Genre: Mystery

The genre of mystery novels is a young form of literature that has developed since the early-19th century. The rise of literacy began in the years of the English Renaissance and, as people began to read over time, they became more individualistic in their thinking. As people became more individualistic in their thinking, they developed a respect for human reason and the ability to solve problems.

Perhaps a reason that mystery fiction was unheard of before the 1800s was due in part to the lack of true police forces. Before the Industrial Revolution, many of the towns would have constables and a night watchman at best. Naturally, the constable would be aware of every individual in the town, and crimes were either solved quickly or left unsolved entirely. As people began to crowd into cities, police forces became institutionalized, and the need for detectives was realized – thus the mystery novel arose.

Death in Brittany

Death in Brittany

Death in Brittany by Jean-Luc Bannalec
Published by Minotaur Books on June 30, 2015
Pages: 320
Genres: Mystery, Police Procedural
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Synopsis

At the Central Hotel in Pont-Aven, Brittany, ninety-one-year-old manager Pierre-Louis Pennec is found murdered. Commissaire Georges Dupin and his team take on the investigation and narrow the list of suspects down to five people, including a rising political star, a longtime friend of the victim and a wealthy art historian. Further incidents – first a break-in, then another mysterious death – muddy the waters yet more. As Commissaire Dupin delves further and further into the lives of the victim and the suspects, he uncovers a web of secrecy and silence that belies the village’s idyllic image.

A summer hit in its original German, Death in Pont-Aven introduces readers to the enigmatic Commissaire Dupin, an idiosyncratic penguin lover and Parisian-born caffeine junkie whose unique methods of detection raise more than a few eyebrows. It is a book so atmospheric readers will immediately want to wander through the village’s narrow alleyways, breathe in the Atlantic air and savour Brittany’s seaside specialty dishes. Death in Pont-Aven is a spellbinding, subtle and smart crime novel, peppered with cryptic humour and surprising twists.

The Island

The Island

The Island by Ragnar Jónasson
Published by Minotaur Books on May 21, 2019
Series: Hidden Iceland #2
Pages: 336
Format: hardback
Genres: Mystery, Scandinavian and Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers
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Synopsis

Elliðaey is an isolated island off the coast of Iceland. It is has a beautiful, unforgiving terrain and is an easy place to vanish.

The Island is the second thrilling book in Ragnar Jonasson's Hidden Iceland trilogy. This time Hulda is at the peak of her career and is sent to investigate what happened on Elliðaey after a group of friends visited but one failed to return.

Could this have links to the disappearance of a couple ten years previously out on the Westfjords? Is there a killer stalking these barren outposts?

Written with Ragnar's haunting and suspenseful prose The Island follows Hulda's journey to uncover the island's secrets and find the truth hidden in its darkest shadows.

The Missing Corpse

The Missing Corpse

The Missing Corpse by Jean-Luc Bannalec
Published by Minotaur Books on April 23, 2019
Series: Brittany Mystery #4
Pages: 320
Format: hardback
Genres: Mystery, Suspense
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Synopsis

"Roll over Maigret. Commissaire Dupin has arrived." —M.C. Beaton on Death in Brittany "Very satisfying…along the lines of Martin Walker’s novels set in Dordogne, or M.L. Longworth’s Aix-en-Provence mysteries." —Booklist on Murder on Brittany Shores

The Missing Corpse is internationally bestselling author, Jean-Luc Bannalec’s fourth novel in the Commissaire Dupin series. It’s picturesque, suspenseful, and the next best thing to a trip to Brittany.

Along the picturesque Belon River, home of the world famous oyster beds, between steep cliffs, ominous forests and the Atlantic Ocean, a stubborn elderly film actress discovers a corpse. By the time Commissaire Dupin arrives at the scene, the body has disappeared. A little while later, he receives a phone call from the mystical hills of Monts d'Arree, where legends of fairies and the devil abound: another unidentified body has turned up. Dupin quickly realizes this may be his most difficult and confounding case yet, with links to celtic myths, a sand theft operation, and mysterious ancient druid cults.

His Right Hand

His Right Hand

His Right Hand by Mette Ivie Harrison
Published by Soho Crime on December 1, 2015
Pages: 345
Format: hardback
Genres: Mystery, Suspense
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Synopsis

In the follow-up to the controversial and critically acclaimed mystery The Bishop's Wife, Mormon housewife Linda Wallheim finds herself ruffling feathers in Draper, Utah, as she assists a murder investigation that is being derailed by transphobia within the LDS community.

In Draper, Utah, a tight-knit Mormon community is thrown into upheaval when their ward’s second counselor—one of the bishop’s right-hand men—is found dead in an elaborately staged murder on church property. Carl Ashby was known as a devout Mormon, a pillar of the community, and a loving husband and father. Who would want him dead?

Linda Wallheim, the wife of the ward’s bishop, can’t rest as long as the ward is suffering. She is particularly worried about Carl’s grieving family. But the entire case is turned upside down by the autopsy report, which reveals Carl Ashby was a biological female. In the Mormon church, where gender is considered part of a person’s soul, some people regard transgenderism as one of the worst possible transgressions of faith. Church officials seem to be more upset by Carl’s gender than by his murder, and more concerned with hushing up the story than solving the crime.

Linda realizes that if the police are to catch the killer, they are going to need an ally on the inside—and she is the only one who can help. Carl was living a life of secrecy for twenty years. What else was he hiding—and can Linda ferret out the key to his death before the rumors tear her community apart?