Mysteries
in
The Man Who Was Poe: a Novel by Avi 224 pages Grade level: 6-9
- Eleven-year-old Edmund’s family has disappeared, leaving him alone in the threatening Providence, RI of 1848. A mysterious man, Edgar Allan Poe, promised to help investigate, but he seems to have a dangerous agenda of his own. Check our catalog
Midnight Magic by Avi 249 pages Grade level: 5-8
- A convoluted mystery unfolds as a magician pursues the ghostly apparitions that terrorize a princess in Renaissance Italy. No member of the royal household can be trusted in this tale of royal intrigue. Check our catalog
Something Upstairs by Avi 116 pages Grade level: 4-7
- Kenny’s room is haunted by the ghost of a boy slave who was murdered there in the 1800’s. The ghost asks Kenny to travel back in time and prevent his murder--the problem is, he doesn’t know who killed him, so Kenny must do some modern-day research. Check our catalog
Spying on Miss Muller by Eve Bunting 179 pages Grade level: 6-8
- In boarding school in Ireland during World War II, 13-year-old Jessie and her friends decide to spy on their teacher, Miss Muller, whom they suspect of being a Nazi sympathizer. Check our catalog
The Dark Stairs by Betsy Byars 130 pages Grade level: 5-7
- In the A Herculeah Jones Mystery series.
- Since Herculeah’s father is on the police force and her mother is a private investigator, it’s only natural the 13-year-old investigates crimes herself. With the help of her bumbling sidekick, Meat, the bossy Herculeah provides “whodunit” suspense as well as comedy. Check our catalog
Death’s Door by Betsy Byars 134 pages Grade level: 5-7
- In the A Herculeah Jones Mystery series
- Super-sleuth Herculeah Jones's investigation of the attempted murder of Meat's uncle leads them to a mystery bookstore named Death's Door. Check our catalog
Tarot Says Beware by Betsy Byars 151 pages Grade level: 5-7
- In the A Herculeah Jones Mystery series
- Herculeah Jones and her bumbling pal, Meat , investigate the murder of a palm reader. Check our catalog
Other books by Betsy Byars in the A Herculeah Jones Mystery series
The Playmaker by J.B. Cheaney 256 pages Grade level: 7-10
- In 1597 Richard goes to London to search for his father, who abandoned the family long ago, and ends up joining Shakespeare’s troupe. As he investigates, he discovers a web of intrigue which connects his father with a conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth. Check our catalog
Stonewords by Pam Conrad 130 pages Grade level: 4-6
- Eleven-year-olds Zoe and Zoe Louise are friends, although something is mysterious about Zoe Louise. The mystery grows menacing when Zoe is swept back to 1870 to save Zoe Louise from her tragic death. Check our catalog
The Orphan’s Tent by Tom De Haven 188 pages Grade level: 8-12
- Ike, a twentysomething record producer, is glad to meet Del, a pretty young woman with a terrific voice. When Del vanished, Ike and his rocker friends become sleuths, and their adventures are comedic until they uncover danger in the form of a man connected with the disappearance of orphans. Check our catalog
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier 380 pages Grade level: 8-12
- Mystery, secrets, betrayal and even evil await the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter as she arrives at the foreboding English estate Manderley, where she must contend with the memory of Rebecca, her husband’s first wife. Check our catalog
A Fate Totally Worse Than Death by Paul Fleischman 124 pages Grade level: 8-12
- When the three most popular girls at Cliffside High School begin to suffer the ravages of old age, they conclude they are being haunted by the ghost of a girl whose death they caused. But, of course, there is a surprise ending in this parody of a teen horror novel. Check our catalog
The Ghost on Saturday Night by Sid Fleischman 53 pages Grade level: 2-4
- Ten-year-old Opie is suspicious when traveling entertainer Professor Pepper gives him a ticket to a ghost-raising. Mystery and a thick fog surround what happens next: was that really the ghost of a dead outlaw? Who robbed the bank? Will Opie discover what’s really going on. Check our catalog
The December Rose by Leon Garfield 207 pages Grade level: 5-9
- The young chimney sweep Barnacle is pursued by killers through the streets of Victorian London after he overhears a police officer planning a murder. When Barnacle investigates, he finds a thrilling conspiracy involving espionage and political intrigue. Check our catalog
Who Killed Mr. Chippendale?: a Mystery in Poems by Mel Glenn 112 pages Grade level: 7-12
- A high school English teacher has been murdered, and the identity of the killer is a mystery. The story is written in the form of free-verse poems from different people’s points of view, complete with clues and red herrings. Check our catalog
Time for Andrew by Mary Downing Hahn 165 pages Grade level: 4-7
- Shy 11-year-old Drew is happy to spend the summer at his ancestral home, but he ends up playing a game of marbles for his life against his ghostly great-great-uncle Andrew, who wants to trade places because he is dying of diphtheria back in 1910. Check our catalog
The Doll in the Garden by Mary Downing Hahn 128 pages Grade level: 4-7
- Ashley is forbidden to enter the overgrown rose garden in her menacing landlady’s backyard, but after Ashley digs up an antique doll in the garden, she finds herself faced with the puzzle of a sickly child who seems to come from the ghostly past. Check our catalog
Look For Me By Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn 181 pages Grade level: 7-10
