Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher Books in Order

Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher is Alex's darkest lane by far. The series centers on Cecil Omar Biggs, a preacher on the surface and a sadistic killer underneath. In Book One, Biggs hides in plain sight inside a Southern California neighborhood, turning an old house into a church front while using its hidden spaces for something far worse. He presents himself as a harmless man of the cloth, which is exactly what makes him so dangerous. The ordinary setting is part of the horror.

This is horror with very little distance from the monster.

The books are built around Biggs's double life and the way it starts to strain under its own weight. He abducts victims, indulges violent fantasies, and tries to keep control through secrecy, routine, and sheer nerve. By Book Two, the body count has grown and the practical realities of what he is doing begin to close in on him. Suspicion builds. Neighbors notice things. Families of the missing refuse to let the disappearances fade. The private nightmare starts to become a public one.

What makes the series unsettling is not just the violence, though Alex does not soften that side of the material. It is the clash between bland normalcy and extreme depravity. Biggs is not hiding in some gothic castle or remote ruin. He is operating inside a recognizable American environment, using performance, respectability, and religious cover as camouflage. That tension gives the books their sick, claustrophobic energy.

The tone is graphic, transgressive, and deliberately unpleasant in places, so this is not the branch of Alex's work to pick up if you want a gentle scare. But readers who are interested in grim serial-killer horror, especially horror that stays grounded in concrete places and ugly human behavior, will recognize what the books are doing. They are less about mystery than escalation, dread, and the question of how long a predator can keep the mask on.

If you read the series, expect a very dark ride. Alex is interested in appetite, hypocrisy, and the fragile barriers between ordinary neighborhood life and absolute nightmare. That is the engine that drives both books.