This sub-genre of Mystery centers around the scientific methods of solving a crime, be it hand-writing analysis or body decomposition. Because of the gory nature of the investigation method, i.e., cutting up bodies, Forensic Mysteries are not for the faint of heart and sometimes feature stomach-turning details.
Cold, Cold Bones by
"Reichs has written her masterpiece--smart, scary, complicated, and engrossing." --Michael Connelly "This page-turning series never lets the reader down." --Harlan Coben "The crowning achievement of a master storyteller." --Nelson DeMille #1 New York Times bestselling thriller writer Kathy Reichs's twenty-first novel of suspense featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who uncovers a series of gruesome killings eerily reenacting the most shocking of her prior cases. Winter has come to North Carolina and, with it, a drop in crime. Freed from a heavy work schedule, Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter Katy, finally returned to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe's place one night, they find a box on the back porch. Inside: a very fresh human eyeball. GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. Soon after, Tempe examines a mummified corpse in a state park, and her anxiety deepens. There seems to be no pattern to the subsequent killings uncovered, except that each mimics in some way a homicide that a younger Tempe had been called in to analyze. Who or what is targeting her, and why? Helping Tempe search for answers is detective Erskine "Skinny" Slidell, retired but still volunteering with the CMPD cold case unit--and still displaying his gallows humor. Also pulled into the mystery: Andrew Ryan, Tempe's Montreal-based beau, now working as a private detective. Could this elaborately staged skein of mayhem be the prelude to a twist that is even more shocking? Tempe is at a loss to establish the motive for what is going on...and then her daughter disappears. At its core, Cold, Cold Bones is a novel of revenge--one in which revisiting the past may prove the only way to unravel the present.
Bones of the Lost by
#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her sixteenth riveting novel featuring forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan, whose examination of a young girl killed in a hit and run in North Carolina triggers an investigation into international human trafficking. When Charlotte police discover the body of a teenage girl along a desolate stretch of two-lane highway, Temperance Brennan fears the worst. The girl's body shows signs of foul play. Inside her purse police find the ID card of a prominent local businessman, John-Henry Story, who died in a horrific flea market fire months earlier. Was the girl an illegal immigrant turning tricks? Was she murdered? The medical examiner has also asked Tempe to examine a bundle of Peruvian dog mummies confiscated by U.S. Customs. A Desert Storm veteran named Dominick Rockett stands accused of smuggling the objects into the country. Could there be some connection between the trafficking of antiquitiesand the trafficking of humans? As the case deepens, Tempe must also grapple with personal turmoil. Her daughter Katy, grieving the death of her boyfriend in Afghanistan, impulsively enlists in the Army. As pressure mounts from all corners, Tempe soon finds herself at the center of a conspiracy that extends all the way from South America, to Afghanistan, and right to the center of Charlotte. "A genius at building suspense" (Daily News, New York), Kathy Reichs is at her brilliant best in this thrilling novel.
