Deserts are inherently mysterious places. This likely explains why so many good mystery novels have been set in them. We spent better than forty years doing field work in the American Southwest, and we have found mystery novels based in this region among the very best. All good mystery novels must have strong plots and memorable characters, but to us an equally important component is setting. Jane is a botanist with expertise in the use of plant evidence in solving murder cases. Carl is a vertebrate zoologist and conservation biologist. Upon retirement we began writing mysteries. Some are set in the desert grasslands of Arizona, and all are inspired by the southwestern authors we have selected as our favorites.
When we first discovered Tony Hillerman’s books, we nearly lost a whole summer’s fieldwork because we couldn’t stop reading them. In our opinion, no fiction author has better captured both the haunting physical beauty and cultural traditions of the Navajo Nation. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the tribal police is more pragmatic than his fellow officers Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito, who bring a more spiritual side to their work. The Blessing Way is the first of this long-running series, which is being carried on by Anne Hillerman. In this first book, the police find a corpse so far out in the desert and so wrapped in mystery as to shake even Leaphorn’s belief that everything has a rational explanation. Hillerman inspired us to try writing mystery novels of our own, although we don’t pretend to have achieved his level of mastery.
Don’t miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+!
“Brilliant…as fascinating as it is original.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
From New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman, the first novel in his series featuring Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn & Officer Jim Chee who encounter a bizarre case that borders between the supernatural and murder
Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high, lonely place—a corpse with a mouth full of sand—abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues.…
Rich boarding school meets murder mystery in Jesse Q. Sutanto’s The
New Girl—except main character Lia Setiawan is anything but wealthy, and we
already know she’s the killer.
It was an accident, but that doesn’t stop her
from worrying about going to prison for her teacher’s murder as the detectives
circle the drain. I laughed out loud so many times while I flew through this
book, the question of whether she’d get caught ripping me to shreds in
anticipation.
There are no spoilers here, but I’ll tell you it’s worth the wild
ride.
Lia Setiawan has never really fit in. And when she wins a full ride to the prestigious Draycott Academy on a track scholarship, she's determined to make it work even though she's never felt more out of place. But on her first day there she witnesses a girl being forcefully carried away by campus security. Her new schoolmates and teachers seem unphased, but it leaves her unsure of what she's gotten herself into. And as she uncovers the secrets of Draycott, complete with a corrupt teacher, a golden boy who isn't what he seems, and a blackmailer determined to get…
I’ve written about war for years. To be honest, it all began in school when we studied the terrible events of The Great War. Hearing the hearts shatter of men on the frontline never left me. I wanted to understand. I needed to understand. PTSD is something I’m familiar with, even if I’ve never been on the front line in battle. I’m also obsessed with myths, legends, ghost stories, and mysteries. My Lorne Turner series combines my passions and the books shine a light, in fiction, on what happens to old soldiers when they come home.
This is where it all began. When I read this, I thought, I want to write a book like this one day. This long-running series is carefully crafted to walk the line between the real world and what might be out there, beyond the veil. They are cosy thrillers at their heart, I suppose, but the supernatural element adds a layer of spooky that darkens them, makes them more savage. The characters are wonderful, they can infuriate you at times, but they do not bore you. The locations, the weather, the buildings, they all play a part. These are very good British spooky thrillers.
THE FIRST IN THE INCREDIBLE MERRILY WATKINS SERIES Merrily Watkins: late thirties, single mum, parish priest. Cosy? I don't think so...
The new vicar had never wanted a picture-postcard parish - or a huge and haunted vicarage. Nor had she wanted to walk into a dispute over a controversial play about a seventeenth-century clergyman accused of witchcraft... a story that certain long-established families would rather remained obscure.
But this is Ledwardine, steeped in cider and secrets...
A paradise of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. And also - as Merrily Watkins and her teenage daughter, Jane, discover - a village where…
Palmer Lind, recovering from the sudden death of her husband, embarks on a bird-watching trek to the Gulf Coast of Florida. One hot day on Leffis Key, she comes upon—not the life bird she was hoping for—but a floating corpse. The handsome beach bum who appears on the scene at the same time seems to have even more secrets than the dead man.
