The Reader's Advisor

PSYCHOPATHS AND SERIAL KILLERS:
Books to Keep You Up Nights

Robert Brown. Whisper in the Dark. St. Martin's, 2009.
Detective Frank Blackburn and renowned psychiatrist Dr. Michael Tolan hunt a twisted killer who has been dubbed "Vincent Van Gogh." Tolan has a personal reason for finding him--his wife was one of his victims.

Alafair Burke. Dead Connection. Holt, 2007.
Is someone is using the lure of the internet and the promise of love to launch a killing spree against the women of New York City? Detective Ellie Hatcher, who fits the profile of the victims, is brought onto the case in the hopes proving that theory correct.

Rennie Airth. River of Darkness. Viking, 1999.
In the aftermath of World War I an emotionally scarred Scotland Yard inspector is sent to rural Surrey to investigate the apparently motiveless slaughter of a family and detects the work of a madman who has struck before.

Caleb Carr. The Alienist. Random, 1994.
In 1896 NYC, Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt enlists the aid of newspaperman John Schuler Moore and psychologist Laszlo Kreizler to track a brutal serial killer. Followed by The Angel of Darkness (1997).

Sandra Levy Ceren. Prescription for Terror. Andrew Scott, 1999.
When rape and murder strike young single women in San Diego, psychologist Dr. Cory Cohen, herself a rape survivor, vows to bring the killer to justice.

Leigh Clark. Shock Radio. Forge, 1996.
Rude, crude L.A. deejay Sunset Scott hangs up on a "prankster" claiming to be "The Phantom"-a serial killer who has been terrorizing the city and finds himself the prime suspect when the caller's prediction about the next victim proves to be true.

Mary Higgins Clark. You Belong to Me. S&S, 1998.
A killer targets lonely women on cruise ships.

John Connolly. Every Dead Thing. Pocket Star, 2000, 1999.
Driven by visions of the dead, Parker tracks a serial killer from New York City to the American South, and finds his buried instincts--for love, survival, and, ultimately, for killing--awakening as he confronts a monster beyond imagining.

Michael Connelly. The Poet. LB. 1996.
Denver crime reporter Jack McEvoy is convinced that his twin brother, a homicide detective Sean McEvoy, who was found dead in his car from a "self-inflicted" bullet wound to the head, did not kill himself. Intrigued by the Edgar Allen Poe quote that was smeared on the car windshield, Jack begins to dig. And the more he digs the more it looks like his brother's death was the work of a serial killer.

Catherine Coulter. The Maze. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1997.
Obsessed by her sister's death at the hands of a serial killer, a world class musician becomes an FBI agent for the purpose of tracking down the killer-and becomes a target herself.

Bill Crider. Blood Marks. St. Martin's, 1991.
Nine women, seemingly with nothing in common, have been brutally murdered, leaving Houston police psychologist Dan Romain with the toughest case of his career.

Jeff Deaver. The Coffin Dancer. Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Quadriplegic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme pursues an elusive assassin known only by the distinctive tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his arm. Other titles in the series: The Bone Collector (1997), The Empty Chair (2000), The Stone Monkey (2002), The Vanished Man (2003), The Twelfth Card (2005), The Cold Moon (2006), The Broken Window (2008).

Ted Dekker. Adam. T. Nelson, 2008.
FBI special agent Daniel Clark is after a brutal serial killer named "Eve," who has already murdered more than a dozen women. During a face-to-face confrontation, Daniel is shot. Resuscitated after 20 minutes of clinical death, the memory of the killer's face is buried beneath the trauma of the attack. Now Daniel's obsession to unmask Eve pushes him to the brink of insanity.

Bret Easton Ellis. American Psycho. Vintage, 1991.
Handsome and charming Patrick Bateman spends his days working on Wall Street and his nights gruesomely murdering people for no apparent reason.

Rebecca Drake. The Dead Place. Pinnacle, 2008.
After a brutal assault, New York artist Kate Corbin thinks she has found a safe haven in a quiet campus town called Wickfield. But her nightmare is only beginning.

David Ellis. Eye of the Beholder. GPPS, 2007.
When the local police are confronted by a series of murders, attorney Paul Riley sees a chilling connection between them and a case he prosecuted 15 years earlier. As the murderer's list of victims becomes more personal, Riley finds himself wondering if he made a terrible mistake all those years ago.

Giorgio Faletti. I Kill. BCD, 2008.
An FBI agent joins with commissioner of the Monaco police search for a serial killer who calls in to a local radio show to announce his murders with a musical clue about his next victim.

Michelle Gagnon. Boneyard. Mira, 2008.
FBI special agent Kelly Jones and a special task force consisting of law enforcement officers from Vermont and Massachusetts, some of them more cooperative than others, track a serial killer preying upon victims that are viewed by society as "undesirable."

Lisa Gardner.Say Goodbye. Bantam, 2008.
A spider-obsessed psychopath trolls for his victims among Atlanta's prostitutes.

