While the fictional monsters we fear come in many different shapes and sizes, there's something particularly fascinating about those that resemble ourselves. And when the people tasked with hunting them down have haunting pasts of their own, we readers are left to solve the biggest mystery of them all: Who can we really trust?
This list takes us to amusement parks, train cars, Midwest churches, and Hollywood spotlights, where detectives deal with copycat cases, recanted confessions, anonymous text messages, and macabre tributes.
So, lock your doors and keep your head on a swivel, because these serial killer mysteries and thrillers will leave you questioning everyone around you.
Come Get Me
When two dead bodies are oddly staged on trains across the U.S., FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit Special Agent Caitlin Dare must lead a new joint task force with the rail police.
Caitlin is a brilliant investigator, but she is haunted by a deep fear of trains, memories of her missing sister, and an erratic conductor uncle. She must face her worst childhood fears to catch the killer in a haunting game of cat and mouse.
Dark Corners
Once a highly intelligent constitutional attorney, FBI agent Dana Blaze finds her life in pieces when her beloved politician father is brutally murdered.
As the case remains unsolved, and the serial killer appears to be picking victims in patterns tied to the U.S. Constitution, Dana must use her legal and investigative intellect to beat the clock before the killer strikes again.
Girl Without a Chance
When a woman escapes from the clutches of a serial killer in a scenic small town, it falls on Deputy Sheriff Tara Strong to crack the case.
To catch the killer, Tara must decode the incoherent victim’s report before someone else is taken. It's not long before she discovers the town is hiding dark secrets of its own, and the hauntings from her own past are not far behind her.
First Kill
When an elusive killer begins terrorizing Los Angeles, former actress-turned invaluable LAPD Profiler Layla Caine is perfect for the job.
Claiming victims in a macabre tribute to their cinematic accomplishments, Layla must channel her Hollywood knowledge and sharp psychological instincts to catch the killer before the final act.
Heartsick
Detective Archie Sheridan spent a decade tracking Gretchen Lowell, a serial killer known as the “Beauty Killer.” Instead of being killed, Archie was abducted and tortured for 10 days before Gretchen spared his life and turned herself in.
Two years after, Archie still visits her in prison in the hopes that she'll reveal her previous victims' whereabouts, and when a new serial killer arises, he seeks her help.
As they play a dangerous psychological game, he must fight his own obsession with his former captor before she destroys what is left of his life and those of the newest victims.
A Fear of Dark Places
When a prominent, openly gay prosecutor gets murdered and a friend of the victim dies just a couple of weeks earlier, detective inspector Luc Kidston questions the botched suicide ruling, and the case becomes a double murder inquiry.
As tensions rise within Kidston's team, Kidston's family starts to be targeted by a shady nightclub manager, and he must race to free a loved one from captivity. Nothing will prepare him for the terrifying climax that awaits.
Hide and Seek
Detectives Naia Thulin and Mark Hess reunite in Copenhagen to investigate the Valentine’s Day disappearance of a woman who, before vanishing, received anonymous text messages featuring a child’s counting rhyme.
When the detectives discover ties to a violent decades-old cold case involving the same chilling rhyme, their investigation takes a terrifying turn.
Heart of Glass
25 years after a serial killer was convicted of murdering a teenage girl in a small-town amusement park, the killer suddenly recants his confession. At the same time, a fresh body washes ashore just as the abandoned park prepares to reopen, forcing the victim’s two former best friends to return to the town they fled.
As buried secrets claw their way to the surface, Barb and Nicolette must confront what truly happened that fateful summer before their carefully built lives are destroyed.
Soon Gone
When a killer’s victims are murdered and discovered in abandoned Midwest churches, each crime scene appears to feature Latin inscriptions about souls trapped between salvation and damnation.
FBI Agent Gemma Forge realizes he’s attempting to recreate Dante’s Inferno. She must decode these medieval references before the killer claims another innocent life and pulls her into his darkness as well.
