The Tenant


Katrine Engberg - 2016
    In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist—and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows both more urgent and more dangerous. But Esther’s role in this twisted scenario is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprit—or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance? Anette and Jeppe must dig more deeply into the two women’s pasts to discover the identity of the brutal puppet-master pulling the strings in this electrifying literary thriller.

Cold Cold Heart


Tami Hoag - 2014
    #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag delivers a shocking new thrillerDana Nolan was a promising young TV reporter until a notorious serial killer tried to add her to his list of victims.  Nearly a year has passed since surviving her ordeal, but the physical, emotional, and psychological scars run deep.  Struggling with the torment of post-traumatic stress syndrome, plagued by flashbacks and nightmares as dark as the heart of a killer, Dana returns to her hometown in an attempt to begin to put her life back together.  But home doesn’t provide the comfort she expects. Dana’s harrowing story and her return to small town life have rekindled police and media interest in the unsolved case of her childhood best friend, Casey Grant, who disappeared without a trace the summer after their graduation from high school.  Terrified of truths long-buried, Dana reluctantly begins to look back at her past.  Viewed through the dark filter of PTSD, old friends and loved ones become suspects and enemies.  Questioning everything she knows, refusing to be defined by the traumas of her past and struggling against excruciating odds, Dana seeks out a truth that may prove too terrible to be believed…

Unseen


Mari Jungstedt - 2003
    The dog has been beheaded and is missing a paw; the woman is naked, covered in gruesome axe wounds, and her panties have been stuffed in her mouth.What looks like a crime committed by the victim's jealous husband keeps the local police force on their toes. Then a second victim is found. A serial killer terrorizes tourists and locals alike, and Inspector Anders Knutas has to face additional pressure from the media and local politicians who are worried about bad PR for the island.In his quest for the murderer, he is aided by Johan Berg, an intrepid young journalist from Stockholm who has been sent to cover the incidents and who gets involved with Emma, one of the first victim's close friends. Three women die before Knutas and Berg, each approaching the case in their own way, finally close in on the killer, who has always, until now, been the one unseen by everybody.Jungstedt has written an atmospheric and exciting first mystery in clear, unadorned prose, in the tradition of Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser, and Karin Fossum.

Strangers


C.L. Taylor - 2020
    Otherwise, one of them will die.Three strangers, two secrets, one terrifying evening. The million-copy bestseller returns with a gripping new novel that will keep you guessing until the end.

Alone


Lisa Gardner - 2004
    . . Massachusetts State Trooper Bobby Dodge watches a tense hostage standoff unfold through the scope of his sniper rifle. Just across the street, in wealthy Back Bay, Boston, an armed man has barricaded himself with his wife and child. The man’s finger tightens on the trigger and Dodge has only a split second to react . . . and forever pay the consequences.Alone . . . that’s where the nightmare began for cool, beautiful, and dangerously sexy Catherine Rose Gagnon. Twenty-five years ago, she was buried underground during a month-long nightmare of abduction and abuse. Now her husband has just been killed. Her father-in-law, the powerful Judge Gagnon, blames Catherine for his son’s death . . . and for the series of unexplained illnesses that have sent her own young son repeatedly to the hospital. Alone . . . a madman survived solitary confinement in a maximum security prison where he’d done hard time for the most sadistic of crimes. Now he walks the streets a free man, invisible, anonymous . . . and filled with an unquenchable rage for vengeance. What brings them together is a moment of violence—but what connects them is a passion far deeper and much more dangerous. For a killer is loose who’s woven such an intricate web of evil that no one is above suspicion, no one is beyond harm, and no one will see death coming until it has them cornered, helpless, and alone.

One, Two ... He Is Coming For You


Willow Rose - 2011
    She is trying to escape her ex-husband and starting a new life for her and her daughter, when the small sleepy town experiences a murder. One of the kingdom's wealthiest men is brutally murdered in his summer residence in Karrebaeksminde. While Rebekka Franck and her punk photographer Sune try to cover the story for the local newspaper another murder happens on a high society rich man. Now Rebekka Franck realizes that the drowsy little kingdom of Denmark has gotten its first serial killer and soon a series of dark secrets - long buried but not forgotten – will see the day of light.

What Is Mine


Anne Holt - 2001
    Her father finds the backpack from her late mother, that would never be abandoned willingly. A week later, a five-year-old boy goes missing. And then another child. Meanwhile, Johanne Vik, a former FBI profiler with a troubled past and a difficult young daughter, tries to overturn a decades-old false murder conviction. Police Commissioner Stubo lost his wife and daughter, has only his grandson left, and needs to solve the case. Johanna resists helping until the bodies return to their homes with notes "You got what you deserved".

The Liar's Girl


Catherine Ryan Howard - 2018
    John's College-and Ireland's most prolific serial killer. Having stalked his four young victims, he drowned them in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal. Sentenced to life imprisonment when he was just nineteen, Will is locked away in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital. Freshman Alison Smith moved to the Big Smoke to enrol in St. John's and soon fell hard for Will Hurley. Her world bloomed ... and then imploded when Liz, her best friend, became the latest victim of the Canal Killer-and the Canal Killer turned out to be the boy who'd been sleeping in her bed. Alison fled to the Netherlands and, in ten years, has never once looked back. When a young woman's body is found in the Grand Canal, Garda detectives visit Will to see if he can assist them in solving what looks like a copycat killing. Instead, Will tells them he has something new to confess-but there's only one person he's prepared to confess it to. The last thing Alison wants is to be pulled back into the past she's worked so hard to leave behind. Reluctantly, she returns to the city she hasn't set foot in for more than a decade to face the man who murdered the woman she was supposed to become. Only to discover that, until now, Will has left out the worst part of all ...

