Books like 'Once Upon a Time'

Readers who enjoyed Once Upon a Time by Matt Shaw also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

horror  serial killer  psychological  splatterpunk

  • Genesis by Chris Carter

    Genesis by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.61 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    A killing like no other.A killer more twisted than he’s ever seen before.A case that will test him to the limit. Has Robert Hunter finally met his match?‘Do you believe the Devil exists, Detective?’ the officer at the end of the line asks. ‘Because if you don’t . . . I’m sure you will once you get here.’ Robert Hunter is called to the most vicious crime scene he has ever attended...
  • An Evil Mind by Chris Carter

    An Evil Mind by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    A freak accident in rural Wyoming leads the Sheriff's Department to arrest a man for a possible double homicide, but further investigations suggest a much more horrifying discovery - a serial killer who has been kidnapping, torturing and mutilating victims all over the United States for at least twenty-five years...
  • One by One by Chris Carter

    One by One by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    'I need your help, Detective. Fire or water?' Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD's Homicide Special Section receives an anonymous call asking him to go to a specific web address - a private broadcast. Hunter logs on and a show devised for his eyes only immediately begins. But the caller doesn't want Detective Hunter to just watch, he wants him to participate, and refusal is simply not an option...
  • The Sixth Wicked Child by J.D. Barker

    The Sixth Wicked Child by J.D. Barker

    Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    In the riveting conclusion of the 4MK trilogy, Barker takes the thriller to an entirely new level. Hear No Evil For Detective Sam Porter, the words “Father, forgive me” conjure memories long forgotten; a past intentionally buried. For Anson Bishop, these three words connect a childhood to the present as he unleashes a truth concealed for decades...
    Categorized as:
    abuse  adult  audiobook  book  contemporary  crime  fiction  horror
  • Hunting Evil by Chris Carter

    Hunting Evil by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    'Every story one day comes to an end.' As roommates, they met for the first time in college. Two of the brightest minds ever to graduate from Stamford Psychology University. As adversaries, they met again in Quantico, Virginia. Robert Hunter had become the head of the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit...
  • The Mercy Chair by M.W. Craven

    The Mercy Chair by M.W. Craven

    Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin . . .Washington Poe has a story to tell.And he needs you to listen.You'll hear how it started with the robber birds. Crows. Dozens of them. Enough for a murder . . .He'll tell you about a man who was tied to a tree and stoned to death, a man who had tattooed himself with a code so obscure, even the gifted analyst Tilly Bradshaw struggled to break it...
  • The First Death by Kendra Elliot

    The First Death by Kendra Elliot

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    A Wall Street Journal bestselling series.For a search and rescue expert, the buried remains of her past are a dangerous obsession in a twisting novel of suspense by a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author.Rowan Wolff was five years old when she, her brother, and their babysitter were kidnapped by a serial killer in the Pacific Northwest. The babysitter was murdered...
  • The Night Stalker by Chris Carter

    The Night Stalker by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    When an unidentified female body is discovered laid out on a slab in an abandoned butcher's shop, the cause of death is unclear. Her body bears no marks, except for the fact that her lips have been stitched shut...
  • I Am Death by Chris Carter

    I Am Death by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    AN EVIL MIND was Chris Carters's most acclaimed novel to date, described by the Daily mail as: 'A chilling, compulsive portrait of a psychopath, and proves that Carter is now in the Jeffrey Deaver class.' It spent three weeks in the Sunday Timestop ten and received brillant reviews and sales. This terrifying new standalone thriller reunites Hunter and Garcia in their most explosive case to date...
    Categorized as:
    adult  audiobook  book  contemporary  crime  dark  fiction  horror
  • The Caller by Chris Carter

    The Caller by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    Don't miss GENESIS, the latest must-read serial killer thriller from master of the genre, Chris Carter. Available to order now.THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLERBe careful before answering your next call. It could be the beginning of your worst nightmare.After a tough week, Tanya Kaitlin is looking forward to a relaxing night in, but as she steps out of her shower, she hears her phone ring...
  • Zero In by Dean Koontz

    Zero In by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    This could be the most important mission of Nameless’s life. Because it’s putting him on a collision course with his own past and the nation’s future.The target: a fortified redoubt in the golden hills of California, the hub of a new world order that’s unthinkably close at hand. The time has come for Nameless to face its designer: the nihilist mastermind behind the One Solution...
  • Missing Angel by Roger Stelljes

