Get Ready for Spring's Most Anticipated New Mysteries

In case you were curious: The mystery novel has its origins in the early 19th century, prompted by rising literacy rates, extra leisure time, and the evolution of law enforcement. Good detective stories were hard to find before then, largely because there weren’t really any detectives or police organizations as we have them today.
 
The mystery story isn’t necessarily a police story, of course, and you can find historical mystery plotlines from way back in the past. But the template for commercial fiction developed in the early 1800s when publishers discovered readers liked puzzle stories with a big reveal at the end. And thus a genre was hatched…
 
The happy outcome is that the mystery genre is an especially busy one, and readers have lots of options throughout the year as new books hit the shelves. Below we have compiled the spring season’s biggest new mystery books, based on the titles Goodreads members are adding to their Want to Read lists.

Genre regulars will recognize some familiar names. Elder statesman Harlan Coben returns with The Match, about a man named Wilde and his adventures with online trolls and a serial killer. The never-not-awesome Janelle Brown (Pretty Things) is back with I’ll Be You, concerning identical twins, the Hollywood B-list, and a mysterious spa in California. Don Winslow fans will want to check out his latest criminal enterprise saga, City on Fire.
 
There are plenty of interesting debut novels, too. Sascha Rothchild’s Blood Sugar, for instance, spins a twisty tale about an empathetic and animal-loving therapist who is accused of murdering her husband. It’s aggravating, because that’s the one murder she didn’t commit.
 
Devotees of the classic locked-room mystery will appreciate Gigi Pandian’s Under Lock & Skeleton Key, which tweaks the template with architectural puzzles, family curses, and a family business called Secret Staircase Construction.
 
Click around and you’ll find further instances of murder and mayhem in strange places—the steamy greenhouses of 1920s London botanical gardens, say, or the comic book industry.
 
Let us know what you’re digging in the comments section below, and be sure to add promising titles to your own Want to Read shelf.

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