Download or read book Five Days Post Mortem a Gripping Serial Killer Thriller written by Tim McBain and published by . This book was released on 2019-01-05 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Her body floats. A bloated thing half atop the river. Naked. Pale. Mouth and eyes open wide. When two fishermen discover a corpse floating in the Clackamas river, profiler Violet Darger heads to rural Oregon to hunt another serial killer. What she discovers in the woods might change the course of her life. What secrets does the water conceal? The girl in the water marks the third such case in the area -- all drowned with superficial stab wounds and discovered in a body of water -- and Darger feels certain she won't be the last. The corpses are badly decomposed. The flesh purpled and softened from their time in the water. The forensic evidence distorted by decay and the elements. But the victims share one more thing in common -- all were discovered roughly five days post mortem. A coincidence? Something with meaning to be discerned? Darger suspects the timeline to be significant, but without evidence, she can only guess as to why. That sets up what might be the key to the case: What is the killer doing to the victims for the four days between their deaths and dumping their bodies? It's Darger's first case without Loshak, and it will test her like none before. This pulse-pounding thriller will have you holding your breath until the final page. Fans of John Sandford, Karin Slaughter, Gillian Flynn, and Lisa Gardner should check out the Violet Darger series. The books in the series can be read in any order, so grab Five Days Post Mortem and get started today. Praise for the Violet Darger series: "Un-put-downable! I cannot wait for this series to grow. If you love Sandford, Slaughter, Kava, Stelljes and Deaver, you'll LOVE Vargus & McBain!" -- Melody M "The Violet Darger books are honestly the best detective novels I've ever read." -- Devin "Vargus and McBain have, in Violet Darger, created a character that absolutely stands up with some of the greats -- Phillip Marlowe, Dave Robicheaux, Elvis Cole, Charlie Parker, August Dupin, Jack Reacher, Harry Bosch, etc." -- Lucinda E. Snyder "I devour each installment in this series the instant it is available." -- Shelley R. Klouzal "Wow, just wow! If you like scare-you-half-to-death mystery books this is the one for you. It starts with a bang and just doesn't stop." -- Ada Lavin "Violet Darger is a unique, incredible character, and I immensely enjoyed taking this journey with her." -- Cat "A rush of excitement, twists and turns." -- C. Munger "Insightful, bloody. Page turner about the corruption of morality and warped thinking patterns." -- Bella from Readingnstuff.com "Refuses to let go until you have read the last sentence." -- Bloodymummer "Reading a Violet Darger novel always feels like coming home to an old friend--we hang out, we drink some coffee, we talk about her and Loshak's personal lives, we interview victims' families, we chase down some serial killers--all the stuff you normally do with your friends, except better. More exciting." -- eden Hudson, author of Revenge of the Bloodslinger "These books are kind of a nice combination of crime fiction and horror. Ok nice might not be the right word to use. How about gruesome. Or thrilling? Terrifying? Gripping? They're all that. They suck you in right away. And you just can't put them down until it's over." -- Melanie "If you are a fan of Silence of the Lambs, this book is a spiritual successor." -- Amazon customer "Vargus and McBain spin a fine tale with characters I want to climb inside -- but not in a weird way." -- Jeanne Tarrants

