Recommended Mystery Novels

Last update: 03 Jun 2026 09:48
First version: Spun off from "Mysteries", 21 October 1999

---

Including true crime and spy stories, for lack of better places to put them.

Links on titles are generally to my own review or briefer comments.

See also: Mysteries to read.

• Bruce Alexander (pseud. of Bruce Alexander Cook)
  • Blind Justice
  • Murder in Grub Street
  • Watery Grave
  • Person or Persons Unknown
• Eric Ambler
  • The Ability to Kill [Nonfiction]
  • Background to Danger
  • Cause for Alarm
  • A Coffin for Dimitrios
  • Journey into Fear
  • Judgment on Deltchev
  • The Levanter
  • The Light of Day [filmed as Topakpi]
  • A Passage of Arms
  • The Schermer Inheritance
  • State of Siege
• Donna Andrews
  • Murder, with Peacocks
  • Murder with Puffins
  • Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingoes
• Noreen Ayres
  1. A World the Color of Salt
  2. Carcass Trade
• Margaret Barrett and Charles Dennis, Given the Crime
• Nancy Bartholomew [Very light, but fun if approached in the right spirit]
  1. Miracle Strip
  2. Drag Strip
  3. Film Strip
• Josh Bazell
  1. Beat the Reaper
  2. Wild Thing
• Alex Beer, The Second Rider
• Cheryl Benard, Moghul Buffet
• John Billheimer
  1. The Contrary Blues
  2. Highway Robbery
  3. Dismal Mountain
  4. Drybone Hollow
• C. J. Box
  1. Out of Season
  2. Savage Run
  3. Winterkill
  4. Trophy Hunt
• Edgar Box (pseud. of Gore Vidal) [Review]
  • Death in the Fifth Position
  • Death Likes It Hot
  • Death Before Bedtime
• Kylie Brant
  1. Down the Darkest Road
  2. Cold Dark Places
• Alison Brennan
  1. Love Me to Death
  2. Kiss Me, Kill Me
  3. If I Should Die
• Ken Bruen, The Guards
• Paul Bryers, The Prayer of the Bone
• Chelsea Cain
  Archie Sheridan/Gretchie Lowell series
  1. Heartsick
  2. Sweetheart
  3. Evil at Heart
  4. The Night Season
  5. Kill You Twice
  6. Let Me Go
  • One Kick
• Andrea Camilleri [A series, here in chronological order, but I started reading them out of sequence without losing anything]
  1. The Shape of Water
  2. The Terra-cotta Dog
  3. The Snack Thief
  4. Voice of the Violin
  5. Excursion to Tindari
  6. The Smell of the Night
  7. Rounding the Mark
  8. The Patience of the Spider
  9. The Paper Moon
  10. August Heat
  11. The Wings of the Sphinx
  12. The Track of Sand
  13. The Potter's Field
  14. The Age of Doubt
  15. The Dance of the Seagull
  16. Treasure Hunt
• Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
• Sarah Caudwell [Pseud. of the late Sarah Caudwell Cockburn]
  • Thus Was Adonis Murdered
  • The Sirens Sang of Murder
  • The Shortest Route to Hades
  • The Sibyl in Her Grave
• Karen Rose Cercone
  1. Steel Ashes
  2. Blood Tracks
  3. Coal Bones
• Kate Collins
  1. Mum's The Word
  2. Slay It with Flowers
• K. C. Constantine [A series of procedurals set in a fictional town just outside of Pittsburgh in the 1970s and 1980s. I can't say first-hand how well they capture the feeling of life then and there, but they have the way yinzers of those generations speak down cold, and are well-done mysteries besides.]
  • Sunshine Enemies
• Amanda Cross (pseud. of Prof. Dr. Carolyn Heilbrun)
  • The James Joyce Murder
  • Poetic Justice
  • The Theban Mysteries
• Jennifer Crusie
  1. Welcome to Temptation
  2. Faking It
• Luca D'Andrea, Beneath the Mountain
• Avram Davidson [General Review: Avram Davidson's Afterlife]
  • The Enquiries of Dr. Eszterhazy [There's a later collection, Adventures of Dr. Eszterhazy, with more stories; I've not yet laid hands upon it.]
