Crime Fiction

This Year's Best From Booklist Magazine....

 The Butterfly Clues. By Kate Ellison.Gr. 9–12.

Unable to control her obsessions, 16-year-old Lo finds herself digging into a local murder. Ellison’s debut is a page-turning blend of violence, romance, and surprising glimpses into one girl’s tumultuous mind.

Chopsticks. By Jessica Anthony. Illus. by Rodrigo Corral. Gr. 10–12.

A teen piano prodigy goes missing, but that’s just the tip of this mixed-media novel’s tricky iceberg. Is her disappearance a result of her affair with an Argentinean neighbor or her increasingly unhinged performances?

 The Girl Is Murder. By Kathryn Miller Haines.  Gr. 7–10.

Peppered by irresistible 1940s slang, this observant historical mystery has 15-year-old Iris putting to use what she’s learned from her private-detective dad. Passionate, multilayered teen noir.

I Hunt Killers. By Barry Lyga.  Gr. 9–12.

Billy Dent was the serial killer, not his 17-year-old son, Jazz. But when a copycat begins replicating the famous murders, the cops bring in Jazz to help. Now if only he could bury his own killer instincts . . .

The Isle of Blood. By Rick Yancey. Gr. 9–12.

The Monstrumologist series takes a swerve into outright mystery: hundreds of pages of crackling, capering British-versus-Russian espionage occur before we meet this volume’s monster.

 Kill Switch. By Chris Lynch. Gr. 9–12.

As Da’s mind begins to go, he starts leaking secrets of his government past—and dangerous old cronies start looming. So desperate young Daniel hits the road with Da in tow. Compact, unpredictable, disorienting, brilliant.

Paper Covers Rock. By Jenny Hubbard.  Gr. 9–12.

This twist on A Separate Peace involves a pretty straightforward boarding-school death. But it’s Hubbard’s twisty, out-of-sequence delivery that turns the whole truth into a devastating patchwork mystery.

Wonderstruck. By Brian Selznick. Gr. 4–8.

Two parallel stories set 50 years apart—one told in text, the other solely in illustrations—drive this kid-friendly mystery about silence, opening one’s eyes, and the interconnectedness of life.