Crime Forensics Fiction Thriller

Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for both North Carolina and Quebec, has come from Charlotte to Montreal during the bleak days of December to testify as an expert witness at a murder trial.

Few know the city of Los Angeles the way #1 bestselling author and acclaimed suspense master Jonathan Kellerman does. His thrilling novels of psychological drama and criminal detection make the capital of dreams a living, breathing character in all its glamour and infamy. That storied history of fame, seduction, scandal, and murder looms large in Mystery, as Alex Delaware finds himself drawn into a twisting, shadowy whodunit that’s pure L.A. noir—and vintage Kellerman.

Er stößt dich in die Dunkelheit und dein Albtraum beginnt! In einer dunklen Winternacht ertrinkt eine junge Frau im eiskalten Wasser. Rechtsmedizinerin Julia Schwarz geht zunächst davon aus, dass sie sich von einer Brücke in den Tod gestürzt hat, denn sie trägt einen Abschiedsbrief bei sich. Doch bei der Autopsie entdeckt Julia etwas an dem Leichnam, das zweifellos auf einen Mord hindeutet. Schlimmer noch, offenbar hat der Täter sein Opfer vor dem Tod gefoltert. In den nackten Fußsohlen der Frau stecken zahlreiche Glassplitter.

Philomena “Manny” Manfreda is a crusading attorney for the disenfranchised. Five years out of law school, with an apartment not much bigger than one of her beloved Prada shoe boxes and a burgeoning reputation as one of the city’s fiercest litigators, Manny is an unabashed shopaholic who changes her hair color weekly, carries her poodle, Mycroft, everywhere, and whose idea of therapy is the preparation of an eight-course Italian meal.

London chiropractor David “Stitch” Stichell is desperate to hold onto his adopted daughter. Already struggling with deteriorating health, his heart breaks when her birth father returns to take her away. But his life spirals into chaos when the other man is suddenly murdered. As his experimental cancer treatment mysteriously self-destructs, the people around Stitch start dying - leaving him as the prime suspect.

It’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s birthday, and she’s about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge house. Is this a kids’ game? If so, why are all of the coins dated 1981 and so shiny they could be newly minted? Her cellphone rings, and Detective Pete Marino tells her there’s been a homicide five minutes away.

People are again dropping like flies in Dr. Steele's ER. She is facing another string of unexplained deaths, but this time it's even harder. Why? Because she doesn't mind seeing them dead. They are the worst of the worst: Wife beaters, child abusers, pet killers, and downright psychopaths that the law failed to punish. Even worse, it fails to protect their innocent victims. Can this be God's work? Did God get busy cleaning their community of evil? Emma doesn't think so. She finds the answer disturbingly near. It isn't God; it's a human, way too close for comfort.

Haunted by a brutal childhood, Dr. Claire Waters finds solace in helping other survivors of abuse. Her favorite patient, Rosa Sanchez, is finally getting her life together after being victimized for years. So it's a shock when Rosa is handcuffed and led away by a man Claire assumes is law enforcement. But as she soon realizes, Rosa has been abducted. Claire turns to her friend, Nick Lawler, a homicide detective in the NYPD. Nick will have to risk his career to find Rosa and track down a deranged criminal who reduces his victims to nothing but bones.

While illegally street racing in the underground tunnels of Glasgow, four Harley-Davidson riders make a horrifying discovery: a dead man left in the darkness, hands together on his chest as if peacefully laid to rest. The cause of death is unclear, the only clues being a half glass of red wine and a partially eaten chunk of bread by his side that echo the ancient religious practice of sin-eating. Called to the scene, forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is perplexed by the lack of evidence.

A heart-pounding hunt begins when 18-year-old Monica goes missing from a dig site with an archaeologist whose shady past spills into the present. The frantic search takes her aunt Claudia to Egypt, Gibraltar, and the UK, where Claudia's skills as a forensic handwriting expert of international renown are needed to help foil a deadly terrorist plot in which Monica may become a casualty.