  • The Investigations of Avram Davidson [Posthumous collection, ed. Grania Davis and Richard A. Lupoff]
• Lindsay Davis
  1. Silver Pigs [Review by Danny Yee]
  2. Shadows in Bronze
  3. Venus in Copper
  4. The Iron Hand of Mars
  5. Poseidon's Gold
  6. Last Act in Palmyra
  7. Time to Depart
  8. A Dying Light in Corduba
  9. Three Hands in the Fountain
  10. Two for the Lions
  11. One Virgin too Many
• Bill DeAndrea [The "Killed In" books are a series, but I won't try to sort out order]
  • Fatal Elixir
  • Five O'Clock Lightning
  • The Hog Murders
  • The Lunatic Fringe
  • "Matt Cobb" series
    1. Killed in the Ratings
    2. Killed in the Act
    3. Killed with a Passion
    4. Killed on the Ice
    5. Killed in Paradise
    6. Killed in Fringe Time
    7. Killed on the Rocks
    8. Killed in the Fog
• Margaret Anne Doody
  • Aristotle Detective
  • Aristotle and the Secrets of Life
• Ruth Downie
  1. Medicus
  2. Terra Incognita
  3. Persona Non Grata
  4. Caveat Emptor
  5. Semper Fidelis
  6. Tabula Rasa
• Aaron Elkins
  • Fellowship of Fear
  • The Dark Place
  • Murder in the Queen's Armes
  • Old Bones
  • Curses!
  • Icy Clutches
  • Make No Bones
  • Dead Men's Hearts
  • Twenty Blue Devils
• Warren Ellis
  • Crooked Little Vein
  • Gun Machine
• Janet Evanonvich [The series loses interest after a while. Maybe even before the 4th book...]
  • One for the Money
  • Two for the Dough
  • Three to Get Deadly
  • Four to Score
• Christa Faust, Money Shot
• Robert Ferrigno
  • Cheshire Moon
  • Dead Silent
  • Flinch
  • Heart Breaker
  • The Horse Latitudes
• Conor Fitzgerald, The Dogs of Rome
• Shamini Flint, "Inspector Singh Investigates" series
  1. A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder
  2. A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul
• Gillian Flynn
  • Dark Places
  • Sharp Objects
• Leslie Forbes, Waking Raphael
• John M. Ford, Scholars of Night
• Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death
• Alan Furst [To be completely honest, Furst strikes me as imitation Eric Ambler, differing mostly in being more explicit about sex. However, it is good imitation Ambler, and since the original article is no longer being produced...]
  • Night Soldiers
  • Kingdom of Shadows
  • Dark Star [Review by Brad DeLong]
• Dale Furutani
  1. Death at the Crossroads
  2. Jade Palace Vendetta
• Nicholas Freeling
  • The Night Lords
  • Cold Iron
• Randall Garrett
  • Too Many Magicians
  • Lord Darcy Investigates
  • Murder and Magic
• Kathleen George
  1. Taken
  2. Fallen
  3. Afterimage
  4. The Odds
  5. Hideout
  6. Simple
  7. A Measure of Blood
• Tess Gerritsen [Comments]
  2. The Apprentice
  3. The Sinner
  4. Body Double
  5. Vanish
  6. The Mephisto Club
  7. The Keepsake
  8. Ice Cold
  9. The Silent Girl
  10. Last to Die
  11. Die Again
  12. I Know a Secret
• Lee Goldberg
  1. Lost Hills
  2. >Bone Canyon
  3. Gated Prey
• Nadia Gordon
  1. Sharpshooter
  2. Death by the Glass
  3. Murder Alfresco
  4. Lethal Vintage
• Laurence Gough [Procedurals set in Vancouver; as hard-boiled as possible, given the circumstances. I haven't been able to track down the whole series.]
  1. The Goldfish Bowl
  2. Silent Knives = Death on a No. 8 Hook
  3. Hot Shots
  7. Killers
  8. Heartbreaker
  10. Karaoke Rap
  12. Funny Money
• Teresa Grant, Vienna Waltz
• Sarah Graves
  1. The Dead Cat Bounce
  2. Triple Witch
  3. Wicked Fix
  4. Repair to Her Grave
  5. Wreck the Halls
  6. Unhinged
  7. Mallets Aforethought
  8. Tool and Die
  9. Nail Biter
  10. Trap Door
  11. The Book of Old Houses
  12. A Face at the Window
• Jane Haddam (pseud. of Orania Papazoglou; see below)
  • Not a Creature Was Stirring
  • Precious Blood
  • Acts of Darkness
  • Quoth the Raven
  • Great Day for the Deadly
  • A Stillness in Bethlehem
  • Feast of Murder
  • Dear Old Dead
  • Fountain of Death
  • Murder Superior
  • Festival of Deaths
  • Bleeding Hearts
  • And One to Die On
  • Deadly Beloved
  • Baptism in Blood
  • Skeleton Key
  • True Believers
  • Somebody Else's Music
  • Conspiracy Theory
  • The Headmaster's Wife
  • Hardscrabble Road
  • Glasshouses
  • Cheating at Solitaire
  • Living Witness
• Tarquin Hall
  1. The Case of the Missing Servant
  2. The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing
  3. The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken
  4. The Case of the Love Commandos
  5. The Case of the Reincarnated Client
• Steve Hamilton, A Cold Day in Paradise
• Elizabeth Hand
  1. Generation Loss
  2. Available Dark
  3. Hard Light
• Charlaine Harris
  • A Secret Rage
  • Last Scene Alive
• Elsa Hart
  1. Jade Dragon Mountain
  2. The White Mirror
  3. City of Ink
• Sparkle Hayter (just looks like a pseud.)
