Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists

Harlem, 1926. Young black women like Louise Lloyd are ending up dead. Following a kidnapping ordeal when she was in her teens, Louise is doing everything she can to maintain a normal life. She's succeeding, too. She spends her days working at Maggie's Cafe and her nights at the Zodiac, Harlem's hottest speakeasy. Louise's friends might say she's running from her past and the notoriety that still stalks her. When a girl turns up dead in front of the cafe, Louise is forced to confront something she's been trying to ignore...two other local black girls have been murdered over the past few weeks.
(Description from Amazon)

When the body of a college friend is discovered twenty years after her disappearance, Judith, the only witness who can testify to the innocence of the chief suspect, is forced to confront dark secrets from her past that compromise the healthy life she has built for her family. (Description from catalog)

A servant and former slave is accused of murdering her employer and his wife in this astonishing historical thriller that moves from a Jamaican sugar plantation to the fetid streets of Georgian London. (Description from catalog.)

Forced to drop out of school to help support her family, Lena takes a lucrative job as a secret laboratory subject before devastating side effects make her question how much she can sacrifice. (Description from NoveList.)

Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur investigates the unsuspicious death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition who had a very extensive collection of crime novels, each one dedicated to her and each containing a mysterious post-script.
(Description from catalog)

Betty Rhyzyk, Brooklyn's toughest female police detective, relocates to rough-and-tumble Dallas, Texas, where she must contend with a group of unruly subordinates, a persistent stalker, a formidable criminal organization, and an unsupportive girlfriend. (Description from catalog.)

On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, "reprieve," they'll win a substantial cash prize-a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house's long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.
(Description from catalog)

Eliza Bright was living the dream as an elite video game coder at Fancy Dog Games when her private life suddenly became public. But is Eliza Bright a brilliant, self-taught coder bravely calling out the toxic masculinity and chauvinism that pervades her workplace and industry? Or, is Eliza Bright a woman who needs to be destroyed to protect "the sanctity of gaming culture"? It depends on who you ask...
(Description from catalog)

Stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referral-only online-dating detective agency, Claudia, when a client disappears, breaks protocol to investigate and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. (Description from NoveList)

A detective novel set in 1945, about two female private investigators trying to solve the locked-room murder of a society widow. (Description from NoveList)