Best Mystery Books

Gripping whodunits, detective stories, and puzzling cases that keep you guessing until the last page.

Top Mystery Books

Cover of The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate.When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the over of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, <i>The Name of the Rose</i> is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

Literature & FictionGenre FictionHistorical
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Cover of The Last House on Needless Street

The Last House on Needless Street

by Catriona Ward

In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.

American literatureHorrorThriller
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Cover of In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood

by Truman Capote

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

TrueCrimeMurder
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Cover of The Fisherman

The Fisherman

by John Langan

In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as *Der Fisher*: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.

HorrorFictionFantasy
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Cover of The Perfect Marriage

The Perfect Marriage

by Jeneva Rose

Sarah Morgan is one of the best criminal defense attorneys in Washington, DC. With a perfect case record and having made named partner before the age of thirty-five, her life is going exactly as she planned. However, the same cannot be said for her husband, Adam, a failed author, who's grown to resent his wife's meteoric success as he feels it's come at the expense of their relationship. For almost two years, Adam has kept his affair with Kelly Summers a secret, but everything changes when her body is discovered at the couple's lake house and Adam is arrested on suspicion of murder. Sarah now finds herself facing her most challenging case yet when she vows to defend her husband--a man accused of murdering his mistress. While Adam is certainly guilty of sleeping with Kelly, the question remains: Is he guilty of killing her too?

ThrillerMysteryMystery Thriller
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Cover of Dark Matter

Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

One night after an evening out, Jason Dessen, forty-year-old physics professor living with his wife and son in Chicago, is kidnapped at gunpoint by a masked man, driven to an abandoned industrial site and injected with a powerful drug. As he wakes, a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." But this life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife; his son was never born; and he's not an ordinary college professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something impossible. Is it this world or the other that's the dream? How can he possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could have imagined--one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. --

KidnappingFictionReality
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Cover of The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

by Agatha Christie

Set in the summer of 1917 in an Essex country estate, the story follows the war-wounded Captain Arthur Hastings to the Styles St. Mary manor of his friend John Cavendish. The Cavendish household is wrought with tension due to the marriage of John's widowed old aunt Emily, she of a sizeable fortune, to a suspicious younger man, Alfred Inglethorp, twenty years her junior. Emily's two stepsons, John and Lawrence Cavendish, as well as John's wife Mary and several other people, also live at Styles. Late one night, the residents of Styles wake to find Emily Inglethorp dying. When Emily's sudden heart attack is found to be attributable to strychnine, Hastings, who had runs into his old friend, the Belgian Hercule Poirot, he recruits him to aid in the local investigation. With impeccable timing, Hercule Poirot, the insightful retired detective, makes his dramatic entrance to solve a most baffling case. Who poisoned the wealthy Emily Inglethorpe, and how did the murderer penetrate and escape from her locked bedroom? Suspects abound in the quaint village of Styles St. Mary--from the heiress's fawning new husband to her two stepsons, her volatile housekeeper, and a pretty nurse who works in a hospital dispensary. On the day she was killed, Emily Inglethorp was overheard arguing with someone, most likely her husband, Alfred, or her stepson, John. Afterwards, she seemed quite distressed and, apparently, made a new will--which no one can find. Nobody can explain how or when the strychnine was administered to Mrs. Inglethorp. High on Poirot's list of suspects are: John Cavendish, the elder stepson; Mary Cavendish, his wife; Lawrence Cavendish, the younger stepson; Evelyn Howard, Mrs. Inglethorpe's companion; Cynthia Murdoch, her protegee; and Dr. Bauerstein, a mysterious stranger who lives in Essex. All have motive and opportunity but only Poirot can discover the truth.

FictionMysteryCrime Fiction
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Cover of The Runaway Jury

The Runaway Jury

by John Grisham

An anonymous woman tips officials that the jury for a multimillion dollar trial surrounding the tobacco industry may be tampered with.

FictionJury in fictionJury
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Cover of The A.B.C. Murders

The A.B.C. Murders

by Agatha Christie

There's a serial killer on the loose, bent on working his way though the alphabet.

FictionMysteryAgatha Christie
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Cover of The Pelican Brief

The Pelican Brief

by John Grisham

The Pelican Brief is a legal-suspense thriller by John Grisham, published in 1992 by Doubleday. It is his third novel after A Time to Kill and The Firm. ---------- Also contained in: - [Best Sellers](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15134121W/Best_Sellers) - [Novels (Firm / Pelican Brief)](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL76969W) - [The Pelican Brief / A Time to Kill](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24697402W) - [Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Volume 5 1992](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15165175W)

White House Chief of StaffCentral Intelligence Agencylaw firms
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Cover of The Client

The Client

by John Grisham

In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the curb...Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought-after dead body in America. Now Mark is caught between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer for all of four years. Prosecutors are willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And Reggie will do anything to protect her client -- even take a last, desperate gamble that could win Mark his freedom... or cost them both their lives. ([source][1]) [1]: http://www.jgrisham.com/books/the-client/ ---------- Also contained in: - [Novels: The Client / The Firm](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17766481W) - [Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Volume 4 1993](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15150385W)

suicideFifth Amendmentlawyers
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Cover of The Tenant

The Tenant

by Anne Brontë

**There's no place like home…** Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not.

American literatureThrillerMystery
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Frequently Asked Questions

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Our curated list features the top mystery books based on reader reviews, critical acclaim, and AI analysis. Top picks include "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco.

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