my TOP 10 murder mystery books OF ALL TIME! (ranked!)

Hello my loves! The hat is back out, not because it's TBR Cluedo, but I felt like, you know, let's get in the mood because today we're going to be chatting about my top 10 murder mysteries of all time ranked. It's probably the most important day of my life. I have ranked my top murder mysteries, I have picked my favorites, so hopefully this will be a great video for you guys to come to if you're wanting to get into murder mysteries and you can know my definitive favorites. But before we get into the video, I want to say such a big thank you to my favorites, the sponsor for this video, Book of the Month! I love Book of the Month. You guys know I have loved them for so long, I think their service is absolutely incredible. I love their whole ethos, so Book of the Month is a super popular book service for readers and every month their team scours all the new releases that are coming out to find new and emerging authors, to find the books that are going to be like most loved by readers, and they pick a selection of books for you to pick from every month. It's your Book of the Month, essentially. The clue's in the name. You are served up on a blue platter a selection of new releases so you don't have to spend time necessarily like researching what new books are coming out. They bring you what they think are going to be some of the biggest books of the month, some of the best books of the month, and then you can pick from that what you want to read. There's no risk also if none of the books interest you that month because you can skip that month very easily and they absolutely have the best price for new release hardcover fiction and you can get your first book for only $9.99 using the code MEGWITHBOOKS. They currently only ship in the US so it's only available for those of you watching who are in the US. I just want us to like take a moment to discuss how when Book of the Month sat down for March's selection they thought what would Megan like? This month it feels like it was made for me. So something super exciting that Book of the Month are doing is it's not only anymore going to be only five only, only five books a month you can choose from. They're now going to have up to seven books a month. Sometimes it'll be five, sometimes six, sometimes seven, but up to seven books a month sometimes for you to pick from. And this month in March there are seven. Let's just take a moment everyone. Look at this! Oh my god. And of the seven, these two I'm still interested in reading. Whoa. And the romance. But these five. These five. Let's just take a moment everyone to discuss these five books because they sound exactly like the kind of thing I'm gonna love. Also let's just talk about how like three of these if not a little bit more could be classed as mysteries. Like four of them. Maybe mysteries are the moment. Maybe I'm a trendsetter. Maybe me and Book of the Month are on the same wavelength because I mean come on. So we have got Tell Me Everything. The first three I'm going to talk to you about I hadn't heard of before this but are so exciting. This is a memoir slash literary true crime by this private investigator who got caught up in this sexual assault or sexual violence case. Obviously a lot of the details have been changed. It's kind of her memoir but it's kind of written as fiction. It sounds so so interesting. Like I love true crime. I love this kind of thing. Then we have The Verifiers which is like a mystery detective dating agency. I mean come on. I mean like what? This is made for me. I mean the description of our main character is a lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen. I mean like my world cannot be more perfect. Literally me when I saw the selection for this month. Then we have The Cartographers by Peng Shepard. This is think V.E. Schwab where like fantasy slash historical magic or it's about these this girl who's a cartographer and she discovers this map and it's like magic and like oh it sounds so interesting. And then they sent not one but two of my most anticipated releases of this year. The first is A Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James. It's about two murders in the 1970s where the main suspect was acquitted and in the present day we've got a girl interviewing her and it's spooky, it's mysterious, it's crazy. And then probably my most anticipated release of this year, The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley. You guys know this is like my most anticipated release. I absolutely love Lucy Foley. You may be seeing her in this video again and this is set in a flat complex in Paris where you can see across the courtyard into everyone else's rooms and there's mysterious stuff going on. We've got the socialite, the nice guy, the alcoholic, the girl on the verge, the concierge. Everyone's a neighbour, everyone's a suspect and everyone knows something they're not telling. I am so excited. I'm gonna be reading this this month and it's just like one of my most anticipated releases ever. So listen to me. You could use my of one of these books, one of these mini books for only $9.99. I would absolutely recommend you go do that because this selection this month is literally, if you kind of like the same books as me there's something for you here. I can't believe it. So make sure you check out book of the month down below. Okay everyone, it's time to get into my top 10 murder mysteries of all time. I just don't think this is like great for me. I don't want to do it. I want to go home. Like I can't take the