Hello, fellow jokers, jesters, and fools. Today, we celebrate April Fool’s Day by playing kind hijinks on our family and friends. Have you ever wondered if there are any mysteries you could read to celebrate this festive day?
Probably not.
But, here are 10 mysteries devoted to celebrating April and/ or fools that you can add to your collection.
The Reading List
Goodreads synopsis:
“Let us know when you’re dead!” Ludovic Travers had known it was a publicity stunt, all that business about the anonymous threatening letters. He expected a hoax but what he found was two men lying dead on the floor of Crewe’s bedroom. To be confronted with murder at eight in the morning was no joke. Norris, the quiet, steady Inspector of Scotland Yard, certainly didn’t think so, although during the weeks he and Travers sought to puzzle it all out, he many times remarked, “It was on April Fool’s Day, don’t forget that.” This is one of Bush’s masterpieces – an intricate and baffling country house murder mystery. The Case of the April Fools was originally published in 1933. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
Goodreads Synopsis:
A ritual dance becomes a murderous mambo…
At the winter solstice, South Mardian’s swordsmen weave their blades in an ancient ritual dance. But for one of them, the excitement proves too heady, and his decapitation turns the fertility rite into a pageant of death. Now Inspector Roderick Alleyn must penetrate not only the mysteries of folklore, but the secrets and sins of an eccentric group who include a surly blacksmith, a domineering dowager, and a not-so-simple village idiot.
Goodreads Synopsis:
A SECOND CHANCE TO DIE
For his favorite charity, the high school drama club, Willard Platt fakes his own murder as an April Fool stunt. But the repeat performance later that day is the real thing. And some, including the next-door neighbor, say he deserved it.
Investigator (and ex-nun) Christine Bennett is haunted by the sad state of Willard’s survivors. His widow roams the road at night. His son has a troubled marriage and bizarre secret life. Behind this suburban family’s respectable facade, violent passions are seething. For this is not the first tragedy to strike them. Nor will it be the last. . .
Synopsis:
The Third Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak Mystery was started by screwball comic mystery writer Craig Rice and finished by hardboiled mystery writer Ed McBain after her untimely death.
Bingo and Handsome, having felt the glory of solving two cases successfully, decide to move to Hollywood and catch some big fish. However, before they settle in to their new home, “The April Robin House,” they find that they aren’t the owners but were ‘sold’ the house by a common conman.
April Robin, an old silent film star, committed suicide several years before, and her house was recently occupied by a lovely couple. However, that couple has vanished without a trace. It’s up to Bingo and Handsome to find the disappearance and try to recuperate their loses before they are chased out of Hollywood for good.
Goodreads synopsis:
Political intrigue and industrial espionage are brewing in Britain’s Foreign Office in this thriller from the author of the Miss Silver Mysteries
On a dark, foggy night, Hugo Ross encounters a beautiful woman. She claims to be running away and begs Hugo not to tell anyone that he’s seen her. Before boarding her train, she warns him not to take the job he’s applying for: secretary to eccentric inventor Ambrose Minstrel. The train pulls away, and the stunning stranger is gone.
Desperate for employment, Hugo ignores her warning and takes the job. He’s barely moved into Meade House when a message from Loveday Leigh is hand-delivered: He must leave immediately and burn the letter. When they finally meet again at Waterloo Station, Loveday is not the mysterious woman Hugo remembers. Odd happenings continue, and he enlists the help of the esteemed Benbow Smith, an enigmatic figure connected to London’s Foreign Office. Soon Hugo is caught up in an undercover plot involving governmental intrigue, industrial espionage, and stolen military secrets. With his own life on the line, how much is he willing to risk for his country?
Fool Errant is the 1st book in the Benbow Smith Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Goodreads synopsis:
In this fifth Sir John Fielding mystery, the legendary eighteenth-century London judge takes on his most difficult case to date. John Fielding was famous not only as cofounder of London’s first police force, the Bow Street Runners, but also as a magistrate of keen intellect, fairness and uncommon detective ability. What made this all the more remarkable was that he was blind. Now the blind magistrate and his young assistant and ward, Jeremy Proctor, face a baffling pair of deaths. A lord dies suddenly while attending a concert. A disembodied head washes up on the banks of the Thames. While investigating both, Sir John and Jeremy learn more than they ever cared to about family, greed, deception, and the peculiar nature of homicide, high and low.
“This is a wonderful series . . . In addition to giving us a marvelous parade of Georgian-era high and low characters in the London of Johnson and Boswell, it is packed with history and lore, and it’s altogether much fun.”–Washington Post Book World.
Goodreads synopsis:
Broadway producer Peter Duluth sought solace in a bottle after his wife’s death; now, two years later and desperate to dry out, he enters a sanatorium, hoping to break his dependence on drink, but the institution doesn’t quite offer the rest and relaxation he expected. Strange, malevolent occurrences plague the hospital; and among other inexplicable events, Peter hears his own voice with an ominous warning: “There will be murder.” It soon becomes clear that a homicidal maniac is on the loose, and, with a staff every bit as erratic as its idiosyncratic patients, it seems everyone is a suspect, even Duluth’s new romantic interest, Iris Pattison. Charged by the baffled head of the ward with solving the crimes, it’s up to Peter to clear her name before the killer strikes again. A Puzzle for Fools.
Goodreads synopsis:
From Perry Mason -creator Erle Stanley Gardner comes a lost classic of detective fiction featuring private eyes Donald Lam (once played by Frank Sinatra!) and Bertha Cool.
“About the best of the series… perhaps since the very first.” — Raymond Chandler
Private investigators Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, stars of five of Hard Case Crime’s most popular novels, return to solve their toughest case yet.
Hired to prevent a socialite from poisoning her husband, Donald Lam dreams up an ingenious scheme involving a carton of anchovy paste and a fictitious national ad campaign. But when the whole thing backfires spectacularly and bodies, witnesses, and suspects start piling up, it’ll take every ounce of Donald’s brainpower and Bertha’s bruising ruthlessness to keep the police at bay – and a killer from getting away with murder.
Synopsis:
“Fool the Toff” is a detective novel written by John Creasey. It features the character of Richard Rollison, also known as “The Toff,” who is a wealthy amateur detective.
Goodreads synopsis:
A cynical tarot card reader seeks to uncover the truth about her friend’s mysterious death in this delightfully clever whodunit.
For Katie True, a keen gut and quick wit are just tools of the trade. After a failed attempt at adulting in Chicago, she’s back in the suburbs living a bit too close to her overbearing parents, jumping from one dead-end job to the next, and flipping through her tarot deck for guidance. Then along comes Marley.
Mysterious, worldly, and comfortable in her own skin, Marley takes a job at the mall where Katie peddles Russian tchotchkes. The two just get each other. Marley doesn’t try to fix Katie’s life or pretend to be someone she’s not, and Katie thinks that with Marley’s friendship she just might make it through this rough patch after all. So one day, having been encouraged by Marley to practice soothsaying, Katie reads tarot for someone who stumbles into her shop. But when she sneaks a glance at his phone, she finds more than just clairvoyant intel. She finds a photo. Of Marley. With a gunshot wound to the head.
The bottom falls out of Katie’s world. Her best friend is dead? Who killed her? She quickly realizes there are some things her tarot cards can’t foresee, and she must put her razor-sharp instincts to the ultimate test. But the truth has deadly consequences, and Katie’s recklessness lands her in the crossfire of a threat she never saw coming. Now Katie must use her street smarts and her inner Strength card to solve Marley’s murder–or risk losing everything.
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
Leave a comment