    Missing Angel by Roger Stelljes

    Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    Isabella pedals her bright red bike on the familiar route home, admiring her charm bracelet catching the light. But half an hour later, she is nowhere to be seen. All her frantic parents find is an angel-shaped charm discarded on the sidewalk…When twelve-year-old Isabella Farner disappears, Agent Tori Hunter races to the scene...
    Categorized as:
    adult  book  contemporary  crime  female-mc  fiction  horror  killer
  • The Body Keeper by Anne Frasier

    The Body Keeper by Anne Frasier

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 19 ratings
    The Thriller Award–winning series continues as Detective Jude Fontaine finds a decades-old connection to missing children that will freeze her blood.A boy’s frozen body is found trapped in the ice of a Minneapolis lake. The horrifying discovery leads Detective Jude Fontaine and her partner, Uriah Ashby, to more bodies in the ice, all of twelve-year-old boys missing for twenty years...
  • The Death Sculptor by Chris Carter

    The Death Sculptor by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    A student nurse has the shock of her life when she discovers her patient, prosecutor Derek Nicholson, brutally murdered in his bed. The act seems senseless - Nicholson was terminally ill with only weeks to live. But what most shocks Detective Robert Hunter is the calling card the killer left behind...
    Categorized as:
    adult  audiobook  book  california  contemporary  crime  dark  fiction
  • Such a Good Girl by Willow Rose

    Such a Good Girl by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    FBI-profiler Eva Rae Thomas faces a devious plan in bestselling author Willow Rose’s blood-rushing thriller of murder and revenge.A girl falls from the penthouse floor of an apartment in Washington, D.C.Media Mogul Richard Wanton owns the apartment and is seen standing on the balcony when the girl falls...
  • Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe, Gwendolyn Druyor

    Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe, Gwendolyn Druyor

    Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Listening Length 13 hours and 4 minutesShe looked alive, her hair drifting freely in the water, her red lips gently parted, as if to let her final breath escape. A small locket floated by her face, attached to her neck with a silver chain…When Detective Kay Sharp first left Mount Chester—population 3,823—in her rear-view mirror, she promised never to look back...
  • Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine

    Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    They’re hunting a killer so silent, so invisible, that his unspeakable crimes are the only proof he exists.A car submerged in a remote pond. The bodies of two girls strapped into their seats. The mystery of their mother, vanished without a trace, leads Gwen Proctor and Kezia Claremont into dangerous territory...
  • The Dollmaker by Mary Burton

    The Dollmaker by Mary Burton

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Dr. Tessa McGowan had never seen anything quite like it. But the mutilated bodies on her exam table tell a stunningly macabre tale: someone with a twisted mind is kidnapping women and altering their faces to resemble real, life-size dolls. As a forensic pathologist, it’s her job to aid the agent leading the case—even if that agent is her estranged husband...
  • Winter's Redemption by Mary Stone

    Winter's Redemption by Mary Stone

    Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    The Preacher is killing again...The serial killer who slaughtered Winter’s parents has come out of retirement, leaving bloody victims in his wake. Special Agent Winter Black has spent her entire life preparing for this moment, and she intends to end the man who took everything from her and solve the disappearance of her little brother—no matter the cost...
  • Pretty Lost Dolls by Ker Dukey

    Pretty Lost Dolls by Ker Dukey

    Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    From bestselling authors Ker Dukey & K Webster comes the heart-stopping, internationally bestselling crime thriller Pretty Lost Dolls which is book two in the continuation of the epic Pretty Little Dolls series.Have you ever touched another’s soul with the essence of your own and breathed them in, so they become a part of you? I have...
  • Play Dead by Angela Marsons

    Play Dead by Angela Marsons

    Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    The dead don't tell secrets... unless you listen. The girl's smashed-in face stared unseeing up to the blue sky, soil spilling out of her mouth. A hundred flies hovered above the bloodied mess. Westerley research facility is not for the faint-hearted. A 'body farm' investigating human decomposition, its inhabitants are corpses in various states of decay...
    Categorized as:
    abuse  adult  audiobook  book  contemporary  crime  drama  female-mc
  • The Fifth To Die by J.D. Barker

    The Fifth To Die by J.D. Barker

    Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    Alternate cover art can be found hereIn the thrilling sequel to The Fourth Monkey, a new serial killer stalks the streets of Chicago, while Detective Porter delves deeper into the dark past of the Four Monkey Killer.Detective Porter and the team have been pulled from the hunt for Anson Bishop, the Four Monkey Killer, by the feds...
  • The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, Kathy Bates

