Children Literature Mysteries

Dr. Margaret Richter has it all. She’s rich, thanks to her best-selling self-help books. She has a beautiful home in Cape Cod overlooking the beach. And she has a monthly book club that everyone is dying to get invited to. Literally. Because behind the crystal wine glasses, the fine linens and the catered hors d'oeuvres lies a tangled web of secrets, of deceit, of murder. No member of the book club is innocent—and many are guilty. And the person with the most to hide is Margaret Richter herself.

The Alden children are visiting Aunt Jane when a nearby house burns down. Their friend Mike is blamed for starting the fire! Can the Aldens help find the real criminal?

Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it's been waiting for them.

Lee Child selects the 20 best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Stephen King, Sara Paretsky, and many more. Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international best seller Lee Child has selected the 20 most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

The Boxcar Children are spending the summer in a tiny, quiet New England fishing village. The little schoolhouse doesn’t have a proper teacher, so the Aldens are teaching! There’s also a very old library where nobody ever goes - nobody, that is, except for a mysterious stranger. For such a small town, Port Elizabeth has a lot of secrets!

The Aldens visit their mysterious Aunt Jane at her run-down ranch and make a surprising discovery!

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter, and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona's worries.

Luke Garner has spent his entire life - all 12 years - in hiding. The government has outlawed families with more than two children. As the Garners' third child, Luke's very life is in danger. When Luke meets Jen, another "shadow child," he begins to question the government's policies.

Nathan Tyler is an unassuming professor at a middling American university with a rather obscure specialty in mathematics—in short, a nobody from nowhere. So why is the White House calling? Summoned to Washington, DC, for a top-secret briefing, Nathan discovers that he’s the key to a massive foreign intelligence breakthrough. Reading between the lines of a cryptic series of equations, he could open a door straight into the heart of the Kremlin and change the global balance of power forever.

Juliet only wanted to see her childhood home one more time–to look at it from the street. She never intended to meet the new owners, let alone talk her way into a position as their new live-in nanny. But it's too late now to tell the truth about who she really is. Six-year-old Kitty has progressive mutism and cannot speak. Nobody knows why she keeps making silent phone calls to the police. Juliet makes it her mission to find out. As Juliet settles into the house, nostalgia for her childhood gives way to uneasiness, as troubling memories surface.

It was summer in the mountains when five small children vanished from their nursery school picnic. The heat was stifling that day, the tinkle of an ice-cream van in the air.... Three-and-a-half years later, in the dead of winter, the children are returned to their families...one by one. All except for Ivy - the granddaughter of Homicide Detective Kate Wakeland. The other four children say Ivy is dead.

Baker Street Four follows Billy (Charlie Brand), Charlie (Kiki May), and Tom (Nathan Moses), three young apprentices of Sherlock Holmes (Paterson Joseph) who assist the famous detective in London’s dodgy East End. With the help of their faithful cat, Watson (Bill Nighy) and Sherlock’s beloved housekeeper Mrs. Hudson (Celia Imrie), this foursome takes local crimes into their own hands while Holmes is off solving mysteries abroad. Follow the Baker Street Irregulars as they pursue different cases, growing by the day as young detectives and as friends.

Viva Durant, New Orleans’ youngest detective, is on a quest to solve a jazzy mystery. Every summer, Viva heads to New Orleans to spend time with her loving but stern Grandmother, known as Gram. After Gram reads Viva an article in the local paper about a missing treasure related to the world-famous song, “Miss Mary Mack”, Viva heads through the Crescent City on an epic adventure to track down the treasure. The clues lead Viva to the French Quarter, a jazz club, a creepy cemetery, and even the circus.

The Boxcar Children: Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are orphans. Can they find a home where they can stay together as a family? Surprise Island: The Aldens spend the summer on their own private island. There they meet a new friend with an amazing secret! The Yellow House Mystery: Years ago, a man vanished from the yellow house on Surprise Island. Why? The Aldens have found a clue to the mystery!

Rebekah Daniels is just your ordinary spunky nine-year-old girl living in the small town of Curtis Bay…EXCEPT she is determined NOT to be ordinary at all! Her small town is filled with mysteries and Rebekah is sure that she, along with her best friend Mouse, will be able to solve every last one of them.

For Detective Sam Porter, the words "Father, forgive me" conjure memories long forgotten; a past intentionally buried. For Anson Bishop, these three words connect a childhood to the present as he unleashes a truth concealed for decades. Found written on cardboard near each body, these words link multiple victims to a single killer - discovered within minutes of each other in both Chicago and South Carolina - clearly connected yet separated by impossible miles.

Sheriff Eve Wicker never expected the biggest mystery of her past would land on her doorstep years later. After her mother’s death, Eve left the small-town and joined the NSA. Only to find herself back in Chesapeake Valley. While she attempts to juggle her sheriff duties and help her ailing father. She finds herself colliding with the town brute, a man with a dark and traumatic past.

Mystery Ranch: The Aldens visit their mysterious Aunt Jane at her run-down ranch and make a surprising discovery! Mike's Mystery: A nearby house burns down while the Boxcar Children are staying with their Aunt Jane - and their friend Mike is blamed for starting the fire! Blue Bay Mystery: The Aldens are excited to visit a deserted South Seas island. But soon they discover clues that they are not alone. Is someone on the island watching them?

Wyatt Riggins, the boyfriend of rising Maine artist Zetta Nadeau, has gone missing, leaving behind a cell phone containing a single-word message: RUN. Private investigator Charlie Parker is hired to find out why Riggins has fled, and from whom. Parker discovers that Riggins, an ex-soldier, has been involved in the abduction of four children from Mexico: three girls and a boy, all belonging to the cartel boss Blás Urrea—except Urrea’s family is safe and well in Mexico, which means the abductees cannot be his children. Yet whoever they are, Urrea wants them back.

Bruno, chief of police in the French town of St. Denis, is already busy with a case when the body of an undercover French Muslim cop is found in the woods, a man who had called Bruno for help only hours earlier. But Bruno's sometime boss and rival, the Brigadier, doesn't see this investigation as a priority - there are bigger issues at stake. Bruno has other ideas.