History SerialKiller / Literature

In ''Literature/OnTheStreetWhereYouLive'', it becomes evident that a serial killer is operating in Spring Lake, fatally strangling a young woman every few years to match up with the disappearances of three young women back in the 1890s (who were also apparently victims of a serial killer). Based on his modus operandi, the police and media predict that the killer will strike again by the end of March.

SerialKiller in literature:

* In ''Literature/BekaCooper'', [[spoiler:Deirdry Noll]] as the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Shadow Snake]] is a comfort/profit killer whose modus operandi is to find an otherwise poor family who has some small item of value (an enamel-on-gold lily pendant, some money, pearl earrings, a spell book, so on), kidnap one of their children, and demand the item in return for the child's life. If the item is not paid up in a week, the Snake kills the child.

* The ''Literature/SergeStorms'' novels have Serge A Storms, who goes on spree killings whenever he's off his meds (Read: Every single book). Some people he kills in the pursuit of wealth, and others he kills purely because they offend him, usually for some sort of anti-social behavior (Unsportsman like conduct at a Little League game, playing music too loud...) or for damaging some part of Florida history. A great deal of the humor in the stories comes from the truly inventive ways he can come up with to off people.
* Several appear in R.S Belcher (of Literature/TheGolgothaSeries fame) novel ''The Brotherhood of the Wheel''. The first is a mundane serial killer/rapist "The Marquis", a trucker who got his StartOfDarkness from finding ''The 120 Days of Sodom'' in a truck-stop washroom. Next there's a truck-stop diner that's a hunting lodge for a branch of the "Zodiac Lodge", [[ReligionOfEvil a cult dedicated towards serial killing and are the actual Zodiac killer]], and finally there's "Pagan". Pagan was a psychopathic serial-killer since 200 years ago, he would have been a standard serial-killer but he was unusually attuned to the supernatural world and came under the influence of the Horned God. So he was [[TouchedByVorlons granted immortality and other powers by Cernunos]].
* ''King of the Road'', the sequel to ''The Brotherhood of the Wheel'', has the Harlequins - a cult of clown-themed serial killers who use alchemically-treated face paint. They've been killing and dismembering countless victims for centuries and the latest incarnation is influenced by [[Music/InsaneClownPosse Juggalo culture]] to the point where the Harlequins have their own knock-off group, the "Lunatic Clown Squad". The hidden goal of the Harlequins is to harvest enough pineal glands from their victims to create [[ImmortalityInducer the Azoth]].

* In ''Literature/TheCircleOpens'' Creator/TamoraPierce goes the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' route of covering a wide swath of the usual serial killer traits (displaying the bodies, murdering surrogates for the killer’s mother, keeping trophies, etc) while keeping things fairly realistic by splitting them up among multiple killers instead of piling them onto one. Each protagonist helps to solve a series of disturbing crimes across four cities and four books.
* ''Literature/TheCorruptedChroniclesOfCocoClaramisa'' features two. The [[VillainProtagonist titular character]] herself, who sets up murders of anybody who ends up being more popular than her, and Bloody Rose, who murders people with depression and leaves a black rose cover in the victims blood as a CallingCard.
* In ''Literature/DamnatioMemoriae'', Enim and Jack are searching for whoever has been killing local girls in the town outside of their boarding school. [[spoiler:Enim thinks he finds the killer, but given that he's an unreliable narrator, it's hard to know what really happened.]]

* Several ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books, most prominently ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'', give delicate references to the [[MurderInc Assassins' Guild's]] "scholarship boys"- that is, people who made it into Assassin school by proving they were already very good at discreetly killing people. The Guild keeps such scholarships in place not because they approve of indiscriminate slaughter, but because anyone who has a natural aptitude for their kind of work had better damn well be where you can see them.

* The period mystery ''Eater of Souls'' is a serial-killer story set in Ancient Egypt. One of the few cases where the "Visionary" variant of this trope is genuinely ''and plausibly'' suspected to be legitimately-supernatural by the investigators.
* In the ''Literature/FateZero'' novel, the historical hero UsefulNotes/GillesDeRais (summoned to the war as Caster) is a visionary serial killer (with aspects of a thrill killer) who kills to spite God for abandoning Jeanne d'Arc. [[WouldHurtAChild He favours children as his targets]]. His master, Ryuunosuke, is a sadistic thrill killer who ended up summoning Caster out of curiosity and gleefully follows Caster because he considers him an artist.

