Library Mysteries

Almost everybody who has grown up in Chicago knows about the Thorne Rooms. Housed in the Children’s Galleries of the Chicago Art Institute, they are a collection of 68 exquisitely crafted miniature rooms made in the 1930s by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Each of the 68 rooms is designed in the style of a different historic period, and every detail is perfect, from the knobs on the doors to the candles in the candlesticks. Some might even say, the rooms are magic....

Once a year, a road appears in the forest. And at the end of it, the ghost of Lucy Gallows beckons. Lucy's game isn't for the faint of heart. If you win, you escape with your life. But if you lose... Sara's sister disappeared one year ago - and only Sara knows where she is. Becca went to find the ghost of Lucy Gallows and is trapped on the road that leads to her. In the sleepy town of Briar Glen, Lucy's road is nothing more than local lore. But Sara knows it's real, and she's going to find it.

For almost two years, Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye, the Duke of Scilly, has been plotting revenge against the Fowl Twins, who humiliated him in book one. Teddy plans to give them exactly what they deserve: permanent death. He threatens Myles with his weaponized jet, and Beckett and specialist Lazuli succeed in disarming the aircraft and causing an accident that kills the duke. But does it really?

It's been several months since Rory left her old life behind to move to her family's magical library in the coastal town of Ivory Beach. When her best friend from back home gets in touch, she can't wait to introduce her to her new family - even if she can't share the truth of the magical world with an outsider. When a vampire shows up dead near her home while she's gone, however, Rory finds herself staring down a more unwelcome part of her history - the group of sinister vampires who've made it their goal to get their hands on Rory's late father's journal.

Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her. But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen - and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave.

FOR PAULA, ACCOMPANYING her merchant father on a trading voyage to Istanbul is a dream come true. They have come to this city of trade on a special mission to purchase a most rare artifact—a gift from the ancient goddess, Cybele, to her followers. It’s the only remnant of a lost, pagan cult. But no sooner have they arrived when it becomes clear they may be playing at a dangerous game.

There’s a bank robber in Green Lawn! A red-haired kid took a video of the crime, but nobody can find him. Without the video, will the robber go free? Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose must track down that kid - before the bandit does!

Though he's only 13, Theodore Boone has spent more time in the courtroom than almost anywhere else, and there's always a new adventure waiting. After being falsely accused of vandalism and theft, Theo is happy to finally be out of the hot seat, once more dispensing legal advice to friends and community members, when an exciting new case demands his urgent attention.

After months of anticipation, Mr. Lemoncello is taking his games out of the library and going live across the nation on the world-famous Kidzapalooza Television Network! Everyone's invited to audition, but only a lucky few will be chosen to compete in front of millions of viewers in a brand-new, completely immersive live-action breakout game - with real kids as the playing pieces! Kyle Keeley is determined to be one of them.

Most people’s births aren’t immortalized in a police report—but Olivia was born during the infamous Camp Lost Lake murders. Seventeen years later, Olivia’s life looks pretty perfect . . . until she discovers the man she calls dad is not her biological father. Now she wants answers about her bloodline, and the only place she knows to look is Camp Lost Lake. Most people don’t spend their formative years on the run with an alleged murderer—but Reagan did. In the court of public opinion, her mom was found guilty of the deaths at Camp Lost Lake, and both of them have been in hiding ever since.

Robert Langdon, professor of religious symbology at Harvard, is in Paris to give a lecture. At the reception that follows, he is scheduled to meet with a revered curator from the world-famous Louvre museum. But the curator never shows up, and later that night Langdon is awakened by authorities and told that the curator has been found dead. He is then taken to the Louvre - the scene of the crime - where he finds out that baffling clues have been left behind.

Dawn isn't a bad person - she's just made some bad choices: wrong guy, wrong friends, wrong everything. But she wasn't expecting her parents to pay a boatload of money to ship her off to Out of the Wild, a wilderness boot camp with a bunch of other messed up kids to learn important "life lessons". It's true that Dawn and the other cubs will learn a lot - but it's not what any of them expect.

Complete with fascinating biographies by Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, this latest volume in the annual Bodies from the Library series once again brings into the daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown, and is an indispensable collection for any bookshelf.

These are just some of the 10 brain-twisting mysteries that Encyclopedia Brown must solve by using his famous computerlike brain. Try to crack the cases along with him!

After the death of her mom (screw cancer), seventeen-year-old Cecelia Ellis goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a celebrated author whose Victorian mansion is as creepy as the murder mysteries she writes. On the surface, life is utterly ordinary in the California coastal town . . . until the homecoming queen is murdered. And she’s not Seaview’s first pretty dead queen.

Every story has a dark side, and this story belongs to Cam, the brooding, bad-boy dark angel Fallen fans love. High school can be Hell. Cam knows what it’s like to be haunted. He’s spent more time in Hell than any angel ever should. And his freshest Hell is high school, where Lilith, the girl he can’t stop loving, is serving out a punishment for his crimes. Cam made a bet with Lucifer: He has 15 days to convince the only girl who really matters to him to love him again. If he succeeds, Lilith will be allowed back into the world, and they can live their lives together.

Eleven-year-old Riley believes in the whispers, magical fairies that will grant you wishes if you leave them tributes. Riley has a lot of wishes. He wishes bullies at school would stop picking on him. He wishes Dylan, his eighth-grade crush, liked him, and Riley wishes he would stop wetting the bed. But most of all, Riley wishes for his mom to come back home. She disappeared a few months ago, and Riley is determined to crack the case.

Tory Van Dyne is the most down-to-earth member of a decidedly eccentric old-money New York family. For one thing, as book conservator at Manhattan’s Mystery Guild Library, she actually has a job. Plus, she’s left up-town society behind for a quiet life downtown. So she’s not thrilled when she discovers a woman in the library’s Christie Room who calmly introduces herself as Agatha Christie, politely requests a cocktail, and announces she’s there to help solve a murder—that has not yet happened.

When Mercy Watson the pig goes missing, all of Deckawoo Drive is in an uproar. The Watsons are inconsolable, and the local police, fire, and animal control departments are no help whatsoever. Bossy neighbor Eugenia Lincoln is not quite as sad as she might be, but thankfully her sister, Baby Lincoln, has the idea to hire a private investigator. Granted, Percival Smidgely, PI, may be more bumbler than gumshoe, but his pigeon, Polly, is there to point the way.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, thanks to the oil that was discovered beneath their land. Then, one by one, the Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances, and anyone who tried to investigate met the same end. As the death toll surpassed more than 24 Osage, the newly created Bureau of Investigation, which became the FBI, took up the case, one of the organization's first major homicide investigations.