Cold case mysteries
Cold case mysteries books to start from. Open one to see books like it, or tell BookSense what you loved for four picks made for you.
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New to the genre? These 5 are the books to read first.
The Closers
Michael ConnellyReturns Harry Bosch to the LAPD to work in the Open-Unsolved Unit, establishing the modern procedural conventions of DNA re-testing and archival file work.
The Keeper of Lost Causes
Jussi Adler-OlsenIntroduces Copenhagen's Department Q, a basement unit dedicated to dormant cases, balancing procedural digging with alternating past and present timelines.
Five Little Pigs
Agatha ChristieAn early foundational cold case mystery where Hercule Poirot investigates a sixteen-year-old poisoning entirely through retrospective interviews.
In the Woods
Tana FrenchCombines a present-day murder inquiry with an unsolved childhood disappearance from twenty years earlier in a Dublin suburb.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
P. D. JamesPrivate investigator Cordelia Gray looks into a young man's apparent suicide after the fact, dissecting the hidden lives of those involved.
Chosen and described with AI from our notes on the genre.
More cold case mysteries books
- The Daughter of Time
The Daughter of TimeJosephine Tey - A Great Deliverance
A Great DeliveranceElizabeth George - Cold Day for Murder
Cold Day for MurderDana Stabenow - The Chalk Man
The Chalk ManC. J. Tudor - The Dry
The DryJane Harper - Bleeding Heart Square
Bleeding Heart SquareAndrew Taylor - Resurrection Men
Resurrection MenIan Rankin