Recommendations based on "The Mystery of the Talking Skull"

NYT bestsellingauthor of Kingdom of the Wicked, Kerri Maniscalco, presents her wholly addictive and incredibly suspenseful first series in a complete paperback set for the first time. Jump into this #1 bestselling mystery series for readers who love heart-pounding thrills, twists, and romance.Stalking Jack the RipperIn this spine-chilling gothic murder mystery set in gritty Victorian-era London, a resourceful lord's daughter named Audrey Rose Wadsworth and her brilliant friend Thomas Cresswell find themselves inescapably embroiled in the investigation of a ghastly serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.Hunting Prince DraculaIn this haunting sequel, Audrey Rose and Thomas uncover bizarre murders deep in the castle of Prince Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known as Dracula. Could it be a copycat killer...or has the depraved prince been brought back to life?Escaping From HoudiniIn their third harrowing adventure, Audrey Rose and Thomas find themselves aboard a luxurious ocean liner that becomes a floating prison of scandal, madness, and horror when passengers are murdered one by one...with nowhere to run from the killer.Capturing the DevilIn the shocking finale to the bestselling series, Audrey Rose and Thomas are on the hunt for the elusive, sickening killer known as the White City Devil. A deadly game of cat-and-mouse has them fighting to stay one step ahead of the brilliant serial killer---or see their fateful romance cut short by unspeakable tragedy.

When DI Terry Connor turns up on David Hunter's doorstep, it's an unwelcome reminder of the past in more ways than one. The two used to be friends before Connor's behaviour caused a bitter rift. And the news the policeman brings is even less welcome: the psychotic rapist and murderer Jerome Monk has escaped from high security prison. Monk's is a name all too familiar to Hunter. Eight years before he'd part of an ill-fated Body Recovery team assembled to try and find the graves of Monk's teenage victims on the bleak expanse of Dartmoor. Only one of the missing girls' bodies was ever found, and Monk's own controversial involvement in the search led to more failure and a violent denouement. And now Monk is on the loose - and seems to be targeting anyone involved with the original search. Then Hunter receives a mysterious appeal for help from Sophie Keller, a young woman who also worked on the operation, he suddenly finds that the past is far from dead and buried. Neither the events unfolding now, nor those from all those years ago, are quite as they seem. And as the maniac's bloody trail edges ever closer, Hunter is forced to question who he can really trust. Especially when his own life depends on it...

It's one of the most disturbing cases DI Fawley has ever worked.The Christmas holidays, and two children have just been pulled from the wreckage of their burning home in North Oxford. The toddler is dead, and his brother is soon fighting for his life. Why were they left in the house alone? Where is their mother, and why is their father not answering his phone?Then new evidence is discovered, and DI Fawley's worst nightmare comes true.Because this fire wasn't an accident.It was murder.

From its bravura opening onwards, THE CROW ROAD is justly regarded as an outstanding contemporary novel.'It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach.'Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, God and illegal substances...

In the early 80s, after a decade of drug abuse and borderline mental illness, John Burnside resolved to escape his addictive personality and find calm in a 'Surbiton of the mind'. But the suburbs are not quite as normal as he had imagined and, as he relapses into chaos, he encounters a homicidal office worker who is obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock and Petula Clark, an old lover, with whom he reprises a troubled, masochistic relationship and, finally, the seemingly flesh-and-blood embodiemnts of all his private phantoms.The sequel to his haunting, celebrated account of a troubled childhood, Waking Up in Toytown is unsettling, touching, oddly romantic and unflinchingly honest.

John Taylor is the name. I work the Nightside. Only in that dark heart of London where it’s always three A.M., where human and inhuman can feed their darkest desires, do I feel at home. Probably because I was born there.What I do is find things—people, objects—and in this case, the truth about the origins of the Nightside.That’s what Lady Luck has hired me to investigate. But the more I dig, the more I discover, not about the Nightside but about the great question in my life: exactly who—and what—was my long-vanished mother.Paying jobs are one thing. Personal quests are another. And I’ve been warned that uncovering the facts about dear old mum could be a very bad thing, not just for the Nightside but for all of existence.Still I can’t stop…I’m John Taylor. Finding things is who I am. It’s what I do. Whatever the consequences…

In this not-so-scary ghost story from Jacqueline Davies, bestselling author of the Lemonade War series, quirky, tool-wielding Alice Cannoli-Potchnik begins to repair the dilapidated mansion next door—only to discover the old house is home to ghosts, and they need mending, too!Home is where the heart is. But can a house have a heart of its own?Ten-year-old Alice is moving for the eleventh time.She’s lived in so many houses, each more broken than the last, that home to Alice is nothing more than a place you fix and then a place you leave. After all, who needs a permanent home when you’re a whiz at fixing things?But when Alice arrives at her new home, she can’t take her eyes off the house next door, the stately dark house that hulked in the dimming light. The once-grand mansion, now dilapidated and condemned, beckons Alice; it's the perfect new repair job!As Alice begins to restore the House to its former splendor, she senses strange presences. Is there a heartbeat coming from the House’s walls? Is someone looking at her? Soon she realizes she’s not alone. Three ghosts have been watching, and they need Alice’s help to solve their unfinished business.Will Alice be able to unravel the mysteries of the House and find her forever home . . . before it’s too late?An ALSC Notable Children's Book

Aunt Blythe's house gives Andrew the creeps -- full of dark rooms, creaky noises, and the sound of a woman sobbing somewhere in the shadows. Then, in the middle of the night, Andrew awakens to find a boy standing in his room...a boy who is Andrew's double, except he looks as if he's come from the grave. He wants to follow him -- to a place where he will meet the spirits of long-dead ancestors...a place from which Andrew may never return.

Halfway along Commercial Street in London, close to Spitalfields Market, is an anonymous service road, which was once Dorset Street, known as the worst street in the Capital. It was once notorious for the haunt of thieves, con-men, pimps, prostitutes and murderers, most notably Jack the Ripper. This publication chronicles the rise and fall of this remarkable street, from its promising beginnings in the 17th century as the centre of the silk weaving industry, through its gradual descent into iniquity, vice and violence to its final demise in the hands of the demolition men.

“The plot twists ingeniously...an engaging, often chilling book.”—The New York Times Book Review   A writer in California. A doctor in Boston. A motel owner and his employee in Nevada. A priest in Chicago. A robber in New York. A little girl in Las Vegas. They’re a handful of people from across the country, living through eerie variations of the same nightmare.    A dark memory is calling out to them. And soon they will be drawn together, deep in the heart of a sprawling desert, where the terrifying truth awaits...