
The Killer Instinct
Detective Margot Phalen Series, Book 3
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $27.08
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Lauryn Allman
-
By:
-
Kate Wiley
About this listen
Detective Margot Phalen knows the mind of a serial killer better than most. She learned from the worst: her father, Ed Finch.
When bodies keep appearing in the tranquil Muir Woods, California, and a woman is killed in Chinatown, Margot begins to realize these are no ordinary homicides. The eerie similarities to her infamous father's crimes send chills down her spine. But Ed’s been behind bars for years now—surely he couldn’t mastermind this from his cell, could he?
As evidence mounts—a bloodied image of Ed’s first target found in a victim’s home, stab wounds that match Ed’s trademark pattern—Margot uncovers a sinister obsession that hits far too close to home. She must use all her skills to outwit a killer who seems to know her history better than she does.
To solve this case, she’ll need to confront the dark secrets of her past, and face her worst fear: that she may be more like her father than she ever dared imagine.
The Killer Instinct is a gripping crime thriller that will keep you up listening late into the night. Fans of Karin Slaughter, Michael Connelly and Tana French won’t want to miss this unforgettable series.
©2024 Kate Wiley (P)2024 Storm PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Killer's Daughter
- Detective Margot Phalen, Book 1
- By: Kate Wiley
- Narrated by: Lauryn Allman
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty years ago Ed Finch – America’s most notorious serial killer – used the Bay Area as his hunting ground. Now, his daughter Margot is a homicide detective with the San Francisco Police Department who has spent her whole life trying to forget who she is. But her daddy won’t let her forget. When Margot receives a phone call from his lawyer, she learns that Ed is back – transferred to death row at San Quentin. And her father has a message for her: he’s willing to disclose some long-held secrets. But there’s a catch. She has to visit him.
By: Kate Wiley
-
Shadow's Secret
- Shadow Island FBI Mystery Series, Book 1
- By: Mary Stone
- Narrated by: Brittany Goodwin
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the incident that brought justice to her parents’ killers but ended her career, former FBI Special Agent Rebecca West needs a fresh start. Hoping to find peace, she decides to spend a few months in the sleepy beach town of Shadow Island, where she spent idyllic summers as a kid. However, her vacation is cut short when a seventeen-year-old goes missing with no leads or clues. When the girl’s body is found in a nearby marsh with strangulation marks around her neck, Rebecca can’t say no when the overworked sheriff asks her to help investigate.
-
-
Loved This One
- By Deborah on 12-08-24
By: Mary Stone
-
The Girl in the Springs
- A Serenity Springs Mystery Series, Book 1
- By: Elle Gray, K.S. Gray
- Narrated by: Emily Norman
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
PI Bridget Hartley is obsessed with all things mystery. She even has a reputation for being Serenity’s go-to detective. With the exception of small-town drama and the occasional crime, life in Serenity is serene. Until a call from panicked parents searching for missing teens sets off a chain of events that no one could have foreseen. Could hormones and young love be the reasons for their abrupt disappearance? While searching for the missing lovebirds, Bridget stumbles upon a string of bizarre and unfortunate events. Events with potential connections to other missing teen couples.
-
-
Details
- By Social butterfly on 01-18-25
By: Elle Gray, and others
-
Little Girls Sleeping: An absolutely gripping crime thriller
- Detective Katie Scott, Book 1
- By: Jennifer Chase
- Narrated by: Lisa Rost-Welling
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An eight-year-old girl, Chelsea Compton, is missing in Pine Valley, California, and for Detective Katie Scott it’s a cruel reminder of the friend who disappeared from summer camp 20 years ago. Unable to shake the memories, Katie vows she won’t rest until she discovers what happened to Chelsea. But as Katie starts to investigate, the case reveals itself to be much bigger and more shocking than she feared. Hidden deep in the forest she unearths a makeshift cemetery: a row of graves, each with a brightly colored teddy bear.
-
-
A tortuous experience
- By CJ on 07-01-19
By: Jennifer Chase
-
A Step Past Darkness
- By: Vera Kurian
- Narrated by: Jeena Yi
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There’s something sinister under the surface of Wesley Falls, and it’s not just the abandoned coal mine that lies beneath it. The summer of 1995 kicks off with a party in the mine where six high school students witness a horrifying crime that changes the course of their lives. When they realize that they can’t trust anyone but each other, they begin to investigate what happened on their own. As tensions escalate in town to a breaking point, the six make a vow of silence, bury all their evidence, and promise to never contact each other again. Their plan works—almost.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Molly B on 04-01-24
By: Vera Kurian
-
The Coroner
- By: Jennifer Graeser Dornbush
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Recently engaged and deeply ensconced in her third year of surgical residency in Chicago, Emily Hartford gets a shock when she is called home to Freeport, Michigan, the small town she fled a decade ago after the death of her mother. Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a senator's teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town.
