Children Literature Mysteries

Before they were the Boxcar Children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden lived with their parents on Fair Meadow Farm. Although times are hard, the Aldens are happy—“the best family of all,” Mama likes to say. One day, a blizzard hits the countryside, and a traveling family needs shelter. The Aldens take them in, and the strangers soon become friends. But things never stay the same at the farm, and the spring and summer bring events that will forever change their lives.

Lee Child selects the 20 best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Stephen King, Sara Paretsky, and many more. Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international best seller Lee Child has selected the 20 most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

One hundred years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle. And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea. Now something peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The children are disappearing, one by one. An evil history is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified child has ended her silence with a scream that began 100 years ago.

The New York Times best selling cartoonist behind the nationally acclaimed comic strip Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis has won raves for Timmy Failure, the hilarious first book in a new series for young listeners. With the help of a polar bear named Total, Timmy Failure hopes to strike it rich by running the best detective agency around. The only problem is that our supremely confident hero is often more bumbling than brainy.

adrift in mist-shrouded San Francisco mornings and alcohol-fogged nights, homicide detective Kate Martinelli can't escape the void left by her departed lover, who has gone off to rethink their relationship. But when twelve-year-old Jules Cameron comes to Kate for a professional consultation, Kate's not sure she's that desperate for distraction. Jules is worried about her friend Dio, a homeless boy she met in a park. Dio has disappeared without a word of farewell, and Jules wants Kate to find him Reluctant as she is, Kate can't say no.

Dr. Margaret Richter has it all. She’s rich, thanks to her best-selling self-help books. She has a beautiful home in Cape Cod overlooking the beach. And she has a monthly book club that everyone is dying to get invited to. Literally. Because behind the crystal wine glasses, the fine linens and the catered hors d'oeuvres lies a tangled web of secrets, of deceit, of murder. No member of the book club is innocent—and many are guilty. And the person with the most to hide is Margaret Richter herself.

Baker Street Four follows Billy (Charlie Brand), Charlie (Kiki May), and Tom (Nathan Moses), three young apprentices of Sherlock Holmes (Paterson Joseph) who assist the famous detective in London’s dodgy East End. With the help of their faithful cat, Watson (Bill Nighy) and Sherlock’s beloved housekeeper Mrs. Hudson (Celia Imrie), this foursome takes local crimes into their own hands while Holmes is off solving mysteries abroad. Follow the Baker Street Irregulars as they pursue different cases, growing by the day as young detectives and as friends.

Jack Reacher hits the pavement and sticks out his thumb. He plans to follow the sun on an epic trip across America, from Maine to California. He doesn’t get far. On a country road deep in the New England woods, he sees a sign to a place he has never been: the town where his father was born. He thinks, What’s one extra day? He takes the detour.

The Boxcar Children: Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are orphans. Can they find a home where they can stay together as a family? Surprise Island: The Aldens spend the summer on their own private island. There they meet a new friend with an amazing secret! The Yellow House Mystery: Years ago, a man vanished from the yellow house on Surprise Island. Why? The Aldens have found a clue to the mystery!

One warm night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from. Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are orphans. Can they find a home where they can stay together as a family?

Nathan Tyler is an unassuming professor at a middling American university with a rather obscure specialty in mathematics—in short, a nobody from nowhere. So why is the White House calling? Summoned to Washington, DC, for a top-secret briefing, Nathan discovers that he’s the key to a massive foreign intelligence breakthrough. Reading between the lines of a cryptic series of equations, he could open a door straight into the heart of the Kremlin and change the global balance of power forever.

Two years ago, Beth Farrow turned her back on her three-year-old niece, Jenna, for just a few seconds. She disappeared without a trace. How does a three-year-old go missing from a crowded summer fete without anyone noticing? When Beth leaves the country to try and escape her guilt, someone sends her a photograph from an anonymous number. It's a photograph of Jenna. She's older, but Beth is sure it's her niece. She is determined to do what the police cannot: Find Jenna and bring her home. But someone isn't pleased when Beth returns.

Twelve-year-old Lewis Stevens disappeared from a seafront arcade. Eleven-year-old Noah Reid vanished from the pier stretching out over the beach. Detective Kim Stone doesn’t play well with others… but as the investigation into the missing children stalls, she is sent halfway across the country to join the hunt. When she knocks on the door of Lewis’s house, she’s expecting to meet a desperate, hopeful mother, and to promise she’ll do everything in her power to bring Lewis home.

Viva Durant, New Orleans’ youngest detective, is on a quest to solve a jazzy mystery. Every summer, Viva heads to New Orleans to spend time with her loving but stern Grandmother, known as Gram. After Gram reads Viva an article in the local paper about a missing treasure related to the world-famous song, “Miss Mary Mack”, Viva heads through the Crescent City on an epic adventure to track down the treasure. The clues lead Viva to the French Quarter, a jazz club, a creepy cemetery, and even the circus.

New York Times best-selling author Stephan Pastis is the creator of the award-winning comic strip Pearls Before Swine. Now Look What You' ve Done finds comically clueless kid detective Timmy Failure on the cusp of cracking the biggest case of his generation. The school globe' s been stolen and a $500 reward is up for grabs. But before claiming the prize, Timmy and his polar-bear sidekick Total will have to trip up a rascal trying to scam the system.

Before Jake’s grandfather died, he was on the trail of a centuries-old mystery. And he has entrusted that mystery to Jake, leaving behind a set of hidden codes, riddles, maps, and other clues that lead Jake and his friends on a scavenger hunt into the heart of Colorado’s wild and rugged Rocky Mountain National Park.

This book was never meant to exist. No one needs to know the details. Just know this: there's a Merry, a Larry, a missing tooth, and a teachers' strike that is crippling Timmy Failure's academic future. Worst of all, Timmy is banned from detective work. It's a conspiracy of buffoons. He recorded everything in his private notebook, but then the manuscript was stolen. If this book gets out, he will be grounded for life. Or maybe longer. And will Timmy's mom really marry Doorman Dave.

Caroline Overington's stunning fiction debut is a multi-voiced novel centred around a child's death and its terrible repercussions. In 1982 Victorian police were called to a home on a housing estate an hour west of Melbourne. There, they found a five-year-old boy lying still and silent on the carpet. There were no obvious signs of trauma, but the child, Jacob, died the next day. The story made the headlines, and hundreds attended the funeral. Few people were surprised when the boy's mother and her boyfriend went to prison for the crime.

Eddie's great aunt Mathilda is sick and he has to help take care of her. But when Eddie and his friends visit Mathilda's house, strange things start to happen. Howie sees someone staring at him from the attic window and, when his back is turned, his garlic potato chips are used to spell the word attic on the ground. During later visits, the kids hear noises from the attic, but Great Aunt Mathilda swears there's nothing up there.

Dan Brown meets Jason Bourne in this riveting middle-grade mystery thriller. When a young boy is discovered in Washington DC's National Gallery without any recollection of who he is, so begins a high-stakes race to unravel the greatest mystery of all: his identity. As the stakes continue to rise, the boy must piece together the disjointed clues of his origins while using his limited knowledge to stop one of the greatest art frauds ever attempted.