Mystery Books Set in the 1920s

Book Summary

Vivian lives in a dreary tenement building in New York City and spends long days sewing for a dress shop. However, her world comes alive at night in The Nightingale, an underground dance hall. When she’s there, the dangers of Prohibition-era New York drift away into the music. 

But when Vivian is caught in a police raid after a body is discovered behind the club, people assume she knows more about the crime than she does. Vivian is thrust into a world where the poor (like her) are considered disposable, and the wealthy use money to hide their sins.

Book Summary

When a naked body is discovered dead in a bathtub, the police assume the victim is a prominent financier. However, there are some odd aspects to this crime beyond the tub. For example, the victim’s face was shaved AFTER he was killed. 

Lord Peter Wimsey does a bit of amateur sleuthing as a hobby. He has never encountered a murder, but takes up the case when he believes the police are wrong about the victim’s identity.

Book Summary

Perveen Mistry is one of the first female lawyers in India. She has an Oxford education and a passion for protecting women’s rights. After joining her father’s law firm in the 1920s, she is assigned to oversee a wealthy man’s will. The case is complicated because he has three widows.

Perveen becomes suspicious when all three women sign their inheritances to a charity, leaving themselves no money to live on. When Perveen investigates, things quickly escalate to involve murder. She has to figure out what happened behind the closed doors of Malabar Hill before someone else is hurt.

Book Summary

Julia Kydd is a sophisticated book lover living in Manhattan with aspirations to launch a new private press. She views women’s suffrage as old news and believes life is too short for politics, but as a woman, she still must fight for what is hers, including the inheritance that her estranged half-brother, Philip, is challenging.

Julia is skeptical when another woman, Naomi, an ardent suffragist from a wealthy family, dies of an apparent suicide. Philip is unsure but proposes a wager – if Julia can prove that Naomi was murdered, he’ll drop his claims to Julia’s inheritance. However, Julia soon discovers just how turbulent Naomi’s life was, and as she gets closer to the truth, she realizes there is much more at stake than her inheritance.

Book Summary

The debut book in the beloved Hercule Poirot series introduces us to the eccentric Belgian detective. He’s a refugee from the Great War and lives on the country estate of wealthy Emily Inglethorp. 

When she is poisoned, Poirot must figure out which of the many suspects is the murderer. From a much younger husband and resentful stepsons to the London poison specialist who just happens to be in town, every suspect has a secret. 

True to Christie’s style, red herrings and plot twists fill the pages as you investigate with Poirot. 

Book Summary

Saffron is a rare female research assistant with a vast knowledge of poisons. While at a dinner party, her professor’s wife drops to the floor. She expected to spend the night talking about an upcoming expedition to the Amazon, but now her mentor, Dr. Maxwell, is the main suspect. He’s always been more supportive of her than others in the all-male, very old-school department, so she wants to help.

Saffron must work to clear his name before the departure date to Brazil. She’ll need her extensive knowledge of botany as she partners with fellow researcher Alexander to investigate greenhouses and dark gardens, looking for the deadly poison.

Book Summary

Nelly Sawyer is the 20-year-old daughter of a Kentucky horse breeder who is alleged to be the “wealthiest Negro in America.” Their family is catapulted to a new level of elite Black society. Her brother is presumed to be the heir to the family fortune. When he dies unexpectedly, Nelly is suddenly elevated to be the premier debutante. However, marriage and societal influence are far from Nelly’s goals.

She’s spent the last year working as an undercover investigative journalist. In this capacity, she’s had the opportunity to share the achievements of many everyday Black people living under the shadow of Jim Crow. Her latest assignment throws her into the world of the dangerous so-called Mayor of Maxwell Street.

Jay Shorey is a charming and mysterious young man who longs for the comfort of high society. His parents, a biracial couple in rural Alabama, were murdered, and Jay took the chance to escape his hometown. He finds himself in Chicago, where he crosses paths with Nelly. She asks for his help to expose the Mayor and fight the corruption that has overrun Prohibition-era Chicago.

