Mystery Stories

Picture Books

Adler, David, Bones and the Big Yellow Mystery. A trip to the mall turns into a search for a missing school bus but no mystery is too tough for Jeffrey Bones.

Allard, Harry. Miss Nelson Is Missing.The kids in Room 207 are faced with a vile substitute when their teacher disappears.

Anderson, Scoular. A Puzzling Day at Castle MacPelican.Thomas and Esmerelda go on a treasure hunt and solve a series of other puzzles at Castle MacPelican

Choi, Yangsook, Behind the Mask. When Kimin goes looking for a Halloween costume, he finds his grandfather’s trunk and solves a mystery while he learns about his Korean heritage.

Rylant, Cynthia. The High Rise Private Eyes: The Case of the Missing Monkey. A glass monkey is missing from The Grill Next Door. Detectives Bunny and Jack are on the case.

Younger elementary chapter books

Adler, David. Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds. A fifth-grader with a photographic memory and her friend Eric help solve the mystery of the stolen diamonds.

Hale, Bruce. The Chameleon Wore Chartreuse. Meet ace detective Chet Gecko, his sidekick Natalie Attired, and a whole cast of quirky animal characters in the first Chet Gecko mystery.

Joose, Barbara. Ghost Trap: A Wild Willie Mystery. When Willie’s old friend Kyle moves back to town, he moves into a house with a mystery. Willy, his new friend Lucy, and his old friend Kyle, have a lot to work out before disaster strikes! Levy, Elizabeth. Something Queer is Going On. The kidnapping of Fletcher, a Bassett hound, leads best friends Jill and Gwen on a frantic search that ends up in front of a TV camera. Comical illustrations are full of clues that will keep the reader solving along with the girl detectives.

McCall Smith, Alexander. Max and Maddy and the Chocolate Money Mystery. Max and Maddy live in London where their parents run an ice cream store. After winning a Cluedo competition, they are invited to travel to Switzerland to solve a series of bank robberies.

Roy, Ron. The Absent Author. Dink Duncan and his two friends investigate the apparent kidnapping of famous mystery author Wallis Wallace.

Sharmat, Marjorie. Nate the Great and the Big Sniff. Nate the Great must work alone to find his trusty dog Sludge.

Older elementary chapter books

Balliett, Blue. Chasing Vermeer. When seemingly unrelated and strange events start to happen and a precious Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an international art scandal.

Broach, Elise. Shakespeare’s Secret. Named after a character in a Shakespeare play, misfit sixth-grader Hero becomes interested in exploring this unusual connection.

Buckley, Michael. Fairy-tale Detectives. Sisters Sabrina and Daphne learn they are descendants of the Brothers Grimm, and are the latest in a long line of fairy-tale detectives. Their new hometown is filled with Everafters (as magical folks like to be called)—some good and some very, very bad. When a mysterious Everafter sets a giant loose on the town, it’s up to the Sisters Grimm to save the day.

DeFelice, Cynthia. The Ghost of Fossil Glen. Who is writing in Allie Nichols’ diary? Her search to solve this unnerving mystery leads to a far more dangerous school outing than she expects.

Dixon, Franklin. The Tower Treasure. Meet the world famous Hardy Boys in this first installment of the classic mystery series. In this mystery the Hardy boys make an astonishing discovery after a dying criminal confesses that his loot has been stashed "in the tower."

Dowd, Siobhan. The London Eye Mystery. Moms are chatting over coffee when a stranger offers Ted, Kat and Salim a ticket to ride on the London Eye – a giant ferris wheel. Salim accepts, and goes up on the ride, but never comes back. Can Ted and Kat find their missing cousin?

Haddix, Margaret Peterson. The House on the Gulf. Britt moves with her family to a nicer neighborhood, thanks to her older brother Bran’s new house-sitting job. Britt becomes suspicious when her brother’s behavior changes unexpectedly, which leads her to uncover a terrible secret.

Hiaasen, Carl. Flush. With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of this floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.

Hoeye, Michael. Time Stops for No Mouse. When Linka Perflinger, a lovely and exciting mouse, brings a watch into his shop to be repaired and then disappears, Hermux Tantamoq is caught up in a dangerous search for eternal youth as he tries to find out what happened to her.

Howe, Deborah and James. Bunnicula : A Rabbit-tale of Mystery. Though scoffed at by Harold the dog, Chester the cat tries to warn his human family that their foundling baby bunny must be a vampire.

Keene, Carolyn. The Secret of the Old Clock. Meet Nancy Drew, the most famous girl detective, in the first book of this classic mystery series. In this mystery, Nancy uses her keen mind to find a missing will.

Konigsburg, E.L. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. A young girl runs away with her brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two unravel a mystery behind a famous sculpture.

Mack, Tracy. The Fall of the Amazing Zalindas. The ragamuffin boys known as the Baker Street Irregulars help Sherlock Holmes solve the mysterious deaths of a family of circus tightrope walkers. Raskin, Ellen. The Westing Game. The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance.

Sobol, Donald. Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective. A watermelon stabbing...A trapeze artist's inheritance...And an eyewitness who's legally blind! These are just some of the mysteries that Encyclopedia Brown solves by using his famous encyclopedic brain.

Springer, Nancy. The Case of the Missing Marquess. Enola Holmes, much younger sister of detective Sherlock Holmes, must travel to London in disguise to unravel the disappearance of her missing mother.

Stanley, Diane. The Mysterious Matter of I.M.Fine. Meet detectives Franny and Zooey when their investigation into disturbing fads at their school brings them to the estate of horror story author, I.M. Fine.

Van Draanen, Wendelin. Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief. Thirteen-year-old Sammy's penchant for speaking her mind gets her in trouble when she involves herself in the investigation of a robbery at the "seedy" hotel across the street from the seniors' building where she is living with her grandmother.

Warner. Gertrude Chandler. The Boxcar Children. “One Warm Night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from." So begins this beloved story about four orphans who run away and find shelter in an abandoned boxcar. Follow their amazing mysterious adventures.

Wright, Betty Ren. The Dollhouse Murders. A dollhouse filled with a ghostly light in the middle of the night, and dolls that have moved from where she last left them, lead Amy and her mentally handicapped sister to unravel the mystery surrounding grisly murders that took place years ago.