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
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...
The big sleep
Chandler, Raymond
Paper Book
The renowned novel from the crime fiction master, with the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times), Philip Marlowe. * Featuring the iconic character that inspired the film Marlowe, starring Liam Neeson. One of The Atlantic's Great...
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...
The mysterious affair at Styles : a Hercule Poirot mystery
Christie, Agatha
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
Atkinson, Kate
Paper Book
Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, formar police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet--Lost on the left, Found on the right--and the two never seem to balance. Surrounded by death, intrigue and...
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
When Dr John Watson takes rooms in Baker Street with amateur detective Sherlock Holmes, he has no idea that he is about to enter a shadowy world of criminality and violence.
"A" is for alibi
Grafton, Sue
Paper Book
Still life
Penny, Louise
Paper Book
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté 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 local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods....
The beekeeper's apprentice, or, On the segregation of the queen
King, Laurie R.
Paper Book
An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee Named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association FromNew York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King comes the book that introduced us to the ingenious Mary Russell...
Murder at the vicarage : a Miss Marple mystery
Christie, Agatha
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...
Midnight riot
Aaronovitch, Ben
Paper Book
"Midnight Riot is what would happen if Harry Potter grew up and joined the Fuzz. It is a hilarious, keenly imagined caper."--Diana Gabaldon  Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London's Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to...
The black echo
Connelly, Michael
Paper Book
An LAPD homicide detective must choose between justice and vengeance as he teams up with the FBI in this "thrilling" novel filled with mystery and adventure (New York Times Book Review). ​ For maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body in the...
Whose body?
Sayers, Dorothy L.
Paper Book
The first book in Dorothy L Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey series introduced by crime writer Laura Wilson - a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries. 'D. L. Sayers is one of the best...
Maisie Dobbs : a novel
Winspear, Jacqueline
Paper Book
After the Armistice in the spring of 1929, Maisie hangs out her shingle: M. Dobbs, Trade and Personal Investigations. Her very first case involves suspected infidelity but turns up something else, a tombstone with only a first name. The deceased had lived on a cooperative farm called The Retreat, a...
A morbid taste for bones
Peters, Ellis
Paper Book
The ambitious head of Shrewsbury Abbey wants to acquire Saint Winifred's sacred remains for his Benedictine order. And when the ensuing controversy leads to murder, Brother Cadfael investigates.
The bat
Nesbo, Jo
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
Rankin, Ian
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
Leon, Donna.
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...
Magpie Murders : A Novel
Horowitz, Anthony
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
Osman, Richard
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: the Shetland Series 1
Cleeves, Ann
Paper Book
Introducing Inspector Jimmy Perez. Raven Black is the first book in Ann Cleeves's bestselling Shetland series - now a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall. A remote community with a killer in their midst . . . On New Year's Day, Shetland lies...
The crossing places
Griffiths, Elly.
Paper Book
An atmospheric adventure with beloved forensic archaeologist and "captivating amateur sleuth" Ruth Galloway, as she teams up with Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson to investigate a set of remains, thought to be the bones of a little girl who went missing ten years before--"an inspired creation"...
Chocolate chip cookie murder
Fluke, Joanne
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.
The word is murder : a novel
Horowitz, Anthony
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
Todd, Charles.
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
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 ...

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