Serial Killer Mystery Fiction

Her mind holds her captive. Nellie has no memory of life before the cabin. Pleasing Jack and caring for her small daughter are her entire life. Living far in the woods, away from the chaos of the destroyed world keeps them safe. Life is simple. Jack goes scavenging, she stays home and cares for Aster. Above all else, keep Jack happy. Everything changes when she finds the doll. A chance encounter forces Nellie to realize life outside the woods may not be what it seems. Her entire life may be built on a lie. Is the wooden box Jack hides the key? Nellie starts to question her past and question...

Everything seems to be going well for Alex-she has her dream job and is engaged to a man who is almost too perfect. Now her best friends are taking her on a surprise bachelorette weekend planned with Alex's unusual set of interests in mind: her obsession with the famous 666 Killer. Alex and her friends get a thrill out of staying at the allegedly haunted hunting lodge in the Catskill mountains where a serial killer once stabbed his victim and wrote 666 on the walls in her blood. Then Alex wakes up to find her friends have vanished, blood spattered all over their sleeping bags and on her hands.

Two years ago, Maria Fontana, the head of the Psychology Department at Columbia University, sat on a jury for one of the most depraved cases ever to pass through the hallowed halls of City Hall. Wyatt Butler, an antique watch restorer and alleged serial killer, was portrayed in the courtroom as a brutal monster. But Maria had to make the tough choice.

“Drop whatever you’re doing, Detective Cross, and head to Reagan Airport,” DC Metro Police dispatch says. “A jet just crashed and exploded on the runway. The chief and the FBI want you and John Sampson there pronto.” Cross and Sampson race to the crash site. The plane didn’t fail—it was shot down by a stolen Vietnam War–era machine gun. The list of experts who can operate the weapon is short. And time before another lethal strike runs even shorter. Especially for Detective Cross.

He appears in the darkness like a ghost, made of shadows and fear - the Midnight Man. He comes for the parents but leaves the children alive, tiny witnesses to unspeakable horror. The bedroom communities of Los Angeles are gripped with dread, and the attacks are escalating. Still reeling from her best friend's close call in a bombing six months ago, FBI behavioral analyst Caitlin Hendrix has come to Los Angeles to assist in the Midnight Man investigation and do what she does best - hunt a serial killer.

FBI Agent Ella Dark has studied serial killers from the time she could read, devastated by the murder of her own father, and has gained an encyclopedic knowledge of murderers. A victim of a new killer is found dead, an ancient water clock mysteriously dripping on her body—and Ella knows she has precious little time to decode this killer’s riddle, and stop him before he finds his next target…

Psychologist Arles Shepherd treats troubled children, struggling with each case to recover from her own traumatic past, much of which she’s lost to the shadows of memory. Having just set up a new kind of treatment center in the remote Adirondack wilderness, Arles longs to heal one patient in particular: a ten-year-old boy who has never spoken a word—or so his mother, Louise, believes.

After a turbulent time, DCI Ryan's life is finally beginning to return to normal, and he's looking forward to spending an uneventful Easter bank holiday weekend with his fiancée. Then, on Good Friday morning, he is called out to a crime scene at one of the largest cemeteries in Newcastle. The body of a redheaded woman has been found buried in a shallow grave, and the killer has given her wings, like an angel. Soon another woman is found at a different cemetery, followed quickly by another.

Internationally best-selling author Tim Dorsey's irreverent and hilarious novels starring evil genius Serge A. Storms, lovable psychiatric hospital escapee, zoom along at breakneck speed, delivering laughs and shocks in droves.

When a popular mystery novelist dies suspiciously, his writing partner must untangle the author’s connection to a serial killer in award-winning John Copenhaver’s new novel set in 1950s McCarthy-era Washington, DC.

With the best detectives in the business, cutting-edge technology, and offices around the globe, there is no investigation company quite like Private. Now, at a glittering launch party overlooking the iconic Opera House, Private Sydney throws open its doors. Craig Gisto and his newly formed team have barely raised their glasses, however, when a young Asian man, blood-soaked and bullet-ridden, staggers into the party, and what looks like a botched kidnapping turns out to be a whole lot more.

