Books Featuring Strangers Solving a Murder

It’s a quiet day in the Boston Public Library. Freddie, a visiting author from Australia, finds herself in the reading room with three other people - Marigold, Cain, and Whit. All four are strangers to one another, and probably would have no reason to interact with each other—that is, until a woman’s scream is heard. The library is placed on lockdown as the authorities investigate, and it becomes known that a woman has been killed. During their time on lockdown, Freddie and her new acquaintances start to develop a friendship of sorts, as they wonder about who the killer is, and whom they can trust.

Hercule Poirot receives the first of several taunting letters in the mail, challenging him to solve a murder on such-and-such a date in a certain town. The murder occurs right on schedule, as do the three murders that follow. The victims’ names and their hometowns are all in alphabetical order—Alice Ascher of Andover, Betty Barnard of Bexhill, and so forth—and an ABC railway guide is found near each of the bodies. As the investigation works its way through the alphabet toward an unexpected grand reveal, some of the victims’ relatives and associates—some of whom were strangers to each other - end up joining forces with Poirot and Captain Hastings to catch the killer.

Nine people, all of them strangers to one another, receive a list of names in the mail. Each person’s name is on the list, and each person is warned that they are going to die. The list is dismissed as a sick joke until the very first person on the list turns up dead.

FBI agent Jessica Winslow is on that list, which makes the matter a federal investigation. She starts contacting the other names—both to warn them and to ask questions of them. The investigation brings her into contact with Detective Sam Hamilton, who notes the eerie parallels between the list and the plot of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

There are books about strangers solving a murder, and then there are books about someone solving a murder from inside the bodies of several different strangers. Aiden Bishop—though he doesn’t remember his name is Aiden Bishop—wakes up to find himself inside the body of a different guest at the aristocratic Hardcastles’ house party. He doesn’t remember who he himself is supposed to be, only that he’s in the wrong body, and that he needs to figure out who is going to murder Evelyn Hardcastle.

Evelyn will die each night unless Aiden can figure out who the murderer is. Only then can he break the cycle of murders and return to his own body. If he does not, the clock will reset and he will wake up in another person’s body. 

Miriam Macy is one of seven people invited to a luxurious island estate off the coast of Mexico, allegedly for the filming of a reality TV show. But when she arrives, she and the guests—all strangers to each other—realize that the invitation was a ruse. There is no TV show, no other guests will be arriving, and the estate’s owner—and Miriam’s lawyer—is now deceased. Before long, the guests start dying, and Miriam has to find out everyone’s secret and find out who wants them all dead.

Deputy Brynn McKenzie receives a cut-off 911 call from a vacation house by Lake Mondac in Wisconsin. She heads up to investigate, and encounters the bodies of the house’s owners; two hired killers; and actress Michelle Kepler, one of the house guests. Brynn and Michelle flee into the woods, with the killers on their trail. Brynn and Michelle are definitely polar opposites in personality and background—the no-nonsense deputy and the flighty, high-strung actress—but they have to rely on their wits and each other if they intend to survive.

January 1985. Her testimony, which the police coaxed out of her, sent her older brother Ben to prison. More than twenty years later, Libby is trying to pick up the pieces of her life and move on. But a true crime club reaches out to her with evidence that Ben may in fact have been innocent. With the club’s assistance, Libby starts digging into the crime once more, and ends up unearthing some terrible secrets about that long-ago night.

Eight people, all strangers to one another, but all of them with some secret they’d rather not have revealed, are summoned to Soldier Island by an invitation from a certain U.N. Owen. The mysterious host is nowhere to be seen when the guests arrive. One by one, each of the strangers begins dying in rather gruesome fashions, all in a way reflecting a macabre nursery rhyme.