Whodunits, Cozies, and More: A Mystery Sub-Genres Primer

Easy Rawlins, a Black World War II veteran in Forties Los Angeles, visits an area bar after being fired from working at a protection manufacturing unit plant. It is right here {that a} stranger approaches him with a job: to find a lacking white girl.

As Rawlins investigates the case, what he uncovers brings racial and social points within the United States into sharp focus.

Reagan Reyes is an in-house investigator for protection lawyer Cade McCarrick in Dallas, Texas. Secretly, they stay collectively regardless of strict guidelines towards romantic relationships at their legislation agency. Their love is outlined by a promise: to by no means lie to one another.

But when Reyes is compelled to analyze the sudden loss of life of a lady who visited their workplace simply minutes earlier, their relationship — and security — is pushed to its restrict.

Tattooed former punk rocker Sister Holiday shouldn’t be who, at first look, one may anticipate to be a member of the Sisters of Sublime Blood in New Orleans. When a mysterious arsonist targets the Saint Sebastian’s School, Sister Holiday takes it upon herself to analyze — even when it leads her to confronting different sisters and her life earlier than the convent.

Samantha Washington runs a thriller bookstore in small city Michigan and, in her free time, works on a manuscript of her personal. When a realtor is murdered in her yard and Samantha turns into a suspect, she should put her armchair sleuthing abilities to observe and catch the killer.

When his former lover Hugh Paris is discovered useless, homosexual public defender Henry Rios suspects somebody murdered Hugh — even when the police deem his loss of life unintended. After all, Hugh got here from a rich household, and cash usually leads others to corruption. It’s as much as Rios to unravel the household secrets and techniques left behind in Hugh’s wake on this Lambda Award–profitable sequence.

This is the primary in a police procedural sequence starring Darko Dawson, a detective inspector in Accra, Ghana. Called to a distant village to analyze the homicide of medical volunteer Gladys Mensah, Dawson is haunted by recollections of his mom’s disappearance in the identical village 20 years earlier as he works to resolve the case.

Fired from his job as a police detective after being outed as homosexual, Evander “Andy” Mills is approached by Pearl Velez with a job: resolve the homicide of her spouse Irene Lamontaine, the rich proprietor of the Lamontaine Soap firm.

As he investigates the case on the Lamontaine property, Mills discovers a protected haven for the queer relations and servants — unprecedented within the Fifties. But a killer lurks throughout the confines of the property, and Mills should catch them amidst a big forged of suspects and rising tensions.

65-year-old employed murderer Hornclaw is more and more confronted with the unsure way forward for her profession as she ages. After struggling an damage, she kinds an surprising connection together with her new physician whereas following her suspicion that somebody inside her company is focusing on her.

When James Sommers strikes to an English village, he hopes for a quiet life as a rustic physician whereas he copes with PTSD after serving in World War II. But when an area is murdered, Sommers is pulled into investigating alongside jaded spy Leo Page — who he finds himself more and more drawn to because the case progresses.

Twenty-five-year-old Molly Gray loves nothing greater than being a housekeeper for the Regency Grand Hotel. In the aftermath of her Gran’s loss of life, it provides her days construction and that means. But when a rich visitor named Mr. Charles Black is murdered, Molly is the one individual with the eye to particulars and data of the resort that could possibly resolve the case.

After sustaining an damage throughout an on-stage accident, skilled magician Tempest Raj returns house to work together with her household’s Secret Staircase Construction firm — a house renovation service that builds secret passageways for his or her shoppers.

But after a physique is discovered sealed in a shopper’s wall, Tempest is compelled to analyze for 2 causes. First, as a result of the room has been sealed for over 100 years. And second, as a result of the physique found is Tempest’s stage double.

I’ve heard this e book finest described as “Practical Magic, but make it a cozy mystery.” Following her husband’s sudden loss of life, witch Brynn Warren returns house to grieve and assist her aunts Nora and Izzy run their mattress and breakfast.

When a very argumentative visitor named Constance Graves is discovered murdered on the B&B, Aunt Nora is called a suspect by the police. It’s as much as Brynn to reconnect together with her magical skills and use them to show Aunt Nora’s innocence.