Killer Questions - Favorite Type of Books to Read

 Killer Questions – Favorite Type of Books to Read

We are often asked what each of us likes to read. Consequently, as part of our year of favorites, here is what each of us most enjoys reading:

Annette Dashofty: Mystery and thriller.

Heather Weidner: I like lots of genres, but mysteries are always my go to favorites. Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Alfred Hitchcock’s The Three Investigators (along with a host of 70s cartoons like “Scooby-Doo”) were my gateway books to so many adventures.

James M. Jackson: A crime novel series. I enjoy watching the main characters live and change while bringing their version of justice to the world. Second choice is a well-written nonfiction book on almost any topic.

Martha Reed: Crime fiction with a paranormal element. I love solving the whodunnit but keeping something mystically unresolved gets me every time. Think the Merrily Watkins series by Phil Rickman.

Molly MacRae: Clever, funny mysteries with satisfying endings – like The Librarians by Sherry Thomas and The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.

Sarah E. Burr: I really love reading manga, especially the slice-of-life genre. The relationships are so sweet, and it’s just an enjoyable reading experience.

Kait Carson: The kind with words. I’ll read anything and often venture out of preferred genres of Mystery and Romance just for fun.

Debra H. Goldstein: I am an avid reader of cozy and traditional mysteries, but I also enjoy biographies and memoirs.

Elaine Douts: I love culinary mysteries for the food, of course, and mysteries that include pets.

Margaret Hamilton: When I’m deep in writing mode, non-fiction, essays, and poetry. Otherwise, traditional amateur sleuth mysteries and for long trips, the latest Daniel Silva thriller.

KMRockwood: Crime fiction. Who knows why?

Lori Roberts Herbst: I read most genres, so it’s impossible to choose. I can get lost in a humorous whodunit, a heart-stopping thriller, intense crime fiction, or nail-biting horror.

Grace Topping: Historical mysteries. I enjoy a mystery that transports me to a different time. I learn something new about that time period with each book.   

Korina Moss: Crime fiction. Who knows why?

Shari Randall: Mysteries of course! Especially those that have a rich sense of place like Anne Cleeve’s Shetland books.

Mary Dutta: Mysteries! I love the challenge of a puzzle and the satisfaction of a resolution.

 

The Writers Who Kill Favorite 2025 Reads

By Heather Weidner

When we are not writing mysteries and thrillers, we are readers, too. Here are the Writers Who Kill 2025 favorite reads.

Fantasy

James Jackson: Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher

James Jackson: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Historical Fiction

Lori Roberts Herbst: This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Susan Van Kirk: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

Mystery – Cozy

Sarah E. Burr: Trebled Waters by Leah Dobrinska

Heather Weidner: Basket Case by Nancy Haddock

Grace Topping: The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman

E. B. Davis: Coeds and Cattails by Jana DeLeon

Grace Topping: The French Paradox by Ellen Crosby

Heather Weidner: Vice and Virtue by Libby Klein

Grace Topping: Murder in Venice by T.A. Williams

Molly MacRae: Cat on the Edge by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

E. B. Davis: The Violet Hour by Victoria Benton Frank

Lori Roberts Herbst: How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior

Susan Van Kirk: Villain in the Vineyard by Judy L. Murray

Grace Topping: Murder on the Marlow Belle by Robert Thorogood

Mary Dutta: Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Molly MacRae: The Librarians by Sherry Thomas

 

Mystery – Historical

Marilyn Levinson and Susan Van Kirk: The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

Judy L. Murray: A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch

Heather Weidner: Disco Dead by Marcia Talley

Judy L. Murray: The Blackout Murders by Anna Elliott and Charles Veley

 

Mystery – Legal Thriller

Marilyn Levinson: The President’s Lawyer by Lawrence Robbins

Heather Weidner: The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly

 

Mystery – Thriller

Sarah E. Burr, Grace Topping, and Heather Weidner: Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown

James Jackson: Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby

Heather Weidner: King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby

James Jackson: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

Susan Van Kirk: The Sequel by Jean Korelitz 

Annette Dashofy: We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter

Mystery – Traditional

Lori Roberts Herbst: The Maid’s Secret by Nita Prose

Susan Van Kirk: Apostles Cove by William Kent Krueger 

Grace Topping: The World‘s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully

Heather Weidner: The Black Wolf by Louise Penny

Shari Randall: The Three Coffins (UK title: The Hollow Man, 1935) by John Dickson

Annette Dashofy: At Midnight Comes the Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Grace Topping: A Grave Deception by Connie Berry

 

Mystery – Police Procedural

Martha Reed: The Silent Trumpet by Bill Gormley

E. B Davis: Gray Dawn by Walter Mosley

James Jackson: The Waiting by Michael Connelly

Grace Topping: Niki Unleashed by James M. Jackson

 

Mystery – Young Adult

James Jackson: The Inheritance Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

James Jackson: The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

James Jackson: The Lying Woods by Ashley Elston

 

Nonfiction

Debra H. Goldstein: Heart of a Stranger by Angela Buchdahl

Heather Weidner: Heaven Help Us: How Faith Communities Inspire Hope, Strengthen Neighbors, and Build the Future by John Kasich

Molly MacRae: Joyride by Susan Orlean

Susan Van Kirk: You Never Know by Tom Selleck

Molly MacRae: Cokie: A Life Well Lived by Steven V. Roberts

 

Poetry

Susan Van Kirk: A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

Science Fiction

Lori Roberts Herbst: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

 

Women’s Fiction

Kait Carson: The Women by Kristin Hannah

Lori Roberts Herbst: How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley

What were your favorite reads from last year?

