Best Mysteries Featuring Diverse Sleuths

missing white woman by Kellye Garrett

Breanna's new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything for their romantic getaway weekend in New York City, but when she comes downstairs on the final morning of their trip, there's a stranger lying dead in the foyer and Ty is nowhere to be found. A Black woman alone in a new city, Bree is stranded and out of her depth - especially when it becomes clear that the dead woman is none other than Janelle Beckett, a missing white woman the entire internet has become obsessed with. There's only one person Bree can ask for help to figure out what happened that night: her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past.

arsenic and adobo by Mia P. Manansala

When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, she's tasked with saving her Tita Rosie's failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love (and judgment). But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a romcom recovery romp to an Agatha Christie case. With the cops treating her like she's the one and only suspect, and the shady landlord looking to finally kick the Macapagal family out and resell the storefront, Lila's left with no choice but to conduct her own investigation. Armed with the nosy auntie network, her barista best bud, and her trusted Dachshund, Longanisa, Lila takes on this twisted case and soon finds her own neck on the chopping block...

razorblade tears by S. A. Cosby

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

it's elementary by Elise Bryant

Mavis Miller has a lot on her plate with her feisty seven-year-old daughter, Pearl, an exhausting job at a nonprofit, and the complexities of a multigenerational household. So no one is more surprised than Mavis when she finds herself in charge of the school's brand-new DEI committee. As one of the few Black parents at this elite California elementary school, Mavis tries to convince herself this is an opportunity for real change. But things go off the rails at the very first meeting, when the new principal's plans make longtime PTA president Trisha Holbrook absolutely furious. Later that night, Mavis uneasily spies Trisha in yellow rubber gloves and booties, lugging cleaning supplies and giant black trash bags to her waiting minivan. Then Principal Smith fails to show up for work, and has been MIA since the meeting. Determined to get to the bottom of things, Mavis, along with the school psychologist with the great forearms (look, it's worth noting), launches an investigation that will challenge her views on parenting, friendship, and cuthroat elementary school politics.

dead of winter by Stephen Mack Jones

Authentico Foods Inc. has been a part of Detroit's Mexican Town for over thirty years, grown from a home kitchen business to a city-block-long facility that supplies Mexican tortillas to restaurants throughout the Midwest. Detroit ex-cop and Mexican Town native August Snow has been invited for a business meeting at Authentico Foods. Its owner, Ronaldo Ochoa, is dying, and is being blackmailed into selling the company to an anonymous entity. Worried about his employees, Ochoa wants August to buy it. August has no interest in running a tortilla empire, but he does want to know who's threatening his neighborhood. Quickly, his investigation takes a devastating turn and he and his loved ones find themselves ensnared in a dangerous net of ruthless billionaire developers. August Snow must fight not only for his life, but for the soul of Mexican town itself

Book Jacket: Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

vera wong's unsolicited advice for murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Vera Wong is a lonely lady of a certain age who lives above her once thriving, now forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. She likes nothing more than a good cup of Wulong and extensive, loving detective work on the Internet to see what her Gen-Z son is up to. Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing--a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand is a flash drive, which Vera picks up after calling the cops like any good citizen would. Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of curious customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer. What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her new customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to turn in one of her newfound chicks to the police?

glory be by Danielle Arceneaux

It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend-a nun beloved by the community-has been found dead in her apartment. When police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced that there must be more to the story. With her reluctant daughter-who has troubles of her own-in tow, Glory launches a shadow investigation into Lafayette’s oil tycoons, church gossips, a rumored voodoo priestess, nosey neighbors, and longtime ne'er-do wells. As a Black woman of a certain age who grew up in a segregated Louisiana, Glory is used to being minimized and overlooked. But she’s determined to make her presence known as the case leads her deep into a web of intrigue she never realized Lafayette could harbor.

mango, mambo, and murder by Raquel V. Reyes

Food anthropologist Miriam moves from New York to Miami, putting her academic career on hold to stay at home with her young son. Gracias to her best friend, Alma, Miriam gets a short-term job as a Caribbean cooking expert on a Spanish-language TV show. But when the newly minted star attends a Women's Club luncheon, a socialite sitting at her table suddenly falls face-first into the chicken salad, never to nibble again. When a second woman dies soon after, suspicions coalesce around a controversial Cuban herbalist, Dr. Fuentes--especially after the morning show's host collapses while interviewing him. Detective Pullman, assigned to the cases, is not happy to find Miriam at every turn. After he catches her breaking into the doctor's apothecary, he enlists her help as eyes and ears to the places he can't access, namely the Spanish-speaking community and social scene. As the ingredients to the deadly scheme begin blending together, Miriam is on the verge of learning how and why the women died. But her snooping may turn out to be a recipe for her own murder.