Last to Die by
Rizzoli & Isles * Hit series on TNT "Suspense doesn't get smarter than this. Not just recommended but mandatory."--Lee Child For the second time in his short life, Teddy Clock has survived a massacre. Two years ago, he barely escaped when his entire family was slaughtered. Now, at fourteen, in a hideous echo of the past, Teddy is the lone survivor of his foster family's mass murder. Orphaned once more, the traumatized teenager has nowhere to turn--until the Boston PD puts detective Jane Rizzoli on the case. Determined to protect this young man, Jane discovers that what seemed like a coincidence is instead just one horrifying part of a relentless killer's merciless mission. Jane spirits Teddy to the exclusive Evensong boarding school, a sanctuary where young victims of violent crime learn the secrets and skills of survival in a dangerous world. But even behind locked gates, and surrounded by acres of sheltering Maine wilderness, Jane fears that Evensong's mysterious benefactors aren't the only ones watching. When strange blood-splattered dolls are found dangling from a tree, Jane knows that her instincts are dead on. And when she meets Will Yablonski and Claire Ward, students whose tragic pasts bear a shocking resemblance to Teddy's, it becomes chillingly clear that a circling predator has more than one victim in mind. Joining forces with her trusted partner, medical examiner Maura Isles, Jane is determined to keep these orphans safe from harm. But an unspeakable secret dooms the children's fate--unless Jane and Maura can finally put an end to an obsessed killer's twisted quest. PRAISE FOR TESS GERRITSEN "[Gerritsen] has an imagination that allows her to conjure up depths of human behavior so dark and frightening that she makes Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft seem like goody-two-shoes."--Chicago Tribune "One of the most versatile voices in thriller fiction today."--The Providence Journal The Silent Girl "Another great thrill ride . . . one of Gerritsen's best."--Associated Press "An exciting and suspense-filled adventure."--Wichita Falls Times Record News Ice Cold "Gerritsen paces Ice Cold with surgical precision."--Salon "The kind of book you'd read in one sitting."--Chicago Sun-Times
Dust by
From the world's number-one bestselling crime writer comes the extraordinary new Kay Scarpetta novel. Massachusetts Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has just returned from working one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history when she’s awakened at an early hour by Detective Pete Marino. A body, oddly draped in an unusual cloth, has just been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT and it’s suspected the identity is that of missing computer engineer Gail Shipton, last seen the night before at a trendy Cambridge bar. It appears she’s been murdered, mere weeks before the trial of her $100 million lawsuit against her former financial managers, and Scarpetta doubts it’s a coincidence. She also fears the case may have a connection with her computer genius niece, Lucy. At a glance there is no sign of what killed Gail Shipton, but she’s covered with a fine dust that under ultraviolet light fluoresces brilliantly in three vivid colors, what Scarpetta calls a mineral fingerprint. Clearly the body has been posed with chilling premeditation that is symbolic and meant to shock, and Scarpetta has reason to worry that the person responsible is the Capital Murderer, whose most recent sexual homicides have terrorized Washington, D.C. Stunningly, Scarpetta will discover that her FBI profiler husband, Benton Wesley, is convinced that certain people in the government, including his boss, don’t want the killer caught. In Dust, Scarpetta and her colleagues are up against a force far more sinister than a sexual predator who fits the criminal classification of a “spectacle killer.” The murder of Gail Shipton soon leads deep into the dark world of designer drugs, drone technology, organized crime, and shocking corruption at the highest levels. With unparalleled high-tension suspense and the latest in forensic technology, Patricia Cornwell once again proves her exceptional ability to surprise—and to thrill.
Dying on the Vine by
Edgar® Award-winning author Aaron Elkins's creation--forensics professor Gideon Oliver--has been hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "a likable, down-to-earth, cerebral sleuth." Now, the celebrated Skeleton Detective is visiting friends at a vineyard in Tuscany when murder leaves a bitter aftertaste... It was the unwavering custom of Pietro Cubbiddu, patriarch of Tuscany's Villa Antica wine empire, to take a solitary month-long sabbatical at the end of the early grape harvest, leaving the winery in the trusted hands of his three sons. His wife, Nola, would drive him to an isolated mountain cabin in the Apennines and return for him a month later, bringing him back to his family and business. So it went for almost a decade--until the year came when neither of them returned. Months later, a hiker in the Apennines stumbles on their skeletal remains. The carabinieri investigate and release their findings: they are dealing with a murder-suicide. The evidence makes it clear that Pietro Cubbiddu shot and killed his wife and then himself. The likely motive: his discovery that Nola had been having an affair. Not long afterwards, Gideon Oliver and his wife, Julie, are in Tuscany visiting their friends, the Cubbiddu offspring. The renowned Skeleton Detective is asked to reexamine the bones. When he does, he reluctantly concludes that the carabinieri, competent though they may be, have gotten almost everything wrong. Whatever it was that happened in the mountains, a murder-suicide it was not. Soon Gideon finds himself in a morass of family antipathies, conflicts, and mistrust, to say nothing of the local carabinieri's resentment. And when yet another Cubbiddu relation meets an unlikely end, it becomes bone-chillingly clear that the killer is far from finished...