  1. What's a Girl Gotta Do?
  2. Nice Girls Finish Last
  3. Revenge of the Cootie Girls
  4. The Last Manly Man
• Lauren Henderson
  1. Dead White Female
  2. Too Many Blondes
  3. Black Rubber Dress
  4. Freeze My Margarita
  5. Strawberry Tattoo
  6. Chained
• Carl Hiaasen
  • Double Whammy
  • Native Tongue
  • Striptease
  • Stormy Weather
  • Tourist Season
• Tony Hillerman
• Peter Hoeg, Smilla's Sense of Snow [Except that the ending really makes no sense at all.]
• Anna Lee Huber
  1. The Anatomist's Wife
  2. Mortal Arts
  3. A Grave Matter
  4. A Study in Death
  5. As Death Draws Near
  6. A Brush with Shadows
  7. An Artless Demise
  8. A Stroke of Malice
  9. A Wicked Conceit
• Elizabeth Ironside, A Very Private Enterprise
• Stan Jones
  1. White Sky, Black Ice
  2. Shaman Pass
• B. B. Jordan (pseud. of Frances Brodsky), Principal Investigation [The sequel, Secondary Immunization, was disappointing.]
• Mary Louise Kelly
  • Anonymous Sources
  • The Bullet
• Stephen King
  1. Mr. Mercedes
  2. Finders Keepers
• Nancy Kress
  1. Oaths and Miracles
  2. Stinger
• Jane Langton
  • The Transcendental Murder
  • Dark Nantucket Noon
  • The Memorial Hall Murder
  • Natural Enemy
  • Good and Dead
  • Murder at the Gardner
  • The Dante Game
  • Divine Inspiration
  • God in Concord
  • Dead as a Dodo
  • The Face on the Wall
  • The Thief of Venice
  • Murder at Monticello
  • The Escher Twist
  • The Deserter: Murder at Gettysburg
• Dennis Lehane
  • Shutter Island
  • A Drink before the War
• J. Robert Lennon, Castle
• Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn
• Herbert Lieberman, City of the Dead
• Laura Lippman
  • Tess Monahan series [Baltimore mysteries (except for In Big Trouble), which are supposed to be really good at conveying the feel of the city. I can't speak to that, but they did help me recognize some of the neighborhoods and even restaurants when I went there for a job interview in 2001.]
    1. Balitmore Blues
    2. Charm City
    3. Butcher's Hill
    4. In Big Trouble
    5. The Sugar House
    6. In a Strange City
    7. The Last Place
    8. By a Spider's Thread
    9. No Good Deeds
  • Sunburn
• Merline Lovelace
  1. All the Wrong Moves
  2. Now You See Her
  3. Catch Her If You Can
• Margaret Maron
  1. Bootlegger's Daughter
  2. Southern Discomfort
  3. Shooting at Loons
  4. Up Jumps the Devil
  5. Killer Market
  6. Home Fires
  7. Storm Track
  8. Uncommon Clay
  9. Slow Dollar
  10. High Country Fall
  11. Rituals of the Season
  12. Winter's Child
  13. Hard Row
  14. Death's Half Acre
• William Marshall ["Yellowthread Street" mysteries, police procedurals set in Hong Kong. A weird combination of suspense, detection, broad humor and really disturbing situations, which works better than it has any right to, and sometimes (e.g., Perfect End, Frogmouth, and especially Out of Nowhere) leaves me twitchy. --- The internal chronology of the books is unimportant, so I've listed them alphabetically.]