under color of law by Aaron Philip Clark

Black rookie cop Trevor "Finn" Finnegan aspires to become a top-ranking officer in the Los Angeles Police Department and fix a broken department. A fast-track promotion to detective in the coveted Robbery-Homicide Division puts him closer to achieving his goal. Four years later, calls for police accountability rule the headlines. The city is teeming with protests for racial justice. When the body of a murdered Black academy recruit is found in the Angeles National Forest, Finn is tasked to investigate. As pressure mounts to solve the crime and avoid a PR nightmare, Finn scours the underbelly of a volatile city where power, violence, and race intersect. But it's Finn's past experience as a beat cop that may hold the key to solving the recruit's murder. The price? The end of Finn's career...or his life.

against the currant by Olivia Matthews

Little Caribbean, Brooklyn, New York: Lyndsay Murray is opening Spice Isle Bakery with her family, and it’s everything she’s ever wanted. The West Indian bakery is her way to give back to the community she loves, stay connected to her roots, and work side-by-side with her family. The only thing getting a rise out of Lyndsay is Claudio Fabrizi, a disgruntled fellow bakery owner who does not want any competition. On opening day, he comes into the bakery threatening to shut them down. Fed up, Lyndsay takes him to task in front of what seems to be the whole neighborhood. So when Claudio turns up dead a day later-murdered-Lyndsay is unfortunately the prime suspect. To get the scent of suspicion off her and her bakery, Lyndsay has to prove she’s innocent, and under the watchful eyes of her overprotective brother, anxious parents, and meddlesome extended family-what could go wrong?

trouble in queenstown by Delia Pitts

Evander "Vandy" Myrick became a cop to fulfill her father's expectations. After her world cratered, she became a private eye to satisfy her own. Now she's back in Queenstown, New Jersey, her childhood home, in search of solace and recovery. As a Black woman, privacy is hard to come by in "Q-Town," and worth guarding. For Vandy, that means working plenty of divorce cases. They're nasty, lucrative, and fun in an unwholesome way. To keep the cash flowing and expand her local contacts, Vandy agrees to take on a new client, the mayor's nephew, Leo Hannah. Leo wants Vandy to tail his wife to uncover evidence for a divorce suit. At first the surveillance job seems routine, but Vandy soon realizes there's trouble beneath the bland surface of the case when a racially charged murder with connections to the Hannah family rocks Q-Town. Fingers point. Clients appear. Opposition to the inquiry hardens. And Vandy's sight lines begin to blur as her determination to uncover the truth deepens. She's a minor league PI with few friends and no resources. Logic pegs her chances of solving the case between slim and hell no. But logic isn't her strong suit, and Vandy won't back off.

as the wicked watch by Tamron Hall

Crime reporter Jordan Manning leaves her hometown in Texas to take a job at a television station in Chicago. She is smart and aggressive, with unabashed star power, and often the only woman of color in the newsroom. Armed with a master's degree in forensic science and impeccable instincts, Jordan yearns to break every big story and give voice to the voiceless. Again and again, she is called to cover the murders of black females, many of them sexually assaulted, most brutalized, and all of them quickly forgotten. All until Masey James, a fifteen-year-old girl whose body was found in an abandoned lot becomes the story that Jordan just can't shake. Putting the rest of her workload and her (fraying) personal life aside, Jordan does everything she can to give the story the coverage it desperately requires, and that a missing black child would so rarely get. There's a serial killer on the loose, Jordan believes, and he's hiding in plain sight

silent city by Alex Segura

Pete Fernandez is a mess. He's on the brink of being fired from his middle-management newspaper job. His fiancée has up and left him. Now, after the sudden death of his father, he's back in his hometown of Miami, slowly drinking himself into oblivion. But when a co-worker he barely knows asks Pete to locate a missing daughter, Pete finds himself dragged into a scene of murder, drugs, double-crosses and memories bursting from the black heart of the Miami underworld - and, shockingly, his father's past. Making it up as he goes and stumbling as often as he succeeds, Pete's surreptitious quest becomes the wake-up call he's never wanted but has always needed - but one with deadly consequences. Welcome to Silent City, a story of redemption, broken friendships, lost loves and one man's efforts to make peace with a long-buried past to save the lives of the few friends he has left. First in a series.

