Book recs for mystery, thriller, and crime book fans

1. A classic thriller—Bunny Lake Is Missing by Evelyn Piper. Bunny Lake is missing after her first day at nursery school. Is she the victim of a diabolical plot—or is she a chimera in the twisted mind of Blanche Lake, a young working mother just arrived in New York who's left behind the shame of being the mistress of a married man? An eccentric and creepy supporting cast and a dose of dark humor complement a core of gripping psychological suspense.

2.Teen detectives—Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks. Milks's novel reimagines nineties adolescence—mashing up girl group series, choose-your-own-adventures, and chronicles of anorexia—in a queer and trans coming-of-age tale like no other. An interrogation of girlhood and nostalgia, dysmorphia and dysphoria, this debut novel puzzles through the weird, ever-evasive questions of growing up.

3. "A dark and stormy night"—The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza (tr. Sarah Booker). Two mysterious women invade an unnamed narrator’s house, where they proceed toruthlessly question their host’s identity. While the two women are strangely intimate, even inventing a secret language, they harass the narrator by claiming repeatedly that they know his greatest secret: that he is, in fact, a woman. As the increasingly frantic protagonist fails to defend his supposed masculinity, he eventually finds himself in a sanatorium. Published for the first time in English, this Gothic tale destabilizes male-female binaries and subverts literary tropes.

4. A family unravels—Follow Me into the Dark by Felicia Sullivan. What happens when children are denied love and then left to their own devices? Follow Me into the Dark traces the unraveling of a family marred by perverse intergenerational abuse. A complex, dark expression of the deprived heart and the desperate lengths children will go to in order to create family.

5. A legendary bestseller—Women Who Kill by Ann Jones. From Lizzie Borden to Jean Harris to Aileen Wuornos, this riveting investigation will change the ways you think about crime and punishment, exposing the truths and consequences of women on the edges of society—women driven to kill.

6. Hard-boiled murder—Mother Finds a Body by Gypsy Rose Lee. In this steamy sequel to The G-String Murders, Gypsy Rose Lee's noir thriller reads as if it's ripped from her own diary pages. When her mother finds a dead body in Gypsy's trailer during her honeymoon, Gypsy realizes that no one is who they seem to be, and everyone is worthy of suspicion.

7. Whodunnit?—Maggie Terry by Sarah Schulman. Post-rehab, Maggie Terry is single-mindedly trying to keep her head down in New York City. There’s a madman in the White House, the subways are constantly delayed, summer is relentless, and neighborhoods all seem to blend together. Against this absurd backdrop, Maggie wants nothing more than to slowly rebuild her life in hopes of being reunited with her daughter. But her first day on the job as a private investigator lands her in the middle of a sensational new case: actress strangled. If Maggie is going to solve this mystery, she’ll have to shake the ghosts—dead NYPD partner, vindictive ex, steadfast drug habit—that have long ruled her life.

8. A fast-paced noir—Apocalypse Baby by Virginie Despentes (tr. Sian Reynolds). Valentine is a wayward teenage girl on the run through Paris and Barcelona. She is tailed by two mismatched private investigators: the Hyena—part ruthless interrogator, part oversexed rock star—and Lucie, her plain and passive—almost to the point of invisible—sidekick. As their desperate search unfolds, they interrogate a suspicious cast of characters, exposing the dark heart of contemporary youth culture. In this fast-paced feminist thriller, Virginie Despentes presents a scathing social criticism with flawed, fascinating characters and spellbinding prose.