His story begins to unravel as the pair search for answers to a growing pile of dead bodies. Spies, radical environmentalists, and wealthy businessmen circle around each other in a complex dance. Which one is lying? What…
Palmer Lind, recovering from the sudden death of her husband, embarks on a bird-watching trek to the Gulf Coast of Florida. One hot day on Leffis Key she comes upon-not the life bird she was hoping for-but a floating corpse. The handsome beach bum who appears on the scene seems to have even more secrets than the dead man. His story begins to unravel as the pair search for answers to a growing pile of dead bodies. Spies, radical environmentalists, and wealthy businessmen circle around each other in a complex dance. Which one is lying? What do a seemingly random…
I'm a former journalist who has written for several newspapers in Kansas and Texas. Ever since I was young, I had an incredible imagination, a love for storytelling, and an adventurous spirit. I started writing my first novel Waves Crashing, a suspense romance, when I was a senior at McPherson High School; then I worked on it some in college, and it was published in 2019. I'm also the author of the science fiction novels The Death Firm and The Re-Creation of the Death Firm. I'm currently working at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, as an administrative assistant in data and records. I plan on starting to write my fourth novel in 2023.
There’s nothing scarier than answering personal ads to a complete stranger in my opinion. Women in Loves Music, Loves to Dance who answers a personal ad find themselves the next victim of a serial killer. What makes this particularly frightening is that the situation actually happens in real life. This book might make you rethink answering that personal ad in the newspaper or online. That’s what makes this book a nail-biter and keeps you up until all hours of the night. It is a fun read, and I highly recommend it.
New York's trendy magazines are a source of peril when a killer enacts a bizarre dance of death, using the personal ads to lure his victims in bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark's Loves Music, Loves to Dance.
After college, best friends Erin Kelley and Darcy Scott move to the city to pursue exciting careers—Erin is a promising jewelry designer and Darcy finds success as a decorator. On a lark, Darcy persuades Erin to help their TV producer friend research the kinds of people who place personal ads. It seems like innocent fun...until Erin disappears.
I am one of those people who always feels sorry for the monster at the end of the movie. I am always more disturbed by the avenging townspeople’s bloodlust than the monster’s destructiveness. At a deeper level, for me these horror stories actually depict compassion, acceptance, and the hysteria whipped up by self-righteous mobs. They are books with very dark themes, and they generally do not have happy endings, but rather than being depressing, I find them instructive, even enriching, and certainly valuable. More than anything, they show me – in bloody detail – the terrifying limits of conformity.
Similar in vein, a more opaque story than Frankenstein, and with a more indeterminate morality surrounding the main character, who is, after all, a crackpot murderer, but eliciting perhaps the same complex reactions toward him and the other characters at the book’s tragic ending.
Plus, Natalie's
12, and 14-year-old's favorite books.
Why did Natalie love this book?
I discovered Lindsay’s book on Twitter. I grew up
enjoying scary books, so when I saw her covers, I knew I wanted to interview
her about her new one that wasn’t yet out. In the meantime, I read What Lies
in the Woods.
This book is for middle graders, but even I felt it was
scary! It read like a movie.
For fans of Small Spaces and the Goosebumps series by R.L Stine comes a chilling ghost story about a girl living in the decrepit and creepy mansion, who discovers something in the woods is after her.
All Ginny Anderson wants from her summer is to sleep in, attend a mystery writing workshop, and spend time with her best friend. But when Ginny's father―a respected restoration expert in Chicago―surprises the family with a month-long trip to Michigan, everything changes. They aren't staying in a hotel like most families would. No, they're staying in a mansion. A twenty-six room, century-old building surrounded…
As a lifelong journalist, I’ve covered and have been drawn to tales of intrigue, con men, massive financial scams, domestic terrorists and international plots, and the investigators and authorities who pursue them.
Nelson DeMille is at the top of his game in Wild Fire.
The writing crackles throughout the novel as alpha male Detective John Corey pursues a clan of rich industrialists bent on revenging 9/11 even if it means destroying American cities and populations to accomplish their goals.
If you’re looking for fun and spycraft all in one place, this is the book for you.
