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.

Plain Brown Wrapper book cover

Plain Brown Wrapper, a Humorous Mystery by Greg Lynch

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The Bottom Line: A laugh-out-loud crime novel that deftly satirizes political douchebaggery without fear or favor. Every humorous mystery needs a memorable hangout, and Plain Brown Wrapper’s is The Booty Scoot, a Dallas gay bar where “tight Wranglers, white Stetsons and shirts stiff with enough starch to stop a bullet” prevail. But the good times come to a halt for Booty Scoot regular and Dallas City Councilman Billy […]

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Death by Justice by Anne Kennison

Death by Justice, a Romantic Suspense Novel by Anne Kennison

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The Bottom Line: Deliciously conflicted love, murder and trickery are afoot in this worthy new entry in the Ryan Hamlin series. Highly recommended for murder and romantic mystery fans. Retirement has hardly softened homicide detective Ryan Hamlin. If anything, he seems to have hardened, having hooked his son, Josh, up with ethically dubious matchmaking firm Romance LTD. As we learned in Anne Kennison’s terrific Death

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The Lake House, a new Mystery by Kate Morton

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The Bottom Line: This mystery partially set in 1930s England is a near-perfect evening companion. Highly recommended. Living on her family’s idyllic lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, inquisitive, and precociously talented sixteen-year-old who loves to write stories. One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest child, eleven-month-old Theo, has

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Convergences, a new Political Thriller by John Vance

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Presidential press secretary Ethan Brooks chooses conscience over politics and refuses to endorse the Administration’s false explanation of a shocking comment made by the president’s brother, the current chief of staff–overheard and then published by a D.C. blogger. Dismissed by the president, Brooks makes his way to Kingston, Ontario to escape the press and enters into a relationship with a Canadian woman who has fled

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Book Review: Luckiest Girl Alive, a new Mystery by Jessica Knoll

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The Bottom Line: So much more than just “women’s fiction” (as the marketing would have you believe), Luckiest Girl Alive is a clever and highly suspenseful romp through the skeleton-filled closet of a most unreliable narrator. As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome

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The Last Empire by Joe Hart

The Last Girl, a new Sci-Fi Thriller by Joe Hart

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A mysterious worldwide epidemic reduces the birthrate of female infants from 50 percent to less than 1 percent. Medical science and governments around the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but twenty-five years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than a thousand women. Zoey and some of the surviving young women are

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Murder and More

Murder and More, a Mystery by Gerald W. Darnell

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Carson’s feud with a local crime reporter continues, and then suddenly the husband of his client is brutally murdered – a husband he’s been hired to investigate. Mysterious characters weave a web of blackmail and suspense, while leaving Carson with more clients than he can handle. The Memphis police have warned Carson to back off, but an employee of a friend is missing from a

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Museum of Sudden Disapparances

Book Review: The Museum of Sudden Disappearances, a Hilarious Mystery by Thomas Davidson

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The Bottom Line: A hugely satisfying tale that is simultaneously funny, suspenseful and subversive. For fans of comic mysteries, the Jurassic Jim Fleetwood series is a must read. When a small town girl dies in a mysterious car accident, eccentric retro DJ Jurassic Jim Fleetwood becomes the unlikely investigator. Fleetwood typically spends his evenings spinning oldies in Michigan dive bar The Swizzle Stick, then heads

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The Girl You Lost by Kathryn Croft

The Girl You Lost, a Psychological Thriller by Kathryn Croft

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Eighteen years ago, Simone Porter’s six-month-old daughter, Helena, was abducted. Simone and husband, Matt, have slowly rebuilt their shattered lives, but the pain at losing their child has never left them. Then a young woman, Grace, appears out of the blue and tells Simone she has information about her stolen baby. But just who is Grace – and can Simone trust her? When Grace herself

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Swollen Identity Cover by Rich Leder

Book Review: Swollen Identity, a Hilarious Mystery by Rich Leder

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The Bottom Line: Mysterious, sexy and laugh-out-loud funny. Among female sleuths, Kate McCall is near the top. Is it even possible to be too beautiful, seductive and rich? That’s what New York private detective Kate McCall thinks of her newest client, Brooke Barrington, who is suffering from a case of identity theft. With a net worth of four billion dollars and cover girl looks, it’s

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