Library Mysteries

Answering Shakespeare trivia comes with the job description for library director Lindsey Norris. But when the Briar Creek Community Theater mounts their newest production of the Bard, she has no intention of leaving the stacks for the stage. Unfortunately a villain is waiting in the wings....

When the Briar Creek Public Library holds its first overdue book amnesty day—no fines for late returns—the volume of incoming materials is more than Lindsey and her staff can handle. In a bind, Lindsey drafts the crafternoon ladies to help check in and sort the stacks of books. But one tardy tome catches her attention—a copy of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, twenty years past due. When Lindsey looks up the borrower, she’s shocked to discover it was a murdered teacher named Candice Whitley, whose killer was never found.

The number one best-selling Magic Tree House series is ready to whisk you away through time with Jack and Annie! Camp Time in California: The magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie to the Yosemite National Park in 1903. They are surprised to join John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt on the most significant camping trip in conservation history! Sunlight on the Snow Leopard: The magic tree house takes Jack and Annie to Nepal with a mission to find...a ghost! As frightening as that sounds, the mission is clear: Find the ghost, and save the world.

Arcadia “Dia” Gannon has been obsessed with Louisiana Veda, the game designer whose obsessive creations and company, Darkly, have gained a cultlike following. Dia is shocked when she’s chosen for a highly-coveted internship, along with six other teenagers from around the world. Why her? Dia has never won anything in her life. Darkly, once a game-making empire renowned for its ingenious and utterly terrifying toys and games, now lies dormant after Veda’s mysterious death. The remaining games are priced like rare works of art, with some fetching millions of dollars at auction.

Twelve-year-old Henry York wakes up one night to find bits of plaster in his hair. Two knobs have broken through the wall above his bed and one of them is slowly turning. Henry scrapes the plaster off the wall and discovers cupboards of all different sizes and shapes. Through one he can hear the sound of falling rain. Through another he sees a glowing room with a man pacing back and forth! Henry soon understands that these are not just cupboards, but portals to other worlds.

It's a hot, hot summer, and in the depths of the Toronto Transit Authority's Lost and Found, 17-year-old Duncan is cataloging lost things and sifting through accumulated junk. And between Jacob, the cranky old man who runs the place, and the endless dusty boxes overflowing with stuff no one will ever claim, Duncan's just about had enough. Then he finds a little leather book. It's a diary filled with the dark and dirty secrets of a twisted mind, a serial killer stalking his prey in the subway. And Duncan can't make himself stop reading.

One week after their 11th birthday, the Fowl twins - scientist Myles, and Beckett, the force of nature - are left in the care of house security (NANNI) for a single night. In that time they befriend a troll who has clawed his way through the earth's crust to the surface. Unfortunately for the troll, he is being chased by a nefarious nobleman and an interrogating nun, who both need the magical creature for their own gain, as well as a fairy-in-training who has been assigned to protect him. The boys and their new troll best friend escape and go on the run.

J is for Jewel.... New York is the emerald city! Dink’s uncle’s museum there has a new treasure - a golden jaguar statue with an emerald between its paws. But someone swaps the jewel for a fake! Who stole the jaguar’s jewel? Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are sure to find out!

Valdez Jones VIII calls himself Wrecker because his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather salvaged shipwrecks for a living. So is it destiny, irony, or just bad luck when Wrecker comes across a speedboat that has run hard aground on a sand flat? The men in the boat don't want Wrecker to call for help—in fact, they'll pay him to forget he ever saw them. Wrecker would be happy to forget, but he keeps seeing these men all over Key West—at the marina, even in the cemetery. And now they want more than his silence—they want a lookout.

For almost two years, Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye, the Duke of Scilly, has been plotting revenge against the Fowl Twins, who humiliated him in book one. Teddy plans to give them exactly what they deserve: permanent death. He threatens Myles with his weaponized jet, and Beckett and specialist Lazuli succeed in disarming the aircraft and causing an accident that kills the duke. But does it really?

Theo Boone might only be 13, but he's already uncovered key evidence in a groundbreaking murder trial and discovered the truth behind his best friend's abduction. Now with the latest unfolding of events in Strattenburg, Theo will face his biggest challenge yet. Filled with the intrigue and page-turning suspense that made John Grisham a number-one international best seller and the undisputed master of the legal thriller, Theodore Boone's adventures will keep listeners enthralled until the very last minute.

Alice Lawrence is the sole witness in her sister’s murder trial. And in the year since Claire’s death, Alice’s life has completely fallen apart. Her parents have gotten divorced, she’s moved into an apartment that smells like bologna, and she is being forced to face her sister’s killer and a courtroom full of people who doubt what she saw in the corn maze a year prior.

When the life of someone they both love is put on the line, Sydney risks everything to hunt down a deadly former nemesis. Meanwhile, Adrian becomes enmeshed in a puzzle that could hold the key to a shocking secret about spirit magic, a secret that could shake the entire Moroi world.

They're getting married! Lucy Richardson and Connor McNeil have announced their engagement. Their friends throw a party for the couple at Coquina Beach, close to Lucy's beloved Bodie Island Lighthouse Library. As they're packing up the presents and the (few) leftovers from Josie's Cozy Bakery, who should arrive but Richard Eric Lewiston III, Lucy's former almost-fiancé, and his overbearing mother Evangeline. Push comes to love when Evangeline makes no secret of why she's there: to get Lucy and Ricky back together.

Between preparing the library for the holidays and juggling the affections of ex-boyfriend Captain Mike Sullivan and her new crush, actor Robbie Vine, Lindsey has her hands full. But the mysterious disappearance of her world-traveling playboy brother takes precedence over all. Afraid that involving the police could brew trouble for Jack, Lindsey takes matters into her own hands.

Alice Ogilvie and Iris Adams became the talk of Castle Cove when they cracked the biggest case of the fall: the death of Brooke Donovan. Together, the Agathas put Brooke's killer away for good, and since then things around town have been almost back to normal. Quiet, even. But if Alice and Iris know anything, it's that sometimes quiet is just the calm before the storm. The truth is, Brooke's disappearance wasn't the first mystery to rock Castle Cove, and it won't be the last.

Ed Kennedy is an underage cabdriver without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and utterly devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery.

There are no more cheerleaders in the town of Sunnybrook. First there was the car accident - two girls dead after hitting a tree on a rainy night. Not long after, the murders happened. Those two girls were killed by the man next door. The police shot him, so no one will ever know his reasons. Monica's sister was the last cheerleader to die. After her suicide, Sunnybrook High disbanded the cheer squad. No one wanted to be reminded of the girls they'd lost.

Humphrey has always investigated things, like why Speak-Up-Sayeh was so quiet and Tall-Paul and Small-Paul didn't get along, but this is a true mystery - Mrs. Brisbane is missing! She just didn't show up in Room 26 one morning and no one told Humphrey why. The class has a substitute teacher, called Mr. E., but he's no Mrs. Brisbane.

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together a selection of rare tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public’s imagination.