At Boots to Eat, we love to recommend good books to read, and this list of the best mystery books to read this summer is no exception. It can be a difficult task to find good books to read, which is why we try to use the best resources to bring you book recommendations which you may not have heard of, but we know you’ll love.
What makes a book one of the best mystery books to read?
A good mystery book is one that grips you until the end, is filled with twists and turns, and makes you want to tell all of your friends about it. This is a list of the best mystery books that meet all the criteria above and more.
6 Best Mystery Books to Read This Summer
1. Underground Airlines
Author: Ben Winters
Review: Underground Airlines is an impressive take of a modern day America where slavery is still constitutionally permitted. This book is a thriller that keeps you guessing and on your toes. It’s treatment of an alternate history where the Civil War never happened and slavery still exists is haunting, and in many ways seems all too real.
Smart, thrilling, sometimes disturbing, always completely engrossing and beautifully written. It’s one of the best mystery books of this summer.
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2. Enchanted Islands
Author: Allison Amend
Review: Frances Conway and her husband Ainslie move to the desert island of the Galapagos during the 1940s. They gave up their relatively comfortable life in San Francisco to live in a ramshackle hut and grow their own food. In Enchanted Islands, Allison Amend tells the story of Frances Conway, beginning with her childhood in Duluth, Minnesota.
The novel follows her adventures that eventually lead to her drastic move with her husband to the famous islands. Though Frances and her husband were real people and they did live on the islands, Amend tells a fictionalized version of the events filled with mystery and intrigue.
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3. Smaller and Smaller Circles
Author: F. H. Batacan
Review: This is a rather short read, a book that can be read over a weekend, but it wasn’t short in the mystery as well as the gore and tension. When the bodies of preteen boys are starting to show up in the slums of Manila, it becomes apparent that a serial killer is on the loose.
Called into action, Father Gus Saenz recruits his former student Rev. Jerome Lucero to help him solve these crimes. Lucero is a clinical psychologist; Saenz is a forensic anthropologist. In the tradition of John Grisham books and a multitude of popular crime authors, the two priests use their heaven sent skills to stop the killer as the mutilated bodies continue to ramp up.
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4. Before the Fall
Author: Noah Hawley
Review: Scott Burroughs, a washed up painter befriends a rich trophy wife and hitches a ride back to NYC on their private jet. That jet crashes and Scott is the sole adult survivor and saves a four year old boy named JJ.
After an amazing 15 mile swim from the crash site to the shore, questions begin piling up for the now famous Scott. Did the crash have anything to do with the Wall Street criminal that was on the flight? Was it related to a kidnapping, a co-pilot with drugs in his system, an Israeli bodyguard or a pilot with a history of nosebleeds?
As the mystery and suspense piles up, Noah Hawley handles it brilliantly and keeps you gripped until the end. It’s a book you will think about long after you finish it.
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5. Doubt
Author: C. E. Tobisman
Review: Excellently contrived, the plot weaves in and out of unexpected places, keeping the reader engaged throughout. Even with the twists and turns, as a reader you always feel the action is credible.
Doubt is a fast, enjoyable read. C. E. Tobisman does not employ “surprise” twists that come out of nowhere in order to keep the reader in the dark; rather, she plants subtle clues that most of you are going to miss and then allows them to sprout when you least expect them.
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6. Redemption Road
Author: John Hart
Review: Elizabeth Black is a highly decorated police veteran. As Redemption Road opens, she is caught in a blaze of negative publicity, accused of using unnecessary force in the shooting of two men who held a young girl captive, torturing and raping her repeatedly. At the same time, a former police veteran, Adrian Wall, is being released from prison after 13 years, convicted of a particularly brutal murder of a young housewife. Almost immediately, the murder for which Wall served his sentence, is repeated.
This was one of the most profoundly moving mystery books you will ever read. Redemption Road is not a straightforward whodunit murder mystery book, there are far more secrets and puzzles for the reader to discover and solve than usual, making it one of the best mystery books to read this summer.
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