  • Frogmouth
  • Gelignite
  • The Hatchet Man
  • Head First
  • Inches
  • Nightmare Syndrome
  • Out of Nowhere
  • Perfect End
  • Roadshow
  • Sci Fi
  • Skullduggery
  • Thin Air
  • War Machine
  • Yellowthread Street
• Sujata Massey
  • The Salaryman's Wife
  • The Widows of Malabar Hill
• Seicho Matsumoto
  • Inspector Imanishi Investigates
  • Points and Lines
• Henry Mazel Murderously Incorrect [Review by Danny Yee]
• Kirk Mitchell [Police procedurals, set in various parts of Indian Country. Benefit a bit from reading in order, though it's not strictly required.]
  1. Cry Dance
  2. Spirit Sickness
  3. Ancient Ones
  4. Sky Woman Falling
  5. Dance of the Thunder Dogs
• John Mortimer
  • Rumpole of the Bailey
  • The Trials of Rumpole
  • Rumpole's Return
  • Rumpole for the Defense
  • Rumpole and the Golden Thread
  • Rumpole's Last Case
  • Rumpole and the Age of Miracles
  • Rumpole à la Carte
  • Rumpole and the Angel of Death
• Katy Munger
  • Legwork
  • Money to Burn
  • Bad to the Bone
  • Better Off Dead
  • Out of Time
• Carol O'Connell, Mallory's Oracle
• Karen E. Olson, The Missing Ink
• Jake Page
  1. The Stolen Gods [But maybe only those who have lived in Santa Fe can fully appreciate the delicious absurdity of the car chase]
  2. The Deadly Canyon
  3. The Knotted Strings
  4. The Lethal Partner
• Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red [Yes, recommending something whcih got the Nobel Prize as a mystery novel is a bit impious, but it is...]
• Orania Papazoglou
  • Charisma [Very good but very disturbing novel]
  • Patience McKenna books
    • Death's Savage Passion
    • Sweet Savage Death
    • Wicked Loving Murder
    • Rich, Radiant Slaughter
    • Once and Always Murder
• I. J. Parker [Narrative order, which is not the same as the publication order]
  1. The Dragon Scroll
  2. Rashomon Gate
  3. Black Arrow
  4. Island of Exiles
  5. The Hell Screen
  6. The Convict's Sword
  7. The Masuda Affair
  8. Fires of the Gods
• Jill Paton Walsh, The Wyndham Case
• Barbara Paul, Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy
• Rebecca Pawel [Comments]
  1. Death of a Nationalist
  2. Law of Return
  3. The Watcher in the Pine
  4. The Summer Snow
  5. What Happened When the War Was Over
• Anne Perry, The Cater Street Hangman
• Marisha Pessl, Night Film
• Elizabeth Peters
• Ellis Peters, "Brother Cadfael" series
• Sara Poole
  1. Poisoner
  2. The Borgia Betrayal
• Bill Pomidor
  1. Murder by Prescription
  2. Skeletons in the Closet
  3. Ten Little Medicine Men
  4. Mind over Murder
• Richard Price
  • Clockers
  • Freedomland
• Phil Rickman [Nominally horror novels tracking the career of the Reverend Merrily Watkins, an Anglican priest working in a particularly depressed area of the Welsh-English border, they follow the British ghost-story convention of having a parallel "rational" explanation, so they can be enjoyed as mysteries with creepy effects. Sometimes, to be honest, Rickman's non-supernatural explanations are so contrived any thinking person would go for the ghosts.]
  1. The Wine of Angels
  2. Midwinter of the Spirit
  3. A Crown of Lights
  4. The Cure of Souls
  5. The Lamp of the Wicked
  6. Prayer of the Night Shepherd
  7. The Smile of a Ghost
  8. The Remains of An Altar
  9. Fabric of Sin
• Madeleine E. Robins
  1. Point of Honour
  2. Petty Treason
  3. Sleeping Partner
  4. The Doxies Penalty
• Laura Joh Rowland [Historical mysteries in Tokugawa-era Japan. Series fatigue set in for me around volume 4...]
  1. Shinju
  2. Bundori
  3. The Concubine's Tattoo
  4. The Samurai's Wife
• C. J. Sansom
  1. Dissolution
  2. Dark Fire
  3. Sovereign
  4. Revelation
• Dorothy Sayers
• Steven Saylor
  • Roman Blood
  • Arms of Nemesis
  • A Murder on the Apian Way
• Aileen Schumacher [Engineering mysteries]
  1. Engineered for Murder
  2. Framework for Death
  3. Affirmative Reaction
  4. Rosewood's Ashes
• Zoe Sharp
  1. Killer Instinct
  9. The Fifth Victim
• Roger L. Simon, Raising the Dead
• Dan Simmons
  • Darwin's Blade
  • Hardcase
• Karin Slaughter [Warning: these are extremely disturbing novels; the first two are about, respectively, serial rape and murder, and child pornography. The others are not much, if at all, lighter. But they are very well-written.]
