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 35  There are a total of 61 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
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 "He's to die for"
Star rating for He's to die for
Description:
"Brooklyn 99 meets The Charm Offensive in this sparkling romantic murder mystery: it's murder cute in the first degree when a detective finds himself falling for the lead suspect in a career-making case. At 29, Detective Rav Trivedi is the youngest member of the NYPD's homicide squad, and his future looks bright. He may be a bit of an outsider in the department-an ivy-league educated gay Brit with a weakness for designer suits--but his meteoric rise...
Book cover for "A lethal walk in Lakeland"
Star rating for A lethal walk in Lakeland
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Chase has two compelling reasons for returning to England--a group walk along the famed Coast to Coast trail in the picturesque Lake District, and a chance to further his relationship with Mike, the handsome Devonshire coroner he met on his last trip. The walkers, including Chase's dear friend and fellow Anglophile Billie Mondreau, assemble at a Cumbrian hotel and begin their adventure with the traditional 'baptism of the boots' in St. Bee's Bay....
Book cover for "Dead in the frame"
Star rating for Dead in the frame
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Wealthy financier and ghoulish connoisseur of crime, Jessup Quincannon, is dead, and famed detective Lillian Pentecost is under arrest for his murder. Means, motive, and a mountain of evidence leave everyone believing she's guilty. Everyone, that is, except Willowjean "Will" Parker, who knows for a fact her boss is innocent. She just doesn't know if she can prove it. With Lillian locked away in the House of D-New York City's infamous women's prison-Will...
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 "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
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 "Survivor's guilt"
Star rating for Survivor's guilt
Author:
Series:
Description:
Attorney and LGBTQ+ activist Robyn Gigl tackles the complexities of gender, power, public perception, and human trafficking with a ripped-from-the-headlines plot in her second legal thriller featuring Erin McCabe, a protagonist who, like the author, is a transgender attorney. Now she and her law partner are drawn into a dark world of offshore bank accounts, computer hacking, murder, and the devastating impact of sexual abuse...