Crime/Mystery Books
Mystery novels are puzzles that need a solution. We enjoy the thrill of the chase, the narrow escapes, and follow the clues to guess how the story is going to end. The mystery genre has been around for more than two centuries now and there are reasons why it happens to be the most popular of all genres out there. Here are top picks from our passionate community of readers.
THE MURDERER’S SON a gripping crime thriller full of twists (JACKMAN & EVANS Book 1)
A BLOODY KILLER SEEMS TO HAVE RETURNED TO THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS
A gripping crime thriller by the best-selling author of the Nikki Galena series.
Twenty years ago: a farmer and his wife are cut to pieces by a ruthless serial killer.
Now: a woman is viciously stabbed to death in the upmarket kitchen of her beautiful house on the edge of the marshes.
Then a man called Daniel Kinder walks into Saltern police station and confesses to the murder.
But DI Rowan Jackman and DS Marie Evans of the Fenland police soon discover that there is a lot more to Daniel than meets the eye. He has no memory of the first five years of his life and is obsessed with who his real mother is.
With no evidence to hold him, Jackman and Evans are forced to let him go, and in a matter of days the lonely Lincolnshire Fens become the stage for more killings and Daniel has disappeared.
In a breathtaking finale, the truth about Daniel’s mother comes to light and DI Jackman and DS Evans race against time to stop more lives being destroyed.
The detectives: DS Marie Evans lost her husband in a motorbike accident and has personal connections to the case. DI Rowan Jackman leads the investigation. He is extremely smart and has a knack for bringing out the best in his diverse team, which includes the mysterious computer specialist Orac.
Full of twists and turns, this is a crime thriller that will keep you turning the pages until the shocking ending.
Villains For Justice
Meet Villain Nina Dansk, To Understand Her One Must Focus On Everything She Experienced Since Her Young Age. Her Goal Was To Protect Children From The Hands Of Abusers. .. Meet Jerico Raven, Detective And Villain At The Same Time. He Goes Up Against A Corrupted Police Force. Together With Lieutenant Danny Rojas And The Known Freak Of Laboratory Work Shadow Claw They Give Justice A New Meaning. .. Meet Cora Rollins, A Strong Willed Female Villain Editing Justice Her Way By Eliminating The True Problem, Namely The Child And Women Abusers Known As Sex Predators. Cora Rollins Wins The Public Which Helps Her To Keep Hidden From Being Captured By The Police, FBI, Lieutenant Danny Rojas And His Helpers In Fighting Crime, Jerico Raven And Shadow Claw Who Cora Fears.
The Other Side of the Sun: A Novel
From the National Book Award–winning author of A Wrinkle in Time, an atmospheric novel of a young British bride in the American South after the Civil War.
When nineteen-year-old Stella marries Theron Renier, she has no idea what kind of clan she’s joined. Soon after their arrival at Illyria, the Reniers’ rambling beachside home, Theron is sent on a diplomatic mission, leaving Stella alone with his family.
As she tries to settle into her new life, Stella quickly discovers that the Reniers are not what they seem. Trapped in a world unlike anything she’s ever known, vulnerable Stella attempts to uncover her new family’s dangerous secrets—and stirs up a darkness that was meant to stay buried.
From the beloved, National Book Award–winning author of A Wrinkle in Time, The Other Side of the Sun showcases Madeleine L’Engle’s talent for involving and suspenseful storytelling.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Madeleine L’Engle including rare images from the author’s estate.
Big Sky
Iconoclastic detective Jackson Brodie returns in a triumphant new novel by the brilliant Kate Atkinson about secrets, sex and lies.
Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son and an aging Labrador, both at the discretion of his ex-partner Julia. It’s picturesque, but there’s something darker lurking behind the scenes.
Jackson’s current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, is fairly standard issue, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network–and back across the path of his old friend Reggie. Old secrets and new lies intersect in this breathtaking novel by one of the most dazzling and surprising writers at work today.
Backlash: A Thriller (The Scot Harvath Series Book 19)
In ancient texts, there are stories about men who struck from the shadows, seemingly beyond the reach of death itself. These men were considered part angel, part demon. Their loyalty was to their families, their friends, and their kings. You crossed these men at your peril. And once crossed, there was no crossing back.
They were fearless; men of honor who have been known throughout history by different names: Spartan, Viking, Samurai.
