Mystery & Crime

Little Fires Everywhere is a New York Times bestselling novel by Celeste Ng published in 2017. In the town of Shaker Heights, Ohio, Elena Richardson rents her family’s property on Winslow Road to Mia and Pearl Warren, a mother and daughter duo who inspire her sense of charity. Mia is an artist, and her lack of rootedness and intense focus on her art unnerve Mrs. Richardson, who lives an orderly life. Their lives become further... Read Little Fires Everywhere Summary

... Read Mad Honey Summary

Written in the spirit of British mystery writer Agatha Christie, Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling whodunit novel Magpie Murders (2017) is a cleverly spun and endlessly suspenseful thriller that is actually a story within a story. Horowitz argues that his mystery novel occupies a unique genre and has the ability to leave the reader with a satisfying ending. Set in present-day London and a quaint English village in the 1940s, the devious and dark story takes its cues from vintage... Read Magpie Murders Summary

... Read Memorial Drive Summary

David Baldacci’s mystery novel, Memory Man, is the story of a man who has lost the ability to forget. Amos Decker starts out as a football player for the Cleveland Browns. During his first game, he suffers a head injury that alters his brain.Decker spends time at the Cognitive Research Institute, where his condition is diagnosed as a combination of hyperthymesia—which Decker refers to as his inner DVR (that is, digital video recorder)—and synesthesia. He... Read Memory Man Summary

Methland: The Death and Life of a Small American Town is a nonfiction book published in 2009 by American journalist Nick Reding. Focusing on the small town of Oelwein, Iowa, Reding traces the beginnings of America’s meth epidemic to its current prevalence in the rural Midwest. Methland is a blend of sociology, economics, memoir, and history that provides a perspective that is ultimately hopeful about America’s ability to solve its meth problem, even if the... Read Methland Summary

Book Details & Major ThemesMexican Gothic is a horror novel by Mexican Canadian writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Set in 1950s Mexico City and the burned-out mining town of El Triunfo, the novel is a horror-tinged thriller that explores the themes of The Feminist Gothic, Colonialism and Imperialism in Mexico, and Death, Corruption and Objectification in the House of Doyle.The novel centers on Noemí Taboada, a socialite with aspirations to become an anthropologist who goes to El... Read Mexican Gothic Summary

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt’s 1994 bestseller, is a combination of travelogue, true crime, autobiography, and Southern gothic. The nonfiction book chronicles Berendt’s experience living in Savannah, Georgia, during a sensational murder trial. Just as gripping as the drama is the author’s exploration into Savannah culture and the unusual array of people whom he meets during his eight years living there. It was an immediate success when first published, staying... Read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Summary

... Read Mildred Pierce Summary

Angie Kim’s novel Miracle Creek (2019) is a courtroom drama and classic whodunit—during an alternative medical treatment, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), an explosion kills two people and injures six others. The fire that caused the explosion was set deliberately, and readers follow along as Kim weaves moments of drama set in the present with flashbacks to the past. Kim, a Korean immigrant who came to the United States as a child with her parents, is... Read Miracle Creek Summary

Published in 1987, Stephen King's psychological horror novel Misery tells the story of Paul Sheldon, a best-selling American author of a series of romance novels set in the 19th century, featuring the protagonist Misery Chastain. After a car accident leaves him wounded, Paul is kidnapped by Annie Wilkes, a woman who claims to be his biggest fan. She threatens his life, forcing him to rewrite a sequel to the series' final novel that changes the... Read Misery Summary

When Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn first appeared in 1999, critics hailed the novel as an homage to classic 1930s hard-boiled crime fiction. In his novel, Lethem bends the traditional elements of the genre, creating a detective story that is both an enthralling crime story and a clever parody of one. Wannabe detective Lionel Essrog, who has Tourette’s syndrome and is given to involuntary outbursts, relates the narrative in strings of often rhyming and obscene words... Read Motherless Brooklyn Summary

We first meet Clay Jannon, the protagonist and narrator of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, shortly after he has lost his first job as a web designer for NewBagel, a casualty of the recession that is sweeping America. When he spots a help-wanted sign in the window of a bookstore, he embarks not only on a new career but also on a journey that will see him attempt to decipher a centuries-old encrypted manuscript. While he... Read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Summary

Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance is a 2006 nonfiction book written by Dutch professor and social scientist Ian Buruma. The book investigates both the murder of Theo van Gogh, a prominent Dutch filmmaker, social critic, and opponent of political Islam in Europe. Additionally, it explores feelings of historical guilt, liberal mores, and the changing social fabric that has created tension between the native Dutch and the large, mostly Muslim... Read Murder in Amsterdam Summary

Murder on the Orient Express, first published in 1934, is a mystery by Agatha Christie featuring one of her most famous characters, the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. A locked-room mystery, the novel unfolds in a train, the Orient Express, which has become stranded in a snowstorm. Poirot happens to be on the train when a man named Mr. Ratchett is murdered. Poirot is called upon to solve the case, and the book follows his investigation... Read Murder on the Orient Express Summary

... Read My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Summary

My Friend Dahmer is a graphic novel/memoir by American cartoonist and writer Derf Backderf, known for utilizing darkness and shading in his comic strips and graphic novels. Evolving from a 24-page cartoon created in 2002, My Friend Dahmer (2012) depicts the author’s memories of his high school friend, notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, in novelistic form—exploring the ways Dahmer himself could have been helped and his 17 murders prevented. The graphic novel was adapted into... Read My Friend Dahmer Summary

... Read My Heart Is a Chainsaw Summary

My Sister, the Serial Killer, is a novel by Nigerian-born British writer Oyinkan Braithwaite, originally published in the UK in 2019. Set in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, this darkly satirical, structurally experimental crime story about the extremes of family bonds bears an unusually revealing and literal title, and it has been longlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize. The novel was also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the 2019 Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards... Read My Sister, the Serial Killer Summary

Dennis Lehane’s 2001 thriller/mystery novel, Mystic River, follows the lives of three childhood friends who suffer a traumatic event. Twenty-five years later, they are forced back into one another’s lives when one of their daughters is found murdered. In 2002, the novel earned the Dilys Award and was made into an Academy Award-winning film directed by Clint Eastwood. This study guide uses the 2003 First Dark Alley edition of the book. Plot SummaryIn 1975, Dave... Read Mystic River Summary