There may be a detective hiding somewhere inside of you. The characters in these books never expected to be investigating a murder. When put on the spot however, they prove to be quite capable, if a little frazzled. Grab your magnifying glass and see if you can untangle these mysteries alongside these baffled detectives. Curated by Tabor Millien.
Looking for digital? Check for eBooks and eAudiobooks here.
cloudLibrary | Libby | Freading
The Pie & Mash Detective Agency by J.D. Brinkworth
Oddball couple Jane and Simon take a private detective class and must use their (admittedly limited) skills to solve a series of mysterious disappearances in this delightful debut mystery.
Jane Pye and Simon Mash are a millennial couple with a little extra time on their hands. Jane was recently let go from her position as a back-end programmer, having never been quite sure what that meant. And Simon’s career as a corporate collaboration consultant seems to be less collaborating and more scrolling the internet in search of matching velour tracksuits and well-balanced charcuterie boards. When they sign up for a private detective class on a whim, they quickly realize they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.
Their instructor, having a feeling his two worst students don’t have a chance of solving anything beyond finding the classroom, assigns them the case of Nellie Thorne, a woman recently reported missing. But she’s not the first Nellie Thorne to disappear. In fact, she’s the fifth in fifty years. Jane and Simon set out to solve the case, armed with just a few days of notes, matching trench coats, and a feeling they should have enrolled in a different class. The investigation leads the newly minted Pie and Mash Detective Agency to places they never thought they’d go, including haunted woods, mysterious archives, and, most terrifyingly for Jane, Simon’s mum’s house.
As clues emerge, more questions than answers begin to pile up. What links the missing Nellies? Why do locals think she’s a ghost? Is their teacher hiding something? So what if they’re heavy on heart but light on experience. Jane and Simon are determined to uncover the truth in time to pass the class and save the day.
Definitely Maybe Not a Detective by Sarah Fox
In this delightfully charming rom-com mystery, a woman becomes accidentally entangled in a murder investigation (and with a handsome stranger) when her fake detective agency is enlisted to solve a real homicide.
Emersyn Gray is definitely not a detective.
Really, she’s an unemployed twenty-eight-year-old raising her beloved niece in the only place she can afford after her ex-boyfriend ran off with her life savings: a run-down, seniors-only apartment complex that was desperate for tenants. But never fear-her wild best friend has the perfect plan to get Emersyn back on her feet and stick it to her thieving ex: scare him into returning her money by hiring a private investigator to prove he stole it. Only, there won’t be an actual detective, just a fabricated business card from Wyatt Investigations . . . and a ridiculously hot stranger, who steps in to play the part-a stranger whose name is, coincidentally, Wyatt.
Emersyn can’t help but notice the real-life Wyatt is capital H-O-T hot, even though she’s wary of his intentions. But her ex does seem flustered, and if she can get her money back and regain control of her life, maybe it’ll finally prove to her parents that she can be a responsible caregiver to her niece.
But the day after they set their plan in motion, the superintendent of Emersyn’s apartment building winds up dead, and her neighbors turn to her fake detective agency for help after finding one of the phony business cards. With so many eyes on them-or maybe just their eyes on each other-Emersyn and Wyatt agree to take on the case. Now the question is, Can they solve the murder without getting tangled up in their own fictions-or each other?
Last Night Was Killer by Mary Pauline Lowry
A suspenseful, bighearted, and laugh-out-loud story of a single mom trying to do it all–including solve a murder she may or may not have committed…
When Tilly Turner signed up for an introductory pole-dancing class, she was looking for a distraction. Reeling from her mother’s passing, and with her career as a stand-up comedian in ruins, Tilly has just moved back to the Idaho hometown she was desperate to leave, with her twin daughters in tow.
But Tilly gets more than she bargained for after a night out with her new pole-dancing pals. She wakes to a raging hangover, no memory of the evening before, and a dead body in the trunk of her car.
Who was the dead man And more importantly, who killed him Tilly has no alibi and needs answers. But investigating a murder is complicated, especially with an old frenemy circling, childcare plans falling through, and pole-dancing classes to attend. And don’t even mention the sexy ATF agent who she’s trying (and failing) to keep at arm’s length.
As Tilly races to solve the mystery before the police come knocking, she finds herself implicated in a larger plot that includes political subterfuge and arms dealing. But who knows–maybe busting a criminal enterprise will be just the shake-up she needs.
