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
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson
Paper Book
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse, no witnesses, no evidence. But her uncle, Henrik, is convinced that she was murdered by someone from her own deeply dysfunctional family. Disgraced journalist...
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
McCall Smith, Alexander
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...
In the Woods
Tana French
Paper Book
The debut novel of an astonishing voice in psychological suspense As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police...
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
Christie, Agatha
Paper Book
Set in 1916, we meet Captain Hastings as he is invalided out of the Great War and goes to convalesce at Styles Court, the family home of his great friend, John Cavendish. By an extraordinary coincidence, billeted in the village is a brilliant little retired detective with an egg-shaped head, who...
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 is for Alibi
Sue Grafton
Paper Book
Still life
Penny, Louise.
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestselling Author -- Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team are called to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal and yet a world away. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, has been found dead in the woods on Thanksgiving...
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Laurie R. King
Paper Book
In 1915, long since retired from his crime-fighting days, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybees on the Sussex Downs. Never did the Victorian detective think to meet an intellect matching his own–until his acquaintance with Miss Mary Russell, a young twentieth-century...
The Murder at the Vicarage
Agatha Christie
Paper Book
Now with a beautiful new series look, Agatha Christie's first mystery to feature the beloved investigator Miss Marple--as a dead body in a clergyman's study proves to the indomitable sleuth that no place, holy or otherwise, is a sanctuary from homicide. Miss Marple encounters a compelling...
Maisie Dobbs
Jacqueline Winspear
Paper Book
"A female investigator every bit as brainy and battle-hardened as Lisbeth Salander." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air, on Maisie Dobbs Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan...
The Bat
Jo Nesbø
Paper Book
Before Harry took on the neo-Nazi gangs of Oslo, before he met Rakel, before The Snowman tried to take everything he held dear, he went to Australia. Harry Hole is sent to Sydney to investigate the murder of Inger Holter, a young Norwegian girl, who was working in a bar. Initially sidelined as an...
Knots and Crosses
Ian Rankin
Paper Book
Discover how it all began in the very first Rebus novel from 'Britain's No.1 crime writer' Daily Mirror 'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?' 'That sort of thing' is the...
Magpie Murders
Anthony Horowitz
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery. When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan...
The Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman
Paper Book
Soon to be a Major Motion Picture The first installment in the beloved and New York Times bestselling series from Richard Osman, also author of We Solve Murders Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves A female cop...
Raven Black
Ann Cleeves
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DIAMOND DAGGER AWARD 2017NOW A MAJOR BBC DRAMAIt is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the...
The Word Is Murder
Anthony Horowitz
Paper Book
**A Guardian 'Best Thriller of the Year!'** The New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever and inventive mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as the Watson to a modern-day...
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." --
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 ...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.