Genre
The best Mystery books
Whodunits, cozies, hard-boiled detectives, amateur sleuths. The genre that pretends to be about the murder but is actually about the small town.
340 reviews in this genre.
Editor's picks
Highest-rated mystery on the shelf
The Lincoln Lawyer
by Michael Connelly
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly 2005 review. Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney who works out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, takes a case that pulls him into something larger. The novel that launched a series and a film franchise.
Big Little Lies
by Liane Moriarty
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty 2014 review. Three mothers at an Australian elementary school converge on a kindergarten Trivia Night where someone will die. The contemporary domestic-suspense novel that defined the late-2010s book-club shelf.
In the Woods
by Tana French
In the Woods by Tana French 2007 review. Dublin Murder Squad detective Rob Ryan is assigned to a child murder in the same woods where his two best friends disappeared twenty years earlier. The Edgar winner that launched the strongest contemporary literary-crime series.
Tell No One
by Harlan Coben
Tell No One by Harlan Coben 2001 review. A pediatrician receives an email containing a video clip of his murdered wife, eight years after her death. The single best Coben standalone and the one that defined the contemporary domestic-thriller register.
Down in the Flood
by Kenneth Abel
The third Danny Chaisson novel. Kenneth Abel writing Hurricane Katrina before Katrina happened.
The Rainaldi Quartet
by Paul Adam
Paul Adam's classical music mystery at its best. Four amateur musicians, a stolen Stradivarius, and a story that takes its setting fully seriously.
The Promise: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel
by Robert Crais
Robert Crais bringing Maggie the K-9 dog back into the Cole and Pike series. The crossover I did not know I needed.
The Late Show
by Michael Connelly
The Late Show by Michael Connelly 2017 review. Renee Ballard works the LAPD late shift in Hollywood after being banished from the elite Robbery-Homicide Division. The novel that launched the strongest new Connelly series in twenty years.
Along Came a Spider
by James Patterson
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson 1993 review. Alex Cross, a Washington D. C. detective and psychologist, hunts a kidnapper who has taken two children from an elite Georgetown school. The first Alex Cross novel and the entry point to the highest-selling American thriller series of its generation.
Postmortem
by Patricia Cornwell
Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell 1990 review. The debut Kay Scarpetta novel that invented the modern forensic-pathologist thriller. A Richmond, Virginia serial killer is targeting women, and the chief medical examiner is the one who can stop him.
The Poet Game
by Salar Abdoh
Salar Abdoh's 2000 debut. Iranian-American intelligence thriller set in pre-9/11 New York. Quietly prescient, quietly elegant.
The Burying Field
by Kenneth Abel
The second Danny Chaisson novel. Kenneth Abel deepening the Louisiana political world with a parish-corruption investigation that earns its weight.
The Tutor
by Peter Abrahams
Peter Abrahams's slow-burning suburban thriller about a tutor who is not what he says he is.
Flash Point
by Paul Adam
Flash Point by Paul Adam 2006 review. A Glasgow journalist investigates the death of a young African violinist competing in the Tchaikovsky Competition and stumbles into a missing-instrument scandal.
Killing of the Saints
by Paul Adam
Paul Adam doing the classical music mystery. Violin-makers, contested attributions, and a death at a Cremona auction. A genuine niche done with love.
When Rich Men Die
by Harold Adams
When Rich Men Die by Harold Adams 1987 review. The fifth Carl Wilcox Depression-era mystery sends the alcoholic itinerant artist back to Corden, South Dakota for a banker’s murder.
The Greenway
by Jane Adams
Jane Adams's 1995 debut. A vanished child, twenty years later, on an East Anglian footpath. Quiet British psychological mystery.
Cast the First Stone
by Jane Adams
The second Mike Croft novel. Jane Adams writing a child-protection investigation with the kind of moral seriousness that the form rarely allows.
Fade to Grey
by Jane Adams
The third Mike Croft novel. Jane Adams writing a missing-persons investigation that takes its time and earns its melancholy.
South of Resurrection
by Jonis Agee
South of Resurrection by Jonis Agee 1997 review. A literary novel about a Nebraska Indian-reservation drifter returning home to deal with his stepbrother's violent death and the family that does not want him back.
The Weight of Dreams
by Jonis Agee
The Weight of Dreams by Jonis Agee 1999 review. A Nebraska ranching family confronts the limits of generational land ownership across one hard summer.
A Most Contagious Game
by Catherine Aird
Catherine Aird's 1967 standalone, written between her first two Sloan novels. Quieter, sharper, and a small early-career marvel.
