The Best Mystery Books of the Past 10 Years For Armchair Sleuths

A team of very different personalities at a PI agency is catnip for me. Cheryl A. Head understands how entertaining this can be for readers while also exploring humanity through her characters and cases.

The mystery: Charlie Mack runs a PI agency with PIs Don and Gil, who previously worked at INS/homeland security together, and their office manager, Judy, who loves quoting musicals and annoying Don. A friend of Mack’s father brings them a case involving an account executive who stole over a hundred grand and has now disappeared.

Any best-of-crime book list that doesn’t have Tana French on it is suspect in my eyes. So many readers went into this book thinking it was part of her Dublin Murder Squad series (It is not, but if you haven’t read that series, you should!) and/or a thriller (also not) that their expectations got in the way of the brilliance of this book. French is excellent at plunging you into a character(s) life and you don’t realize you’re on a ride until the drop is suddenly beneath you.

The mystery: Toby is a young man with a good life whose fortunes change dramatically: after an error at work and a violent attack, he finds himself moving back to his uncle’s home to recover. Much of his childhood was spent there, but his uncle is now dying, so the return is bittersweet. Oh, and a skull is found beneath a tree in the yard, which starts a police investigation.

I’ve dropped everything to read each of Tiffany D. Jackson’s books and each one is excellent, different from each other, impactful, and timely—all while being for and about Black girls. Every release has felt like a treat, and I’m always excited for any future works.

The mystery: In multiple timelines, we get to know Claudia and Monday in their childhoods as best friends. Now, as Junior High starts, Claudia is confused about where her best friend Monday can be, especially after not hearing from her over the summer. And Claudia is certain Monday’s family’s excuses all sound like lies…

Angie Kim wrote a great murder mystery and courtroom drama that explores family, the immigrant experience, and the many ableist views towards autistic people. It’s a mystery that offers plenty of discussions for book clubs.

The mystery: In a small Virginia town, the Yoo family’s business was running an experimental treatment called the Miracle Submarine. Now, a mother is accused of setting a fire that caused an explosion inside the pressurized oxygen chamber, killing and injuring people receiving treatment. As the court case unfolds and you get to know the Yoo family and those using the Miracle Submarine, it feels as if everyone had motive or opportunity to have started the fire.

Every once in a while I will get to delightedly read a mystery book that feels as if it’s written by someone who deeply understands and loves the mystery genre and all its tropes, and Maureen Johnson feels like she fits that bill.

The mystery: Four camp counselors were murdered in the woods in the ’70s, and it’s currently a cold case. High schooler Stevie Bell has been offered a chance to spend the summer at the camp where the murders occurred because the new camp owner wants to do a true crime podcast about the case. Bell isn’t interested in helping him, nor his podcast, but she can’t ever turn down solving a mystery so she brings her friends and gets to sleuthing.

About the series: While this is the 4th book in the series, you can start here and read it as a standalone. The first three books are a trilogy and must be read as such, but Johnson kindly doesn’t spoil the trilogy in this book and lets it stand on its own.

Jane Harper is so on top of the atmospheric mystery writing game that I have to read her books in cold air conditioning. I drop everything to read her new releases as she always delivers a solid mystery from beginning to end with great characters, and plunking me down into feeling like a resident of Australia even though I’ve never been there.

The mystery: The present mystery revolves around Aaron Falk, a financial crimes federal agent, who returns to his hometown when his childhood best friend is involved in what appears to be a murder-suicide. In the past, false alibis were given after a friend’s suspicious death, and Falk fled the town when fingers pointed at him.

Bonus: There’s a great film adaptation starring Eric Bana.

Ausma Zehanat Khan has two procedural series with fantastic investigator pairings that are part of, go into, and investigate cases centering marginalized communities without painting them as monoliths. You get a wonderful balance of great characters and their dynamics, with interesting cases written with nuance.

Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak series: Esa Khattak is a second generation Canadian Muslim running a police unit focusing on community policing. Rachel Getty is a cop’s daughter with family issues who had her career implode after she filed a sexual harassment case, so Khattak assigns her to his team.

Blackwater Falls series: Detective Inaya Rahman has a past she’s trying to shake and investigates places with high complaint incidents against police officers. Lieutenant Waqas Seif is raising his two younger brothers and unlike Rahman keeps his culture/ethnicity close to the vest.

Think Jessica Fletcher but English, and as a group of investigators living in a retirement community. It’s a winning combination that has mass appeal both for long-running mystery fans and readers who only dabble once in a while.

The mystery: Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron meet weekly to discuss true crime and the unsolved murder cases the local police are unable to solve. Then a case lands too close to home: a brash developer with an unwanted plan is murdered, and this group of septuagenarians is on the case!