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8 Mystery Novels to Add to Your TBR Shelf

Featuring familiar and new tropes (have you ever read a mystery novel with a protagonist who is a PI and a pro-wrestler?)— these 8 mystery novels need to be added to your TBR shelf asap!

Livingsky By Anthony Bidulka

Merry Bell needed to get out of Vancouver. Fast. Returning to her hometown of Livingsky, Saskatchewan was a desperate step. Living with plenty of secrets, but no money, friends, or place to live during a prairie winter, all while trying to start her own PI business proves to be more of a challenge than she imagined. As Merry struggles to start over in her hometown, she not only has to unwind a mystery which imperils Livingsky’s most powerful people, but must face a past she’d rather leave behind.

Livingsky

Anthony Bidulka (CA)

Published: Jun 01, 2023 by Stonehouse Publishing
ISBN: 9781988754475

Ghost Detective by Zachary Muswagon

The Compliance Officer for a First Nations Band has been shot in the head and left for dead. Unable to cross over to the great huntings grounds, Billy Ghostkeeper must stay and discover who murdered him and why. Through strange, funny and sometimes harrowing adventures, Billy and his gang of “detectives” work to uncover the true killer.

Book Cover: Ghost Detective (Eschia Books)

Ghost Detective 

Zachary Muswagon (CA)

Published: Sept. 15, 2012 by Eschia Books
ISBN: 9781926696201

Five Moves of Doom by A.J. Devlin

Hired by local mixed martial arts trainer Elijah Lennox to find a missing UFC Championship belt, pro-wrestler PI “Hammerhead” Jed must extract answers from the tight-knit MMA community. Still consuming his weight in banana milkshakes, Jed ventures into a world of jewel thieves, bodybuilders, eccentric yoga enthusiasts, and adorable baby goats. As he infiltrates an exclusive and unique no-holds-barred fight club, Jed might just find himself down for the count…

Five Moves of Doom: A "Hammerhead" Jed Mystery

A.J. Devlin (CA)

Published: Sep 15, 2022 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781774390559

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

The Prodigal Spy by Jason Connor

Ryan Davis, a brilliant graduate student and languages scholar, is forced to learn a deadly new vocabulary when an attempted kidnapping shatters his quiet academic existence. After narrowly escaping, Ryan is plunged into a shadow world of danger and intrigue where he discovers shocking revelations about his life and himself. His uncle is not who he thought, his best friends may be his worst enemies and his long-dead father may actually still be alive. Yet it is Ryan’s own dormant instincts and innate abilities that surprise him most, giving him the edge he needs to battle the sinister forces he suddenly finds arrayed against him.

Prodigal Spy, The

Jason Connor (CA)

Published: Sep 20, 2013 by Quagmire Press
ISBN: 9781926695198

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Secrets of Jarrow by Bill Slavin

In the early 22nd century, tech scavenger Mordecai Crow barely escapes a group of bandits by reaching Jarrow, a castle-like community wealthy in food. Jarrow’s prosperity is rare in a world ravaged by climate change, and it’s one of the mysteries Crow tries to unravel as he works with the community archivists. Unfortunately for Crow – and society – most digital information we take for granted has been lost. Meanwhile, the murder of one of Jarrow’s food experts – central to its dominance of the local economy – is pinned on Crow and he must solve the mysterious murder to clear his name.

Secrets of Jarrow

Bill Slavin (CA)

Published: May 17, 2023 by Renegade Arts Entertainment
ISBN: 9781989754269

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Call of the Void by J.T. Siemens

The second book in the Sloan Donovan series by J.T. Siemen, picks up with Sloane as a fully-fledged private investigator bored by her latest task of keeping a debauched starlet alive and out of the headlines. When Sloane and her partner Wayne Capson are contacted by a grieving mother looking to resurrect the cold case of her missing daughter, Sloane finds herself inexorably drawn into a clandestine world of disappearing girls, illegal narcotics, and loose ends dating back forty years.

Call of the Void: A Sloane Donovan Mystery

J.T. Siemens (CA)

Published: Mar 01, 2024 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781774390863

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Blood Red Summer by Wayne Arthurson

Called to the scene of an apparent overdose of a young Native man in the inner city, Métis journalist Leo Desroches witnesses some rocks falling out of the body bag, and he picks them up. At first he believes they are crack cocaine, but discovers that the rocks are really rough diamonds. As he digs deeper into the story, he finds that the victim was a highly trained mudlogger at one of the new diamond mines in Canada’s High Arctic and he gets dragged into a deadly conflict between the mining companies and a murderous Native street gang who are fighting for control of the development of another diamond mine.

Blood Red Summer: A Leo Desroches Mystery

Wayne Arthurson (CA)

Published: May 15, 2016 by Eschia Books
ISBN: 9781926696270

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Rough by Robin van Eck

One June 19, 2013, heavy rains began to fall in Southern Alberta, contributing to the biggest flood in Calgary since 1932. This is the backdrop of Robin van Eck’s compassionate and fast-paced mystery novel, Rough, focusing on a homeless man, his daughter, and a string of suspicious deaths.

Rough

Robin van Eck (CA)

Published: Nov 01, 2020 by Stonehouse Publishing
ISBN: 9781988754260

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook