American Detective Mysteries

The sole survivor of his family’s gruesome murder years earlier, poor little Ned Lawton has struggled to put the dark events behind him. So, when a brash New York detective darkens his doorway demanding an interview, the wealthy young gentleman immediately shuts him out. But a rash of murders in America are mirroring of the London killings, and Patrick Kelly knows Ned might be the key to stopping the bloodshed.

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by Edgar-winning author and screenwriter Megan Abbott and series editor Steph Cha. The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and...

When a Western star is gunned down at a rodeo, Ellery Queen saddles up to solve the mystery.

Buck Horne has roped thousands of cattle, slugged his way out of dozens of saloons, and shot plenty of men dead in the street - but always on the back lot. He's a celluloid cowboy, and his career is nearly kaput. The real box-office draw is his daughter, Kit, a brawling beauty who can out shoot any rascal the studio has to offer. Desperate for a comeback, Buck joins Wild Bill Grant's traveling rodeo for a show in New York, hoping to land one last movie contract.

Dr. John H. Watson could not anticipate that a favour for the noted American mystery writer and forensic dentist, Rodrigues Ottolengui, would result in the discovery of a heinous murder. But that is what happens when in helping the American, Watson finds himself at a shooting match in a London villa that ultimately leads him to a charred corpse lying face down in a fireplace. With the members of a shooters club as suspects, Watson and Scotland Yard are quick to welcome Sherlock Holmes to the investigation.

“A stunner, exquisitely plotted and characterized, with Todd’s trademark meticulous backdrop of World War I-era England.”—Strand Magazine The Great War is still raging when Francesca Hatton’s adored grandfather dies on his estate in England’s isolated Exe Valley. She is his sole heir...

Cash and Sheriff Wheaton make for a strange partnership. He pulled her from her mother's wrecked car when she was three. He's kept an eye out for her ever since. It's a tough place to live - northern Minnesota along the Red River. Cash navigated through foster homes, and at 13 was working farms. She's tough as nails, five feet two inches, blue jeans, blue jean jacket, smokes Marlboros, drinks Bud Longnecks. Makes her living driving truck. Playing pool on the side.

An electrifying new voice in crime fiction: Allison LaMothe’s debut is a gritty, fast-paced mystery about a reporter running down two huge stories at once “Allison LaMothe is a wildly talented writer with an exacting eye for detail and her tenacious tabloid reporter, Parker Snow, is gutsy...

In this thrilling mystery, Easy Rawlins takes a job to find a missing attorney and his beautiful assistant—and faces danger around every corner. It is the Summer of Love and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armored car. It's farther outside the law than Easy has ever traveled, but his...

In 1887 on his way to prison, the convicted murderer, Vincent Louder Lovelace, was killed in a horrific collision in London between a police wagon and an omnibus. Though Lovelace never kept his date with the hangman, his accidental death resulted in justice being served. Or so the authorities continued to believe until the arrival at 221B Baker Street of the American author, Julian Hawthorne, son of the famous writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Julian informs Sherlock Holmes that the dead man is not only alive and well, but also innocent of murder.

Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.… A New York Times' Best Mystery Novels of 2025 2026 Edgar's Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award Nominee 2026 Audie Award for Best Mystery Finalist Ever since a man was found...

Trouble is brewing for cousins Yale and Celine Yee after a hot pot dinner gets overheated and ends in murder in this second novel of the L.A. Night Market series by Jennifer J. Chow. Yale and Celine Yee’s food stall business is going so well that they’ve been invited to join an exclusive...

For fans of Dirt Creek and William Kent Kreuger comes a profound southern mystery from acclaimed author Lo Patrick. When her granddaughter is accused of murder, a woman must confront the buried secrets of a summer long past—because she can try to forget, but the Georgia land remembers. Meg...

A young inventor - the man whose name appears in the title of Dr. Watson’s narrative, “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans”—lies dead on the floor of an old house, two bullet holes in his back. To solve the gruesome murder, Sherlock Holmes enlists the aid of William Gillette, the celebrated American actor renown for his portrayal of the famous detective, and Arthur Conan Doyle, conveniently familiar with the world of spiritualism that serves as backdrop to the brutal crime.

Two corpses, a stolen diamond necklace, a Russian connection, and a dandified American writer who pals around with denizens of the theater - all add up to a murder investigation with international implications. Leave it to Sherlock Holmes who, in a classic assemblage of suspects in a high-tone British men’s club, employs his celebrated powers of deduction to reveal the guilty party.

Like the first book, The Covid Murders is a fictional and captivating medical detective story, this time exploring a mysterious death in a hospital in suburban Nashville, Tennessee. But like the first, it also connects this entertaining tale simply and understandably to the very real problems of American health care policy. It explains what has gone wrong with our system historically and now, including the great impact of our recent national experience with the Covid pandemic.

One moment, the lovely young woman was walking through the Battle of Hastings exhibition at the British Museum. The next, she lay dead on the checkered museum floor, a Norman arrow protruding from her breast. Inspector Lestrade believed he had solved the mystery, but almost immediately recognized that Scotland Yard needed the help of Sherlock Holmes.

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection Evil Roots. Best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, this short story by Conan Doyle preceded the famous detective by almost a decade. After an altercation, a disgruntled American storms off into the night, only to disappear mysteriously. Could a giant flytrap really be capable of engulfing an adult victim?