30 of the Best YA Mystery Books of All Time

For fans of elite private schools and “fixers”! Hana Yang Lerner goes to an elite school in Washington, D.C. where she’s basically the school fixer — students hire her for whatever mess they need resolved, or disappeared. Her only problem is that her father, a senator, is in a car accident that almost kills a woman and has him arrested. It leads to Hana losing her friends, standing, and reputation and her fixer skills are no match for the situation. It’s why she takes a job from an anonymous person with the job of following her ex-best friend. What could wrong?!

For fans of PIs, family drama, and decades old unsolved murder cases. Billie Levine lives in New Jersey with her mom, brother, and now grandfather who is a retired cop/PI, that moved to Florida but has returned since Billie’s mom has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. Her mom’s condition is why Billie has decided to take over her grandfather’s private PI firm — it’ll hopefully pay some bills and have flexible hours so her mom isn’t left alone at home. But what she thinks is a simple case — a boyfriend looking for his girlfriend — ends up getting very complicated quickly. The missing girl had a true crime podcast, and she was focused on an unsolved murdered woman case that Billie’s grandfather has files on, and connects to the Jewish mob Billie knows. And Billie is having to reckon with her own past — an ex connected to the Jewish mob — and her emotional state is thinking that she will inherit her mom’s diagnosis.

(TW addiction/ mom with early onset Alzheimer’s / mentions assumption of partner abuse/ alludes to past attempted sexual assault, no details/ alcoholism/ transphobia, transgender reveal used as a “twist”/ antisemitism)