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 21 - 40 of 59  There are a total of 61 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Cirque du slay"
Star rating for Cirque du slay
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Series:
Description:
Pint-sized Seattle middle school teacher and gay dating blogger Hayden McCall and his best friend Hollister are invited to a fundraiser for Bakers Without Borders. The celebrity performer, Kennedy Osaka, is the artistic director of Mysterium, an upscale circus arts show combining magic, acrobatics, and a Michelin-star dinner. But Kennedy is a no-show--until she's found dead in her hotel suite. When frenemy Sarah Lee is discovered in the room with...
Book cover for "Blood sisters"
Star rating for Blood sisters
Average Rating:
2.7 stars
Description:
"A powerful mystery about a Native American archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who must reckon with her past when she is called back to Oklahoma to investigate both the disappearance of her sister and a new case of a missing Native girl that turns up evidence with her name on it. Syd Walker fled her rural Oklahoma hometown-scarred by abandoned mines and a mounting opioid crisis-and never looked back. Now, she lives in Rhode Island as an...
Book cover for "The raging storm"
Star rating for The raging storm
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Series:
Two rivers volume 3.
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions. When Jem Rosco-sailor, adventurer, and legend-blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own. This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector...
Book cover for "The bell in the fog"
Star rating for The bell in the fog
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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
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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
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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
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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 "Once you go this far"
Star rating for Once you go this far
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Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"Shamus-Award-winning author Kristen Lepionka plunges back into danger in her next exciting mystery featuring PI Roxane Weary. Junior-high school nurse Rebecca Newsome was an experienced hiker, until she plummeted to her death to the bottom of a ravine in a Columbus metro park. Her daughter, Maggie, doesn't believe it was an accident, and Rebecca's ex-husband is her prime suspect. But he's a well-connected ex-cop and Maggie is certain that's the reason...
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 "A good day to pie"
Star rating for A good day to pie
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Series:
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"Daisy bakes a little murder into every pie she creates, and she and her dog, Zoe, deliver them to the town's worst cads. Now, Daisy's entered a televised, elimination-style competition and has a shot at $100k in prize money--but she still has a murder pie to deliver between filming. In a completely unexpected turn of events, she discovers that her intended victim is one of the competition judges, and he turns up dead before the pie even arrives....
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
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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
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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...
Book cover for "Harlem sunset"
Star rating for Harlem sunset
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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,...
Book cover for "Board to death"
Star rating for Board to death
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Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"Back in his hometown of Sugar House running his familys board game shop and caf,̌ Ben Rosencrantz just cant seem to get his life to pass go, much less collect $200. Once he was a happily married English professor in Seattle. Now hes a divorced caregiver, looking after his ill father and a Chihuahua named Beans while still figuring out the rules of retail management st the town has become more LGBTQ+ friendly than when Ben...