Book Summary

This cozy mystery series set in the 1920s is described as Downton Abbey meets Agatha Christie, with just the right amount of humor. 

Major Heathcliff Lennox is a WWI veteran pilot visiting his uncle’s manor for Christmas when he finds himself suspected of murder. When a snowstorm prevents the police from investigating, Lennox does some sleuthing to discover the real murderer.

Book Summary

After spending the last few years adventuring around the world, Eleanor Swift just endured a chaotic 45-day trip from South Africa to England. It’s 1920, and twenty-something Eleanor (or “Lady Eleanor” as she is now known) has reluctantly returned to Henley Hall after inheriting it from her late uncle. 

First on the agenda is befriending the household dog. Second, she has to figure out who she saw shoot a man in the distance and why the killer now seems to have her in their sights.

Book Summary

This recently released collection of short stories features Phryne Fisher, the star of the 21-book cozy mystery series published over the last 30 years, beginning with Cocaine Blues. Phryne’s passions include food, sleep, intellectual puzzles, clothes, men, and solving mysteries, of course.

This collection includes fifteen 1920s-era stories set in Melbourne, Australia. Four previously unpublished stories and eleven others curated from novels throughout the series make it the perfect read for those who don’t want to dive into the entire series. This story collection is said to add character depth and provide a richer historical context of the 1920s.

Book Summary

The year is 1925, and Lord Edgington of Cranley Hall, England, has planned a grand ball to celebrate his 75th birthday. There will be a little music, a little dancing, and – as it turns out – a little murder. 

Lord Edgington, a retired Scotland Yard inspector, enlists the help of his teenage grandson to help him find the killer before any other family members turn up dead.

Book Summary

This short, 168-page novella kicks off the Ginger Gold series of 1920s cozy mysteries. Ginger is stylish, a war widow, and a former British Secret Service Agent.

As she travels from Boston to London with her dog and a good friend, the captain of their ship is found dead. Soon, she’s entangled in the case and must outwit the murderer before becoming a victim.

Book Summary

Lola is a 31-year-old recently widowed society matron in the era of Prohibition. Desperate for rent money in NYC, Lola has agreed to recover a stolen film reel to its rightful owner. But before she can retrieve it, the man who had it in his possession is killed, and the reel disappears. Now, she has to try to recover the reel and solve the murder before becoming the killer’s next victim.

Book Summary

In 1923, the scandalous flapper Dot King was found dead in her Midtown apartment. Her jewels were missing, and a bottle of chloroform was beside her. New York City reporters were enamored with the case, including Julia Harpman, who chased the story while navigating a male-dominated industry.

Julia uncovers twist after twist, involving everyone from socialites to a Harlem maid and bootleggers to Broadway dancers. The ramifications of Dot’s murder eventually ripple from the gangster underworld to the White House.

Book Summary

George Remus was a lawyer before prohibition but quit to begin trafficking whiskey. In two short years, he not only became a millionaire but also owned 35% of all liquor in the United States. The press called him “King of the Bootleggers” and routinely wrote about the lavish parties at his mansion. 

Prosecutor Mabel Walker Willebrandt makes it her mission to bring him down. Her bosses have a cozy relationship with Remus and assume that female, new grad Mabel wouldn’t pose a threat to Remus. But they were wrong. 

Things get even more complicated when her investigator, Franklin Dodge, begins an affair with Imogen, Remus’ wife. 

Book Summary

Killers of the Flower Moon is a nonfiction tale with a plot that seems like it must be fiction.

Finding oil within their land, the Osage Indian Nation became the richest people per capita in the world. The wealth attracted a whole host of bad characters, leading to murders and other vicious crimes.

This tale also represents the first time we see J. Edgar Hoover show up in the history books, as a young FBI director leading the first major homicide investigation in the organization’s history.

Book Summary

With the end of the Second World War on the horizon, Ellie Morgan should be planning her wedding. Instead, the newspaper secretary who dreams of writing her own column is using her skills as a would-be-reporter to search for evidence of her father’s whereabouts.