Download or read book The Girl in the Sand written by L. T. Vargus and published by Smarmy Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shallow graves scar the desert landscape. A cemetery in the sand. Some of the lost are never found. Thousands of girls go missing every year in Las Vegas. Abducted. Or worse. And now the dead are calling. These lost girls summon FBI Profiler Violet Darger to Sin City -- a new case. There are fresh dead to sort through -- two bodies burned beyond recognition in the trunk of a sedan -- and there's reason to believe that there are missing girls waiting to be saved. Rumors swirl that a legendary killer is responsible for these crimes. An escaped prisoner with a personal grudge against Darger -- one who wants her and her partner dead. One who disappeared for 20 years. But the desert is full of deadly secrets -- horrors waiting beneath the sand. If Darger finds the killer in time, the girls will live. If not... This pulse-pounding thriller will have you holding your breath until the final page. Fans of John Sandford, Karin Slaughter, Gillian Flynn, and Lisa Gardner should check out the Violet Darger series. The books in the series can be read in any order, so grab The Girl in the Sand and get started today. Praise for the Violet Darger series: "Un-put-downable! I cannot wait for this series to grow. If you love Sandford, Slaughter, Kava, Stelljes and Deaver, you'll LOVE Vargus & McBain!" -- Melody M "The Violet Darger books are honestly the best detective novels I've ever read." -- Devin "Vargus and McBain have, in Violet Darger, created a character that absolutely stands up with some of the greats -- Phillip Marlowe, Dave Robicheaux, Elvis Cole, Charlie Parker, August Dupin, Jack Reacher, Harry Bosch, etc." -- Lucinda E. Snyder "Wow, just wow! If you like scare-you-half-to-death mystery books this is the one for you. It starts with a bang and just doesn't stop." -- Ada Lavin "This series is full of suspense, action, and lots of murder." -- EllenAn "Violet Darger is a unique, incredible character, and I immensely enjoyed taking this journey with her." -- Cat "A rush of excitement, twists and turns." -- C. Munger "Insightful, bloody. Page turner about the corruption of morality and warped thinking patterns." -- Bella from Readingnstuff.com

Download or read book Dead End Girl written by L T Vargus and published by Smarmy Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Her body is broken. Wrapped in plastic. Dumped on the side of the road. She is the first. There will be more. The serial killer thriller that "refuses to let go until you've read the last sentence." The most recent body was discovered in the grease dumpster behind a Burger King. Dismembered. Shoved into two garbage bags and lowered into the murky oil. Now rookie agent Violet Darger gets the most important assignment of her career. She travels to the Midwest to face a killer unlike anything she's seen. Aggressive. Territorial. Deranged and driven. Another mutilated corpse was found next to a roller rink. A third in the gutter in a residential neighborhood. These bold displays of violence shock the rural community and rattle local law enforcement. Who could carry out such brutality? And why? Unfortunately for Agent Darger, there's little physical evidence to work with, and the only witnesses prove to be unreliable. The case seems hopeless. If she fails, more will die. He will kill again and again. The victims harbor dark secrets. The clues twist and writhe and refuse to keep still. And the killer watches the investigation on the nightly news, gleeful to relive the violence, knowing that he can't be stopped.

Download or read book Night on Fire written by L. T. Vargus and published by Smarmy Press. This book was released on 2022-01-20 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fire crawls up the sides of the church. The orange glow thrashes. Blackens the siding. Climbs up onto the steeple. The flames close in on the wedding party trapped inside. When a serial arsonist terrorizes Los Angeles County, FBI profiler Violet Darger heads to California to investigate. The fires keep coming faster. The body count rises, and the threat hangs over the city as thick as the smog. The case file is brutal -- stuffed with photographs of charred bodies, human faces melted beyond recognition. And when Darger gets up close to the crimes, the real thing, that sense of savagery only intensifies. What kind of a person could carry out such cruelties? Understanding the warped psychology will be the key to solving the case. The suspect seems hellbent on creating a spectacle. Bigger targets. More deaths. He treats setting fires like a Hollywood special effects sequence, like he's building up to the shocking finale. Watch the city burn. It's entertainment. And there's one more factor complicating the investigation: Autumn is settling in over Southern California. The leaves are changing color, and the Santa Ana winds have begun to change directions. The Hollywood Hills are ripe for a forest fire. The arsonist means to make it the biggest one yet. A page-turner packed with heart-stopping suspense. Fans of John Sandford, Michael Connelly, Lisa Regan, and Lisa Gardner should check out the Violet Darger series.

