If you’re looking to avoid the tired cliches and tropes of mystery-thrillers – hard-boiled heavy-drinking detectives who come back for “one last case”-type of thing – you’ll want to try books with amateur sleuths and armchair detectives instead. My love affair with amateur sleuths stretches all the way back to watching Veronica Mars in my early teens, and it continues strong to this day. These mysteries – typically murders, though mostly cozy – tend to be a little more quirky and fun, without being constrained by the realism requirements of police procedurals. Amateur sleuths don’t have to worry about pesky things like rules of evidence, or chain of command; their only commitment is to their own nosiness, and that’s how they find the truth. Here are twenty intriguing books with amateur sleuths to add to your reading list.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
The amateur sleuths in The Thursday Murder Club are four unlikely friends, living in a peaceful retirement village. Every week, they meet in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes – the last thing any of them expect is to be witnesses to one. A local developer is found dead in the village, with a mysterious clue next to his body. It’s clearly not an unfortunate accident, it’s something more nefarious – especially when more bodies appear. Luckily, an unorthodox group of septua- and octo-generians is on the case! Read my full review of The Thursday Murder Club here.
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers by Jesse Q Sutanto
The titular character of Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers is a “lady of a certain age” who lives above her quiet tea shop in Chinatown. Don’t be fooled by her advancing years: she’s a top-notch amateur sleuth, with lots of practice snooping around the internet for clues about what her Gen Z son is up to. She gets the chance to put these skills to even better use when she comes downstairs to find a dead man in the middle of her shop, with a flash drive in his outstretched hand. Of course, she calls the police, but not before swiping the flash drive for her own investigation.
Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
Who better to investigate a murder than… a murderer? Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone begins exactly where the title suggests. Ernest Cunningham is attending a family reunion at an Australian ski field, much to his chagrin, and everyone in attendance has taken a life. In fact, some of the attendees have killed more than once. Naturally, when you put that many murderers in one place, chances are high that someone will wind up dead. This is an inventive and fitting tribute to the golden age of murder mysteries with amateur sleuths. Read my full review of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone here.
The Maid by Nita Prose
When you think about it, a hotel maid is the perfect person for amateur sleuthing: they go everywhere, they see everything, and they keep a lot of guests’ secrets. The Maid explores this tantalising possibility. Molly Gray is even more suited to the role of amateur sleuth, given her fastidious attention to detail and her love of orderliness. She is, unfortunately, wrongfully accused of murdering wealthy hotel guest Charles Black in his suite – but with the help of her friends, she’ll be able to find the real killer and prove her innocence. Read my full review of The Maid here.
A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson
A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder is framed as a high school project for Pippa, a budding amateur sleuth. Five years ago, a girl in her local area was killed (presumably, because a body has never been recovered); Pippa thinks the wrong man was accused of the crime. Her teacher has tried to dissuade her from using this particularly horrific subject for a school project, but Pippa forges ahead anyway. Will this nosy teen be able to uncover the truth of what happened to town sweetheart Andie Bell? Read my full review of A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder here.
The Woman In The Library by Sulari Gentill
The Woman In The Library is a meta-fictional mystery, a book-within-a-book, with two puzzles playing out on the page. Hannah is a crime writer, working on a novel that begins in the Boston Library. Four strangers get to talking after a woman’s scream in the next room breaks the silence. Later, they discover that the woman who screamed was murdered – could one of them be the killer? Chapter by chapter, Hannah forwards her work-in-progress to her writer friend Leo, who is not all he seems. As her characters try to figure out what happened to the woman in the story, Hannah must do some amateur sleuthing of her own to draw out Leo’s secrets. Read my full review of The Woman In The Library here.
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime by Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime is a self-proclaimed murder mystery novel, with the requisite crime and investigation format, but the victim is a neighbourhood pet and the amateur sleuth is 15-year-old Christopher, a young man who perceives the world differently. Christopher solves the case in the end (despite his father’s express instructions to keep his nose out of his neighbours’ business), and uncovers a whole bunch of other mysteries and adventures along the way. Read my full review of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime here.
17 Years Later by JP Pomare
17 Years Later is narrated by three characters: Sloane, a Walkley Award-winning true crime podcaster; T.K., a former prison psychologist who gave up his fight to free a potentially innocent man when it cost him too much; and Bill, a man who has been imprisoned for seventeen years for a crime he swears he didn’t commit. Sloane lures a reluctant T.K. out of his quiet life in obscurity to run their own investigation into the murders of the Primrose family and, potentially, prove Bill’s innocence for the world to see. Read my full review of 17 Years Later here.
Listen For The Lie by Amy Tintera
Not many amateur sleuths wind up investigating a crime they themselves might have committed – that’s what makes Listen For The Lie so intriguing. Years ago, Lucy was found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend’s blood. She can’t remember a thing about what happened that night leading up to Savvy’s death, but now Ben Owens – a good looking true crime podcaster – is determined to get to the bottom of it… which means Lucy will have to as well. She needs to find the truth, even if the truth is that she’s a murderer.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Sharp Objects follows Camille Preaker, a journalist for a small Chicago newspaper, as she’s drawn back to her hometown to report on the abduction and murder of two young girls. At first, Camille doesn’t seem particularly unusual – sure, she’s a bit of a drinker, and she clearly has some unresolved issues with her family, but who doesn’t? Gradually, as the events of the story unfold, you realise how dark she really is, and why those issues with her mother and her hometown might never be untangled. Read my full review of Sharp Objects here.
