i'm looking for fiction novels , with serial killers in them. maybe a series. more graphic the better. any suggestions.

Chelsea Cain's Sweetheart is supposed to be quite good.  Phillip Margolin also has some pretty graphic serial killers, although his are mostly legal thrillers.  You might try posting in the Horror forum though.  Most of what I would caption as a mystery would have only isolated incidences of graphic killing.  It sounds like you're looking for more.

Alan Russell's series is really good.  It is translated from German.  Stuart MacBride and Jack Kerley are some of my favorites.  I haven't read his, but I hear that Richard Laymon is pretty graphic.  Good Luck on your serial killer hunt!

Poppy Z. Brite's Exquisite Corpse is as graphic as I've ever seen.

Try Jeff Lindsay's 'Dexter' series.  Yes, this is the book series that the TV series is based on.  I read the first book long before the series was on Showtime.  The book order is: "Darkly Dreaming Dexter", "Dearly Devoted Dexter", "Dexter in the Dark" and "Dexter By Design" (coming in September).

Karin Slaughter has a series of books that have serial killers in each of them...they are all fiction and are very graphic.   I think there are only five books in the series at this time but as I read them they are getting more graphic all of the time. 

Also the Prey series by John Sandford can get very graphic at times.  There are 15 books in this series.   I am slowly making my way through this series also and really liking them. 

Hope you can find what you are looking for.

You might try Caleb Carr's series.  The Alienist is the first.  It does involve serial killers but it takes place in New York in the early 20th century.

If you want gross and graphic try Mo Hayder. So far she has three in the DI Jack Caffrey series, first one is Birdman, then The Treatment and then Ritual. There is a fourth, Skin, but it's only just come out in the UK and not available here yet.

Cheryl

Cody McFayden is very graphic is that's what you are looking for, well-wriitten but graphic.

I'll second the John Sandford books. I started the 2nd Virgil Flowers book by him called Heat Lightening today.  Not all of his books have a serial killer but there's a few.  Most of the books have more than 1 murder but they aren't necessarily a serial killer in the normal sense.  Meaning sometimes it's somebody killing people to cover up another crime or something. Not just a crazy person killing only blondes or middle aged men or something. But there's a few of those as well.  He's a really good writer. I like how Davenport is not afraid to bend the rules, plant evidence and stuff to get the bad guy.

Check out David Lindsey's Mercy.  One of the best mysteries I've ever read.

James Ellroy has a book, if memory serves, called Killer on the Road.  It's written from the killer's point of view.  Pretty good.

You're not studying for something, are you?  ;)

You're not studying for something, are you?

Marion-  This is probably the only place someone could get away with: looking for serial killers, the more graphic the better!  We hardly blink an eye with a request like that!

You're right, Carol.  I bet a few of us here could put together quite the How-To book, though.  Mayhem for Dummies?  Think it'd sell? :)