Who-Dun-It! My Childhood Mystery Favorites
I couldn’t tell you why, but I’ve really been into mysteries lately. There’s just something about trying to guess the ending and catching clues before the characters do that’s particularly enticing to me.
So, with that in mind, here are some of my favorite mystery books or series, starting from the youngest readers to the oldest.
Oh, and it doesn’t mention The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew (aside from this comment).
Quick note: Any links from here will go to Alibris though affiliate links. For what that means, you check out this affiliate disclosure. They aren’t dangerous, though.
Nate the Great – Beginning Readers
The Nate the Great books were some of the first mysteries I ever read. Nate is a kid detective who solves neighborhood mysteries with help of his dog Sludge. They’re light and quick, but are filled with the classics of mysteries: plausible clues, red herrings, and the detective having a long think over a plate of pancakes.
Okay, so maybe it’s the only series that is solved with the help of pancakes. Still, as an introductory series for the little sleuths in your life, it’s worth a check.
You can find Nate the Great mysteries on Alibris here!
Liza, Bill and Jed Mysteries – Early Readers
Most of us know Peggy Parrish for Amelia Bedelia, but she also wrote a series about three kids solving mysteries at their grandparents’ house. Book one is “Key to the Treasure,” but my personal favorite is “The Clue in the Woods” (book two).
What’s especially interesting about this family is the ages: Liza and Bill are twins, born 11 months after Jed. That’s right – for one month out of the year, all of the kids are the same age.
As a child from a large family, let me tell, I shudder when I think of that.
Regardless, they’re fun summer mysteries!
Find Liza, Bill and Jed Mysteries here! Just ignore all the Amelia Bedelia results…
A-Z Mysteries – Early Readers
One of my favorite mystery series growing up was the A-Z mysteries. Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose live in a quiet little town, but solve mysteries on the regular, from finding an absent author to discovering what’s in the zombie zone!
There are 26 books, each with a two-word title that matches a letter of the alphabet. As someone who likes to keeps series in order, I cannot tell you how easy that makes it.
These books have short chapters, fun characters and really intriguing cases. I cannot recommend it enough!
There is also a spin-off series called “Calendar Mysteries,” featuring the younger siblings and cousins of the original trio. I haven’t read them, so if you check them out (or if you know them), let me know what you think!
You can find A-Z Mysteries here.
The Three Investigators – Advanced Readers
For readers who are looking for something meatier to sink their reading teeth into, I can think of no better series than the Three Investigators.
Each of the three sleuths, Jupiter, Peter and Bob, play a specific role in the agency. Jupiter, a highly intelligent and logical type, leads them and usually solves the case. Pete, athletic and sharp, assists as he’s able. Bob, relegated with a leg brace, doesn’t join in with the adventure side of things as often, however, as a volunteer in the library, he’s able to gather clues and information that the other two might not be privy to.
The books also include sit-down epilogues with Alfred Hitchcock, who reviews the case with the boys as they lay out the clues that the reader might have missed. Also, while many of the books have supernatural events, the truth of the matter is revealed to have a practical, scientific explanation. This standard is broken in four of the books, ranging from meeting Bigfoot to encountering a ghost, but otherwise, the premise holds.
As the books were written in the mid-60’s through the 80’s, there are things that will be outdated or foreign to modern readers, but you can’t escape how well the books are written.
Find The Three Investigators here!
The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Young Adult/New Adult
7 ½ Death is, by far, one of my favorite reads of this year. It takes the Victorian mystery genre and mixes it with several really incredibly mind-boggling twists. I won’t get into all the details, but suffice it to say, if you like heavily involved plotting and planning, this is a great choice.
It does contain a lot of language, and obviously there’s murder, so this is for a more mature young adult, or someone in the new adult category. However, it’s very worth the read and not to be missed.
Check the book out here! Also, the Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is the same book. Yes, we’re all confused.
Everybody in My Family Has Killed Someone – New Adult/Adult Readers
A man heads to the snowy slopes of the Australian mountains (I know, I didn’t believe it at first, either) for a family reunion. While there, the family is forced to solve a murder – but as the title suggest, they’re all suspects. For everyone, even the narrator, has killed someone.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would love to hear other people’s opinions. That said, it is pretty gritty, with descriptive methods of murder and other such fun niceties. On a stylistic note, the author has an interesting byplay of reliable but possibly inaccurate (over-reliable?) narrator, who promises to be as reliable as possible, but I found to be… a little deceitful at times. I can’t explain it any better than that without spoiling anything, so you’ll just need to read it to see what I mean.
Find this book here!
I’ve recently started a Substack! You can check out my first post (also about mysteries!) here: https://scribeofworlds.substack.com/p/the-first-story-i-ever-wrote