Great Crime Fiction Series
Discover the best crime fiction series with our curated list of gripping books. From thrilling mysteries to suspenseful detective stories, find your next page-turner here.
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Red Cat
by Peter Spiegelman
This riveting mystery finds Private Investigator John March descending into Manhattan’s dark and scandalous underworld to help a member of his own family. David March, John’s brother, has been having affairs with anonymous women he meets on the internet. Now one of these women is stalking him. David knows her only as Wren. She, however, knows everything about David—and she's threatening to tell his wife and colleagues, ruining his life. With his marriage, career, and reputation at stake, David asks John to find her. What John discovers is there is more to Wren than David knows. She’s an intriguing mystery, an internet pornographer and video artist with a penchant for turning the tables on her subjects. But when she turns up dead, John finds he's no longer searching for a stalker—now he's looking for a murderer, and the clues keep leading him back to his older brother’s doorstep.
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Sleepyhead
by Mark Billingham
A deliberately induced stroke leaves Alison Willetts unable to move or communicate. Police feel her attacker erred in trying to kill her. But Detective Tom Thorne discovers that Alison is the psychopath's masterpiece; the three women he killed before her were mistakes.
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Bangkok 8
by John Burdett
A thriller with attitude to spare, Bangkok 8 is a sexy, razor-edged, often darkly hilarious novel set in one of the world’s most exotic cities. Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep—a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I.—is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones and captures her heart in the process. In a city fueled by illicit drugs and infinite corruption, prostitution and priceless art, Sonchai’s quest for vengeance takes him into a world much more sinister than he could have ever imagined.
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Birdman
by Mo Hayder
With the forensic acumen of Patricia Cornwell and the atmosphere of Lynda La Plante's Prime Suspect series, Birdman - already an international sensation prior to publication - introduces a troubled homicide detective battling the demons of his past while facing the psychopath of the century. In the chilling opening to Birdman, the bodies of five women are found, ritualistically mutilated and dumped on wasteland in Greenwich, England. When post-mortem examinations reveal a single, horrific signature linking the victims - a tiny bird sewn into each chest - the police realize they are on the trail of a serial killer with a terrifying mind. Detective Inspector Jack Caffery, young,driven, unshockable, finds himself facing both hostilities within the force and his own memory of a lethal failure, as he struggles to unravel the most macabre murders he's ever seen. Now, as he employs every weapon science can offer, he knows he has little time before the sadistic killer strikes again. But he has so little evidence. All he has are five mutilated corpses and five dead little birds. Mo Hayder - with a keen psychological insight, brilliant forensic and procedural detail, and a psychically wounded but charismatic lead investigator - has written a first novel of raw intensity and deep understanding that will thrill the hearts of the most demanding readers of crime fiction. From the Paperback edition.
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Gorky Park
by Martin Cruz Smith
"Brilliant...One of the best books of the season." ASSOCIATED PRESS A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it.
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Case Histories
by Kate Atkinson
The first book in Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie Mysteries series, called "The best mystery of the decade" by Stephen King, finds private investigator Jackson Brodie following three seemingly unconnected family mysteries in Edinburgh Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack. Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape. Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge . . .
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A Cold Day in Paradise
by Steve Hamilton
In an unprecedented literary event, Steve Hamilton's A Cold Day In Paradise has hit mystery's Double Play, winning the two most prestigious honors in the business-- the Edgar and Shamus Awards for Best First Novel. Now, open its covers and see for yourself why this extraordinary novel has galvanized the literary and mystery community as no other book before it... Other than the bullet lodged less than a centimeter from his heart, former Detroit police officer Alex McKnight thought he had put the nightmare of his partner's death and his own near-fatal injury behind him. After all, Maximilian Rose, convicted of the crimes, has been locked in the state pen for years, But in the small town of Paradise, Michigan, where McKnight has traded his badge for a cozy cabin in the woods, a murderer with Rose's unmistakable trademarks appears to be back to his killing ways. With Rose locked away, McKnight can't understand who else would know the intimate details of the old murders-- not to mention the signature blood-red rose left on his doorstep. And it seems like it'll be a frozen day in Hell before McKnight can unravel the cold truth from a deadly deception in a town that's anything but Paradise. A Cold Day in Paradise is the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson
Forty years after the disappearance of Harriet Vanger from the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family, her octogenarian uncle hires journalist Mikael Blomqvist and Lisbeth Salander, an unconventional young hacker, to investigate
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Jar City
by Arnaldur Indridason
Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson investigates the killing of a solitary man, found murdered in his Reykjavik apartment, and discovers that the dead man had been accused but not convicted of a rape forty years earlier.
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The Blue Edge of Midnight
by Jonathon King
Ex-Philadelphia cop Max Freeman now lives in a self-imposed exile on the edge of the Florida Everglades. Against his will, Max is pulled into a baffling string of child murders and his old police habits kick in.
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Cold Granite
by Stuart MacBride
DCI Logan McRae returns to his job in Aberdeen CID after recuperating from a stab wound and finds himself assigned to a brutal serial killer case. Martin's Press.
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Heartsick
by Chelsea Cain
Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful and brutal serial killer. In the end, she was the one who caught him...and tortured him...and then let him go. Why did Gretchen spare Archie's life and then turn herself in? This is the question that keeps him up all night—and the reason why he has visited Gretchen in prison every week since. Meanwhile, another series of murders is tearing up the Portland streets. Archie seems to be getting closer to solving this high-profile case...until he finds himself in a fatal collision course with the killer—one that inevitably leads him back to his former captor. Gretchen may be the only one who can help do justice. The only thing she can't do, this time, is save Archie's life.