Airtight Case by
In a seemingly random event, forensic anthropologist Lindsay Chamberlain is attacked and left for dead. Buried in a shallow grave in the woods, she manages to escape, although she suffers from loss of memory as a result of the ordeal. When Lindsay's memory returns, it is incomplete. She copes with the trauma by ignoring it, and she allows the authorities to handle the investigation. As the probe quickly comes to a dead end, however, the assault looms like a dark cloud over her peace of mind. Lindsay joins excavations at an 1830s farm site on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Unlike previous digs where Lindsay has worked, this site is an unhappy one. Crew members are on edge and argue among themselves, and the site director takes an instant dislike to Lindsay. Furthermore, the principal investigator is under suspicion of murdering a local resident and stealing valuable papers from her. If that weren't enough, Lindsay and the crew are lodged in a haunted house, and even though she is the only crew member who doesn't believe in ghosts, she is the only one who sees them. When very old sealed lead coffins dating from the 1700s are discovered, Lindsay becomes so excited with the discovery that she momentarily forgets her own troubles. However, her relief is short-lived, for inside one of the coffins are the disturbing remains of a woman who has something frighteningly in common with Lindsay. Then when one of the crew disappears, no one but Lindsay is worried or seems to care. If she doesn't figure out what's happening around her, she might lose her sanity, or worse, her life.
The House at Sea's End by
In "a wonderful, atmospheric mystery" featuring forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson, six bodies of men killed during World War II turn up in Brighton--bringing with them a long-buried, nefarious secret (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Just back from maternity leave, forensic archeologist Ruth is finding it hard to juggle motherhood and work when she is called in to investigate human bones that have surfaced on a remote Norfolk beach. The presence of DCI Harry Nelson, the married father of her daughter, does not help. The bones, six men with their arms bound, turn out to date back to World War II, a desperate time on this stretch of coastland. As Ruth and Nelson investigate, Home Guard veteran Archie Whitcliffe reveals the existence of a secret the old soldiers have vowed to protect with their lives. But then Archie is killed and a German journalist arrives, asking questions about Operation Lucifer, a plan to stop a German invasion, and a possible British war crime. What was Operation Lucifer? And who is prepared to kill to keep its secret? "[A] page-turning mystery . . . it provides a wholly satisfying whodunit as well as a good reason to look up the other two [books in the series] . . . Griffiths's Galloway is a likable and alluring character."--Associated Press
Nick of Time by
The Bug Man is getting married on Saturday . . . if his fiancée can find him. Forensic entomologist Nick Polchak lives in a world of maggots and blow flies and decomposing bodies. No wonder he's still single. But Nick has finally found a woman as strange as he is--dog trainer Alena Savard, a woman who is odd, reclusive, and can seemingly talk to animals. It was a match made in heaven. Nick and Alena are scheduled to be married on Saturday--but there's one small problem. Nick has disappeared. Caught up in a murder case involving an old friend, Nick finds himself on a manhunt that's drawing him farther and farther from the church where Alena is waiting. But will he make it back in time Could Nick's single-minded focus cause him to forget his own wedding Is he really pursuing a killer, or is he running away from something else
Stone Maidens by
As the chief forensic anthropologist for the FBI's Chicago field office, Christine Prusik has worked her fair share of bizarre cases. Yet this one trumps them all: a serial killer is strangling young women and dumping their bodies in the steep, forested ravines of southern Indiana. With each victim, the killer leaves a calling card: a stone figurine carved like the spirit stones found among the primitive tribes of Papua New Guinea--the same tribes from whom Prusik narrowly escaped a decade earlier while doing field research. The similarity is eerie and, frankly, terrifying; Prusik still carries the scars from the tribesmen's attack. But is the connection real? Or have the dark details of Prusik's nightmares finally wormed their way into her waking life? Displaying the expertise of a veteran writer, debut novelist Lloyd Devereux Richards skillfully builds layers of psychological suspense and terror into a compulsively readable whodunit.
CSI
The Perfect Corpse
