Virtual Mystery/Thriller Book Club

We try to alternate between mysteries and thrillers when we can, and now and then we try to pair mysteries (a classic with a newer one), so that, if you like, you can read two that month. But you don't have to.

If you're interested in joining our group, please click on the link below to register so you can receive an invitation with a link to join the online meetings. While you don't have to have read the book to take part, we would appreciate it if all purchases would be made either here in our store, or through our website (scroll down for selections), or special ordered over the phone (435-619-8200).

For those of you who would prefer to meet in person, we have a live group that meets to discuss the same book at 6:30 on the same evening, though the location varies as the members take turns hosting. This group is led by Pat Bollig, and if you're interested in contacting her to join, please call us at 435-619-8200 for her information.

(REGISTER FOR THE VIRTUAL BOOK CLUB HERE)

BOOK BUNGALOW MYSTERY/THRILLER PICKS FOR 2026:

JANUARY: Murder in Pitigliano by Camilla Trinchieri 

Ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle finds himself unwittingly stepping into the role of a PI to investigate a murder that has torn a young family apart in this rustic mystery set in the beautiful Medieval village of Pitigliano, Italy.

FEBRUARY: Whose Body? The First Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers

A famous London financier vanishes from his bedroom, leaving no trace. Across town, a corpse is found in an architect's bathtub, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez. The body is not that of the missing financier, so whose body is it? When Lord Peter Wimsey is asked by his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, to help clear her architect of suspicion, he eagerly obliges. With the assistance of his valet, Bunter, a skilled amateur photographer, he quickly becomes convinced that the two cases are linked, despite the police's skepticism. But what begins as an amusing puzzle takes on darker overtones, as Lord Peter wrestles with intrusive memories of his traumatic service in the trenches of World War I.

MARCH: Clown Town by Mick Herron 

David Cartwright, long buried, has left his library to the Spooks' College in Oxford, and now one of the books has gone missing. Or perhaps it never existed. Now River, once a 'slow horse' of Slough House, MI5's outpost for demoted and disgraced spies, has some time to kill while awaiting medical clearance to return to work, and investigating the secrets of his grandfather's library seems a harmless activity. But nothing involving the slow horses ever stays harmless for long.

APRIL: The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskins

Hana Babic is a quiet middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her—a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared. Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes.

MAY: The Girl in the Green Dress by Mariah Fredericks

New York, 1920. Zelda Fitzgerald is bored, bored, bored. Although she's newly married to the hottest writer in America, and one half of the literary scene's "it" couple, Zelda is at loose ends while Scott works on his next novel, The Beautiful and the Damned. Meanwhile, Atlanta journalist Morris Markey has arrived in New York and is lost in every way possible. Recently returned from the war and without connections, he hovers at the edge of the city's revels, unable to hear the secrets that might give him his first big story. When notorious man-about-town Joseph Elwell is found shot through the head in his swanky townhouse, the fortunes the two southerners collide when they realize they were both among the last to see him alive.

JUNE: Red River Road by Anna Downes

Katy Sweeney is looking for her sister. A year earlier, just three weeks into a solo van-life trip, her free-spirited younger sister, Phoebe, vanished without a trace on the remote, achingly beautiful coastal highway in Western Australia. With no witnesses, no leads, and no DNA evidence, the case has gone cold. But Katy refuses to give up on her. Using Phoebe's social media accounts as a map, Katy retraces her sister's steps, searching for any clues the police may have missed. Was Phoebe being followed? Who had she met along the way, and how dangerous were they?

JULY: Wreck Your Heart by Lori Rader-Day

An engaging, "wisecracking and wonderful" crime novel with a big heart, about a country and midwestern singer out to catch her big break before family—or murder—wrecks everything. Dahlia "Doll" Devine had the kind of hardscrabble beginning that could launch a thousand broken-hearted country songs, but now she's the star of her own stage at McPhee's Tavern. As part of Chicago's, yes, Chicago's country music scene, Dahlia is an up-and-coming singer in spangles and boots of classic country tunes. Up and coming, that is, until her boyfriend, Joey, up and went, taking the rent money with him.

AUGUST: Daikon by Samuel Hawley

A sweeping and suspenseful novel of love and war set in Japan during the final days of World War II, with a shocking historical premise: three atomic bombs were actually delivered to the Pacific—not two—and when one of them falls into the hands of the Japanese, the fate of a couple that has been separated from one another becomes entangled with the fate of this strange new device.

SEPTEMBER: The Bookbinder’s Secret by A. D. Bell 

Every book tells a story. This one tells a secret. A young bookbinder begins a hunt for the truth when a confession hidden beneath the binding of a burned book reveals a story of forbidden love, lost fortune, and murder. Lilian ("Lily") Delaney, apprentice to a master bookbinder in Oxford in 1901, chafes at the confines of her life. She is trapped between the oppressiveness of her father's failing bookshop and the prospect of becoming an apprentice in a man's profession. But when she's given a burned book during a visit to a collector, she finds, hidden beneath the binding, a fifty-year-old letter speaking of love, fortune, and murder.

OCTOBER: Murder Will Out by Jennifer K. Breedlove 

Little North Island, off the coast of Maine, is so beautiful it could be a postcard. Organist Willow Stone cherishes her memories of childhood summers spent on the island with her godmother Sue... even though her visits ended abruptly, and she hasn't seen or heard from her godmother in over fifteen years. Until a letter from Sue--and word of Sue's death--brings Willow back to the picturesque island.

NOVEMBER: Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping on a Dead Man by Jesse Q. Sutanto 

Ever since a man was found dead in Vera's teahouse, life has been good. For Vera, that is. Loved ones surround her, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly's girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn't be ungrateful, even if one is slightly...bored. Then, Vera comes across a distressed young woman who clearly needs her kindly guidance. The young woman is looking for a missing friend.

DECEMBER: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer by Ragnar Jonasson 

One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elãain S. Jãaonsdãaottir goes missing. There are no clues to her disappearance, and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before it's leaked to the press. As Helgi interviews the people closest to her—a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge—he realizes that Elãain's life wasn't what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote.