#murder mystery book

[jessread-s]

hello I just wanted to ask if you have any good book recommendations that are thriller ,suspense and murder mystery for example the inheritance games or haunting adeline if you do know any books like these two please tell me thank you 😊.

Hello @lila-216 ! Thank you so much for your ask! 🫶📖✨🌷 I LOVE giving recommendations. If you need more individualized recommendations (ex: by trope) please let me know and I'd be happy to fulfill your request!

My favorite YA mystery/thriller books ₊˚ʚ 🔍₊˚✧ ﾟ.

The Naturals series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

The Truly Devious series by Maureen Johnson

The Stalking Jack the Ripper Series by Kerri Maniscalco

One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus

Six Months Later by Natalie D. Richards

My favorite Adult mystery/thriller books ₊˚ʚ 🔍₊˚✧ ﾟ.

The Alex Stern series by Leigh Bardugo

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

In the Woods by Tana French

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

Locke Every Door by Riley Sager

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

[theimpalatales]

"Without that compass, without a murderer's kindness, I'd never have found this place, and yet I cannot shake the feeling that I've been lured into a trap."

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

(If you use my link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org whose fees support independent bookshops.)

[elliepassmore]

The Tainted Cup review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy, sci-fi, greenpunk, murder mysteries, powers, disability rep

Big thanks to Netgalley, Del Rey, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

To start, I'll say I'm not sure whether to classify this book as fantasy or sci-fi since I feel it has elements of both. The world the book is set in is 'greenpunk,' with buildings grown from plants and things like AC from mushrooms, and the characters have powers augmented through some kind of medical procedure. At the same time though, there are leviathans that rise from the ocean depths and threaten the empire. The genre isn't really important, but I will say it isn't super clear-cut and think it could fit easily into both sci-fi and fantasy.

The world in the book is super interesting. As mentioned, the buildings are largely grown from plants, with some more plant-like than others. A lot of the buildings have fernpaper walls, which serve well to keep out the humidity and don't mold, while also being sturdy enough to stand and not too heavy in the case of an earthquake. A couple of buildings are made from a different plant that can be grown in any shape, allowing for a more personalized architecture. Plants are pretty central to life in the book, and are used for additional things like AC, vaccination, medical treatments, and human augmentation. I love all the plant stuff and think the focus on 'green' things is a really interesting worldbuilding piece that isn't used nearly often enough. We get a good background on how the greenery works without going too in-depth, though I honestly could read an encyclopedia on this world and be happy.

In terms of the augmentation, there's a breakdown of the different augments people can have, with grafts being temporary and more for things like increased immunity in humans or faster growing in plants, while suffusions are permanent and change a lot more about a person/plant. If someone is employed by the empire and has a suffusion they're called a Sublime, with Sublimes categorized into how their suffusion works (axioms are good w/ numbers, linguas are good w/ languages, spatiasts are good w/ spatial relations, engravers who memorize everything, cracklers who are superhumanly strong, etc.). It was really interesting to read about the suffusions and the different Sublimes, and I really enjoyed the background info we get on the augmentations. I also thought it was pretty cool how the augmentations seem to be everywhere, including to help plants do different things and to help medications and vaccines be produced against the wide range of issues people might come across.

While this is a SFF story, the bulk of it is the murder mystery. It's twisty and deliberate, but at the same time has moments when it's very fun. Ana reminds me at times of Benoit Blanc from Knives Out and I really enjoyed her method to solving mysteries. There's a good mix of humor and seriousness here, and I think Bennett struck a good balance between the two.

Din is a Sublime engraver recently assigned to be Ana's investigative assistant. He's a rule follower and so his and Ana's approaches clash at times, though never majorly. Din is very clearly dyslexic, which gave him trouble in training, and at times he runs up against needing to read things during the investigation, but he's figured out a work around using his engraving skills which I found to be a really smart way of going about it. He's clever and a good observer, and is able to put the pieces of things together quickly even though he's new to investigating. I liked seeing things through his eyes and and way he would meticulously go through a scene to find evidence. It was particularly interesting how he interviewed people because Din seems to have a knack for knowing how to circle a conversation around to what he really wants to know without being too obvious about it, thus putting the interviewee at ease and getting them to open up. It was wonderfully subtle the way he got people to open up.

Ana is the main investigator on the case and is not the sort of investigator you'd expect. She prefers to stay in her house (or later on, in her borrowed rooms) rather than going outside to investigate on her own, and when she does leave the comfort of her accommodations, it's with a blindfold on. I suspected she was autistic throughout the book, and then toward the end she basically comes out and says it (without saying it since...you know...this is a SFF novel not set in our world with our terminology). She's quick to make deductive leaps and is often several steps ahead of everyone else involved. It was fun to read as she snapped through deduction after deduction, using the evidence Din collected, and coming to a conclusion that made sense but you didn't always see coming. Ana is also pretty funny and I enjoyed the humor she brought to the book.

There are a bunch of side characters who come in and out of the story as needed, and I found them to be pretty well fleshed out. It definitely felt like each character had their own lives and concerns and didn't just cease to exist once they left Din's presence. Miljin is the side character who's probably around the most, he's one of the investigators working the case with Ana and Din. At first his demeanor was pretty gruff and unwelcoming, so I didn't think I'd like him much, but over the course of the book his character grew on me and I actually ended up liking him a lot. He's just the kind of person that doesn't immediately warm up to people, but once he does he's got quite the quick brain and lots of humor and advice to go around.

As mentioned, the main point of this book is the mystery. At the beginning, Ana was making all sorts of leaps that I just took her word for, but as the story continued, I began being able to make guesses of my own. Some of the stuff I was able to guess correctly, sometimes in a surprising way, but other times I was still puzzling it out when Ana and the others came to their conclusions. There are so many moving pieces and different elements to the mystery going on in this book, I enjoyed trying to figure out the solution myself as well as seeing what the actual solution was.

Overall I greatly enjoyed this book and I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in the series. This is the kind of book that makes me want more SFF backgrounds for mystery books, it added a really interesting layer to things that I enjoyed.

[prongsfoot1028]

Escape from harsh reality

Good books for me are an escape from reality and into other ppl’s( who r now my ppl) drama. I laugh with them I cry with them even though sometimes they leave me staring at the wall because of some random plot twist I did not see coming. As far book recs go, many are often unappreciated heavily. You may or may not have heard these before but I personally will never stop recommending these istg.

•Harry Potter- JK Rowling- These books were my childhood

Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarrows- absolutely slow burn 🔥 just read for 13+ * has smut scenes *

Percy Jackson- Pure childhood stuff bro absolute best friends to lovers anyone who hasn’t read this I will shove Medusa’s face into ur face (maybe via mail…)

Throne of Glass - Sarah J Mass-I’ve heard it’s amazing I haven’t actually read it completely yet

Legendborn- Tracy Denonn - Great book! Harry Potter fans will love it many references to other books best friends to lovers troupe

Shatter me- Tahreh Mari- these were recommended to me by a friend and I absolutely fell in love #Aaronforlove #kenjiisallweneed

Powerless-Lauren Roberts- amazing book overall must read if u want good ‘hunter’ ‘hunted’ type enemies to lovers

The Cruel Prince- Holly Black- first enemies to lovers I’ve ever read and it got me addicted to it ever since. 9+ good book

Twilight - Stephanie Meyer- honestly was so surprised when my parents bought this books for me but it’s true love that makes you yearn for your own Edward

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder-Holly Jackson- a beautiful murder mystery. Mature 11 year olds can handle it. My first mystery series( that was not not Enid ablution) book that I ever read and I fell in love with Ravi

Divergent-Veronica Roth- The first 2 books of the three were pretty decent but then I hated the ending of the third book which kinda ruined the series for me but still a great book

Twin Crowns- Katherine Weber and Catherine Doyle- amazing book it’s about witchcraft probably mature 11 year old + few hot scenes but none too spicy

Heroes Of Olympus- I mean it’s a pretty decent continuation of pjo I personally found the first book boring ,cuz guess why -no Percy .( Spoiler alert ahead)( like if u agree )I bond with everyone who cried when Percabeth fell into Tartarus and sorta boycotted the series for 2 years weeks in their memory cuz poor 12 year old me thought they died. Spoiler alert they didn’t. ( end of spoiler alerts)So YAY. If y’all have any recommendations for me too read pls lemme know in the comment

hope at least 1 in 3 Ppl found this useful

[gvldrush13]

don’t talk to me

i’m rereading a good girls guide to murder for the seventh time

[casperolivervo]

I might need a bookshelf for my mystery / whodunnit books and dvds. I wanna show off my multi-year long collection efforts. I'm so proud of it 😭😭😭

[oracleofmadness]

Wow! I love this author. Every time I read a Holly Jackson mystery, I know that no matter how many theories I come up with that the ending will always be a shocker. And, this is just another perfect example of that.

Bel's mom disappeared, or in Bel's mind, abandoned her 16 years ago. Her father is allowing a team of cameramen, etc. to finally make a documentary about the disappearance when Bel is 18. But, when Rachel Price staggers to her home and reappears, Bel questions everything about her.

This story has a romance, a lot of family drama and more twists and turns than I could count. I loved every part of this and definitely recommend it!

Out April 2, 2024!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!!

