Serial Menace: Newer Mystery and Crime Fiction Novels on Serial Killers

Whisper in the Dark / by Robert Gregory Browne
When Detective Frank Blackburn discovers an unidentified young woman dead and with a pair of scissors in her left hand, he has a tentative hunch that the murder may be the work of Vincent Van Gogh, a notorious serial killer with an artistic bent. In need of a profiler who can provide some insight in the mind of the madman, Blackburn contacts psychiatrist Dr. Michael Tolan, a man with his own persona experience with Van Gogh—his wife was one of his victims. (FIC BROWNE)

Abomination / by Colleen Coble

Recently divorced detective Nick Andreakos is after a serial murderer whose been targeting young girls and women, When certain clues lead him to believe that his ex-wife Eve could be the killer’s next target, the case takes on another dimension. Eve has already had one close call with the murderer and seems to know that it won’t be the last time she sees the man known as Gideon. (FIC COBLE)

BoneMan’s Daughters / by Ted Dekker
In Texas, a malicious serial killer known as “Bone Man” has been stalking and murdering young girls. Meanwhile in Iraq, a high-ranking military officer has been captured and is being held captive by the enemy. In an effort to extort information, they’ve blackmailed their prisoner using the life and well-being of his wife and daughter back home in Texas—and there seems to be link between the captors and the Bone Man. (Also see The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker) (FIC DEKKER)

Born To Die / by Lisa Jackson
When two women who look remarkably similar to herself suddenly die of seemingly natural causes, Dr. Kacey Lambert chalks it up as a coincidence. But when it’s discovered that one of the dead bodies contained traces of poison, it becomes a murder case headed by Detectives Selena Alvarez and her partner Regan Pescoli. As more women, all resembling Dr. Lambert, are murdered under ever more brutal circumstances, both the detectives and the now targeted Lambert become more than a little anxious. (FIC JACKSON)

Still Missing / by Chevy Stevens

Real estate agent Annie Moresby never knew what she was getting into when she agreed to show a house to a mysterious stranger. The stranger turned out to be a psychopath who forcefully held Annie captive in a remote mountain cabin for over a year before she managed an escape. Only now her former captor, a serial killer, is still on the loose and he may be after Annie one last time. (FIC STEVENS)
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Bloodline / by Mark Billingham

A madman is on the loose in London. A very clever and very malevolent serial killer has been murdering the children of the victims of Raymond Garvey, a notorious serial murderer from the city’s past. Murder Squad Detective Tom Thorne is on the case and thinks he’s caught a lead when a pregnant woman is found murdered. But what he finds instead is an even more complicated puzzle than he’d previously been working on. (MYS BILLINGHAM)

Mister X / by John Lutz
Five years ago a madman brutally murdered six women, having mutilated their bodies and carving an X into their flesh. Then the murders suddenly stopped and ex-homicide detective Frank Quinn still can’t figure out why. That is, until a sister of one of the victims convinces Frank to reopen the now cold case. Now with the case renewed, the murders have started again. (MYS LUTZ)

The Snowman / by Jo Nesbo; trans. from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett
With the first snowfall of the season in Oslo comes the disappearance of a local woman from her home. In her yard has been constructed the figure of a distorted, sinister looking snowman. It doesn’t take Detective Harry Hole long to realize that this is only one in a string of multiple disappearances—disappearances which are almost certainly the work of a serial killer. (MYS NESBO)

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed / by Patricia Cornwell

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Patricia Cornwell is one of the more prolific crime fiction writers around, well-known by practically everyone even remotely into the genre. She's also tried her hand at several true crime books, her 2001 investigative account on Jack the Ripper claiming to have at last identified the real culprit responsible for the shockingly horrific murders of 5 (some say 6) prostitutes in London's east end during the summer and fall of 1888.

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No serial killer can approach the infamy that the man known only by his pen name, Jack the Ripper, achieved in the late 1880's. One of the first to be classified as a "serial killer", Jack the Ripper was no doubt the nineteenth century's most notorious criminal, if not the most referenced murderer in all of history. Much of the attention surrounding the Ripper Murders is simply the fact that the real identity of the killer has remained unsolved, a condition only inflating the number of possible suspects, sparking numerous, ever-glamourized conspiracy theories and sustaining the ignominy of the real villain--whoever he may be. The case was not only ghastly in nature and method, it was peculiarly intriguing for a number of reasons: the social and political culture of the era, the murderer's indiscernible motives, loose theories involving celebrity suspects and the savagery of the crime contradicting modernist presumptions of civility. Mysterious clues left by the killer, and the he curious way in which the victims were "arranged"--each mangled corpse sprawled out on the ground usually with various internal organs missing--also contributed to the intrigue surrounding the case. Notes written to police at the time, letters claiming to be written by the killer and signed "Jack the Ripper", were used as evidence although no one was officially named as the prime suspect.