    The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, Kathy Bates

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 80 ratings
    Hannibal Lecter. The ultimate villain of modern fiction who scared the world silent. A young FBI trainee. An evil genius locked away for unspeakable crimes. A plunge into the darkest chambers of a psychopath's mind -- in the deadly search for a serial killer . . .An instant classic of chilling psychological suspense . . . a critically acclaimed audio production of unforgettable intensity . .
  • Killing Season by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain

    Killing Season by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain

    Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    Let it bleed. Watch it burn.The first shot punches through the windshield of an SUV. A head shot. The driver's death is instantaneous.By the time Special Agent Violet Darger arrives in Atlanta, the city teeters toward panic. The vacant streets and restaurants paint an eerie picture. No one dares to venture out.A killer walks among them. A shadow...
  • Written in Blood by Chris Carter

    Written in Blood by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    Don't miss GENESIS, the latest must-read serial killer thriller from master of the genre, Chris Carter. Available to order now. ‘Wonderful storytelling, with a superbly drawn killer, it underlines exactly how good Carter has become’ Daily MailTHE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER    A serial killer who will stop at nothing…  The Killer His most valuable possession has been stolen...
  • TO DIE FOR by Willow Rose

    TO DIE FOR by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️…Very suspenseful up to the last page. One of my new favorites. Former FBI-profiler, Eva Rae Thomas is caught off guard by a murderous plan that sends her on a pulse-pounding race against time in this romantic thriller by Willow Rose. It is a typical Tuesday morning. Scott Benton gets up, kisses his girlfriend Sarah goodbye, and goes to work...
  • Say You Love Me by Willow Rose

    Say You Love Me by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Former FBI-profiler Eva Rae Thomas is back and embedded in a true nightmare reaching deep into her own family. What would you do if your brother was accused of a horrible crime, and you were certain he didn’t do it? Life is not done throwing Eva Rae Thomas curveballs. A phone call turns her life upside down – once again...
    Categorized as:
    abuse  adult  amateur-sleuth  audiobook  book  crime  dark  fiction
  • Aberration by Lisa Regan

    Aberration by Lisa Regan

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    FBI analyst Kassidy Bishop is assigned to the “For You” killer’s task force after a series of sadistic murders bearing the same signature arise in different parts of the country.The homicides are both calculated and savage, occurring in different states, but bearing the same signature: the words “for you” scribbled at each crime scene...
    Categorized as:
    adult  audiobook  book  crime  female-mc  fiction  horror  killer
  • The Angel Creek Girls by Leslie Wolfe, Gwendolyn Druyor

    The Angel Creek Girls by Leslie Wolfe, Gwendolyn Druyor

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Listening Length 13 hours and 3 minutesHer chestnut hair, long and shiny, fanned around her head, moving gently in the wind. Her eyes, still open, stared at the back door, and her hand stretched out in a pleading gesture. Her lips, pale under the rosy lip gloss, were parted slightly as if to whisper one last word, to draw one last breath...
    Categorized as:
    adult  audiobook  book  crime  family  female-mc  fiction  hard-boiled
  • The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

    The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

    Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    In downtown Manhattan, a gruesome discovery has just been made-an underground charnel house containing the bones of dozens of murder victims. Research reveals that a serial killer was at work in New York's notorious Five Points neighborhood in the 1880s, bent on prolonging his lifespan by any means...
  • Memories of Tomorrow by Dean Koontz

    Memories of Tomorrow by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    What strange science made Nameless who he is? What catastrophes have been erased from his memories? In the stunning conclusion of this series, the dark past comes flooding back, and Nameless must decide how much he really wants to know.In Indiana, a murderous psycho has kidnapped his own six-year-old stepson, Jamie, and secreted him away in a subterranean cave. It’s become their bunker...
  • The Drowned Girls by Loreth Anne White

    The Drowned Girls by Loreth Anne White

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    He surfaced two years ago. Then he disappeared ... But Detective Angie Pallorino never forgot the violent rapist who left a distinctive calling card—crosses etched into the flesh of his victim’s foreheads. When a comatose Jane Doe is found in a local cemetery, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and nearly drowned, Angie is struck by the eerie similarities to her earlier unsolved rapes...
    Categorized as:
    abuse  adult  alpha-mc  angst  audiobook  book  contemporary  crime
  • Criminal by Karin Slaughter

    Criminal by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    Karin Slaughter's new novel is an epic tale of love, loyalty, and murder that encompasses forty years, two chillingly similar murder cases, and a good man's deepest secrets. Will Trent is a brilliant agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Newly in love, he is beginning to put a difficult past behind him...
  • Never Ever by Willow Rose

