The clock is ticking. They're still missing. After handing in his detective badge, Mason Black now lives a stable life as a private investigator. But when the bodies of two children are discovered with messages written in blood, the pattern of a familiar killer emerges. Now, the Carter twins are missing, and only Mason can help. With his unique knowledge of the killer, he has an advantage over the San Francisco Police Department. While his marriage falls apart, he must choose between repairing his life or opening doors that were meant to stay closed. There's just one problem; neither solution will restore his faith in humanity. The Lullaby Killer is on the hunt, and Mason Black is always a step behind. As the trail reveals shocking secrets and surprising twists, you'll be holding your breath for the entirety of this gut-wrenching detective thriller.
A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book Shortlisted for the 2021 Toronto Book Awards An Indigo Best Book of 2020 Winner of the Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book (Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence) The tragic and resonant story of the disappearance of eight men--the victims of serial killer Bruce McArthur--from Toronto's queer community. In 2013, the Toronto Police Service announced that the disappearances of three men--Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Majeed Kayhan--from Toronto's gay village were, perhaps, linked. When the leads ran dry, the search was shut down, on paper classified as "open but suspended." By 2015, investigative journalist Justin Ling had begun to retrace investigators' steps, convinced there was evidence of a serial killer. Meanwhile, more men would go missing, and police would continue to deny that there was a threat to the community. In early 2019, landscaper Bruce McArthur was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of eight men. There is so much more to the story than that. Based on more than five years of in-depth reporting, Missing from the Village recounts how a serial killer was allowed to stalk the city, how the community responded, and offers a window into the lives of these eight men and the friends and family left behind. Telling a story that goes well beyond Toronto, and back decades, Justin Ling draws on extensive interviews with those who experienced the investigation first-hand, including the detectives who eventually caught McArthur, and reveals how systemic racism, homophobia, transphobia, and the structures of policing fail queer communities.
THE BASIS FOR THE MAJOR 6-PART HBO® DOCUMENTARY SERIES #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post | Maureen Corrigan, NPR | Paste | Seattle Times | Entertainment Weekly | Esquire | Slate | Buzzfeed | Jezebel | Philadelphia Inquirer | Publishers Weekly | Kirkus Reviews | Library Journal | Bustle Winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards for Nonfiction | Anthony Award Winner | SCIBA Book Award Winner | Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime | Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence The haunting true story of the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California during the 70s and 80s, and of the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case—which was solved in April 2018. The haunting true story of the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California during the 70s and 80s, and of the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case—which was solved in April 2018. Introduction by Gillian Flynn • Afterword by Patton Oswalt “A brilliant genre-buster.... Propulsive, can’t-stop-now reading.” —Stephen King For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area. Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Utterly original and compelling, it has been hailed as a modern true crime classic—one which fulfilled Michelle's dream: helping unmask the Golden State Killer.
A New York Times bestseller, The Midnight Assassin is a sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer--America's first--who stalked Austin, Texas in 1885. In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch. Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city. With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life.
From acclaimed thriller writer Sarah Lotz, hailed by Stephen King as "vastly entertaining," a new novel about a group of amateur detectives infiltrated by the sadistic killer whose crimes they're investigating. Reclusive bookseller Shaun Ryan has always believed that his uncle Teddy died in a car accident twenty years ago. Then he learns the truth: Teddy fled his home in Catholic, deeply conservative County Wicklow, Ireland, for New York and hasn't been heard from since. None of Shaun's relatives will reveal why they lied about his uncle's death or why they want Shaun to leave the whole affair alone. But Shaun has a burning need to find out the truth. His search is unsuccessful until he's contacted by Chris Guzman, a woman who runs a website dedicated to matching missing-persons cases with unidentified bodies. Chris and her team of cold-case obsessives suspect that Shaun is looking for the "Boy in the Dress," one victim in a series of gay men murdered by the same killer. But who are these internet fanatics really, and how do they know so much about a case that has stumped police for decades? Soon armchair sleuths and professional investigators are on a collision course with a sadistic serial killer who's gotten away with his crimes for far too long - and now they're in his sights.
