The Best Mystery Books to Read Right Now

Are you looking for a worthwhile mystery book? Then the team at Plotive have you covered with this great list of mystery book reviews.

The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake (Vintage Books, 2012). The story is narrated by a father who tracks down the person he holds responsible for killing his young son in a hit-and-run accident. The story spirals into several twists and turns and displays a psychological insight into the grieving process, vengeance, vanity, and how thoughts are so different from words spoken. Not many people know this but, Nicholas Blake’s son is Daniel Day-Lewis. I guess with such talent; the apple does not fall far from the tree!

Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (Faber & Faber, 2019) is set in the down and dirty underworld of London’s East End. It’s 1880, and dancing girls are missing from ‘Paradise,’ the criminal manor run by the ferocious Lady Ginger. Our eponymous heroine must make her way up from lowly maid to Lady Ginger and save her friends. The characters in these books leap off the page. It’s so evocative—you can almost smell the Thames!

Sandrine’s Case by Thomas H. Cook (Mysterious Press, 2013) is the story of a man on trial for murdering his wife. He refuses to defend himself, and his young daughter, having just lost her mother, cannot understand why her loving father remains silent. As the trial progresses, the man learns things about his wife that he’d never known and fell in love with her all over again. As beautiful and romantic a crime novel as I’ve ever read.

The Pew Group (Doubleday, 1985) by Anthony Oliver is a delightful “forgotten” British farcical mystery featuring the outrageous Lizzie Thomas and her companion in crime, John Webber. It’s the first of four comedic mysteries by world-renown Staffordshire antique dealer and critic Anthony Oliver. Starting from the first murder (“She didn’t mean to do it, but somehow Doreen Corder’s foot went out just as her detested husband reached the top of the stairs”), this book will keep you entertained and educated in the world of Staffordshire figures and village shenanigans. You’ll probably not eat ham at a funeral anytime soon, either. This title is an excellent cozy mystery with a quirky, dark side.

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