10 New Mystery Books You Might’ve Missed in 2020

Jai is a kid who lives in a run-down neighborhood at the far end of the purple metro line, where he loves watching police TV shows and has two best friends. When some of his classmates start to go missing, Jai and his friends decide to conduct their own investigation—but when more children disappear, it is no longer just a game.

Seonkyeong is a criminal psychologist who has a lot on her plate, both personally and professionally. The same day that a famed serial killer agrees to be interviewed, but only by her, Seonkyeong’s husband’s child comes to live with them. The girl had been living with her grandparents after the death of her mother, and now Seonkyeong suspects that something is not quite right about this child, even as she finds herself confiding more and more in a serial killer.

Malcolm is a mystery reader and bookseller, and long ago compiled a list of the best, most perfect murders in fiction—ones that were nearly impossible to solve. But he’s dumbfounded when the FBI approach him, claiming that a string of unsolved murders looks eerily similar to those on his list. Malcolm is in grave danger, and he’s only just now realized that someone knows about his dark secrets.

Alexa has multiple personalities, a closely guarded secret that only three people are privy to: her shrink, her step-mom, and her best friend Ella. When Ella gets a job at a gentlemen’s club for the rich and elite, she slowly draws Alexa into her new life of danger and intrigue, until one night Alexa and all of her personalities are forced to confront the darkness at the center of this world.

Zofia Turbotyńska is the wife of a professor in 1890s Kraków and has her eye on the social ladder. When her interests in philanthropy bring her to a home for the elderly, she inadvertently discovers a murder of one of the residents. Curiosity piqued, she cannot stay away, and uncovers an intriguing mystery involving the city’s elite and the nation’s dark past.

Kate and Lauren are sisters and as close as can be. Their bond draws them together in the wake of their father’s death, but when they discover they have a half-sister they never knew about, that sisterly bond is challenged. But this is no ordinary case, as their new half-sister sets off an explosive chain of events that force them to reexamine everything they thought they knew about their family.

Augusta is pretty aimless in life until she learns that she inherited her great-grandmother’s dilapidated house. In it, she finds evidence that her mother, a disgraced police officer who died when Gus was a child, had compiled about a cold case. And when a new connection to those old files resurfaces, Gus finds herself pursuing a mystery that might have gotten her mother killed.