Ken Goddard. Cheater. Forge, 1996.
Retired CIA agent Henry Culver, now working with local law enforcement in a Washington, D.C., suburb, is given the assignment of finding a sadistic psychopath nicknamed "Digger" because he tunnels underground to get to his intended victims.

Arthur Hailey. Detective. Crown, 1997.
Miami police detective Malcolm Ainslie, a former Catholic priest, is summoned by the death row inmate he helped to convict of four murders to hear his "confession" on the eve of his execution. The man admits to an additional 10 murders but insists he did not kill the city commissioner or his daughter, a cop, leaving Ainslie to re-open the investigation.

Timothy Hallinan. The Bone Polisher. Morrow, 1995.
A serial killer is preying on the gay community of West Hollywood. The sixth outing (no pun intended) for P.I. Simon Grist.

Brian Harper. Deadly Pursuit. Signet, 1995.
While vacationing on an island off the Florida coast, Steve and Kirstie Garnder's hopes of saving their troubled marriage are disrupted by the presence of Jack Dance-a serial killer known as Mister Twister-who is hiding on the island from the police.

Thomas Harris. Silence of the Lambs. St. Martin's, 1988.
Clarice Starling, a precociously self-disciplined FBI trainee, is dispatched by her boss, Section Chief Jack Crawford, the FBI's most successful tracker of serial killers, to see whether she can learn anything useful from Dr. Hannibal Lecter--a gifted psychopath whose nickname is "The Cannibal" because he likes to eat parts of his victims-in their quest to track down a flesh-eating monster on the loose. Followed by Hannibal (1999). By the same author: Red Dragon (1981).

Jonellen Heckler. Circumstances Unknown. Pocket Books, 1993.
Refusing to believe that her husband's death was an accidental drowning, photographer Deena Reuschel uncovers two similar deaths and evidence that a homicidal lunatic is responsible-and now after her.

Jean Heller. Handyman. Forge, 1995.
A glamorous TV anchorwoman becomes the target of a killer who mutilates the hearts of his victims.

Edward Hess. Stranglehold. Signet. 1994.
Two FBI agents go undercover to catch a serial killer who targets fans at professional wrestling events.

Tami Hoag. Ashes to Ashes. Bantam, 1999.
A psychopath known as the "Cremator" is killing prostitutes in Minneapolis parks and setting their bodies on fire. When one of his victims turns out to be the daughter of a local billionaire, and a homeless teenager claims to have witnessed the burning, it brings together former FBI agent Kate Conlan (now working as a victim-witness advocate) and the Bureau's top serial-killer profiler, John Quinn, who share a painful personal history. Now they have to work together against a very smart lunatic who seems to be able to read their minds.

A. J. Holt. Watch Me. St. Martin's, 1995.
FBI special agent Jay Fletcher uses her computer tracking system to track down a serial killer on the loose in San Francisco even after she has been told that her system is a violation of the killer's rights.

Alan Jacobson. The 7th Victim. Vanguard, 2008.
As FBI profiler Karen Vail pursues the brutal "Dead Eyes" killer, she must also deal with problems in her personal life.

Alex Kava. A Perfect Evil. MIRA, 2000.
Nick Morrelli is the Platte City, Nebraska, is investigating the kidnap-murders of two young Platte City boys which are eerily similar to those committed years earlier and solved by his predecessor-his father.

Shirley Kennet. Gray Matter. Kensington, 1997.
St. Louis Police Dept. psychologist P. J. Gray applies a new virtual reality investigative technology to a new case involving a serial killer who mutilates his victims.

Rochelle Majer Krich. Fair Game. Mysterious Press, 1993.
A serial killer who is as playfully clever as he is cunningly dangerous uses curare as his m.o. plays a deadly version of Monopoly using the city of Los Angeles as the gameboard. Also by Rochelle Majer Krich: Speak No Evil (1996).

David L. Lindsey. Mercy. Doubleday, 1990.
Detective Carmen Palma and FBI agent Sandra Grant investigate the murders of wealthy citizens in Houston and unearth a dark underground of sadomasochism.

Cody McFadyen. Shadow Man. Bantam, 2006.
Once, Special Agent Smoky Barrett hunted serial killers for the FBI. Then a madman killed her husband and daughter, leaving her forever scarred, broken, and on the verge of suicide...until a gruesome psychopath called the Shadow Man, who leaves a message for her at one of his crime scenes, brings her back to the job. Followed by: The Face of Death (2007) and The Darker Side (2008).

Brian McGrory. Strangled. Atria, 2007.
A newspaper journalist investigates when a series of murders reopens the decades-old case of the Boston Strangler .

Kevin O'Brien. Killing Spree. Pinnacle, 2007.
Author Gillian McBride is horrified to learn that a cross-country murderer patterning his savage crimes on the fictional ones in her books.

Don Passman. The Visionary. Warner, 1999.
Lisa Cleary, a hard-working accountant who has visions of murders. As the visions become more persistent, they also become more sinister, and Lisa foresees real-life killings, which captures the attention of two men--LAPD detective Danny Talon, who is investigating a series of killings, and UCLA law professor and psychiatrist Dr. Michael Rennick, who knew one of the victims.

