This page brings together mystery read, topic searches, vintage mystery novels to read, and mystery audio stories. Books are famous detective novels, good mystery books for adults, and best all time detective stories. Materials range from older public domain works for free download to best modern books.
The Topics section below helps readers find books and documents within the huge Internet Archive collection, which includes periodicals and other materials, from older historical works to recent publications. Each topic link generates an Internet Archive search focused on that subject. Clicking our topics usually works better than searching Internet Archive directly.
Sections below Topics provide links to vintage books and audiobooks. See those sections for more information.
Contents of the Mystery Stories and Detective Novels Page
Search for a Mystery Author’s Books
Try searching for mystery books by author. In the search bar in this link, in the creator field, replace LAST, FIRST with the author’s name. Save books you like to your Internet Archive account by clicking “Favorite” while logged in.
Topics – Mystery Reads – Famous Detective Novels
The topic links below lead to Internet Archive search results related to best all time detective stories and good mystery books for adults. Each link opens a books-and-documents search focused on a particular topic.
Search results generally include fully readable books, eBooks and textbooks on appropriate behavior. For some subjects, Internet Archive also contains other media, such as images, audio, or video files. These can be selected from the media options above the search results. Filters on the left side of Internet Archive pages can help narrow search results by years of publication, language, or specific subjects.
- Agatha Christie PDF Books
- Assassins Novels
- Atrocities
- Bank Robberies Books
- Crime Fiction for Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9)
- Cold cases (Criminal investigation) Books
- Conspiracies Books
- Crime – Juvenile fiction Books
- Criminal investigation Fiction
- Detective and Mystery Stories
- Detective Mystery Stories
- Drug Traffic Crime Fiction
- Edgar Allan Poe Detective Stories PDF
- Edward D. Hoch Crime Fiction
- Forensic Scientists PDF Fiction
- Gangsters PDF Fiction Books
- Graphic Crime novels PDF
- Hercule Poirot PDF Books
- Human trafficking Novels
- Jacques Barzun Crime Fiction
- Kidnapping Crime Fiction
- List of Anthony Award Winners and Nominees 1986-2024 (Mysteries)
- List of Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time
- List of Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time
- Mafia Crime stories
- Maigret Detective Novels PDF
- Money laundering Fiction
- Mysteries and Crime Thriller Novels at HathiTrust
- Mystery Books PDF
- Murder Investigations Fiction Novels PDF
- Murder Trials Fiction PDF
- Organized Crime
- Pierre Saurel Detective Stories PDF
- Police Crime Novels PDF
- Policewomen Fiction PDF
- Private Investigators PDF Fiction Books
- Revenge Crime Fiction PDF
- Rex Stout Detective PDF Novels
- Serial murder investigation Fiction PDF
- Sherlock Holmes Detective PDF Stories
- Spy stories Fiction PDF
- Swindlers and Swindles Crime Stories PDF
- Thieves Crime Novels PDF
- Triads (Organized crime) Novels
- War crime trials Novels
- Wendell Hertig Taylor Crime Investigation Fiction
- Women Detectives Criminal Investigation Fiction
Vintage Mystery Novels to Read – Download Detective Stories
Vintage topics are books-and-documents searches of mystery and detective subjects in the public domain, published before about 1930. Public domain pdf books and other publications can be downloaded free.
Mystery Audio Stories – Audio Detective Novels
These links to audiobook searches of mystery subjects lead to public domain recordings from the LibriVox.org collection at Internet Archive. The audiobooks, recorded by Librivox volunteers, were nearly all published before 1930. Recordings include mystery short stories, crime novels, and famous fictional detectives.
All Librivox audiobooks are in the public domain. They can be freely streamed online or downloaded for offline listening. See our page on Librivox Audiobooks for useful information and tips.
Audiobooks by Famous Authors of Detective Stories
- Victor Appleton Detective Audiobooks
- Arnold Bennett Mystery Audiobooks
- Mildred A. Wirt Benson Audio Detective Novels
- Earl Derr Biggers Audio Mystery Novels
- Richard Doddridge Blackmore
- Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Charlotte Bronte Audiobooks
- Nicholas Carter
- G. K. Chesterton Audiobooks
- Wilkie Collins Mystery Audiobooks
- Arthur Conan Doyle Mystery Audiobooks
- Freeman Will Crofts
- James Oliver Curwood
- Charles Dickens
- Franklin W. Dixon Detective Audiobooks
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- J. S. Fletcher
- R. Austin Freeman
- Harold L. Goodwin
- Anna Katharine Green
- Auguste Groner
- H. Rider Haggard
- Dashiell Hammett Detective Audiobooks
- Thomas W. Hanshew
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Laura Lee Hope Mystery Audiobooks
- E. W. Hornung
- Augusta Huiell Seaman
- Fergus Hume
- Carolyn Keene Detective Audiobooks
- Edith Lavell
- William Le Queux
- Maurice Leblanc
- Murray Leinster
- Gaston Leroux
- Natalie Sumner Lincoln
- Richard Marsh
- Grace May North
- Oliver Onions
- E. Phillips Oppenheim
- Baroness Orczy
- Allan Pinkerton Crime Audiobooks
- H. Beam Piper
- Edgar Allan Poe Crime Audiobooks
- Ann Radcliffe
- Arthur B. Reeve
- Mary Roberts Rinehart
- Sax Rohmer
- Rafael Sabatini
- Dorothy L. Sayers
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Rex Stout Detective Audiobooks
- Mark Twain
- Edgar Wallace
- Carolyn Wells
- Janet D. Wheeler
- Arthur M. Winfield
Related Pages on Century Past
See our Century Past directories for hundreds of webpages of Books; Magazines; Articles, maps, & photos; and Newspapers. You’ll find the same directories on the top Menu. Here are a few suggested pages: