'One of the most interesting detectives around' The Times Fabel is back: scarred by an experience that has changed him for ever and haunted by his past, he investigates the biggest case of his career. As head of the Polizei Hamburg's Murder Commission, Jan Fabel is used to dealing with the dead. But when a routine inquiry turns violent and takes him to the brink of his own death, he emerges a changed man. Fast forward two years, and Fabel's first case at the Murder Commission comes back to haunt him. Monika Krone's body is found at last, fifteen years after she went missing. Monika - ethereally beautiful, intelligent, cruel - was the centre of a group of students obsessed with the gothic. Fabel re-opens the case. What happened that night, when Monika left a party and disappeared into thin air? When men involved with Monika start turning up dead, Fabel realizes he is looking for a killer with both a hunger for revenge and a taste for the gothic. What he doesn't know is that someone has been aiding and grooming a deranged escapee as his own, personal tool for revenge. The fifth in a unique and memorable crime series, The Ghosts of Altona is gritty, fast-paced, mordantly funny and totally compelling. Praise for award-winning writer Craig Russell: 'Another brilliantly sharp, witty and tough take on a hard city at a hard time . . . a former cop, Russell is Britain's rising crime-writing star' Daily Mirror 'Through his humorous lens, time and place become razor-sharp ... The lightness of touch is a breath of fresh air in this most crowded of genres . . . This is tartan neo-noir at its most entertaining' Sunday Herald

Steeped in the folklore of Eastern Europe, and set in the shadow of Nazi darkness erupting just beyond the Czech border, this bone-chilling, richly imagined novel is propulsively entertaining, and impossible to put down. "A wildly entertaining story...Russell has created a truly frightening story." —The New York Times Book Review Czechoslovakia, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a newly trained psychiatrist who studied under Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle surrounded by forests, on a site that is well known for concealing dark secrets going back many centuries. The asylum houses six inmates--the country's most treacherous killers--known to the terrified public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect. Yet as he begins to learn the stunning secrets of these patients, he must face the unnerving possibility that these six may share a darker truth. Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate to locate the culprit (a copycat of Jack the Ripper), turns to Viktor and the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic criminal mind. And Viktor finds himself wrapped up in a case more terrifying than he could have ever imagined.

As the flood waters recede after a massive storm hits Hamburg, a headless torso is found washed up. Jan Fabel of the Murder Commission's investigations lead him to a secretive environmental Doomsday cult called Pharos, the brainchild of a reclusive, crippled billionaire, Dominik Korn.

A girl's body lies, posed, on the pale sand of a Hamburg beach, a message concealed in her hand. 'I have been underground, and now it is time for me to return home...' Jan Fabel, of the Hamburg murder squad, struggles to interpret the twisted imagery of a dark and brutal mind. Four days later, a man and a woman are found deep in woodland, their throats slashed deep and wide, the names 'Hansel' and 'Gretel', in the same, tiny, obsessively neat writing, rolled tight and pressed into their hands. It becomes clear that each new crime is a grisly reference to folk stories collected almost two hundred years ago by the Brothers Grimm. The hunt is on for a serial killer who is exploring the darkest, most fundamental fears hidden in ancient fairy tales. A predator who kills and then disappears into the shadows. A monster we all learned to fear in childhood.

Calling all fans of Stuart MacBride, James Oswald and Ian Rankin - this blood-curdling and hypnotically tense thriller from the pen of prizewinning and bestselling author Craig Russell with its devilishly cunning plot and mind-blowing maze of twists and turns is perfect for you. 'This splendid thriller...The story races along with pace and verve' -- Daily Express 'Very well written and a page-turner!........Craig Russell never lets his many fans down' -- ***** Reader review 'One of the most disturbing but addictive reads I had for a long time' -- ***** Reader review 'Really gripping yarn with twists and turns along the way' -- ***** Reader review 'Fabel is in fine form and the plot is wonderfully twisted. A must for lovers of good crime novels' -- ***** Reader review 'Gripping' -- ***** Reader review ********************************************************************* ONE ASSASSIN. ONE SERIAL KILLER. TWO ANGELS OF DEATH. After a gap of ten years, a female serial killer - the Angel of St Pauli - again makes the headlines when an English pop star is found in Hamburg's red-light district, dying of the most savage knife wounds. Jan Fabel is called in to investigate. Links emerge with a series of apparently unrelated events. A journalist murdered in Norway. The death of a Serbian gangster. And a long-forgotten project by East Germany's Stasi conceived at the height of the Cold War, involving a highly-trained group of female assassins, known by the codename Valkyrie. Fabel's hunt for the truth will bring him up against the most terrifyingly efficient professional killer. The ultimate avenging angel.