A prodigious Chinese swimmer kills himself on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. Days later, a champion weightlifter suffers a fatal heart attack prior to competition. Detective Li Yan senses a conspiracy surrounding the fatalities and finds a female athlete willing to talk. But she will trust only one person: Li's fiancée, Margaret Campbell. When Campbell's contact herself vanishes, the gun is fired on a race against time. And Li must now outrun - and outwit - an enemy bent on pushing him beyond endurance.

Kristen Kroiter was 16, a high-school sophomore, when she was injured in a car accident. Dr. Ted Cogan had saved her life when he treated her in the ER six months ago. But now police detectives were questioning Cogan about her, in intimate detail. What was going on? What had she told them? That’s just it, the cops said. She hadn’t told them anything. She had died. Looked like a suicide. And Cogan was in a heap of trouble.

Eve Duncan is on the run. Kidnapped by Jim Doane, a mysterious man who wants her to complete a sinister forensic sculpture, she now has no time to savor the victory of escaping from him. He’s back on her trail and closing in fast. The CIA has its own reasons for tracking Eve’s nemesis. And those closest to Eve - Joe Quinn and Jane MacGuire - are doing everything in their power to rescue her, while a hired gun named Lee Zander is on a personal mission to eliminate Doane. But does that mean he can be trusted to save Eve?

In Beverly Hills, murder has suddenly gone out of style. For five weeks, the head of the city's tiny homicide squad, Zen detective Masao Masuto, has worked only robbery investigations. But after more than a month without a corpse, this dry spell is about to end. The dead woman is Ana Fortez, a Chicana whose death was originally classified as terminal food poisoning brought on by a feast of botulism-infested clairs. But because botulism can only grow in an airtight space, the medical examiner warns Masuto that the fatal bacteria must have been purposefully injected into the pastry.

How did it all begin? I suppose it would be the day I rescued a new-born baby from a poisonous snake, heard the news of my mother’s death and encountered my first ghost... Veterinary surgeon Clara Benning is young and intelligent, but practically a recluse. Disfigured by a childhood accident, she lives alone and shies away from human contact wherever possible.

Epidemiologist Leigh Austen can’t shake her lasting guilt. As the sole survivor of her team’s encounter with the Black Nile virus, Austen is tormented with memories of her colleagues' horrific deaths. But when an unknown pathogen annihilates an entire Asian village, she must bury the nightmares and step up to help prevent a worldwide epidemic.

Forensic entomologist Vanessa Marwood has built her career on her love of insects and the vital information these tiny creatures can provide at the scene of a crime. Just as she is about to board a plane for her dream job at a lab in New York, Vanessa receives a call about a chilling set of murders in her hometown. Not only have four innocent victims lost their lives in a single night, but the killer has sewn spider silk into their wounds. Vanessa swore she would never return to Greensands. But this case, and the dark secrets of her childhood, are drawing her back.

Teenager Luke Mullen was last seen getting into a car with an older woman. No one can understand why he has disappeared. His father - a former police officer - knows all too well that the longer he is missing, the more likely he is to turn up dead. Then Luke's parents receive an anonymous video. It shows their son, eyes wide with terror, as a man advances towards him holding a syringe. DI Tom Thorne recognises a psychopath when he sees one. And the scene on the tape chills him to the bone - he knows that a child's life hangs in the balance and that every minute counts.

Forensic pathology Bodhi King’s silent retreat at Buddhism monastery hasn’t been as contemplative, or silent, as he hoped. Bodhi’s plan was to meditate on the meaning of a recent run-in with an old flame, but instead he’s pressed into service to identify a murdered stranger. He teams up with a pair of federal agents, a bold, brainy plant pathologist, and the no-nonsense small-town police chief. The players’ loyalties shift continually, and nothing’s as it seems.

Dr. Erik "VJ" Brio tries to reestablish a semblance of normal existence after a medical crime syndicate threatens his life. Then, a chance encounter with an infectious disease expert leads to chaos.