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Mar 11, 2024 · 2. The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman. Shop Now. Series starter: The Thursday Murder Club (2020) What you’re in for: Murder and mirth, octogenarians, laugh-out-loud gags. Richard ...
- The Best Detective Novel Series
- The Best Historical Mysteries
- The Best Private Detective Mysteries
7. The Dublin Murder Squad Series by Tana French
This is my personal favorite mystery series; the writing is beautiful and each book follows a different detective, so you don’t need to read them in any particular order. French’s novels focus on character development but the mysteries are also compelling. I recommend starting with In the Woods or The Likeness.
9. The Harry Hole Series by Jo Nesbo
This is the book series that brought us The Snowman. Inspector Harry Hole is the best detective on the Oslo Crime Squad, but he’s not without his personal demons. The first book, The Bat, sees Hole traveling to Sydney to assist local authorities on the investigation into the murder of a twentysomething Norwegian woman. Pro-tip: read The Bat before The Snowmanbecause the latter book contains spoilers!
10. The Harry Bosch Series by Michael Connelly
What’s with mystery writers and the name Harry? If you’re looking for a long-running series with tons of books to choose from, Connelly’s famed detective is a great place to look.
12. The Perveen Mistry Series by Sujata Massey
Only one book, The Widows of Malabar Hill, has been released in this new series so far. But Massey’s debut will surely keep you waiting for the sequel. Perveen Mistry is a lawyer—the only female lawyer in early 1920s Bombay, in fact—tasked with executing the will of a powerful mill owner survived by three widows. But the paperwork opens more questions than it answers.
13. A Change of Fortune Mystery Series by Jessica Estevao
Ruby Proulx is one the run from the authorities in late-1800s Canada after her con artist father runs afoul of the law. While hiding out at her aunt’s hotel in Maine, she must use her tarot reading skills to help solve a series of crimes…all the while ensuring the cops don’t find out about her dark past.
14. The Flavia de Luce Series by Alan Bradley
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie kicks off this series about Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist who knows her poison. It’s a little more contemporary than many other historical mystery series, kicking off in the 1950s.
15. The Jackson Brodie Series by Kate Atkinson
Love detectives but hate the police procedural aspects of these stories? P.I. Jackson Brodie is the perfect compromise—he solves crimes without the police chief breathing down his back.
16. The Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith
Cormoran Strike is your classic contemporary private eye—brash, reclusive, willing to bend the rules, and better at solving crime than the local police force. The first book in the series is The Cuckoo’s Calling, but I started with The Silkworm. Looking for more personalized mystery book series recommendations? Check out Book Riot’s TBR book recommendation service, which lets you work with an expert bibliologist to stock your bookshelves!
- Erin Mayer
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- Claire DeWitt Mysteries. 'Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead' by Sara Gran. From Come Closer author Sara Gran comes this series, which CNN has hailed as “David Lynch [meets] Raymond Chandler.”
- Detective Elouise Norton. 'Land of Shadows' by Rachel Howzell Hall. Underground Books. In Rachel Howzell Hall’s four-part mystery series, an experienced Los Angeles homicide detective gets partnered with a rookie from Colorado Springs.
- Gethsemane Brown Mysteries. 'Murder in G Major' by Alexia Gordon. Brain Lair Books. Alexia Gordon’s award-winning series follows musician Gethsemane Brown across the Atlantic to Ireland, where she’s just accepted a job with a boys’ orchestra.
- Ice Cream Parlor Mysteries. 'A Deadly Inside Scoop' by Abby Collette. Black Garnet Books. After returning to her small hometown in Ohio, business school grad Bronwyn — Win, to her friends — takes on the challenging job of renovating and rebooting her parents’ business, Crewse Creamery.
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #3) by Arthur Conan Doyle.
- Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10) by Agatha Christie.
- Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot, #18) by Agatha Christie.
- The Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith. In case you didn’t know, Robert Galbraith is acutally J.K. Rowling in disguise, so if you loved her Harry Potter books, you will most likely find these books just as un-put-down-able.
- The Bill Hodges Trilogy by Stephen King. Master horror storyteller Stephen King brings us this terrifying mystery series featuring Bill Hodges, a retired police detective who is on the tail of a man who calls himself Mr. Mercedes—and rightly so, because he runs down several people with a Mercedes.
- The Claire DeWitt Mysteries by Sara Gran. If you’re tired of routine mystery tropes, this series is for you. Claire DeWitt is one of three female detectives devoted to a French detective’s investigative process on an almost mystical level.
- The Jones Cooper Series by Lisa Unger. Experience a different twist on the detective novel with this series that revolves around the Hollows, a fictional town in upstate New York.
Apr 24, 2023 · The Origins of the Mystery Genre. Before we jump into the best book series, it’s worth taking a look at how the mystery genre got its start. In the early 19th century, writers like Edgar Allan Poe began exploring the concept of detective fiction, with Poe’s seminal work “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” introducing readers to C. Auguste Dupin, one of the first literary detectives.
