Mystery Graphic Novels

Mystery graphic novels are a vibrant genre with lots of great choices to read. You can find stand alone books, series that follow a detective, historical mysteries and some genre busting titles. Here are a few suggestions to get started reading. If you’re looking for more book suggestions look at our book list page for a variety of lists created by the librarians at Robbins.

• Abbott written by Saladin Ahmed, illustrated by Sami Kivelä, colored by Jason Wordie; lettered by Jim Campbell While investigating police brutality and corruption in 1970s Detroit, journalist Elena Abbott uncovers supernatural forces being controlled by a secret society of the city’s elite. In the uncertain social and political climate of 1972 Detroit, hard-nosed, chain-smoking tabloid reporter Elena Abbott investigates a series of grisly crimes that the police have ignored. Crimes she knows to be the work of dark occult forces. Forces that took her husband from her. Forces she has sworn to destroy. Hugo Award-nominated novelist Saladin Ahmed and artist Sami Kivelä present one woman’s search for the truth that destroyed her family amidst an exploration of the systemic societal constructs that haunt our country to this day.
• Britten and Brülightly by Hannah Berry Private detective Fernández Britten is an old hand at confirming the dark suspicions of jealous lovers and exposing ugly truths of all varieties. Battered by years of bearing ill tidings, he clings to the hope of revealing, just once, a truth that will do some good in the world. It is a redemption that has long eluded him. Then Britten and his unconventional partner, Brülightly, take on the mysterious death of Berni Kudos. The official verdict is suicide, but Berni’s fiancée is convinced that the reality is something more sinister. Blackmail, revenge, murder: each new revelation stirs up the muddy waters of painful family secrets, and each fresh twist takes the partners further from Britten’s longed-for salvation. Doing good in the world, he discovers, may have more to do with silence than truth.
• Reckless by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips; colors by Jacob Phillips Sex, drugs, and murder in 1980s Los Angeles… And the best new twist on paperback pulp heroes since The Punisher or Jack Reacher. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, the modern masters of crime noir, bring us the last thing anyone expected from them – a good guy – in a bold new series of original graphic novels, with three books releasing over the next year, each a full-length story that stands on its own. Meet Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his student radical days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears… his own past.
• Blacksad written by Juan Diaz Canales; illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido; lettering by Studio Cutie Private investigator John Blacksad is up to his feline ears in mystery, digging into the backstories behind murders, child abductions, and nuclear secrets. Guarnido’s sumptuously painted pages and rich cinematic style bring the world of 1950s America to vibrant life, with Canales weaving in fascinating tales of conspiracy, racial tension, and the “red scare” Communist witch hunts of the time. Whether John Blacksad is falling for dangerous women or getting beaten to within an inch of his life, his stories are, simply put, unforgettable.
• Dead Eyes by Gerry Duggan; artist, John McCrea; colorist, Mike Spicer; letterer, Joe Sabino; editor, Will Dennis. Dead Eyes was a prolific stick-up man and hoodlum in Boston in the 1990s, until he took down one last big score and skipped town… or did someone take him out permanently? Nobody ever discovered the truth — that he retired to live a quiet life with his one true love, but now he’s back with a vengeance and wearing his mask again to save her! [… T]he action-packed, comedic drama of Martin Dobbs, AKA Dead Eyes — a former crook struggling with all the challenges of middle age. He’s come out of retirement to steal from all the wrong people for all the right reasons, and absolutely no one — not the mob, not the cops, and definitely not his wife — is happy he’s back in action. A modern-day Robin Hood… except this time, he’s keeping most of the cash for himself!”