-
-
Like a Hallmark Movie, Except for Dead Bodies
- By B. Snowden on 02-19-19
-
The Killer's Daughter
- Detective Margot Phalen, Book 1
- By: Kate Wiley
- Narrated by: Lauryn Allman
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty years ago Ed Finch – America’s most notorious serial killer – used the Bay Area as his hunting ground. Now, his daughter Margot is a homicide detective with the San Francisco Police Department who has spent her whole life trying to forget who she is. But her daddy won’t let her forget. When Margot receives a phone call from his lawyer, she learns that Ed is back – transferred to death row at San Quentin. And her father has a message for her: he’s willing to disclose some long-held secrets. But there’s a catch. She has to visit him.
By: Kate Wiley
-
Shadow's Secret
- Shadow Island FBI Mystery Series, Book 1
- By: Mary Stone
- Narrated by: Brittany Goodwin
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the incident that brought justice to her parents’ killers but ended her career, former FBI Special Agent Rebecca West needs a fresh start. Hoping to find peace, she decides to spend a few months in the sleepy beach town of Shadow Island, where she spent idyllic summers as a kid. However, her vacation is cut short when a seventeen-year-old goes missing with no leads or clues. When the girl’s body is found in a nearby marsh with strangulation marks around her neck, Rebecca can’t say no when the overworked sheriff asks her to help investigate.
-
-
Loved This One
- By Deborah on 12-08-24
By: Mary Stone
-
The Girl in the Springs
- A Serenity Springs Mystery Series, Book 1
- By: Elle Gray, K.S. Gray
- Narrated by: Emily Norman
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
PI Bridget Hartley is obsessed with all things mystery. She even has a reputation for being Serenity’s go-to detective. With the exception of small-town drama and the occasional crime, life in Serenity is serene. Until a call from panicked parents searching for missing teens sets off a chain of events that no one could have foreseen. Could hormones and young love be the reasons for their abrupt disappearance? While searching for the missing lovebirds, Bridget stumbles upon a string of bizarre and unfortunate events. Events with potential connections to other missing teen couples.
-
-
Details
- By Social butterfly on 01-18-25
By: Elle Gray, and others
-
Little Girls Sleeping: An absolutely gripping crime thriller
- Detective Katie Scott, Book 1
- By: Jennifer Chase
- Narrated by: Lisa Rost-Welling
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An eight-year-old girl, Chelsea Compton, is missing in Pine Valley, California, and for Detective Katie Scott it’s a cruel reminder of the friend who disappeared from summer camp 20 years ago. Unable to shake the memories, Katie vows she won’t rest until she discovers what happened to Chelsea. But as Katie starts to investigate, the case reveals itself to be much bigger and more shocking than she feared. Hidden deep in the forest she unearths a makeshift cemetery: a row of graves, each with a brightly colored teddy bear.
-
-
A tortuous experience
- By CJ on 07-01-19
By: Jennifer Chase
-
A Step Past Darkness
- By: Vera Kurian
- Narrated by: Jeena Yi
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There’s something sinister under the surface of Wesley Falls, and it’s not just the abandoned coal mine that lies beneath it. The summer of 1995 kicks off with a party in the mine where six high school students witness a horrifying crime that changes the course of their lives. When they realize that they can’t trust anyone but each other, they begin to investigate what happened on their own. As tensions escalate in town to a breaking point, the six make a vow of silence, bury all their evidence, and promise to never contact each other again. Their plan works—almost.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Molly B on 04-01-24
By: Vera Kurian
-
The Coroner
- By: Jennifer Graeser Dornbush
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Recently engaged and deeply ensconced in her third year of surgical residency in Chicago, Emily Hartford gets a shock when she is called home to Freeport, Michigan, the small town she fled a decade ago after the death of her mother. Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a senator's teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town.
-
-
Like a Hallmark Movie, Except for Dead Bodies
- By B. Snowden on 02-19-19
-
The Girl in Town
- A Chesapeake Valley Mystery, Book 1
- By: Elle Gray
- Narrated by: Brittany Goodwin
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Former NSA agent Eve Wicker has faced many hardships and tragedies in life. Needing to be closer to her ailing father, Eve takes a position as her hometown Sheriff. A position she never imagined would open many old wounds from her past. When she receives a phone call about a body in the woods, She drives up to the crime scene. There, she grabs the attention of the town’s mountain recluse. Roman Pike, a big burly ex-marine who’s as abrasive as he is brash.
-
-
NannaSQ
- By Katherine on 03-30-25
By: Elle Gray
-
Head Cases
- A Novel
- By: John McMahon
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He also has a blind spot on the human side of investigations, a blindness that sometimes even includes people in his own life, like his beloved seven-year-old daughter Camila. Gardner and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve. When DNA links a murder victim to a serial killer long presumed dead, the team springs into action.
-
-
This one is a WINNER!!!!
- By shelley on 01-31-25
By: John McMahon
-
Silent Evidence
- The Jayne and Steelie Series, Book 1
- By: Clea Koff
- Narrated by: Rachel Handshaw
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jayne and Steelie founded Agency 32/1 with one purpose in mind: using their specialist forensic skills to help police solve crimes. When a bundle of frozen body parts fall out of a van on a Los Angeles freeway, FBI agent Scott Houston knows just where to go for an off-the-record post-mortem. But to everyone’s horror, Jayne and Steelie quickly determine the parts aren’t from one body. The body parts are from multiple bodies.