Download or read book Birdman written by Mo Hayder and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A serial killer stalks the streets of London in this “top-notch debut thriller”—the first Jack Caffery novel from the acclaimed author of Gone (Kirkus Reviews). In his first case as lead investigator with London’s murder squad, Det. Inspector Jack Caffery is called on to investigate the murder of a young woman whose body has been discovered near the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, southeast London. Mutilated beyond recognition, the victim is soon joined by four others discovered in the same area—all female and all ritualistically murdered. And when the postmortem examination reveals a gruesome signature connecting the victims, Caffery realizes exactly what he’s dealing with—a dangerous serial killer. A finalist for the Edgar Award, Birdman explores the darkest reaches of the human mind and introduces a fascinating detective to the world of British crime fiction. “Treading the grisly path blazed by Thomas Harris in 1981 with Red Dragon, promising newcomer Hayder crafts a blood-curdlingly creepy debut thriller.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “A deftly plotted assault on the nerves . . . Birdman preys on the reader’s expectations expertly, and Hayder handles her story’s complicated time scheme with enviable assurance. Graphic, disturbing, splendidly readable.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book The Grindr Serial Killer written by Alan R Warren and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-06-12 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today's world where meeting people for the purpose of having sex with a simple click on your phone, a new type of gay sex called 'Party N Play' or 'Chemsex' has become all the rage in the mainstream. Several young gay men were being found dead, appearing to have overdosed on the favorite sex drugs used at these chemsex parties, in a city church yard in east London. Was this what the metro police claimed it was, "a sex drug overdose," or was there something more going on here?It would soon be discovered that a popular 41-year-old, Stephen Port, who had appeared on 'Celebrity Chef UK' would be arrested and charged with four of the young men's murders by overdosing them with GBH, 'The Date Rape Drug, ' enough to kill the men, and then raping them and leaving their bodies out in a church yard.Since the conviction of Celebrity Chef UK, Stephen Port, the police are now reviewing 58 other mysterious deaths by overdose where the body was found dead in the same area of London. There are now 17 police officers under investigation for not investigating the crimes because of their homophobia.Included are several of the personal letters convicted serial killer Stephen Port sent to his friend and pen pal Cody Lachey which reveals what he claims happened to each of the victims and what really happened in these Chemsex parties. You will also find out some of Port's personal details that you wouldn't expect to hear.

Download or read book Black Notice written by Patricia Cornwell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-08-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this #1 New York Times bestseller Dr. Kay Scarpetta is on a deadly mission that will pull her in two opposite directions: toward protecting her career or toward the truth... Remains were all that was left of the stowaway. He arrived in Richmond’s Deep Water Terminal—the ghastly cargo of a ship from Belgium. The decomposed body gives Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta no clues to its identity—or the cause of death. But an odd tattoo soon leads her on an international search to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon, France—and towards a confrontation with one of the most savage killers of her career...

Download or read book Deeper Than the Dead written by Tami Hoag and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-04-04 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A serial killer terrorizes a small California town in this gripping thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag. California, 1985—Four children and young teacher Anne Navarre make a gruesome discovery: a partially buried female body, her eyes and mouth glued shut. A serial killer is at large, and the very bonds that hold their idyllic town together are about to be tested to the breaking point. Tasked with finding the killer, FBI investigator Vince Leone employs a new and controversial FBI technique called “profiling,” which plunges him into the lives of the four children—and the young teacher whose need to uncover the truth is as intense as his own. But as new victims are found and pressure from the media grows, Vince and Anne find themselves circling the same small group of local suspects, unsure if those who suffer most are the victims themselves—or those close to the killer, blissfully unaware that someone very near to them is a murderous psychopath…

Download or read book Sometimes They Bite written by Lawrence Block and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes They Bite is a tantalizing collection of 18 darkly entertaining stories, including one Scudder gem.

Download or read book Killing Season written by L. T. Vargus and published by Smarmy Press. This book was released on 2011-11-11 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two days. Fourteen dead. The next victim could be you. The first bullet punches through the windshield of an SUV. A head shot. The driver's death is instantaneous. And it's only the beginning. A sniper along I-20 kills eight and causes a 36 car pileup. Brutal. Efficient. The next morning, the same individual stalks through a grocery store parking lot with a handgun. He takes out six innocent shoppers along with the store's front window before fleeing without a trace. By the time Special Agent Violet Darger arrives in Atlanta, the city teeters toward panic. The vacant streets and restaurants paint an eerie picture. No one dares to venture out. A killer walks among them. A shadow. And the public cowers just the way he wants them to. Once more Agent Darger must identify with a murderer, must stare into the darkness to anticipate his next move. Putting herself in his head may be the only way to stop him. The longer she takes, the higher the death toll. He will kill again and again. But what hatred drives a man to such desperate, violent acts? And what price must one pay to invite that chaos inside themselves? A page-turner packed with heart-stopping suspense. Fans of John Sandford, Karin Slaughter, Gillian Flynn, and Lisa Gardner should check out the Violet Darger series. The books in the series can be read in any order, so grab Killing Season and get started today. Praise for the Violet Darger series: "The Violet Darger books are honestly the best detective novels I've ever read." -- Devin "Wow, just wow! If you like scare-you-half-to-death mystery books this is the one for you. It starts with a bang and just doesn't stop." -- Ada Lavin "A rush of excitement, twists and turns." -- C. Munger "I found myself completely invested in every character, from the authorities to the killer to the victims themselves." -- eden Hudson, author of Revenge of the Bloodslinger "It's not a glimpse...it's a good long look inside the mind of a killer. It's fast paced, it's scary, and it's satisfying." -- Rain "If you are a fan of Silence of the Lambs, this book is a spiritual successor." -- Amazon customer

