Library Mysteries

Some facts about Billy Dickens: He once saw a biker swerve across the road in order to run over a snake. Later, that motorcycle somehow ended up at the bottom of a canal. Billy isn't the type to let things go. Some facts about Billy's family: They've lived in six different Florida towns because Billy's mom insists on getting a house near a bald eagle nest. Billy's dad left when he was four and is a total mystery. Billy has just found his dad's address - in Montana.

Max's parents are missing. They are actors, and thus unpredictable, but sailing away, leaving Max with only a cryptic note, is unusual even for them. Did they intend to leave him behind? Have they been kidnapped? Until he can figure it out, Max feels it's safer to keep a low profile. Hiding out is no problem for a child of the theater. Max has played many roles, he can be whoever he needs to be to blend in. But finding a job is tricky, no matter what costume he dons. Ironically, it turns out Max has a talent for finding things.

Charlie Bucktin, a bookish 13 year old, is startled one summer night by an urgent knock on his bedroom window. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in their small mining town, and he has come to ask for Charlie's help. Terribly afraid but desperate to impress, Charlie follows him into the night. Jasper takes him to his secret glade, where Charlie witnesses Jasper's horrible discovery. With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion.

Last Halloween, Eleanor, Pip, and Otto narrowly escaped the clutches of the evil January Society and their leader. But life in the too-quiet Eden Eld isn’t safe just yet: According to the bargain they made with Mr. January, it’s now his sister’s turn to hunt the three of them. And her methods are a bit more...treacherous. When their friends and neighbors begin disappearing, abducted by strange, mud-drenched monsters, Eleanor and her two best friends must race to uncover their enemy’s secrets. If they fail, their families will be next.

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.

This is the most important house flip I've ever done. It's a gorgeous California home by a known architect, it contains the final piece of the map we need to unite the magical realms, and the body of Byron, my demigod ghost, is supposedly here. That's a lot on one girl's plate. Of course, no home renovation is without surprises. In this case, we have a whole slew of nosy old wizard neighbors, a lonely undine who lives in the pool and won't leave, 1970s decor worthy of the Brady Bunch, and my struggles not to get distracted by Byron, Graham, Jake, and Jasper and get stuff done.

Before Miss Peregrine gave them a home, the story of peculiars was written in the Tales. Wealthy cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars. A fork-tongued princess. These are but a few of the truly brilliant stories in Tales of the Peculiar - the collection of fairy tales known to hide information about the peculiar world, including clues to the locations of time loops - first introduced by Ransom Riggs in his number-one best-selling Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series.

When twin classmates are abducted from Bolton Prep, Tory and the Virals decide there’s no one better equipped than them to investigate. But the gang has other problems to face. Their powers are growing wilder, and becoming harder to control. Chance Claybourne is investigating the disastrous medical experiment that twisted their DNA. The bonds that unite them are weakening, threatening the future of the pack itself. The Virals must decipher the clues and track down a ruthless criminal before he strikes again, all while protecting their secret from prying eyes.

At Academy Absconditi, classes include everything from knife-throwing and poisons to the art of deception. The other students are all children of the world's most elite strategists, in training to become assassins, spies, and master manipulators. November Adley doesn't know why she's been sent to this place, but she'll quickly discover that allies are few in a school where competition is everything. When another student is murdered, all eyes turn to November, who must figure out exactly how she fits in before she is found guilty of the crime...or becomes the killer's next victim.

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?

Thar she blows! Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are on an Alaskan whale watching adventure. On their first day, they see a mother orca and her calf. But the next day, the baby orca is missing! The calf needs its mother’s milk. Can the kids solve this whale of a mystery?

Thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone knows every judge, police officer, and court clerk in Strattenburg. He has even helped bring a fugitive to justice. But even a future star lawyer like Theo has to deal with statewide standardized testing. When an anonymous tip leads the school board to investigate a suspicious increase in scores at another local middle school, Theo finds himself thrust in the middle of a cheating scandal. With insider knowledge and his future on the line, Theo must follow his keen instincts to do what’s right in the newest case for clever kid lawyer Theo Boone.

Have you ever said to yourself, "wouldn’t it be nice to be a detective"? This is the story of an African girl who says just that. Her name is Precious. When a piece of cake goes missing from her classroom, a traditionally built young boy is tagged as the culprit. Precious, however, is not convinced. She sets out to find the real thief. Along the way she learns that your first guess isn’t always right. She also learns how to be a detective.

In The Secret of the Indian, Omri vowed to lock his magical cupboard forever. But now, in The Mystery of the Cupboard, he finds an old journal written by his great-great aunt that reveals that Omri is compelled to open the cupboard just once again.

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!

Commanded by the magical artifact known as the Dragon’s Eye, junior con artist Callan and his friends are eagerly reaching the end of the epic quest that will finally free him from the Eye’s sinister hold. But their final task is their most ambitious: sneaking into the emperor’s private island prison and rescuing a man from a jail cell that has been locked tight for a hundred years. This impossible heist will strain the gang’s unique abilities to thieve and deceive everyone from the guards, the city elite, the warden, and even the nefarious local crime boss who warns them to stay away.

Felicity Morrow is back at the Dalloway School. Perched in the Catskill Mountains, the centuries-old, ivy-covered campus was home until the tragic death of her girlfriend. Now, after a year away, she's returned to finish high school. She even has her old room in Godwin House, the exclusive dormitory rumored to be haunted by the spirits of five Dalloway students - girls some say were witches.

Theo has been worried about his good friend Woody Lambert. Woody is struggling at school and making bad choices. But when Woody is arrested - an unwitting accomplice to armed robbery - Theo knows he is innocent. Racing the clock while Woody sits in jail, Theo will do everything in his power to help his friend and save Woody from an unforgiving system where justice is not equal for all.

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider—that her murdered sister is gone forever and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the grave—even trading in the occult.

Gloriously rich and utterly delightful, Miss Peregrine’s Museum of Wonders is an indispensable guide to the peculiar world, perfect for longtime fans and new listeners alike. Covering everything from how to blend in with suspicious normals to the most popular time loops to visit as a temporal tourist, this essential volume is ideal for anyone curious about the world of Miss Peregrine: its strange history, curious practices, fascinating places, most famous (and infamous) names, and much more.