Forensic Mystery Fiction

Eleven years ago, the Co-ed Slayer murdered nine female students on the Oregon State University campus. Lacey Campbell barely escaped his attack, but lost her best friend whose remains were never found. As the sole surviving victim, Lacey helped send the sadistic serial killer to prison for life. Now a forensic odontologist examining teeth and bones for the state Medical Examiner, Lacey is devastated when she arrives at a crime scene and identifies the skeletal remains as her college friend’s.

Mayan ruins in the Yucatán...a secret room in a tomb...age-old skeletons. To anthropologist Gideon Oliver, the renowned Skeleton Detective, the invitation to join the archaeological excavation of Tlaloc promises two months of paradise on Earth. That is, until an ancient series of Mayan curses against desecrators of the site is unearthed.

Working in the ER of a small South Carolina hospital, Dr. Rhea Lynch has seen it all - most of it at 2:00 a.m. But when an interracial couple is rushed in, beaten and bloodied by a mysterious hate group, the patients show signs of a fast-acting pulmonary infection Rhea has never seen before. Within hours, it proves fatal. Soon, more victims are rushed in, and an epidemic has Dawkins County in an icy grip of terror. As the puzzling illness claims more lives by the hour, Rhea begins to draw some startling conclusions about the nature of the illness...and about its connections to the military.

When a father vanishes with his two-week-old daughter, leaving behind a frantic wife and their eight-year-old son, forensic psychologist and FBI agent Alexis Forrest is called in to investigate. The man's blood-stained truck is discovered abandoned on a dirt road, but there's no trace of him or the baby. As Alexis delves into the case, she uncovers a tangled web of secrets and lies. With the serial killer responsible for her sister's death now behind bars, Alexis hopes for a fresh start in the small New England town where she grew up. However, peace is hard to find. Alexis tries to move ...

Kay Scarpetta has been training at the Dover Port Mortuary, mastering the art of 'virtual autopsy'—a groundbreaking procedure that could soon revolutionise forensic science. And it is not too long before these new skills urgently need to be put into practice. A young man drops dead, apparently from a heart condition, eerily close to Scarpetta's home. But when his body is examined the next morning, there are stunning indications that he may have been alive when he was zipped inside a pouch and locked in the cooler.

He slips into their homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, unaware of the horrors they soon will endure. The precision of the killer's methods suggests he is a deranged man of medicine, propelling the Boston newspapers and the frightened public to name him "The Surgeon". The cops' only clue rests with another surgeon, the victim of a nearly identical crime. Two years ago, Dr. Catherine Cordell fought back and killed her attacker before he could complete his assault.

When she finds out that the man convicted of killing her sister may be innocent, FBI agent and forensic psychologist Alexis Forrest goes on the search for the real culprit. Evidence of her sister’s murder was found in a remote cabin, along with traces of dozens more young women. A serial killer has been stalking these woods for decades and he’s still out there. Alexis had returned to Broken Hill, the snowy New England town where she grew up, to investigate another case. But after finding the serial killer’s cabin with evidence of other victims, she will do anything to track him down. ...

Convicted serial killer Carrie Grethen has escaped from a psychiatric hospital with plans for revenge. Wary and shaken, Scarpetta also has to investigate the death by fire of an unknown woman. The post mortem reveals that the woman was stabbed before the fire was started, and soon Scarpetta and her colleagues are called out to the scene of another fire and another murder.

In Marbella, Spain, Dr. Kate Warner awakens to a horrifying reality: the human race stands on the brink of extinction. A pandemic unlike any before it has swept the globe. Nearly a billion people are dead--and those the Atlantis Plague doesn't kill, it transforms at the genetic level. A few rapidly evolve. The remainder devolve. As the world slips into chaos, radical solutions emerge. Industrialized nations offer a miracle drug, Orchid, which they mass produce and distribute to refugee camps around the world. But Orchid is merely a way to buy time. It treats the symptoms of the plague but never actually cures the disease.

Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams. But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate… with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end. In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed.

Officially, Aidan Deveraux is a communications expert for one of the largest financial firms in the world. In his secret life, the former Marine heads the Zermatt Group, a covert team of military and spy agency operatives that searches the data stream for troubling events in an increasingly troubled world. When his artificial intelligence system detects that Lauren Pennington - a college junior studying abroad in Germany - has been kidnapped, Aidan immediately sees the bigger picture.

A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear. Sara's ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation - a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another local woman is found crucified a few days later.

Don Donaldson brings us to the famous French Quarter with our favorite dynamic detective duo in this gripping thriller. New Orleans's chief medical examiner, Andy Broussard, and his assistant, criminal psychologist Kit Franklyn, set off to investigate a series of violent serial murders. Examinations of the victims have led them to discover that each one's throat was ripped out with two tools: a garden fork and something unrecognizable.

Chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta is the reluctant star witness in a sensational murder trial when she receives shocking news. The judge’s sister has been found dead. At first glance, it appears to be a home invasion, but then why was nothing stolen, and why is the garden strewn with dead plants and insects? Although there is no apparent cause of death, Scarpetta recognizes telltale signs of the unthinkable, and she knows the worst is yet to come. The forensic pathologist finds herself pitted against a powerful force that returns her to the past.

Saturday night dates at the skating rink have been a tradition in the small southern town of Heartsdale for as long as anyone can remember, but when a teenage quarrel explodes into a deadly shoot-out, Sara Linton - the town's pediatrician and medical examiner - finds herself entangled in a terrible tragedy.

When Matthew Preston was eight, his father was shot and killed in rarefied Pacific Palisades by Ted Nash, a home burglar who happened to be the Prestons' neighbor. Though Nash was sentenced to life in San Quentin, Matthew's lifelong obsession is to somehow get into the prison, gain access to Nash, and exact the ultimate personal revenge. He devises a plan to become a prison doctor to gain access to Nash.

Forensic psychologist and FBI agent Alexis Forrest is on the hunt for a serial killer who has been terrorizing New England for decades. Years ago, her teenage sister fell victim to this predator, but the wrong person was convicted and sent to prison and the real killer is still out there. The eerie calm of Broken Hill, Alexis's hometown, is shattered when a string of brutal killings resurfaces, echoing the nightmare of her past. For years, everyone thought he was gone and then he strikes again. After her father's house is burned down and her mother receives threats, Alexis knows she's ...

When human bones are found beneath an old chapel in the woods, evidence suggests the remains could be linked to the decades-old case of missing teen Annalise Jansen. Homicide detective Jane Munro—pregnant and acutely attuned to the preciousness of life—hopes the grim discovery will finally bring closure to the girl’s family. But for a group of Annalise’s old friends, once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media, it threatens to expose a terrible pledge made on an autumn night forty-seven years ago.

Dr. Morton Handler practiced a strange brand of psychiatry. Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old Melody Quinn.

The double murder of a married couple in a small Washington town draws FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto into an investigation that mirrors a decades-old crime. Twenty-five years ago—to the day—Alex Parker murdered his parents, then took his own life, leaving behind a note admitting everything. Raisa, paired with forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny, uses her skills to read between the lines. Especially now that paranoid postings on a conspiracy thread suggest that Alex was a victim himself.