The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle is an amateur sleuth mystery with a time travel twist. The protagonist doomed to repeat a single day at Blackheath Manor again and again, each time in the body of a different guest in the crumbling mansion, until he solves a murder. His memories are wiped each time, the clock resets, and he has to put all the pieces together before it happens again. Who will be murdered? Who is the killer? And why is he stuck in the time loop until he figures it out? Read my full review of The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle here.
Murder Most Fancy by Kellie McCourt
Indigo Daisy Violet Amber Hasluck Royce Jones Boomberg still hasn’t lived down the scandal that saw her investigated for the murder of her husband. She has every intention of keeping a low profile… but then, as Murder Most Fancy begins, she stumbles over a corpse in her grandmother’s back yard. She’s dragged kicking and screaming back into a life of amateur criminal investigation, and her trusty sidekick Esmerelda is more than happy to help find the real killer. Read my full review of Murder Most Fancy here.
Nancy Business by RWR McDonald
The amateur sleuths of Nancy Business are inspired by (and take their name from) none other than Nancy Drew, the classic amateur sleuth who sets a high bar for nosiness and dilettante investigation. In this heart-felt and hilarious romp, Tippy Chan and her uncles Pike and Devon work together to figure out who is responsible for the explosion at the Town Hall in their small New Zealand town of Riverstone. This cosy mystery blends crime, family drama, and queer storytelling in the most delightful way. Read my full review of Nancy Business here.
Did You See Melody? by Sophie Hannah
Cara, the main character of Did You See Melody?, had no intentions of becoming an amateur sleuth. She just wanted to escape from her family to enjoy a luxurious solo holiday on the other side of the world. It was an unfortunate administrative error that saw her enter the wrong hotel room, and catch a glimpse the country’s most famous murder victim – somehow, alive and well. It’s this mix-up that pulls her into a mystery with tantalising clues. Could the girl she saw really be Melody? Were her parents wrongfully imprisoned? Is there any way to really know the truth? Read my full review of Did You See Melody? here.
Lowbridge by Lucy Campbell
How can a teenage girl go missing, in a small town where everyone knows everyone? How can her whereabouts remain unknown, decades later, in a small town where no one can have any secrets? In Lowbridge, it’s up to Katherine to find out. She’s grieving the loss of her own daughter when she moves with her husband back to his hometown, and that’s where she learns of Tess’s disappearance and becomes obsessed with solving the town’s haunting cold case. Read my full review of Lowbridge here.
Death Of A Bookseller by Alice Slater
The main character in Death Of A Bookseller, Roach, has been obsessed with true crime for a long, long time – longer than any of the pumpkin-spice-latte-sipping customers in the Spines bookstore where she works. Despite her grouchiness, she thinks she’s found a kindred spirit in Laura, the bright and cheerful children’s bookseller. Laura seems resistant to Roach’s overtures of friendship, but Roach is determined; she has learned that Laura is herself the center of a true crime story, and Roach can’t resist the opportunity to insert herself into it. Read my full review of Death Of A Bookseller here.
A Most Puzzling Murder by Bianca Marais
Destiny Whip doesn’t set out to be an amateur sleuth, even though it’s perfectly aligned with her profession. She is an ‘enigmatologist’ – a child prodigy puzzle solver, who heads to Eerie Island in search of her biological family. In A Most Puzzling Murder, Destiny (and the reader) must solve a series of puzzles to discover her true origins… and who will be murdered. The Scruffmore family has gathered to discuss succession, but one of them will end up dead, and someone in the family will be responsible. Can Destiny solve a murder that hasn’t happened, and uncover her own truth into the bargain? Read my full review of A Most Puzzling Murder here.
The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
It’s hard not to feel envious of journalists that get plum assignments – like travel writers who get an all-expenses-paid luxury cruise across the picturesque North Sea… but your jealousy won’t last long when you read The Woman In Cabin 10. Everything on board the Aurora is going swimmingly for Lo Blacklock, until she witnesses a woman being thrown overboard – and, when she tries to raise the alarm, everyone else on board insists that the woman was never there to begin with. With all passengers officially accounted for, the ship sails on, leaving Lo the only one investigating the disappearance of the mysterious woman who (apparently) never existed.
All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien
There were a dozen witnesses to 17-year-old Denny Tran’s murder in Cabramatta’s Lucky 8 restaurant, but none of them saw anything. Every single one was looking away, or in the bathroom, or out the back. None of them can tell the police, or his bereft sister Ky, who killed Denny – or why. In All That’s Left Unsaid, Ky takes it upon herself to investigate what happened to her brother, using every skill she’s honed as a journalist to uncover the truth that the police can’t (or won’t) reveal. Read my full review of All That’s Left Unsaid here.
The Busy Body by Kemper Donovan
The main character in The Busy Body is a ghostwriter; she tells other people’s stories for a living, and ghostwriting the memoir of failed presidential candidate Dorothy Gibson is a dream assignment… except for the apparent-suicide (actual murder) of her next door neighbour. It just so happens that Dorothy was one of the last people to see the victim alive, and her name is inevitably dragged into the headlines. Dorothy and the ghostwriter find themselves flung head-first into a real-life murder mystery – one that they’ll have to solve themselves to clear Dorothy’s name. Read my full review of The Busy Body here.
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