[genieinanovel]

Ranking Karen McManus's Books

Now that One of Us is Back is released and I’ve read it, I can finally say I’ve read all of Karen McManus’s books to date! And that means, it’s time for a ranking. I did this a few months ago with the Harry Potter series and ranked the series by my top to least favorites, and I really enjoyed it. So I thought it’d be fun to do more series or just ranking books by authors I’ve read. So here we…

[clarislam]

Heads-up, readers: My book “Winner Takes All” will be part of Smashwords’ Read An Ebook Week 2023 Sale, running from March 5th-11th!

The sale starts TOMORROW, so go check it out when it begins! Thank you so much in advance for your support!

More info on the sale is here: https://smashwords.com/ebookweek

Find my book here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1317785

[jessread-s]

✩🫀🔎Review:

Maniscalco’s young adult debut is a gripping murder mystery with a heartwarming romance.

I appreciated reading from the perspective of Audrey Rose, a strong and progressive female lead. Throughout the story, Audrey Rose fights against conforming to traditional gender roles that confine women to the domestic sphere. What makes Audrey Rose’s character so powerful is her determination to pursue her passion regardless of whether or not that passion align with society’s expectations of her. Yet, even Audrey Rose could not have anticipated working on one of the most notorious murder cases of all time—the Jack the Ripper case. Still, she rolls with the punches and proves that women make great detectives. 

The plotline of “Stalking Jack the Ripper” itself is very reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes, which I enjoyed as a fan of murder mysteries. The shocking reveal of the killer’s true identity paired with Maniscalco’s subtle clues leading up to the novel’s end made for a thrilling read! I especially loved Audrey Rose and Thomas Cresswell’s relationship dynamic, which mirrored that of Sherlock and Watson’s. Their playful banter made me laugh out loud and their building romantic attraction made my heart race.

Though “Stalking Jack the Ripper” takes place during a real time in history, Maniscalco goes to great lengths to build an immersive world to avoid the drabness associated with textbooks. Much of the novel takes place in London, specifically the Whitechapel district, when Jack the Ripper was an active serial killer. Maniscalco does a fantastic job engaging the reader with her detailed descriptions of the region’s dreary atmosphere and the medical instruments used by scientists in the late 1800s. She also provides real photographs from the time period in relation to the content of some of her chapters and weaves facts of the Jack the Ripper case into her fictional narrative as a means of further exploring the past. While the real Jack the Ripper remains unidentified, I loved unmasking one of Maniscalco’s characters as the culprit and receiving a sense of closure as a result. 

➤ 4.25 stars

Cross-posted to: Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads | StoryGraph

[booksandreviewa]

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (series)

A good girl's Guide to Murder

GOOD GIRL, BAD BLOOD

AS Good AS DEAD

Kill Joy By Holly Jackson

[elliepassmore]

The Lies We Conjure review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: dual POVS, witchy reads, murder mysteries

Big thanks to Netgalley, Tor Teen, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

First off, I absolutely love this cover! It's so vivid and gory and I love the little Easter eggs sprinkled throughout it. It really gives off the perfect vibes for this book.

I love the mashup of SFF and a murder mystery, and I like that it's been more of a thing in recent years. I feel like 2024 in particular has had a good streak of SFF murder mysteries, and this definitely belongs in their ranks. It's got a nice Clue/Agatha Christie/Knives Out vibe with the old-fashioned but elaborately rich manor, the family members all decked out and all with ulterior motives, and, of course, the murder itself. The addition of magic really adds a nice edge to things since there are things witches do that your ordinary everyday murder suspect can't. It also adds an additional element of danger to the investigation, because the murderer doesn't necessarily need to do something physically to you...they can just use their magic to make something happen.

In this story, or at least with this family, there are four different kinds (Lines) of magic: Elemental, Celestial, Blood, and Death. Each of them do roughly what you imagine they do and each family specializes in a particular kind. The Hegemonys practice Elemental magic, the Starwoods practice Celestial magic, the Cerises practice Blood magic, and the the Blackgates Death magic. For the past 400 years, The Hegemonys and their Elemental magic have held the title of high Sorcerer, but with their matriarch's murder, the spot is now up for grabs, and no matter how close they were (or seemed) before the dinner party, everyone has something to gain from the title.

I liked learning the magic system of the book, and it was helpful that Ruby and Wren didn't know about magic at all since it meant they were interested in asking questions and researching more about it. On the flip side, the other POV is Auden Hegemony, and his innate knowledge of magic provides the finer details to Ruby's overview. It was a good balance and I thought it was a clever way to provide all the information readers needed to know about the magic of the world.

