Mystery
The death of Mrs. Westaway
Ruth Ware
FICTION Ware Ruth
Fiction, Suspense, Mystery
"On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person--but also that the cold-reading skills she's honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money. Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased...where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the center of it."--
This poison will remain
Fred Vargas
MYSTERY Vargas Fred
Mystery
"A murder in Paris brings Commissaire Adamsberg out of the Icelandic mists of his previous investigation and unexpectedly into the region of Nîmes, where three old men have died of spider bites. The recluse has a sneaky attack, but is that enough to explain the deaths of these men, all killed by the same venom?At the National Museum of Natural History, Adamsberg meets a pensioner who tells him that two of the three octogenarians have known each other since childhood, when they lived in a local orphanage called The Mercy. There, they had belonged to a small group of violent young boys known as the "band of recluses." Adamsberg faces two obstacles: the third man killed by the same venom was not part of the "band of recluses," and the amount of spider venom necessary to kill doesn't add up.Yet after the Nîmes deaths, more members of the old band succumb to recluse bites, leading the commissaire to uncover the tragedy hidden behind the walls of the orphanage."--Publisher description.
The latest in her French mystery series starring the enigmatic Commissaire Adamsberg and his odd cast of coworkers. This series is fairly slow paced, it's more about the charming characters and setting. "This Poison Will Remain" has some smaller cases being solved around a larger story of older people dying as a result of venom from recluse spider bites. There are some call backs to previous books in the series though I think you could start here without too much worry. -Jason
A case in any case
Ulf Nilsson
jFICTION Nilsson Ulf
Kids, Early Chapter Books, Mystery, Fiction
When Detective Gordon retires and Buffy is left alone at the police station, she hears strange noises and decides to call on Gordon to help her with the mystery.
Sweet, gentle, yet hilariously funny Swedish frog detective and his deputy mouse solve sweet, gentle mysteries in the forest. -Anne W
The Westing game
Ellen Raskin
jFICTION Raskin, Ellen
Mystery, Fiction, Kids
The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance.
Mystery classic that centers on the death of an eccentric millionaire and the unlikely assortment of wacky characters all competing to solve the puzzle of his death to claim their inheritance. Funny, offbeat, weird, creepy! -Anne W
The view from Saturday
E. L Konigsburg
jFICTION Konigsburg, E. L.
Mystery, Fiction, Picture Books
Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who choses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.
The stories of four unique students are told and come together at the end, when they develop a special bond with each other and their teacher, who has chosen them to compete in the 6th grade Academic Bowl. Puzzles are woven throughout the narrative! -Anne W
When you reach me
Rebecca Stead
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Stead, Rebecca
Kids, Fiction, Adventure, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Mystery
As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1980s television game show, "The $20,000 Pyramid," a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.
Mix of sci-fi, mystery, and historical fiction (set in the 1970s), a middle-school girl must investigate the source of mysterious notes that appear in her personal belongings and, she realizes, predict the future. Time travel! -Anne W
Where the crawdads sing
Delia Owens
FICTION Owens Delia
Fiction, Mystery
"Fans of Barbara Kingsolver will love this stunning debut novel from a New York Times bestselling nature writer, about an unforgettable young woman determined to make her way in the wilds of North Carolina, and the two men that will break her isolation open. For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the land, learning from the false signals of fireflies the real way of this world. But while she could have lived in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world--until the unthinkable happens. In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a heartbreaking coming of age story and a surprising murder investigation. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens's debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps"--
I love how Delia Owens flawlessly weaves in two timelines for Where the Crawdads Sing. I was constantly trying to figure out how these timelines would merge and would look for clues to help me judge the mindset and capabilities of Kya, the "Marsh Girl." It is a beautiful story about human nature, human experience, and a celebration of nature. One of my favorite reads this year! -Becky
Antiques flee market : a trash 'n' treasures mystery
Barbara Allan
MYSTERY Allan, Barbara
Mystery
At the start of Allan's lively third antiques mystery (after 2007's Antiques Maul), divorcée Brandy Borne and her eternally glamorous if somewhat annoying mother, Vivian, are busy preparing for the Christmas rush in the small Midwestern town of Serenity. Then Walter Yeager, a fellow antiques dealer, dies of cyanide poisoning soon after it becomes public knowledge that the WWII veteran owned a valuable first edition of Tarzan of the Apes, which disappears from the crime scene. Walter's 20-year-old British goth granddaughter, Chaz, becomes the top suspect due to her prison record, but Brandy and Vivian believe she's innocent. Told primarily from Brandy's viewpoint with Vivian sneaking in quips for extra pizzazz, this bubbly tongue-in-cheek cozy also includes flea market shopping tips and a recipe. Allan is the pseudonym of the husband-wife writing team of Barbara and Max Allan Collins. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Added by Beth
Sweet little lies : a novel
Caz Frear
MYSTERY Frear Caz
Mystery
"Twenty-six-year-old Cat Kinsella overcame a troubled childhood to become a detective constable with the Metropolitan Police Force, but she's never been able to banish the ghosts of her past or reconcile with her estranged father. Work provides a refuge from her family dysfunction, but she relies on a caustic wit to hide her vulnerability from her colleagues. When a mysterious phone call links a recent strangling victim to Maryanne Doyle, a teenage girl who went missing in Ireland eighteen years earlier, the news is discomfiting for Cat. Though she was only a child when her family met Maryanne on a family vacation, right before she vanished, Cat knew that her charming but dissolute father wasn't telling the truth when he denied knowing anything about the girl's disappearance. Did he do something to Maryanne all those years ago? Could he have something to do with her current case? Determined to close the two cases, Cat rushes headlong into the investigation, crossing ethical lines and trampling professional codes. But the deeper she digs, the darker the secrets she may uncover... Narrated by the unforgettable Cat, Sweet Little Lies is both a compelling police procedural and a look at how we grapple with the shadows of our pasts"--Dust jacket.
Detective Constable Cat Kinsella is investigating the murder of a woman who turns out to have given herself a new identity years before. Cat realizes that she not only knew the victim--as a young but mature teenager who abruptly left the town they grew up in--but that she's always suspected her own father of having something to do with her disappearance. A slow boil of a mystery with well-developed characters. -Candice
Case histories
Kate Atkinson
FICTION Atkinson, Kate
Mystery
This year Kate Atkinson came out with her 5th book in her Jackson Brodie series, "Big Sky." I was once again reminded that I had never read a single book by Ms. Atkinson, despite constantly adding her books to my Goodreads "to read" list and hearing good things about her writing. I decided to read the first Jackson Brodie book, "Case Histories." I loved it! What I was most struck by was the sense of humor in her storytelling, even while dealing with tough subjects. The Jackson Brodie books (so far) are a blend of literary fiction and mystery - we shelve them in the regular fiction section. If you, like me, have been "meaning to" read Atkinson for years and keep putting it off, do yourself a favor and start one of her books. She also has many stand-alone novels which I look forward to reading. -Heidi K
I ended up listening to the audio book version of this story (read brilliantly by Imogen Church) and had a hard time setting it aside! Ruth Ware does a fantastic job with pulling in mysterious and suspenseful elements, leaving you anxious to fit together the clues and themes that are woven in throughout the narrative. The Death of Mrs. Westaway was such an engaging story and I would highly recommend the audio book version (available through the Libby App). -Becky