pressure of it. This was very actually very very hard and I have been very strict. There's no missing person mysteries on here. Some honourable mentions like of missing person mysteries like The Project. This is probably my favourite mystery of all time, The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, but it's not a murder mystery. We are talking murder mysteries often with a detective or with a civilian who ends up acting as a detective or like a closed circle mystery, stuff like that. That is what we are talking about here and the first two on this list are actually four stars. I don't tend to give out a lot of five stars to murder mysteries. I'm pretty picky. I love reading them but like you have to blow my socks off to get five stars. So I haven't even got 10 murder mysteries I've given five stars and I've again I've been very strict. There's one book on here that's like part of me feels guilty. I'm like is that a murder mystery? But we're gonna go with it anyway. So number 10 is a very controversial book when people read it. It is The Last by Hannah Jameson. Now the ending of this is ridiculous. It's not the best ending. Well, I don't know. It's one of the books I think about the most because this book has the most ridiculous ending. You'll be reading it and you'll be like hang on, we've just entered a different book. Like this is not the same like tone. It's not the same. It's like what the f***? But essentially the world has ended in nuclear war. You and 19 other survivors hole up in an isolated Swiss hotel. You wait. You survive. Then you find the body. One of your number has blood on their hands. The race is on to find the killer before the killer finds you. Oh, it's so good. No, I don't think you understand. I'm obsessed. We're following the perspective of one main character. I think in like diaries that he writes as you know, as this is going on as he's like stuck in a nuclear war where he thinks his family are dead. There's no way of contacting anyone and he's just stuck in this hotel with other people. I love an isolated closed circle murder mystery. I love it. It's my favourite murder mystery trope. I love it. I love it. And it gives me that buzz. A group of characters stuck in a place and death starts occurring. You'll see probably quite a few on this list. A vast majority of these are closed circle isolated mysteries because that is just the perfect mystery to me. It's absolutely perfect. I love the way that then clues come out and how like, you know, there's not much scope for the author to like put in a twist that doesn't make sense. With a closer closed mystery, you don't have a lot of room for excuse, I feel like, from the author. And this is just one of the books I think about the most. I think about this all the time. I think it's a great murder mystery to read. There's something that's a bit different. I don't think many people give this five stars because the ending is so out of the blue that no one will expect it and a lot of people probably be angered by it. But I feel like the first half of this with the tension that builds and the fighting between the characters and just this like real high stakes situation is what makes this book. Then we have another four star and that is An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapina. So I actually read Not a Happy Family by Shari Lapina yesterday for my Patreon book club and it was my least favourite Shari Lapina that I've read so far. But I really like this one. We have a group of guests go to this hotel for this like break. They're snowed in and someone is killed. Can you guess my favourite tropes here? Nothing new, nothing changed, same old ----. I think the atmosphere again that Shari Lapina builds in this book. They're very like in this secluded hotel. It's not very big. It's like an inn almost. There's probably like six bedrooms or something. It's not like a big hotel like in The Last. So it's very claustrophobic and it's like rich people which I like. I like rich people getting killed and like you know getting their comeuppance. You never really know who you can trust. There's a lot of really good twists in this. I just remember having like a great reading experience reading this. It's like a solid simple murder mystery. Do you know what I mean? Whereas this one is a bit out of left field. This is simple but I feel like it does it well. It's a quick read. All of Shari Lapina's books you can literally read in one sitting. She's like the queen of like fast paced, keeps you turning and it's just a fun reading experience. So now we're getting into five stars. Now this book I think I actually initially gave 4.5 but now in my head it's definitely a five star. I think about this one a lot as well. It is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. So me and Agatha Christie have a strange relationship where I love some of her books and I hate some of her books. Some of her books have been like on my worst of the year list. Sometimes Miss Girl annoys me. But this one is so good. So this is the fourth in the Poirot series which a lot of you know I'm reading in order. And on the face of it it's like a very simple Agatha Christie. One of Poirot's friends is murdered and he is like meeting this group of rich people who are staying at his house, you know his friends and family, to try and figure out what happened. Now this one's really fun. There's like maps and stuff in this which I really like. It's very much that Agatha Christie trope of like the quaint English town where murder happens. But the real pro of this book is