Once A Spy
by Rennie Airth
Rennie Airth's 1981 standalone, before he became known for John Madden. South African anti-apartheid intelligence thriller with weight.
Get Off at Babylon
by Marvin Albert
A Pete Sawyer Riviera mystery by Marvin Albert. Half-French American PI in the South of France. Old-school hard-boiled with sun.
Long Teeth
by Marvin Albert
Marvin Albert's Pete Sawyer Riviera PI in solidly mid-series form. The South of France treated as a working geography, not a postcard.
Cat's Claw
by Susan Wittig Albert
Cat's Claw by Susan Wittig Albert review. The 20th China Bayles mystery. A Pecan Springs cybercrime case, McQuaid as PI, and Albert's late-series form at its most confident.
Best SF Stories of Brian W. Aldiss
by Brian W. Aldiss
A career retrospective of one of British SF's most distinctive voices. Worth reading even if you already own Hothouse.
Remembrance Day
by Brian W. Aldiss
Brian Aldiss writing a literary novel about the IRA bombing of Brighton. SF writer in straight-fiction mode.
Quaker Silence
by Irene Allen
The first Elizabeth Elliot mystery. Quaker clerk as accidental detective in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Unusually thoughtful cozy.
Quaker Witness
by Irene Allen
The second Elizabeth Elliot mystery. Irene Allen deepening the Friends-meeting world with a Harvard biology lab murder and a Quaker graduate student who fits no one's narrative.
Tell Me What You Like
by Kate Allen
The first Alison Kaine novel. Kate Allen writing a lesbian Denver cop investigating an SM-community murder. A small underread series that is exactly as honest as it needs to be.
Stonemouth
by Iain M. Banks
Stonemouth by Iain Banks 2012 review. A Scottish prodigal son comes home five years after the wedding that ruined his future, and discovers nobody has forgotten anything.
Murder Among Friends
by Lawrence Block
A Lawrence Block-edited Mystery Writers of America anthology. Original short fiction from the form's working professionals.
Small Town
by Lawrence Block
A Lawrence Block 2003 ensemble novel set in post-9/11 New York. Multiple protagonists, a serial killer, and the city itself as the through-line.
Let's All Kill Constance
by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury's 2003 LA noir. The third novel in his unnamed-narrator LA sequence. Late Bradbury at his strangest and most affectionate.
The Leaning Land
by Rex Burns
A Rex Burns Gabe Wager novel. Colorado high country, an undermined county courthouse, and the kind of regional crime fiction the form rarely delivers.
Strip Search
by Rex Burns
The sixth Gabe Wager mystery. Rex Burns writing Denver homicide procedural with the kind of patient regional attention the form rarely allows.
Crim on the Coast and No Flowers by Request
by John Dickson Carr
Two collaborative serial novels from the Detection Club. John Dickson Carr, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, and others writing one chapter each.
Papa La-Bas
by John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr's 1968 New Orleans historical mystery. Voodoo, a Creole household, and the master of impossible-crime turning to atmospheric Gothic.
Bombshell
by Max Allan Collins
A Max Allan Collins novel about a fictionalized 1962 Marilyn Monroe rescue mission. Pulpy, well-researched, deeply enjoyable.
Chasing Darkness
by Robert Crais
The 11th Elvis Cole. Robert Crais writing a cold-case sequel to one of his previous victories. A genuinely difficult moral problem.
Hostage
by Robert Crais
Robert Crais's 2001 standalone. A small-town California police chief, three teenagers in a wrong house, and a hostage situation that escalates into something else.
The Two Minute Rule
by Robert Crais
A Robert Crais standalone outside the Cole/Pike series. An ex-bank-robber father searching for his estranged son's killer. Crais doing classic noir without his regulars.
Neighboring Lives
by Thomas M. Disch
Thomas M. Disch and Charles Naylor's 1981 literary novel set in 19th-century London's Chelsea district. A small marvel that almost no one reads.
Matricide at St. Martha's
by Ruth Dudley Edwards
A Ruth Dudley Edwards Robert Amiss mystery. Cambridge college politics, a poisoned mistress, and Edwards' sharpest satirical voice.
Let's Dance
by Frances Fyfield
A Frances Fyfield standalone. A young woman returning to her dementia-affected mother's seaside house and the secrets neither of them can quite name.
Undercurrents
by Frances Fyfield
A Frances Fyfield 1999 standalone. A young woman returns to the English coastal town of her summer-camp childhood. An old murder is back.
The Man With the Iron-On Badge
by Lee Goldberg
A Lee Goldberg solo PI novel outside his media-tie-in work. A security-guard turned PI in LA, a missing rich kid, and a sharper book than the cover suggests.
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