Top 18 Scary Mysteries
Explore the 18 scariest mystery books ever written, featuring chilling thrillers from Thomas Harris, Karin Slaughter, and more.
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The Silence of the Lambs
by Thomas Harris
An ingenious, masterfully written novel, Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs is a classic of suspense and storytelling and the basis for the Oscar award-winning horror film starring Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname—Buffalo Bill—is stalking particular women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the F.B.I. Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, Chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and grisly killer now kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Lecter's insight into the minds of murderers could help track and capture Buffalo Bill. Smart and attractive, Starling is shaken to find herself in a strange, intense relationship with the acutely perceptive Lecter. His cryptic clues—about Buffalo Bill and about her—launch Clarice on a search that every reader will find startling, harrowing, and totally compelling.
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Eyes of Prey
by John Sandford
Lieutenant Lucas Davenport attempts to solve the murder planned by an evil but intelligent man fascinated by all aspects of death.
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Kisscut
by Karin Slaughter
The author of Blindsighted serves up a skillfully crafted sequel which follows Sara Linton, her police chief ex-husband, and detective Lena Adams into the heart of a quagmire surrounding the death of a young girl. Reprint.
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A Dance at the Slaughterhouse
by Lawrence Block
In A Dance at the Slaughterhouse, private investigator Matthew Scudder is on the hunt for the rapist and killer of rich, beautiful Amanda Thurman. But when a snuff film involving a young homeless boy is discovered, the case becomes terrifyingly twisted. Somehow Scudder and his girlfriend Elaine must find the connection between the the two crimes and set a trap for the killer. From the Edgar Award-winning author of A Ticket to the Boneyard.
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The Bone Collector
by Jeffery Deaver
Look who's back to chill readers to the bone... The first novel featuring Detective Lincoln Rhyme, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Stone Monkey.
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The Alienist
by Caleb Carr
In 1896 New York, psychologist--or in period terminology, an alienist--Laszlo Kreizler joins forces with journalist John Schuyler Moore to track a vicious serial killer.
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The Girl Next Door
by Jack Ketchum
In suburbia in the 1950s, a dark side emerges for teenage Meg and her crippled sister--captive to an Aunt, who is descending into madness. ""The Girl Next Door" is alive--in a way most works of popular fiction never attain; it does not just promise terror but actually delivers it. "--Stephen King.
