Find Your Next Mystery by Setting

Place can help you choose your next mystery. Pair it with the investigative perspective you want: a private investigator, a homicide detective, a sheriff’s team, an FBI agent, or someone who can hear from the dead.

These five settings give you practical starting points. Savannah offers two different choices, so you can keep the city while changing the kind of suspense.

Pittsburgh: Maddie Castle’s K-9 investigations

Choose Pittsburgh for Maddie Castle’s move from police work into private investigation. The Handler begins after a shooting has ended her career and killed her canine partner. Another handler’s murder brings an injured dog into her life and draws her into a new case.

This is a city-based crime series with the development of a canine partnership alongside the investigation. Pick it for that combination of work, recovery, and rebuilding trust.

Start with The Handler by L.T. Ryan and C.R. Gray.

Continue through the Maddie Castle guide.

Philadelphia: Mitch Tanner’s homicide cases

Choose Philadelphia when you want a police detective and his partner at the center of the investigation.

The Depth of Darkness introduces Mitch Tanner and Sam Foster through a case that begins as an apparent accidental death and becomes more disturbing. Tanner is also living with the disappearance of his wife and son while caring for his daughter.

The setting comes with a different professional viewpoint from Maddie’s: Tanner works homicide, and his private family crisis follows him into the job.

Start with The Depth of Darkness by L.T. Ryan.

Continue through the Mitch Tanner guide.

Savannah: choose paranormal mystery or psychological suspense

For a paranormal investigation, choose Cassie Quinn. Path of Bones brings a murdered woman’s ghost into Cassie’s home and pulls the medium back toward work she had tried to leave behind. The supernatural is part of how the mystery is investigated.

Start with Path of Bones by L.T. Ryan and K.M. Rought, then use the Cassie Quinn guide.

For psychological suspense and a disputed conviction, choose Savannah Shadows. Echoes of Guilt follows attorney Claire Stevens as she examines a convicted serial killer’s appeal. Questions about the evidence become entangled with a tragedy in her own past.

Start with Echoes of Guilt by L.T. Ryan and Laura Chase, then use the Savannah Shadows guide.

The shared city offers two genre choices: a medium-assisted murder investigation or an attorney questioning the accepted account of a crime.

Colorado mountains: Dalton Savage’s search for a missing hiker

Choose Dalton Savage when you want terrain to be part of the difficulty of an investigation.

Savage Grounds opens with a woman disappearing from a Colorado hiking trail. The sheriff and his team head into the mountains as they examine what happened and question the suspicion falling on her recently paroled ex-boyfriend.

This is a law-enforcement mystery rooted in a community, with a search that has physical demands as well as unanswered questions.

Start with Savage Grounds by L.T. Ryan and Biba Pearce.

Continue through the Dalton Savage guide.

Sweden in winter: Avril Dahl’s personal pursuit

Choose Avril Dahl for Scandinavian crime atmosphere and an investigator whose own history is part of the case.

In Cold Reckoning, the FBI agent returns to her childhood home in Sweden after years pursuing the serial killer responsible for her mother’s death. Signs that he is watching her turn that return into another stage of the investigation.

Winter streets and woods frame a story built around clues, psychological tension, and a pursuit that is deeply personal.

Start with Cold Reckoning by L.T. Ryan and Biba Pearce.

Continue through the Avril Dahl guide.

For more investigative roles and genres, explore the full series catalog.

Header art: AI-generated editorial illustration of a fictional mountain setting.