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Cornwell's theory pins a man named Walter Sickert as the official murderer. An artist/painter of marginal fame and a man who kept a residence in the area of the murders during the period, Sickert was a gentleman who kept up with legitimate company and was known, even revered in certain circles. Yet he was also an individual who concealed a very secretive lifestyle. Since birth, Sickert suffered from a permanent sexual deformity, one which Cornwell postulates could have led to a violent, mysogynist disposition toward women and a need to act out his rage. Sickert's own artwork, Cornwell claims, even reflects Ripper-like undertones and particularly curious correlations to the Ripper murders, displaying denuded female figures positioned in strikingly similar patterns to that of the victims.

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The book was actually a two year, multi-million dollar investigation (Cornwell traveled to England and actually purchased 19 of Sickert's original artworks to use as evidence) incorporating several highly sophisticated research techniques and DNA samplings. Yet despite all the effort, Cornwell was personally reviled by critics and fellow Ripperologists who stated that her investigation produced only limited circumstantial evidence; the context of which was solely conducive to her own theory and elicited facts which flew in the face of previously established patterns of evidence (e.g., Sickert was never, in over a century of scrupulously detailed analysis, among the 20 or so leading suspects and was even out of the country at indeterminate intervals during the murders).

The Lovely Bones / by Alice Sebold

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One of the more interesting publishing stories of the decade was in 2002-2003 when The Lovely Bones by first-time novelist Alice Sebold staked a claim to the top spot. The book, in which a young girl's abduction and murder is retold by the victim (in spirit form), grabbed its fair share of attention and headlines from the more pedigreed works by Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code), James Patterson and Danielle Steel. Seven years later, the movie version starring Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz is set to debut, opening next month. Sebold is a former student of the University of Houston's M.F.A. program.
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"The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life." p. 363
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Susie Salmon is 14 on December 6, 1973, the last day of her life. The oldest daughter of Jack and Abigail Salmon of Norristown, Pennsylvania, Susie meets her fate walking home alone from school after a confrontation with her peculiar neighbor George Harvey sees her raped, murdered and concealed, her corpse dismembered and boxed up. It's a while before the Salmons--both Jack and Abigail along with Lindsey, Susie's younger sister by a year, and Buckley, the toddler son--accept that Susie is really dead, not just missing. Questions linger until an elbow (Susie's), a remnant of the dead girl mistakenly left behind, is found giving finality to the case. The years following death of their beloved daughter and sister hold some ill after-effects, the family steadily becoming unhinged under the weight of their distress. Abigail's withdrawal of affection from her children and husband, her foray into adultery and ultimate flight from the home, Lindsey's alienation, Buckley's resentment, Jack's assurance of Harvey's guilt and self-destructive fixation over the inability to see him brought to justice all push things toward a near-irreparable disarray.

But Susie's mortal death hasn't totally suspended her from contact with her family. Susie, now an amorphous spirit in her own personal heaven, observes their world perceiving their collective grief, sensing each's pain, misery and despair. The spirit Susie actively "accommodate" each of her family members, witnessing her mother's betrayal and abandonment of the family unit, observing her sister Lindsey's bitterness finding some solace with a loyal boyfriend, relating to her brother's sense of being forgotten and, perhaps most poignantly, understanding her father's grief and how it's medicated through his unending obsession for revenge and justice. Susie is even able to "see" George Harvey, the boy he once was, the torturous childhood he endured, his pathological need to kill, his previous and subsequent victims (Susie was neither his first nor his only girl) and the utter remorseless indifference towards his crimes.

The Lovely Bones' popularity is well-merited. There's a sort of absorbing voyeurism to the characters, their lives evocatively illuminated through Sebold's superior prose, engaging hold on the reader and clever arrangement of the narrative. Susie's presence and cognition in relation to each of her family's lives--their innermost thoughts, their reactions and convictions, frustrations and revelations is profoundly entrancing, the attraction of the novel and pursuit through the chapters not so much about seeking a resolution as to be immersed in the almost ethereal atmosphere of the story.

The Stranger Beside Me / by Ann Rule

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American non-fiction author Ann Rule has made quite a career out of profiling true crime cases, illuminating the scene, the situation, the motives involved and, particularly, the intimate lives of the victims and villains. Yet a special twist is added to Rule's 1980 (and later 2000 reprint) book The Stranger Beside Me. Rule herself is, chillingly, one of the characters, having worked beside notorious serial killer Ted Bundy in a crisis center during her days as a Seattle policewomen, then considering him a "true gentleman" and "likeable co-worker". Only here does she reveal the shocking revelation of Bundy as not only a man she once referred to as "dear friend", but as a monster of unspeakable atrocities she herself can scarcely fathom.

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At first glance, no one would have taken Ted Bundy for a serial killer. His conventional, handsome visage, amiable demeanor and intelligent speech had everyone fooled, so much so that his killing spree ran into the dozens, covering 5 states prior to his initial apprehension. And even then, due to lazy police work, he managed to escape, committing at least three more grisly killings in Florida prior to his final capture, conviction and death sentence.