Balancing both heart and hilarity, and with a witty take on the struggles of modern motherhood, Last Night Was Killer is a charming introduction to the most unlikely–and likable–of sleuths.
Tender at the Bone meets Finlay Donovan is Killing It in this hilarious, fast-paced mystery about a feisty food critic in 1970s NY who finds her chef friend murdered and realizes she might be the only one to find the killer.
Nobody in Manhattan eats better than Bernice Black. It’s 1972, and she is the city’s busiest restaurant critic, juggling her fiance and his two young sons with demands of fine dining. Bernice talks fast, walks faster, has a razor-sharp wit and no patience for anything–or anyone–that gets in her way.
When she stops by the famed restaurant of her favorite chef and mentor, Laurent Tirel, early one morning, she stumbles across a horrific scene in the kitchen: Laurent’s severed head, perfectly preserved in a flawless mold of jellied aspic.
Her meeting with the cops assigned to the case proves only one thing-they know nothing about food or the seedy underworld that BB Black has made her home. With layoffs looming, Bernice makes the gamble of her career-she promises her editor she can catch Laurent’s killer before the week is out.
To Kill a Cook is a delicious, witty, fast-paced mystery with a lovable, unforgettable protagonist at it center.
An Amateur Sleuth’s Guide to Murder by Lynn Cahoon
TIP #1: WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU COUNTS AS WORK EXPERIENCE
Meg Gates could use a guidebook for life. Indeed, she’s faced some challenges. She dropped out of college to work for a tech startup that failed-and her fiance just took her bridesmaid to Italy on what was supposed to be Meg’s honeymoon.
Now, at twenty-six, Meg has taken the ferry ride of shame from Seattle back to Bainbridge Island to live with her family. At least she has her rescue cocker spaniel, Watson, by her side. But it’s Meg who could use a rescue-and she’s hoping it will come in the form of a part-time gig doing research for a bestselling mystery writer.
TIP #2: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW – OR WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW
That’s when the lightbulb goes on: Meg will write her own guidebook-a manual on criminal investigation. But before she can impress her new boss with her pet project, the author’s manager is found dead on the rocks beneath the author’s Gothic mansion.
Now it’s time to put her guide to the test, as Meg sets out to clear her employer of suspicion and solve the crime. But there’s one important caveat she’ll have to add to her guide-
TIP #3: BEWARE OF UNKNOWN DANGERS
Pomona Afton Can So Solve a Murder by Bellamy Rose
When Pomona Afton, Upper East Side hotel heiress, stumbles out of a gala and upon the scene of her grandmother’s murder, her first thought is that the society queen won’t be missed for her kind, cookie-baking ways. In fact, she was mean, greedy, and paranoid–so paranoid that she secretly slipped a clause into her will mandating that, should she die an unnatural death, all the family assets get frozen. And if the “unnatural death” isn’t explained? Those accounts stay frozen.
Practically overnight, Pomona is locked out of her penthouse with no other option than to move in with a roommate: Gabe, the irritable (yet handsome) son of her former nanny. Not only is his apartment cramped, but it doesn’t even have a doorman. Or a chef! Pom needs someone to solve this murder, like, yesterday, so she can get her trust fund back.
And Gabe? He needs this murder solved because that’s the only way his mother, who toiled for the Afton family for years, will ever get the retirement money she deserves. As Pom’s family clams up, blocking the police at every turn, Pom quickly realizes that if she wants her glamorous life back, she’s going to have to put on her big-girl Manolos and do it herself…with the help of Gabe, who she’s falling for more and more by the day.
Can Pomona Afton (who previously couldn’t solve a crossword in the bath on a hungover Sunday) actually solve this murder? And if she does return to her former life of luxury, will it be worth the possibility of losing Gabe?
My Father Always Finds Corpses by Lee Hollis
With a wryly witty and assured voice and a vastly entertaining cast of characters, Lee Hollis puts a modern slant on the classic murder mystery as a father-daughter sleuthing duo are drawn into a case close to home . . .
You never forget your first corpse. For former child star Jarrod Jarvis, that discovery was twenty-plus years ago, and a lot has happened since he solved a string of real-life Hollywood murders. Now Jarrod lives in Palm Springs where he writes and directs local theatre, while quietly grieving the loss of his partner, police detective Charlie.
