Getting started with mysteries

Looking for a mystery series to get lost in? This list has the first book in some popular series to get you started!
Updated September 19, 2022
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson
Paper Book
A sensation across Europe--millions of copies sold A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue. It's about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and...
Storm Front
Jim Butcher
Paper Book
In the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files series, Harry Dresden's investigation of a grisly double murder pulls him into the darkest depths of magical Chicago... As a professional wizard, Harry Dresden knows firsthand that the "everyday" world...
The No. 1 Ladiesʼ Detective Agency
Alexander McCall Smith
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotswe--with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi--navigates her...
One for the Money
Janet Evanovich
Paper Book
Trenton native Stephanie Plum is out of work, out of money, and out of luck. So she blackmails her bail bondsman cousin, Vinnie, into giving her a try as an apprehension agent. Her first assignment: nail Joe Morelli, a former vice cop on the run from a charge of murder one. He's also the...
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler
Paper Book
This mystery classic features the sleuth Philip Marlowe. Others by this author are Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake (both Random, 1988).
In the Woods
Tana French
Paper Book
The bestselling debut, with over a million copies sold, that launched Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Hunter and "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post).  "Required reading for anyone who...
The Cuckoo's Calling
Robert Galbraith
Paper Book
Published under a pseudonym, J. K. Rowling's brilliant debut mystery introduces Detective Cormoran Strike as he investigates a supermodel's suicide in "one of the best books of the year" (USA Today), the first novel in the brilliant series that inspired the acclaimed HBO Max...
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Agatha Christie
Paper Book
In her first published mystery, Agatha Christie introduces readers to the heroic detective, Hercule Poirot. This is a classic murder mystery set in the outskirts of Essex. The victim is the wealthy mistress of Styles Court. The list of suspects is long and includes her gold-digging new spouse...
Case Histories
Kate Atkinson
Paper Book
A triumphant new novel from award-winner Kate Atkinson: a breathtaking story of families divided, love lost and found, and the mysteries of fate. Case One: Olivia Land, youngest and most beloved of the Land girls, goes missing in the night and is never seen again. Thirty years later, two of her...
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Alan Bradley
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE AGATHA * ARTHUR ELLIS * DILYS * DEBUT DAGGER AWARDS  "Wonderfully entertaining . . . sure to be one of the most loved mysteries of the year . . . [Flavia is] a delightful, intrepid, acid-tongued new heroine."--Chicago Sun-Times...
A Study in Scarlet
Arthur Conan Doyle
Ebook
A Study in Scarlet is the first story to feature Sherlock Holmes, and the first work of fiction to incorporate the magnifying glass as a detective tool. The story opens with Holmes and Watson meeting each other for the first time, and their decision to become flat-mates at 221B Baker Street. Soon...
A is for Alibi
Sue Grafton
Paper Book
READ THE SENSATIONAL BLOCKBUSTER THAT STARTED IT ALL! Take it from the top in #1 New York Times bestselling author Sue Grafton's knockout thriller that introduced detective Kinsey Millhone--and a hot new attitude--to crime fiction... A IS FOR...
Still Life
Louise Penny
Paper Book
Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a...
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Laurie R. King
Paper Book
The Twentieth-Anniversary Edition of the First Novel of the Acclaimed Mary Russell Series by Edgar Award-Winning Author Laurie R. King. An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee * Named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association...
The Murder at the Vicarage
Agatha Christie
Paper Book
Murder at the Vicarage marks the debut of Agatha Christie’s unflappable and much beloved female detective, Miss Jane Marple. With her gift for sniffing out the malevolent side of human nature, Miss Marple is led on her first case to a crime scene at the local vicarage. Colonel...
Rivers of London
Ben Aaronovitch
Paper Book
The Black Echo
Michael Connelly
Paper Book
START HERE: The first book in the Bosch series! For maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal...because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had...
Whose Body?
Dorothy L. Sayers
Paper Book
The first novel by one of the greatest mystery writers of the twentieth century, in which she introduced her popular amateur detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. "[A] pure pleasure to read." --The New York Times Book Review   A famous London financier...
Maisie Dobbs
Jacqueline Winspear
Paper Book
She started as a maid in an aristocratic London household; studied her way into prestigious Girton College at Cambridge; then became a front-line nurse in World War I. There she found - and lost - an important part of herself. Now she has set up on her own as a private investigator, one who has...
Crocodile on the Sandbank
Elizabeth Peters
Paper Book
Meet Egyptologist Amelia Peabody in the first mystery in the Victorian-era set, New York Times bestselling "sparkling series" (Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review). "If Indiana Jones were female, a wife, and a mother who lived in Victorian times...