James Patterson. Cat and Mouse. Little, Brown, 1997.
Gary Soneji, a ruthless and bloodthirsty megalomaniac goes on a killing spree in order to exact his revenge on profiler-psychologist Alex Cross who helped put him away five years earlier (Along Came a Spider). The Alex Cross series also contains: Kiss the Girls (1995), Jack & Jill (1996), Pop Goes the Weasel (1999), Roses Are Red (2000), Violets are Blue (2001), Four Blind Mice (2002), The Big Bad Wolf (2003), London Bridges (2004), Mary, Mary (2005), Cross (2006), Double Cross (2007), Cross Country (2008) & Cross Fire (2009).

Martha Powers. Sunflower. Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Lt. Sheila Brady has left the Milwaukee P.D. for a quieter life in River Oaks only to find the life of her daughter threatened by a killer who targets young blond girls who leaves sunflower seeds or flowers at the scene of each crime.

Michael Prescott. Stealing Faces. Signet, 1999.
Dr. John Cray kidnaps women and takes them out to the desert where he releases them so that he can hunt them down and mutilate them while they are still alive. Now he is after the one victim who escaped him.

Michael Pye. Taking Lives. Knopf, 1999.
17-year-old Martin Arkenhout, a student from Holland, takes a break from his studies to travel around the U.S., murdering various strangers along the way and stealing their identities in an attempt to displace his own persona.

Anna Salter. Shiny Water. Pocket, 1997.
Forensic psychologist Michael Stone is involved in a child custody case where the father is suspected of molesting his two small children. The court grants him custody anyway, and the next day the children are found murdered in their mother's house. Desperate to sort fact from fiction, Michael taps the mind of jailed perp Alex B. Willy, whose unthinkable obsessions may help her unlock the motives behind the brutal crime. But her search for the truth makes her the killer's next target. Stone and Willy cross paths again in Fault Lines (1998).

Jonathan Santlofer. Anatomy of Fear. Morrow, 2007.
Police sketch artist Nate Rodriguez is called in to assist in the apprehension of a serial killer who leaves grisly drawings at his crime scenes. But when Nate gets close to identifying the killer, he finds his own life in danger.

Randy Singer. By Reason of Insanity. Tyndale, 2008.
After sharing her disturbing dreams that detail each crime in a series of murders in Virginia Beach with a confidential source, reporter Catherine O'Rourke quickly finds herself a prime suspect. Even more disturbing, evidence is found that corroborates her guilt and she is arrested. Is she really insane? Or is she seeing the real killer at work?

Rosamund Smith. Starr Bright Will Be With You Soon. Dutton, 1999.
Sharon Donner (alias Starr Bright)-a one-time model and exotic dancer who has seen better days, arrives on the doorstep of the twin she has not seen in fifteen years. But what Lily doesn't know, is that her sister is a serial killer.

Tom Rob Smith. Child 44. Grand Central, 2008.
In Stalinist Russia, Leo Demidov's struggle to apprenheand a serial killer is hampered by the fact that it is a crime against the State to even suggest that such a murderer exists.

Judith Smith-Levin. Do Not Go Gently. HarperPaperbacks, 1996.
When a vicious serial killer begins targeting African-American professionals, police lieutenant Starletta Duvall, who fits the profile of the murderer's victims, searches for the insatiable madman.

Boris Starling. Messiah. Signet, 1999.
Three murder victims have nothing in common except for one thing: their tongues had been cut out and replaced with a silver spoon. Investigator Red Metcalfe who has an uncanny gift for tracking killers by getting inside their heads and feeling what they feel, this time finds the killer's motives and methods so elusive that he is forced to search the darkest corners of his own soul--and face the secrets of his past--to see the truth. This time, the life he saves could be his own. By the same author: Storm, 2000.

Jan Costin Wagner. Ice Moon. Harcourt, 2006.
In th Finnish town of Turku, the lives of two tormented and alienated men are on a collision course: a considerate but persistent serial killer, and the recently widowed detective who gets the case.

David Wiltse. Blown Away. Putnam, 1996
FBI John Becker, who has the ability to enter the minds of serial killers, anticipating their next move in time for the Bureau to move in, tracks a former academic who was denied tenure at a New York City college and has resorted to blowing up trains and bridges in his insane quest for "justice." Becker also appears in: Prayer for the Dead (1991), Close to the Bone (1993), The Edge of Sleep (1993), Into the Fire (1994) and Bone Deep (1995).

Raff Yessayan. Eight in the Box. Ballantine, 2008.
As Boston is terrorized by a serial killer who drains the blood from his female victims, leaves it in the bathtub, and then removes the body from the scene, a pair of cops, one of them newly promoted homicide detective Angel Alves, and Assistant D.A. Conrad Darget try to unravel the clues to catch the elusive maniac.

[More Thrillers] [Home]

Created and maintained by: Lynne M. Kennedy.

Sachem Public Library
150 Holbrook Road
Holbrook, New York 11741

631 588-5024
sachemlibrary.org