Today, men like these still strike from the shadows. They are highly prized intelligence agents, military operatives, and assassins.
One man is all three.
Two days ago, that man was crossed—badly.
Now, far from home and surrounded by his enemy, Scot Harvath must battle his way out.
With no support, no cavalry coming, and no one even aware of where he is, it will take everything he has ever learned to survive.
But survival isn’t enough. Harvath wants revenge.
In the most explosive novel Brad Thor has ever written, page after captivating page of action, intrigue, loyalty, and betrayal will keep you hooked until the very last sentence.
The Mister
London, 2019. Life has been easy for Maxim Trevelyan. With his good looks, aristocratic connections, and money, he’s never had to work and he’s rarely slept alone. But all that changes when tragedy strikes and Maxim inherits his family’s noble title, wealth, and estates, and all the responsibility that entails. It’s a role he’s not prepared for and one that he struggles to face.
But his biggest challenge is fighting his desire for an unexpected, enigmatic young woman who’s recently arrived in England, possessing little more than a dangerous and troublesome past. Reticent, beautiful, and musically gifted, she’s an alluring mystery, and Maxim’s longing for her deepens into a passion that he’s never experienced and dares not name. Just who is Alessia Demachi? Can Maxim protect her from the malevolence that threatens her? And what will she do when she learns that he’s been hiding secrets of his own?
From the heart of London through wild, rural Cornwall to the bleak, forbidding beauty of the Balkans, The Mister is a roller-coaster ride of danger and desire that leaves the reader breathless to the very last page.
The Boy: A Novel
When Detective Nick Fourcade enters the home of Genevieve Gauthier outside the sleepy town of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana, the bloody crime scene that awaits him is both the most brutal and the most confusing he’s ever seen. Genevieve’s seven-year-old son, KJ, has been murdered by an alleged intruder, yet Genevieve is alive and well, a witness inexplicably left behind to tell the tale. There is no evidence of forced entry and no clue that points to a motive. Meanwhile, Nick’s wife, Detective Annie Broussard, sits in the emergency room with the grieving Genevieve. A mother herself, Annie understands the emotional devastation this woman is going through, but as a detective she’s troubled by a story that makes little sense. Who would murder a child and leave the only witness behind?
When KJ’s sometimes babysitter, twelve-year-old Nora Florette, is reported missing the very next day, the town is up in arms, fearing a maniac is preying on their children. With pressure mounting from a tough, no-nonsense new sheriff, the media, and the parents of Bayou Breaux, Nick and Annie dig deep into the dual mysteries. But sifting through Genevieve Gauthier’s tangled web of lovers and sorting through a cast of local lowlifes brings more questions than answers. Is someone from Genevieve’s past or present responsible for the death of her son? Is Nora a victim, or something worse? Then everything changes when Genevieve’s past as a convicted criminal is revealed.
The spotlight falls heavily on the grieving mother who is both victim and accused. Could she have killed her own child to free herself from the burden of motherhood, or is the loss of her beloved son pushing her to the edge of insanity? Could she have something to do with the disappearance of Nora, or is the troubled teen the key to the murder? How far will Nick and Annie have to go to uncover the dark truth of the boy?
The Deep, Deep Snow
In an intense, emotional mystery that spans a decade in the life of a small town, best-selling author Brian Freeman brings us an unforgettable heroine who discovers that the dead may sometimes be easier to rescue than the living.
Deputy Shelby Lake was abandoned as a baby, saved by a stranger who found her in the freezing cold. Now, years later, a young boy is missing – and Shelby is the one who must rescue a child.
The only evidence of what happened to 10-year-old Jeremiah Sloan is a bicycle left behind on a lonely road. After a desperate search fails to locate him, the close bonds of Shelby’s hometown begin to fray under the weight of accusations and suspicion. Everyone around her is keeping secrets. Her adoptive father, her best friend, her best friend’s young daughter – they all have something to hide. Even Shelby is concealing a mistake that could jeopardize her career and her future.
Unearthing the lies of the people in Jeremiah’s life doesn’t get the police and the FBI any closer to finding him. As time passes and the case grows cold, Shelby worries that the mystery will stay buried forever under the deep, deep snow. But even the deepest snow melts in the spring.
When a tantalizing clue finally comes to light, Shelby must confront the darkest lie of all. Exposing the truth about Jeremiah will leave no one’s life untouched – including her own.
