Mystery Book Reviews

The best mystery book reviews. Mysteries are typically crime stories in which readers follows a detective or amateur sleuth attempting to solve a criminal puzzle. Compared with “crime thrillers,” mysteries often feature less graphic violence and shocking subject matter.

Lethal White, a new Cormoran Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith

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The Bottom Line: The best of J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series to date. For those not familiar with the series, Strike is a private investigator, ex–Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch investigator and the illegitimate son of famous rock star Johnny Rokeby. Strike lost part of a leg in an attack in Afghanistan. He had previously studied at Oxford, but left in his second year […]

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The Fisherman’s Daughter, a Mesmerizing FBI Thriller by Robin Barefield

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The Bottom Line: A mesmerizing FBI thriller set in the Alaskan wilderness. After the bodies of four murdered women are found on Alaska’s Kodiak Island, FBI Special Agent Nick Morgan flies to Kodiak to aid in the investigation. Morgan’s local contact, Alaska State Trooper Dan Patterson, fears a serial killer is at work. But finding the perpetrator won’t be easy. The victims have very little

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James Swain

The King Tides, a Gripping Crime Thriller by James Swain

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The Bottom Line: A delicious book about vigilante justice that will surprise you at every turn. Most of us never have to deal with even a single stalker. What if you had a seemingly endless string of them? In the first book in James Swain’s Lancaster & Daniels series, Nicki Pearl is the perfect daughter. Almost too perfect. Wherever she goes, she’s being watched. Each

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Lily White Lie, a Cozy Mystery by Connie Chappell

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The Bottom Line: Fans of cozy mysteries will enjoy this latest Wrenn Grayson series book. The latest entry in the Connie Chappell’s Wrenn Grayson series begins with a family investigation. The twenty-nine-year-old historian is spending Thanksgiving week alone at their rural farmhouse when an uninvited visitor arrives. Bret Kilmore, an old college friend of Wrenn’s boyfriend of seven years, Gideon Junior, claims to have a

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Until Proven Innocent, a Highly Recommended Teen Mystery by Laura Stewart Schmidt

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The Bottom Line: A deftly-written, all-American teen mystery deserving of a broad audience. When a Minnesota Alzheimer’s patient implies knowledge about an unsolved death dating back to the 1960s, his 15-year-old granddaughter launches an investigation. Until Proven Innocent begins as a local university is buying the former home of Henry Springs, who disappeared after a fire claimed the lives of his wife and daughter some

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The Girl Next Door, One of the Year’s Best Thrillers

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The Bottom Line: One of the year’s best thrillers, The Girl Next Door had me at “donuts and high heels.” This cheeky, stylish and sophisticated novel is a must for anyone who loves unreliable narrators. Lisa Aurello’s The Girl Next Door begins with a murder, then rewinds a few weeks to eavesdrop on a conspiratorial café conversation between her likely killers. But in a clever

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The Moving Blade, One of the Year’s Best Thrillers, by Michael Pronko

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The Bottom Line: One of the year’s best thrillers. A string of grisly murders, high stakes geopolitics and the prose of a master craftsman elevate this crime thriller to rarefied air. What do a murdered American diplomat, a set of rare erotic Japanese wood block prints, and an agreement to keep American bases in Japan have in common? That’s the question facing investigators in The

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The Culinary Art of Murder, a Humorous Mystery by Heather Haven

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The Bottom Line: This cozy mystery has it all – romance, suspense, comedy and a detective you’ll fall hard for. The latest installment in Heather Haven’s Silicon Valley murder series begins as Liana Alverez – better known as Lee, a private investigator for Discretionary Inquiries – takes a call from her distraught uncle. Like every great fictional detective, Lee is just one degree of separation

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The Thin Blue Sliver, a Hardboiled Crime Thriller by Troy Adami

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The Bottom Line: A delicious helping of contemporary noir from an exciting newcomer to the genre. Fans of hardboiled crime fiction legends Dennis Lehane, Jo Nesbo and Raymond Chandler will love The Thin Blue Sliver. Troy Adami’s crime novel opens in a Fort Lauderdale bar circa 2005, as former Miami-Dade Police Department homicide detective John Moss takes up his usual place at the bar. An

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Bring Me Flowers, a Small Town Murder Mystery by D.K. Hood

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The Bottom Line:  Fans of small town murder mysteries may love this intense, under-the-radar gem. Told with the alluring, foreboding darkness of a Dean Koontz novel, this second installment in D.K. Hood’s Kane and Alton series is a perfect entry point for newcomers. Hidden deep in the forest, schoolgirl Felicity Parker is found carefully laid out on a rock with nothing but a freshly picked

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