Mysteries for Fans of Stieg Larsson

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Mysteries and thrillers
• Read-alikes for Stieg Larsson
• Books with a new perspective
  

Smilla’s Sense of Snow
By Peter Hoeg
MYSTERY HOEG
When her six-year-old neighbor falls to his death, and no one is willing to suspect foul play, Smilla Qaavigaaq Jasperson finds her own investigation taking her into the files of a Danish company.

Three Seconds
By Anders Roslun
MYSTERY ROSLUND
Ex-convict Piet Hoffman--a family man, a rising member of Stockholm's Polish mafia, and an undercover police informant--is sent to a maximum security prison to make himself the boss of the amphetamine trade so the police can shut it down.

In the Woods
By Tana French
MYSTERY FRENCH
Twenty years after witnessing the violent disappearances of two companions from their small Dublin suburb, detective Rob Ryan investigates a chillingly similar murder that takes place in the same wooded area, a case that forces him to piece together his traumatic memories.

A Duty to the Dead
By Charles Todd
MYSTERY TODD
Independent-minded Bess Crawford's upbringing is far different from that of the usual upper-middle-class British gentlewoman. At the outbreak of WWI, she volunteers for the nursing corps, serving from the battlefields of France to the doomed hospital ship Britannic. On one voyage, she promises to a deliver a message from a dying officer to his brother. Once she's able to do so, she's disturbed at the brother's indifferent reception of the message, and when an unexpected turn of events provides her with an opportunity to stay with the family for a short time, she takes it.

Entertaining Teen Historical Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Teen books
• Historical Fiction
• Strong character development
• Read-alikes for Laurie Halse Anderson and Nancy Turner
• Clean reads

Boston Jane
By Jennifer Holm
YA F Holm Boston J #1
In 1854, sixteen-year-old Jane Peck has ventured to the unknown wilds of the Northwest to wed her childhood idol, William Baldt. But her impeccable training at Miss Hepplewhite's Young Ladies Academy in Philadelphia is hardly preparation for the colorful characters and crude life that await her.

The Raging Quiet
By Sherryl Jordan
YA F Jordan
Suspicious of 16-year-old Marnie, a newcomer to their village, the residents accuse her of witchcraft when she discovers that the village madman is not crazy but deaf and she begins to communicate with him through hand gestures.

Hattie Big Sky
By Kirby Larson
YA F Larson
After inheriting her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war being fought in Europe.

A Countess below Stairs
By Eva Ibbotson
YA F Ibbotson
After the Russian revolution turns her world topsy-turvy, Anna, a young Russian countess, has no choice but to flee to England. Penniless, Anna hides her aristocratic background and takes a job as servant, armed only with an outdated housekeeping manual and sheer determination.

Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman?
By Eleanor Updale
YA F Updale Montmore #1
In Victorian London, after his life is saved by a physician, a thief uses the knowledge he gains in prison and from scientific lectures he attends with the physician, to create a double life.

Teen Romantic Suspense

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Teen books
• Romance
• Suspense

Divergent
By Veronica Roth
YA F Roth
In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.

Graceling
By Kristin Cashore
YA F Cashore
In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace, the Grace of killing, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

Wildwood Dancing
By Juliet Marillier
YA F Marillie
Five sisters who live with their merchant father in Transylvania use a hidden portal in their home to cross over into a magical world, the Wildwood.

Keturah and Lord Death
By Martine Leavitt
YA F Leavitt
When Lord Death comes to claim sixteen-year-old Keturah while she is lost in the King's Forest, she charms him with her story and is granted a twenty-four hour reprieve in which to seek her one true love.

Beautiful Creatures
By Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
YA F Garcia
In a small South Carolina town, where it seems little has changed since the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Ethan is powerfully drawn to Lena, a new classmate with whom he shares a psychic connection and whose family hides a dark secret that may be revealed on her sixteenth birthday.

Issue-driven Books, with Emphasis on Characters

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Books about controversial issues
• Books about characters and relationships
• Books similar to Jodi Picoult’s but cleaner

Please Look after Mom
By Kyong-suk Shin
F SHIN
Follows the efforts of a family to find the mother who went missing from Seoul Station and their sobering realizations when they recall memories that suggest she may not have been happy.

Every Last One
By Anna Quindlen
F QUINDLEN
Mary Beth is first and foremost a mother whose three children come first, before her career, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. So when one of her sons becomes depressed, she focuses on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence.

The Language of Flowers
By Vanessa Diffenbaugh
DIFFENBA
The story of a woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own past.

State of Wonder
By Ann Patchett
F PATCHETT
A researcher at a pharmaceutical company, Marina Singh journeys into the heart of the Amazonian delta to check on a field team that has been silent for two years--a dangerous assignment that forces Marina to confront the ghosts of her past.