Redemption (Memory Man series Book 5)
Detective Amos Decker discovers that a mistake he made as a rookie detective may have led to deadly consequences in the latest Memory Man thriller in David Baldacci’s #1 New York Times bestselling series.
Decker is visiting his hometown of Burlington, Ohio, when he’s approached by a man named Meryl Hawkins. Hawkins is a convicted murderer. In fact, he’s the very first killer Decker ever put behind bars. But he’s innocent, he claims. Now suffering from terminal cancer, it’s his dying wish that Decker clear his name.
It’s unthinkable. The case was open and shut, with rock solid forensic evidence. But then Hawkins later turns up dead with a bullet in his head, and even Decker begins to have doubts. Is it possible that he really did get it wrong, all those years ago?
Decker’s determined to uncover the truth, no matter the personal cost. But solving a case this cold may be impossible, especially when it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want the old case reopened. Someone who is willing to kill to keep the truth buried, and hide a decades-old secret that may have devastating repercussions….
The Women’s Murder Club Novels, Volumes 1-3 (The Women’s Murder Collection)
Discover the iconic New York Times bestselling detective series from the world’s #1 writer: 1st to Die, 2nd Chance, and 3rd Degree are included in this heart-stopping collection.
In 1st to Die, Lindsay Boxer faces a potentially fatal disease and a terrifying case in her job with the San Francisco Homicide Squad. Her optimism is shaken when someone kills a bride and groom during the first hours of their honeymoon. As the killer strikes again in Napa Valley and Cleveland, Lindsay gathers her girlfriends who work in the justice system to cut through the red tape and solve the crimes.
The Women’s Murder Club teams up again in 2nd Chance as a brutal madman sprays bullets into a crowd of children in a San Francisco church. Though only one person dies, an elderly black woman is hung right after the murder. With the help of her friends-medical examiner Claire, Assistant D. A. Jill, and San Francisco Chronicle reporter Cindy-police homicide inspector Lindsay Boxer senses a connection and finds a link that sends a chill through the entire nation.
3rd Degree plunges into a burning townhouse, where Detective Lindsay Boxer discovers three dead bodies and a mysterious message at the scene. When more corpses turn up, Lindsay asks her friends to help her find a murderer who vows to kill every three days. Even more terrifying: he has targeted one of the Women’s Murder Club.
The Good Daughter: A Novel
“The Good Daughter is like Law and Order meets The Good Wife.” —theSkimm
Instant New York Times Bestseller
theSkimm Book Club Pick!
The stunning new novel from the international #1 bestselling author — a searing, spellbinding blend of cold-case thriller and psychological suspense.
Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind…
Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn’s happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father — Pikeville’s notorious defense attorney — devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.
Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie has followed in her father’s footsteps to become a lawyer herself — the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again — and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized — Charlie is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it’s a case that unleashes the terrible memories she’s spent so long trying to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime that destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won’t stay buried forever…
Packed with twists and turns, brimming with emotion and heart, The Good Daughter is fiction at its most thrilling.
Triple Cross Killer
What happens to all of the letters that kids send to Santa Claus through the U.S. Mail? In Detroit, Michigan, many of them end up in the hands of Chris Archer, a postal worker who spends his free time designing computer games and uses the children’s wish lists to help detect trends in the toy market. No harm done, until Chris’s brother, Nick Archer, the religiously obsessed, dishonorably discharged fighter pilot and victim of childhood abuse, discovers them and finds out who’s really been naughty and who’s been nice. Possessed of a messiah complex, Nick turns into a charming and athletic serial killer leaving a trail of devastation in two cities, Detroit and Sarasota, connected only by the commercial route he now flies for Delta.
It’s going to take a team of oddballs to bring Nick down, and that is exactly what Triple Cross Killer by Rosemarie Aquilina provides. On the Detroit side, there are the co-ed partners and wise-cracking lovers, Jaq McSween and David Maxwell, accompanied by their dog, Recon. On the Sarasota side, there is the Argentinian with the taste for American hot dogs, Abel Mendoza, and his partner who goes simply by Rabbit on account of his ability to hide in a crowd, create his own burrow, and investigate unnoticed. There is the lovely nurse, Rita Rose, who has been damaged by a mendacious lover before and is now caught in Nick Archer’s web in more ways than one, and her fearless higher-up the reserved yet incisive Medical Examiner, Dr. Towers. Together, this geographically diverse team pools their insights, barbs, and taste for bad food as a taut psychological thriller evolves.
