Long-Running Series to Binge Read (If You Haven’t Already)

A Rage in Harlem is a ripping introduction to Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, patrolling New York City’s roughest streets in Chester Himes’s groundbreaking Harlem Detectives series. Featuring an introduction by James Ellroy.

Follow the extraordinary Lucas Davenport thrillers from bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner John Sandford. These haunting murder investigations have hooked readers over his almost 30 book collection.

Asian-American superheroines Evie Tanaka and Aveda Jupiter protect San Francisco from perilous, otherworldly threats in the first book in Sarah Kuhn’s snarky and smart fantasy series.

Walt Longmire is a laconic and tortured cowboy with a stiff moral code and a weathered view of the world around him. Craig Johnson has carved out an interesting niche that combines classic Old West and cowboy tropes with hard-boiled noir. It’s an interesting combination that sets the Longmire Mystery series apart from the wealth of other crime fiction crowding the shelves.

Gideon is more than a contract killer–he’s the master of the game. Now he’s got the job of a lifetime. The prize is the woman he desires and a cool million. The problem is it’s just the kind of hit that can make him more enemies. Follow along into an underworld where killers and victims alike thrive on the darker passions of revenge and desire in the first “gritty, graphic..[and] amazing” (Booklist) novel in the Gideon series.

With Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher puts a fantastical spin on the classic hard-boiled detective mystery. Dresden finds himself caught up in all facets of murder and mayhem in his beloved Chicago — supernatural and otherwise — and his wisecracking, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants style is entertaining across fifteen novels as well as various short stories.

Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages.

Rhys Bowen’s A Royal Spyness Mystery series has plenty of books to sink your teeth into. Set during the 1930s, the mysteries center around a Lady Georgiana, who is 34^th in line for the English throne with a penchant for finding herself in inexplicable situations.

1920s India: Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s only female lawyer, is investigating a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows living in full purdah when the case takes a turn toward the murderous. The first novel in the Perveen Mistry Novel series brings us an atmospheric new historical mystery with a captivating heroine.

Murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue combine into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel, the first in Stieg Larsson’s thrilling Millenium series featuring Lisbeth Salander.

One of Japan’s greatest classic murder mystery series, introducing their best loved detective, has finally been translated to English for the first time! The village of Okamura is abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming wedding of a son of the grand Ichiyanagi family. But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumor–it seems a sinister masked man has been asking questions around the village. On the night of the wedding, death comes to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow. Can amateur detective Kosuke Kindaichi solve this seemingly impossible crime?

Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, solves twisty mystery cases in this page-turning series from award-winning author Alan Bradley.

He slips into homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, about to awaken to a living nightmare. The precision of his methods suggests that he is a deranged man of medicine, prompting the Boston newspapers to dub him “The Surgeon.” Led by Detectives Thomas Moore and Jane Rizzoli, the cops must catch a ruthless hunter who somehow understands–and savors–the secret fears of every woman he kills. The first of Gerritsen’s bestselling thrillers featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles, this series just keeps getting better.

Jack Reacher might just be the most badass, no-nonsense hero in suspense fiction at the moment and Lee Child’s lean and visceral thrillers are truly edge-of-your seat affairs. Reacher is an ex-military policeman turned drifter with a very particular and dangerous sort of skills. He makes his way around the country like a sort of modern-day knight, always finding someone in dire need of his help.

August is Ghost Month in Taiwan–a time to pay respects to the dead and avoid unlucky omens. Jing-nan, who runs a food stand in a bustling Taipei night market, isn’t superstitious, but this August will haunt him nonetheless. He learns that his high school sweetheart has been murdered. Beyond his harrowing grief, Jing-nan is confused. The last time he talked with Julia she was far away, happily enrolled in NYU’s honor program. The facts aren’t adding up and the police have closed the case without asking any questions. Jing-nan tries to investigate to learn more about Julia’s last years, but nothing can prepare him for what he is about to learn, or how it will change his life.

When it comes to long-running series, Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret is difficult to top. With seventy-eight novels featuring the genius Parisian sleuth, there’s plenty of mystery to be enjoyed. Maigret is a dogged and occasionally misanthropic detective who navigates the underbelly of a Paris that seems to be set in a state of perpetual gloom. These tightly woven, densely plotted mysteries are well worth digging into.

Check out the first novel in the Gray Man series, now a Netflix film starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, and Ana de Armas. To those who lurk in the shadows, he’s known as the Gray Man. He’s a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible and then fading away. And he always hits his target. Always. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And there are men who believe Gentry has outlived his usefulness. But Court Gentry is going to prove that, for him, there’s no gray area between killing for a living and killing to stay alive…

It’s hard to top Sue Grafton’s dogged ingenuity. The twenty-five novels in her Kinsey Milhone/Alphabet series are a master class in sustained suspense and clever plotting. Grafton created one of the all-time great literary detectives in Kinsey Milhone — a hard edged and resourceful private investigator who Grafton insisted on thrusting into ever more dangerous situations.

Fans around the world adore the best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotswe—with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi—navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea.