Best Mystery Books of 2021
Last updated: November 08, 2024
2021 was fantastic for fans of the mystery genre. We tracked new mystery books throughout the year and added them whenever we thought they were worth reading. We added books that have been nominated for prestigious mystery books awards, like the Edgars in the US and the Dagger Awards in the UK. The shortlist for the Edgars was announced in January, and the Daggers in May. Bear in mind that these are the best books of the previous year, rather than the very latest (with the advantage that they're already likely to be in paperback). We've also added some newly-published mystery books we've enjoyed reading.
For more recent books, please consult our best mystery books of 2024 list.
This list is part of our best books of 2021 series
“This is more cop-driven—it’s not a police procedural, but there’s a detective at the heart of it. It moves through World War Two, and by the time it got to the end I was just in awe. It was one of those books where there is nothing that I would have changed. Word perfect.” Read more...
Louise Hare, Novelist
The Survivors: A Novel
by Jane Harper
***🏆 A Five Books Book of the Year ***
Nobody does unsettling murder mysteries in small, remote communities—where everyone knows each other and has lots of secrets—as well as Jane Harper. The setting for The Survivors, Harper’s fourth novel, is Evelyn Bay, a small (fictional) beach town on the island of Tasmania, where the ocean provides a menacing backdrop that pervades the story. Prepare to want to read this book in one sitting.
“The Survivors, by one of my favourite crime writers, British/Australian crime novelist Jane Harper, is set in a small beach town on the island, where the wildness comes not from the forest but from the ocean, stretching thousands of miles down to Antarctica….The backdrop of the menacing ocean, where terrible tragedy struck more than a decade before, is what makes this such an unsettling read. You feel the aftereffects of that trauma, a father with dementia, the frustrations of small-town life. On top of all that, there’s a murder. As always with Jane Harper, the pace is slow and measured but the book is hard to put down.” Read more...
The Best Crime Fiction of 2021
Sophie Roell, Journalist
The Distant Dead
by Heather Young
***Shortlisted for the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards***
Set in a small Nevada town in the desert, The Distant Dead is beautiful, evocative and quite sad, with so many characters who can’t escape their circumstances. Once you get into the story, it’s hard to put down and you might even learn something about math and anthropology along the way.
The Missing American
by Kwei Quartey
***Shortlisted for the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards***
The Missing American by Kwei Quartey is not only a pageturner but also an eyeopener. If you’ve always been curious about scam emails and who might be behind them, here’s what happens to a man who responds to one. The book is set in Ghana, which is a lot of fun to read about at a time when travelling is difficult.
Before She Was Helen
by Caroline Cooney
***Shortlisted for the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards***
The author of Before She Was Helen, Caroline Cooney, is an incredibly successful writer of books for teenagers. But, as she explains in a Q&A at the back of the book, having written more than 75 of them, she wanted to do something aimed at adults. This is such a lovely book, set in a retirement village, with an aged 70+ heroine. One nice aspect of it is the reflections on how attitudes have changed since the 1950s. “I grew up in the 1950s,” Cooney writes, “Those days seem as remote now as ancient Egypt or Greece. I wanted to include details that people younger than I have trouble believing.”
The Therapist
by B.A. Paris
Choosing to call this book The Therapist was a mistake, in our view, but it is still well worth reading. It’s a mystery in the classic style of: a woman moves into an upmarket house with her boyfriend, strange things happen, she tries to figure out what’s going on—while dealing with the internal turmoil of her own past and people thinking she’s a fantasist. It’s nicely done.
Shiver
by Allie Reynolds
If you like your mysteries set in snow, Shiver by Allie Reynolds is a good one. It's an Agatha Christie-style plot, but with more grit, focusing on a group of snowboarders who are friends and competitors. It's set in a French alpine resort and moves between the present and events of a decade ago. Creepiness and competitiveness are combined.
