Contemporary Detective Mysteries

Ella Cleary has always had an eye for the truth. She has synesthesia, which means she is able to read people via the waves of colors that surround them. Her unique gift has led her to trust very few people outside her family since her parents died in a fire. So when a handsome young journalist appears with no colors surrounding him at all, her senses go on high alert. But while Alec is a mystery, Ella feels a connection to him she can’t ignore. Then, just as feelings develop between them, Alec drops a bombshell: He believes her parents’ deaths were no accident.

It was the perfect night for a party. That is, until 21-year-old Chelsea Dawson disappeared. The social media star was last seen enjoying a beautiful summer night at the Jersey Shore with her friends. But after an explosive fight with her ex-boyfriend, she vanished without a trace. When Seneca, Maddox, Aerin, and Madison hear about the suspected kidnapping, they notice a jarring detail about the victim: she looks exactly like Aerin's sister, Helena, who was killed five years earlier.

Raven and Lucas embark upon a personal cruise around the Bahamas for an adventure of a lifetime. Raven discovers a mysterious wooden idol on a secluded beach just a couple of hours into their two-week journey. Her curiosity and archaeological scientific mind entices her to keep the artifact with the intention of researching its background and story. Where did this unique, seemingly non-Bahamian statue originate, and how did it land in Bimini?

Jemima Forbes is seven years old when a mysterious event occurs and her father and uncle disappear from her life one night. She spends her growing years obsessing about this, and when she is old enough, she leaves home to find out what happened.

Black Rock Cove, on the coastline of Oregon, has a unique and sinister charm. It is a quaint fishing village and charming resort for summertime visitors by day, but by night...well, that’s a different story. The murder of Oliver Bateman was purely the strangest of all crimes. A gunshot was heard as he fell dead in the courtyard, but bullet holes were missing from his body. Three deep knife wounds, however, covered his chest. Even stranger, Elizabeth Knight, daughter of famed Nobel Prize winner William Knight, was discovered in her locked bedroom on the brink of death.

Someone is bumping off rock’s wrinkled royalty. After the death of the third aging rock star, lead singer Freddie Finger, astrologer-detective David Lowell takes on the case, scrutinizing suspects’ charts for any clues in the stars that could point to a killer.

Violet thought she had made peace with her unique ability to sense the echoes of the dead and the imprints that cling to their killers . . . until she acquired an imprint of her own. Forced to carry a reminder of the horrible events of her kidnapping, Violet is more determined than ever to lead a normal life. However, the people who run the special investigative team she works for have no intention of letting her go. Violet will do whatever it takes to keep her loved ones safe - even if it means lying to her boyfriend, Jay.

Internationally best-selling author Alyson Noel is back with Blacklist, the second book in her Beautiful Idols series, where celebrity worship becomes a dark and dangerous game. A glitzy, guilty pleasure for mystery novel addicts and fans of the Pretty Little Liars books and TV show.

In 17-year-old Dakota Kekoa's line of work, a job can go bad in a split second. And when a job goes bad, people die. Suspended from working as a tax collector in her draconic family's protection racket, Dakota is assigned a secret mission from her grandfather. A foreign queen has offered a grave insult to Dakota's grandfather by running a vampire dinner cruise off the coast of the Mabiian Islands, and his retribution must be swift.

As soon as Seneca Frazier sees the post on the Case Not Closed website about Helena Kelly, she's hooked. Helena's high-profile disappearance five years earlier is the one that originally got Seneca addicted to true crime. It's the reason she's a member of the site in the first place. So when Maddy Wright, her best friend from the CNC site, invites Seneca to spend spring break in Connecticut looking into the cold case, she immediately packs her bag.

Sahara Travis is used to being worshipped by adoring fans, but now someone is fixated on her in a dangerous way. After multiple attempts on her life, she reluctantly agrees to hire a security specialist for her protection, though the last thing she wants is some burly bodyguard invading her personal space. With Brendan and her devoted assistant, Lucy, in tow, Sahara returns to her family estate in New Orleans to uncover the identity of her attempted killer before he can close in on his final target.