Elli’s father, a pilot, is one of the many unaccounted for men from WWII, and she is determined to prove that he is still alive. Her search turns up a stack of love letters to her father, but they are not from her mother. She hopes her aunt Iris might know more about the letters and the woman who wrote them.

She’ll soon learn that her aunt’s secrets go much deeper than that, dating back to the 1920s Jazz Age in New York City. In fact, Iris has spent the past two decades believing that her actions led to murder. Together, Ellie and Iris travel to NYC to find the truth.

Book Summary

This YA dual-timeline read is a fictionalized account of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Rowan is a present-day 17-year-old about to start her important summer internship when workers discover a skeleton on her property during the renovation of a building.

Her story alternates with William Tillman, a 17-year-old in 1921, whose misguided attempt to “protect” a girl he had a crush on triggers more death, destruction, and division than he could have predicted.

Book Summary

On a frigid night in December of 1926, mystery writer Agatha Christie went missing for 11 days. A more extensive search was launched after investigators found her car, which only contained her fur coat, near a pond. The only clues were some tire tracks nearby. Both her husband and daughter were questioned, but claimed not to know her whereabouts.

Book Summary

Growing up in Spain, Puri always knew that she’d inherited her passion for chocolate from her father. What she was never expecting to inherit was an actual cocoa estate in Vinces, Ecuador (a town known as “Paris Chquito” or Little Paris). Puri sees the estate as her chance to build a new life with her husband, but it soon becomes clear that someone is angry about her claim to the land.

While aboard a ship from Spain to Ecuador, a mercenary is set to murder her but unknowingly kills her husband instead. Puri dresses in her husband’s clothes and assumes his identity in hopes of staying safe while searching for the truth about her father’s legacy. Passing as a man frees Puri from the limiting rules placed on women in the 1920s, but it can’t shield her from all the challenges that await her in Ecuador due to her father’s dark secrets.

Book Summary

The year was 1926, and England was still recovering from the Great War. Each evening, London’s Soho plays host to a ruckus nightlife where starlets rub shoulders with foreign dignitaries and gangsters. 

Nellie Coker owns five successful nightclubs and is ruthless in getting exactly what she wants. Her ambition and shrewdness are driven by her desire to provide the very best for her six children, but it also gets her into trouble. The book opens as she’s being released from a six-month stint in prison due to a liquor license violation. Throughout the novel, she’s surrounded by her blissfully self-absorbed adult children and a slew of policemen (some good and some bad).

Book Summary

The 1990s: Betty gave up many things—universities, parties, boyfriends, and summer jobs—to care for her grandmother, Arlette. Arlette lives in a dilapidated yet charming home on the British island of Guernsey. When her grandmother passes away, Betty discovers that the will includes a beneficiary named Clara, whom no one in the family knows. So Betty travels to London to seek out Clara.

The 1920s: In the years after WW1, Arlette is starting a new life in bohemian London when she gets drawn into the hedonistic world of the Bright Young People. A couple of years later, tragedy strikes and Arlette flees back to her home in Guernsey for good.

This rich detective story will transport you to London in both the 1920s and 1990s. As Betty investigates her grandmother’s life, she’ll uncover secrets that might also help her find happiness in her own life.

Book Summary

For most New Yorkers, Grand Central Terminal is a masterpiece of architectural design, but for Clara and Virginia, it represents something entirely different.

For Clara, in 1928, teaching at the Grand Central School of Art was the stepping stone to her future. In a time when there was public disdain for a “woman artist,” Clara is determined to succeed in her dream of creating cover art for Vogue. But she and her friends will soon be blindsided by the looming Great Depression that may destroy the entire art scene.

By 1974, Grand Central had declined to a dangerous place full of pickpockets and drug dealers, and it was at the center of a lawsuit that would decide if the terminal should be preserved or demolished. Virginia, who had recently taken a job in the Grand Central information booth, stumbles upon an abandoned art school within the terminal and discovers a striking watercolor that opens her eyes to the elegance beneath the decay. She sets out to find the artist and finds herself drawn into the battle to save Grand Central.