This dark, atmospheric and spine-tingling crime thriller from the mind of prizewinning and bestselling author Craig Russell will get right under the skin. If you like Stuart MacBride, James Oswald and Ian Rankin, then this is perfect for you. 'Gritty, authentic and disturbing stuff' - Mo Hayder 'A bloodcurdlingly clever plot... thoughtful and imaginative' -- The Times 'This really is the best crime thriller I've read in a very long time' -- ***** Reader review 'There are books that immerse you from the beginning and stay with you long after you have finished them - Russell's work does just that'-- ***** Reader review 'Riveting from the outset'-- ***** Reader review 'Intelligent, intriguing and involving'-- ***** Reader review ************************************************** ALL HIS LIVES HAVE BEEN LEADING TO THIS... Two high profile victims - a former Left-wing radical turned environmental campaigner and a prominent geneticist - are found murdered within 24 hours of each other. Both men have been scalped. Forensic tests reveal that single red hairs left at each scene belong to neither victim, but were cut from the same head - twenty years earlier. Jan Fabel and his murder team find themselves under political and media pressure to track down a killer whom the press has already christened 'The Hamburg Hairdresser'. Connections in the victims' pasts begin to emerge, but Fabel's team is working against the clock and he is caught in a web of intrigue, obsession and revenge that seemingly spans sixteen centuries. He must discover the crucial link between an ancient mummified body, a long-disbanded terrorist group and its infamous leader and a killer who believes he has been reincarnated to exact a terrible revenge on those who betrayed him in a previous life.

The first victim had her lungs ripped out. When another woman is found murdered in the same horrific and ritualistic way, it is clear that a serial killer is terrorising the city. But there is no evidence to link the two cases, except for a taunting email that threatens yet more killings.

Fans of Stuart MacBride, James Oswald and Ian Rankin will love this dangerously dark and utterly compelling thriller from the pen of prizewinning and bestselling author Craig Russell. You won't be able to put it down... 'Absolutely loved it...The kind of thriller that made me wat to be a writer in the first place' - Christopher Brookmyre 'Don't have any doubts just read. Craig Russell is an absolute master' -- ***** Reader review 'Gripping and compelling' -- ***** Reader review 'A gripping, clever and intelligently written crime novel' -- ***** Reader review 'A truly superb thriller' -- ***** Reader review 'A riveting read, full of complex twist and turns, a real page turner, you won't want to put down.' -- ***** Reader review ************************************************* HE KNOWS WHAT HE'LL DO. AND THE POLICE KNOW WHEN HE'LL DO IT. The Cologne police know a woman is going to die. They know the day it will happen. And they're powerless to stop it. They call on an outside expert: Jan Fabel, head of Hamburg's Murder Squad and Germany's leading authority on serial killers. Fabel is on the point of leaving the police for good, but Carnival in Cologne is a time when the world goes crazy, and he is drawn into the hunt for the Carnival Cannibal. What he doesn't know is that he is on a collision course with a crack special forces unit from Ukraine and a disturbed colleague with a score to settle. Fabel finds himself on a trail of betrayal and vengeance, violence and death. And once more he faces his greatest enemy. The true Master of the Carnival.

From the internationally acclaimed author, a stunning gothic reimagining of the Jekyll and Hyde story in which Captain Edward Hyde, chief detective of Victorian Edinburgh, investigates a gruesome murder that may unmask his own darkest secret Victorian Edinburgh. Captain Edward Henry Hyde is chief detective for the City of Edinburgh Police; as such, he is responsible for investigating all murders and serious crimes in the city. Hyde is a striking but severe-looking man who provokes unease, and often fear, in those who encounter him. Nevertheless, Edward Hyde is truly a good man ... though he wrestles fiercely with his own unique demons. When Hyde finds himself at the scene of a heinous murder, with no idea of how he got there or the events leading up to the discovery, his alarm is triggered on two levels. First, the crime scene is brutal and involves the Threefold Death, an ancient Celtic rite of sacrifice entangled with dark Scottish spiritual mythology. Second, Hyde's inability to remember any detail of his arrival at the crime scene makes him immediately fret about the secret he keeps from all but his physician: He suffers from a rare form of epilepsy that causes him to lose time—amnesiac absences where he cannot account for his actions—and nocturnal seizures that manifest themselves as vivid and lucid dreams. As Hyde begins his investigation of the murder in a city on edge, he finds himself not only searching for real world clues, but trying to unravel the significance of the imagery in the otherworld of his dreaming. His investigation leads to the very places he fears, but has never fully imagined.

'Michael Crichton meets The Matrix' Daily MailPreviously published as Biblical.An apocalyptic, mind-melting thriller on an epic scale that will make you question your own reality and even your sanity.What would you do if you found out that your future had already happened? All around the world, people start to see things that aren't there, that cannot be. Visions, ghosts, events from the past playing out in the present. To start with, the visions are unremarkable: things misplaced in time and caught out of the corner of the eye; glimpses of long-dead family or friends. But, as time goes on, the visions become more sustained, more vivid, more widespread. More terrifying. As the visions become truly apocalyptic, some turn to religion, others to science. Only one man, driven by personal as well as professional reasons, is capable of finding the real truth. But the truth that psychiatrist John Macbeth uncovers is much, much bigger than either religion or science. A truth so big it could cost him his sanity. And his life.