Women Forensics

Ruth is in London clearing out her mother's belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken before Ruth lived there. Her mother always hated the cottage, so why does she have a picture of the place? The only clue is written on the back of the photo: dawn, 1963. Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then COVID rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage, attempting to continue with work and home-schooling.

The morning after North Virginia's deadliest Halloween on record, forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta is pulled away from her caseload to investigate a chilling crime. She arrives in the wilderness to find one body floating in the lake, and another twenty feet down an abandoned mineshaft - both mutilated almost beyond recognition. It can be no coincidence that the couple were killed on the verge of their arrest for cybercrimes. After the most terrifying body retrievals of her career, Scarpetta must discover who would commit murders this savage, and why.

Dr Terry O'Brien has recently arrived in Ireland from Scotland to take up a position as state pathologist. Soon after, a body is found in Dublin's Phoenix Park. Rachel Reece, host of the popular true crime podcast Ireland's Missing Women, has been brutally murdered. As Terry gathers evidence to help with the police investigation, she becomes convinced that they are following the wrong line of inquiry and begins her own research. She soon finds herself in the thick of cold cases of murdered Irish women, with questions mounting.

Leo Stone is a ruthless killer or the victim of a miscarriage of justice. A year ago, he was convicted of the murder of two women and sentenced to life in prison. But now he's free, and according to him, he's innocent. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent are determined to put Stone back behind bars where he belongs, but the more Maeve finds out, the less convinced she is of his guilt. Then another woman disappears in similar circumstances. Is there a copycat killer, or have they been wrong about Stone from the start?

Coroner Martha Gunn is among the first to be called to the scene when a man's body is found in a small cottage fronting the river. Floating face-down in the rising water, it appears to have been raised from the cellar by the flood.

Longbill Beach, 1982. Emily Vaughn gets ready for prom night, the highlight of any high school experience. But Emily has a secret. And by the end of the evening, she will be dead. Forty years later, Emily’s murder remains unsolved. Her friends closed ranks, her family retreated inwards, the community moved on. But all that’s about to change.

HMP Graymoor. One of the UK’s most notorious prisons. Home to nearly 800 murderers, rapists and child molesters. Reporting for her first shift inside is Rebecca: twenty-two, newly graduated—and about to sit down with some of the country’s most dangerous criminals. In this gripping, hard-hitting memoir, forensic psychologist Dr Rebecca Myers revisits her time in the ‘Hot Seat’ with Graymoor’s infamous inmates—who might not be as different to us as we think.

Detective Jo Shaw has it all worked out. She’s good at her job, she has loads of mates, and she likes being single. She doesn’t need complications, but an emergency call to the stabbing of a young woman brings plenty of those. Jo has to risk her career to save the woman’s life, and a bad night gets worse when the trauma surgeon turns out to be Isla Munro, Jo’s only real love, who walked out on her 15 years ago and never came back.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta has left Virgina in quest of peace, but instead finds herself drawn into baffling, horrific murders in Florida, where she becomes entangled in an international conspiracy that confronts her with the shock of her life.

She's young. She's beautiful. And her corpse, laid out in the office of Boston medical examiner Cat Novak, betrays no secrets - except for a notebook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside. When a second victim is discovered, Cat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the city streets: a shadowy madman without mercy or apparent motive. The police are sceptical. The mayor won't listen. And Cat's chief suspect is one of the city's most prominent citizens.

Violence is escalating, and spilling onto the streets of Montreal. A nine-year-old girl is killed in crossfire on her way to ballet class. The body of a teenager killed in North Carolina is found hundreds of miles away. Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan has to pick up the pieces: she knows she shouldn't let emotion get in the way, but when nine-year-old Emily's body is wheeled into the morgue she cannot help but react.

In 1994, Rwanda was the scene of the first acts since World War II to be legally defined as genocide. Two years later, Clea Koff, a twenty-three-year-old forensic anthropologist, left the safe confines of a lab in Berkeley, California, to serve as one of sixteen scientists chosen by the United Nations to unearth the physical evidence of the Rwandan genocide. Over the next four years, Koff’s grueling investigations took her across geography synonymous with some of the worst crimes of the twentieth century.

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has just inherited one of the most notorious cases of her career. Two years ago, a former beauty queen's body washed up on the shore of Wallops Island, Virginia. She was last seen on a boat with her fiancé, who has since been held in jail while awaiting trial. Scarpetta must act as the expert witness for the case—an investigation previously botched by another forensic pathologist. After a gruelling cross-examination by the prosecutor, Scarpetta leaves the court only to discover that the sister of the judge on her case has been found dead.

Dame Sue Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist. She has lived her life eye to eye with the Grim Reaper, and she writes vividly about it in this book, which is part primer on the basics of identifying human remains, part frank memoir of a woman whose first paying job as a schoolgirl was to apprentice in a butcher shop, and part no-nonsense but deeply humane introduction to the reality of death in our lives. It is a treat for CSI junkies, murder mystery and thriller fans, and anyone seeking a clear-eyed guide to a subject that touches us all.

Rizzoli and Isles return in the nail-biting new thriller from Sunday Times best-selling author Tess Gerritsen. Detective Jane Rizzoli and forensic pathologist Maura Isles are investigating the gruesome murder of a nurse, whilst also protecting a young student from a stalker. But immersed in their day jobs, will they lose sight of something sinister happening much closer to home?

It all starts when Dr Temperance Brennan finds a box on her porch. Inside is a fresh human eyeball with GPS coordinates etched into it. They lead her to a macabre discovery in a Benedictine Monastery, and soon after she discovers a mummified corpse in a state park. There seems to be no pattern to these killings, except that each mimics a killing connected to something a younger Tempe experienced, or barely escaped. Someone is targeting her, and she needs to figure out why before they strike again. And then her daughter Katy disappears.

When forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is brought in to analyse a shallow grave on Scotland’s west coast, she is disturbed by a bundle of twigs crafted into a stickman and left in the victim’s mouth. Then, when a young woman is reported missing from a nearby campsite with another sinister figurine left in her van, it seems that someone is targeting wild campers. An idyllic coastline known for providing peace and serenity, now the area is a hunting ground.

A Daphne du Maurier-esque chiller set on the mysterious Cornish coast from the author of The Silent Companions and The Corset. Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft’s family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken. But Dr Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the same disease in the cliffs beneath his new Cornish home.

Number one New York Times best-selling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the 24th engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.

While illegally street racing in the underground tunnels of Glasgow, four Harley-Davidson riders make a horrifying discovery: a dead man left in the darkness, hands together on his chest as if peacefully laid to rest. The cause of death is unclear, the only clues being a half glass of red wine and a partially eaten chunk of bread by his side that echo the ancient religious practice of sin-eating. Called to the scene, forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is perplexed by the lack of evidence.