Of the two sisters, Ruby is the more practical and careful one. She takes everything seriously, perhaps a bit too seriously at times, and is immediately concerned about what will happen if the rest of the group finds out they're imposters. At times her anxiety could be annoying, but I also get where she's coming from. These people are not only rich, they're magical, and they won't take kindly to someone intruding on their secrets. But her practicality also means she's resourceful and she's determined to get herself and Wren through the weekend alive. Despite everything that's been thrown at her, she handles herself pretty well and actually has good instincts, with people, with magic, and with the mystery.

Wren is a non-POV character, and is in many ways Ruby's opposite. She's outgoing and personable, and with dreams of the stage, she's quite the actress and improvisor. She immediately takes to whatever role is provided to her, be it a long-absent granddaughter or a witch with longstanding ties to Hegemony Manor. She's also more impulsive than Ruby, which for a while works out in their favor (well...not the dinner party invite part, lol) since Wren rolls with the punches and can make decisions quickly. But like Ruby warns, Wren's split-second decisions aren't always good, and the two do end up in trouble in a few instances because of it.

Auden is the middle Hegemony cousin and the other POV narrator. He's serious and clearly has his own secrets, but it's also clear he loves his family and is determined to ensure they also make it through this weekend, and this tragedy. While serious, he also has a mischievous streak, and can't help but poke fun at Lavinia, aka Ruby. But when things take a turn for the worse, he immediately begins strategizing and trying to figure out a way to find the murderer and the relics, while at the same time protecting the people who need it.

Evander is the oldest Hegemony cousin and the one set to inherit it all. He's fairly obnoxious in his arrogance, but he gets more tolerable as things progress, and it's clear that though he clings to his position, he's both unsure and determined to figure out what's gone wrong in the family. Winter is the youngest (I think, Evander is said to be the oldest, but Winter and Auden are the same age). She has wit sharp enough to cut and is clever enough to use it. She's more than willing to put her cousins in their place when they need it, but she also quickly gets tired of the powerplay that occurs after their grandmother's death, both between the three of them and with everyone at large. I liked Winter quite a bit and wish we saw more of her.

The Starwoods who are present at the manor are Luna, the ancient matriarch, and Infinity. The two of them are on the gentler side of things, with Luna wanting to solve the murder and the puzzle, but not interested in the power struggle that begins to occur. Infinity takes Luna's lead and is mostly interested in staying out of the way and helping their grandmother.

Unlike the Starwoods, the Cerises are a nasty bunch. Sanguine and Hector are the parents and put on a well-coiffed front, but underneath it's clear they're slimier than they let on. The twins, Ada and Hex, are around the same age as the rest of the 'main' characters and while Hex can be antagonistic, it's clear he's more of a friend to the group than his parents are. Ada is frequently quiet in group settings, so it's harder to get a read on her, sometimes she seeps as sharp as her mother and other times she's more like Hex.

Then, the Blackgates. Ruby and Wren are impersonating the next generation of Blackgates: Lavinia and Kaysa. The grandmother who hired them is Marsyas and has a matter-of-factness about her that hides her stubborn persistence. We don't get a lot of information on the Blackgates up front, but it's clear there's a reason Lavinia and Kaysa haven't been back to Hegemony Manor in a decade, and it's even more clear that there's a terrible terrible secret behind that reason.

The murder mystery part of the novel was interesting and it kept me hooked. There's an immediate suspect, but as things progress, the suspect changes and bounces around. Everyone looks good for it at different points (mostly) and, as I said above, everyone has motive and means. The other aspect of the mystery, which actually takes up a lot more time than the murder investigation, is trying to solve the riddles and find the Relics, four powerful items that will decide the next High Sorcerer. Each Relic is hidden around the Hegemony property, and the 'clues' are short riddles designed to guide the witches to the items. For some, following the riddles is a good way to keep an eye on the others and solve the murder. For others, the draw of power is too much to resist.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and think it's a great witchy murder mystery. I liked trying to figure out the various mysteries and puzzles in the novel, and it was interesting to see how Ruby and Auden reacted to each new bump in the road.

[cosmicwhoresimpingismyliving]

Me after finished reading Death & Croissant;

[lifewithaview]

I Love Lucy (1951–1957) Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her

After becoming too involved in a murder mystery book, Lucy believes that Ricky is trying to murder her.

[theimpalatales]

"Daniel warned me that each of our hosts thinks differently, but only now do I comprehend the full extent of his meaning."

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

(If you use my link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org whose fees support independent bookshops.)

[oracleofmadness]

Another great book, wonderful writing and full of the twists and turns every good mystery needs!

Back with Evan in the Royal Palace, and everything seems to be fine... until it's not. More bad press and scandal but still with the heart that I love about these books.

I simply love this series, and honestly, I find it hard not to! It's exactly the kind of fun and enjoyable read I need to get me through a rainy weekend!

Out March 26, 2024!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!