Magpie Murder

By Anthony Horowitz
Magpie Murders is a 2016 mystery novel by British author
Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Susan Ryeland
series. The story focuses on the murder of a mystery
author and uses a story within a story format.
The book has been translated into multiple languages and
has been adapted into a six-part television drama series
with the same title.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a mystery novel by Agatha
Christie, featuring the detective Hercule Poiro. The novel is
narrated by Dr. James Sheppard, a physician in the village of
King's Abbot, where Roger Ackroyd, a wealthy widower, is
murdered. The murder is connected to the death of Mrs. Ferrars,
who overdosed on a sleeping medication and was suspected of
killing her husband. Dr. Sheppard becomes involved in the
investigation, along with his sister Caroline and Roger's stepson
Ralph Paton. The novel is known for its surprising twist ending,
which was suggested by Christie's brother-in-law. The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction by British writer
Agatha Christie, first published in June 1926 in the United
Kingdom by William Collins, Sons and in the United States by
Dodd, Mead and Company. It is the third novel to feature Hercule
Poirot as the lead detective.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
By Alexander McCall Smith
British author Alexander McCall Smith’s detective novel The No. 1
Ladies’ Detective Agency (1998) is the first book in the series of
the same name, which, in 2016, includes seventeen novels. The
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency focuses on Mma Precious
Ramotswe, a Botswana woman from Gaborone, the capital city of
Botswana, as she starts the first detective agency in the city after
her father passes away. Hiring a secretary and taking on cases,
she seeks to honor her father and make a name for herself in a
society that does not believe a woman can do this sort of work.
Narrated alternately by Precious and her late father in flashbacks,
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency explores themes of national
identity, women’s rights and liberation, the role of animals in
African society, and the skills needed to be an effective detective.
The series is overall a hit, although it became much more popular
when the second and third installments were released in the
United States in 2002. In 2010, a spin-off aimed at young readers,
Young Precious Ramotswe, was released in five installments. The
original series has been praised for its optimistic, leisurely tone
and its well-researched depiction of the culture of Botswana. It
was adapted into an HBO television series starring Jill Scott,
which ran for one season from 2009 to 2010.
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
By Fergus Hume
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab is a mystery novel by
Fergus Hume, first published in Australia in 1886. It is set
in Melbourne and involves the investigation of a homicide
involving a body discovered in a hansom cab. The novel
also explores the social class divide in the city and the
secrets of the accused man and his fiance's father. The
novel was a best seller in the nineteenth century and
influenced Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. The
novel begins with newspaper accounts of the murder.

“A” is for Alibi

By Sue Grafton
In 1982 novelist Sue Grafton kicked off her Kinsey Millhone series
of “alphabet” mysteries with A is for Alibi. Subsequent installments
include titles such as B is for Burglar and C is for Corpse. Kinsey
Millhone, the central character, is a thirty-two year old private
detective in Santa Teresa, a fictional city in southern California.
Before embarking on her career as a private investigator, Kinsey
worked as a police officer and insurance company investigator.
In A is for Alibi Kinsey Millhone is enlisted to reopen an eight year
old case. She is not optimistic about being able to make a
difference, but agrees to investigate on behalf of a prisoner who
was recently released on parole. In Kinsey’s opinion, the parolee
would not want the past to be dredged up again if she had been
guilty of the crime.
The Black Echo
By Michael Connelly
The Black Echo Summary Homicide Detective Harry
Bosch nearly dies in the "black echo" of the water tunnels
beneath Los Angeles, when he discovers how FBI agents
have engineered two diamond-heists and murdered his
former Vietnam buddy and an innocent graffiti artist.
The Black Echo (1992), a crime fiction novel by Michael
Connolly, follows Harry Bosch, a veteran of the Vietnam
War who becomes a homicide detective in Los Angeles.
Having previously served as a tunnel rat, a kind of soldier
who specialized in navigating the systems of war tunnels
created by the Vietcong and Vietnamese Army, he applies
his experience to the case of a bank robbery that involved
the use of subterranean tunnels. The novel is known for
touching on the strategic similarities between wartime and
criminal behavior, proving that the same strategies can be
exploited for good.
Devil in a Blue Dress
By Walter Mosley
Devil in a Blue Dress tells the story of Ezekial “Easy”
Rawlins’s efforts to find Daphne Monet and also tells the
concurrent story of Rawlins’s self-discovery. Set in post-
World War II Los Angeles and centering upon the
emergent African American community, Devil in a Blue
Dress is both conventional detective story and
commentary on American social relations. The book’s plot
is difficult to describe, as the novelist attempts to portray
almost all the story’s events as duplicitous or as having
hidden meaning. At the novel’s conclusion, many
characters’ motivations, fates, and identities are purposely
left unclear.

The Thursday Murder Club

By Richard Osman
The Thursday Murder Club is the debut novel by Pointless
and House of Games presenter Richard Osman. It was
published on 3 September 2020 by Viking Press, a
subsidiary of Penguin Random House.
Richard Osman’s “The Thursday Murder Club” turns that
stereotype on its head with a droll tale of four
septuagenarians who meet weekly to solve cold cases
culled from the files of a retired police detective. The group
includes a psychiatrist, a nurse, a union organizer, and a
woman who did something mysterious in intelligence.
Monument Road
By Michael Wiley
Introducing former death-row inmate turned private
investigator Franky Dast in the first of an intriguing new
crime noir series.
Having spent eight years on death row for a crime he
didn’t commit, Franky Dast now works as an investigator
for the Justice Now Initiative, seeking to help others in the
same situation. But when he learns that Bill Higby, the
detective whose testimony helped convict him, is facing
his own murder charge, Franky is torn. Should he help the
man he hates more than any other, the man who remains
convinced of Franky’s guilt to this day?
As Franky delves further, he comes to realize that in order
to prove Higby’s innocence, he must also prove his own.
Unless he finds out what happened that fateful night eight
years before, the night 15-year-old Duane Bronson and
his 13-year-old brother were murdered, Franky will always
be under suspicion, and the real killer will remain free.
What really happened that dark, wet night on Monument
Road? And is Franky prepared for the shocking truth?
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
By: Michael Chabon
For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants
have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a
"temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the
Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling
state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created
their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant
and complex frontier city that moves to the music of
Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan
control, and their dream is coming to an end.
Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police
has enough problems without worrying about the
upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a
wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where
Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a
murder—right under his nose. When he begins to
investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess
prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to
be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself
contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession,
evil, and salvation that are his heritage.
At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an
exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The
Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon
could have written.