Jarrod hasn’t disclosed much about his sleuthing past to his daughter, Liv, who just earned a degree in criminal justice. There’s been distance between them since Charlie’s death, and Jarrod’s unsure how to bridge the gap. Liv, meanwhile, has put her career on hold in order to help her filmmaker boyfriend, Zel. His new documentary idea is to track down the surrogate who gave birth to Liv. Skeptical and annoyed by Zel’s pressure tactics, Liv goes to confront him at his apartment. But there’s no need to break things off-because someone has bludgeoned Zel to death.
Jarrod rushes to Liv’s aid, surprising his daughter with his ease around a crime scene, firing off questions like a modern-day Columbo with better hair and wardrobe. Another shock is quite how many people had motive to finish Zel off-including a Russian film professor, a former First Lady, and a sexy Secret Service agent. Together, Liv and Jarrod comb for clues across the sun-drenched Coachella valley, growing close again. But while there’s nothing like murder to bring a family together, this father-daughter reunion may be short-lived as long as a killer is on the loose . . .
The Botanist’s Assistant by Peggy Townsend
A murder in the science lab shatters a woman’s quiet and ordered life when she decides she must solve the crime herself in this entertaining and uplifting mystery.
Plenty of people consider Margaret Finch odd. Six-feet-tall and big-boned, she lives alone in a small cabin in the woods, drives a 20-year-old truck, and schedules her life so precisely you can tell the time and day of the week by the chore she is doing and what she is wearing. But the same attributes that cause her to be labeled eccentric-an obsessive attention to detail and the ability to organize almost anything-make her invaluable in her job as Research Assistant II to a talented and charismatic botanist.
It’s those very same qualities, however, that also turn Margaret into a target after a surprising death shakes the small university where she works. Even as authorities claim the death appears to be from natural causes, Margaret fears it might be something more: a murder born of jealousy and dark secrets. With the aid of a newly hired and enigmatic night custodian, Margaret finds herself thrust into the role of detective, forcing her to consider that she may not be able to find the killer before the killer finds her.
With a cast of quirky and likeable characters that one won’t soon forget, The Botanist’s Assistant is a delightful story of perseverance and the power in all of us to survive.
This Is Not a Game by Kelly Mullen
MURDER
MARTINIS
A GRANDMOTHER-GRANDDAUGHTER SLEUTHING DUO
DACHSHUNDS (x2)
A GLAMOROUS ISLAND MANOR
Widow Mimi lives on idyllic Mackinac Island, where cars are not allowed and a Gibson martini with three onions at the witching hour is compulsory. Her estranged granddaughter, Addie, is getting over the heartbreak of not only being dumped by her fiancé, Brian, but also being cut out of the deal for the brilliantly successful video game Murderscape they invented together (with Addie doing most of the heavy lifting).
When Mimi gets an invitation from local socialite Jane Ireland–a seventysomething narcissist who’s having a salacious affair with her son-in-law–to a charity auction, she invites Addie. But Mimi doesn’t tell her that a blackmail threat from Jane looms over the party’s invitation.
Once they arrive, a big storm rolls in, trapping everyone in the mansion. And then, Jane is murdered. Soon Mimi and Addie’s strained relationship is put to the test when they must team up to narrow down the suspects. When another body turns up, the sleuthing pair realize someone else is playing a deadly game, and they might not survive the night.
In the quaint English town of Hoslewit, the biggest names in crime writing have congregated to celebrate all things bookish and murderous. Author Jane Hepburn is determined to make her time at the Killer Lines festival worthwhile. This is her chance to change her fortunes and make her fictional Private Detective Baker a household name. And if she has to resort to sneaking into the book tent after hours to rearrange some books so hers are front and center, so be it.
But when Jane encounters the dead body of renowned (and reviled) literary agent Carrie Marks, the festival takes on a decidedly different tone. Joined by Carrie’s newest client, debut novelist Natasha Martez, and the agency’s hapless intern, Daniel Thurston, Jane decides to put her fictional sleuthing skills to use in the real world–she’s going to solve the murder. But the list of suspects is long: seemingly everyone at the festival has a motive to kill Carrie, and the more Jane and her new friends investigate, the closer they come to a dangerous truth–one that’s stranger than fiction.
