National Network for Equitable Library Service

First published in a 1841 edition of Graham's Magazine, The Murders in the Rue Morgue is often cited as the first modern detective story. The first of three stories to center around C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's fictional detective, The Murders in the Rue Morgue involves Dupin's investigation of two women's murders.

Set in early 1900s London, this metaphysical thriller follows undercover officer Gabriel Syme and his secret involvement with Scotland Yard's task force that attempts to take down underground anarchists. In doing so, Syme encounters Lucian Gregory, a passionate anarchist who eventually takes him to the areas secret meeting place. From there Syme influences his peers and eventually is voted to the central council. While Syme attempts to destroy the council of anarchists from the inside, He only uncovers more secrets, each more mysterious than the last.

The grand-prize winner of a writing contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, The Gold-Bug was one of Poe's most popular stories during his lifetime. Similar to his ratiocination tales-early versions of what we now call detective fiction-The Gold-Bug is full of mystery and adventure and includes a cryptogram, invisible ink, a scarab-like bug, and pirate treasure.

Fiona Lychenko, now a woman in her late sixties, has spent years researching the death of her high school classmate Zara Stanley, who was brutally murdered at the age of twenty. Determined to solve the crime, something the police weren’t able to do, Fiona interviewed everyone she could in her hometown of Ripley, but every trail led to the same dead end. She even published her findings in a book, hoping it would lead to anonymous clues from readers and outliers, and still, nothing. Now, a decade later, Fiona has finally given up hope that the killer would ever be caught.

Fourteen-year-old Sam Stellar and her cousin Paige have decided to spend the summer working at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, as part of the Summer Studies and Work Experience Program. While not the ideal scenario for a summer vacation, both girls try to make the best of it: Paige, a whiz with the computers in the IT department, has one eye on her work and the other on the adorable assistant helping out in the museum, while Sam, a wannabe detective (who has studied online), is convinced there’s a potential theft about to happen.

On Whidbey Island, the Gray quintuplets are the stuff of legend. Pixie and her brothers have always been bigger and blonder than their neighbors, as if they were birthed from the island itself. Together, they serve as an unofficial search-and-rescue team for the island, saving tourists and locals alike from the forces of wind and sea. But, when a young boy goes missing, the mysteries start to pile up. While searching for him, they find his mother's dead body instead, and realize that something sinister is in their midst.

A forty-year-old skeleton is found encased in a concrete slab at a recently decommissioned nuclear energy site. It becomes a case for the Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI) and its leader, Joe Gunther, since they have the resources and the ability to investigate an old, very cold, missing persons case that has now been reclassified as murder. The victim was Hank Mitchell, and Gunther must chase down old rumors and speculations: Who benefited from his death and the disappearance of his body?

Cat Mateo, a once-stray teenager, owes her rescue to Detective Stride. But Cat holds something else to her chest: a secret, the sheer power of which she could not possibly comprehend. A secret that, once out of the bag, will viciously scratch at Duluth's still-healing wounds.

When we last saw Max Fisher and Angela Petrakos, Max was being arrested by the NYPD for drug trafficking, and Angela was fleeing the country in the wake of a brutal murder. Now both are headed for eye-opening encounters with the law.

Five valuable lessons: don't hire a psychopath to kill your wife, don't use Drano to get rid of a body, hotel room doors aren't very secure, a wig isn't much of a disguise, and secrets can kill.