devil in a blue dress by Walter Mosley

Easy Rawlins, a tough-as-nails black WWII veteran, has just been fired from his job at a defense factory plant. Drinking in his friend’s bar, he's wondering how he’ll manage to make ends meet, when a white man in a linen suit approaches him and offers him good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a missing blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs. Easy has no idea that by taking this job, his life is about to change forever. First in a tremendously popular series.

the last line by Scott Lyerly

The new production at Ellie Marlowe’s community theater could save her from financial ruin, but her overbearing lead, Reginald Thornton IV, is determined to antagonize every cast member. Nervous and with her Tourette’s syndrome flaring, Ellie is relieved when opening night seems to be going well. But then Reginald’s death scene at the end of the play turns out to be all too real. The state police write the death off as a heart attack, but several things don't add up, and Ellie and her childhood friend, Bill Starlin, the local chief of police, begin investigating. When another person linked to the theater is attacked, they’re convinced a killer is on the loose. As Ellie and Bill reveal connections between cast members, they uncover dark secrets and must race to find the killer before it’s curtains for someone else.

death by dumpling by Vivien Chien

The last place Lana Lee thought she would ever end up is back at her family’s restaurant. But after a brutal break-up and a dramatic workplace walk-out, she figures that helping wait tables is her best option for putting her life back together. Even if that means having to put up with her mother, who is dead-set on finding Lana a husband. But her love life soon becomes yesterday’s news once the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead-after a delivery of shrimp dumplings from Ho-Lee. But how could this have happened when everyone on staff knew about Mr. Feng’s severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy? Now, with the whole restaurant under suspicion for murder and the local media in a feeding frenzy-to say nothing of the gorgeous police detective who keeps turning up for take-out-it’s up to Lana to find out who is behind Feng’s killer order. . . before her own number is up.

the devotion of suspect x by Keigo Higashino

Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother who thought she had finally escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day to extort money from her, threatening both her and her teenaged daughter, the situation quickly escalates into violence and Togashi ends up dead on her apartment floor. Overhearing the commotion, their next-door neighbor, middle-aged high school mathematics teacher Ishigami, offers his help, disposing not only of the body but plotting the cover-up. When the body later turns up and is identified, Detective Kusanagi draws the case, is unable to find any obvious holes in Yasuko's manufactured alibi, and yet is still sure that there's something wrong. Kusanagi brings in a physicist and college friend who frequently consults with the police, Dr. Yukawa, known to the police by the nickname Professor Galileo. Yukawa becomes convinced that neighbor Ishigami had something to do with the murder. What ensues is a high-level battle of wits, as Ishigami tries to protect Yasuko by outmaneuvering and outthinking Yukawa, who faces his most clever and determined opponent yet.

queen of bones by Teresa Dovalpage

Padrino, a former detective on the Cuban police force, has retired and found a new, happy life as a Santería priest. But he is drawn back in for a murder investigation when his goddaughter, Rosita, who works at the local cemetery, recognizes one of the bodies that crosses her embalming table. Meanwhile, an old flame of Rosita's, Juan, has returned to Cuba after fleeing by raft twenty years ago. He is with his American wife, Sharon, and has come back to catch up with his old college circle--Victor, his estranged best friend, and unbeknownst to Sharon, his most serious ex-girlfriend, Elsa, with whom he never quite fell out of love. When murder occurs within this group, it will cost Padrino more than he expects to untangle everyone's lies and track down the killer.

the song dog by James McClure

The year is 1962. Young South African police lieutenant Tromp Kramer has been ordered up to a small, dusty town in northern Zululand, to investigate the "hero's death" of the town's chief detective, Maaties Kritzinger, another Afrikaner maverick, and one with many secrets. Kramer finds himself increasingly identifying with the victim as the investigation proceeds. And then his path crosses that of Bantu Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi, who is trying to locate a multiple killer whose summary execution will quiet the spirits of his ancestors. Despite the racial differences, the two men sense a kinship... one that might prove dangerous in rural South Africa in the year of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment.

the widows of malabar hill by Sujata Massey

Inspired by the real first female lawyer in India. Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Her family firm has been appointed to execute the will of a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forfeit what their husband left them? Perveen is suspicious, especially since one of the widows has signed her form with an X meaning she probably couldn't even read the document. The widows live in full purdah, in strict seclusion, never leaving the women's quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen investigates, and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder. Now it is her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that no innocent women or children are in further danger.

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