Books like A Most Contagious Game by Catherine Aird

On a luxury Nile cruise, the glamorous Linnet Ridgeway is found murdered, and intrepid detective Hercule Poirot must uncover the truth amid intrigue, secrets, and false leads.

A charming and clever women detective, Precious Ramotswe, solves mysteries in Botswana's small town of Midsomin, South Africa, from 1986 to 1997, facing dangers and love in the process. The novel is beloved by readers worldwide for its clever dialogue and characters who are as flawed as the rest of us. The book is a bestseller and has been translated into 45 languages, including Polish, German, and Japanese, among others. It was also voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.

Inspector Sloan investigates a corpse discovered in a stately house during a public tour, with Constable Crosby and a mischievous boy in tow. Clues involve a nephew, blackmail attempts, and peculiar tea‑serving by two eccentric great‑aunts.

When a crow drops a human finger on a walking club member’s path, a search for a missing body brings together police, community members and local farmers in a quiet English village.

In the quiet country estate of Strontfield Park, a dinner party turns deadly when the host is killed by car collision and poisoned, leaving Inspector C. D. Sloan to untangle motives among the eleven survivors.

Inspector C. D. Sloan confronts a sealed church tower mystery, where the only clues are a spent match, an emerald earring, and a black thread.

C.D. Sloan investigates a murder that follows a student sit‑in and a bizarre theft at a fictional English university, unraveling clues hidden in the quadrangle and the echo of a dying man's words.

In England’s Almstone Flower Show, a vanished fortuneteller turns up dead, prompting Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby to unravel a baffling murder with no obvious motive or opportunity.

When old schoolteacher Miss Beatrice Wansdyke dies wealthy, Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan must protect her fortune from ruthless pursuers while preparing for fatherhood.

Detective Chief Inspector C.D. Sloan investigates a daring art theft, a suspicious arson at an old manor, and a pile of bones, uncovering a tangled web of local factions and a historic mystery in Berebury.

When a stranger dies in a Quebec village, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache confronts secrets hidden in the bistro, antiques shop, and the town's residents—and the town’s hidden history.

When octogenarian Octavia Garamond demands a police‑presented funeral and a post‑mortem, Inspector C. D. Sloane and Constable Crosby investigate her mysterious death and a secretive past that may have put her life in danger.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec investigates a surprising death in the quiet village of Three Pines, uncovering a sinister truth beneath the seeming hunting accident.

A beginner golfer’s lost ball leads detective C. D. Sloan to a buried body on a haunted bunker, turning a quiet golf course into a crime scene full of twists.

Detective Inspector C. D. Sloane investigates a death that may be murder after a letter arrives at a nursing home for WWII veterans.

A collection of tightly crafted short mysteries that follow Inspector C. D. Sloan through a wealthier businessman’s death, a Christmas family drama, and a hospital scandal, plus a 1930s Foreign Office case and a 16th-century Scottish clansman’s murder.

Inspector Sloan investigates a suspicious death linked to a clandestine drug trial, uncovering a deeper conspiracy.

Two police detectives uncover a chilling village mystery, linking a recent fatal traffic incident to a decade‑old disappearance and a controversial murder conviction.

Detective Chief Inspector C.D. Sloan investigates a murder and a mysterious break‑in at Berebury Nursing Home, both linked to the life—and secrets—of Josephine Short, a woman whose recent death shocks her family.

Detectives Sloan and Crosby unravel the tangled clues left by a dying chemist, tracing three mysterious deaths that may be linked—one accidental drowning, a lost caving victim, and a son’s reckless accident—into a potential murder confession.

Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs investigate a brutal triple murder in Manhattan’s Diamond District, chasing the killer known as the Promisor who strikes during engagement‑ring purchases.

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950--and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. "I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life."To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story--of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school's tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder--but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse....An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions--and a rich literary delight.From the Hardcover edition.