• Bury the Lede written by Gaby Dunn; illustrated by Claire Roe; colors by Miquel Muerto; letters by Mike Fiorentino Cub reporter Madison Jackson is young, scrappy, and hungry to prove that she deserves her coveted college internship at the premiere newspaper in town, The Boston Lede, where she fetches coffee for the night crew and dreams of her own byline. So when her police scanner mentions a brutal murder tied to a prominent Boston family, Madison races to the crime scene, looking for the scoop of the century. What she finds instead is the woman who’ll change her life forever: Dahlia Kennedy, celebrity socialite, now widow, covered in gore and the prime suspect in the murder of her husband and child. When Dahlia refuses to talk to anyone but Madison, they begin a dangerous game of cat and mouse that leads the young journalist down a twisted path.
• Kill my Mother: A Graphic Novel by Jules Feiffer As our story begins, we meet Annie Hannigan, an out-of-control teenager, jitterbugging in the 1930s. Annie dreams of offing her mother, Elsie, whom she blames for abandoning her for a job soon after her husband, a cop, is shot and killed. Now, employed by her husband’s best friend–an over-the-hill and perpetually soused private eye–Elsie finds herself covering up his missteps as she is drawn into a case of a mysterious client, who leads her into a decade-long drama of deception and dual identities sprawling from the Depression era to World War II Hollywood and the jungles of the South Pacific. Along with three femme fatales, an obsessed daughter, and a loner heroine, Kill My Mother features a fighter turned tap dancer, a small-time thug who dreams of being a hit man, a name-dropping cab driver, a communist liquor store owner, and a hunky movie star with a mind-boggling secret. Culminating in a U.S.O. tour on a war-torn Pacific island, this disparate band of old enemies congregate to settle scores.
• Miss Don’t Touch Me story and color, Hubert; art, Kerascoet [translation by Joe Johnson]  Paris in the thirties. The ‘Butcher of the Dances’ is on the prowl for young loose women. Blanche works as a maid along with the only family she knows, her sister, fun-loving Agatha. Suddenly, Blanche loses her to what she saw was murder but others only write off as suicide. She decides to take matters into her own hands. In her pursuit, she ends up hired into a luxury house of call-girls. She even becomes quite good at certain lascivious practices while still remaining a virgin! But she also doesn’t lose sight of her goal: find the Butcher.
• Chew written & lettered by John Layman; drawn & coloured by Rob Guillory. Tony Chu is a detective with a secret. A weird secret. Tony Chu is a cibopathic, which means he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. It also means he’s a hell of a detective — as long as he doesn’t mind nibbling on the corpse of a murder victim to figure out whodunit and why.He’s been brought on by the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, the most powerful law enforcement agency on the planet, to investigate their strangest,sickest and most bizarre cases.
• Watson and Holmes: A Study in Black created by Brandon Perlow & Paul Mendoza ; writer, Karl Bollers Collecting the entire first arc of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson re-envisioning as African Americans living in New York City’s famous Harlem district. Watson, an Afghanistan war vet, works in an inner-city clinic; Holmes, a local P.I. who takes unusual cases. When one of them ends up in Watson’s emergency room, the unlikely duo strike up a partnership to find a missing girl. Watson & Holmes bump heads along the way as they enter a labyrinth of drugs, guns, gangs and a conspiracy that goes higher and deeper than they could have imagined.
• The Good Asian Pornsak Pichetshote, writer; Alexandre Tefenkgi, artist; Lee Loughridge, colorist; Jeff Powell, letterer & designer; Dave Johnson, cover artist; Grant Din, historical consultant Following Edison Harkï, a haunted, self-loathing Chinese-American detective on the trail of a killer in 1936 Chinatown, The good Asian is Chinatown noir starring the first generation of Americans to come of age under an immigration ban, the Chinese, as they’re besieged by rampant murders, abusive police, and a world that seemingly never changes.
• Ghostwriter by Rayco Pulido; translated by Andrea Rosenberg Barcelona, 1943. As a scriptwriter for a popular radio advice column, Laia is embroiled in the romantic entanglements of others. Each day, letters flood in from troubled wives and girlfriends recounting their partner’s abuses, and Laia tries her best to counsel them. In contrast, her own life seems perfectly ordered, with a devoted husband and a baby on the way. But when the city is terrorized by a vengeful killer, who leaves behind cryptic messages in blood alongside the mutilated bodies of married men — while at the same time, Laia’s husband goes missing — her world begins to come apart. Desperate to find her husband, she turns to Mauricio, a private eye practiced in the art of hypnosis. During the course of his investigations, Mauricio soon suspects that there may be more to this unassuming young woman than meets the eye.
