Favorite Fridays highlight media the HCDL staff recommend. Find your next favorite book, audiobook, movie, TV show, magazine, etc., here every Friday this summer—and share your own favorites in the weekly posts’ comments!

This week we’re sharing some of our librarians’ favorite mysteries. If you’ve read these titles, share your thoughts in the comments along with your own favorite mysteries!

*Hoopla is available to Howell library district residents only.

Alice Isn't Dead : a Novel by Joseph (Fiction writer) Fink

Call# Fiction Fink

Based on the fiction podcast from the creators of Welcome to Night Vale, Alice Isn’t Dead is a surrealist thriller following truck driver Keisha’s quest across America to find her missing wife Alice, whom she had long assumed to be dead until Alice started appearing in the background of news reports throughout the country. During her search, Keisha encounters inhuman serial killers, the description of which is enough to make my skin crawl. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook for the full experience, as the narrator Jasika Nicole, who also voiced Keisha in the podcast, brings the suspense to life in a way that makes you feel you are on the long-distance truck ride with her, facing eerie monstrosities and small-town conspiracies in search for a lost love.

A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn

Call# Mystery Raybourn

Feisty, independent, intelligent, and an expert lepidopterist, Veronica Speedwell thwarts her own kidnapping with the assistance of a mysterious baron and accepts his offer of shelter and information about the mother she never knew. When her host is subsequently murdered, Veronica teams up with the late baron’s friend, a surly, erudite, and reclusive natural historian called Stoker, to discover the baron’s murderer and secrets of Veronica’s past. If you like your mystery set in Victorian England, paired with a healthy serving of sexual tension, and sprinkled with witty, sharp prose, this first book in the Veronica Speedwell mystery series is for you!

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

Call# Scifi Adams

A mystery founded on coincidences, this book is a fun read that follows not-quite detective Dirk Gently who self identifies as a “holistic” detective, which, in the words of Douglas Adams himself, is described as “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. I do not concern myself with such petty things as fingerprint powder, telltale pieces of pocket fluff and inane footprints. I see the solution to each problem as being detectable in the pattern and web of the whole.” The first book in the Dirk Gently trilogy follows the mystery of a missing cat, which somehow also leads to uncovering a ghost, a time traveler, and a devastating secret of humanity. This book is purposely all over the place, and it’s a fun read when you accept the lunacy of it all. For more Dirk Gently fun, check out season one of the television adaptation!

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Call# Fiction Michaelides

Alicia, a famous painter with what appears to be a perfect life, shoots her husband five times –  in the face! – and then never speaks another word. She is quite literally a silent patient. Theo is the criminal psychologist who becomes obsessed with her case. This was an unforgettable psychological thriller with twists that I definitely did not see coming.

Then She Was Gone : a Novel by Lisa Jewell

Call# Fiction Jewell

When Laurel’s fifteen year old daughter, Ellie, disappears, Laurel is consumed by grief and questions, and never gives up hope that one day her daughter will be found. A decade later, Laurel meets a nine-year-old girl that reminds her a little too much of Ellie and the questions and unknowns begin to consume Laurel all over again. Then She Was Gone is a psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Call# Mystery Christie

A classic from Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None follows a strange assortment of ten strangers invited to a secluded mansion on a private island by an eclectic millionaire host who is nowhere to be found. A nursery rhyme is hung in each room, and suspense builds as the group realizes murders are occurring that reflect murders in the rhyme. This was the first Agatha Christie novel I ever read, and it made me want to read more!