Forensic Mystery Fiction

St Benjamin's Medical School is the greatest of its kind, any death occurring within its walls would have created ripples within the academic world, but the death of Nikki Exner is far from being ordinary. Raped, and then grotesquely executed, her theatrical murder horrifies everyone. John Eisenmenger, a former forensic pathologist, finds himself dragged unwillingly into the case. Teaming up with solicitor Helena Flemming, Eisenmenger sets out to discover what really did happen to Nikki Exner.

Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing. But in the coronary care unit at one of Copenhagen’s leading medical centers, a nurse fills a syringe with an overdose of heart medication and stealthily enters the room of an older male patient. Six days earlier, a paperboy on his route in central Copenhagen stumbles upon a macabre find: the naked body of a dead woman, lying in a fountain with arms marked with small incisions. Cause of death? Exsanguination - the draining of all the blood in her body.

A grotesquely burned corpse found in a city park is a troubling mystery for Beijing detective Li Yan. Yan, devoted to his career as a means of restoring the respect his family lost during the Cultural Revolution, needs outside help if he is to break the case. The unidentified cadaver in turn provides a welcome distraction for forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. Campbell, married to her work and having left America and her broken past behind, throws herself into the investigation and before long uncovers a bizarre anomaly.

DEEP BENEATH THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, a murder victim is dumped at an archaeological dig. A note pinned to his shirt warns we will bury you. The question is, who is you? Desperate to learn what happened—and what might happen next—investigators bring in forensic geologists Cassie Oldfield and Walter Shaws. They have a reputation for reading the rocks with an X-ray eye, and unlocking a case.

Before my world came crashing down, I had it all. The successful career I dreamed of. The beautiful red-brick home where I could relax in front of the fire. The handsome, devoted husband whose blue eyes and charming smile always made me feel safe. As I call time of death, my voice is steady. My colleagues stand hushed around me, their eyes on me, confused, concerned.

There are 206 bones in the human body. Forensic anthropologists know them intimately, can read in them stories of brief or long lives and use them to reconstruct every kind of violent end. 206 Bones opens with Tempe regaining consciousness and discovering that she is in some kind of very small, very dark, very cold enclosed space. She is bound, hands to feet. Who wants Tempe dead, or at least out of the way, and why? Tempe begins slowly to reconstruct...

Antonia Scott has an unusually gifted forensic mind, whose ability to reconstruct crimes and solve baffling murders is legendary. She’s the lynchpin of a top-secret project, Red Queen, created to work across borders and behind the scenes to solve the most devious and dangerous crimes, those that are beyond the skills of the regular police forces. But the Red Queen project is under attack on all fronts. Across Europe, its agents are murdering each other and cases from the past, long believed resolved, are rearing their deadly heads again.

When a beautiful, red haired nurse’s body is found mutilated in her house in Lawley the morning after a date with Detective Constable Ryan Downey, all eyes turn to him. With a very specific modus operandi, Detective Sergeant Jenna Morgan and her team know exactly who the offender is; the trouble is he’s currently serving a life stretch in HMP Long Lartin. It soon becomes evident to DS Morgan and her team that there may be a copycat killer on the loose.

Ten years ago as an undergrad, Joan Mason escaped an arsonist’s fire. Shaken, she fled the small collegiate Montana town, leaving behind friends and not looking back. Now a Philadelphia homicide detective, Joan’s trying to put her traumas to rest. It’s not easy. Elijah Weston, the classmate who torched her house, is out of prison and returning to Missoula. Gut instinct tells Joan he’ll strike again. To stop him, she must return to the past as well. To face not only the man she fears but Detective Gideon Bailey, too. The man she loved and left behind.

"Been a while since I had me a nice little whodunit," homicide detective Milo Sturgis tells Alex Delaware. But there's definitely nothing nice about the brutal tableau behind the yellow crime-scene tape. On a lonely lover's lane in the hills of Los Angeles, a young couple lies murdered in a car. Each bears a single gunshot wound to the head.