Everyone wants to be someone. Layla Harrison wants to leave her beach-bum days for digs behind a reporter's desk. Aster Amirpour wants to scream at the next casting director who tells her "we need ethnic but not your kind of ethnic." Tommy Phillips dreams of buying a 12-string guitar and using it to shred his way back into his famous absentee dad's life. But Madison Brooks took destiny and made it her bitch a long time ago. She's Hollywood's hottest starlet, and the things she did to become the name on everyone's lips are merely a stain on the pavement.

The ugly words delivered online finally hit their mark. The younger sister of web security specialist Lauren Miller took the taunts to heart - and took her own life. Devastated, introverted Lauren has nowhere else to turn but the arms of a man who shares a similar pain…and a burning need for vengeance. FBI agent Brent Durant is determined to unmask the Troll King, a vicious Internet stalker he suspects of preying on the weak, goading his victims into suicide.

Cassie Scot is the normal daughter of powerful sorcerers, born between worlds but belonging to neither. She strives to find a place for herself, but living in the shadow of her family’s reputation isn’t easy. All she wants is a nice, normal job, but her dreams of independence from magic are threatened when she stumbles upon the gruesome body of sixteen-year-old Nancy Hastings.

Mystery-book aficionado Birdie Lindberg has an overactive imagination. Raised in isolation and homeschooled by strict grandparents, she's cultivated a whimsical fantasy life in which she plays the heroic detective and every stranger is a suspect. But her solitary world expands when she takes a job the summer before college, working the graveyard shift at a historic Seattle hotel. In her new job, Birdie hopes to blossom from introverted dreamer to brave pioneer, and gregarious Daniel Aoki volunteers to be her guide.

The first time Elliott Youngblood spots Catherine Calhoun, he’s just a boy with a camera, and he’s never seen a sadder and more beautiful sight. Both Elliott and Catherine feel like outcasts, yet they find an easy friendship with each other. But when Catherine needs him most, Elliott is forced to leave town. Elliott finally returns, but he and Catherine are now different people. He’s a star high school athlete, and she spends all her free time working at her mother’s mysterious bed-and-breakfast. Catherine hasn’t forgiven Elliott for abandoning her, but he’s determined to win her back....

The dean of academic affairs at a campus on the California coast is found dead with a bike chain around his neck. Circumstantial evidence points towards a lecturer, who is the union leader and the victim's antagonist. Captain Nick Fusco, the homicide detective assigned to the case, follows his gut feeling and steers away from the obvious suspect. An unexpected romance with an amateur sleuth adds further insights to his investigation and leads him to an unforeseen discovery: the unspoken class system of the academic world.

All homicide detective Dylan Collins wants is a few hours of pleasure to take his mind off of the case haunting him. A serial killer is stalking the streets of Charleston, SC—a killer who calls himself The Grim Reaper. When the woman he'd just spent the night with turns up and offers her services as a psychic consultant on the case, his ardor quickly cools. Last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a con artist.

Aphra Behn Connolly's family's resort allows few opportunities for her to make friends - much less to meet cute boys. So when a smoldering Seth Mulo arrives with his parents, she's immediately drawn to him. Sure, he's a little bit guarded, and sure, his parents are rather cold, and okay, he won't say a word about his past, but their chemistry is undeniable. Then, a famous rock star's girlfriend turns up dead on the beach - strangled by her own bikini top - and alarm bells sound. Is it too great a coincidence that Seth's family turned up just one day before a murder?

Maggie Silver has never minded her unusual life. Cracking safes for the world’s premier spy organization and traveling the world with her insanely cool parents definitely beat high school and the accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple locker combinations. (If it’s three digits, why bother locking it at all?) But when Maggie and her parents are sent to New York City for her first solo assignment, her world is transformed.