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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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!
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The girl with the dragon tattoo
Larsson, Stieg
Paper Book
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The thrilling first book in the Millenium series featuring Lisbeth Salander: "Combine the chilly Swedish backdrop and moody psychodrama of a Bergman movie with the grisly pyrotechnics of a serial-killer thriller, then add an angry punk heroine and a down-on-his-luck...
Storm front
Butcher, Jim
Paper Book
'The Dresden Files is my favourite series ever' Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind ***THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLING SERIES*** Meet Harry Dresden, Chicago's first (and only) Wizard P.I. Turns out the...
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
The dynamite blockbusterfrom Janet Evanovich that started it all--now a major motion picture starring Katherine Heigl as Stephanie Plum! ONE FINE MESS Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, home to wiseguys, average Joes, and Stephanie Plum, who sports a big...
The big sleep
Chandler, Raymond
Paper Book
Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets,...
In the woods
French, Tana
Paper Book
When he was twelve years old, Adam Ryan went playing in the woods with his two best friends. He never saw them again. Their bodies were never found, and Adam himself was discovered with his back pressed against an oak tree and his shoes filled with blood. He had no memory of what had happened.
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). After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan,...
The mysterious affair at Styles : the first Hercule Poirot mystery
Christie, Agatha
Paper Book
Home from the First World War, Lieutenant Hastings finds himself in a convalescent home very much to his disliking. Thankfully his old friend John Cavendish invites him to spend the rest of his sick leave at his family home.
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 : a Flavia de Luce novel
Bradley, Alan
Paper Book
Meet Flavia: Mystery Solver. Master Poisoner. 11 Years Old. England 1950. At Buckshaw, the crumbling country seat of the de Luce family, very-nearly-eleven-year-old Flavia is plotting revenge on her older sisters. Then a dead bird is left on the...
Sherlock Holmes in A study in scarlet
Doyle, Arthur Conan
Paper Book
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first novel--and the origin story of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson--is reimagined in the first unabridged, fully illustrated version since its debut, by acclaimed and bestselling illustrator Gris Grimly. The year is 1881. The city, London. A man lies dead in an...
A is for alibi
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
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 beekeeper's apprentice : or, On the segregation of the queen
King, Laurie R.
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 : a Miss Marple mystery
Christie, Agatha
Paper Book
A quiet English village A shocking murder An unlikely detective Nobody liked Colonel Protheroe. So when he's found dead in the vicarage study, there's no absence of suspects in the seemingly peaceful village of St Mary Mead. In fact, Jane...
Rivers of London
Aaronovitch, Ben
Paper Book
Book 1 in the Rivers of London series, from Sunday Times Number One bestselling author Ben Aaronovitch. My name is Peter Grant, and I used to be a probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police...
The black echo
Connelly, Michael
Paper Book
A Vietnam veteran-turned-detective, Hieronymus Harry Bosch discovers the body of a former comrade-in-arms during an investigation and, with the help of an attractive FBI agent, hunts for the murderers on a trail leading back to Saigon.
Whose body?
Sayers, Dorothy L.
Paper Book
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 bone collector
Deaver, Jeffery.
Paper Book
A morbid taste for bones
Peters, Ellis
Paper Book
In 1137 the ambitious head of Shrewsbury Abbey has decided to acquire the remains of Saint Winifred for his Benedictine order. Brother Cadfael is part of the expedition sent to her final resting place in Wales, where they find the villagers passionately divided by the Benedictines' offer for the...
The Bat
Nesbø, Jo
Paper Book
**DETECTIVE HOLE IS SOON TO BE A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES** Discover the addictive first book in the bestselling Harry Hole series. 'A stunning opening to the series' Sunday Times Harry is out of his depth. Detective...
Knots and crosses [LP]
Rankin, Ian.
Paper Book
Death at La Fenice : a Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery
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...
Cover her face
James, P. D.
Paper Book
On the same day as the St Cedd's church fete in the grounds of her home, Martingale, Mrs Maxie learns of her son Stephen's engagement. By the next morning, her new parlourmaid, Sally Jupp, is dead. Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh investigates murder in the Elizabethan manor house.
Magpie murders
Horowitz, Anthony
Paper Book
Don't miss Magpie Murders on PBS's MASTERPIECE Mystery! "A double puzzle for puzzle fans, who don't often get the classicism they want from contemporary thrillers." --Janet Maslin, New York Times New York Times Bestseller | Winner of...
Deal breaker
Coben, Harlan
Paper Book
The Thursday Murder Club
Osman, Richard
Paper Book
Now a Netflix Film 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 with her first...
The cat who could read backwards
Braun, Lilian Jackson.
Paper Book
THE FIRST COZY MYSTERY IN THE BELOVED NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING CAT WHO SERIES! The world of modern art is a mystery to many. But for Jim Qwilleran, it turns into a mystery of another sort when his assignment for The Daily Fluxion leads down the path to murder.<...
Raven black
Cleeves, Ann
Paper Book
Raven Black is the first book in Ann Cleeves' bestselling Shetland series, also a BBC One and Netflix drama starring Douglas Henshall as Jimmy Perez.Now reissued with a new cover look.A remote community, touched by evil - would you know who to trust?It is a cold January morning and...
The crossing places
Griffiths, Elly
Paper Book
The first entry in the acclaimed Ruth Galloway British crime series follows the "captivating"* archaeologist as she investigates a child's bones found on a nearby beach, thought to be part of a decade-old cold case. Forensic archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway is in her late thirties....
Chocolate chip cookie murder : a Hannah Swensen mystery
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.
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
Meet Agatha Raisin, high-flying public relations boss turned village sleuth. After her many years of bullying and cajoling others, her early retirement to a picture-perfect village in the Cotswolds is a dream come true.
The word is murder : a novel
Horowitz, Anthony
Paper Book
"One of the most entertaining mysteries of the year. It's also one of the most stimulating, as it ponders such questions as: Which is of greater interest to the reader, the crime or the detective? And: Is the pencil truly mightier than the butcher knife?" -- Wall Street Journal ...
The distant echo
McDermid, Val
Paper Book
The first novel in the bestselling Karen Pirie series The award-winning Number One bestseller and Queen of crime fiction Val McDermid carves out a stunning psychological thriller. The past is behind them, but what's still to come will tear them apart... From the...
A share in death
Crombie, Deborah.
Paper Book
The first appearance of Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James--nominated for an Agatha and Macavity Award for Best First Novel--is reissued.
A duty to the dead
Todd, Charles
Paper Book
Dedicated to helping the many wounded during the Great War, Bess Crawford receives a desperate request from a dying lieutenant while serving as a nurse aboard a hospital ship. "Tell my brother Jonathan that I lied," the young man says. "I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be...
Murder in the Marais
Black, Cara
Paper Book
Aimee Leduc, a Parisian private investigator, has 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 Aimee with a secret decoding job on behalf of a...
The stranger diaries
Griffiths, Elly
Paper Book
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