The Ghost House


Helen Phifer - 2013
    Not even the horrors she has witnessed during her years on the police force. But when she agrees to look after her brother's farmhouse, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to the crumbling old mansion in the woods nearby. But an innocent exploration of the empty ruin and the discovery of the diary of former resident Alice leaves her more than a little spooked. She knows it holds the secrets to a dark past, and she has to find out more. What was the terrible truth that Alice uncovered? And how could what happened to her over 100 years ago help solve the murders of young women in the town? Annie needs to stop the serial killer before she becomes his next victim –- but the past comes back to haunt her in ways she could never have expected.

Already Dead


Charlie Huston - 2005
    Only it’s not like the movies or old man Stoker’s storybook. It’s worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them. Just ask Joe Pitt. There’s a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks’ brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he’s still the one who has to deal with them. That’s just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he’s not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he’s tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that’s eating at him isn’t his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn’t make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan–it ain’t easy. It’s worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition–the city’s most powerful Clan–and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who’s gone missing in Alphabet City.Now the Coalition and the girl’s high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.

Natural Causes


James Oswald - 2012
    So the murderer has killed himself; that just saves the time and cost of a trial. But a second murder days later bears haunting similarities to the first, even though once more the murderer swiftly confesses and kills himself.Detective Inspector Anthony McLean is investigating the discovery of a dead girl, walled up in the basement of an old Edinburgh mansion. She has been brutally murdered, her internal organs removed and placed around her in six preserving jars. The evidence suggests this all happened over sixty years ago, an attempt to re-enact an ancient ceremony that by trapping a demon in the dead girl’s body would supposedly confer immortality on the six men who took one of her organs each.McLean’s grandmother – the woman who raised him after his parents were killed when he was a young boy – dies after months in a coma following a stroke. On top of this he has to investigate a series of unusual, violent suicides and a cat-burglar who targets the homes of the recently dead. But as another prominent Edinburgh businessman is killed, he begins to suspect that there may be a connection between the murders, the suicides and the ritual killing of the girl found in the basement. The same names keep cropping up. He just can’t find a rational explanation as to how that connection works.As he digs deeper, and as the coincidences stack up, McLean is forced to consider an irrational explanation. Could there really be something evil stalking the city he has sworn to protect? And if so, how on earth can he hope to stop it?

Bitter Roots


C.J. Carmichael - 2017
     On the surface Lost Trail is a picture-perfect western town, offering a simple way of life revolving around the local ranches and ski hill, but Zak knows the truth behind the façade. When his old school friend Tiff Masterson, whose family owns a local Christmas tree farm, moves back to town, the two of them join forces to get to the truth about the murder. Bitter Roots is the first of three Bitter Root Mysteries.

UNSUB


Meg Gardiner - 2017
    Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case.The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career.Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession.Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?

The 7th Victim


Alan Jacobson - 2008
    His brutal murders confound the local task force, despite the gifted profiling skills of Special Agent Karen Vail. But along with Vail’s insight and expertise comes considerable personal and professional baggage. On leave pending a review of her assault on her abusive ex-husband, Vail must battle forces determined to bring her down, as she fights to find Dead Eyes before he murders more young women. But the seventh victim is the key to all that stirs this killer...the key that will unlock secrets perhaps too painful for Vail to bear. These are secrets that threaten to destroy her, secrets that will bring down her storied career. For Karen Vail, the truth rests at the heart of a lie. And uncovering it could get her killed...With material meticulously researched during seven years of study with the Bureau’s vaunted profiling unit, Alan Jacobson brings refreshing realism and unprecedented accuracy to his pages.The 7th Victim is a page-turner as only Alan Jacobson can write, with a stunning twist of an ending that will satisfy even the most discerning thriller reader.

Where the Dead Walk


John Bowen - 2014
    Others take a more literal view... Kate Bennett, presenter of paranormal investigation cable TV show, Where the Dead Walk, isn't sure what she believes, other than she seems cursed to lose all those closest to her. After investigating a neglected cliff-top house, empty for a decade because its "haunted", Kate is left convinced a spirit within holds the answers to a childhood she can't remember and an unimaginable crime. What she can't know is that the house's owner, Sebastian Dahl, is searching for something too, and he intends to get it, whatever the cost.

Eeny Meeny


M.J. Arlidge - 2014
    As hunger and thirst set in, only one walks away alive.It’s a game more twisted than any Detective Helen Grace has ever seen. If she hadn’t spoken with the shattered survivors herself, she almost wouldn’t believe them.Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....

