Duncan, Lois
The Third Eye
For the first time in her life, Karen is part of the popular crowd at school. Then when one of the neighborhood children disappears, Karen discovers that she can somehow "see" the missing child. Will she use her gift in this dangerous game of hide-and-seek?

Hayes, Daniel
The Trouble With Lemons
His real name was Tyler McAllister, but he felt like a lemon. He had allergies and nightmares, and was the only unfamous person in his family. But one night he and a friend went swimming at the forbidden quarry, and Tyler found a dead body. Now he's determined to find out who killed the man and why they're now after him....

Hiaasen, Carl
Hoot
Unfortunately, Roy's first acquaintance in Florida is Dana Matherson, a well-known bully. Then again, if Dana hadn't been sinking his thumbs into Roy's temples and mashing his face against the school-bus window, Roy might never have spotted the running boy. And the running boy is intriguing: he was running away from the school bus, carried no books, and-here's the odd part-wore no shoes. Sensing a mystery, Roy sets himself on the boy's trail. The chase introduces him to potty-trained alligators, a fake-fart champion, some burrowing owls, a renegade eco-avenger, and several extremely poisonous snakes with unnaturally sparkling tails.

Pullman, Phillip
The Ruby in the Smoke
In search of clues to the mystery of her father's death, 16-year-old Sally Lockhart ventures into the shadowy underworld of Victorian London. Pursued by villains at every turn, the intrepid Sally finally uncovers two dark mysteries--and realizes that she herself is the key to both.

Rabb, M.E.
The Rose Queen
Sophie and Sam Shattenberg are two Jewish sisters from Queens, New York. Both love knishes and kosher pickles. When the unthinkable happens and their father dies, the girls are devastated. Desperate to get away from their greedy stepmother, they withdraw their father’s money from the bank, pick up fake IDs, and hit the road. All is well until their car breaks down outside of Venice, Indiana, a town so isolated that the mechanic tells them, "You could get lost here forever." Which is exactly what they decide to do. They get jobs, make friends, and practice "talking the talk" instead of "tawking the tawk." Then the most popular girl in town—the queen of the upcoming Rose Festival—disappears. The sisters were the last people to see her and so become prime suspects. Sophie and Sam realize that they’re going to have to find the missing girl themselves if they want to clear their names. Even if their names are fake....

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. Newbery Award winner.

Snyder, Zilpha Keatley
The Egypt Game
The first time Melanie Ross meets April Hall, she's not sure they'll have anything in common. But she soon discovers that they both love anything to do with ancient Egypt. When they stumble upon a deserted storage yard behind the A-Z Antiques and Curio Shop, Melanie and April decide it's the perfect spot for Egypt Game. Before long there are six Egyptians instead of two. After school and on weekends they all meet to wear costumes, hold ceremonies, and work on their secret code. Everyone thinks it's just a game, until strange things begin happening to the players. Has the Egypt Game gone too far? Newbery Award Honor Book.

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.

Voigt, Cynthia
The Vandemark Mummy
When, as the new Classics professor at Vandemark College, their father is made responsible for a collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, twelve-year-old Phineas and his older sister Althea try to find out why the collection is the target of thieves, especially when the mummy disappears.

Collins, Wilkie
The Moonstone
Called "the first and greatest of English detective novels" by T.S.Eliot, The Moonstone is a masterpiece of suspense. A fabulous yellow diamond becomes the dangerous inheritance of Rachel Verinder. Outside her Yorkshire country house watch the Hindu priests who have waited for many years to reclaim their ancient talisman, looted from the holy city of Somnauth. When the Moonstone disappears the case looks simple, but in mid-Victorian England no one is what they seem, and nothing can be taken for granted.

Witnesses, suspects, and detectives each narrate the story in turn. The bemused butler, the love-stricken housemaid, the enigmatic detective Sergeant Cuff, the drug-addicted scientist--each speculate on the mystery as Collins weaves their narratives together.

Hammett, Dashiell
The Maltese Falcon
A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted three generations of readers.

Sayers, Dorothy
Whose Body?
The stark naked body was lying in the tub. Not unusual for a proper bath, but highly irregular for murder -- especially witha pair of gold pince-nez deliberately perched before the sightless eyes. What's more, the face appeared to have been shaved after death. The police assumed that the victim was a prominent financier, but Lord Peter Wimsey, who dabbled in mystery detection as a hobby, knew better. In this, his first murder case, Lord Peter untangles the ghastly mystery of the corpse in the bath.

Brown, Dan
The Da Vinci Code
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives a late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Langdon discovers it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Langdon joins forces with French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion – a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

Brown, Rita Mae
Wish You Were Here
Crozet's thirty-something post-mistress, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, has a tiger cat (Mrs. Murphy) and a Welsh Corgi (Tucker), a pending divorce, and a bad habit of reading postcards not addressed to her. When Crozet's citizens start turning up murdered, Harry remembers that each received a card with a tombstone on the front and the message "Wish you were here" on the back. Intent on protecting their human friend, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker begin to scent out clues. Meanwhile, Harry is conducting her own investigation, unaware her pets are one step ahead of her. If only Mrs. Murphy could alert her somehow, Harry could uncover the culprit before the murder occurs--and before Harry finds herself on the killer's mailing list.

Eco, Umberto
The Name of the Rose
The Name of the Rose is an experimental medieval whodunit set in a monastic library. In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate heresy among the monks in an Italian abbey; a series of bizarre murders overshadows the mission. Within the mystery is a tale of books, librarians, patrons, censorship, and the search for truth in a period of tension between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. The book became a hit despite some obscure passages and allusions.

Eco, an Italian philosopher and best-selling novelist, is a great polymathic fabulist in the tradition of Swift, Voltaire, Joyce, and Borges.

Haddon, Mark
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. At fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbour’s dog Wellington impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer, and turns to his favourite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration.

King, Laurie
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
Long since retired from his observations of criminal humanity, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. Never did he expect to meet an intellect to match his own--until he made the acquaintance of a very modern 15-year-old girl whose mental acuity is equaled only by her audacity, tenacity, and unconventional taste for trousers and cloth caps. Under the master detective's sardonic instruction, Miss Mary Russell hones her talent for deduction, disguises, and danger--in the chilling case of a landowner's mysterious fever, and in the kidnapping of an American senator's daughter in the wilds of Wales. But her ultimate challenge is yet to come. A near-fatal bomb on her doorstep--and another on Holmes's--sends the two sleuths on the trail of a villain whose machinations scatter meaningless clues and seem utterly without motive. The bomber's objective, however, is quite clear: to end Russell and Holmes's partnership...and their lives.

McCall Smith, Alexander
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith’s widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to "help people with problems in their lives." Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors.

Peters, Ellis
A Morbid Taste for Bones
Soon after his arrival at the Benedictine monastery of Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael finds himself on a mission to his Welsh homeland. Acting as translator, he must help his prior obtain the bones of Saint Winifred, which now rest in a small village grave.

The Welsh villagers are loath to part with the relics of a martyr said to have miraculous powers, but before an agreement can be reached, the one villager most outspoken in his dissent is found murdered. His lovely daughter is determined to find the killer-and Cadfael is eager to help.

Stewart, Mary
The Moonspinners
When Nicola Ferris chose the Greek island of Crete for her vacation, all she desired was to experience the beauty and simplicity of life in the small villages that dot the coast. Exploring a little-used path into the countryside she finds, and nurses back to health, a desperately injured man. And now she, too, is the target of the smugglers who are willing to murder to keep their secret.