- Sixteen-year-old Cynda faces a lonely winter at her father’s spooky inn, but she is flattered by the attentions of a charming and mysterious young man. Will she break his supernatural enchantment in time to realize that she is in danger? Check our catalog
House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton 256 pages Grade level: 5-9
- Thomas’s eerie new house ws once an important station on the Underground Railroad, and it is said to be haunted. Are the ghosts responsible for the mysterious midnight noises Thomas hears, or does it have something to do with the house’s peculiar caretaker? Check our catalog
Mystery of Drear House by Virginia Hamilton 217 pages Grade level: 5-9
- Sequel to: The house of Dies Drear
- A black family living in the house of long-dead abolitionist Dies Drear must decide what to do with his stupendous treasure, hidden for one hundred years in a cavern near their home. Check our catalog
The Shrinking of Treehorn by Florence Parry Heide 63 pages Grade level: 1-4
- Treehorn tells the adults in his life that he is shrinking, but they are too busy to take notice. As he grows ever smaller, he calmly continues his everyday routine, even when he becomes too short to reach the table. Gorey’s detailed line illustrations add an eerie concreteness to the surrealism. Check our catalog
Ghost in the Tokaido Inn by Dorothy Hoobler 214 pages Grade level: 6-9
- Seikei, a 14-year-old son of a merchant, longs to be a samurai, but cannot because of the rigid caste system of 18th century Japan. When he is the only witness of a jewel theft, he is hired to investigate the mystery, which becomes dangerous when he joins a group of Kabuki actors. Check our catalog
The Demon in the Teahouse by Dorothy Hoobler Grade level: 6-9
- In eighteenth-century Japan, fourteen-year-old Seikei, a merchant's son in training to be a samurai, helps his patron investigate a series of murders and arson in the capital city of Edo, each of which is associated in some way with a popular geisha. Check our catalog
What Eric Knew by James Howe 138 pages Grade level: 5-8
- In the A Sebastian Barth Mystery series
- Thirteen-year-old Sebastian begins his sleuthing career on a lark by trying to decipher the cryptic notes his old friend Eric sends him. Sebastian hopes to solve the mystery of a possible ghost, but the adventure gets less funny when he uncovers a cocaine-running ring. Check the catalog
- In the A Sebastian Barth Mystery series
- Snooping around the mysteriously abandoned Dew Drop Inn, Sebastian Barth and his best friends, David Lepinsky and Corrie Wingate, are startled to come upon what they are certain is a dead body. Sebastian is the first to put into words what they all believe: A murder has been committed. When they return with the police, however, the body is gone! Check our catalog
Eat Your Poison, Dear by James Howe
- In the A Sebastian Barth Mystery series
- Cafeteria food may be hazardous to your health. Poor Milo Groot-- he's sprawled on the cafeteria floor, his cracked glasses inches away from his white face. Could it be the apple chili dogs? Could it be poison? Kids at the middle school are dropping like flies, and Sebastian Barth suspects there's something fishier than tuna dreamboats behind the epidemic. The trouble is, too many cooks have had the chance to spoil the stew. Sebastian finds out. At least he thinks he does, but he soon discovers that whipping up a dramatic disclosure without all the ingredients is a recipe for disaster. Check our catalog
- In the A Sebastian Barth Mystery series
- Young Sebastian Barth investigates the tangle of warnings and ominous accidents surrounding a famous actress visiting his home town. Check our catalog
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curt Klause 272 pages Grade level: 9-12
- Vivian is a 16-year-old werewolf, and as the future queen of her tribe she is involved in a dark power struggle to choose her king. She is also a high-school student who has a crush on a human classmate, so she struggles to reconcile her violent physicality with his more gentle nature. Check the catalog
The Silver Kiss by Annette Curt Klause 224 pages Grade level: 9-12
- One night as 17-year-old Zoe sits on a park bench grieving her mother’s imminent death, she meets Simon, a pale and mysterious young men. He is compellingly handsome and sympathetic but he is also a vampire with a horrifying mission; despite this, a passionate romance develops. Check the catalog
Letters From Camp by Kate Klise 192 pages Grade level: 4-7
- A silly puzzle of a mystery unfolds in the form of letters home from Camp Happy Harmony, which specializes in curing sibling rivalry. Three sets of siblings have suspicions regarding the family of singers who run the camp; one brother is even an aspiring mystery writer. Check the catalog
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg 162 pages Grade level: 4-7
- Twelve-year-old Claudia and her brother Jamie run away to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they end up in the middle of a mystery involving the strange Mrs. Frankweiler and art forgery. Check our catalog
Silent to the Bone by E. L. Konigsburg 261 pages Grade level: 6-10
- A tense mystery unfolds when 13-year-old Branwell becomes mute after being accused of harming his infant half-sister. The detective work takes the form of an intellectual and psychological puzzle when Bramwell’s best friend devises a code for them to communicate. Check our catalog
Seven Spiders Spinning by Gregory Maguire 144 pages Grade level: 4-7
