LGBTQ - Mystery

This list has been created by a Library Assistant at Wake County Public Libraries (WCPL) and encompasses *most* of the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus other identitites such as, intersex, asexual, aromantic, demisexual, demiromantic, nonbinary, genderqueer, and more) titles categorized under "Mystery" in the WCPL collection as of July 21, 2025

Showing 1 - 20 of 32  There are a total of 59 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The last note of warning"
Star rating for The last note of warning
Description:
"Prohibition is a dangerous time to be a working-class woman in New York City, but Vivian Kelly has finally found some measure of stability and freedom. By day, she's a respectable shop assistant, delivering luxurious dresses to the city's wealthy and elite. At night, she joins the madcap revelry of New York's underworld, serving illegal drinks and dancing into the morning at a secretive, back-alley speakeasy known as the Nightingale. She's found,...
Book cover for "Last dance before dawn"
Star rating for Last dance before dawn
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Last Dance before Dawn is the final book in the luscious, mysterious, and queer Nightingale mystery series by Katharine Schellman, set in 1920s New York. Vivian Kelly has finally created a home and a family at the glamorous speakeasy known as The Nightingale, where no one cares who you are in the daytime. After all, in the underground world of 1920s New York City, everyone has a secret to keep, and they're on the Nightingale's dance floor to leave...
Book cover for "The really dead wives of New Jersey"
Star rating for The really dead wives of New Jersey
Author:
Series:
Description:
"When Hope Bennett marries into the powerful Fontana family, becoming a Garden State Goddess, long-hidden secrets, fierce rivalries, and a shocking murder emerge, forcing producer Eden to uncover the truth and save the reality show's most explosive season yet."--
Book cover for "The rivals"
Star rating for The rivals
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Claudia Lin--mystery novel superfan and, until recently, clichéd underemployed English major--has scored her dream job: co-running Veracity, a dating detective agency whose mission is to determine if chronically online New Yorkers are telling the truth about themselves to their prospective partners. Unfortunately, along the way, she and her colleagues--tech wizard Squirrel, and the beautiful and intimidating Becks--have uncovered a nefarious AI...
Book cover for "Charlotte Illes is not a detective"
Star rating for Charlotte Illes is not a detective
Series:
Not a detective volume 1.
Description:
"As a kid, Charlotte Illes' uncanny sleuthing abilities made her a minor celebrity. But in high school, she hung up her detective's hat and stashed away the signature blue landline in her "office"--aka garage--convinced that finding her adult purpose would be as easy as tracking down missing pudding cups or locating stolen diamonds. Now twenty-five, Charlotte has a nagging fear that she hit her peak in middle school living with her mom, scrolling...
Book cover for "Blessed water"
Star rating for Blessed water
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Sister Holiday is back with a newly minted PI apprentice certificate, a twisty mystery to solve, and something to prove in this fast-paced, blistering follow-up to Scorched Grace. Tattooed from her neck to her toes and sporting a gold tooth as sharp as her wisecracks, Sister Holiday struggles to stay on the righteous path. Never one to make things easy for herself, she's committed to taking her permanent vows with the Sisters of the Sublime Blood...
Book cover for "Rough trade"
Star rating for Rough trade
Description:
"In this propulsive follow-up to The Best Bad Things, Alma Rosales (and her alter ego, Jack Camp) is back as a stevedore and part-time opium smuggler"--
Book cover for "The bell in the fog"
Star rating for The bell in the fog
Series:
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander "Andy" Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective--but his business hasn't exactly taken off. It turns out that word spreads fast when you have a bad reputation, and no one in the queer community trusts him enough to ask an ex-cop for help. When James, an old flame from the war who had mysteriously disappeared, arrives in his offices above the Ruby, Andy wants to kick him out. But the job...
Book cover for "Secrets typed in blood"
Star rating for Secrets typed in blood
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In the newest entry into the Nero Award-winning Parker & Pentecost Mystery series ("my new favorite sleuthing duo"-- Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review), Lillian and Will are hot on the trail of a serial killer whose murders are stranger than fiction. New York City, 1947: For years, Holly Quick has made a good living off of murder, filling up the pages of pulp detective magazines with gruesome tales of revenge. Now someone is bringing...