The Millennium Trilogy (Millennium Trilogy, #1-3)


Stieg Larsson - 2005
    All these years later, her aged uncle continues to try to discover what happened to her. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist recently sidelined by a libel conviction, to investigate. Blomkvist is aided by the pierced and tattooed computer prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption on their way to discovering the truth of Harriet Vanger’s fate. The Girl Who Played with Fire Mikael Blomkvist, now the crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation of the murders. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest Lisbeth Salander lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. On her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and against the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

Victim Without a Face


Stefan Ahnhem - 2014
    He has planned a six-week vacation before he starts a new job at the Homicide Department. But after only a few hours in their new home, he is asked to investigate a brutal murder. The body of Jörgen Pålsson, one of Risk’s former classmates, has been found with both hands missing. Soon the bodies of more old classmates are found, and Risk finds himself in a race against time: Can they find the murderer before the entire class is killed?

Spring Tide


Cilla Börjlind - 2012
    Three men on the beach are digging a hole, covertly watched by a young boy. His intrigue turns to horror as he makes out the fourth figure of the woman for whom the hole is intended. Buried up to her neck in the sand, the high tide is rapidly approaching. Still screaming in terror, the victim takes her last breath as water fills her nose and mouth—in her stomach, she feels her baby kick. And her waters break. The abhorrent crime remains unsolved 24 years later; but gruesome violence is still prevalent. A gang has been killing homeless people in parks, filming their attacks, and broadcasting them on the internet. The police have their work cut out trying to keep abreast of the crime wave. Olivia Rönning hopes to follow in her father's footsteps and join their ranks in the next few months as she completes her training; she has only one last hurdle to overcome over the summer break, a challenge from her professor to pick a cold case and solve it. Should be simple, she thinks. Little does she know the world she is getting involved in, the danger she faces, and the ugly truths she risks uncovering.

The Creak on the Stairs


Eva Björg Ægisdóttir - 2018
    Sifting through the rubble of the townspeople’s shattered memories, they have to dodge increasingly serious threats, and find justice … before it’s too late.

Eleven


Carolyn Arnold - 2011
    Ten Bodies. One Empty Grave.In this international bestseller, rookie FBI Agent Brandon Fisher takes on his first case with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, but will he survive long enough to catch the killer? Eleven is a fast-paced, spine-tingling thriller that will have you gasping for breath at every twist... When Brandon Fisher joined the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, he knew he'd come up against psychopaths, sociopaths, pathological liars, and more. But when his first case takes him and the team to Salt Lick, Kentucky, to hunt down a ritualistic serial killer, he learns what nightmares are truly made of. Beneath a residential property, local law enforcement discovered an underground bunker with circular graves that house the remains of ten victims. But that's not all: there's an empty eleventh grave, just waiting for a corpse. The killing clearly hasn't come to an end yet, and with the property owner already behind bars, Brandon is certain there's an apprentice who roams free. As the FBI follows the evidence across the United States, Brandon starts to struggle with the deranged nature of his job description. And if the case itself isn't going to be enough to push Brandon over the edge, he's working in the shadow of Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper, who expects nothing short of perfection from his team. To make matters even worse, it seems Brandon has become the target of a psychotic serial killer who wants to make him--or his wife--victim number eleven.

One Last Step


Sarah Sutton - 2020
     Two hikers go missing along the Appalachian Trail, leaving only a bloodstained forest behind them, and when another hiker collapses on someone’s porch in New Hampshire, murdered by crossbow, the local police realize they have a serial killer on their hands––and need to call in the FBI. FBI Agent Tara Mills is young, brilliant and new to the force. With a promising career in front of her, she faces the ultimate test when she is assigned the case. It soon proves to be more challenging than she ever could have imagined––an impossible riddle that leaves even her seasoned partner stumped. Meanwhile, something about the case stirs a darkness within her––a tortured past that even her long-term boyfriend doesn’t fully understand. As nightmares consume her, she only hopes that her past will not come back to ruin her once again. As more hikers go missing, and with her job on the line, Tara finds herself on a race against time as she combs through the forest’s trails. Peeling back each layer, she soon realizes that she is up against a true diabolical mastermind. And just when she thinks she has it all figured out, her instincts lead her to the most shocking truth of all. Book #2 in the series––ONE LAST BREATH––is also now available for pre-order!

Trust No One


Debra Webb - 2020
    She’s locked in a bitter struggle with her ex-husband and teenage daughter, and her reckless new partner is anything but trustworthy.Still, she has a job to do: there’s a killer at large, and a pregnant woman has gone missing. Once Devlin and her partner get to work, they quickly unearth secrets involving Birmingham’s most esteemed citizens. Each new layer of the investigation brings Devlin closer to the killer and the missing woman, who starts looking more like a suspect than a victim.But just as answers come into view, the case twists, expands, and slithers into Devlin’s personal life. There’s a much more sinister game at work, one she doesn’t even know she’s playing—and she must unravel the truth once and for all to stop the killer before she loses everything.