* Karkas, [[VillainOfTheWeek villain of]] ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: The Brain Spiders'', is a touchy, mercurial murderer who's killed at least ninety one people and [[CallingCard cut a K into the forehead of each of them]].
* Saxon Hyde from ''Ghoul'' by ''Creator/MichaelSlade'', and the Headhunter, among others. All of the author's novels include a SerialKiller at the center of the plot, but also [[ShownTheirWork discuss]] cases of RealLife killers such as Ted Bundy and Ed Gein. Slade is the pseudonym for Jay Clarke, a lawyer who specializes in criminal insanity.
* In the Creator/FlanneryOConnor short story, ''A Good Man Is Hard To Find'', a serial killer called "The Misfit" and minions meet up with a family, whose matriarch tries to talk her way out [[spoiler:but it does not work out for her]].

* In the Creator/AgathaChristie novel ''Literature/TheABCMurders'', Literature/HerculePoirot receives a series of letters from 'ABC' threatening to kill a series of victims in alphabetical order and challenging Poirot to unmask him. [[spoiler:Alexander Bonaparte Cust is being used as a front by the real killer, who wants to murder his brother for the inheritance and plans to cover it up by disguising it as the act of a serial killer.]]

* The mysterious killer of natural redheads in Brazilian's mystery teen novel ''The Devil's Scarab'' ("O escaravelho do Diabo").

* The first story that featured the infamous demon barber Literature/SweeneyTodd, ''The String of Pearls'', had Sweeney murdering his customers by means of a barber's chair rigged to send people down to his basement, taking his razor to any who survived the fall, then delivering the bodies to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop across the street through a tunnel below to be made into pies. Sweeney was not motivated by vengeance like in the musical, but money. The story is a lot less romantic or melodramatic than the musical, and it ends with the two getting caught, Mrs. Lovett poisoning herself before the trial after almost getting lynched by her customers during her arrest, and Sweeney himself being tried, convicted, and hanged for his crimes. Note that Sweeney does share this trope's tendency to keep "trophies", as Tobias finds his house to be crammed with victims' clothing and other personal possessions.

* Subverted in the Creator/AgathaChristie novel ''Literature/TheABCMurders'', where Literature/HerculePoirot receives a series of letters from 'ABC' threatening to kill a series of victims in alphabetical order and challenging Poirot to unmask him. [[spoiler:Alexander Bonaparte Cust is being used as a front by the real killer, who wants to murder his brother for the inheritance and plans to cover it up by disguising it as the act of a serial killer.]]

* The ''Creator/TimDorsey'' novels have Serge A Storms, who goes on spree killings whenever he's off his meds (Read: Every single book). Some people he kills in the pursuit of wealth, and others he kills purely because they offend him, usually for some sort of anti-social behavior (Unsportsman like conduct at a Little League game, playing music too loud...) or for damaging some part of Florida history. A great deal of the humor in the stories comes from the truly inventive ways he can come up with to off people.

* Creator/DeanKoontz's ''Frankenstein: Prodigal Son'' has a subplot about a serial killer called the Surgeon, a Hedonist who harvests body parts from women to piece together his "perfect woman". The reader is made aware of his identity fairly promptly; the real mystery is for ''him'', upon learning that there's a [[JackTheRipoff copycat killer]] who's stalking him.

* The villain in ''Literature/DoveKeeper'', [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais Gilles de Rais]], is a serial killer of (mostly) children.

* In the ''Literature/FateZero'' novel, the historical hero Gilles de Rais (summoned to the war as Caster) is a visionary serial killer (with aspects of a thrill killer) who kills to spite God for abandoning Jeanne d'Arc. [[WouldHurtAChild He favours children as his targets]]. His master, Ryuunosuke, is a sadistic thrill killer who ended up summoning Caster out of curiosity and gleefully follows Caster because he considers him an artist.

* In the ''LightNovel/FateZero'' novel, the historical hero Gilles de Rais (summoned to the war as Caster) is a visionary serial killer (with aspects of a thrill killer) who kills to spite God for abandoning Jeanne d'Arc. [[WouldHurtAChild He favours children as his targets]]. His master, Ryuunosuke, is a sadistic thrill killer who ended up summoning Caster out of curiosity and gleefully follows Caster because he considers him an artist.

* ''Literature/QualiaThePurple'' gives one in the form of the culprit to the Tokyo Dismembering Murders. A total and complete [[TheSociopath sociopath]].

* ''Literature/WhenTheAngelsLeftTheOldCountry'': The demonic doctor at Ellis Island is revealed to be a serial killer, [[HunterOfHisOwnKind especially of other demons]].