Book cover for "Murder under her skin"
Star rating for Murder under her skin
Series:
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"New York, 1946: The last time Will Parker let a case get personal, she walked away with a broken face, a bruised ego, and the solemn promise never again to let her heart get in the way of her job. But she called Hart and Halloway's Travelling Circus and Sideshow home for five years, and Ruby Donner, the circus's tattooed ingenue, was her friend. To make matters worse the prime suspect is Valentin Kalishenko, the man who taught Will everything she...
Book cover for "Fortune favors the dead"
Star rating for Fortune favors the dead
Series:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"A detective novel set in 1945, about two female private investigators trying to solve the locked-room murder of a society widow"--
Book cover for "The stories you tell"
Star rating for The stories you tell
Series:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Book cover for "What you want to see"
Star rating for What you want to see
Series:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"... Marin Strasser has a secret. Her fiancé thinks her secret is that she's having an affair, and he hires P.I. Roxane Weary to prove it.Then, just days into the case, Marin is shot to death on a side street in an apparent mugging. But soon enough the police begin to focus on Roxane's client for Marin's death, so she starts to dig deeper into Marin's life--discovering that the elegant woman she's been following has a past and a half, including...
Book cover for "The last drop of hemlock"
Star rating for The last drop of hemlock
Description:
"The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, quietly rising, whispers hovering on lips in pockets of silence. Life as a working-class girl in Prohibition-era New York isn't safe or easy. But Vivian Kelly has a new job at the Nightingale, an underground speakeasy where the jazz is hot and the employees look out for each other in a world that doesn't care about them. Things are finally looking up for her and her sister Florence... until the...
Book cover for "Nighthawking"
Star rating for Nighthawking
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"When a nighthawker on the hunt for antiquities instead uncovers the body of a foreign student, Detective Adam Tyler is pulled into a serpentine mystery of dangerous secrets, precious finds, and illegal dealings"--
Book cover for "The pledge"
Star rating for The pledge
Series:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Things are looking up for Detective Betty Rhyzyk. She's settled into a happy marriage and been promoted...But when a hostage stand-off puts her on the phone with legendary cartel leader The Knife, things take a turn. The Knife has heard a rival is making a play for the streets of Dallas, none other than Evangeline Roy. The matriarch of a ruthless cult, Evangeline also happens to hold a personal vendetta against Betty. So who better to draw Evangeline...
Book cover for "The burn"
Star rating for The burn
Series:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"There's not much that can make Detective Betty Rhyzyk flinch. But her wounds are still fresh from an encounter with an apocalyptic cult known as The Family, and she's having trouble readjusting to life as it once was. She's back at work as a narcotics detective, but something isn't right--at work, where someone has been assassinating confidential informants, or at home, where she struggles to connect with her loving wife, Jackie. To make matters...
Book cover for "Death in the dark"
Star rating for Death in the dark
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Sparkle McCavity, young drag queen and employee of Miss Merkin, is missing, presumed kidnapped or even worse. Naturally, Merkin turns to reluctant sleuth and friend to the community Fi for help, but clues and suspects are worryingly thin on the ground--and the drag king Stan the Man is proving somewhat distracting. When Merkin's niece is then found murdered, spiked on a light pole in nightclub TRASH, it becomes clear that Fi's friends are in danger....
Book cover for "Harlem sunset"
Star rating for Harlem sunset
Author:
Description:
"A riveting Harlem Renaissance Mystery featuring Louise Lloyd, a young Black woman working in a hot new speakeasy when she gets caught up in a murder that hits too close to home... Harlem, 1926. After the tense summer that resulted in the death of murderer Theodore Gilbert, twenty-six-year-old Louise Lloyd has once again gained a level of notoriety. Reporters want to talk to her and she is in the spotlight-the last place she wants to be. Louise begins...
Book cover for "The heron's cry"
Star rating for The heron's cry
Author:
Series:
Two rivers volume 2.
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately staged murder--Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed with a shard of one of his glassblower daughter's broken vases. Dr Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. He's a good man, a public servant, beloved by his daughter. Matthew is unnerved, though,...