Books

When The Weather Is Bad, Stay Inside With These 9 Mystery & Thriller Novels

by Melissa Ragsdale

When the wind is blowing and the rain is pounding on your windows, there's nothing better to read than a good mystery or thriller novel. Good news, book-lovers: this fall has brought with it some brilliant new mystery and suspense novels, so you have a whole stack of good books that are just waiting to keep you company on bad weather days.

Don't you just love that feeling of not being able to put a book down until you know exactly what is going to happen or who got killed or who did the killing? With a good mystery to tear through, even the darkest and stormiest of nights can actually be cozy and comfortable.

From psychological thrillers that will make your stomach curl in to noir novels that sizzle on every page to rich historical mysteries, there's a little bit of everything for mystery devotees this season. Let your curiosity take the wheel, and buckle up for a grand, heart-pounding adventure. (Without having to leave the comfort of your warm, safe bed, naturally.)

So, pour yourself a cup of steaming tea, curl up under the covers, and wait out the storm with one this fall's best new mystery novels:

'The Clockmaker's Daughter' by Kate Morton

A love affair. A murder. A missing heirloom. These are all ingredients for an incredible mystery novel. It's the summer of 1832, and a group of young artists have come together for a secluded month at Birchwood Manor. But by the end of their stay, a woman has been shot, and everything is in ruins. One hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow discovers a leather satchel containing a sepia photograph of a Victorian woman and an artist’s sketchbook with a drawing of Birchwood Manor. And just like that, she's drawn into the mystery of a century-old murder.

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'Sadie' by Courtney Summers

If you love true crime podcasts, you can't miss this new YA book. After her younger sister is brutally murdered, Sadie hits the road to find the killer and bring him to justice. But following her every move is radio host West McCray, who launches a true crime podcast that tracks her journey. This novel alternates between Sadie's point-of-view and transcripts of the podcast.

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'My Sister, the Serial Killer' by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Nov. 20)

This psychological suspense novel set in Nigeria centers on Korede, who has always been the only one who sees how her younger sister, Ayoola, manipulates people. She's also the only one who knows that Ayoola has killed three men. She's the only one who knows, because she's always the one who cleans up the mess. But everything changes when Ayoola meets the man Korede has feelings for.

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'The Infinite Blacktop' by Sara Gran

The star of this noir series is Claire DeWitt, a tough-talking private investigator and the self-proclaimed "world's greatest detective." This book intertwines three mysteries from Claire's life, and as they converge, the detective finds it more and more difficult to figure out what's going on.

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'What the Woods Keep' by Katya de Becerra

This twisty book combines mystery with science fiction and dark fantasy, and you're going to be hooked. On her 18th birthday, Hayden inherits her family home, under one condition: She must uncover its dark secrets. When she returns to her small hometown to claim her new home, the troubles of her past come flooding back to her — including her mother's disappearance a decade before, her father's outlandish theories, and her own dark dreams about strange symbols and rituals in the Colorado woods.

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'Leave No Trace' by Mindy Mejia

From the author of Everything You Want Me To Be, this dazzling book takes place in the Boundary Waters, an area of Minnesota with hundreds of miles of glacial lakes and untouched forests. Years ago, a man and his son went into the Boundary Waters and never returned. But now, the son has shown up, and its the job of Maya Stark, the assistant language therapist at his psychiatric facility, to make a connection with him. But a trove of secrets haunts Maya as she gets closer to her mysterious patient.

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'In Her Bones' by Kate Moretti

Lillith Wade was arrested 15 years ago for the murder of six women and given a death row conviction. After the media frenzy around her mother's arrest, her daughter, Edie, just wants to be out of the spotlight. But when she grows an obsession with the families of her mother's victims, Edie finds herself on a dark path. Will she be able to turn back?

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'I Know You Know' by Gilly Macmillan

Twenty years ago, Charlie Paige and Scott Ashby, both 11 years old, were murdered. Now an adult, their best friend Cody Swift has been haunted by their deaths his whole life. So, he starts a podcast to follow the loose threads of the police investigation. But things take a sudden turn when another body is found in the exact same location.

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'The Impossible Girl' by Lydia Kang

The year is 1850, and Cora Lee is the only female resurrectionist in New York, procuring bodies afflicted with strange anomalies and selling them to anatomists who display them in public. But Cora's got a secret: she’s "the girl born with two hearts" — a legend among grave robbers and anatomists, who see her as an endangered prize. So when a series of murders unfold around Cora, she knows that there's no one she can trust.

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