Forensic Crime Mystery

When a skull is found in Lough Coyne, facial reconstruction expert Dr Carla Steele is drawn into a 14-year-old case – but not all cases are cold, as Carla discovers when she and local Garda DS Jack Maguire find the brutally murdered body of a local woman close to the water's edge. Together with Carla's partner, criminal psychologist Grace Franicosi, Carla and Jack uncover a tragic story with very dangerous and current implications. Since the disappearance of her best friend, Carla has dedicated her career to bringing the dead home, but this time it's the living who are counting on her.

"Death by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head" is the on-scene assessment, but the victim's relatives are adamant in their rejection of suicide as an explanation. Discovered in a closet, a full week after death, the body is barely recognisable. Extreme heat has accelerated decomposition, and Dr Temperance Brennan's forensic expertise is required. Advanced putrefaction has made it virtually impossible to determine the trajectory of the bullet.

A well-known scientist, who has recently discovered an effective vaccine for cocaine addiction, dies from anaphylaxis after a routine injection in the office of his allergist, Dr. Leonard Haberman. A malpractice lawsuit ensues, fanned by a politically ambitious senator. Questions arise when it is discovered that the cocaine vaccine specifications are missing along with the head technician who worked closely with the deceased scientist. CBI Agent Ben Locke connects these events with a cold case involving the mysterious death of another scientist.

In the quiet of twilight, on an early autumn day, 26-year-old Elisa Vandersteel is killed while riding her bicycle along the Charles River. It appears she was struck by lightning - except the weather is perfectly clear, with not a cloud in sight. Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the Cambridge Forensic Center's director and chief, decides at the scene that this is no accidental act of God. Her investigation becomes complicated when she begins receiving a flurry of bizarre poems from an anonymous cyberbully who calls himself Tailend Charlie.

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.

Master of suspense Jeffery Deaver returns with the latest gripping thriller featuring paraplegic forensic detective Lincoln Rhyme. Amelia Sachs is hot on the trail of a killer. She's chasing him through a department store in Brooklyn when suddenly the escalator malfunctions. The stairs give way, and several people are trapped, with one man horribly mangled by the gears. Sachs is forced to let her quarry escape as she jumps in to try to help save the victims.

When a body is discovered in the harbour town of Axmouth, Sir John de Wolfe, the county coroner, is summoned to investigate. The manner of the young man's death is a matter of some dispute - but, as Sir John soon discovers, it was no accident. The victim did not drown, as the manor reeve alleges, but was strangled. In the ensuing investigation, Sir John is frustrated by what appears to be a conspiracy of silence among the seamen and townsfolk. Just what is the local population trying to hide?

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.

Patients are dying at St. Raphael's Hospital. That sucks. What’s worse? I think a doctor is behind the deaths. Me? I'm an X-ray tech. I can see through people. That’s cool, but is it enough to stop a psychotic neurosurgeon? Can I use my X-ray skills to learn the truth before it’s too late for me and my patients?

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.

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.

Liverpool, 1855. Ada Houston is alone. Her grandfather has recently passed away, and her brother is missing, last seen working on the Liverpool docks. Everyone assumes him to be dead. But she will not give up hope. Ada's determined search takes her to the Crimea, where she joins the team of Florence Nightingale's nurses. She may have set off looking for her brother, but along the way Ada finds friends, romance and a new purpose in her own life in the most troubling and difficult of places.

Goth-girl mortuary technician Cassie Raven has seen thousands of dead bodies but when a drowned man knocks against the hull of her canalboat, it's a bit too close to home. Cassie is grappling with the loss of her 'gift' - her conviction that she could sense the last thoughts of the dead - and at first the mystery man with the golden-green eyes isn't sharing his secrets. But the case gets under her skin and when Cassie joins forces with Detective Phyllida Flyte, together they start to dredge up secrets from the past.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As a seasoned trauma anesthesiologist in Seattle, Doctor Jude Rosen takes his coffee black with gangland shootouts and vehicular dismemberment. When his best friend, Farrah Abdi, suffers from breast cancer, Jude sheds the carefully cultivated safeguards of a family man to help his dying friend. After being slapped with a malpractice suit and having no recourse to provide for his daughters, Jude embraces what he thought he’d abandoned: his haunted past.

Renowned surgeon Michael Trenchard locks his office door and prepares for a relaxing evening. But what follows is a living nightmare when later he is discovered in a locked-in coma, the victim of an auto-erotic asphyxiation. It is left to Doctor Kash Devan, Trenchard's young protégé, to uncover the truth. And what he discovers is chilling...In his ruthless pursuit of wealth and success, Trenchard has left a trail of wrecked lives, and angry people, behind him. Which of Trenchard's victims hated him so much that they wanted to ruin not only his reputation, but his life as well?