Mystery & Crime
This diverse collection of study guides highlights mystery and crime titles for middle grade, YA, and adult audiences -- from Agatha Christie’s iconic “whodunits” to John Grisham’s popular page-turners. Read on to get the most out of these exceptional books that present baffling puzzles and expose dark secrets.
1Q84 is a novel written by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The book was first published in Japanese in three volumes and released in 2009 and 2010, ahead of an English translation published in 2011, and is considered a work of magical realism. Set in 1984 in Tokyo, the story concerns an assassin who stumbles upon an alternate world she refers to as 1Q84. There, she becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving an abusive religious... Read 1Q84 Summary
1st to Die (2001), by bestselling author James Patterson, is the first novel in The Women’s Murder Club series. The club features four friends—San Francisco homicide detective Lindsay Boxer, medical examiner Claire Washburn, crime reporter Cindy Thomas, and assistant district attorney Jill Bernhardt—who work together, both professionally and personally, to solve crimes. In this first novel, the club works to solve the Honeymoon Murders, the killing of three couples just after their weddings. 1st to... Read 1st to Die Summary
A Fatal Grace is the second title in Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache cozy mystery series. First published in 2007, it won the 2007 Agatha Award for Best Novel and has been hailed as “a highly intelligent mystery” by Library Journal. The series currently consists of 15 titles, most of which have reached the top of the New York Times Bestseller List. Penny has won multiple awards for the series, including the Anthony (five... Read A Fatal Grace Summary
A Great Reckoning (2016) is the 12th novel in the Inspector Gamache series. The series consists of contemporary mysteries written by the Canadian author Louise Penny. Like the other novels in the series, A Great Reckoning revolves around the small village of Three Pines, Quebec, and its inhabitants. The novel includes a standalone murder mystery plot and references to events in other novels within the series; Penny explores themes of parenthood, loss, and betrayal. This... Read A Great Reckoning Summary
The short story “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell describes the investigation of a mysterious murder in rural Dickson County. Glaspell explores gender roles in the early twentieth-century, the effects of isolation on people’s emotional and mental states, and the duty of neighbors to help one another. Additionally, Glaspell comments directly on the sexism of this period in American history and the prejudices inherent in the belief that women’s proper and only place... Read A Jury of Her Peers Summary
Along Came a Spider (1992) is the first novel in the Alex Cross psychological thriller series by James Patterson. Alex Cross is a Black psychologist and police detective working in Washington, DC, with his partner and childhood friend, John Sampson. In this novel, Alex and John are part of a hostage-rescue team investigating the kidnapping of two children by their teacher, Gary Soneji. As of 2023, there are 32 novels in the Alex Cross series... Read Along Came a Spider Summary
Published in 1925, Theodore Dreiser’s realist novel An American Tragedy is one of the author’s most critically acclaimed works. Set in the 1920s in Kansas City, Chicago, and small-town New York state, the novel is the story of how Clyde Griffiths, the son of poor, itinerant preachers, kills Roberta Alden during a boat trip in the Adirondack Mountains.This guide is based on the Kindle edition published by Rosetta Books.Content Warning: This novel contains racist slurs... Read An American Tragedy Summary
Published in 1939, And Then There Were None is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie, best-selling novelist of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. With over 100 million copies sold, And Then There Were None is the world’s best-selling crime novel as well as one of the best-selling books of all time. It has had more adaptations than any other work by Agatha Christie, including television programs, films, radio broadcasts, and most... Read And Then There Were None Summary
P.D. James wrote four detective novels centered on Inspector Adam Dalgliesh before publishing An Unsuitable Job for a Woman featuring protagonist and private investigator Cordelia Gray, with the popular character Dalgliesh making a cameo appearance. The novel was published in 1972 and is set at the same time, in the city of London.While this book is faithful to many tropes of the genre, it is notable for James’s elegant prose and detailed descriptions, as well... Read An Unsuitable Job for a Woman Summary
A Perfect Spy is a 1986 spy novel by British author John le Carré. Described by the author as his most autobiographical work, the story involves the unexpected disappearance of British spy Magnus Pym after his father’s funeral. While hiding from his superiors, Pym reflects on his father’s influence and his lifetime spent lying to the world. A Perfect Spy has been adapted for television and radio. The story explores themes common to the world... Read A Perfect Spy Summary
John Grisham’s 1988 novel A Time to Kill tells the story of attorney Jake Brigance and his infamous client, Carl Lee Hailey. Set against the backdrop of racially charged Mississippi, the legal thriller examines themes of inequality, intolerance, and retribution. The novel begins when two white men, Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard, abduct and rape a ten-year old black girl named Tonya Hailey. They throw her off a bridge, thinking the fall will kill... Read A Time to Kill Summary
Bluebird, Bluebird (2017) by Texas native Attica Locke, published by Little, Brown and Company, is a 2018 Edgar and Anthony award-winning mystery novel. It was also selected as a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Kirkus Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2017. The first in the Highway 59 series follows Texas Ranger Darren Mathews through the backroads of Texas in search of justice and reform... Read Bluebird, Bluebird Summary