As DS Lucas Walker recovers from his injuries, he heads from Caloodie, Queensland, to the Gold Coast. Surfer's Paradise: a seaside city where gleaming high rises fringe sparkling surf beaches, sunny days lead to wild nights, and criminals and bikie gangs mingle with tourists and dignitaries at five star hotels, clubs and casinos. Before long, Walker is part of a team trying to solve a horrific home invasion and murder that has claimed the life of a young mother and left her nine-year-old daughter fighting to survive. Can he help them find the perpetrators, and keep the young girl safe?

A known serial killer is once again taking lives in Chicago. Bodies drained of blood are being strewn across the city. For former Tampa homicide sergeant, Hank Rawlings, tracking down the man responsible for the killings becomes his first assignment at his new position, agent in the FBI's homicide division of the serial crimes unit. Almost before the ink dries on the new job's acceptance papers, Hank finds himself in Chicago, knee-deep in an investigation with a mounting body count.

After a traumatic injury took him off the job, prosecutor Solomon Shepard is back to work, teaming up with Sheriff Billie Gray to hunt down Utah’s most dangerous criminals. Shepard has spent years away from crime scenes and courtrooms, but one of those criminals still holds a grudge. Alonso Hafeez is out of prison after eleven years, and he’s determined to prove that Shepard tried him for a crime he didn’t commit. And he’s got something special planned: kidnapping Shepard and forcing him to revisit Hafeez’s case in an elaborately staged retrial.

FBI analyst Kassidy Bishop is assigned to the "'For You' Killer" task force after a series of sadistic murders bearing the same signature arise in different parts of the country. The homicides are both calculated and savage, occurring in different states, but bearing the same signature: the words "for you" scribbled at each crime scene. The case chills Kassidy, bringing back memories of her own encounter with a violent criminal five years earlier.

Computational biologist and serial-killer hunter Dr. Theo Cray receives an off-the-record request from the FBI to investigate an inexplicable double homicide. It happened at the excavation site where a murderer had buried his victims’ remains. In custody is a forensic technician in shock, with no history of aggression. He doesn’t remember a thing. His colleagues don’t even recognize the man they thought they knew. But an MRI reveals something peculiar. And abnormal.

A sensitive orphan, Jane Steele suffers first at the hands of her spiteful aunt and predatory cousin, then at a grim school where she fights for her very life until escaping to London, leaving the corpses of her tormentors behind her. After years of hiding from the law while penning macabre "last confessions" of the recently hanged, Jane thrills at discovering an advertisement. Her aunt has died, and her childhood home has a new master: Mr. Charles Thornfield, who seeks a governess.

Deadly. Ruthless. Eighteen. Bent on murder. Despite not being old enough to drive, Rose was easily the most skilled assassin in Eva Santella’s Italian boot camp. But then Rose decided to leave that life behind and spent her teen years playing soccer and chess and lying on the beach in Barcelona. The Sultan took all that away. When he killed her boyfriend on the night she turned 18, Rose made a vow that either she would kill The Sultan or die trying. At that moment, she knew despite her best efforts to live a normal life, she was destined to be a killer. Now, after years of hunting The ...

Six female undergrads at an elite university vanish. The media descends. The families demand action. And as Special Agent Nina Guerrera follows clue by chilling clue, she realizes she’s tracking the most cunning predator of her career. The case takes a turn for the worse, and the bizarre, when several victims are found perfectly preserved in an underground chamber of an abandoned mine. No signs of violence, no hint of how they died. Just more evidence that the killer is cruel, calculating, and a master of mind control.

Winner in 2023 Global Book Awards competition Dark Matter: A fast-paced psychological thriller and emotional roller-coaster Personal tragedy gives D.S. Ross the daunting prospect of caring for his twelve-year-old autistic nephew, something he is ill-equipped to handle. As he learns and adapts, the killing doesn’t stop. Racked by grief and loneliness, enraged by those he believes responsible for the death of his wife, one man thirsts for revenge. The Press labels him the BBQ Killer. After being rejected and humiliated, another Killer hides in plain sight, cloaked in kindness and compassion...