Mystery Cults Fiction

A distraught mother seeks her kidnapped child. A young boy languishes in jail, facing a trial that could change his life forever. The 3M Detective Agency has been nearly dismantled by sudden death and an unrelenting campaign by an out-of-control district attorney. How will Natalie McMasters and the fam fight against overwhelming odds to keep from being destroyed for good? Cult! is a story that spans the U.S.A., as Nattie infiltrates a soul-sucking cult trying to take over Los Angeles to hunt for her newly discovered sister and her missing newborn son, while a couple of ancient Tai Chi ...

When Riley Matthews (niece of Daniel Matthews from the book Without Warning in the Elite Guardians series) heads to North Carolina to rescue her best friend from the Swiss Saints cult, she quickly runs into trouble. Steve Patterson, home from Afghanistan and ready to adjust to civilian life, wants that life to include Riley Matthews. But first, he has to find her, help her rescue her friend--and convince her that he's a changed man. Only Riley's not so sure she believes him. Truthfully, her heart wants to say all is forgiven, but her head won't let her forget the pain he caused her when he ...

Tribulation is a twisted mystery about an end-of-days religious cult manipulating space and traveling across planes of existence on electricity and radio signals. Cult members willingly accept seven brutal years of torture, known as their “tribulation,” to atone for their earthly sins and come out on the other side saved (or thoroughly brainwashed?). The hero of this thriller, Stacy Carlson, must uncover the mystery of the Tribulation cult after her husband Greg is kidnapped by its leader, Brother Elijah (Josh Charles), through a bizarre AM radio broadcast.

A New York Times Bestseller 2026 Audie Award Nominee “This suspenseful YA thriller is yet another testament to Jackson’s talent.”—ELLE New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson delivers another stunning, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller, following a freshman girl whose...

The galaxy is vast, and worship of the God-Emperor by His faithful takes many forms. The Spiral Dawn is one of the countless sanctioned sects of the Imperial Cult. As a gathering of Spiralytes make their holy pilgrimage to Redemption, the sect's world of origin and a shrine world of the Imperium, they find not a haven of enlightenment and introspection, but a soot-choked hellhole where their order's founders and an unorthodox regiment of Astra Militarum maintain an uneasy coexistence.

Newspaper reporter Jason Salmon is lured into the world of Bernadine D'Anna. The mysterious woman wants the young man to write a book. A book she claims will change the history of mankind. The elderly female begins relating the story of a secret sect of women who have been influencing human history for twenty-eight thousand years. The reporter is genuinely skeptical until strange events begin happening and his life is threatened by an ancient group seeking the woman's hidden secrets. As the woman tells her story, it becomes clear that she has knowledge and abilities beyond imagination. The ...

My name is Mac Brennan, and that's the only thing I can remember about myself. Not why I woke up in a dumpster. Not why my right arm is as black as pitch and covered in glowing red tattoos, and certainly not why a vicious death cult is after me. Actually, that last part isn't true. I know why the death cult is after me. It's because I saved that damned girl from them. I didn't know who she was at the time, but I'd have done it anyway. I just don't like it when girls get beat up; call me old fashioned.

SOME CASES HAUNT YOU... OTHERS HUNT. As a lowly grunt in Afghanistan's killing fields, Marine Corporal Hondo Velazquez uncovers what he believes to be ritual murders. Burned bodies. Missing children. And most chilling: the discovery of a human skull with mounted antlers—a mask worn in the ceremony of murder. Despite what his superiors demand, Hondo does what any good bloodhound would do: Hunt. And when he does, he finds himself on a trail so dark and deep that it threatens to undo the threads that hold him together. As he returns stateside, the nightmares follow. Identical killings draw ...

When new neighbors move into a close-knit, cul-de-sac community, they are welcomed into the fold. Julianna, a nervous newlywed, does her best to fit in among the established clutch. Wearing the perfect outfit to holiday gatherings. Bringing the perfect gift to children’s birthday parties. And making the perfect appetizer for barbecues. Perfect, perfect, perfect. But her neighbors soon learn that Julianna’s perfection is an illusion, a painfully sought façade. There is darkness beneath her glossy surface for she was raised in a dangerous cult she escaped from as a teenager.

