Looking for free mystery books to read online? There are tons of classic mystery books you can find for free, but if you’re looking for some good ones to start with then check out these 10 amazing books and series from the best mystery writers!
Even though the subject matter of books like these is often dark, there’s something so comforting about reading a cozy classic mystery book. So if you’re looking for a bit of an escape into some lighthearted murder mystery books (no that’s not an oxymoron), then check out the free books on this list and start reading!
1. The Secret Adversary and other Novels by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie is the undisputed Queen of Crime, so when you’re looking for mystery books to read for free you should definitely start with her works!
One of my favorite free Christie books to read is The Secret Adversary, which is her first Tommy and Tuppence novel. It has a distinctively 1920’s feel that is simply delightful, as well as all the mystery you could hope for. When Tommy and Tuppence decide to start the Young Adventurers Ltd. to find some adventure and earn some money, they promptly fall into a world of danger and intrigue beyond their wildest imaginings, which all starts out with a mysterious missing woman named Jane Finn. It’s a fun ride from start to finish!
But this isn’t the only work of Christie’s that is free to read online. You can also find her first Hercule Poirot novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, as well as other works including Poirot Investigates, The Murder on the Links, and another of my favorites: The Man in the Brown Suit.
When you’re looking for free cozy mystery books online, these books are definitely the place to start and will be sure to provide you with hours and hours of fun murder mystery entertainment!
2. The Sherlock Holmes Series by Arthur Conan Doyle
Speaking of popular classic and free mystery novels, all four of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s full-length Sherlock Holmes novels are available for free online!
If you want to read them in order, start with A Study in Scarlet, then move on to The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Valley of Fear. Then you can even read some Sherlock Holmes short stories as well as plenty of other fun Doyle works as well.
If you like Sherlock Holmes or have never had a chance to read the original books, then now is a great time to do so! This will definitely give you plenty of free mystery and suspense books to add to your reading list.
3. Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
Another amazing classic mystery writer is Dorothy L. Sayers, and lucky for us her book Whose Body? has made it into the public domain and is available to read for free!
This book is the first in the Lord Peter Wimsey detective series, and is exciting all the way through. When a body is found lying in the tub with only a pair of gold pince-nez perched on its nose, the mystery is on! The police assume the victim is a well-known financier, but is it? Lord Peter Wimsey thinks not…but then who could it be? With the help of his valet, Bunter, Wimsey tries to untangle this puzzle and make sure the right person is brought to justice.
Although Murder Must Advertise is my all-time favorite Wimsey novel and the one I usually recommend people start with, Whose Body? is also an excellent work and it’s free so you really can’t beat the price! And you’re sure to be caught up in the excitement throughout the entire book.
4. The Arsène Lupin Series by Maurice Leblanc
When it comes to free mystery books to read, detectives shouldn’t get to have all the fun! Especially not when the mystery and crime books about Arsène Lupin are available to read online for free!
Arsène Lupin is a gentleman thief and a master of disguise, but he’s essentially just a french version of Robin Hood. He won’t harm the poor, who often benefit from his generosity, but if you’re rich and powerful…watch out! He’s as excellent at getting away with crime as Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes are at solving it, and he always causes mischief in an amusing and often melodramatic way.
I also love this series because Leblanc decided to write about a meeting between Lupin and Sherlock Holmes, but Doyle raised legal objections so Leblanc changed the detective’s name to Herlock Sholmes. Not recognizable at all! Versions in the US also sometimes called the detective Holmlock Shears instead, which makes me laugh every time I read it.
There are tons of Arsène Lupin novels and short stories available online for free, but if you’re looking for a place to start you can try the first collection, Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar or can skip straight to one of my favorites, simply called Arsène Lupin (it was originally written as a play but was later novelized by Edgar Jepson).
These books are a rollicking good time from start to finish, so if you’re looking for witty banter and a good-hearted “villain” who always outsmarts the detectives, then these are the stories to read! You’ll often be left in suspense trying to figure out how Lupin outsmarted the detectives, which is a super fun take on the mystery genre!
5. The Father Brown Series by G.K. Chesterton
If you haven’t yet picked up G.K. Chesterton’s short stories about Father Brown, then today you have no excuse as these are some of the best free mystery ebooks you can get online!
Father Brown is Chesterton’s famous fictional detective, a Roman Catholic priest with a penchant for solving crimes using his amazing understanding of human nature and a bit of intuition.
There are five main short story collections plus a few uncollected stories, totaling 53 short stories where Father Brown appears. Luckily for us, two of these collections are available to read for free! You can find both The Innocence of Father Brown and The Wisdom of Father Brown as free mystery ebooks to download.
Chesterton also has a wide range of other free books you can enjoy, including some other mystery stories like The Man who Knew Too Much. I also highly recommend reading his short essay on “Cheese” in Alarms and Discursions, although that has nothing to do with mystery…unless it’s the mystery of why cheese has so often been neglected as a literary subject.