-
In a series
- An eccentric small New England town is prey to a number of strange supernatural invasions, including one by seven ancient Siberian snow spiders, now thawed out and looking for trouble. Suspenseful, appealingly gruesome, and full of wacky humor and characters. Check our catalog
Six Haunted Hairdos by Gregory Maguire 151 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In a series
- With the help of their favorite teacher, two rival clubs, the all-boy Copycats and the all-girl Tattletales, stop trying to out-do each other long enough to help the ghosts of a baby elephant and a herd of mastodons that appear near their small Vermont town. Check our catalog
Five Alien Elves by Gregory Maguire 170 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In a series
- The town of Hamlet has a very unusual Christmas when aliens crash land in a UFO, escalating the competition between the rival clubs the Copycats and the Tattletales. Check our catalog
Dangerous Spaces by Margaret Mahy 154 pages Grade level: 5-8
- Orphaned Anthea’s nightly journeys into Viridian, a strange dream landscape, are first a welcome escape, but then become sinister and even life-threatening. Will her cousin be able to rescue her and put their family’s stray ghosts to rest, or will she also be trapped in Viridian? Check our catalog
The Treasure of Bessledorf Hill by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 127 pages Grade level: 3-6
- In a series
- Bernie and his family live in the Bessledorf Hotel, which is located between a bus station and a funeral parlor. When Bernie concludes that an ancient pirate buried treasure within sight of the hotel, the hotel fills up with treasure hunters both mysterious and daffy. Check our catalog
The Bodies in the Bessledorf Hotel by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 132 pages Grade level: 3-6
- In a a series
- Dead bodies which appear and disappear mysteriously are threatening to lose Sam's father his job as manager of the Besseldorf Hotel. What can be done? How do you find a ghost? Check our catalog
Bernie and the Bessledorf Ghost by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 132 pages Grade level: 3-6
- In a series
- Living at the Bessledorf Hotel, where his father works as the manager, Bernie tries to solve the mystery of a troubled, young ghost who wanders the halls of the hotel at night. Check our catalog
Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death by Richard Peck
- In a series
- Blossom, high-school freshman and possessor of "second sight," helps an Egyptian princess, dead for 3500 years, to regain her tomb, and in addition saves a suffragette school teacher from losing her job in 1914. Check our catalog
The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp by Richard Peck 183 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In a series
- Blossom, not the most popular member of her freshman class in 1914, travels ahead seventy years, and returns in time to make Halloween a memorable night for her classmates and teachers. Check our catalog
Voices After Midnight by Richard Peck 181 pages Grade level: 5-7
- Brothers Chad and Luke hear voices from the past in their family’s vacation rents, an old New York City brownstone. After they discover how to transport themselves to the 1880s they uncover a mystery to solve, but events begin to lead to tragedy. Check our catalog
The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci 256 pages Grade level: 9-12
- Chris, the outsider who was bullied by everyone at the high school, has vanished, leaving behind an ambiguous e-mail message. Torey decides to solve Chris’s mysterious disappearance, but uncovers a lot more than he expected. Check our catalog
The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman 230 pages Grade level: 6-11
- In the Sally Lockhart Trilogy series
- A fast-paced “penny dreadful” of a thriller set in the shadowy underworld of Victorian London. Sixteen-year-old Sally’s father has been murdered, and as she investigates she uncovers a complicated double mystery with herself as the key. Check our catalog
The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman Grade level: 6-11
- In the Sally Lockhart Trilogy series
- In 1878 in London, Sally, now twenty-two and established in her own business, and her companions Frederick and Jim try to solve the mystery surrounding the unexpected collapse of a shipping firm and its ties to a sinister corporation called North Star. Check our catalog
The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman 407 pages Grade level: 6-11
- In the Sally Lockhart Trilogy series
- In London in 1881, twenty-four-year-old Sally finds her young daughter and her possessions assailed by an unknown enemy, while a shadowy figure known as the Tzaddik involves her in his plot to defraud and exploit the hordes of Jewish immigrants pouring into the country. Check our catalog
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin 149 pages Grade level: 5-7
- Mrs. Carillon’s husband called out a mysterious phrase as he fell overboard, and she has spent decades trying to decipher it and thus find him. Baffling mysteries, word puzzles and unusual characters await her. Check our catalog
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin 185 pages Grade level: 5-8
- After an eccentric millionaire dies mysteriously, 16 people are surprised to learn they are heirs, and even more surprised to learn they must solve a strange puzzle before they can claim their inheritance. As the plot twists and turns, they begin to wonder if he was joking with them. Check our catalog
