Cox Library's Recommended Reading

“I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.” So says 11-year-old Flavia de Luce when she discovers a man dead in her garden, and the aspiring chemist (passionate about poisons) decides to take on the case.

A different sort of detective story, with a very memorable narrator. When his neighbor's dog is found dead, Christopher Boone, a highly intelligent 15-year-old on the autism spectrum, becomes determined to find its killer, but is not prepared for the family secrets he will uncover along the way. A funny, moving story that you will remember for a long time.

The formidable and energetic Mma Precious Ramotswe becomes the first female private eye in Botswana in this popular series by Alexander McCall Smith. Engaging mysteries with a likeable heroine and a great sense of place!

Famed boy detective, Billy Argo, was unable to solve the one mystery that really mattered to him: why his beloved sister, Caroline, committed suicide at age 16. Ten years later, Billy is now a troubled adult, and the once-great detective must learn to face the world and accept the uncertainties of life. A beautiful, melancholy novel that uses character types familiar to anyone who grew up reading Encyclopedia Brown or Nancy Drew to tell a profound story about loss, loneliness, and the human spirit.

John le Carré's Cold War spy dramas are exciting and exquisitely plotted. British Intelligence Agent George Smiley has been forced into early retirement, but after the death of Control, his former boss, Smiley is recalled to track down a mole deep inside the "Circus."

Elizabeth Wein's intricately plotted and suspenseful novel focuses on the friendship between two young women during World War II -- British pilot Maddie and her passenger, a spy. When the two women crash land in Nazi-occupied France, the spy is quickly captured and forced to write her confession.

Boy Nobody is always the new kid on campus. He shows up just long enough to register for classes, make a few friends -- and take out his target. This adrenaline-pumping tale of a teen assassin is the first in a trilogy.

Nick and Amy Dunne have been having marital troubles ever since he relocated them from their NYC penthouse to his small Midwestern hometown, and when Amy goes missing, Nick finds himself the prime suspect in her disappearance. Things, however, are not as they seem. Readers are unable to put down this suspenseful thriller.

When Cliff, a young researcher, starts to turn up too-good-to-be-true results in his medical studies, his girlfriend Robin, also a scientist, begins to suspect him of faking his results. A disturbing medical mystery with no easy answers.

Before becoming a novelist, William Landay served as the Assistant District Attorney of Middlesex County, MA, and his extensive legal knowledge informs this tense, tightly-written courtroom drama about a teenage boy accused of murdering a classmate.

Written in screenplay format, this book tells the story of 16-year-old Steve Harmon, on trial for murder. Walter Dean Myers won the first Printz Award for this gripping book.

The terrifying classic (true?) story of a haunted house. You'll sleep with the lights on after reading this one!

The best story by the master of mystery, Agatha Christie! Ten strangers travel to a remote island for a weekend party that turns deadly when the guests begin to be picked off one by one. A clever, gripping book.

When a naive young woman marries the wealthy and glamorous Maxim de Winter and moves into his stately home, Manderley, she finds herself haunted by the memory of his first wife, Rebecca. A chilling, atmospheric work by a top-notch storyteller.

You can't go wrong with a story from the master of horror. This recent book by King tells a creepy story that follows up on his earlier work, The Shining.

Set against the backdrop of 19th century Boston, this thrilling book pits the stars of New England's literary world -- John Longfellow, James Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes -- against a vicious serial killer who draws his inspiration from Dante's Inferno -- the very book the "Dante club" are working to translate.

Told in the form of letters from Eva Khatchadourian, the mother of a young boy who murdered several of his schoolmates, this tense, enthralling book takes a deep look at our darkest fears and explores the question of whether monsters are born, or made.

18-year-old Merricat Blackwood lives with her older sister Constance and her infirm uncle Peter in their decrepit family home, where six years ago the rest of their family was murdered by sugar laced with arsenic. Constance -- tried and acquitted of the crime -- is still seen as guilty in the eyes of their small New England town, and the sisters are ostracized and isolated in this very creepy, atmospheric novel.