Six Four-Star Mysteries to Keep You Guessing

The Bossy Bookworm

12 minutes ago

4 min read

Great Backlist Mystery and Suspense Reads

You know what I love about a backlist roundup of great reads? They're all likely to be available at the library. If you like cozying up with some fall mystery reading like I am, make sure to check out these titles, if you haven't read them.

These six four-star mysteries are all so good and so different--they were my favorites of the year a couple of years ago, and they're so solid that I thought I'd repost again. I hope you'll check them out if you're in the market for mystery and suspense.

You might also like these other Greedy Reading Lists of Bossy mystery favorites.

I'd love to hear about your favorite mystery reads!

01 The Witch Elm by Tana French

Within a suspenseful mystery structure, French explores privilege, interconnectedness, and the many shades of gray that complicate her characters' fraught situations.

A Tana French mystery is usually a good bet for me, and I plowed through The Witch Elm to find out what was happening under French's layers of story.

In The Witch Elm, French dips her toe into exploring how luck, (sometimes blind) loyalty—and, in several instances, a shocking absence of guilt and potentially skewed sense of justice—shape lives and carry events.

French is the author of six Dublin Murder Squad series titles: In the Woods, The Likeness--this is my favorite of hers, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, and The Trespasser.

French has also written three books in the Cal Hooper series, The Searcher, The Hunter, and The Keeper.

For my full review of this book, please see The Witch Elm.

02 The Lost Man by Jane Harper

Harper's mysteries read like twisty character-driven Westerns set in Australia, and things aren’t always what they seem. I thought this was great.

Nathan and Bub come together to grieve the loss of their brother Cam. Cam had been bothered by something before dying unexpectedly in the Australian outback desert, but was his death suicide--or did someone kill him? Nathan is no detective, but he owes it to Cam not to give up until he figures it out.

Harper skillfully builds the pool of potential culprits for Nathan to examine in this story of uncovering truths, family history, loyalty, stubbornness, and love.

Harper's books read like Westerns to me, and her sometimes spare tone suits the setting, the situations in which she places her characters, and the characters themselves. Things aren’t what they seem in The Lost Man, but Harper isn’t manipulative or tricky, either. I thought this was great.

For my full review, please check out The Lost Man. And for more Bossy reviews of other Jane Harper books, please check out this link.

03 Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

Julia Phillips's interconnected stories follow in chapters that take place each month for a year after the disappearance of two girls on the edge of Russia. The rural Siberian settings are exquisitely wrought, with stark, rugged, lush landscapes serving as the backdrop for a mystery that shakes a small community.

The story is as much about the varied cast of characters, the closed-off community, and the vivid sense of place Phillips imagines as it is about the mystery itself. It isn't a police procedural; this is a starkly beautiful book that happens to be a mystery.

Disappearing Earth was Phillips's first book, and she built the story's pace steadily toward a crescendo.

The ending doesn't necessarily provide all the answers, but Phillips provides enough pieces of the puzzle to create closure.

You might also be interested in Julia Phillips's second book, Bear.

04 The Last Child by John Hart

I loved John Hart's brusque, determined Clyde Hunt, the scrappy and unstoppable young Johnny Merrimon, the sinister underbelly of their rural North Carolina town, and basically everything about this intricate literary mystery-thriller.

Hart knows how to masterfully build a story around unforgettable characters with layers they reluctantly reveal. I didn't expect the resolution Hart allows to unfold at the end. But I was in for whatever he was dishing up, and I was fascinated all along the way.

I love Hart's imperfect, brave, relentlessly tough protagonists. He's a gifted storyteller.

John Hart has also written many other books, including The Unwilling, The Hush, which is the second in the Johnny Merrimon series, and Redemption Road. (Note: I had difficulty reading the horrific cruelties perpetuated by multiple characters in Redemption Road.)

For my full review of this book, please see The Last Child.

05 City of Windows (Lucas Page #1) by Robert Pobi

I loved Pobi's mystery; the character of Lucas Page, a retired detective who is pulled back onto a case; and the smart commentary about gun ownership and responsibility.

This was a really compelling mystery/thriller—with a smart underlying commentary about gun ownership, violence, and the factors complicating these issues, including societal malaise, ignorance often overpowering facts, and longstanding patterns of power and fear.

I loved the balance of clues and revelations Pobi laid out; they didn’t make me feel manipulated or red-herringed to death.

Lucas Page is a fantastic character (as are Whitaker, Kehoe, Erin, and Dingo). The elaborate climactic scene was creatively gruesome—and I felt realistic disgust as a result.

I haven't yet read the second in this Lucas Page series, Under Pressure--and I didn't even realize this was a series until after the fact, this novel stands so well on its own.

For my full review of this book, please see City of Windows.

06 Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich

I love a small-town sheriff story, and Brian Panowich offers a nicely layered version in Bull Mountain.

Clayton Burroughs is sheriff of a small town in North Georgia. But the rest of his family is a well-known, entrenched, powerful bunch of moonshiners (they operate in even darker avenues too) on and around Bull Mountain.

Clayton's law enforcement career and the rest of the Burroughses' relentless lawbreaking make for difficult family dynamics and some impossible professional dilemmas.

Panowich offers a story about a complicated family and sense of duty, with ruthless mountain gangsters, twists and turns, dark elements, interconnected stories, and quite an ending.

I thought this was great.