Wolf Stalker by Gloria Skurzynski 147 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In the National Parks Mystery series
- Mystery, outdoorsy adventure, and natural history combine in this series, which includes maps, photographs, and scientific information about the National Park in which the mystery is set. Twelve-year-old Jack, his younger sister, and the family's teenage foster child Troy go to Yellowstone National Park, where Jack's mother, a wildlife veterinarian, is investigating the report that wolves reintroduced to the park have killed a dog there. Check our catalog
Rage of Fire by Gloria Skurzynski 147 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In the National Parks Mystery series
- Jack, Ashley, and their parents visit Hawaii where they meet a Vietnamese boy who is going to live with his American grandfather whom he has never met, and are pursued by the Goddess Pele. Check our catalog
Cliff-Hanger by Gloria Skurzynski 147 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In the National Parks Mystery series
- Twelve-year-old Jack and his younger sister visit Mesa Verde National Park, where they delve into the park's history while gradually uncovering the mysterious past of their family's teenage foster child Lucky. Check our catalog
Deadly Waters by Gloris Skurzynski 145 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In the National Parks Mystery series
- While visiting the Everglades National Park with their parents, the Landon children uncover the mystery of dying manatees and learn important lessons about the natural environment. Check our catalog
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder 203 pages Grade level 4-7
- Eleven-year-old David and his younger siblings have a new stepsister, Amanda, who is a student of the occult. After Amanda gives them witchcraft lessons, strange things start happening in their old house. Does Amanda have something to do with it? Check our catalog
Blair’s Nightmare by Zilpha Keatley Snyder 192 pages
- The Stanley kids and their stepsister try to keep secret a dog that Blair finds, keep David out of the clutches of the school bully, and find out if some escaped convicts really are nearby. Sequel to "The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case." Check our catalog
Janie’s Private Eyes by Zilpha Keatley Snyder 212 pages
- Intent on investigating a rash of dog disappearances, eight-year-old Janie forms a detective agency and involves her friends and unwilling family in tracing clues and suspects. Check our catalog
The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case by Zilpha Keatley Snyder 212 pages
- Kidnappers in Italy have their hands full when the captive American children advise them on running a better kidnapping and on proper nutrition. Check our catalog
The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder 215 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In a series
- April and Melanie turn the deserted storage yard behind the local antique shop into the exotic land of ancient Egypt. As the Egypt game becomes more involved and more mysterious, there is a growing sense of danger. Check our catalog
The Gypsy Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder 217 pages Grade level: 4-7
- In a series
- Six imaginative schoolmates embark on a game in which they pretend to be gypsies, but when one of the boys runs away and takes up with a group of homeless people, the game threatens to become all too real. Check our catalog
The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine by Diane Stanley 208 pages Grade level: 4-6
- Fanny thinks her classmates are silly for being such fans of I. M. Fine, the author of the faddish “Chillers” series -- but then the books start coming true. A suspenseful, comedic parody of those popular horror series book for elementary and middle school kids. Check our catalog
Never Trust a Dead Man by Vivian Vande Velde 192 pages Grade level: 7-12
- At the start of this medieval comedy, Selwyn is wrongly convicted of murdering his rival, Farold. After he is buried alive with Farold’s corpse, Selwyn strikes a deal with a witch who frees him and resurrects Farold as a bat, giving them one week to find the true killer. Check our catalog
The Callender Papers by Cynthia Voigt 224 pages Grade level: 5-9
- Orphaned Jean, employed to sort out the family papers of a reclusive artist, investigates the mysterious death of his wife and the disappearance of their young child. Check our catalog
The Vandemark Mummy by Cynthia Voigt 234 pages Grade level: 5-9
- Twelve-year-old Phineas and his 15-year-old sister, Althea, are puzzled when the mummy for which their professor father is responsible is stolen. When Althea vanishes, Phineas must move quickly to solve the mystery. Check our catalog
The Black Mirror by Nancy Werlin 249 pages Grade level: 7-12
- Frances is a lonely outcast as a racially-mixed scholarship student at an exclusive prep school, but when her older brother kills himself she begins to wonder about the mysterious charitable organization that sponsored both their scholarships. Check our catalog
The Killer’s Cousin by Nancy Werlin 229 pages Grade level: 7-12
- After he is acquitted of murdering his girlfriend, 17-year-old David moves in with his uncle’s family to get a fresh start. But his 11-year-old cousin harasses him with terrifying hostility as the psychological tension and mystery build to a thrilling climax. Check our catalog