These Things Hidden
By Heather Gudenkauf
F GUDENKAU
When golden girl teenager Allison Glenn is released to a halfway house, she is more determined than ever to speak with her estranged sister. Their legacy of secrets is focused on one little boy. And if the truth is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable for the adoptive mother who loves him, the girl who tried to protect him and the two sisters who hold the key to all that is hidden.

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Recent fiction
• Character-driven stories
• Contemporary fiction

State of Wonder
By Ann Patchett
F PATCHETT
Pharmacologist Marina Singh, researcher at a drug company in Minnesota, is sent to the Amazon to investigate the death of a colleague and to check on the progress of Dr. Annick Swenson, a rogue scientist on the cusp of developing a fertility drug that could rock the medical profession.

The Lake of Dreams
By Kim Edwards
F EDWARDS
At a crossroads in her life, Lucy Jarrett returns home, only to find herself haunted by her father's unresolved death a decade before. She discovers some papers in her house that lead her to a mystery that goes back generations and whose resolution will alter long-established family histories and future plans.

Life Sentences
By Laura Lippman
F LIPPMAN
Writer Cassandra Fallows returns to Baltimore and tries to reconnect with three former classmates in an attempt to investigate the case of a mutual friend who has been accused of murder. In the process, she discovers the gulf that separates her memories of events from theirs.

If I Stay
By Gayle Forman
YA F FORMAN
While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, seventeen-year-old Mia, a gifted cellist, weighs whether to live with her grief or join her family in death.

Wolves, Boys, and Other Things that Might Kill Me
By Kristen Chandler
YA F CHANDLER
When wolves are reintroduced to the area near her small Montana town, KJ Carson teams up with the new boy in town, Virgil, to write a column about them for the school newspaper. Her life becomes more complicated as her friendship with Virgil deepens and the townspeople argue about the fate of the wolves.

Well-written Contemporary Nonfiction or Biographies about the Midwest and Gulf States

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Nonfiction
• Biographies
• Midwest or Gulf States setting

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
By Erik Larson
364.1523 LAR 2003
An account of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 relates the stories of two men who shaped the history of the event--architect Daniel H. Burnham, who coordinated its construction, and serial killer Herman Mudgett.

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana
By Haven Kimmel
BIO KIMMEL 2002
The author offers a chronicle of growing up in a small town in America's heartland, offering portraits of her family and her encounters with the complexities of the adult world, romance, and small-town life during the 1960s and 1970s.

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression
By Mildred Armstrong Kalish
BIO KALISH 2007
A memoir from a schoolteacher of growing up in the heart of the Midwest during the Great Depression describes life on an Iowa farm during a time of endless work, resourcefulness, no tolerance for idleness or waste, family, and kinship.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less
By Terry Ryan
BIO RYAN 2005
The author describes her mother Evelyn's struggles with poverty in the 1950s as she tried to build a happy home for her ten children, with the help of wit, poetry, and prose during the contest era of the 1950s and 1960s.

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square
By Ned Sublette
976.335 SUB 2008
Tells the story of one of America's most complex cities, with an emphasis on New Orleans's musical heritage and its first century filled with war, religious conflicts, slavery, and its struggles with France, Spain, and England.

Historical Fiction with a Hint of Mystery

Try these books if you like:

• Historical fiction
• Mysteries
• Clean reads

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor
By Stephanie Barron
MYSTERY Barron Jane Aus #1
Fleeing from a broken engagement, Jane Austen has scarcely arrived in Scargrave when the local earl is felled by a mysterious ailment that is far too agonizing and fatal to be credited to his fondness for claret and pudding. The earl's widow asks Jane to investigate.

A Duty to the Dead
By Charles Tood
MYSTERY Todd
Independent-minded Bess Crawford's upbringing is far different from that of the usual upper-middle-class British gentlewoman. At the outbreak of WWI, she volunteers for the nursing corps, serving from the battlefields of France to the doomed hospital ship Britannic. On one voyage, she promises to a deliver a message from a dying officer to his brother. Once she's able to do so, she's disturbed at the brother's indifferent reception of the message, and when an unexpected turn of events provides her with an opportunity to stay with the family for a short time, she takes it.

Mount Vernon Love Story
By Mary Higgins Clark
F Clark
Follows the story of George Washington from the time he steps down from the presidency to return with Martha to his beloved Mount Vernon home, a period during which the couple shares a renewal of feelings from the early years of their marriage.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany
By Susan Vreeland
F Vreeland
Hoping to honor his father and the family business with innovative glass designs, Louis Comfort Tiffany launches the iconic Tiffany lamp as designed by women's division head Clara Driscoll, who struggles with the mass production of her creations.

Last Dickens
By Matthew Pearl
MYSTERY Pearl
When Daniel Sand's body is discovered by the docks where he awaited Charles Dickens's unfinished novel, publishing partner James Osgood and Rebecca Sand, Daniel's sister, attempt to uncover Dickens's final mystery.

