86 Books Like Ruby Red Herring

Hidden Treasure is the thirteenth novel in the long-running Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries series.

This novel is a great addition to the series that features not only an antique dealing main character but shows her business growing and transforming. I specifically enjoyed this novel because the mystery is centered on an older woman who has a zest for life despite her age—and I like how Josie encourages and helps her.

The novel’s fast-paced and twisty, including one particularly surprising and fun detail near the end. I highly recommended this series to lovers of cozy as well as traditional mysteries with an antique dealer as the main character. 

A Dream Of Death is the first book in the Kate Hamilton Mystery series.

It is a traditional mystery series featuring an American antique dealer in Scotland. The series has won and been nominated for several awards, and for good reason—namely, all the novels are fabulous.

A Dream Of Death is set on a remote Scottish island. As I read, it felt like I was right there with Kate Hamilton—in the manor house turned hotel, at the Tartan Ball, confronting the quirky local characters…and on the island’s turbulent shoreline that held deeply emotional memories for her.

I especially enjoyed how the exciting mysteries in the present and diary entries from the past meshed together for an exciting and unpredictable climax. 

The first novel in the Old Town Antiques Mystery series is a cozy mystery with a delightful setting, a bit of romance, and a fifty-something main character who dives in to find a killer after making a late life career change.

When Camille Benson hears an antique shop that previously belonged to her parents is being sold by its unlikable current owner, Roberto, she decides buy the store. But Camille doesn’t even have time to revitalize the business before she discovers Roberto’s dead body, laying in the closed shop.

From there, the mystery takes off with loads of fun characters and enough trouble to make Camille fear she may not be able to untangle it all in time to save the business. 

Robert K. Wittman is the founder of the FBI Art Crime Team, and any one of his undercover adventures could be the plot for a box office thriller. Over the course of his career Wittman not only recovered hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth a stolen property, he protected priceless masterpieces from being lost forever. 

When I first began doing research for a novel about art theft, it was clear the global market for stolen masterpieces is incredibly complex, an underground network of smugglers, master forgers, and organized crime syndicates. To get my facts straight I needed a navigator, and this book immediately put me on the right track.

Wittman’s backstory and relentless drive to make art crime a priority within the FBI, as Italy has done with its Carabinieri Art Squad, is an inspiring story on its own, and many of his cases would feel right at home in… show more.

A beautiful story of sisterhood and the drive for one sister to find out the truth about her murdered sibling.

The writing is pacy, tense, and is a read-in-one-sitting book. I remember not being able to breathe for the entirety of the novel! It is, honestly, one of the finest thrillers of all time.

I reread The Witness for the Dead at least three times in the first months after I got my hands on it and have bought it in both physical form and ebook. This is a great secondary world fantasy and murder mystery. It’s on this list because of the portrayal of Thara Celehar as a man struggling with depression, haunted by past trauma and the bleakness he expects of his future while carrying on doing his duty by those who depend on him, combined with his unfailing mixture of wisdom and kindness and his awkwardness in accepting kindness and friendship in return, is so beautifully done. I can tell that this is going to remain one of my comfort reads forever.

The information about France after the first defeat of Napoleon, and the seething unrest of the populace under the rule of the restored Bourbons is fascinating to someone like me who has always been passionate about history. C.S. Harris weaves her backstory into the tale without ever boring the readers.  

When Blood Lies is the 17th in the Sebastian St. Cyr series. It is set in France in 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, when the Bourbon dynasty has been once again been elevated to the throne of France. It is the Regency period in England, and the book has vivid descriptions of both Paris and London of the time. The protagonist is Viscount Devlin, and his wife, Hero, who is careful to appear to be compliant with all that period’s restrictions on women. While she hides her strength and intelligence, she quietly pursues her own, socially unacceptable interests, including… show more.

I loved the twisty way this debut author stayed ahead of me with her plot. This is a YA novel, but I found the characters, especially the protagonist Addie Blackwood, instantly accessible, even though my teen years are far behind me. The prose was tense and active, taking me on a nonstop rollercoaster ride.

The author deftly combined the very real danger to the characters with the complexity of teen love, which kept me guessing what would happen next. It made me nostalgic for my own teenage years while simultaneously glad I never had to face a terrifying situation like Addie does! 

This book is so original. We follow an old man, a retired serial killer, on his journey to read his own newly published true crime story. He stumbles on the book while doing his security rounds and can't resist picking it up, and over the next week finds himself more and more obsessed with reading it, growing fears that he will be discovered after twenty years, and with the author, his only surviving victim- who was a child at the time and is now an adult twenty years later. 

I enjoyed this book, it's original in the sense that the killer is an ordinary, cranky old bastard that no one likes. He's just a guy, who doesn't stand out, hasn't been good at anything all his life, a mediocre man that falls into the crowd. The only thing he's ever been able to succeed at was being The Nothing Man,… show more.

Financial whiz Julia Snowden returns to her Maine hometown to rescue the family’s clambake business. Although she has financial acumen, she lacks true knowledge of how a clam bake works. She learns the hard way when a murder and a wedding reception don’t mix. I wasn’t familiar with the inner workings of clam bakes, from menu to preparation, but I learned with Julia. I also enjoy Ross’s writing style. The combination of the storytelling plus the facts interwoven make this a good book choice.