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
Larsson, Stieg
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
Butcher, Jim.
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 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...
One for the money
Evanovich, Janet.
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
Chandler, Raymond
CD
In the woods / Tana French
French, Tana.
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
Galbraith, Robert.
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...
Case histories : a novel
Atkinson, Kate.
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
Bradley, C. Alan
Paper Book
In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950--and a series of inexplicable events has...
A study in scarlet
Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
Paper Book
Convalescing in London after a disastrous experience of war in Afghanistan, Dr John Watson finds himself sharing rooms with his enigmatic new acquaintance, Sherlock Holmes. But their quiet bachelor life at 221B Baker Street is soon interrupted by the grisly discovery of a dead man in a grimy 'ill...
A is for alibi : a Kinsey Millhone mystery
Grafton, Sue.
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: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel
Penny, Louise
Paper Book
Read the series that inspired Three Pines on Prime Video. In Still Life, bestselling author Louise Penny introduces Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec. Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys...
The murder at the vicarage
Christie, Agatha
Paper Book
Colonel Protheroe, St. Mary Mead's most loathed magistrate, has been found shot through the head. It isn't his murder that raises eyebrows, but rather the scandalous secrets it exposes which send Miss Marple on the trail of a killer with something to hide. Reissue.
The black echo
Connelly, Michael
CD
BOOK 1 OF THE NATIONALLY BESTSELLING HARRY BOSCH SERIES, NOW A HIT TV SHOW "Michael Connelly is the master of the universe in which he lives, and that is the sphere of crime thrillers." - Huffington Post For maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body in the...
Maisie Dobbs : a novel
Winspear, Jacqueline
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
Peters, Elizabeth
Paper Book
From a New York Times bestselling author, a Victorian-era thriller featuring Egyptologist Amelia Peabody, a self-proclaimed spinster and heiress who's unrattled by anyone-including mummies. The unshakeable Amelia Peabody embarks on an Egyptian...
The Bat
Nesbø, Jo
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...
Magpie murders
Horowitz, Anthony
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
Coben, Harlan
Paper Book
Sports agent Myron Bolitar is poised on the edge of the big time. So is Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback and Myron's prized client. But when Christian gets a phone call from a former girlfriend, a woman who everyone, including the police, believes is dead, the deal starts to go sour. Trying to...
The Thursday murder club
Osman, Richard
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
Cleeves, Ann.
Paper Book
Long a celebrated crime writer in Britain, Ann Cleeves’ fame went international when she won the coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger for this amazing suspense novel, Raven Black. Like Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse or Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks, Cleeves’...
The crossing places : a Ruth Galloway mystery
Griffiths, Elly.
Paper Book
When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in anbsp;remote area called Saltmarshnbsp;near Norfolk, land that was sacred to itsnbsp;Iron Agenbsp;inhabitants - not quite earth, not quite sea. When a child's bones are...
Chocolate chip cookie murder
Fluke, Joanne
Paper Book
DISCOVER THE DELICIOUS MYSTERY THAT STARTED IT ALL! No one cooks up a delectable, suspense-filled mystery quite like Hannah Swensen, Joanne Fluke's dessert-baking, red-haired heroine whose gingersnaps are as tart as her comebacks, and whose penchant for solving crimes-one...
Her royal spyness
Bowen, Rhys.
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
Beaton, M. C.
Paper Book
"When Mrs. Agatha Raisin decides to retire early to the English Cotswolds, she envisions herself enjoying all that country life has to offer: garden parties, tea at the vicarage, and a cozy home far from the noise and smell of London." "Life in the village of Carsley is not as Agatha anticipated,...
The Godwulf manuscript
Parker, Robert B.
Paper Book
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 : a novel
Horowitz, Anthony
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
McDermid, Val.
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...
Murder in the Marais
Black, Cara
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
Griffiths, Elly
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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