Serial Killer Mystery Fiction

A schoolgirl found it on a nature hike. A severed human foot wearing pink nail polish. A gruesome but invaluable clue that leads forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman down a much darker trail - to a dangerous psychopath whose powers of persuasion seem to have no end.

Four-year-old Ellen is snatched by a stranger in the dead of night. Her devastated mother, Nicole, receives four identical phials and a threatening note in a familiar scrawl that chills her to the bone. But she always knew this would happen. She’s been expecting it for years. According to the note, one of the phials is poisoned. Nicole is given a deadly challenge: If she drinks one, the sadistic kidnapper will notify the police of Ellen’s location. The sender claims to be Luka Volkov, but Luka is supposed to be dead, killed long ago in a fire that haunts all those involved.

Now an Apple TV+ series starring Elisabeth Moss: the girl who wouldn't die hunts the killer who shouldn't exist in this "expertly chilling" twist on the serial killer novel from the award-winning author Lauren Beukes (San Francisco Chronicle). Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the...

Something is troubling Inspector Henry Cutter. Sergeant Gideon Bliss is accustomed to his ill-tempered outbursts, but lately the inspector has grown silent and withdrawn. Then, the murders begin. The first to die is the elderly Sir Aneurin Considine, a decorated but obscure civil servant who long ago retired to tend his orchids. If the motive for his killing is a mystery, the manner of his death is more bewildering still. The victims that follow suffer similar fates, their deaths gruesome but immaculately orchestrated.

Ten years ago, fifteen-year-old Scarlett Crosby was held captive in a terrifying ordeal with a girl named Della. Scarlett escaped, their predator was killed, and Della simply vanished. Detective Kevin Dawson always wondered if Della even existed. A decade later, Scarlett is a successful artist. As hard as she tries to move on, the mysterious Della remains her inescapable obsession. Then a girl’s body is discovered—a link to Scarlett’s horrific past—and all her old traumas resurface. So does Della.

Far from the neon glare of the Vegas Strip, attorney Piper Danes walks away from a hotshot law firm to work as a guardian ad litem (GAL). Piper was once a vulnerable youth herself, and a GAL gave her hope when she needed it most. Now she’s committed to paying it forward. Her latest case is unlike any other: fifteen-year-old Sophie Grace is the sole survivor of a gruesome family murder. Teaming up with the formidable Judge Hope Dawson and enigmatic Detective Lazarus Holloway, Piper delves into a world more sinister than she could have imagined.

Ambitious crime reporter Rita Meade is riding high after her docuseries on the Broken Bayou serial killer. But when an anonymous tip promises the story behind a skull found deep in the Louisiana forest, she hesitates. Because this one strikes too close to home. As a teenager, Rita attended Poison Wood Therapeutic Academy for Girls in that forest, but the school shuttered its doors after a series of disturbing incidents. Now the man who confessed to the murder of her classmate has recanted, and Rita’s father, the judge who put him away, has fallen ill.

Un serial killer è in azione nella città di Richmond: già tre donne sono morte, violentate e strangolate nelle loro camere da letto. I delitti avvengono sempre di sabato, prima dell'alba. Kay Scarpetta sa che il sanguinario killer può tornare a colpire in qualunque momento e non può escludere alcuna ipotesi. Nemmeno quella di essere la prossima vittima.

Midlands police chase a serial killer who inflicts death by the new urban weapon of choice. Given the targets seem enveloped in love affairs and deceitful liaisons, Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe suspects a motive of jealousy and revenge. But as the number of victims increases, the connection between them wears thin. Is it really a broken heart holding the crossbow? And if it's not some crazed Cupid, who has their finger on the trigger? Plucky Detective Sergeant Sunita Roy doesn't think they are looking in the right places. Yet without evidence, her theory won't hold water.

It was meant to be Caitlin's perfect summer, but betrayed by her best friend and her boyfriend, she finds herself hitchhiking home alone, heartbroken, and penniless. When a smiling family pulls up on the roadside to help her on her way, she's relieved at first - they seem friendly, normal. And when they offer her a warm bed in their cottage for the night, she's grateful - it's not safe for young women travelling alone in the dark, and she's in no rush to get home, where she knows a grave secret is due to blow her family apart.

A young boy walks into a police station in France. He claims to be Carl Meagan - a missing child from Sheffield whose name is still whispered as a warning to kids who stay out after dark. On her way home from the supermarket, nine-year-old Keeley Armitage vanishes without trace. Her family is overcome with shock and DCI Matilda Darke can’t help but focus on memories of the Carl Meagan case that almost ruined her career.

Jeffery Deaver, "the master of manipulation" (Associated Press) and "the most creative, skilled and intriguing thriller writer in the world." (Daily Telegraph, UK) returns with the new, long-awaited, Kathryn Dance thriller. A tragedy occurs at a small concert venue on the Monterey Peninsula...

Thomas Allen Mathew, a reclusive 65-year-old living in Sioux City, Iowa, finds himself plagued by a sense of disconnect and agonizing headaches. When he begins to question his own identity, Thomas delves into his troubled past, uncovering dark secrets that lead to a shocking revelation.

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.

From behind the wheel of her car, Tess Kincaid glimpses a woman walking down a Madison, Wisconsin, street. They've never met, but Tess sees the same features every time she looks in the mirror. Tess introduces herself and discovers that she and her doppelganger, Mimi, have more than appearance in common. They even share the same birthday. Mimi - confident and outgoing where Tess is understated and shy - is convinced they're twins, separated shortly after birth. When a body is discovered in a local marsh, Tess is entangled in a search for the truth....

Welcome to another typical summer in Florida, the season of the storms. Serge Storms. That loveable serial killer, an under-under-medicated dispenser of truth, justice, and trivia, is back with a vengeance. And not a weirdness-laced moment too soon. His cherished home state is about to take a beating, and from far more than the way-too-routine conga line of hurricanes bearing down on the peninsula. Corpses have begun turning up at a disturbing rate, even for Florida.

Zane Holden, the founder of Stonewall Investigations, has been haunted by the same case for years. He's had loved ones taken by the serial killer known as the Unicorn, and his drive to find the monster is higher than ever. Finally, he feels like he's getting close. Something else that's getting closer? His wedding day to the man of his dreams. Lorenzo De Luca found the love of his life in Zane. He's the happiest he's ever been. His career as a high-powered defense attorney is at a peak, and his daydreams are filled with wedding bells and honeymooning.

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.

Brooklyn Sloane works as a special consultant to the FBI as one of the most adept profilers in the agency's history. She had been recruited at a relatively young age from her career in academics, but her colleagues have no idea the disturbing motive for her success.

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.