Seattle Picks: Mystery and Thriller
Crime fiction, mysteries and thrillers –- there are so many good books published each year that sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Here is a list of 35 books chosen by our librarians that will keep you up late reading. (Created March 2022.)
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The Album of Dr. Moreau
“Gregory constructs a clever mash-up of H.G. Wells’s "The Island of Doctor Moreau,” a locked room mystery, and the boy band phenomenon in this zippy but complex tale. Self-aware humor and punchy puns liven up the narrative, resulting in a quirky and entertaining twist on a classic.” -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Apollo Murders
“A vast Cold War space thriller from astronaut Hadfield. Incorporating real-life characters and events, spanning decades and distances both terrestrial and translunar, this NASA-heavy thriller has everything…” -- Kirkus
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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These Toxic Things
Putting together a digital scrapbook for a client with Alzheimer’s, Mickie Lambert discovers what she thinks may be evidence of an historical serial killer and begins to receive anonymous notes telling her to stop digging.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Fadeout
Reprint. Insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter looks into the supposed death of a radio personality whose wrecked car was found in a raging river. “A pioneering work of gay fiction featuring one of the most appealing and sympathetic sleuths ever.” -- Library Journal
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Paradox Hotel
“In the Paradox Motel, where ultra-wealthy guests can take 'flights' to the past, head of security January Cole finds her job getting harder when a handful of trillionaires arrive to bid on time-travel technology and there's a murderer on the loose.” -- NoveList
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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What the Devil Knows
“Harris’s excellent 16th Regency-era whodunit pits her aristocratic sleuth, Sebastian St. Cyr, against a killer possibly connected to a notorious real-life series of murders.” -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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A Line to Kill
“Except for the atrocities of World War II, there hasn’t been a murder on the Channel Island of Alderney from time immemorial. The staging of the Alderney Lit Fest brings that streak to a decided end. The most conventional of Horowitz’s mysteries to date still reads like a golden-age whodunit on steroids.” -- Kirkus
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Ballerinas
Murder and ballet go hand-in-hand in this well-choreographed thriller. "Set in the hothouse world of a Paris ballet academy, [this debut] follows three dancers hiding a very big secret." -- New York Times Book Review
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Red Widow
"Recruited by the CIA's Chief of the Russian Division amid rumors of a department mole, former Moscow Field Station handler Lyndsey Duncan teams up with a murdered director's widow to expose a life-threatening web of secrets." -- NoveList
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Never Saw Me Coming
Seven psychopaths attend university in Washington, DC, simultaneously undergraduates and participants in a research study on psychopathy. When two of them are murdered, freshman Chloe teams up with two others to find the culprit.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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