I got the cat because my therapist said I needed “connection” and my sister said I needed “less silence.” I did not realize this would involve chanting, blood contracts, or a pamphlet printed on unsettlingly good paper. At first, it’s just a cat. Aloof. Judgmental. Stares at the corner of the room like it’s watching something I can’t see. Normal cat stuff. Then he starts leaving the flat at night. Coming back smelling like incense and damp carpet. Then I find the symbol. Then the meetings. Then the gentle but very firm suggestion that I’m holding him back from his destiny. ...

She thought her ex-husband was locked away in federal prison. She didn't know the gated community she'd just moved into was a trap he'd spent years building—for their daughter. When insurance fraud investigator Jenna Rhodes relocates to the Willows with her fourteen-year-old daughter Sophie, she thinks she's finally escaped the wreckage of her marriage. The scholarship, the beautiful townhouse, the welcoming neighbors—it all seems too good to be true. It is. Behind the manicured lawns and Olympic-sized pool lies a decades-old tradition no one speaks of openly. Parents with stopwatches. ...

Kate Bennett vanished from a parking lot eleven years ago, leaving behind her husband and young daughter. When she shows up at a Montana gas station, clutching an infant and screaming for help, investigators believe she may have been abducted by a cult. Kate’s return flips her family’s world upside down—her husband is remarried, and her daughter barely remembers her. Kate herself doesn’t look or act like she did before.

Adjusting to life outside the cult-like commune where they were raised has been more difficult than 17-year-olds Phillip and Finn had hoped. It doesn’t help that their reputation as the “Murder Twins” precedes them, nor that they themselves can’t help but wonder if the public is right, that they deserve prison - or worse - for their role in the “Torture Ranch.” Adding to their complication is Lucy, who - unbeknownst to them - is on her own personal quest to enact a twisted vendetta against the twins for the death of her sister in the commune two years earlier... “To Keep Us In...

A bestselling dystopian novel that tackles surveillance, privacy and the frightening intrusions of technology in our lives—a “compulsively readable parable for the 21st century” (Vanity Fair). When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company...

The series that started it all! In this powerful follow-up to his action-packed thriller The Kill Clause, Gregg Hurwitz, the new maestro of pulse-pounding suspense, ratchets up the excitement with another sensational page-turner featuring Tim Rackley, a driven lawman motivated by honor, morality...

In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property - complete with boathouse and swimming pool - and the price were too good to pass up. This is the shocking true story of an American dream that turned into a nightmare beyond imagining for the Lutz family, who were forced to flee their new home in terror.

Set against a ticking clock, this "haunting" and "atmospheric" thriller pits a ruthless cult against a mother's love, revealing that our darkest secrets are the hardest ones to leave behind (Sally Hepworth, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Sister). Four days to go Amy has only ever...

They Never Left When disgraced journalist Rex Mallory returns to the small town of Whisper Ridge, he expects rust, rumors, and a few ghosts from his past. What he doesn’t expect is a missing woman, a mutilated corpse, and the burned remains of a notebook that points to decades of disappearances. As Mallory digs deeper, he uncovers chilling whispers of an abandoned asylum, a preacher with too many secrets, and a sheriff who doesn’t take kindly to questions. Every lead pulls him closer to a horrifying truth buried beneath the town’s sleepy surface—one the townspeople are willing to ...

Hidden Jihad opens at mid-century, in 2050, two years after the election of Jefferson Rhodes. At a lavish extravaganza at the Western White House, President Rhodes asks his old college friend Mark Forster to join his administration as head of a Commission on Religious Unity, his disingenuous attempt to appear inclusive toward religion. A significant encounter takes place between Heather Marshall and journalist Todd Stewart, who, unlikely opposites, hit it off and fall in love as the story progresses. Mike Bardolf is at President Rhodes' s side, working toward Palladium' s secret agenda.

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER From the bestselling author of The Quiet Tenant comes an immersive new suspense novel: Fifteen years ago, Frida and her brother escaped a cult. Now her brother is the prime suspect in a murder investigation—and it isn’t the first time. “The most jaw-dropping ride...