Best Mystery Books in the UK

Gillian Flynn made a real splash with her novel Gone Girl back in 2012. The book was extremely successful and made the writer one of the New York Times best-selling authors. It is a smart mystery novel with elements of thriller and crime story that you won’t be able to put down until you finish it.

In the beginning, you meet two main characters - Amy and Nick Dunne, who seem a happily-married couple getting ready to celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary. But their happiness turns out to be just an illusion. As the plot progresses, we find out that both main characters have skeletons in their closets and each of them has taken part in the destruction of their marriage.

The story starts with Amy's mysterious disappearance on the morning of their anniversary. And even though the crime scene looks like it was a kidnapping, some things just don’t add up to that, which quickly makes Nick one of the main suspects in the case. Since the story takes place in quiet suburbia of Missouri, such an accident has much resonance with the citizens. Now, Nick has to deal with the pressure from police, media, and his wife’s family while trying to investigate and figure out what has actually happened to his wife by following her clues that she left him to find a surprise gift for their celebration.

To understand Amy’s point of view, the readers will be able to check out the notes she made in her personal diary, written from the first person’s perspective. The things she describes and the fact that her husband so cleverly starts manipulating the society makes him look like a real kidnapper, or probably even a murderer. But is Amy a real victim in the story? You will be able to find out that only at the very end.

Harlan Coben has made a name by writing intense mystery novels and action thrillers and is a winner of multiple literary awards. Lots of his novels were made into movies and TV adaptations that became very popular among the mystery fans. His novel The Woods (its adaptation you can also check out on Netflix) was written in 2007, but it still hasn’t lost its popularity.

The protagonist of the story is Paul Copeland from Essex, New Jersey. When he was a little boy, his family was shocked by a horrible tragedy - his teenage sister disappeared from a summer camp. She was one of four children that went out that night but she was one of two who has never returned. After that, the relationship within the family went downhill. However, the hero managed to grow up and become a decent person, get an education and family, and build a career. 20 years from the accident, he works as a prosecutor and raises a 6-year-old daughter alone after his wife died of cancer.

The plot thickens when Paul founds the body with leads to the mysterious disappearance of his sister. In that body, he recognizes another person that was lost while in camp. However, the family of the victim doesn’t want to acknowledge that this person is their relative.

To spice things up, the author also adds another plotline - the rape case and its trial. The victim is a stripper while her abusers are a group of rich white men who are positioning themselves as good boys, which makes it hard and tricky for Paul as a prosecutor to get a fair verdict. This line is also very intriguing and has great suspense, so you should be interested in it not less than in the main secret about the missing sister.

As the story goes, the readers will get more and more questions and find out new mysteries (including a few about KGB and Gulag) that have something to do with the Copeland's family.

The Silent Patient is a debut novel of Alex Michaelides. Yet, it is so masterfully-written that you won’t be able to tell that the author is a newcomer. Alex, who previously worked as a screenwriter, was heavily influenced by works of the queen of mystery, Agatha Christie, and used an antique story of Alcestis written by Euripides as an inspiration.

The novel has two main characters - Alicia Berenson and Theo Faber. Alicia is an artist with a complicated past. When she was a young girl, she had lost her mother due to suicide, which, being a very traumatic experience on itself, was followed by mental abuse from a drunk father. All that left a strong mark on a woman’s psyche. She manages to deal with the demons of her past, or at least she thinks so, and marries photographer Gabriel. The couple seems to be pretty happy with their life. But for unknown reasons, she kills her husband and goes silent, refusing to reveal what has actually happened. Due to diminished responsibility, she is sent to a psychiatric unit.

Then we meet Theo, a forensic psychiatrist. He gets very interested in Alicia’s case and feels confident that he can help her. Even though the heroine stays silent on their sessions, she gives Theo her diary, where she wrote everything that bothered her in order not to tell and disturb her husband. Theo finds particularly interesting notes that Alicia felt being watched and saw a masked figure outside their house. As the story goes, the reader will have to build their own theories about what actually happened that day in Alicia’s house. However, we find it very unlikely to get the correct answer before you read till the end.

If you love Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, we are quite sure you will enjoy Magpie Murders by British author Anthony Horowitz. The author has a huge bibliography and has written multiple screenplays. But what sets him apart from the other mystery writers is that he has not only come up with original characters but also written a few books about such iconic heroes as Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, which were commissioned by the legal estates. Thus, the writer has proven his talent multiple times, so you can’t go wrong with his works.

The book in question tells us about Susan Rayland, an editor, who has been long working with Alan Conway, a popular author who wrote a series of novels about the detective Atticus Pünd. Atticus was investigating cases in small English villages, bringing back peace to their people. However, he died from cancer, so the book allegedly describes his last case. The story takes place in Saxby on Avon in 1950s. Atticus with his assistant, James Fraser, and a local inspector, Raymond Chubb, is investigating the case that involves a double homicide - the murder of a cleaning woman Mary Blakiston and Sir Magnus who was beheaded at Pye Hall. The detective has a huge number of suspects form all the groups of society who all had their own motives, which makes it impossible to guess who the killer is. When the denouement is so close, Susan realizes that the last three chapters are missing.

On top of that, Alan, the author of the story, is found dead due to apparent suicide. This is extremely unfortunate for the publishing house since the author was their cash cow. But no one seems to really care or feel grief for the deceased. Convinced that it was a murder, and there is a killer on the loose, Susan starts her own investigation. She thinks that the missing chapters are not a coincidence and they may contain leads to the murderer. So we see her drawn into a dangerous case full of greed and jealousy.

Michael Connelly has a long writing career, during which he was able to create a few memorable characters and write a number of novels that are considered to be a great example of true mystery. One of the most beloved characters, created by Connelly, is Heironimus “Harry” Bosch - an LAPD homicide detective. The first novel featuring this character was created back in 1992. Since then, the author has written 21 more novels about Bosch. One of the latest books was released in 2019 and is called The Night Fire.

The novel features not only Bosch as the protagonist but also another character from Connelly’s series - Renne Ballard. She first appeared in the author’s works in 2017, but she was warmly received by the audience and has already become a pretty popular character.

The plot centres around these two people. Harry Bosch, who is already retired, comes to the funeral of his old friend and mentor, John Jack Thompson, who was a detective as well. There, the widow handles Harry a very old cold case that was found among the stuff of the deceased. Bosch finds it very intriguing that his friend kept the case in his house, and he decides to renew the investigation. It's full of the photos and reports about the death of a 24-year-old junky who was shot by one of the LA gangs.

Bosch goes for help to his old acquaintance, Detective Renee Ballard. She is currently working on a case of a homeless person who, allegedly, put himself on fire. To make things even more interesting, the author adds the third plotline with the other case. Harry’s stepbrother and another famous character from Connelly’s books, Mickey Haller, are working on a complicated case of a man who allegedly killed a judge.