Teen Nonfiction for Boys

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Books for teen boys
• Nonfiction
• Books with less than 250 pages
  

The Dark Game: True Spy Stories
By Paul B. Janeczko
YA 327.73 JAN 2010
A collection of true spy stories from throughout the history of the United States, discussing personalities, missions, traitors, technological advances and more.

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World
By Jennifer Armstrong
YA 919.89 ARM 1989
Describes the events of the 1914 Shackleton Antarctic expedition when, after being trapped in a frozen sea for nine months, their ship was finally crushed, forcing Shackleton and his men to make a very long and perilous journey across ice and stormy seas to reach inhabited land.

The War to End All Wars
By Russell Freedman
YA 940.3 FRE 2010
This book describes the situations that led to WWI, the wars progression and how the peace treaty actually set the world up for the next world war. This book is entertaining and informative and helps bring history to life.

The Great Fire
By Jim Murphy
YA 977.3 MUR 1995
An account of the Great Chicago Fire combines archival photographs and drawings with personal accounts by its survivors and historical documents.

Chasing Lincoln’s Killer
By James L. Swanson
YA BIO BOOTH
Recounts the escape of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, and follows the intensive twelve-day search for him and his accomplices.

Clean Historical Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Historical fiction
• Clean books

Captive Heart
By Michele Paige Holmes
ROMANCE HOLMES
Thayne Kendrich’s urgent need for a school teacher forces him to abduct Emmalyne Madsen off her westward-bound train and lead her to his Black Hills home – and into the path of his deadly ex-wife who will kill for the gold he’s discovered.

Seeking Persephone
By Sarah M. Eden
ROMANCE EDEN
Lodged deep in a forest infested with wild dogs, the Duke of Kielder’s castle is as forbidding as the Duke himself, a man with terrible scars on his body and his soul. But the Duke’s determination to protect his heart at all costs is challenged by his growing attachment to his gentle bride.

Mark of Royalty
By Jennifer K. Clark
ROMANCE CLARK
Determined to fulfill her devoted mother’s wishes, Sarah reserves her heart for Chad despite her growing affection for another man. But as plots against the crown unfold, someone accidentally discovers Sarah’s mark of royalty – setting the stage for discoveries that will shake the kingdom to its core.

The Blue Castle
By L.M. Montgomery
YA F MONTGOME
Valancy Stirling, an inhibited twenty-nine-year-old spinster, undergoes a total personality change when a doctor tells her she has no more than one year to live.

Mr. Darcy’s Daughters
By Elizabeth Aston
F ASTON
Elizabeth Aston has written a novel of historical fiction that depicts British social life and customs during the 19th century. She follows the adventures of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s five daughters giving Jane Austen fans an opportunity to visit old friends and learn what happened to the Bennet, Darcy, and Bingley clans.

Enthralling Nonfiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Nonfiction
• Entertaining books

The Glass Castle
By Jeannette Walls
BIO Walls
The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
By Jung Chang
951.05 CHA
A Chinese woman chronicles the struggles of her grandmother, mother, and herself to survive in a China torn apart by wars, invasions, revolution, and continuing upheaval, from 1907 to the present.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Bill Bryson
643.1 BRY
Bryson takes readers on a tour of his house, a rural English parsonage, showing how each room has figured in the evolution of private life. It is a very entertaining and fascinating read.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Michael Pollan
394.12 POL
An ecological and anthropological study of eating offers insight into food consumption in the twenty-first century, explaining how an abundance of unlimited food varieties reveals the responsibilities of consumers to protect their health and the environment.

Mysteries for Teens

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Mysteries
• Teen books

Down the Rabbit Hole
By Peter Abrahams
YA F ABRAHAMS Echo Fal #1
Like her idol Sherlock Holmes, eighth grader Ingrid Levin-Hill uses her intellect to solve a murder case in her home town of Echo Falls. First book in the Echo Falls series.

Dark Life
By Kat Falls
YA F FALLS
When fifteen-year-old Ty, who has always lived on the ocean floor, joins Topside girl Gemma in the frontier's underworld to seek and stop outlaws who threaten his home, they learn that the government may pose an even greater threat. Though it has science fiction adventure element to it, the mystery is what drives the story along. First book in the Dark Life series.

Death Cloud
By Andy Lane
YA F LANE Young Sh #1
In 1868, with his army officer father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously "unwell," fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire, where he uncovers his first murder and a diabolical villain. First book in the Young Sherlock Holmes series.

A Spy in the House
By Y.S. Lee
YA F LEE Agency #1
Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls where she is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant's home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships. First book in The Agency series.

The Killer’s Cousin
By Nancy Werlin
YA F WERLIN
After being acquitted of 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.