Showing results by author "J. A. Kerley" in All Categories

A headless male torso found in the sweating heat of an Alabama night is assumed to be that of a murdered prostitute, killed in a moment of passion. The head of Mobile's police department would have it so, but Detective Carson Ryder sees something else: the deliberate placement of the remains, the lack of blood, the bizarre writing on the victim's skin.

TV evangelist Reverend Scaler made his fortune from firebrand attacks on the sins of modern America. But Scaler has preached his last sermon after being bound and beaten to death in an apparent S&M session. Detective Carson Ryder has his own problems. He’s edgy and unpredictable, seemingly unmoved by the discovery of an abandoned infant in a boat – nearby, a burnt-out shack, a body and signs of a struggle. Scaler’s tangled personal life reveals bizarre connections between the cases.

Thirty years after his death, Marsden Hexcamp's "Art of the Final Moment" remains as sought after as ever. But this is no ordinary collection. Hexcamp's portfolio was completed with the aid of a devoted band of acolytes and half a dozen victims, each of whom was slowly tortured to death so that their final agonies could be distilled into art.

Across the US, a secret network of crisis centres permanently relocates women in serious danger from domestic abuse. But now someone is killing them before they reach their destinations. Detectives Carson Ryder and Harry Nautilus are having trouble gaining the trust of the volunteers who run the scheme. The only way in is for an undercover police officer to pose as a threatened woman, making herself a target and drawing the killer out. Reinetta Early is the ideal candidate - except for one thing.

Carson Ryder thought he'd seen everything.… A specialist in twisted crimes, Detective Carson Ryder thought he'd seen the lowest depths of human depravity. But he's barely started his new job in Miami when called to a horrific scene: a concrete pillar built of human remains, their agony forever frozen in stone. Finding the secret of the pillar drags him into the sordid world of human trafficking, where one terrified girl holds the key to unravelling a web of pain, prostitution, and murder.

From the best-selling author of Her Last Scream, a chilling tale of ritual murder and corruption, featuring Detective Carson Ryder. The Reverend Honus Schrum, a nationally renowned minister and owner of a broadcasting empire, tells the media he has come home to Key West to die. Meanwhile, Detective Carson Ryder is investigating the ritualistic murders of young women with chequered pasts, discovering the killings have religious overtones.

Children are disappearing in Mobile, Alabama, the latest snatched from her own bedroom. There are no clues – and, as yet, no bodies. With public anger reaching dangerous levels, homicide detective Carson Ryder finds a case hopelessly tangled up in murky local politics. Ryder’s bosses have one last hope, though: Connor Sandhill, a former cop whose uncanny ability to solve baffling crimes is legendary.

It looked like an abattoir when they found the mutilated body of the young journalist inside her car. And if Carson Ryder and his partner had known what they were getting into, they would never have taken the case. Too late, what looks like the work of a lone madman spreads tentacles that wrap themselves round all sorts of strange areas. And it's not long before attention focuses on the city's most unlikely suspects: a wealthy family whose philanthropy has made them famous and influential.

Soon after witnessing the escape of violent psychopath Bobby Crayline from prison, Alabaman detective Carson Ryder takes a rare break in the mountains. But his vacation is interrupted when an anonymous phone call summons him to the scene of a grisly murder. With more savage killings, and the heavy-handed FBI only inflaming the situation, Ryder and the local detective Donna Cherry sift through the increasingly bizarre clues. Is there more than one killer on the loose?

Detective Carson Ryder faces a cunning and inventive adversary in this terrifying thriller from the bestselling author of Her Last Scream. Young men in Miami are being abducted and tortured after their drinks are spiked with a cocktail of drugs that leaves them unable to recall their ordeal. Despite this, Detective Carson Ryder knows the predator's name, height, age, colouring…everything. It's impossible for the perpetrator to avoid detection. Yet he does.