Download or read book None Shall Sleep written by Ellie Marney and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Silence of the Lambs meets Sadie in this riveting psychological thriller about two teenagers teaming up with the FBI to track down juvenile serial killers. In 1982, two teenagers—serial killer survivor Emma Lewis and US Marshal candidate Travis Bell—are recruited by the FBI to interview convicted juvenile killers and provide insight and advice on cold cases. From the start, Emma and Travis develop a quick friendship, gaining information from juvenile murderers that even the FBI can't crack. But when the team is called in to give advice on an active case—a serial killer who exclusively hunts teenagers—things begin to unravel. Working against the clock, they must turn to one of the country's most notorious incarcerated murderers for help: teenage sociopath Simon Gutmunsson. Despite Travis's objections, Emma becomes the conduit between Simon and the FBI team. But while Simon seems to be giving them the information they need to save lives, he's an expert manipulator playing a very long game...and he has his sights set on Emma. Captivating, harrowing, and chilling, None Shall Sleep is an all-too-timely exploration of not only the monsters that live among us but also the monsters that live inside us.

Download or read book The Kill Jar written by J. Reuben Appelman and published by Gallery Books. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now the subject of the Discovery+ series Children of the Snow, a cold case murder investigation is cracked open by “a powerful, confident voice in the new true crime memoir genre” (James Renner, author of True Crime Addict). Four children were abducted and murdered outside of Detroit during the winters of 1976 and 1977, their bodies eventually dumped in snow banks around the city. J. Reuben Appelman was only six years old when the murders began and even evaded an abduction attempt during that same period, fueling a lifelong obsession with what became known as the Oakland County Child Killings. Autopsies showed that the victims had been fed while in captivity, reportedly held with care. And yet, with equal care, their bodies had allegedly been groomed post-mortem, scrubbed-free of evidence that might link to a killer. There were few credible leads, and equally few credible suspects. That’s what the cops had passed down to the press, and that’s what the city of Detroit, and Appelman, had come to believe. When the abductions mysteriously stopped, a task force operating on one of the largest manhunt budgets in history shut down without an arrest. Although no more murders occurred, Detroit remained haunted. Eerily overlaid upon the author’s own decades-old history with violence, The Kill Jar tells the gripping story of Appelman’s ten-year investigation into buried leads, apparent police cover-ups, con men, child pornography rings, and high-level corruption saturating Detroit’s most notorious serial killer case. “Always deft, often sublime, Appelman uses his investigation to draw us into his personal journey through darkness, to light and life” (Chip Johannessen, producer of Dexter).

Download or read book Mistress of the Art of Death written by Ariana Franklin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-02-06 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The national bestselling hit hailed by the New York Times as a "vibrant medieval mystery...[it] outdoes the competition." In medieval Cambridge, England, Adelia, a female forensics expert, is summoned by King Henry II to investigate a series of gruesome murders that has wrongly implicated the Jewish population, yielding even more tragic results. As Adelia's investigation takes her behind the closed doors of the country's churches, the killer prepares to strike again.

