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  1. Genres
  2. ›Mystery

Best Mystery Books

Mystery and detective fiction

2,086 summaries

Showing 265–288 of 2,086

  1. Something Wicked This Way Comes

    Ray Bradbury

    ★ 3.9 (100k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    When a sinister carnival visits their quiet town, two young boys must confront its dark magic and the terrible cost of their deepest desires before it consumes everything.

  2. Camino Island

    John Grisham

    ★ 3.8 (100k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    A struggling novelist infiltrates the world of rare book dealing and theft on a Florida island, falling for the charismatic bookseller suspected of hiding priceless stolen manuscripts.

  3. Revival

    Stephen King

    ★ 3.8 (100k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    A small-town minister's intense connection with a young boy turns into a lifelong, devastating pact with cosmic horror after tragedy transforms him into a showman who uses dark electricity.

  4. Eleven on Top

    Janet Evanovich

    ★ 4.2 (100k) average on GoodreadsRomance

    After trading bulletproof vests for button factories, hapless bounty hunter Stephanie Plum discovers that escaping her dangerous career is far less deadly than escaping a resurrected maniac determined to bury her for good.

  5. Changes

    Jim Butcher

    ★ 4.5 (100k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    To save his daughter from the vengeful Red Court, Harry Dresden must confront his greatest fears and unleash the darkest aspects of his power, even if it means sacrificing everything he holds dear.

  6. The Grownup

    Gillian Flynn

    ★ 3.6 (100k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    A cynical con artist faking psychic abilities finds herself genuinely entangled in a web of dark secrets and unsettling truths within a haunted Victorian home, where the line between supernatural terror and human evil blurs.

  7. Hoot

    Carl Hiaasen

    ★ 3.8 (97k) average on GoodreadsChildren's

    When a new kid in Florida crosses paths with a shoeless, running boy, he's pulled into a quirky, eco-mystery involving burrowing owls, a pancake-house conspiracy, and a cast of eccentric characters determined to save their natural habitat.

  8. Bleak House

    Charles Dickens

    ★ 4.0 (97k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    In Victorian London, the endless Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit slowly consumes fortunes and exposes society's decay, trapping both aristocrats and paupers in its tragic grip.

  9. Rose Madder

    Stephen King

    ★ 3.7 (97k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    Fleeing her abusive husband, Rosie discovers a mysterious painting that offers both refuge and a dangerous gateway to a mythical world where she must confront her past and fight for her future.

  10. Code Name Verity

    Elizabeth Wein

    ★ 4.0 (97k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    A British spy, captured by the Gestapo, writes a confession while facing execution. Her story is a fight for survival and a look at her bond with the pilot she left behind.

  11. The Round House

    Louise Erdrich

    ★ 3.9 (96k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    When his mother is attacked on their Ojibwe reservation, a teenage boy named Joe seeks justice, forcing him to deal with tribal law, family loyalty, and how one violent act affects everything.

  12. The Grim Grotto

    Lemony Snicket

    ★ 4.0 (96k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    The Baudelaire orphans confront a submarine mystery, battling mechanical monsters, a deadly fungus, and their own despair while searching for a lost friend in a perpetually damp world.

  13. One Shot

    Lee Child

    ★ 4.2 (96k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    When a simple sniper case turns into a complex plot, ex-military investigator Jack Reacher must find the truth, even if it means facing a dangerous enemy.

  14. Harriet the Spy

    Louise Fitzhugh

    ★ 4.0 (95k) average on GoodreadsChildren's

    Armed with a trusty notebook and an unsparing wit, Harriet M. Welsch chronicles the hilariously harsh truths of her world, only to discover the explosive consequences when her candid observations fall into the wrong hands.

  15. The Last Anniversary

    Liane Moriarty

    ★ 3.8 (95k) average on GoodreadsRomance

    Sophie inherits an island house tied to an unsolved mystery. She rekindles a past romance and uncovers the hidden lives of the eccentric women around her, making her redefine her own path to happiness.

  16. Rivers of London

    Ben Aaronovitch

    ★ 3.9 (94k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    Rookie cop Peter Grant's mundane career takes a supernatural turn when he discovers he can speak to ghosts, thrusting him into a hidden London where ancient river gods and dark magic clash with modern policing as he apprentices under England's last officially sanctioned wizard.

  17. Vanishing Acts

    Jodi Picoult

    ★ 3.7 (94k) average on Goodreads

    A woman's perfect life shatters when a policeman reveals her father kidnapped her as a child, forcing her to confront her past and redefine family.

  18. Faithful Place

    Tana French

    ★ 4.0 (93k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    A detective is forced to confront the ghosts of his past when the cold case of his vanished first love resurfaces in the working-class Dublin neighborhood he fled two decades prior.

  19. Sometimes I Lie

    Alice Feeney

    ★ 3.8 (92k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    Trapped in a coma, Amber Reynolds pieces together the chilling truth of her accident, only to discover her own memories might be the most dangerous lie of all.

  20. The President Is Missing

    Bill Clinton

    ★ 3.8 (91k) average on GoodreadsPolitics

    When a cyberterror plot threatens America and a traitor lurks within his cabinet, the President of the United States vanishes, becoming both suspect and victim in a real-time race against an unprecedented attack.

  21. Death Comes to Pemberley

    P.D. James

    ★ 3.3 (91k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    Six years into their marriage, Darcy and Elizabeth's peaceful Pemberley is broken by a midnight chaise carrying a hysterical Lydia, who claims her husband, Wickham, has been murdered in the dark woods.

  22. The Widow

    Fiona Barton

    ★ 3.5 (91k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    After years of silent complicity, a widow finds her voice and a dangerous new power to manipulate the truth about her late husband's sinister past.

  23. Let the Right One In

    John Ajvide Lindqvist

    ★ 4.0 (90k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    In a bleak 1980s Swedish suburb, a lonely, bullied boy finds an unlikely and dangerous friendship with the mysterious, ageless girl next door, whose arrival coincides with a string of gruesome, blood-drained murders.

  24. Her Fearful Symmetry

    Audrey Niffenegger

    ★ 3.3 (90k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    Two American twins inherit their mysterious aunt's London flat next to Highgate Cemetery, only to discover that the line between life and death—and their own identities—is blurred within its spectral walls.

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