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a 1981 novella by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. Told in non-chronological order and in journalistic fashion by an unnamed narrator, it pieces together the events leading up to and after the murder of Santiago Nasar by Pedro and Pablo Vicario. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a classic example of Márquez's use of magical realism in his writing. The novella has been adapted several times as a film... Read Chronicle of a Death Foretold Summary
Chester Himes’s 1965 novel Cotton Comes to Harlem is the sixth and best-known novel in his Harlem Detective series. The book follows black detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed as they search for $87,000 stolen from hardworking African American families who dream of returning to Africa and to escape poverty in America. The novel’s popularity led to other crime novels featuring African American cops and detectives, earning Himes the reputation as the father of... Read Cotton Comes To Harlem Summary
Crime and Punishment is a novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in 1866. The story charts the alienation of a student named Raskolnikov, who decides to commit the perfect crime as a way of philosophically proving his superiority over others. The novel traces the depths of his mental disintegration as he comes to grips with the psychological consequences of being a murderer.Dostoevsky is widely considered one of the world’s greatest psychological fiction writers... Read Crime and Punishment Summary
Published in 2010, Tom Franklin’s Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a literary crime novel centered around two unsolved murders that connect past and present. The novel follows Silas Jones, a black constable in a small town in Mississippi, and Larry Ott, the white suspect in a decades-old, unsolved murder. Silas and Larry grew up alongside each other and developed a tentative friendship that the two grown men explore through flashbacks. When another teenaged girl goes... Read Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter Summary
Beautiful twenty-year-old Linnet Ridgeway is one of the wealthiest women in England, the heir to a vast fortune. She is in the final stages of renovating her newly-acquired estate, Wode Hall, when her best friend, the poor but clever Jacqueline “Jackie” de Bellefort asks a favor: could Linnet hire Jackie’s fiancé, Simon Doyle, who is penniless and recently out of a job? Linnet agrees to meet Simon and is immediately drawn to him. Soon the... Read Death On The Nile Summary
Defending Jacob is a 2012 crime novel by William Landay. The main character is Andy Barber, a Massachusetts assistant district attorney, who finds his personal and professional life thrown into turmoil when his son, Jacob Barber, is accused of murdering his classmate Ben Rifkin. Andy, a resident of Newton, Massachusetts, narrates the events of the 2007 murder and trial alongside the transcripts of a 2008 grand jury investigation whose subject remains unstated until the final... Read Defending Jacob Summary
Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders is a 2005 thriller by American novelist, poet, and essayist Alicia Gaspar de Alba. The novel takes place in 1998 when Juárez, Mexico is experiencing a spate of brutal killings of poor young women and girls, mostly factory workers. The protagonist, Ivon Villa, is a women’s studies professor from Los Angeles who returns to her hometown of El Paso, Texas—just across the border from Juárez—to adopt a baby. When the... Read Desert Blood Summary
Introduction Different Seasons (1982) by Stephen King is a collection of four novellas that are tied together by a connection to the four seasons. Three of the four stories (“Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, “Apt Pupil”, and “The Body”) have been made into films, and the fourth (“The Breathing Method”) is under consideration for adaptation. This guide refers to the 1983 Signet edition.Content Warning: This book contains references to death by suicide, sexual assault... Read Different Seasons Summary
Dolores Claiborne (1992) is a psychological thriller by the American novelist Stephen King. The novel, narrated from Dolores’s first-person point of view, tells the story of her work as a housekeeper for the wealthy Vera Donovan and Dolores’s eventual murder of her abusive husband. Unique among King’s work for its unconventional narrative style, including a lack of chapter designations and section breaks, the novel deals with themes of revenge, family, physical and sexual abuse, and... Read Dolores Claiborne Summary
Olga Tokarczuk is among Poland’s most famous and critically acclaimed contemporary authors. She has received multiple national and international literary awards, including the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her most well-known novels and their translation dates into English are House of Day, House of Night (2003), Primeval and Other Times (2010), Flights (2018), and The Books of Jacob (2021).Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was published in Poland in 2009 but didn’t... Read Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Summary
Elizabeth Is Missing by British author Emma Healey was published in 2014 and tells the story of Maud Horsham, an old woman suffering from dementia. Maud’s older sister, Sukey, disappeared in the 1940s. Seventy years later, this tragic event continues to haunt Maud, who now thinks her best friend Elizabeth is missing. Maud is desperate to figure out what happened to Sukey and Elizabeth before she loses her ability to piece together the clues. Maud’s... Read Elizabeth is Missing Summary
Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, first published in 1940, is a crime drama best described as a noir novel. Intended for adult audiences, the novel follows many noir conventions, such as the plot centering around a murder investigation; the protagonist, Philip Marlowe, being both a private investigator and an anti-hero; and the setting consisting of a dark city run by criminals. This is Chandler’s second novel in a series that uses Philip Marlowe as the... Read Farewell, My Lovely Summary
A thrilling tale of thievery, betrayal, and mistaken identity, Fingersmith, by Welsh author Sarah Waters, tells the story of two women from two very different stations of life whose fates are inextricably linked. Set in the 1860s, Fingersmith is narrated alternately by Sue Smith (also known as Sue Trinder) and Maud Lilly. One is a young “fingersmith”—slang for a thief—lovingly protected from the worst of her world by Mrs. Sucksby; the other is an aristocratic... Read Fingersmith Summary
