Books like “The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency”

What to read after “The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency” by Alexander McCall Smith: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery” and “Comfort Read”
Four friends in a retirement village meet weekly to look over unsolved crimes, until a murder happens on their doorstep. As the bodies add up, they use a lifetime's worth of skill and nosiness to work the case the police cannot close.
2
The Marlow Murder Club
Robert Thorogood · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery” and “Comfort Read”
- Cozy Mystery
- Comfort Read
When Judith Potts hears a shot while swimming in the Thames near her home, the police see nothing strange. She teams up with a dog walker and a vicar's wife to investigate, and the three amateur sleuths begin to uncover the town's secrets.
3
Still Life
Louise Penny · 2005
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery” and “Comfort Read”
- Cozy Mystery
- Comfort Read
In the village of Three Pines, the body of a well-liked woman is found in the woods with an arrow through her heart. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is drawn into a community where old friendships and hidden resentments make almost everyone a suspect.
4
The Maid
Nita Prose · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery”
- Cozy Mystery
- Found Family
Molly Gray, a hotel maid who likes everything neat and exact, finds a wealthy guest dead in his bed. Her odd manner and a string of misunderstandings make the police treat her as the main suspect, so she begins her own careful investigation to clear her name.
5
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Jesse Q. Sutanto · 2023
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery”
- Cozy Mystery
- Found Family
Vera Wong runs a quiet, failing tea shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Finding a dead man on her floor, she decides the police will bungle it, takes charge of the case and invites the victim's circle to tea, feeding them and questioning them until the truth spills out.
6
Magpie Murders
Anthony Horowitz · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery”
- Cozy Mystery
Editor Susan Ryeland receives the manuscript of the ninth Alan Conway mystery, but the last chapters are missing and the author is dead. As she reads the country-house puzzle inside the book, the writer's real quarrels and the missing pages draw her into a case of her own.
7
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It
Elle Cosimano · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery”
- Cozy Mystery
Finlay Donovan is a broke suspense novelist and mother of two. Discussing a plot with her agent, she is mistaken for a contract killer and offered a job. When the wrong man dies, she has to dispose of a body and solve the case before the police do.
8
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
M. C. Beaton · 1992
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery”
- Cozy Mystery
Publicity agent Agatha Raisin retires early to a Cotswold village and enters a baking contest to win over her new neighbours. When a judge dies after eating her quiche, she must clear her name by finding the real killer, whether the village likes it or not.
9
The Murder at the Vicarage
Agatha Christie · 1930
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery”
- Cozy Mystery
Colonel Protheroe is widely disliked in the village of St Mary Mead, so when he is found shot in the vicarage study almost everyone has a motive. As the police chase obvious suspects, the observant spinster Miss Marple follows the quiet gossip and small deceits of her neighbours to the truth.
10
The Kamogawa Food Detectives
Hisashi Kashiwai · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read”
- Comfort Read
At a small Kyoto diner, Nagare Kamogawa and his daughter quietly work as food detectives. Clients describe a dish they cannot forget, and the pair trace its ingredients and the people tied to it, recovering memories, old losses and small reconciliations along the way.
11
The Moving Toyshop
Edmund Crispin · 1946
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery”
- Cozy Mystery
Poet Richard Cadogan arrives in Oxford, finds a woman's body in a toyshop and is knocked out. When he returns with the police the shop has become a grocer's. With his friend, eccentric professor Gervase Fen, he hunts for the vanished corpse and the trick behind the impossible scene.
12
The Red House Mystery
A. A. Milne · 1922
Similar atmosphere: “Cozy Mystery”
- Cozy Mystery
At a country house party, the host's brother is found shot in a locked room and the host has vanished. Antony Gillingham, a guest with a taste for detective stories, and his friend Bill play at being Holmes and Watson, poking into the household's secrets before the police arrive.