Dr. Theo Cray has a legendary mathematical knack for catching serial killers. Until his exposure to a mind-altering pathogen knocks him off his game. It has upended an investigation, destroyed his reputation, and left him to question his own sanity. One person still trusts him to finish the job. His former professor Amanda Paulson is helping point Cray down a logical path to his prey: a nomadic health-care worker whose murder spree stretches back decades and whose victims number in the hundreds.

Dr. Brian Holbrook - former football star and disgraced chief of cardiology - is given the chance of a lifetime when he gets a call from the prestigious Boston Heart Institute. They need him to join an elite team testing the new miracle drug Vasclear. With his father suffering from a dangerous heart condition, Holbrook seizes the opportunity to save his reputation, and also his father's life. However, when patients start dying mysteriously, and colleagues begin to disappear, it's up to Holbrook to find the truth before it's too late.

Dr. Bill Brockton is in the middle of a nuclear-terrorism disaster drill when he receives an urgent call from the nearby town of Oak Ridge - better known as Atomic City, home of the Bomb, and the key site for the Manhattan Project during World War II. Although more than sixty years have passed, could repercussions from that dangerous time still be felt today?

At a party for a controversial Los Angeles sex therapist, Alex encounters a face from his own past: Sharon Ransom, an exquisite, alluring lover who left him abruptly more than a decade earlier. Sharon now hints that she desperately needs help, but Alex evades her. The next day she is dead, an apparent suicide. Driven by guilt and sadness, Alex plunges into the maze of Sharon's life - a journey that will take him through the pleasure palaces of California's ultra-rich, into the dark closets of a family's disturbing past.

Just as 200,000 fans are pouring into town for Race Week, a body is found in a barrel of asphalt next to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The next day, a NASCAR crew member comes to Temperance Brennan’s office at the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner to share a devastating story. Twelve years earlier, Wayne Gamble’s sister, Cindi, then a high school senior and aspiring racer, disappeared along with her boyfriend, Cale Lovette. Lovette kept company with a group of right-wing extremists known as the Patriot Posse.

Eve Duncan is the most sought-after artist in the field of forensic sculpting. Dedicated to her work ever since her daughter, Bonnie, was taken and killed at the age of seven, Eve feels a sense of duty to those whose lives were lost and whose bones are now in her hands.

It all begins with a painting called Guilt. Eve Duncan’s daughter, Jane, has no idea why she painted the portrait of the chilling face that now hangs in a Paris gallery. But the members of a cult that dates back to the time of Christ know both the face and the significance behind it. They believe that Jane must die – when the moment is right, and not an instant before she leads them to an ancient treasure whose value and power are beyond price.

Former "It Girl" Janie Jenkins is acerbic, whip smart, and fresh out of prison. Ten years ago, at the height of her glamour and fame, she was incarcerated for the murder of her mother, a philanthropist best known for her string of rich husbands. Now, released on a technicality, Janie chops off her trademark hair, determined to chase down the one lead she has about her mother's killer. The only problem? Janie doesn't know if she's the one she's looking for.

The case is a macabre, ritualistic murder—a teen-aged boy from a wealthy family whose body was found without a drop of blood left in it. But the murder is just the start. A high-ranking executive and daughter of one of the richest men in Spain is kidnapped, a crime which is tied to the previous murder. Behind them both is a hidden mastermind with even more sinister plans. And the only person with a chance to see the connections, solve the crimes and successfully match wits with the killer before tragedy strikes again...is Antonia Scott.

Bestselling author Jessica Fletcher is in Tampa with her good friend, Cabot Cove's own Dr. Seth Hazlitt, who is visiting a renowned Cuban physician. Alvaro Vasquez is developing a potentially groundbreaking cure for Alzheimer's disease. If he's successful, his American backers stand to make millions. But there is a growing fear that the drug may fall into the hands of a powerful pharmaceutical company. Jessica attends a party at Vasquez's lavish home, but the celebration ends abruptly when guests witness Vasquez seemingly struck by lightning.