the ending. It's widely regarded as one of the best endings for a murder mystery. I will say I didn't actually know that going into it made it even more shocking to me. But the ending for this and how she wove it throughout the story and how once you finished it you're like oh my god like how did I not realize that is absolutely amazing. I'm gagging. It's absolutely masterfully done and I just like I think about it all the time like the ending is one of the biggest gags of my life. I literally sat there and I was like and it takes a lot for you to gag me like that and for me to think oh my god it's perfectly done but this is like that's what Miss Agatha Christie does in this book and she does it so well. Coming in number seven is the book that I was like I don't know if it's quite a murder mystery. It's like pitched as a murder mystery. It was like kind of marketed as one but I don't know if it's quite a murder mystery because the murder doesn't really happen until the end but it's got a detective duo. It's got like a mystery and there you know there is a murder that then carries on the story so I'm gonna allow it. I'm gonna allow it. It is The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton. So I feel like this author is more popular for the seven and a half deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I can't remember but I didn't really like that but I loved this one. So it's set in 1634 and we are following the world famous detective, world's greatest detective, but he is imprisoned on this ship. He is literally in a jail. He can't do anything but his like duo, like his right-hand man, his Watson, is traveling on the ship and so it's up to him to kind of discover this mystery of what's going on board. There's like strange symbols going up on the ship. It's do I say it's set on a ship? We're set on a ship. So I love again that like closed, you know, we're locked into this location. We are stuck here with these people. Squeaky chair. Animals are dying, there's strange sounds, there's strange symbols appearing and it's up to our main character to kind of figure out what's going on. And I really love the historical setting in this. I thought it was very vivid, the historical setting. I loved the relationships in this. Our protagonist, so the detective's like right-hand man, befriends the wife of like the head of the ship and them trying to solve the murder together is very very fun. I also just felt like it was really well written. I really loved the writing, the pacing, the way that the story unfurled I thought was really really well done. It was just like a solid book. Again, this does have an ending that was a bit disappointing for me but I think I still give it five stars because I enjoyed the rest of the book so much. But the ending again is left field in this one. You're like not sure, not sure about that, not sure about that. Very strange. Number six on this list is one that I feel like some of you are going to be surprised to see but it is One by One by Ruth Ware. So this didn't get the best reception when it came out because it was marketed like another one of Ruth Ware's thrillers but it's not. It's not a high pace thriller. This is a traditional closed circle adventure. Let me hear you say it. Oh my god it's so good. So we have this company called Snoop which is like a combination of like a Spotify and Twitter. Like you can see what people you follow are listening to at that moment and listen along. Which by the way was an idea I think I sold like for- not sold but like there was a competition like design an app. I'm pretty sure that's the app I designed in like year seven so like where's my coin? Ruth Ware? Did you- how did you find out about that? Anyway um it's very Agatha Christie-esque. They are snowed in at this ski resort and they start dying one by one. It's pitched as an And Then There Were None retelling but I don't like And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie because I don't like that scheduled dying. I'll say it again, I don't like knowing in the next chapter someone's gonna die. Whereas in this one there's not that many deaths. It's like it's not really And Then There Were None. Like there's not- there's multiple deaths but there's not like the whole cast. Do you know what I mean? Which I feel like in And Then There Were None retelling needs. It needs like four or five murders which this doesn't really have which I'm glad about. The setting, again the isolation, the tension was amazing in this book. And something that actually made this book for me is that you know from a certain point you know who the baddie is. You know. You know from a certain point and the tension that comes with that think no exit is really really good. Like the tension that that builds up through knowing who the bad person is and trying to figure out how you're going to escape them is really great. So this is my favorite Ruth Ware actually. I think I prefer it to Turn of the Key. I really want to reread this soon and I really hope that going forward Ruth Ware- I think her next release is like more of a stereotypical thriller but I hope she does some more stuff like this because I loved it so much. It was so well plotted um but I'm scared because the receptionist got that she's not going to and I'm like Ruth! Listen to me! Number five is In the Market for Murder by T.E. Kinsey. So if you've watched my channel a lot you'll know this is well I wouldn't say my favorite cozy mystery series but it's the only one that I really read. I don't- I'm trying to make my way through this series