Mystery books to read now

Fans of mystery will love these oldies but goodies.

Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver

Speaking of disappearing, Vanishing Girls is a 2015 YA book from Lauren Oliver, the author of the much-praised Before I Fall. Our narrator is Nicole (“Nick”), and the titular girls are Dara and Madeline: the first, Nick’s sister, and the second a nine-year-old girl who vanishes shortly after Dara. Nick realizes that only she sees the link between these two cases, and must take matters into her own hands to figure out what happened to the girls — despite knowing she’ll be endangered in the process.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

More young, endangered girls feature in The Virgin Suicides, but this time they’re a danger to themselves. The Lisbon family is thrown into disarray when the youngest daughter, Cecelia, inexplicably kills herself, and her sisters Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese are put on suicide watch. But of course, their parents’ restrictions only make the girls more inclined to rebel — especially Lux. The Virgin Suicides is another novel that wouldn’t normally be described as “suspense”; yet the tension between the girls and their parents, and the aura of mystery that surrounds them in the eyes of the neighborhood boys (who narrate the novel), make for a spellbinding read.

White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

This modern work of cosmic horror from Helen Oyeyemi is another atypical suspense novel — not exactly thrilling, but penetratingly creepy. Miranda Silver has just lost her mother, and her habits are growing stranger and stranger: namely, eating mass quantities of chalk and attempting to communicate with the spirit world. When she disappears, her family knows she isn’t truly gone — they only have to look for her in the right place. But do they even want to find her, and what will happen when they do?

Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark

Imagine losing your husband, having your children brutally murdered, and then being accused of carrying out the massacre yourself. Imagine moving across the country to leave all that behind, marrying again, and starting a new family… only for the same pattern to start anew. This is the horror of Where Are the Children?, a deeply unsettling work of suspense that takes a mother’s worst nightmare and makes it real — not once, but twice.

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