Mystery Books with the Most Creative Murders

It’s not every day that the murder weapon is architecture, but if there’s anyone equipped to solve this peculiar crime, it’s Edison Bixby. He’s a brilliant investigator who has the impressive ability to see how our man-made world ticks.

He also has a traumatic brain injury that makes him impulsively rude, as he is compelled to say everything that runs through his brain, good, bad, or offensive.

When he and Wally, the struggling actor hired to make sure Bixby doesn’t offend his clients, are assigned a case where a woman fell down a staircase in a local shopping mall, it seems like a clear-cut accident.

Only Bixby sees that the murder was by design. Now he just has to prove it.

It might not seem that odd that a shark would kill someone. But when that shark is in an area where they aren’t known for attacking, Constable Teddy Creque suspects that the woman in question wasn’t actually killed by a shark.

At least, not solely a shark.

His boss wants him to capture the man-eater. The island isn’t friendly to meddlers.

Which means Teddy is going to have to get very creative if he wants to exact justice and find a killer.

Could there be a crueler fate for an environmental activist than an exploding cow? It certainly isn’t what Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett expects to find when a blast rips through the forest of Twelve Sleep County.

At first, it looks like the tragic event is nothing more than an extreme environmental publicity stunt gone wrong. But when Pickett stumbles on a clue that reveals a deadly conspiracy, he’s thrown into an investigation that will test his courage, strength, and commitment to doing the right thing no matter what.

Janina mostly sticks to herself in the remote Polish village she calls home. Especially during the dark winter days and nights.

She’s developed a reputation for preferring animals over people, and it’s not wrong. When one of her neighbors ends up dead, Janina claims it was the animals exacting their revenge.

No one listens to her, of course. But with more dead bodies turning up under bizarre circumstances, maybe it’s time someone listened to her.

Without giving anything away, let’s just say if you want to kill someone without leaving any evidence, an ice bludgeon is certainly an effective method.

In a crime that will horrify bookworms around the world, it’s the pages of a book that ends up being responsible for murder. It’s a clever way to kill Franciscan monks, who spend their days reading and doing various tasks around the abbey.

Brother William of Baskerville was sent to investigate heresy. But when seven monks end up dead, he has no choice but to find a killer before his mission is derailed.

The monks in question have no doubt been poisoned. What’s less obvious is who poisoned them, or how.

Brother William finds himself neck-deep in secret symbols and coded manuscripts. But most interesting of all is what happens at night.

Fair warning to readers: be careful if you lick your fingers while turning pages. They just might kill you.

It’s hard to beat the flash and pizazz of a razor-rimmed bowler hat. Especially when it’s wielded with spectacular aim.

But the real showstopper is the gold body paint. Of course, someone with all the flashy gadgets Q can create behind their escapades would only face the most diabolical of villains.

Like Auric Goldfinger, the richest man in England who is hoarding gold. When he plans an audacious heist, Bond is the only one who can stop him.

If he can stay alive, that is.

Simon Darcourt and Ray Ash were supposed to be rockstars. Life had other plans.

Ray escapes the reality of his mundane life and the increasing responsibilities of being a new dad in a virtual life.

A lot of people in his life say he needs to grow up. But Simon understands that everyone has their own coping mechanisms.

Like serial murder.

As Simon engages in multiple homicides, he uses increasingly creative methods to avoid detection. Two favorites are a mercury-laden icicle and death by takeout curry.

'Tis the season for exploding Christmas trees? The horrifying incident happens in the psychiatric unit of St. Anne’s hospital.

Seven patients are dead, and on-duty nurse Caroline Rhodes wants answers.

Christmas trees don’t just randomly explode. The only question is if this was a random act of violence targeting these patients.

Or was it targeted at someone in particular?

As she starts digging into her patient’s pasts, she turns up some skeletons someone wants to keep buried. Now she’s praying for a Christmas miracle to keep her alive and help her expose a murderer.

It takes a lot of planning to electrocute someone in the middle of a frozen lake, in front of the entire village, during an annual curling tournament.

First, they had to bury the electrical cord under the snow. Then they had to make sure the wire was touching the chair.

Finally, the victim had to sit down.

It doesn’t help that no one liked CC de Poitiers. Everyone’s a suspect.

No one claims to have seen anything.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has his hands full with this deadly case. And the more he investigates, the more secrets he finds.

Winter in Quebec can be beautiful. But if Gamache isn’t careful, he just might find out how dangerous those chilling winds can be.

Florida is known for its unhinged crimes, but even knowing that anything and everything goes, these murders are some of the most outrageous. Only in Florida can you kill someone with fix-a-flat, a rum enema, a Space Shuttle, Barbie, and suffocating designer jeans.

Good thing Serge A. Storms loves getting rid of jerks and pests almost as much as he loves the trivia. His partner, on the other hand, loves cartoons and drugs.

When a suitcase filled with $5 million crosses their path, they suddenly find themselves pitted against a cocaine addicted stripper and a couple who love fishing.

Everyone wants the suitcase. And no one is getting out of this in one piece.