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A child born into rather unfortunate circumstances (the fact that his sister was actually his mother was hid from him until he was a teenager), Ted remained shy and introverted for most of his youth, never much of a troublemaker nor singled out by the institutional system as a potential problem for society. Through his stepfather's extensive collection of adult magazines, Ted had been exposed to assorted pornography, much of it particularly graphic, at an especially sensitive age, a symptom he would later attribute to sparking his acute interest in sexual violence. By his twenties, Ted had mastered a dual persona: well-mannered, socially-adept white collar professional vs. "the entity", his own term characterizing his pathologically motivated, sexually-driven need to kill. He effectively appropriated each in a more or less routine fashion, easily able to manipulate others (mostly women, all his victims were female) and conceal his motives and any criminal evidence after the fact. His first murder, an unidentified hitchhiker whose remains were never found, occurred in 1973 when Ted was 26. Successively in the years between 1974 and 1978, Bundy murdered over thirty women (the true count is still unknown), each killed in excessively brutal fashion, often bludgeoned to death, impaled, or otherwise sexually maimed.

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This book is actually two stories. One describes the gradual disintegration of a seemingly normal, affable, intelligent man into a sexual psychopath so evil, so preternatural in his vicious killings, that one wonders if he was human at all. The other story is that of Ann Rule herself, a decent, hard-working, middle-aged mother of four who meets and befriends a nice young man working beside her in a crisis clinic. The slow but inexorable realization on Rule's part that this man whom she'd accepted as a "dear friend" is in fact an unspeakably violent serial killer is almost painful to read, her new afterward penned in 2000 revealing that she still hasn't "recovered" and "moved on". Yet, all told, it makes for a great read for anyone interested in true crime.

The Wolfman / by Nickolas Pekearo

Not too many novelists are volunteer police officers in their spare time. But that's exactly what Nicholas Pekearo, a budding author already having penned his first novel at 28, was doing when his life was tragically cut short. A member of the NYPD Auxiliary Police Force, Pekearo was working the beat in the very neighborhood where he grew up, Greenwich Village, when he was suddenly gunned down in the street after a botched robbery. His novel, The Wolfman, is narrated by a drifter werewolf who, though a sympathyzing individual, has no choice but to prey on those around him.
 Marlowe Higgins isn't who he pretends to be. He's not even what he pretends to be. A bit of a drifter since his combat days in 'Nam, Higgins currently resides in a sleepy middle-american town (in one of the "fly-over" states) working as a short-order cook by day and spending his nights, at least those under a full moon, mindlessly seeking to devour unsuspecting victims. His condition irreversible (a family blood curse damning him to his situation), Higgins can't help but be consumed with remorse for the countless innocent lives he's claimed--memories and internal characteristics of the slain permanently inhabiting his soul long after the act is perpetrated. In an effort to alleviate his guilt, Higgins secretly acts as an amateur detective tracking vicious crimes that have gone unsolved by the police and consequently targeting the perpetrators of said crimes while in lycan mode, tricking his "inner-wolf" into pursuing the deserving criminals.

Pekearo's skill at making Higgins both believable and sympathetic is a considerable achievement, all the more so considering the novel's crossover appeal. The twist involving the town's police detective Daniel Pearce, Higgins' only real friend, is an extremely clever plot device and Higgins’ gruff, hard-boiled demeanor makes him appealing as both a werewolf and amateur sleuth. Werewolf novels in general are underrepresented in fiction, but books like this present a worthy standard for others to follow. This novel's deceased author had quite a lot of potential. (FIC PEKEARO)

Serial Killer Investigations: the Story of Forensics and Profiling through the Hunt for the World's Worst Murderers

"Society wants to believe it can identify evil people, or bad or harmful people, but it's not practical. There are no stereotypes . . . The thing is, some people are just psychologically less ready for failure than others." -- Ted Bundy.

Whether grotesquely intriguing or singularly chilling, serial murder cases and serial killers have long held a fascination with the public, even as they contribute to less than 1 percent of murders committed annually. Infamous serial murderers from Jack the Ripper to Jeffrey Dahmer have invariably found their way into the spotlight, often remaining notorious cult phenomenon long after trials and executions have put an end to things. As bizarre as so many cases involving serial murderers have been (e.g., Manson Family), could there be a trait which distinguishes them all? What, if any, are the conditions or characteristics which give rise to such destructive antisocial behavior? And what evidence is there from past cases which could aid criminologists and forensic pathologists now?

In as concise a volume of facts, interviews and evidence as has ever been available on some of the world's most nefarious villains, Wilson details how each were tracked, caught and convicted, highlighting the ever-evolving investigative techniques which have been employed and extracted in the process. So just what is the common denominator? Is there one? It's all contained within as some of history's most notorious, cold-blooded murderers are scrutinized, analyzed and profiled; all rendering police detectives, federal investigators and behavioral psychologists with vital information for the present day. (364.152 WILSON)