Forensic Mystery Fiction

In the near-future United States, where advanced technology can create eggs or sperm from any person’s cells, celebrities face the alarming potential of meeting biological children they never conceived. Famous singer Trace Thorne is tired of being targeted by the Vault, a black market site devoted to stealing DNA. Sick of paying ransom money for his own cell matter, he hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to ensure his biological safety.

A must-listen thriller from the author of Dead Already.

Scholar Richard Sabyn, a particularly obnoxious fellow, was believed to have been struck by lightning. However, Master Wycliffe believes otherwise and calls upon Sir Hugh de Singleton for help. Sir Hugh shares Wycliffe’s suspicions and launches a private investigation, learning that it might indeed be possible to make it look as though a man has died from a lightning strike. But who would go to all that effort, and why?

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.

Alex Torkelsson has just gotten word: His late uncle Magnus's plane has been found south of Hawaii's Big Island after 10 long years. So too have Magnus' few skeletal remains, now handed over to the only man who can fit together the pieces of this mystery. What forensic detective Gideon Oliver discovers could shake the Torkelsson family tree to its very roots. But this time his work is yielding more questions about the past than answers. Questions about the long-ago execution-style murder of Magnus's brother...about a mysterious will that benefits - as well as incriminates - its heirs.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer-genius niece, Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost 20 years ago. As Scarpetta watches she begins to learn frightening secrets about her niece. That film clip and others sent soon after raise dangerous legal implications that increasingly isolate Scarpetta and leave her confused, worried, and not knowing where to turn.

Will the last humans on Earth please turn out the lights? James Patterson's ZOO was just the beginning. The planet is still under violent siege by ferocious animals. Humans are their desperate prey. Except some humans are evolving, mutating into a savage species that could save civilization-or end it.

Dr. Zack Winston's self-confidence is on shaky ground. Slated to see his young-adult daughters over Christmas for the first time in five years, the skilled emergency physician worries his relationship issues will rear their ugly heads and prevent them from bonding. His determination to focus on his personal life sinks deep when he questions a pediatrician colleague's alleged suicide attempt by drowning.

It is a case unlike any psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware has ever encountered. Five-year-old Woody Swope is ill, but the real problem is his parents. They refuse to agree to the one treatment that could save this boy's life. Alex sets out to convince Mr. and Mrs. Swope - only to find that the parents have left the hospital and taken their son with them. Worse, the sleazy motel room where the Swopes were staying is empty - except for the ominous bloodstain. The Swopes and their son have vanished into the sordid shadows of the city.

Best-selling author Robin Cook returns with another ripped-from-the- headlines thriller, as New York City medical detective Jack Stapleton investigates the promises - and deadly risks - of alternative medicine and is led deep into the heart of a religious conspiracy...

In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son. Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.

New York Times best-selling author Iris Johansen delivers a brand new thriller. Every day brings a new challenge for the forensic sculptor Eve Duncan: identify a new victim and help bring a criminal to justice. But Eve, who uses her intuition and modeling clay the same way a sketch artist uses a pencil, is about to meet her greatest challenge yet: a killer who is going to extraordinary lengths to obscure the identity of his victims, leaving them literally faceless and with burned fingerprints.

La vida del doctor Ricky Starks está marcada por una oscuridad persistente. Quince años han pasado desde que sufriera el primer ataque de una familia de psicópatas. En dos ocasiones, Starks ha logrado escapar de las garras mortales de esta familia, incluso presenciando la muerte de uno de ellos. Sin embargo, la sombra de la tragedia se cierne de nuevo sobre él cuando un detective lo contacta para informarle que uno de sus pacientes se ha suicidado.

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.

Former star basketball player Clay Edison is busy. He’s solved a decades-old crime and redeemed an innocent man, earning himself a suspension in the process. Things are getting serious with his girlfriend. Plus his brother’s fresh out of prison, bringing with him a whole new set of complications. Then the phone rings in the dead of night. A wild party in a gentrifying East Bay neighborhood. A heated argument that spills into the street. Gunshots. Chaos. For Clay and his fellow coroners, it’s the start of a long night and the first of many to come.

It's New Year's Eve, the final night of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War, and another poor soul has turned up dead. Ted Eddings, a scuba diver and investigative reporter who was a favorite at the medical examiner's office, is found 30 feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner for the state of Virginia, can't help but wonder why she received a phone call from someone reporting the death before the police were notified.

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.

In the remote, frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean, the high-powered and technically advanced submarine U.S.S. Montana is in peril. Adrift and in flames, the boat - and the entire crew - could be lost. The only team close enough to get to them in time is led by Marine doctor and bio-terror expert Joe Rush.

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.