Looking for a Good Mystery?
Updated November 2005
YA Alphin COUNTERFEIT
SON When serial killer Hank
Miller is killed in a shoot-out with
police, his abused son Cameron adopts the identity of one of his father's
victims in order to find a better life.
(2000)
YA Bloor TANGERINE Although Paul needs thick glasses to enable him to see well enough to do what other kids do, his instinctual vision is 20/20. He clearly “sees” behind the façade of Tangerine County, Florida where lightning strikes more often than anywhere, and in the course of things unravels the horrible truth about his twisted older brother. (1997)
YA Crew ANGEL’S
GATE Kimmy encounters two wild
children who have grown up in the hills of Australia and tries to protect them
from the unknown person who murdered their father. (1995)
YA Ericson HARRIET SPIES AGAIN Harriet and Ole Golly are together again, but Ole Golly is not acting herself. A strange new girl in the neighborhood and Ole Golly’s behavior has Harriet back in action! (2002)
YA Feinstein LAST SHOT After winning a basketball reporting contest, eighth graders Stevie and Susan Carol are sent to cover the Final Four tournament, where they discover that a talented player is being blackmailed into throwing the final game. (2005)
J Hobbs GHOST CANOE No survivors, the authorities declare…but, Nathan MacAllister isn’t so sure. What about the unexplained footprints that were found on the beach? (1997)
YA Hobbs THE MAZE Just fourteen, Rick Walker is alone, on the run, and desperate. In the surreal landscape of stark redrock spires and deep sandstone canyons, Rick finds himself struggling for survival--his own as well as, the endangered condors being released into the wild. (1998)
YA Hoobler THE DEMON IN THE TEAHOUSE In eighteenth-century Japan, fourteen-year-old Seikei, a merchant’s son in training to be a samurai, helps his patron investigate a series of murders and arson in the capital city of Edo, each which is associated in some way with a popular geisha. (2001)
J FIC Hoobler IN
DARKNESS, DEATH The adventures of Judge Ooka and his
14-year-old adopted son, Seikei continue in this fine mystery set in 18th
century Japan. A blood-stained origami
butterfly leads them to a remote monastery and unwittingly right into the
killer’s hiding place. (2004)
YA Levitin YESTERDAY’S CHILD After her mother’s sudden death, high school student Laura starts hunting for information about her mother’s mysterious past, and in searching, uncovers some terrible secrets. (1997)
YA McDonald SHADES OF SIMON GRAY Simon lies in a coma, finding his space and time overlapping with that of a man who was lynched over 200 years ago. (2001)
YA McNamee ACCELERATION Working
in the Toronto subway’s lost and found, Duncan is bored out of his skull until
he finds a diary—a diary filled with the dark and dirty secrets of an anonymous
serial killer. Duncan struggles with
what to do. Turn the diary in or try to
stop the killer before it’s too late?
(2003)
YA Nixon SPIRIT SEEKER Holly Campbell’s life becomes a nightmare when the parents of her friend Cody Garnett have been found in their home brutally murdered, and Cody is the main suspect. (1995)
YA Parker THE WESSEX PAPERS, VOLS.
1-3 “Alumni brat Sunday
Winthrop and new student Fred Bushmill's pranks lead to their uncovering a
sinister blackmail ring” at ultra snobbish Wessex Academy. Trust Falls Vol. 1; Fallout Vol. 2;
Outsmart Vol. 3 (2002)
YA Reiss PAPERQUAKE When an earthquake sends old letters and scraps of diary entries tumbling out of cracks in the wall, Violet and her two sisters are shocked to discover that the mysterious writings from nearly a century ago seem to have been written to Violet herself. (1998)
YA Roberts TWISTED SUMMER Fourteen-year-old Cici hopes for a romantic summer at the beach, but instead finds herself trying to solve a murder which had occurred there the previous year. (1996)
YA Rushford SILENT WITNESS In book 2 of the Jennie McGrady Mystery series, Jennie’s detective instincts help her to intervene when a new girl she meets desperately needs someone to solve a murder. (1993)
J Sedgwick WITCH HILL After his house burns down Jaime is sent to live with relatives in an English village, where a legendary witch begins to pursue him in terrifying nightmares. (2001)
YA Sykes FOR MIKE When Jeff’s best friend, Mike, disappears in the fall of their senior year, Jeff starts to doubt everything he’s ever known about their small town and the familiar people in it. (1998)
YA Thomas GREEN THUMB While spending the summer in the Amazon rain forest of Brazil doing botanical research, thirteen-year-old Grady discovers a secret language used by the trees to communicate with each other and falls afoul of the dictatorial Dr. Carter, whose motives seem questionable. (1999)
YA VandeVelde NEVER TRUST A DEAD MAN Wrongly convicted of murder and punished by being sealed in the tomb with the dead man, seventeen-year-old Selwyn enlists the help of a witch and the resurrected victim to find the true killer. (1999)
YA Fic Werlin THE KILLER’S COUSIN After being acquitted for murder, seventeen-year-old David goes to stay with relatives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he finds himself forced to face his past as he learns more about his strange young cousin Lily. (1998)
YA Wynne-Jones THE BOY IN THE BURNING HOUSE Trying to solve the mystery of his father’s disappearance from their rural Canadian community, fourteen-year-old Jim gets help from the disturbed Ruth Rose, who suspects her stepfather, a local pastor. (2001)
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