For today, I am deviating from the historical theme and moving into the present! I love reading (obviously), with mystery being one of my favourite genres. I do not read many suspense or thriller novels, but any other mystery is fair game for me! And as we are firmly in the season of spooks (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), it is the perfect time to share the 5 most entertaining mystery novels!
Dial A for Aunties, Jesse Q Sutanto
When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It’s the biggest job yet for the family wedding business—”Don’t leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!”—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie’s perfect buttercream flowers.
But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy’s great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?
Why You Should Read This…
This book could certainly fit into several different genres- for me the mystery is the most prominent element but there is definitely romance happening, too. I loved that Asian/Asian-American culture is very present throughout the book. If I am being honest, I will admit that I never really thought about how different cultures would approach murder and although this book is incredibly entertaining and a lot of fun, it also made me think a lot, as well.
I do not know what I was expecting when I picked this book up, but fast-paced, hilarious chaos was what I got. If you have a lot of stress and want to escape your life for a day or two, Dial A for Aunties is the perfect choice.
The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?
Why You Should Read This…
I read these after watching Only Murders in the Building, and I think that they are excellent companions. People describe Osman’s books as cosy mysteries, but they are not cosies. (I cannot stress this enough.) There is a lot of meat to The Thursday Murder Club, and yes, although there are amateur sleuths like a cosy, none of it is predictable at all. TTMC is a longer novel, so I would save this for a long weekend or a vacation. The first time I attempted this novel, I was only reading a chapter here and there, and it was not until I restarted it and focused on it as my main book that I was “hooked”. I think that my favourite element is the club members themselves- you will find yourself on a “team”, and you have to keep reading to find out if your favourite solves the case!
The second novel, The Bullet That Missed, and the third, The Man Who Died Twice, are also both out as of September 2022. I have read the second, which I loved more than the first, and have the third queued up.
And Only To Deceive, Tasha Alexander
For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the Viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily’s dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly. His journals reveal him to have been a gentleman scholar and antiquities collector who, to her surprise, was deeply in love with his wife. Emily becomes fascinated with this new image of her dead husband and she immerses herself in all things ancient and begins to study Greek.
Emily’s intellectual pursuits and her desire to learn more about Philip take her to the quiet corridors of the British Museum, one of her husband’s favorite places. There, amid priceless ancient statues, she uncovers a dark, dangerous secret involving stolen artifacts from the Greco-Roman galleries. And to complicate matters, she’s juggling two very prominent and wealthy suitors, one of whose intentions may go beyond the marrying kind. As she sets out to solve the crime, her search leads to more surprises about Philip and causes her to question the role in Victorian society to which she, as a woman, is relegated.
Why You Should Read This…
I did want to include one cosy mystery in this series, and the Lady Emily Mysteries series from Tasha Alexander is one of my favourites. It is set in the early 1890s, so it is perfect for anyone who loves The Gilded Age and Downton Abbey. I particularly gravitated to And Only to Deceive originally because of the Classical history element. While it felt a tad “out there” to study Classical history in university, in the nineteenth century, it would have very much been a core element of any secondary and post-secondary education in the UK.
I’m also here for widow stories, because it allows them so much more freedom than an unmarried female protagonist in a historical novel. of course, the amount of freedom she has is a tad exaggerated but it works very well within the story. And if you enjoy this, there are fifteen books in the Lady Emily Mysteries series if you want more!
Truly Devious, Maureen Johnson
Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”
Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.
True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.
The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.
Why You Should Read This…
Another case where I need to be entirely honest- you need to read all three books in the Truly Devious series, as the entire mystery is not solved until the end of book three. However, this is one of the most entertaining mysteries I’ve ever read. I grabbed this one in Winter 2022 when I had Covid and was trying to not think about having Covid, and it is one of the only things that truly distracted me.
This is a YA series, which I normally shy away from due to the fact that it feels like I’m getting 70% of a story. However, I did not think that it felt short or “light” in any way. And while it is about teenagers, I as a thirty-something did not feel “old” in any way like I typically do. The book is set in the present but the mystery dates back to the 1920s/1930s, and Johnson weaves together the threads of the two stories perfectly. I think that finishing the third book in this series may be the most satisfying finish to a series that I’ve read in years.
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history….Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of, a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.
The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself–to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler’s dark reign and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.
Why You Should Read This…
I debated including The Historian on this list, but ultimately, I still think it is truly one of the most entertaining books I’ve read. It gives off Angels and Demons vibes, which people either seem to love or hate. I loved the faster pace of this novel, and I really appreciated that there was a female protagonist- so often books in this subgenre feature male protagonists. You will have to suspend your disbelief in some places (much like Dan Brown’s novels), and you will need to wrap your head around a new vampire lore. However, The Historian is a perfect October read if you want something that errs on the side of supernatural without being entirely impossible.
What books would you include on your list of the 5 most entertaining mystery novels?
Cheers,
The Historian
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