K is for Killer

I've decided to do the A to Z Blogger Challenge this year and I'm recommending five books all from the same alphabetical genre each day. So today, K is for Killer. Killer isn't really the name of a genre, but there aren't any other obvious genres that do start with K either. So I'm bending the rules a bit and spending my K day discussing murder mysteries, because those are a real genre.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie - While I'm not a huge fan of modern thrillers, I've always loved the works of Agatha Christie. She wrote a lot of books, so I can't claim to have read them all. But I have probably read about a dozen of Christie's classic mysteries and Murder on the Orient Express is one of my all time favorites.

The Liar Society by Lisa and Laura Roecker - If you have been following my suggestions since A is for Adventure, you may have noticed that regardless of the genre I pick most of the books I recommend are really contemporary young adult. It's the genre I write, and thus the genre I spend most of my time reading. And The Liar Society is my favorite YA murder mystery. It starts with a teenage girl getting a email from her dead best friend asking for help to solve her murder. I mean what isn't to love?

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley - I think this book is considered a "cozy mystery", I don't read mysteries often enough to know all of the rules. What ever it's called, this is a modern story that feels like it was written by Agatha Christie. The armature sleuth is a captivating eleven-year-old girl (though the book is written for an adult audience) and there is only one dead body. This isn't a thriller, it's a mystery, and trying to piece together all the clues makes for a very fun read.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon - At it's heart, this book is a murder mystery. The victim is a dog, and the detective is an autistic teenager. But still, it's a mystery and the dive into the mind of an autistic boy is enhanced by both the emotions and the logical questions that arise when Christopher discoverers his neighbor's dog has been murdered.

The Lying Game by Sara Shepard. This is another YA mystery. It is very gripping and definitely falls into the thriller category. My one complaint about it is that the story doesn't appear to have an ending. Currently there are two books in this series, and having read them both I have zero expectation of actually discovering who the murderer is in book three. Being strung along without any resolution only huge cliff hangers at the end of each book kind of bothers me, but the story is gripping enough that I expect I'll stick with the series.

What about you? What's your favorite killer tale?