While the beginning of the book gives us a bit of childhood stories and then being forced into Manzanar, one of the concentration camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II in the U.S., the majority of the book takes place in 1944 Chicago, showing what life was like during the resettlement of Japanese immigrants and Americans released from concentration camps. It’s worth looking up trigger warnings on those titles if there’s anything in particular you want to avoid.) (I’ve included trigger warnings where I made note of them, but where they aren’t listed, I didn’t have a record of them. So dive in and marathon a series or take a short hop into a time period with these excellent historical mysteries. I’ve gone with my favorites (well, 17 favorites) and separated them into best historical mystery series and standalone historical mystery books - including historical detective fiction, Victorian mystery novels, and crime books. There is truly so much to explore and enjoy, it’s a genre of riches. Some merely use the time period as a background and others bring to light historical moments that have never been spotlighted in history classes. There are so many historical mystery books it is a never ending list filled with lots of time periods, places around the world, historical events, historical figures, and interesting “detectives” determined to put the puzzle pieces together - or stop a crime.

While you’re putting together all the clues, or watching someone(s) solve the mystery, you’re also transported to another place and time where you get to compare the whole this is now and that was then. Historical mystery books are a fantastic genre combo that feels like getting two for the price of one: a story set in another time period (most argue at least 50 years past) plus a mystery to be solved.

A curious beginning by deanna raybourn