Troubled Blood
by Robert Galbraith
***Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Gold Dagger***
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) is the 5th book in a series featuring Cormoran Strike, a British war veteran who sets up a detective agency in London after losing his leg in a roadside explosion in Afghanistan. The series is one of the most intelligent out there for fans of crime fiction. If you're new to the books, we recommend reading the series in order, as it's a lot about the evolution of the relationship between the two main characters.
“This is the follow-up to Osman’s likeable and funny first book The Thursday Murder Club (see below) which has been a fixture on bestseller lists since its 2020 release. This new murder mystery returns to the sleepy retirement village of Coopers Chase, where our septuagenarian sleuths have returned to the jigsaw room—only to find their peace shattered again when a ghost from the past sends one of their number a letter, many years after his supposed violent end. The Man Who Died Twice looks set to charm all those who loved Osman’s earlier book; I’ve heard the second Thursday Murder Club outing even better than the first.” Read more...
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
The Thursday Murder Club
by Richard Osman
☆Shortlisted for the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
The Thursday Murder Club is a relentless parody of a classic, cosy murder mystery, written by British TV presenter and comedian Richard Osman. It is laugh-out-loud funny at times, though it’s hard to know how well that humour travels beyond UK borders, so it may be worth reading a sample before committing. It’s a light and enjoyable read, set in an upscale retirement village, with the upshot that many of the main protagonists are aged 70+, which is oddly empowering.
“What’s not to love? Four 70-somethings living in the same retirement village meet every Thursday in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes—until a local developer turns up dead and the Thursday Murder Club confronts their first ‘live’ case. The entire scenario and cast is delicious. Lots of narratives are witty and worth a sardonic smile here and there, but The Thursday Murder Club is funny, compassionate, and completely entertaining—an utter treat to read.” Read more...
Tosca Lee, Novelist
City of Ghosts
by Ben Creed
***Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Gold Dagger***
City of Ghosts by Ben Creed—a pseudonym for writing duo Chris Rickaby and Barney Thompson—is set in Leningrad in 1951, and combines a classic detective setup with an exploration of how the Soviet Union at that time operated. There are lots of throwbacks to the Siege of Leningrad during World War II. There’s also a strong musical theme, with part of the action stemming from events at the city’s Conservatory, where the chief protagonist studied before he lost his fingers. If you enjoy the historical aspects of this book, you might also like Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad, a book aimed at young adults that brings that period alive from a nonfiction perspective.
House of Correction
*** 2021 CWA Gold Dagger Highly Commended***
In House of Correction, longtime writing duo Nicci Gerrard and Sean French (aka Nicci French), introduce us to Tabitha, a depressed, isolated young woman who has ended up in prison for murder she's pretty sure she didn't commit (although she can't remember exactly what happened that day). Join her as she embarks on her own investigation of who committed the crime—from behind bars.
Midnight Atlanta
by Thomas Mullen
***Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Gold Dagger***
Midnight Atlanta is the third in Thomas Mullen's Darktown series. You don't need to read the first two to follow what is going on, but it's possible it might be best to read Darktown and Lightning Men first, both of which also blend a thriller/mystery plot with American history of the civil rights era. Midnight Atlanta is set in 1956 and the activities of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Bus Boycott loom in the background. It's nicely done.
The Disaster Tourist
by Yun Ko-Eun and Lizzie Buehler (translator)
***Winner of the 2021 CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger***
The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-Eun (translated from Korean by Lizzie Buehler) is an entertaining novel about a travel agency that arranges trips to natural disasters. It's macabre, far-fetched and yet somehow completely believable.
Blacktop Wasteland
by S.A. Cosby
*** 2021 CWA Gold Dagger Highly Commended***
Blacktop Wasteland is a thriller more than a mystery, but deserves a mention because it was highly commended by the Crime Writers' Association in its 2021 Gold Dagger awards. The chief protagonist is Bug (real name: Beauregard), a car mechanic and hotshot driver, and your heart starts sinking early in the book as his efforts to stay on the straight and narrow falter under financial pressure—even as he tries to be a good husband, dad and businessman. Still, you quickly get sucked into the action and feel oddly empowered by him and just how smart and talented he is, rooting for him even as he commits heinous crimes.