But when you read Chesterton’s works, mystery or otherwise, you will find yourself with plenty of books to keep yourself amused. These are definitely some of the best free online mystery books, so go start reading them now!
6. The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Emma Orczy
You may know Baroness Emma Orczy from her wildly popular The Scarlet Pimpernel series, but did you know she also wrote classic detective stories? And you can read one of her mystery books free today!
The Old Man in the Corner is the second book in Baroness Orczy’s Teahouse Detective Series, and the only one you can get online for free at this time. It’s a collection of twelve short stories that an eccentric old man solves while sitting in the corner of a London tea shop! (Talk about a real armchair detective!).
The cases he solves ranges from murders to blackmail to theft and more, and each of the stories are perfectly crafted with ingenious solutions. You’ll be surprised and delighted at every turn, and eager to read the other two books in this fun series!
7. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Another of the best classic mystery books to read for free is The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. Collins has sometimes been considered the first real mystery novelist (although that’s up for debate), but there are a few things for sure…Collins is definitely one of the earliest mystery novelists, his works are worth a read, and they’re FREE!
The Moonstone is one of his most popular works, and it’s been praised by writers from T.S. Eliot, to Dorothy L. Sayers, to G.K. Chesterton, and more. The story revolves around a large Indian diamond (the Moonstone) that Rachel Verinder inherits on her 18th birthday. Unfortunately, the diamond is of religious significance and was stolen by her uncle (a corrupt British army officer who served in India) before it was bequeathed to her. Now, on her birthday, Rachel celebrates with a large party filled with guests and entertainers, and the diamond goes missing! Who stole it and how? And can they recover it?
This book is told through a series of narrators, and introduces some favorite classic mystery plot elements…including a robbery of an English country house, the bungling constabulary, tons of red herrings, and even a final plot twist before everything is revealed! It’s a fun read, and one that definitely influenced later mystery writers, so it’s worth a look.
Collins also wrote several other mysteries, including one of his other most popular books The Woman in White. You can read it for free online as well as finding many other books and stories by Collins, which is awesome when you’re looking for even more mystery books online for free!
8. The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
A.A. Milne is most famous for his creation of Winnie the Pooh, but when I heard he had also written a mystery novel…well, I knew I had to read it! Even better, it’s one of the free mystery books online so you don’t even have to pay to read it!
This book takes place at the Red House (a home in the English countryside, of course), where the owner Mark Ablett has disappeared! Amateur detective Anthony Gillingham and his friend Bill Beverley, who have been staying with Ablett, appoint themselves to the case as they try to figure out where their host disappeared to and whether it has anything to do with a mysterious shooting that ended in death.
This story of The Red House Mystery is a fun whodunit novel that feels quite lighthearted, with plenty of fun escapades to keep you entertained throughout. It’s one of the best free cozy mystery ebooks to download, so go ahead and start reading it today!
9. The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart
When you’re looking to read mystery books online free, you won’t want to pass up the opportunity to read one of Mary Roberts Rinehart’s most famous mysteries: The Circular Staircase.
Rinehart was often called the American Agatha Christie, and she contributed several major conventions to the genre, including being the source of the phrase “The butler did it” and inventing the “Had-I-But-Known” school of mystery writing (which she uses in The Circular Staircase). It’s fun to read her works and see where these conventions first began!
The Circular Staircase was first serialized but then later published as a book, and it tells the tale of the dowager Rachel Innes who rents a mysterious old house in the country for the summer. Unfortunately, there’s a secret about this house that she doesn’t know…and soon murder, arson, kidnapping, and unexplained things begin to happen! Had she but known what was coming…
This book was also later reworked into a play known as The Bat, which was a major Broadway hit and later converted into three films as well. And Bob Kane cites one of these films as part of his inspiration for Batman, which is pretty cool!
While The Circular Staircase was Rinehart’s first bestselling book, there are also plenty of others of her mystery books to read online free as well. They will keep you occupied for days and days!
10. Trent’s Last Case by E.C. Bentley
If you love irreverent mysteries and are looking for free murder mystery books online, then you should make sure not to miss Trent’s Last Case by E.C. Bentley.
This story features the charming artist and amateur detective Philip Trent, who elbows his way into investigating the death of the wealthy American Sigsbee Manderson. But unlike most detectives in mystery novels (like Poirot and Sherlock Holmes) who are always right, Trent is actually most notable for all the things he gets wrong.
Trent’s reasoning isn’t always sound or logical, but he’s passionate about searching for clues…and in the end, it just might take an amateur sleuth to accidentally lead the police to the truth!
Agatha Christie called this novel “One of the three best detective stories ever written,” and if the Queen of Mystery herself recommends it then who are we to refuse to read it? As far as free online mystery novels go, it doesn’t get much more fun than this!
Looking for more free mystery novels or other free books? Check out these 15 places to find free ebooks legally!