The Perfect Husband: An FBI Profiler Novel
What would you do if the man of your dreams hides the soul of a killer?
Jim Beckett was everything she’d ever dreamed of . . . But two years after Tess married the decorated cop and bore his child, she helped put him behind bars for savagely murdering ten women. Even locked up in a maximum security prison, he vowed he would come after her and make her pay. Now the cunning killer has escaped—and the most dangerous game of all begins. . . .
After a lifetime of fear, Tess will do something she’s never done before. She’s going to learn to protect her daughter and fight back, with the help of a burned-out ex-marine. As the largest manhunt four states have ever seen mobilizes to catch Beckett, the clock winds down to the terrifying reunion between husband and wife. And Tess knows that this time, her only choices are to kill—or be killed.
Pretty Girls: A Novel
Lee Child says it’s “stunning… certain to be a book of the year.”
Kathy Reichs calls it “extraordinary… a major achievement.”
Jeffery Deaver says that “fiction doesn’t get any better than this.”
Gillian Flynn says of Karin Slaughter: “I’d follow her anywhere.”
See for yourself what these #1 New York Times-bestselling authors are talking about.
Sisters. Strangers. Survivors.
More than twenty years ago, Claire and Lydia’s teenaged sister Julia vanished without a trace. The two women have not spoken since, and now their lives could not be more different. Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire. Lydia, a single mother, dates an ex-con and struggles to make ends meet. But neither has recovered from the horror and heartbreak of their shared loss—a devastating wound that’s cruelly ripped open when Claire’s husband is killed.
The disappearance of a teenage girl and the murder of a middle-aged man, almost a quarter-century apart: what could connect them? Forming a wary truce, the surviving sisters look to the past to find the truth, unearthing the secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago . . . and uncovering the possibility of redemption, and revenge, where they least expect it.
Powerful, poignant, and utterly gripping, packed with indelible characters and unforgettable twists, Pretty Girls is a masterful novel from one of the finest writers working today.
12 HOURS
Someone once said that you have 72 hours to find a missing person with a beating pulse. What if you only had 12? Meet JONAH BADMUS. 6 ft 5, 250 pounds. A loner who is no stranger to physical confrontation. Gifted in the art of self-defence, it’s been ten years since the big man was last met with the threat of violence. That’s just about to change.
The 18th Abduction (Women’s Murder Club)
Detective Lindsay Boxer’s investigation into the disappearance of three teachers quickly escalates from missing persons to murder in the newest Women’s Murder Club thriller.
For a trio of colleagues, an innocent night out after class ends in a deadly torture session. They vanish without a clue — until a body turns up. With the safety of San Francisco’s entire school system at stake, Lindsay has never been under more pressure. As the chief of police and the press clamor for an arrest in the “school night” case, Lindsay turns to her best friend, investigative journalist Cindy Thomas. Together, Lindsay and Cindy take a new approach to the case, and unexpected facts about the victims leave them stunned.
While Lindsay is engrossed in her investigation, her husband, Joe Molinari, meets an Eastern European woman who claims to have seen a notorious war criminal — long presumed dead — from her home country. Before Lindsay can verify the woman’s statement, Joe’s mystery informant joins the ranks of the missing women. Lindsay, Joe, and the entire Women’s Murder Club must pull together to protect their city, and one another — not from a ghost, but from a true monster.
The Smile of the Wolf
TENTH-CENTURY ICELAND.
In the darkness of midwinter, two friends set out on an adventure but end up killing a man.
Kjaran, a travelling poet who trades songs for food and shelter, and Gunnar, a feared warrior, must make a choice: conceal the deed or confess to the crime and pay the blood price to the family. For the right reasons, they make the wrong choice.
Their fateful decision leads to a brutal feud: one man is outlawed, free to be killed by anyone without consequence; the other remorselessly hunted by the dead man’s kin.
Set in a world of ice and snow, Smile of the Wolf is an epic story of exile and revenge, of duels and betrayals, and two friends struggling to survive in a desolate landscape, where honour is the only code that men abide by.