Through the years, Heather Weidner has been a cop’s kid, technical writer, editor, college professor, software tester, and IT manager. She writes the Pearly Girls Mysteries, the Delanie Fitzgerald Mysteries, The Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries, and The Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe Mysteries. She blogs regularly with the Writers Who Kill.

Her short stories appear in a variety of anthologies, and she has non-fiction pieces in Promophobia and The Secret Ingredient: A Mystery Writers’ Cookbook.

Originally from Virginia Beach, Heather has been a mystery fan since Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. She lives in Central Virginia with her husband and a crazy Mini Aussie Shepherd. 

Spooktacular Books by Writers Who Kill

Do you have a favorite spooky book? It doesn’t need ghosts, goblins, or vampires. The things that scare us may go bump in the night, but they often have plebian origins. Here’s our take on books that keep us up late at night, scary, mysterious, or true, it all makes for a great read. Especially around Halloween.

Heather Weidner: I have loved cozy mysteries since my whodunit habit started with Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. Some of my recent humorous Halloween favorites include Ellen Byron’s Bayou Boneyard and Libby Klein’s Mischief Nights are Murder. Both of these boast amateur sleuths who get themselves in and out of all kinds of sticky situations. Bree Baker’s Closely Harbored Secrets and Maya Corrigan’s Crypt Suzette are also great Halloween reads with a food flair. Baker’s series is set in a southern tea restaurant, and Corrigan’s sleuth creates recipes with five ingredients and solves murders with the help of her grandfather.

And our own Marilyn Levinson/Allison Brook’s Haunted Library series is another of my favorites. What’s not to love year-round –  books, a ghost, and mysteries.  

All of the books in each of these series are worth the read. Add them to your fall and winter reading lists.

Lori Roberts Herbst: I highly recommend The Once and Future Witches, by Alix E. Harrow. Published in 2020, it's a riveting character study and exploration of societal norms and expectations. The tension is high, but the best quality is the characters' self-growth, insight, and the bond the sisters form. What are they willing to do to save each other, themselves, and women in general?

Grace Topping: One of my favorite ghost stories is The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. It’s the story of a seafaring captain who haunts the home of a widow and the affection that develops between them. Most people who are familiar with the movie and the television series may not realize they were based on the book by R. A. Dick.

Connie Berry: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: Psychologists tell us human beings are the only creatures who enjoy frightening themselves. That’s strange, is it not? And true. We love scary stories, especially told on a dark night before a blazing fire.

As an English Lit major, The Turn of the Screw was always one of my favorites—the lurking presence of evil, the mounting horror, the ambiguity. So, you can imagine my interest when in 2019 one of my favorite authors, Ruth Ware, published what NPR called “a clever and elegant update to James’s story.”

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware begins with a young woman, Rowan Caine, about to stand trial for the murder of a child in her care. She writes to her lawyer from prison, proclaiming her innocence. But is she telling the truth? She isn’t exactly innocent as it turns out, but is she guilty of murder?

K.M. Rockwood: Chesapeake Crimes: Magic is Murder. (Wildside Press, 2022) Amazon says: Mystery and magic collide in this thrilling, all-new collection of short stories by some of the top talents in the crime-writing field. Tales of fantasy worlds and stage illusion, of magic-users and magic-abusers, fill these pages with a heady, deadly mix! An anthology of sixteen short stories.

Molly MacRae: There are too many great mystery stories and novels with ghosts, witches, black cats, Halloween, and bumps-in-the-night written for adults for me to choose favorites – even if I limit the field to those by my Writers Who Kill blog-mates. But I don’t mind reverting to my library background in the children’s department at the public library where I had the pleasure of tending (haunting?) the children’s mystery section.

My favorite is . . . Dying to Meet You, Book #1 in the 43 Old Cemetery Road graphic epistolary mystery series for intermediate readers (ages 8-11), a collaborative effort by sisters Kate Klise (story) and M. Sarah Klise (illustrations).

The set-up: Cantankerous children’s mystery writer Ignatius B. Grumply moves into a Victorian mansion (complete with cupola) at 43 Old Cemetery Road hoping to have the peace and quiet he needs to crack a case of writer's block that’s been haunting him for far too long. But the house is already occupied by eleven-year-old Seymour Hope (who’s been abandoned by his parents), Seymour’s cat, Shadow, and Olive C. Spence, the irritable ghost of a never-published children’s mystery writer. No one is happy. To say the least. Then Seymour’s parents return with a dastardly plan to sell the mansion.

 

Told through letters, newspaper articles, a work-in-progress manuscript, and the occasional tombstone engraving, this book (the whole series) is the kind of kids’ mystery that grownups get a kick out of, too.

 

Readers – What’s your favorite bump in the night book?