  • "Grant County" series:
    1. Blindsighted
    2. Kisscut
    3. A Faint Cold Fear
    4. Indelible
    5. Faithless
    6. Beyond Reach
  • 1. Triptych
    2. Fractured
  • Undone [fuses the two series]
  • Broken
  • Fallen
  • Criminal
  • Unseen
  • The Last Widow
  • The Silent Wife
• Salla Simukka, The Snow White Trilogy
  1. As Red as Blood
  2. As White as Snow
  3. As Black as Ebony
• Julia Spencer-Fleming
  1. In the Bleak Midwinter
  2. A Fountain Full of Blood
  3. Out of the Deep I Cry
  4. To Darkness and to Death
  5. All Mortal Flesh
  6. I Shall Not Want
  7. One Was a Soldier
  8. Through Evil Days
  9. Hid from Our Eyes
  10. At Midnight Comes the Cry
• Dana Stabenow, the "Kate Shugak" series
  1. A Cold Day for Murder
  2. A Fatal Thaw
  3. Dead in the Water
  4. A Cold-Blooded Business
  5. Play with Fire
• Rex Stout
• Peter Straub [Straub normally writes horror novels, and these get marketed as such, but they're really excellent mystery novels and thrillers, with no supernatural elements at all, unless I've completely misunderstood them. Which is possible, since he's tricky.]
  • The Hellfire Club
  • The Blue Rose books [Three interlocking but completely incompatible renditions of a story about a killer called "Blue Rose", and three different disguises for Straub's native city of Milwaukee; this is impressive, if you notice it, but not distracting in the least if you don't. Reading Koko and The Throat could convince you that Straub fought in the Vietnam War, but then, reading his Ghost Story could convince you that he lived in a haunted town in upstate New York.]
    1. Koko
    2. Mystery
    3. The Throat
• Dorothy Sucher, Dead Men Don't Give Seminars [Good observations of what theoretical physicists are like; also a fun novel.]
• Leann Sweeney
  1. Pick Your Poison
  2. A Wedding to Die For
  3. Dead Giveaway
  4. Shoot from the Lip
• Virginia Swift
  1. Brown-eyed Girl
  2. Bad Company
  3. Bye, Bye Love
  4. Hello, Stranger
• Akimitsu Takagi, The Tattoo Murder Case [Nowhere near as kinky as the cover-blurbs make it sound]
• James Tucker [Pittsburgh settings, but I read and enjoyed the first two before moving here]
  1. Abra Cadaver
  2. Hocus Corpus
  3. Tragic Wand
• Antti Tuomainen, Palm Beach, Finland
• Janwillen van de Wettering, Robert Van Gulik: His Life, His Work
• Robert Hans van Gulik [Unfortunately, I can't really put these in narrative order, since I haven't any copies to hand...]
  • (trans.) Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee: Dee Gong An
  • The Chinese Nail Murders [Review by Danny Yee]
  • The Chinese Gold Murders [Review by Danny Yee]
  • The Chinese Maze Murders
  • Chinese Lake Murders
  • The Moneky and the Tiger
  • Judge Dee at Work
  • The Phantom of the Temple
  • The Haunted Monastery
  • Murder in Canton
  • The Red Pavillion
  • The Willow Pattern
  • Poets and Murder
• John Holbrook Vance
• Fred Vargas
  • The Chalk Circle Man
  • Seeking Whom He May Devour
  • This Night's Foul Work
• Donald Westlake
  • Kahawa
  • Nobody's Perfect
• Jenny White
  1. The Sultan's Seal
  2. The Abyssinian Proof
  3. The Winter Thief
• Jen Williams, A Dark and Secret Place = Dog Rose Dirt
• Lauren Willig [OK, the mysteries are generally feeble and these are mostly enjoyable as historical romance novels...]
  1. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
  2. The Masque of the Black Tulip
  3. The Deception of the Emerald Ring
  4. The Seduction of the Crimson Rose
  5. The Temptation of the Night Jasmine
  6. Betrayal of the Blood Lily
  7. The Mischief of the Mistletoe
  8. The Orchid Affair
  9. The Garden Intrigue
  10. The Passion of the Purple Plumeria
  11. The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla
  12. The Lure of the Moonflower
• Susan Wolfe, Escape Velocity
• N. Lee Wood
  1. Kingdom of Lies
  2. Kingdom of Silence