before I like start loads of others. This is the second in the Lady Hardcastle mysteries. We're following like it's like 1908, 1909, 1910 in England and we're following a lady and her maid but they're busy mates. Let's not talk about the power imbalance. Ignore that. Ignore that everyone. We are going to pretend we didn't hear that. They're best friends. They've been best friends for a very long time. They've accompanied each other for a very long time and they've moved to this town which you know quaint English town. Supposed to be them retiring. Turns out it's the murder hot spot of the world like and they are basically using their former skills. They used to work kind of as spies together. They're using those skills to solve the murders in this town and I really loved this one. This book ends up having like three separate mysteries. I don't think all of them murders. There's one where like something's been stolen and stuff but there is at least one if not two murders in the three mysteries and the way that they all got solved throughout the book and kind of like coming together not necessarily linked but the way that the stories overlapped each other I thought was really really well done. Listen you need to listen to the audiobook for these books if you're going to read them. I love the relationship between Lady Hardcastle and Flo. They're funny. They're light-hearted. They're in this quaint English town. They're perfect palette cleansers. They're so easy to read. I will like speak about these books to the day I die. I think they're wonderful. I think they're perfect cozy mysteries. Again I love the historical setting. I often like murder mysteries with like an historical setting. I think it adds a little bit a little bit of something extra and yeah I just love these women. I'm very excited. This is the second. I've read the first three. I'm really excited to read number four soon um but I think this is severely underrated and if you wanted to give cozy mysteries a try this would be my number one obviously recommendation but you gotta read the first one first and then get to this one. Number four is A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. So this is actually my second favorite in the series. My favorite in the series is As Good as Dead, the last one, but those the other two in the series aren't murder mysteries. I wouldn't class them as murder mysteries whereas this one is. Five years ago school girl Andy Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it but our main character Pip doesn't believe that he did so she is kind of reopening this case that happened years ago and is trying to figure out what happened. She's doing it as like a school project but this is so much fun because it's mixed media. We've got interviews, we've got police reports, we've got all that kind of stuff and it's just so much fun. Holly Jackson can really write. I mean this series as a whole is one of my favorite series. The journey that Pip goes on throughout this series is amazing. This for me is five stars obviously and then the second one is four stars and then the final one is five stars again and the final one was like if you watch my vlog for that you'll know. That was a lot to put me through, Miss Holly Jackson. That was a lot. Holly Jackson ignoring my pain. I just really love the kind of fun like YA. I think this is the only YA on this list. Yeah, this is the only YA on this list. Well written, great characters. Again, one of the only ones in this list where like you really go on a character journey with our main character as well. I just think it's perfect, like literally perfect. We're getting very close to the top now and the hat does not want to stay on. So number three is Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Another Agatha Christie on this list. This was I think my first proper foray into murder mysteries, like real murder mysteries. Obviously a lot of you will know on this list, another isolated one. The train stops, the train is snowed in, Urquhara is on the Orient Express and we find out one of the passengers has been murdered. Now, I often say you are going to love either Murder on the Orient Express or And Then There Were None and you're going to dislike the other. I genuinely believe they are four different audiences. I mean, this is like, you know, I am simplifying a bit. People do like both. But I feel like one you really, you really think is better than the other. They're her two most popular books. And then the one I feel like is more thriller-y, whereas this is more mystery. A large proportion of this book, literally like a part of this book, is Urquhara interviewing every person on the train, like just sitting them down interviewing them. And you get clues from each of those interviews. And I just think it's so clever that it keeps your attention, even though literally most of this book is Urquhara sitting in a room interviewing people. Again, the ending of this, the reveal is just like incredible. Agatha Christie's mind. Her mind. Honestly, her mind. I think the clues are all laid out for you. It's a very fair play murder mystery. You are given everything you need, like nothing is spared. Nothing is really, like, should be a surprise, although it is. You're literally given every piece of information you need to figure this out, and yet no one ever does. It's so good. I absolutely love it. And I hope, I feel like I've read the two Agatha Christie's I'm going to love most already, but I'm hoping there'll be more along the way because I'm scared I've peaked. But I'm going to be