorious serial killer now locked away for life in a maximum-security prison. Karen has spent her life running from the weight of having loved him, defended him and, ultimately, leading the police to his door. But now, ten years later, just as she’s about to publish her account of his crimes, a young woman is abducted in horribly familiar circumstances.

It takes a killer to catch a killer. And no one understands the motives of ruthless murderer The Sandman quite like Rhett Voss. Having spent his childhood in the shadows of the deranged lunatic, he's become an expert on the topic. Killing is in his blood, and as a hitman for hire, Voss maintains a steady diet of carnage, himself. Except lately, it's lost its appeal. Until he's enticed to track down the clever Sandman who has his sights set on Nola Tensley.

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 a fellow FBI agent is kidnapped and a protected witness vanishes, Leo Gallagher will stop at nothing to find them both. So when he discovers a link between the case and a single mother in Wyoming, Leo and his trusty K-9 partner rush to question Alicia Duncan. Could she be the key to locating the missing persons?

A historical mystery about a girl who risks everything to track down a vicious serial killer, for fans of The Enigma Game and Last Night at the Telegraph Club. Virginia, 1943: World War II is raging in Europe and on the Pacific front when Kit Sutherland is recruited to help the war effort as a...

“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...

The morning after a wedding reception at a beautiful suburban home in Sheffield, the bride’s entire family are stabbed to death—in a frenzied attack more violent than anything DCI Matilda Darke could have imagined. Forensics point to a burglar on the run across the country. But cracks are starting to appear in Matilda’s team, someone is playing games with the evidence—and the killer might be closer to home than they thought....

When homeless man Bobby Stover insists his friend’s suicide was really murder, DI Sheridan Holler is sceptical—until she uncovers a series of deaths, all of them in Liverpool, all ruled as suicides, that suddenly look like anything but. The killings span years, each one chillingly staged, the truth buried beneath an illusion of despair. This murderer is following a mysterious pattern—and there seems to be no end in sight.

Ten years ago, when Eve Townsend was seventeen years old, Tightrope killed her family and took her younger sister, Maddie. Eve was left alive—the only survivor. After inheriting her family's fortune, Eve has dedicated her life to finding Tightrope, training her body and mind, honing her skills, using every resource at her disposal to track down Tightrope...and others like him.

Kaum aus der Haft entlassen, tritt Ex-Sträfling Jericho Bender einen neuen Job als Wachmann an. Er soll nachts die Ruine einer verlassenen Bibliothek bewachen, in der vor Jahren ein fürchterliches Feuer gewütet hat. Eine vermeintlich simple Aufgabe, die Jericho jedoch bald an den Rand des Wahnsinns treibt. Nacht für Nacht wird er in dem alten Gemäuer Zeuge unerklärlicher Phänomene. Was er anfangs noch als Hirngespinst abtut, verknüpft er bald mit der düsteren Geschichte der Bibliothek, die einst einem geisteskranken Kindermörder als Versteck diente.

Die beiden Morde, die sich kurz hintereinander ereignen, sind völlig unverständlich, doch noch unerklärlicher ist das Verhalten der bald darauf ermittelten Täter. Sie weisen die Gemeinsamkeit auf, dass sie kurz zuvor bei der gleichen Psychotherapeutin in Behandlung waren. Liegt dort die Ursache für ihre Taten verborgen? Bald stellen sich die Ermittler die Frage, ob man einen Menschen so manipulieren kann, dass er zum Mörder wird.

FBI Agent Ella Dark, 29, is given her big chance to achieve her life’s dream: to join the Behavioral Crimes Unit. Ella’s hidden obsession of gaining an encyclopedic knowledge of serial killers has led to her being singled out for her brilliant mind, and invited to join the big leagues. But this time Ella finds herself in a cat and mouse chase with no way out, and she must wonder if she is hunting—or the one who is hunted.

Vera Boyett is a master at cracking a case. After tragedy destroyed her career as deputy police chief, she felt lost. Moving back home near her sisters, she put her skills back to use as a crime analyst, and now her star is finally back on the rise. Vera’s work really begins to heat up after the local sheriff, Gray “Bent” Benton, calls to ask her for assistance with a pressing case. Pushing aside their complicated past, Vera agrees to help Bent search for a missing reporter.

Steven dropped to his knees next to the paramedic. "Jenna." Her eyes opened and in them he saw shock and tears and guilt. "I'm so sorry, Steven. I should have listened to you." Steven noticed the smears of blood on her worn Duke T-shirt. "Any other wounds?" he asked the paramedic. "Only her throat. The blood on her shirt appears to be her own." "We found bloody handprints on the carpet where she crawled from the bedroom," said Uniform Two.

Convicted serial killer Benjamin Fisher has finally offered to lead San Bernardino detective Daniel Ellis to the isolated graves of his victims. One catch: he'll only do it if FBI profiler Reni Fisher, his estranged daughter, accompanies them. As hard as it is to exhume her traumatic childhood, Reni can’t say no. She still feels complicit in her father’s crimes.

Tensions have been running high in White River as it approaches the anniversary of a fatal shooting of a black motorist by a local police officer. The economically depressed, racially polarized city is on edge, confronted with angry demonstrations, arson, and looting. In the midst of the turmoil, a White River police officer is shot dead by an unknown sniper. As the town spirals out of control, local authorities approach Dave Gurney to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting. But when he zeroes in on peculiar aspects of the individual murders that follow, his involvement is suddenly terminated.