Frozen Stiff


Patrick Logan - 2017
    Naked. Frozen solid. It's only a matter of time before the killer strikes again.  With no evidence, no leads, and no clues, the local PD has no choice but to call in the FBI.  Enter FBI recruit Chase Adams. While she may be new to the Bureau, Chase is no rookie when it comes to murder. First a Narcotics Officer in Seattle, then a NYPD Detective, Chase has insight into the workings of some of the most demented minds of our society.  But this case will push even Chase to the limits–it's like nothing she has investigated before. The local PD thinks they have things wrapped up nicely, but Chase isn't at all convinced. When a third and fourth body surfaces across the country, Chase realizes that she is on the hunt for a killer whose murder spree knows no boundaries.  What sort of animal could commit such atrocities? And why?  Chase fears that these murders are only the beginning. But what she doesn't know is that as she closes in on the murderer, he's closing in on her. And her family. This might be FBI recruit Chase Adams' first case, but if she doesn't catch the killer soon, it may also be her last. A brutal, fast-paced serial killer thriller perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter, Robert Bryndza, L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain, and T aylor Adams.   Order your copy of FROZEN STIFF, the first book in the exciting Chase Adams FBI Thriller Series now!

The Lying Game


Sara Shepard - 2010
    No more kisses. No more secrets. No more gossip. It's enough to kill a girl all over again. But I'm about to get something no one else does--an encore performance, thanks to Emma, the long-lost twin sister I never even got to meet.Now Emma's desperate to know what happened to me. And the only way to figure it out is to be me--to slip into my old life and piece it all together. But can she laugh at inside jokes with my best friends? Convince my boyfriend she's the girl he fell in love with? Pretend to be a happy, care-free daughter when she hugs my parents goodnight? And can she keep up the charade, even after she realizes my murderer is watching her every move?From Sara Shepard, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars books, comes a riveting new series about secrets, lies, and killer consequences.Let the lying game begin.

Stealing Shadows


Kay Hooper - 2000
    police catch killers - until she makes a terrible mistake and an innocent child dies. Cassie flees to a small North Carolina town, hoping that a quiet life will silence the voices that invade her unwilling mind. But Cassie's abilities know few boundaries. And she's become certain - as no one else can be - that a murderer is stalking Ryan's Bluff.It's his fury that Cassie senses first, then his foul thoughts and perverse excitement. Yet she doesn't know who he is or where he will strike. The sheriff won't even listen to her - until the first body is found exactly where and how she predicted. Now a suspect herself, she races desperately to unmask the killer in the only way she knows: by entering his twisted mind. Her every step is loaded with fear and uncertainty... because if he senses her within him, he'll trap her there, so deep she'll never find her way out.

Spare Room


Dreda Say Mitchell - 2019
    The live-in owners are a kind and welcoming couple. Everything is fine until she finds a suicide note hidden in her room. But when the couple insist this man didn’t exist and that Lisa is their first tenant, Lisa begins to doubt herself.Compelled to uncover the secrets of the man who lived in the room before her, Lisa is alarmed when increasingly disturbing incidents start to happen. Someone doesn’t want Lisa to find out the truth.As the four walls of this house and its secrets begin to close in on Lisa, she descends into a hellish hall of mirrors where she’s not sure what’s real and what’s not as she claws her way towards the truth… This room has already claimed one victim? Is it about to take another?

The Ghosts of Idlewood


M.L. Bullock - 2016
    The long-dead Ferguson children don't seem to know they're dead. A mysterious clock, a devilish fog and the Shadow Man add to the supernatural tension that begins to build in the house. Lead historian Carrie Jo Stuart and her assistant Rachel must use their special abilities to get to the bottom of the many mysteries that the house holds. Detra Ann and Henri get a reality check, of the supernatural kind, and Deidre Jardine finally comes face to face with the past. If you loved the Seven Sisters series, you'll enjoy the spinoff series, Idlewood.

Lost Boy Lost Girl


Peter Straub - 2003
    A week later, her son -- fifteen-year-old Mark -- vanishes. The boy's uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before Nancy's suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from basement to attic with the echoes of a long hidden true-life horror story, and Tim comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.

In the Blood


Steve Robinson - 2011
    American genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to find out what happened, but it soon becomes apparent that a calculated killer is out to stop him.In the Blood combines a centuries-old mystery with a present-day thriller that brings two people from opposite sides of the Atlantic together to uncover a series of carefully hidden crimes. Tayte's research centres around the tragic life of a young Cornish girl, a writing box, and the discovery of a dark secret that he believes will lead him to the family he is looking for. Trouble is, someone else is looking for the same answers and will stop at nothing to find them.In the Blood is the first in the Jefferson Tayte mystery series.