rereading this soon when I get up to this point in the series again. I'll be rereading this, which I'm very, very excited to do. Now we have got my top two, which I want to tell you guys are interchangeable. Like, on any given day, there's no real difference. These are both kind of number one. I have separated them, but on any given day, this could switch. Like, literally ignore the ranking here. They are both my number one. Number two is The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. My favorite book of last year. We're following these four elderly friends in this, like, retirement village, and a murder happens on their doorstep. It's called The Thursday Murder Club because they have a murder club every Thursday where they go and try and solve cold cases together. It's kind of just their fun thing that they do together, but then an actual murder happens and they're like, oh ----, we should solve it. Now, this has been very hit or miss for some people. I mean, it's been very popular, but some people are like, oh, I hate it. But it's very, it's almost a cozy mystery. Almost. Like, it's got that fun, comedic element to it. I think the way it's written is really, really good. It's kind of like more matter of fact, but it's like, oh, it's so well written. It's really, really well written. Especially, Richard Osman, if you don't know, is like a TV personality here in the UK, and the fact that this is, like, what he's writing is absolutely amazing to me. Like, it's so popular, and it's like, usually when celebrities write books, I'm like, not interested. But with this, it's so good. The characters in this are amazing. It will make you cry. Their mysteries in this, they're so good. Again, a very fair play murder mystery, where, like, you can figure everything out. You're given the clues. I want to be given the clues. I feel like something that happens often in thrillers, where there's a murder, is it's a complete curveball. I want to be given the information. That's what I want, and that's what I feel like I'm given in this. It's funny, it's clever, it's entertaining. Oh, I just absolutely love this book. And then the number one on this list was another book that was really influential in getting me into reading murder mysteries, and that is The Guest List by Lucy Foley. I told you we'd be seeing Book of the Month by Lucy Foley again. I told you. I informed you. I told you. This was such an influential book for me. I picked it up. I remember I went to a signing with Lucy Foley. I went to check that this is signed, but obviously this isn't the one I got signed. The one I got signed, oh, is up here. And let me tell you, I got told the plot for The Paris Apartment then, when it came out, and I've been waiting ever since. I've been waiting ever since. And now we've got it. I honestly can't wait. But anyway, let's talk about The Guest List. So again, it's close circle isolated mystery. We are stuck on this remote island for this wedding. You find out at the beginning of the book, someone's dead. But for the vast majority of this book, you don't know who it is. And we're jumping back and forward in time to the day before the wedding, and then the wedding night, trying to figure out what's happening. Lucy Foley does something very well. It's like archetypal characters. We've got the bride, the plus one, the best man, the wedding planner, the bridesmaid. And we flip between all their perspectives, which I'm really hoping that The Paris Apartment will do as well. I'm pretty sure it will. And you just learn so much from all the perspectives. But like, you've got to read between the lines and what everyone is saying, because people will be like, they'll be telling you stuff that you need to know straight to your face. But you won't necessarily realize how it all links up. Oh, it's so good. Wait a minute. I'm figuring this out. I'm like Scooby and Shaggy. I'm solving a mystery. The tension in this, the- oh, I need to reread this too. I'm hoping I may reread it soon. The tension in this and the reveals. The reveals are top tier. Some of the reveals in this are like, gag worthy. Gag nation. We are gag nation on this. So we are gag nation on this. Honestly, shocking. And again, this was like a big thing. I read it not too long after The Murder on the Orient Express, a big thing in getting me into murder mysteries and making them my favorite genre. So I feel like I owe a lot to this. But obviously, this was my favorite book of last year. These are pretty neck and neck. You know, they're pretty equal in the standing. So there we have it, everyone. That is my top 10 murder mysteries. Let me know which of these you have read, what your favorites of these are. Let me know if you didn't like any of them. Let me know which of these you want to read the most. I would honestly recommend all of these so, so, so much. I think they are all brilliant. And I'm wondering if any of the books- I don't know if any of them are murder mysteries. I think a lot of them are mysteries. But I'm wondering if maybe in the future, because I'll probably redo this in like two years or something maybe, I wonder if in the future any of those book of the month books are going to be on this list. Because listen, I feel it in my bones. This month's selection was so great. So again, make sure you check out book of the month down below. And if you've gotten to the end of this video- ooh, what should we comment? Comment a knife emoji down below. Thank you so much for watching, guys. I hope you enjoyed this video, and I'll see you very soon in another one. Bye!