“Let’s just talk a moment about S.A. Cosby’s incredible voice and unforgettable characters. Don’t tell me for a moment Bug—or any of the other characters who grace these pages—are not real people. I refuse to believe it. They are too multi-dimensional, too flawed, sympathetic, and too perfectly human. And then there’s the story: gritty, dynamic noir by an author in complete command of his craft. As an author, I read mastery like this with equal parts awe and envy.” Read more...
Tosca Lee, Novelist
We Begin at the End
by Chris Whitaker
***Winner 2021 CWA Gold Dagger***
We Begin at the End won the UK's most prominent mystery-writing award in 2021, the CWA Gold Dagger, so definitely deserves a mention. It's perhaps more the story of a man (a cop called Walk) and the people he cares about than a whodunnit. The style is quite particular, a bit repetitive and won't appeal to all. To take a typical paragraph: "Together they watched a trawler, The Sun Drift, Walk knew it, blue paint and rust, curved lines of steel and wire. It moved silent from where they were, no waves just the carve of its hull."
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
by Deepa Anappara
***Winner 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards***
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is an incredibly touching story told through the eyes of Jai, a nine-year-old boy living in a basti or slum of an Indian city. It’s an amazing book to read—you feel like you are living in the basti with Jai and his friends, experiencing the sights, the smells, the characters, including the corrupt police force. The mystery element is a minor part of the book, in the sense that there isn’t really an ‘aha’ moment, but this book is definitely a must-read. Afterwards, it was hard not to click on some of the organizations that the author recommends that work with children from impoverished communities.
These Women
by Ivy Pochoda
***Shortlisted for the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards***
If you read mysteries for pure escapism, These Women by Ivy Pochoda is a tough one, with lots of drugs, streetwalking and seedy clubs. Set in LA, it’s the story of a group of mostly marginalized women, a number of whom end up murdered. The beauty of the book is that it’s really about them and their lives, and the mothers who mourn them, rather than the killer and the crimes. In terms of narrative structure, the story is told from each of these women’s perspectives, which means you do have to adjust to the next narrator, but there’s enough overlap that it doesn’t break up the reading experience.
Win
by Harlan Coben
It's always slightly hard to get into a book when the main character is detestable. You cringe, you don't want to read more, you put it down. But if you then find yourself still wanting to know what happens, it's probably a pretty good mystery. Harlan Coben's Win is this type of thriller. By the end, in addition to a good plot, I even found myself enjoying Windsor Horne Lockwood III (aka Win)'s words of wisdom and reflections on life. The audiobook, narrated by Steven Weber, is impressive, winning an Earphones Award from Audiofile magazine.
The Postscript Murders
by Elly Griffiths
***Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Gold Dagger***
The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths is the second book featuring Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur (the first was The Stranger Diaries, the brilliant mystery that won the 2020 Edgar Allan Poe award for best novel). This one is set in the British seaside town of Shoreham.
The Marlow Murder Club
by Robert Thorogood
The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood is a classic cosy mystery, set in the UK in the town of Marlow and featuring an elderly lady who is good at cryptic crossword puzzles and goes around town wearing a cape. The plotting is serviceable, but the main attraction of the book is the setting, opening with Judith (the main protagonist) swimming in the Thames, and this general feel of a rather nice life by the river in a pleasant English setting.
Lightseekers
by Femi Kayode
Lightseekers by Femi Kayode is a novel set in Nigeria, in particular a small university town near the oil town of Port Harcourt. This setting is, in itself, really interesting, as we pick up little hints of the local history, the Biafran War, the tensions, the corruption and the feelings of the main protagonist—an investigative psychologist—as he adjusts to life back in Nigeria. Chillingly, the murders in the story are based on a real event, and the mystery investigated in the book is what might cause such horrific mob violence.
