Literary Mystery

New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King has won sweeping critical acclaim and an impressive collection of awards for her writing. Although other writers have tried, no one has matched King's ability to capture the allure of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.

Named Author of the Year at the 2003 British BookAwards, Sarah Waters is the author of Tipping the Velvet, a New York Times Notable Book. Once inside the concrete walls of Millbank Prison, Margaret Prior, hired to speak with the female inmates, becomes all too aware that what she perceives to be reality may not be so. Bringing new ideas to her mind is the beautiful, but dangerous criminal Selina Dawes.

Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation-as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love-that arise from its loss. From local bars to train yards to prison, it is the story of two young men, bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories and abandoned homes.

Sorry. The single word is written on a mirror. In front of it hangs a Minneapolis Internal Affairs cop. Was it suicide? Or a kinky act turned tragic? Either way, it wasn't murder. At least not according to the powers that be. But veteran homicide detective Sam Kovac and his wisecracking, ambitious partner, Nikki Liska, think differently. Together they begin to dig at the too-neat edges of the young cop's death, uncovering one motive - and one suspect - after another.

“A page-turner par excellence, written with unobtrusive brilliance, [and] full of sharply observed lines . . . The Death of Us lives up to the hype.” —Stephen King “The Death of Us is astonishingly good—Abigail Dean’s the real thing.” —Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow...

Twenty years ago, Jane Hudson fled the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks after a terrible tragedy. The week before graduation, three lives were taken, all victims of suicide. Only Jane was left to carry the burden of a mystery that has stayed hidden for more than two decades. Now, Jane has returned as a Latin teacher, recently separated and hoping to make a fresh start with her young daughter. But ominous messages from the past dredge up forgotten memories. Once again, young, troubled girls are beginning to die.

A man wakes up in a hospital bed, with no idea who he is or how he came to be there. The only information the doctor shares with his patient is his name: Innokenty Petrovich Platonov. As memories slowly resurface, Innokenty begins to build a vivid picture of his former life as a young man in Russia in the early 20th century, living through the turbulence of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. But soon, only one question remains: How can he remember the start of the 20th century, when the pills by his bedside were made in 1999?

Legs inaugurated William Kennedy's cycle of novels set in Albany, New York. True to both life and myth Legs evokes the flamboyant career of the legendary gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, who was finally murdered in Albany. Through the equivocal eyes of Diamond's attorney, Marcus Gorman (who scraps a promising political career for the elemental excitement of the criminal underworld), we watch as Legs and his showgirl mistress, Kiki Roberts, blaze their gaudy trail across the tabloid pages of the 1920s and 1930s.

Internationally praised for her Commissario Guido Brunetti series, Donna Leon’s first standalone novel features a widely different but equally compelling sleuth, Caterina Pellegrini. Caterina is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she’s had to leave home to pursue her career. With a...

The local ladies all deem Mr. John a wizard, so when Agatha Raisin finds a few grey hairs on her head - and the rinse she tries at home turns her hair purple - she makes a beeline for the handsome Evesham hairdresser. And as well as sorting out her hair it soon becomes clear the charming man also has designs on her heart - but their budding romance is cut short when Mr. John is fatally poisoned in his salon. Once again Agatha finds herself embroiled in a murder case. Was it one of Mr. John’s many lady clients, all of whom divulged to him their darkest secrets?

Five thrilling tales of mystery, mayhem, and murder from an exceptional quintet of Edgar, CWA Dagger, and National Book Award winners.

At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the incident. In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the 21st century.

Lucas Corso, middle-aged, tired, and cynical, is a book detective, a mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found hanged, leaving behind part of the of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment. Soon the unsuspecting Corso is drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do.

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Book Riot Best Mystery & Thriller of the Year Three women in one twisted family race for answers in this striking mystery set in the Mexicali borderlands that "breathes new life into the myth of Persephone and Demeter" (Ana Reyes, author of The House...

Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn't, they wouldn't be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash - no credit check, no lease. It's the kind of place you end up when you you've run out of other options.The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don't know is that one of them is a killer. He's already chosen his next victim, and he'll do anything to protect his secret.

Believing that someone is trying to murder her, gorgeous Jane Wetherby asks Hamish Macbeth to spend Christmas with her and an exclusive group of friends at her Scottish island health farm. With a cold in his head and no place to go for the holidays, Hamish accepts her invitation. He thinks the lady is a bit daft, but, arriving on the lonely isle of Eileencraig, he feels a prickle of foreboding. The locals are openly threatening; the other guests, especially a terrible snob named Heather Todd, are barely civil.

WINNER OF THE 2023 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize Included in Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023 Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award For readers of Shirley Jackson, Iain Reid, and Claire-Louise Bennett, a haunting, compressed masterwork from an...

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2025 A twisty, slow-burn mystery set in Paris and the Netherlands that has become a Dutch sensation In 1989, twenty-year-old Marie jumps at the chance to work as au pair in Paris—even though it means dropping out of her prestigious art program in the...

A virtuosic mashup of Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler by way of Marvel—the story of a detective investigating the murder of a Titan, one of society’s most powerful, medically-enhanced elites. “Cross-genre brilliance from the superbly talented Nick Harkaway.” —William Gibson...

For 18 years Jack has been a “transplant tourism director,” sending wealthy Americans and Europeans in need of kidneys and other organs to third-world countries where they would buy them from transplant centers on the take. The death of a client and a newfound relationship lead to a crisis of conscience as he is forced to choose between a $2 million commission - and participating in a murder.