NPR, One of the Best Books of the Year A “chilling but fascinating portrait” of a serial killer, and “a must-read for true crime fans” who enjoyed My Dark Places, The Stranger Beside Me, or I’ll Be Gone In the Dark (Buzzfeed) One of Argentina’s most innovative writers brings to life the story of a teenager who murdered 4 taxi drivers in 1982 Buenos Aires—without any apparent motive. Over the course of one ghastly week in September 1982, the bodies of 4 taxi drivers were found in Buenos Aires, each murder carried out with the same cold precision. The assailant: a 19–year–old boy, odd and taciturn, who gave the impression of being completely sane. But the crimes themselves were not: 4 murders, as exact as they were senseless. More than 30 years later, Argentine author Carlos Busqued began visiting Ricardo Melogno, the serial killer, in prison. Their conversations return to the nebulous era of the crimes and a story full of missing pieces. The result is a book at once hypnotic and unnerving, constructed from forensic documents, newspaper clippings, and interviews with Melogno himself. Without imposing judgment, Busqued allows for the killer to describe his way of retreating from the world and to explain his crimes as best he can. In his own words, Melogno recalls a visit from Pope Francis, grim depictions of daily life in prison, and childhood remembrances of an unloving mother who drove her son to Brazil to study witchcraft. As these conversations progress, the focus slowly shifts from the crimes themselves, to Melogno’s mistreatment and misdiagnosis while in prison, to his current fate: incarcerated in perpetuity despite having served his full sentence. Using these personal interviews, alongside forensic documents and newspaper clippings, Busqued crafted Magnetized, a captivating story about one man’s crimes, and a meditation on how one chooses to inhabit the world, or to become absent from it.
Gone For Good is the first in a new mystery series from award-winning author Joanna Schaffhausen, featuring Detective Annalisa Vega, in which a cold case heats up. The Lovelorn Killer murdered seven women, ritually binding them and leaving them for dead before penning them gruesome love letters in the local papers. Then he disappeared, and after twenty years with no trace of him, many believe that he’s gone for good. Not Grace Harper. A grocery store manager by day, at night Grace uses her snooping skills as part of an amateur sleuth group. She believes the Lovelorn Killer is still living in the same neighborhoods that he hunted in, and if she can figure out how he selected his victims, she will have the key to his identity. Detective Annalisa Vega lost someone she loved to the killer. Now she’s at a murder scene with the worst kind of déjà vu: Grace Harper lies bound and dead on the floor, surrounded by clues to the biggest murder case that Chicago homicide never solved. Annalisa has the chance to make it right and to heal her family, but first, she has to figure out what Grace knew—how to see a killer who may be standing right in front of you. This means tracing his steps back to her childhood, peering into dark corners she hadn’t acknowledged before, and learning that despite everything the killer took, she has still so much more to lose.
Detective Gabe Nichols is ready to start fresh. A new city, a new job, a new life. After what he and Kyra have been through in the past year, they deserve it. His first day on the new job brings a bizarre case in which several victims around the city are targeted. They all have identical names. Detective Cody Oliver has moved from rural, small-town cop life to the big city. He and Gabe team up for a bizarre case. One that makes little logical sense and brings enemies from the past to the forefront of their lives again. When another victim with the same name goes missing, and they realize missing children may be involved, Gabe and Cody race to figure out what clandestine organization is behind the murders. If they don't act fast, more innocent victims may be lost to the light forever.
When a student turns up murdered at the City of Liverpool University, Detectives David Murphy and Laura Rossi are charged with finding the culprit. Attached to the deceased body is a letter from her killer, which details a famous unethical psychological experiment; it is that experiment that was used on this victim, resulting in her death. Thinking the letter is just an attempt to throw them off course, Murphy and Rossi initially dismiss it. But then more bodies are found, each with connections to the university—and each with their own letter accompanying the body.Murphy and Rossi quickly realize they’re chasing a killer unlike any they’ve hunted before: One who sees himself as a valuable researcher of human behavior—a killer who doesn’t just want his victims’ bodies, but their minds as well. As they delve into the darkest pockets of psychological research, Murphy and Rossi struggle to understand the motives of the madman, trying to find the killer before his gruesome experiments claim their next victim.
Ring...Ring... One call from her past was all it took to change everything. A ten-year-old girl has vanished on her way home from camp. And things took a turn for the worse when another child, a child that Emma knows, goes missing. Disappearances, death, and tragedies has followed Emma Griffin throughout her childhood. Her obsession with finding out the truth behind her past was what led her to join the FBI. It's been months since the horror of Feather Nest. After the shocking revelation of the last case, FBI agent Emma Griffin decides to take a much-needed vacation. But a phone call from Sheriff Sam Johnson, a man from her past, completely derails her plans. A young girl has disappeared, and another child has gone missing. With the number count slowly climbing. Emma must now put her plans on hold, go back to her hometown and face some ghosts from her past. When a mysterious package appears on her birthday. Emma can't shake the feeling that someone is monitoring her every movement. Someone is getting too close for comfort. The question is who? In the close-knit town of Sherwood, the truth is never as it seems.