• Stumptown Investigations, Portland, Oregon. The Case of the Girl who Took Her Shampoo (But Left Her Mini) written by Greg Rucka; illustrated by Matthew Southworth; colored by Lee Loughridge and Rico Renzi with Matthew Southworth; edited by James Lucas Jones; designed by Keith Wood Dex is the proprietor of Stumptown Investigations, and a fairly talented P.I. Unfortunately, she’s less adept at throwing dice than solving cases. Her recent streak has left her beyond broke–she’s into the Confederated Tribes of the Wind Coast for 18 large. But maybe Dex’s luck is about to change. Sue-Lynne, head of the Wind Coast’s casino operation, will clear Dex’ debt if she can locate Sue-Lynne’s missing granddaughter. But is this job Dex’s way out of the hole or a shove down one much much deeper?
• Noir is the New Black: Noir Stories from Black Creators edited by Fabrice Sapolsky with TC Harris; foreword by Shawn Martinbrough There certainly have been many Noir Comics written and drawn by black creators in the past. Now, for the first time, the most revered Black American comic book creators (David F. Walker, Brandon Thomas, MD Bright, Melody Cooper, N.Steven Harris, Gary Phillips, …) as well as a new generation of writers and artists of color are banding together for a unique anthology of 100% creator-owned Black Noir comic stories!
• Moriarty the Patriot based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; storyboards by Ryosuke Takeuchi ; art by Hikaru Miyoshi. The untold story of Sherlock Holmes’ greatest rival, Moriarty! Before he was Sherlock’s rival, Moriarty fought against the unfair class caste system in London by making sure corrupt nobility got their comeuppance. But even the most well-intentioned plans can spin out of control—will Moriarty’s dream of a more just and equal world turn him into a hero…or a monster? In the late 19th century, Great Britain rules over a quarter of the world. Nobles sit in their fancy homes in comfort and luxury, while the working class slaves away at their jobs. When young Albert James Moriarty’s upper-class family adopts two lower-class orphans, the cruelty the boys experience at his family’s hands cements Albert’s hatred of the nobility he was born into. He asks the older of the two boys—who has a genius mind and a killer instinct—to help him rid the world of evil, starting with Albert’s own family!
• Miss: Better living through crime Philippe Thirault, writer; Marc Riou & Mark Vigouroux, artists A tale of two unlikely partners in crime set in New York City’s Roaring Twenties. Nola is a poor white girl who has learned to survive by hook or by crook since being expelled from an orphanage. Slim is a black pimp with an uncertain past, always trying to keep one foot out of the grave. When their paths cross and their options run out, Nola and Slim forge a partnership as hired killers. This is their story, about what it takes to survive when all you have is a gun, and each other.
• Doctor Mirage writer Magdalene Visaggio; artist Nick Robles; color artist Jordie Bellaire; letterer Dave Sharpe How do you solve the case of your own death? Paranormal expert Doctor Shan Fong Mirage was born with the ability to see and speak to the dead-an ability that has mysteriously stopped working. Have her powers failed or is something far more sinister at work? Will she figure out her fate and the fate of the one she loves the most? Valiant’s gripping supernatural mystery starts here!
• Limbo created by  Dan Watters & Caspar Wijngaard; script, Dan Watters; art/colors/design, Caspar Wijngaard; letters, Jim Campbell. A detective with no memory, no identity, and no manners. A femme fatale seeking escape from a powerful crime lord. A voodoo queen with a penchant for mixtapes and hi-tops. A goat-eating TV … A surreal neon-noir fusing hardboiled pulp with an 80s VHS visual aesthetic, dripping with neon and static.