    Never Ever by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Former FBI profiler Eva Rae Thomas returns in Willow Rose’s most hair-raising thriller yet. Ex-agent Eva Rae Thomas is on the run. The past month she has done things she never knew she was capable of while hunting for her kidnapped daughter. Eva Rae has risked everything, -her career, -her newfound love, -her freedom. She’s looking for the man they call the Iron Fist...
    Categorized as:
    abuse  adult  amateur-sleuth  audiobook  book  crime  dark  fiction
  • What You Did by Willow Rose

    What You Did by Willow Rose

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Former FBI-profiler Eva Rae Thomas faces the most personal case in her career, as bestselling author Willow Rose’s new hit-series continues. Three girls disappear on prom night at the local high school. One of them is the prom queen...
  • Pretty Stolen Dolls by Ker Dukey

    Pretty Stolen Dolls by Ker Dukey

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    From bestselling authors Ker Dukey & K Webster comes the heart-stopping, internationally bestselling crime thriller Pretty Stolen Dolls.Have you ever had to make a decision that haunts you every single day for the rest of your life—the life you stole back? I have...
    Categorized as:
    abuse  adult  age-gap  alpha-mc  angst  book  captivity  contemporary
  • The Girl in the Sand by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain

    The Girl in the Sand by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Shallow graves scar the desert landscape. A cemetery in the sand. Some of the lost are never found. Thousands of girls go missing every year in Las Vegas. Taken. Bought and sold. Or worse. And now the dead are calling. These lost girls summon FBI Profiler Violet Darger to Sin City -- a new case...
  • Kaleidoscope by Dean Koontz

    Kaleidoscope by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Nameless is wrestling with more violent visions of the future when his next mission comes with the assurance, This one will be easy. It’s a promise that leaves Nameless dangerously unprepared.It seems straightforward enough: Get a foot in the door by posing as a potential investor in a lucrative underground business—then bring the place down from the inside. There’s more here than meets the eye...
  • Gallery of the Dead by Chris Carter

    Gallery of the Dead by Chris Carter

    Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars
    · 19 ratings
    ‘Thirty-seven years in the force, and if I was allowed to choose just one thing to erase from my mind, what’s inside that room would be it.'That’s what a LAPD Lieutenant tells Detectives Hunter and Garcia of the Ultra Violent Crimes Unit as they arrive at one of the most shocking crime scenes they have ever attended...
  • Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

    Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 44 ratings
    Cormoran Strike is back, with his assistant Robin Ellacott, in a mystery based around soldiers returning from war.When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman’s severed leg.Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed...
  • The Silent Wife by Karin Slaughter

    The Silent Wife by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    Investigating the killing of a prisoner during a riot inside a state penitentiary, GBI investigator Will Trent is confronted with disturbing information. One of the inmates claims that he is innocent of a brutal attack for which he has always been the prime suspect...
    Categorized as:
    abuse  adult  audiobook  book  contemporary  crime  dark  drama
  • Pretty Dead by Anne Frasier

    Pretty Dead by Anne Frasier

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    A serial killer stalks the streets of Savannah...Homicide detective Elise Sandburg and her partner, profiler David Gould, are all too familiar with the terrible costs of chasing evil. Despite their wounded psyches, the detectives delve into the deranged killer’s twisted mind, determined to unravel the clues in the taunts he leaves behind.A city gripped by fear..
    Categorized as:
    adult  audiobook  book  crime  dark  female-mc  fiction  horror
  • Malevolent by Jeff Menapace

    Malevolent by Jeff Menapace

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    After years of silence, the game is back on… Widower Allan Brown is hosting a support group in his home for the bereaved. One of the guests in attendance will be Amy Lambert, this week marking the five-year anniversary of her family’s horrifying ordeal at Crescent Lake. Of course it’s hardly cause for celebration...
    Categorized as:
    adult  audiobook  book  crime  fiction  horror  killer  murder
  • The Good Lie by A.R. Torre

    The Good Lie by A.R. Torre

    Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars
    · 25 ratings
    Six teens murdered. A suspect behind bars. A desperate father. In a case this shadowy, the truth is easy to hide.Six teenagers dead. Finally, the killer behind bars. But are the games just beginning?Psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Moore is an expert on killers...
    Categorized as:
    abuse  adult  audiobook  book  contemporary  crime  dark  death
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