By: Clea Koff
-
I Kill Killers
- A Thriller Novel (Dark Thriller Chronicles Book 1)
- By: S. T. Ashman
- Narrated by: Brandon T. Campbell, Nikki Thomas
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if the most dangerous serial killer is the one who hunts her own kind? By day, Leah Nachtnebel is celebrated as one of the greatest pianists of our time. By night, she becomes a ruthless killer, using her brilliant mind to hunt predators who believe they’ve escaped justice. But when her latest target unearths a connection to her dark past, Leah is thrust into the crosshairs of two relentless forces: an FBI agent determined to uncover her secrets and a sadistic serial killer who doesn’t just see her as a traitor—he sees her as a trophy he must possess.
-
-
great story
- By Valerie J. Dumond on 08-24-24
By: S. T. Ashman
-
Vanishing Girls
- Detective Josie Quinn
- By: Lisa Regan
- Narrated by: Eilidh Beaton
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone in the small town of Denton is searching for Isabelle Coleman, a missing 17-year-old girl. All they've found so far is her phone and another girl they didn't even know was missing. Mute and completely unresponsive to the world around her, it's clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Detective Josie Quinn can get from her is a name: Ramona. Currently suspended from the force for misconduct, Josie takes matters into her own hands as the name leads her to evidence linking the two girls.
-
-
Great storyline, awful narrator
- By D.Gettys on 12-24-18
By: Lisa Regan
-
Return to Midnight
- By: Emma Dues
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nearly ten years ago, five Ohio university students were murdered in an off-campus Victorian home. The media dubbed it the Midnight House Massacre. Ever since, survivor and novelist Margot Davis has wanted to forget it, and never again utter the killer’s name. Until she’s compelled to write her side of the story. To do that, she’s returning to Midnight House.
-
-
Just okay
- By Mary on 11-19-24
By: Emma Dues
-
Thirst for Sin
- Touch of Evil, Book 1
- By: Kennedy Layne
- Narrated by: Daniela Acitelli
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Loved the Story Line!
- By C. Cruz on 01-14-25
By: Kennedy Layne
-
The Silent Watcher
- Vegas Shadows, Book 1
- By: Victor Methos
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
excellent characters, fast-paced story, but...
- By ListenClose on 02-02-25
By: Victor Methos
-
The Little Grave
- A Completely Heart-Stopping Crime Thriller
- By: Carolyn Arnold
- Narrated by: Lisa Rost-Welling
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s been five years since Detective Amanda Steele’s life was derailed by the tragic death of her young daughter. The small community of Dumfries, Virginia, may have moved on, but Amanda cannot. When the man who killed Lindsey is found murdered, she can’t keep away from the case.
-
-
Trigger Warnings
- By Anon on 10-26-22
By: Carolyn Arnold
-
The Last Sister
- Columbia River, Book 1
- By: Kendra Elliot
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Mikael Naramore
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty years ago Emily Mills's father was murdered, and she found his body hanging in the backyard. Her younger sister, Madison, claims she was asleep in her room. Her older sister, Tara, claims she was out with friends. The tragedy drove their mother to suicide and Tara to leave town forever. The killer was caught. The case closed. Ever since, Emily and Madison have tried to forget what happened that night - until an eerily similar murder brings it all back.
-
-
It was ok
- By Kelly C. on 01-15-20
By: Kendra Elliot
-
Murder at Haven's Rock
- Casey Duncan Novels, Book 8
- By: Kelley Armstrong
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep in the Yukon wilderness, a town is being built. A place for people to disappear, a fresh start from a life on the run. Haven’s Rock isn’t the first town of this kind, something detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, know firsthand. They met in the original town of Rockton. But greed and deception led the couple to financing a new refuge for those in need. This time around, they get to decide which applicants are approved for residency.
-
-
Great new spin off series!!!!
- By shelley on 02-22-23
By: Kelley Armstrong
-
The Lies I Tell
- A Novel
- By: Julie Clark
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo, Amanda Dolan
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two women. Many aliases. Meg Williams. Maggie Littleton. Melody Wilde. Different names for the same person, depending on the town, depending on the job. She's a con artist who erases herself to become whoever you need her to be—a college student. A life coach. A real estate agent. Nothing about her is real. She slides alongside you and tells you exactly what you need to hear, and by the time she's done, you've likely lost everything.
-
-
Just awful
- By cristina on 07-20-22
By: Julie Clark
What listeners say about The Killer Instinct
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Washington State
- 11-03-24
Great series
Good series that I will continue. The ending wasn't a surprise though. Looking forward to the next one.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Desiree Demick
- 01-24-25
I came here for Lauryn Allman’s fantastic voice acting and stayed for the story.
Great series! I’m hoping there will be more to come. There were times where I was so scared listening to it that I did want to walk through my house in the dark. The perfect amount of suspense without unnecessarily dragging things out. All 3 books were great. I listened to them all in a week!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!