Welcome to the Custer Hill Club - an informal men's club set in a luxurious Adirondack hunting lodge whose members include some of America's most powerful business leaders, military men, and government officials. Ostensibly, the club is a place to gather with old friends, hunt, eat, drink, and talk off-the-record about war, life, death, sex and politics. But one Fall weekend, the Executive Board of the Custer Hill Club gathers to talk about the tragedy of 9/11 and what America must do to retaliate. Their plan is finalized and set into motion. That same weekend, a member of the Federal…
For too long, single life has been characterized as a lesser life. As a 70-year-old who has been happily single my whole life, I want that to end. As I said in my book, “In the enlightened world that I envision, every child will understand, as a matter of course, that living single is a life path that can be just as joyful and fulfilling as any other—and for some people, the best path of all. Every adult will forsake forever the temptation to pity or patronize single people and will instead appreciate the profound rewards of single life."
In Tana French’s brilliant crime novel, a single woman and a single man are detectives who are passionate about the work they do together investigating murders. Their banter is adorned with astute and irreverent commentaries on the ways in which couples flaunt their coupledom and expect single people to stay in their place.
The detectives’ relationship is complex, real, and deep. It is a friendship, and in a true tribute to friendship, it does not morph into romance.
The bestselling novel by Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Searcher, is "required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting" (The New York Times). She "inspires cultic devotion in readers" (The New Yorker) and is "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post).
"Atmospheric and unputdownable." -People
In bestselling author Tana French's newest "tour de force" (The New York Times), being on the Murder Squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed it would be. Her partner, Stephen Moran, is the only person who seems glad she's…
So why have I chosen noir? I’m glad you asked. Ever since I picked up my first Raymond Chandler book—The Lady in the Lake—I have been a fan of the genre, so much so that I write in it almost exclusively.I watch all the old movies on Noir Alley every Saturday night—or whenever I can find one on TV. And while I tend to gravitate to the works of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammet, and Erle Stanley Gardner, I'm always on the hunt for new authors. I also very much enjoy when someone takes the genre in a new direction, which is why I created this list.
I love books that mash up genres and Dan Will has done just that with this first offering in his Arcane Casebook series. His hero, Alexander Lockerby, is a man after my own heart—a noir detective through and through. Only this fedora-wearing gumshoe has a little extra zing up his sleeve—magic. He’s a runewright, and while I have to admit I didn’t know what that was when I began the book, it became perfectly clear by the end. I won’t ruin it for you, but suffice it to say, it’s aces with the noir genre—a man gifted with certain talents, but not ones enough to gain him the easy life. This story starts out simple, but takes little time to grab you by the collar and slap you across the kisser. And the good news? There are eight more to keep it company.
At 31-years old, Alex has limited powers, but a knack for unraveling a mystery. The first clue leads him to a thief, but it doesn’t stop there. When people started dying, it becomes clear that it wasn’t an ordinary spell. Could it have something to do with the book?
A legendary and ancient tome could be the key.
But can he find it?
When an unfortunate incident gets him in hot water with both the police and New York’s…
I love detective books that take place in other countries, especially when they mix in food. Not only do I get to learn about life in that country, but also what they eat!
The series is about a policeman named Lu Fei who lives in rural China. He ends up with a rural posting after stepping on some powerful toes. The author does a fantastic job describing what it is like to work in that power system and how he has to navigate the realities of modern China.
I like Lu Fei as he reminds me a bit of Bosch. He has a code and must figure out how to stay true to his code while navigating the world he lives in.I've read the entire series, and I hope the author releases a new one soon. Some later books feel like thrillers, which is also quite fun.
In Brian Klingborg's Thief of Souls, the brutal murder of a young woman in a rural village in Northern China sends shockwaves all the way to Beijing―but seemingly only Inspector Lu Fei, living in exile in the small town, is interested in justice for the victim.
Lu Fei is a graduate of China’s top police college but he’s been assigned to a sleepy backwater town in northern China, where almost nothing happens and the theft of a few chickens represents a major crime wave. That is until a young woman is found dead, her organs removed, and joss paper stuffed…
