8 Chilling Occult Murder Mystery Books

It's not that unusual for police diver Flea Marley to grab onto a human hand nine feet under water. But it is disturbing that this particular hand isn't attached to its body.

To make matters even more unsettling, the other hand is found a day later. And it seems both amputated appendages were taken while the victim was still alive.

DI Jack Caffery of Bristol's Major Crime Investigation Unit identifies the hands as belonging to a young man who's recently gone missing.

To find what's left of the victim and his abductor, Caffery and Marley wade into the dark underworld of Bristol, through drugs, desperation, and whisperings of the occult.

Sir John Farnleigh has always been the black sheep of the family. And his luck seems to be even blacker.

After getting banished from the English countryside, he set off to start a new life with his cousin in America. Unfortunately, his journey began aboard the Titanic.

While he narrowly avoided going down with the ship, his family ties were not quite so vivacious. Cutting off all contact with the wealthy Farnleigh Clan, Sir John never returned to England.

Not for 25 years, anyway, after the deaths of his mother, father, and older brother. And now a hefty inheritance is waiting for him in his homeland.

Standing in his way, however, is another “Sir John.” This gentleman claims to have undeniable proof of his identity and subsequent claim to the Farnleigh estate.

When one of these men are murdered, Dr. Gideon Fell takes on one of his most perplexing cases yet. As he tries to get to the bottom of the truth, he must contend with witchcraft, an automaton, and what appears to be an impossible crime.

Winter is settling in on the moors, and the body of a young woman has been discovered inside a ring of ancient cairns. She's been posed to look as if she's dancing.

It seems that the English countryside is now home to a spate of ritualistic killings—but the next woman has been found alive, albeit severely wounded and traumatized.

It's up to Ben Cooper and Diane Fry to free the memories trapped in her mind behind a wall of terror before more lives are lost.

A hurricane hits Bellerton, North Carolina hard, and though Zhondra Meyer is equipped to help the townsfolk, many are still hesitant to find higher ground on her farm.

Zhondra purports her camp as a shelter for battered women, but the evangelical locals see her guests as nothing more than lesbians, occultists, and Satanists.

When a baby is found ritually murdered on Zhondra's property, it looks like the townies' fears might hold water.

Former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian has seen his fair share of religious murders, but Satanism is something new. When his friend David—a prominent atheist—asks him to investigate this disturbing murder, he arrives with an open mind.

But it's not long before he discovers that even the most devout Christians are capable of horrific things.

In the 19th century, a Utah wagon train perished at the hands of a group of militant Mormons called the Avenging Angels. Unarmed men, women, and children totaling 140 people were murdered in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which remains a controversial topic even today.

Acclaimed forensic scientist Gwen Marcey believes that the victim's skulls hold answers to the truth behind this horrific event. As she works to reconstruct the faces of the recently unearthed victims, she makes a chilling discovery.

Some of the remains belong to someone far more recent: a young college student who appears to be the victim of a ritual murder. 

Now Gwen must contend with a centuries-old coverup and modern-day fundamentalist terrors to keep a secret society from repeating a dark piece of history.

Readers may be familiar with famous literary detective Kurt Wallander. But do you know his daughter?

Linda Wallander has graduated from the police academy, and she's spiraling with boredom waiting to start working with the Ystad police. To compound matters, she's living with her father, who's driving her crazy as much as she's returning the gesture.

Even when she finally moves into her own apartment, her father will be inescapable. After all, Kurt Wallander is a veteran inspector of the very same police force Linda is waiting to join.

Personal tensions skyrocket higher when one of Linda's childhood friends, Anna, goes missing. As Linda takes on the case, she makes a series of rookie mistakes that could have fatal consequences.

And as Kurt's own case starts to overlap with his daughter's, it appears that something far more sinister is afoot than either of them imagined. A ritual killer is on the loose, and this father-daughter duo are determined to bring them to justice.

The police make a fast arrest following the murder of a wealthy German student at a Reykjavík university. But would a drug dealer really leave this young man mutilated, with his eyes removed and peculiar symbols carved into his chest?

The victim's family believes the real killer is still out there, and they turn to local lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir to find the truth. As Thóra and her associate, Matthew Reich, look into the case, they discover that the victim had a strong fascination with Iceland's dark history of torture, execution, and witch hunts.

Unfortunately, not all of these dark traditions were left in the past. Suddenly thrown into danger themselves, Thóra and Matthew must sift through a case where nothing is as it seems—and no one can be trusted.

As a neuroscientist for the FBI, Sayer Altair is all too familiar with the evil that lives in the human mind. And researching that evil in the brains of serial killers is a great distraction from the pain she still carries after the death of her fiancé.

She's pulled away from that research, however, when the Washington D.C. police ask her to lead a murder investigation. The daughter of a high profile senator was abducted and slowly starved to death in a cage.

With public pressure nipping at Sayer's heels and a video pointing toward a dark ritual, Sayer already has a lot on her plate. When a second girl is taken, it becomes a race to save her life.

As evidence links these crimes to Sayer's past, it seems she may be the only one capable of stopping a killer with a dangerous obsession.