Download or read book Five Days Post Mortem written by L. T. Vargus and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Her body floats. A bloated thing half atop the river. Naked. Pale. Mouth and eyes open wide. When two fishermen discover a corpse floating in the Clackamas river, profiler Violet Darger heads to rural Oregon to hunt another serial killer. What she discovers in the woods might change the course of her life. What secrets does the water conceal? The girl in the water marks the third such case in the area -- all drowned with superficial stab wounds and discovered in a body of water -- and Darger feels certain she won't be the last. The corpses are badly decomposed. The flesh purpled and softened from their time in the water. The forensic evidence distorted by decay and the elements. But the victims share one more thing in common -- all were discovered roughly five days post mortem. A coincidence? Something with meaning to be discerned? Darger suspects the timeline to be significant, but without evidence, she can only guess as to why. That sets up what might be the key to the case: What is the killer doing to the victims for the four days between their deaths and dumping their bodies? It's Darger's first case without Loshak, and it will test her like none before.

Download or read book The Girl in the Sand written by L. T. Vargus and published by . This book was released on 2018-03-28 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shallow graves scar the desert landscape. A cemetery in the sand. Some of the lost are never found.Thousands of girls go missing every year in Las Vegas. Taken. Bought and sold. Or worse.And now the dead are calling.These lost girls summon FBI Profiler Violet Darger to Sin City -- a new case. There are fresh dead to sort through -- two bodies burned beyond recognition in the trunk of a sedan -- and there's reason to believe that there are missing girls waiting to be saved.Rumors swirl that a legendary killer is responsible for these crimes. An escaped prisoner with a personal grudge against Darger -- one who wants her and her partner dead. One who disappeared for 20 years.But the desert is full of deadly secrets -- horrors waiting beneath the sand.If Darger finds the killer in time, the girls will live. If not...

Download or read book Notes on an Execution written by Danya Kukafka and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE 2023 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL • NEW YORK TIMES BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR “Defiantly populated with living women . . . beautifully drawn, dense with detail and specificity . . . Notes on an Execution is nuanced, ambitious and compelling.” —Katie Kitamura, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (Editors' Choice) "A searing portrait of the complicated women caught in the orbit of a serial killer. . . . Compassionate and thought-provoking." –BRIT BENNETT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half Recommended by New York Times Book Review • Los Angeles Times • Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • Esquire • Good Housekeeping • USA Today • Buzzfeed • Goodreads • Real Simple • Marie Claire • Rolling Stone • Business Insider • Bustle • PopSugar • The Millions • The Guardian • and many more! In the tradition of Long Bright River and The Mars Room, a gripping and atmospheric work of literary suspense that deconstructs the story of a serial killer on death row, told primarily through the eyes of the women in his life—from the bestselling author of Girl in Snow. Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake. Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men. "Poetic and mesmerizing . . . Powerful, important, intensely human, and filled with a unique examination of tragedy, one where the reader is left with a curious emotion: hope." —USA TODAY “A profound and staggering experience of empathy that challenges us to confront what it means to be human in our darkest moments. . . . I relished every page of this brilliant and gripping masterpiece."—ASHLEY AUDRAIN, New York Times bestselling author of The Push

Download or read book Death in the Air written by Kate Winkler Dawson and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A real-life thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut Death in the Air is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. London was still recovering from the devastation of World War II when another disaster hit: for five long days in December 1952, a killer smog held the city firmly in its grip and refused to let go. Day became night, mass transit ground to a halt, criminals roamed the streets, and some 12,000 people died from the poisonous air. But in the chaotic aftermath, another killer was stalking the streets, using the fog as a cloak for his crimes. All across London, women were going missing--poor women, forgotten women. Their disappearances caused little alarm, but each of them had one thing in common: they had the misfortune of meeting a quiet, unassuming man, John Reginald Christie, who invited them back to his decrepit Notting Hill flat during that dark winter. They never left. The eventual arrest of the "Beast of Rillington Place" caused a media frenzy: were there more bodies buried in the walls, under the floorboards, in the back garden of this house of horrors? Was it the fog that had caused Christie to suddenly snap? And what role had he played in the notorious double murder that had happened in that same apartment building not three years before--a murder for which another, possibly innocent, man was sent to the gallows? The Great Smog of 1952 remains the deadliest air pollution disaster in world history, and John Reginald Christie is still one of the most unfathomable serial killers of modern times. Journalist Kate Winkler Dawson braids these strands together into a taut, compulsively readable true crime thriller about a man who changed the fate of the death penalty in the UK, and an environmental catastrophe with implications that still echo today.