Forensic Crime Thriller

The dog was standing by the tree, four paws firmly planted, his hackles up. His owner, who had run after him through the woods, stopped and gasped aloud in shock. In front of them, hanging from the ancient yew tree, was a body. Blood dripped down the victim’s pale skin, where strange symbols had been crudely carved. The eyes stared straight ahead. Empty. Unseeing.

When a plane crashes high in the mountains of North Carolina, forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is called in to identify the victims. A chance discovery concerns her: a severed foot, well away from the main crash site. A deserted house close by is buried so deep in the woods that locals claim to know nothing of its existence. And her examination of the foot throws up more questions than answers. Before she can make any progress Tempe's professional standing is threatened.

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.

When forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is brought in to analyse a shallow grave on Scotland’s west coast, she is disturbed by a bundle of twigs crafted into a stickman and left in the victim’s mouth. Then, when a young woman is reported missing from a nearby campsite with another sinister figurine left in her van, it seems that someone is targeting wild campers. An idyllic coastline known for providing peace and serenity, now the area is a hunting ground.

Someone...or something...is stalking the citizens of Miami. First, the chief of the triage morgue at Dade County Hospital is strangled; the skulls of two homeless men are crushed under a highway overpass, followed by drug dealers, frat boys, and workers at a local diner brutally bludgeoned. Detectives Issy Ruiz and Andy Molinaro can find no motive, no clues, and no links among the victims, just a description of four muscular young men with fixed eyes and stiff gaits as though animated by some otherworldly force.

Dunja Hougaard has gone underground to covertly investigate her former boss, Sleizner. For months, Dunja and her team have been gathering information. When a high-ranking man within the Danish intelligence service and an unknown woman are found dead at the bottom of a lake outside Copenhagen, the trap is finally ready to close. The only question is: whom will it catch? And meanwhile, on the other side of the strait in Helsingborg, the Swedish police Fabian Risk detective receives a message that changes everything.

Doctor Stephenson's day-to-day routine of caring for animals is shattered by the apparently random murder of his lifelong friend. He and his hound, Lucinda, are drawn into the investigation. Kent soon suspects that small-town politics surrounding a new resort have led to murder, and that it won't end with just one victim. When a nameless toddler is found wandering alone by the river, all bets are off. As he unravels the mystery, Kent struggles with a new love interest and a sense of helplessness, as he fights the medical battle of his career to save his daughter's prize stallion.

Natalie King is back. Her reluctance to live a quiet life has led to severe depression, and now it's time to retreat to the country - a borrowed house on the Great Ocean Road and a low-key research job at a provincial university. But Natalie and trouble have a mutual attraction. Unsurprisingly, Natalie finds herself drawn deep into a local mystery and even deeper into danger....

New Year's Eve and the final murder scene of Virginia's bloodiest year takes Scarpetta 30 feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. A diver is dead. Ted Eddings, an investigative reporter who was a favourite at the Medical Examiner's office. Was Eddings probing the frigid depths for a story or simply diving for sunken trinkets? And why did Scarpetta receive a phone call reporting the death before the police were notified?

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has returned to Virginia as the chief medical examiner. She and her husband, Benton, are headquartered five miles from the Pentagon, in a post-pandemic world that's been torn apart by civil and political unrest. Just weeks into the job, Scarpetta is called to investigate a woman's body that has been shockingly displayed on railroad tracks. As Scarpetta follows the trail, it leads unnervingly close to her own neighborhood....

The "book of the dead" is the morgue log in which all cases are entered. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. She moves to South Carolina in the hope of a quieter life, but then a series of violent murders begins.

Ten years ago CSI Darby McCormick investigated a child abduction case. Today, Charlie Rizzo is back and holding his family hostage. He makes only one demand. Bring me Darby McCormick... When Darby arrives to defuse the scene, she finds him horrifically mutilated, with a mask of human skin sewn in place over his own face. Within minutes, a group of men disguised as SWAT officers bursts in and releases deadly gas, killing the Rizzo family and leaving Darby barely alive.

A mystery thriller novel set in early 20th-century London where an unexpected death on a train sets the stage for a complex investigation. Our protagonist, Langdon, a young barrister specialising in criminal law, boards the last east-bound train out of town. He finds himself in the company of two vastly different men and, after a shocking death, is thrust into the heart of a lethal game of cat and mouse. The Incident on the Train One man, a Weathered military-looking individual, suddenly succumbs to a fatal seizure. The other, a sallow-faced stranger, makes a hasty escape. Our barrister ...

In a far-flung Tibetan village, prayer flags flap against whitewashed houses and a majestic monastery stretches to heaven. It's Shangri-La - the earthly paradise - until a stranger staggers out of the forest and collapses into a bloody, lifeless mass. He's the first victim of a crippling epidemic, but he's no ordinary man. Olen Grave, an American intelligence officer, heads directly into the hot zone to investigate. Posing as a journalist, he joins a Chinese research team led by a headstrong female virus hunter, Dr. Zhou Weilin.

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.

On a remote farm, an elderly woman takes a fall outside and, unable to move, is consumed overnight by two of her pigs. The victim was the renowned and reclusive photographer Sophie Bertilak - and the first photo she ever took remains her most infamous: a missing girl who was never seen again. Most strangely, inside the house, all the photos have been removed from their frames..

Readers’ Choice Top 50 Best Indie Books “A thoroughly compulsive police procedural by one of America’s most promising new writers.” –Best Thrillers He blends in. He is successful, intelligent and methodical. There are no clues. There are no leads. The only thing the FBI and local police have to go on is the method of death: two bullets to the face—gruesome and meant to send a message. But it’s difficult to understand any message coming from a dark and damaged mind. Two adopted boys, struggling in their own world, have no idea they are the next targets. Neither does their ...

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.

Anna Ogilvy was a budding twenty-five-year-old writer with a bright future. Then, one night, she stabbed two people to death with no apparent motive—and she hasn’t woken up since. Dubbed “Sleeping Beauty” by the tabloids, Anna suffers from a rare psychosomatic disorder known to neurologists as “resignation syndrome.” Dr. Benedict Prince is a forensic psychologist and an expert in the field of sleep-related homicides. His methods represent the last possible hope of solving the infamous “Anna O” case by waking Anna up so she can stand trial.

When a priest is brutally gunned down in front of St. Jerome's Chinese-American Catholic Church, Father Luis Chavez is asked by the archdiocese to lead an inquiry. With the confessed killer already in custody, it looks like an open-and-shut case. That is, until Father Chavez digs deeper. As the killer's confession unravels, Father Chavez teams up with Deputy District Attorney Michael Story to get to the bottom of it. Together, they discover a conspiracy leading back to one of the world's oldest criminal organizations.