8 Great Genre-Blending Mystery Books

On an interstellar cruise ship where memories can be saved in the library and bodies can be swapped on request, Dorothy Gentleman wakes in a body that isn’t her own just as a dead body is discovered, clearly murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy normally relishes a good mystery. But when she discovers someone is deleting minds from the library as well as killing passengers, it’s clear something far darker is afoot. Could it be the fault of her kind but feckless nephew? Or perhaps the beautiful yarn store proprietor who once dated the body she’s inhabiting? Either way, Dorothy will have to get to the bottom of it before anyone else is gotten rid of—permanently.

This sci-fi take on Sherlock Holmes follows an investigator on the trail of a man gone missing from the human colony on Jupiter. Mossa’s investigation takes her to the planet’s university and her ex, a scholar researching Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems. Pleiti and researchers like her have dedicated their lives to exploring the possibility of a return to Earth, but Mossa’s new case could undermine any chance of that. Working together could be the difference between a future among the stars or perhaps even one closer to home.

Ivy may have a barely sustainable career as a P.I. and a bit of a drinking problem, but she’s never wanted to trade places with her estranged sister, the only one to possess any sort of magical talent in their family. But when she’s brought in to investigate a murder at the magic school where her sister was teaching, she’s suddenly drawn into not only Tabitha’s affairs, but the life she could have had. It’s far too late to repair the relationship between them, but maybe it’s not too late to try to understand what went so terribly wrong at this school that’s meant to be perfect.

Myth and stories are all too real in the world of Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe. Her ability to bring dead animals back to life, passed down from her Lipan Apache ancestors, is hardly outside of the norm. It’s in the midst of this version of America that her cousin is murdered in a small town that would rather keep out all prying eyes. But Elatsoe has no intention of letting his death go unquestioned. She’s intent on finding out the trut—no matter how far she’ll have to go to uproot it.

A true-crime podcaster and her wife head to the Scottish highlands for a weekend getaway intended to rekindle their romance. Instead, they land in the middle of an actual locked-room murder mystery when a fellow guest winds up dead. Liza’s podcast may only be up-and-coming, but she knows a thing or two about murders and mysteries, and she’s determined to get to the bottom of this case—even if her wife Hanna would prefer for them to just wait outside. Will cracking this case bring them closer or become the final nail in their failing marriage?

This delightful romp is the first book in a series that combines cozy mystery with rom-com hijinks. Meddelin Chan didn’t mean to kill her blind date, but one car accident later she’s calling her mom with a dead body on her hands. Her mom and meddling aunties decide the body should go in the freezer while they figure out a plan, but things start to go haywire when that freezer winds up at the resort where they’re catering the wedding of the season. When her college sweetheart shows up at the resort, all too interested in Meddy’s life, her weekend goes from complicated to murderously off the rails in an instant.

Brooklyn-native Sydney is tired of slowly watching her beloved neighborhood get swallowed up by condos and “FOR SALE” signs. Desperate to find some way to hold onto her community, she starts up a walking tour and digs deep into the past and present of her block. But the history she uncovers is far more sinister than she ever could’ve imagined. Her old neighbors are certainly gone, but they may not be leaving in this thriller about the dark reality of gentrification.

In this debut horror mystery, a recent high school graduate working at a fish processing plant in her small Inupiat village knows the stories her Ahna told her too well to follow any creatures into the dark. But when her sister Esther is kidnapped, Tapeesa has to leave the safety of her village and venture deep into the Arctic darkness to find her sister and confront the horrors lurking just out of reach.