The Bone Collector
Jeffery Deaver
Paper Book
A Morbid Taste for Bones
Ellis Peters
Paper Book
The Bat
Jo Nesbø
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * In the electrifying first installment of the New York Times bestselling series, Harry Hole of the Oslo Crime Squad is dispatched to Sydney to observe a murder case. As he circles closer to the killer, Harry begins to fear that no one is safe, least of all those...
Knots and Crosses
Ian Rankin
Paper Book
Detective John Rebus: His city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders...and he's tied to a maniac by an invisible knot of blood. Once John Rebus served in Britain's elite SAS. Now he's an Edinburgh cop who hides from his memories, misses promotions and ignores a series of crank letters....
Death at La Fenice
Donna Leon
Paper Book
"A gripping first mystery, as beguiling and secretly sinister as Venice herself. Sparkling and irresistible." -- Rita Mae Brown The first book in the internationally bestselling Guido Brunetti detective series in which a high society murder leads Guido to investigate the darker side...
Cover Her Face
P. D. James
Ebook
The first in the series of scintillating mysteries to feature cunning Scotland Yard detective, Adam Dalgliesh from P.D. James, the bestselling author hailed by People magazine as "the greatest living mystery writer." Dalgliesh is also a streaming series starring Bertie Carvel--now...
Magpie Murders
Anthony Horowitz
Paper Book
"Magpie Murders is a double puzzle for puzzle fans, who don't often get the classicism they want from contemporary thrillers." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times New York Times bestseller | Winner of the Macavity Award for Best Novel | NPR best book of the Year | Washington...
Deal Breaker
Harlan Coben
Paper Book
The debut of Myron Bolitar, a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent and one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fiction, Deal Breaker is a page-turning classic from Edgar Award-winner and master storyteller Harlan Coben. nbsp; "One of the most engaging heroes...
The Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller | Soon to be a major motion picture from Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment "Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining." --Wall Street Journal   "Don't trust anyone, including the four septuagenarian...
Raven Black
Ann Cleeves
Ebook
The basis for the hit series "Shetland" now airing on PBS. Winner of Britain's coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Ann Cleeves's Raven Black introduces a dazzling suspense series to U.S. mystery readers. It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies...
The Crossing Places
Elly Griffiths
Ebook
The first entry in the acclaimed Ruth Galloway series follows the "captivating"* archaeologist as she investigates a child's bones found on a nearby beach, thought to be the remains of a little girl who went missing ten years before. Forensic archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway...
Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder
Joanne Fluke
Paper Book
Hannah Swensen already has her hands full, but when the Cozy Cow Dairys beloved delivery man is found murdered behind her bakery with her famous Chocolate Chip Crunchies scattered around him, Hannah sets out to track down a killer. Includes a bonus short story and brand-new recipes.
Her Royal Spyness
Rhys Bowen
Paper Book
The Agatha Award winner debuts a 1930s London mystery series, featuring a penniless twenty-something member of the extended royal family. Her ridiculously long name is Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, daughter to the Duke of Atholt and Rannoch. And she is flat broke. As the thirty-fourth...
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
M. C. Beaton
Audiobook
The Godwulf Manuscript
Robert B. Parker
Ebook
New York Times bestselling author of the Spenser series of crime thrillers--Book 1 in the series "The toughest, funniest, wisest, private eye in the field these days."--Houston Chronicle Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard...
The Word Is Murder
Anthony Horowitz
Paper Book
SHE PLANNED HER OWN FUNERAL. BUT DID SHE ARRANGE HER OWN MURDER? New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty, Anthony Horowitz has yet again brilliantly reinvented the classic crime novel, this time writing a fictional version of himself as the Watson to a modern-day...
The Distant Echo
Val McDermid
Paper Book
Four in the morning, mid-December, and snow blankets St. Andrews School. Student Alex Gilbery and his three best friends are staggering home from a party when they stumble upon the body of a young woman. Rosie Duff has been raped, stabbed and left for dead in the ancient Pictish cemetery. The...
A Share in Death
Deborah Crombie
Audiobook
A week's holiday in a luxurious hotel is just what Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid needs. But his vacation ends dramatically with the discovery of a dead body in the whirlpool bath. Despite a suspicious lack of cooperation from the local constabulary, Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't...
A Duty to the Dead
Charles Todd
Paper Book
"Another winner....Todd again excels at vivid atmosphere and the effects of war in this specific time and place. Grade: A." --
Murder in the Marais
Cara Black
Paper Book
Aimée Leduc, a Parisian private investigator, has always sworn she would stick to tech investigation—no criminal cases for her. Especially since her father, the late police detective, was killed in the line of duty. But when an old Jewish man approaches Aimée with a top-secret decoding job on...
The Stranger Diaries
Elly Griffiths
Paper Book
International Bestseller Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel "This lively whodunit keeps you guessing until the end." --People "Utterly bewitching...As unforgettable as it is original." --A.J. Finn ...

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