Interesting Museum Mysteries & True Crime

For fans of missing person mysteries, murder mysteries, archaeologist leads, armchair travel, and Egyptology!

The only reason police should have for calling Dr. Gul Delani is with information about her missing niece, whose parents want Gul to move on from trying to find her since they’ve accepted that she ran away. But this police call instead asks Gul to use her expertise when a mummy is discovered at a crime scene. First, she has to fight for them to give her the mummy so she can keep it preserved. Then, she has to work with her team to identify if, in fact, it could possibly be a Persian mummy? And that’s just the start of Gul’s dangerous adventure with this case.

For fans of zany families, fun and witty middle grade series (great for all ages), wordplay, Paris settings, and art theft!

In Shenanigan Swift’s family, children’s naming follows the tradition of picking a word from the dictionary on the day they are born, and waiting for them to grow into their name. Hence Shenanigan, and her sisters Phenomena and Felicity. Fresh off solving their first murder during a family reunion (A Dictionary of Scoundrels), the kids are now on a new mission to Paris—to meet eccentric, extended family members they didn’t know about—thanks to a painting stolen from their home! You’ll have to read it for all the shenanigans they get into (pun intended!).

For fans of character-driven crime novels inspired by real headlines!

Inspired by Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, this story follows Will Chen, who is an art history major working at Harvard’s Sackler Museum when he is hired to steal back five bronze Chinese sculptures from museums. Will puts together a team of fellow college students, all with different skills. However, they have zero experience in art theft and Will’s father works for the FBI, so things are going to get messy and complicated—especially since they’re each working out their own life issues!

For fans of nonviolent true crime, history, museum theft cases, and bananapants stories!

From the opening, there are so many layers to this book: a fascinating history on expeditions (thieving ants! Charles Darwin! Blackmail!) and a museum heist by a 20-year-old flutist who stole hundreds of rare bird specimens (a physical theft of property and potential knowledge). This is where it always gets hard for me to hand-sell this book — I SWEAR this is a super interesting book that grabs your attention like a thriller would, including how the author got involved with this story and needed to investigate what was still unknown after the trial!

Unusual Suspects

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For fans of secret crime-fighting teams and fun middle grade mystery series!

Olive Cobin Zang’s new school is testing out a secret program using a group of children for crime-solving—using adults and teens didn’t work out well in the past! So far, Olive and her Misfits schoolmates are working out well so the program, and crime solving, continues. While Olive tries to help a friend who is receiving anonymous letters, the Misfits have stumbled upon “earthquakes” that are only affecting a few blocks at a time, subsequent thefts, and a San Francisco museum with possible forgeries!

Starting with the sequel isn’t confusing plot-wise, but it does reveal the solves of the first book, A Royal Conundrum.