Monkeewrench

In this electrifying debut, the slaying of an old couple in small-town America looks like a one-off act of brutal retribution. But at the same time, in Minneapolis, teams of detectives scramble to stop a sickeningly inventive serial killer striking again in a city paralysed by fear. When the two separate investigations converge on an isolated Catholic boarding school, decades-old secrets begin to fall away. It seems an old killer has resurfaced. Yet still the killer's real identity remains dangerously out of reach....

Haunted by a series of horrifying and violent episodes in their past, Grace McBride and the oddball crew of her software company, Monkeewrench, create a computer game where the killer is always caught, where the good guys always win. But their game becomes a nightmare when someone starts duplicating the fictional murders in real life, down to the last detail.

Minneapolis detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are bored - ever since they solved the Monkeewrench case, the Twin Cities have been in a murder-free dry spell, as people no longer seem interested in killing one another. But when elderly Morey Gilbert is found dead in the plant nursery he runs with his wife, Lily, the crime drought ends - not with a trickle, but with a torrent. Who would kill Morey, a man without an enemy, a man who might as well have been a saint? Can Grace McBride's cold case-solving software program somehow find the missing link?

When elderly Morey Gilbert is found, lying dead in the grass by his wife, Lily, it's a tragedy, but it shouldn't have been a shock - old people die. But when she finds a bullet hole in his skull, the blood washed away by heavy rain, sadness turns to fear. It looks like an execution.... Soon a whole city is fearful as new victims are found, killed with the same cold precision. All elderly. All apparently blameless.

Monkeewrench founders Grace McBride and Annie Belinsky, along with Deputy Sharon Mueller, are driving from Minneapolis to Green Bay, where they believe a new serial killer is just warming up. Unfortunately, their car breaks down deep in the northern woods, far away from civilization and cell towers.

It should have been a simple journey - a drive from Minneapolis to Green Bay, Wisconsin. But a couple of unplanned detours lead Grace MacBride, Annie Belinsky and police deputy Sharon Mueller deep in the northern woods, far from civilization and a mobile phone signal. Then the car breaks down. The nervous search for a landline and a mechanic leads the women to Four Corners, a sleepy crossroads town. And place they soon wish they'd never stumbled on - because something terrible happened in Four Corners....

With the holidays over and the long cold winter looming, January can be a bleak month in Minneapolis. So what better way to bring a little cheer to the good people of the city than by sponsoring an old-fashioned snowman-building contest? In a matter of hours, a local park is filled with the innocent laughter of children and their frosty creations. But things take an awful turn when the dead bodies of police officers are discovered inside two of the snowmen - sending the entire department and Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth on high alert.

With the holidays over and the long cold winter looming, January can be a bleak month in Minneapolis. So what better way to bring a little cheer to the good people of the city than by sponsoring an old-fashioned snowman-building contest? In a matter of hours, a local park is filled with the innocent laughter of children and their frosty creations.

Minneapolis, winter's first white flakes; a park full of snowmen. But the layers of packed snow hide a ghoulish surprise.... First, the bodies of two cops are found inside the snowmen, and then a day later, in the countryside to the north, Sheriff Iris Rikker makes a similarly shocking discovery. Soon Detectives Gino and Magozzi are sent north through the worst blizzard Minnesota's seen for years to find what else links the investigations. But some secrets you don't want to uncover. And as the cases unravel, it seems snowmen aren't the only ones with something to hide....

Call it murdertube...Minneapolis homicide cops Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth fish a murdered drag queen out of the Mississippi. Another day, another corpse. Except the victim's death throes quickly appear in a video posted online. And there are other videos, other murders. Unable to trace who is posting the videos, the cops turn to Grace MacBride and her crew of eccentric computer mavericks. But as the bodies and videos stack up, the team desperately try and answer a terrifying question: Is this the work of a lone individual?

When Minneapolis homicide cops Rolseth and Magozzi are called to a derelict stretch of the Mississippi River, they see a bride, facedown, dead in the water. And when the Monkeewrench crew – computer geeks who made a fortune on games, now assisting the cops with special anticrime software – are invited by the FBI to investigate a series of murder videos posted to the Web, it’s not long before the group discovers the frightening link between the unlucky bride and the latest, most horrific use of the Internet yet.

On a sailboat 10 miles off the Florida Keys, Grace MacBride, partner in Monkeewrench Software, thwarts an assassination attempt on retired FBI agent John Smith. A few hours later, in Minneapolis, a 15-year-old girl is found in a vacant lot, her throat slashed. Later that morning, two young men are found in their home a few blocks away, killed execution style. The next morning, three more men are found savagely murdered in the same neighborhood. As Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth struggle to link the crime scenes, they discover that there have been similar murders in other cities....

A missing girl is found dead in a parking lot, her throat cut. Two young immigrants are gunned down in their apartment. And with each passing day the body count rises.... For Minneapolis homicide detectives Gino and Magozzi it seems that this autumn the bodies are falling faster than the leaves. With few leads to go on, yet evidence that these killings are linked to others taking place in other cities, the pair turn to Grace McBride, maverick computer analyst. 

On a cold winter's night in Minneapolis, two friends are brutally murdered on opposite sides of the city. It's clear to homicide detectives Gino and Magozzi that the men were targets - but why? As Gino and Magozzi begin to uncover evidence, the clues rapidly start to disappear. Lost websites and missing CCTV footage lead them once more to Grace MacBride and her eccentric team of computer analysts - the only ones who can help. 

The peaceful Christmas season in Minneapolis is shattered when two friends, Chuck Spencer and Wally Luntz, scheduled to meet in person for the first time, are murdered on the same night, two hours and several miles apart, dramatically concluding winter vacation for homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth.

When homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are called to a crime scene in a heavily-wooded city park, the setting is all too familiar. And when they discover a playing card on the victim's body, their worst fears are confirmed: There's a serial killer operating in the city for the first time in years. As the violence accelerates in Minneapolis, Magozzi and Rolseth soon realize their killer is planning to complete the deck, and they enlist Grace MacBride and her unconventional partners at Monkeewrench Software to help stop the rampage.

A young woman is murdered in a park in Minneapolis. When detectives Gino and Magozzi discover a playing card near the body, they recognise the work of a serial killer who has already struck the city once before. But it's worse than they imagined. The card is the four of spades; the last victim's was the ace: it seems they're already two murders behind. Once again working with Grace MacBride and her team of analysts, they discover a web of evidence stretching back into the past.

Gregory Norwood is Minnesota's most beloved philanthropist, and the story of his son's overdose was splashed across the front page of all the papers. When a photojournalist sets out to get a candid shot of the highly successful businessman on the one-year anniversary of his son's death, he's shocked to find Norwood dead with a smoking gun in his hand. The city is devastated, and Minneapolis detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are called in to handle the delicate case. It should be open and shut, but something is not right. Norwood's death is no suicide.

Gregory Norwood, wealthy businessman and close friend of Minnesota's leading candidate for Governor, is found dead on the first anniversary of his son's drug overdose. It seems clear to Detectives Gino and Magozzi that grief drove him to suicide. Until they realize that this left-handed man seems to have used his right hand to pull the trigger. And they find the second body.

On a bitterly cold winter night, Kelly Ramage leaves her suburban home, telling her husband she's going to meet a friend. She never comes back. When her body is discovered, murdered in what seems to be a sex game gone horribly wrong, Detectives Gino and Magozzi take the case, expecting to find a flirtatious trail leading straight to the killer.