The 10 Best Murder Mystery Books to Read This Summer

Called the “Queen of Crime” for a reason, Agatha Christie is a name that’s practically analogous with the murder mystery, and there’s no better place to start than where she did, with her first detective novel introducing her legendary character Hercule Poirot. 

When the eccentric Belgian detective’s wealthy benefactor is murdered at Styles Court, he must put his prodigious skills to work in ferreting out the killer. Read it to see why The New Yorker raves that “Agatha Christie created the modern murder mystery.”

This international bestseller introduced readers to Cat Kinsella, a troubled heroine who had overcome a difficult childhood to become a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police in London. However, a murder in Islington finds her once again facing her estranged father and probing into her own past to try to find answers to an eighteen year old mystery. 

Could her father be involved in both cases? And does Cat really want to know the truth? Find out for yourself in this debut novel that The New York Times calls “a dark and smart page-turner.”

Violent crime is rare in Venice, but when it happens, it’s the purview of Comisario Guido Brunetti in this beloved debut that launched a long-running series that the Chicago Tribune calls a “piquant mixture of opera, food and Venetian scenery.” 

When a famous conductor dies of cyanide poisoning during an intermission at La Fenice, Brunetti is on the case in this “lively launch of a series” (Publishers Weekly). And if you can’t get enough of Comisario Guido Brunetti, there are many more books in the series to enjoy, with the New York Times Book Review raving that “Donna Leon’s Venetian mysteries never disappoint.”

Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens and stage magician Max Mephisto both served together in the war, part of a special ops unit called the Magic Men who used stage illusions to confound the enemy. Since then, they’ve been drawn together more than once in Elly Griffith’s popular Brighton Mysteries series, as the duo use police work and stagecraft to find elusive killers. 

In The Vanishing Box, these mysteries strike close to home when Max’s daughter Ruby goes missing. Read it to see why the Brighton Mysteries have been hailed as “thoroughly enjoyable” (Guardian) and “enormously engaging” (Daily Mail).

The Sunday Telegraph calls James Oswald’s Detective Inspector McLean series “crime fiction’s next big thing.” When a man is found hanging in an empty house, the authorities suspect suicide. But McLean feels that something is off, especially when a second body is discovered hanged in an identical way, and then a third. 

Under pressure from his superiors to close the case and dealing with the struggles of his own personal life, can McLean find the truth in this “engrossing” (Publisher Weekly) thriller… before it’s too late?

In this New York Times and USA Today bestseller, acclaimed author Eric Rickstad introduces readers to private investigator Frank Rath, and his tiny town of Canaan, Vermont. 

Frank thought he was done with murder when he turned in his detective’s badge, but now a darkness has come to Canaan. Young women are disappearing, and Frank is about to learn that even the smallest towns can harbor terrible evil in this book that Edgar finalist author Steve Ulfelder calls “Vermont’s own True Detective.”

“Those who like their heroines resourceful and their mystery plots leavened with humor will read this with pleasure,” raves Publishers Weekly, describing Kerry Greenwood’s beloved series of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, which inspired the hit Netflix series. 

This is the fourth book in Greenwood’s bestselling saga, but it’s a great place to get to know Phryne Fisher and her world, as she investigates a mystery that hits a little too close to home.

Val McDermid has become one of the leading voices in the movement of Scottish crime fiction known as “Tartan Noir,” thanks in no small part to her many popular character series, including more than half-a-dozen books following cold case detective Karen Pirie. 

Among these, The Skeleton Road has been hailed as one of the best. When a skeleton is found inside the disused pinnacle of a Victorian Gothic building in historic Edinburgh, investigators are surprised to find that the bones may come from as far away as former Yugoslavia, and may point toward war crimes more chilling than simple murder in this “gripping, thought-provoking and original […] tour-de-force” (Literary Review).

Author Lynda La Plante is known for her “brainy, sexy female homicide detective(s)” (Publishers Weekly), as brought to life by Helen Mirren in the hit TV drama Prime Suspect. In Above Suspicion she introduces readers to a new heroine, an up-and-coming London cop named Anna Travis, whose first homicide investigation may be her last when she finds herself in the crosshairs of a serial killer who has been targeting prostitutes while evading the police for a decade. 

Could it be the handsome actor Alan Daniels, who seems to be taking a romantic interest in Anna? You’ll be on the edge of your seat waiting to find out!

“Grimes is not the next Dorothy Sayers, not the next Agatha Christie. She is better than both,” raves the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, while the Chicago Tribune warns that if you read one of her novels, “you’ll want to read them all.” 

To see why the Houston Chronicle calls her “one of the most fascinating mystery writers today,” one must look no further than her popular and long-running series of Richard Jury mysteries, the latest of which is The Old Success, which begins when a body washes up on the Cornish coast and continues into one of Grimes’ signature “witty, atmospheric mysteries” (Denver Post).