The Lynx Series Boxed Set
From The USA Today Bestselling Author Fiona Quinn comes The World of Iniquus! A Romantic Suspense, Mystery, Thriller that will entertain you for days!
Start the world out with the first four books fro the Lynx Series.
Weakest Lynx
Missing Lynx
Chain Lynx
Cuff Lynx
Echo Burning (Jack Reacher, Book 5)
Jack Reacher finds trouble in Texas in the fifth novel in Lee Child’s New York Times bestselling series.
Thumbing across the scorched Texas desert, Jack Reacher has nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there. Cruising the same stretch of two-lane blacktop is Carmen Greer. For Reacher, the lift comes with a hitch. Carmen’s got a wild story to tell—all about her husband, her family secrets, and a hometown that’s purely gothic. She’s also got a plan. Reacher’s part of it. And before the sun sets, this ride could cost them both their lives.
The Coroner: A Novel
Summoned from her promising surgical career first to her estranged father’s bedside, and then his post as medical examiner when his small town needs urgent help with a suspicious death, Emily Hartford discovers home is where the bodies are in this pitch perfect mystery debut.
Recently engaged and deeply ensconced in her third year of surgical residency in Chicago, Emily Hartford gets a shock when she’s called home to Freeport, MI, the small town she fled a decade ago after the death of her mother. Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack and Emily is needed urgently to help with his recovery.
Not sure what to expect, Emily races home, blowing the only stoplight at the center of town and getting pulled over by her former high school love, now Sheriff, Nick Larson. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a Senator’s teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town.
Reluctantly agreeing to help her father and Nick, Emily gets down to work, only to discover that the girl was murdered. The autopsy reminds her of her many hours in the morgue with her father when she was a young teen—a time which inspired her love of medicine. Before she knows it, she’s pulled deeper into the case and closer to her father and to Nick—much to the dismay of her big city fiance. When a threat is made to Emily herself, she must race to catch the killer before he strikes again in The Coroner, expertly written and sharply plotted, perfect for fans of Patricia Cornwell and Julia Spencer Fleming.
Bluff
Razor-sharp and spellbindingly told, Bluff takes us deep inside the fraught and fascinating world of a modern magician who becomes obsessed with magic’s dark twin―the underworld of the cardsharp.
“Hopelessly addictive.” ―Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of You Will Know Me
“If you haven’t read Kardos yet, Bluff is the perfect place to start!” ―Lisa Scottoline, bestselling author of Exposed
At twenty-seven, magician Natalie Webb is already a has-been. A card-trick prodigy, she took first place at the World of Magic competition at eighteen and has never again reached such heights. Shunned by the magic world after a disastrous liaison with an older magician, she now lives alone in a New Jersey apartment with her pigeons and a pile of overdue bills. In a desperate ploy for extra cash, she follows up on an old offer to write for a glossy magazine and pitches the editor a seductive topic: the art of cheating at cards.
But when Natalie meets the perfect subject for her piece―a poker cheat who dazzles at sleight of hand―what begins as a journalistic gamble soon becomes a test of everything she thinks she knows about her talent, and herself. Natalie soon finds herself facing a dangerous proposition that could radically alter her fortune―to help pull off a $1.5 million magic trick that, if done successfully, no one will ever suspect happened. With Kardos raising the stakes chapter after chapter, Bluff is a breathtaking work of suspense from a writer at the top of his game.
Murder at Archly Manor (High Society Lady Detective Book 1)
A high society murder. A spirited lady detective. Can she out-class the killer before an innocent person takes the fall?
London, 1923. Olive Belgrave needs a job. Despite her aristocratic upbringing, she’s penniless. Determined to support herself, she jumps at an unconventional job—looking into the background of her cousin’s fiancé, Alfred.
Alfred burst into the upper crust world of London’s high society, but his answers to questions about his past are decidedly vague. Before Olive can gather more than the basics, a murder occurs at a posh party. Suddenly, every Bright Young Person in attendance is a suspect, and Olive must race to find the culprit because a sly murderer is determined to make sure Olive’s first case is her last.
Murder at Archly Manor is the first in the High Society Lady Detective series of charming historical cozy mysteries. If you like witty banter, glamorous settings, and delightful plot twists, you’ll love USA Today bestselling author Sara Rosett’s series for Anglophiles and mystery lovers alike.
Travel back to the Golden Age of detective fiction with Murder at Archly Manor.