Mystery Book Club

Are you a reader looking for a case to solve, a thrill to seek, or a story full of suspense? Then Bloomington Library's Mystery Book Club is just for you! The Mystery Book Club meets at 7pm on the second Tuesday of each month (except December) in the Conference Room at the library and online via Zoom. People can join a book club at any time and do not have to attend previous book club meetings to participate. We are happy to have you whenever you can attend!

Those wishing to attend via Zoom need to register in order to receive the Zoom link. Those attending in person do not need to register. Upcoming book club meetings are listed to the right. Click on the date you would like to attend to register online. You may also register by calling 309.590.6168 or by visiting us in person at the library Help Desk on the second floor.

The Library receives extra print copies of book club books leading up to the date of the meeting. To reserve one of the extra print copies of the next title to be discussed, contact the Help Desk by phone at 309.590.6168 or by email to reference@bloomingtonlibrary.org. Digital copies of each title (eBook or eAudiobook) may also be available through the Libby or Hoopla Apps. 

January 14, 2025

In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs. Presidential candidate Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of groups. But strangely, Sullivan’s investigation brings up a ten year old case about the death of seven-year-old Iris Stafford, the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in all of San Francisco. Some say she haunts the Claremont still.

February 11, 2025

Electra (Ellie) McDonnell and her family earn their living by breaking into the homes of the rich and picking the locks on their safes. World War II is in full swing and paying bills in Britain is difficult. After receiving a tip about a safe full of jewels, Ellie can't resist. All goes as planned, until she is caught. Ellie expects to be taken straight to prison, but instead they are delivered to government official, Major Ramsey, who has an offer Ellie can't refuse because the next safe she breaks into could turn the tides of the war.

March 11, 2025

Sam Easton is home from Afghanistan, trying to rebuild a life in his hometown of LA. When his friend Melody Traeger is beaten by her boyfriend, she turns to Sam for help. When the boyfriend then turns up dead the next day, Sam is the perfect suspect. LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan, whose brother recently died serving overseas, is sympathetic to Sam's troubles, and can't quite see him as a killer. She's more interested in the secrets Melody might be keeping and the developments in another murder case on the other side of town.

April 8, 2025

The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind and does not suffer fools. So when pompous Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns Wrexford, the two star a war of words. Watching the shouting escalate, London’s most popular satirical cartoonist, A.J. Quill, draws them both. But then the Reverend is found dead in a church—his face burned by chemicals, his throat slashed ear to ear—and Wrexford finds himself the chief suspect.

May 13, 2025

When a teenager discovers a severed hand and foot washed up on the shore of the small town in Alaska, a detective from Anchorage, Cara Kennedy, takes up the case. She has her own motives for investigating the possible murder in this isolated place, which can be accessed only by a tunnel. After a blizzard causes the tunnel to close indefinitely, Cara is stuck among the odd and suspicious residents of the town.

June 10, 2025

Real-estate mogul Martin Cresswell-Smith is the best thing that has ever happened to Ellie. After her daughter’s death, Marin has helped her heal from the grief. Ellie imagines her new home with Martin in an Australian coastal town will a fresh start. But then Martin is brutal murder. And Ellie seems almost relieved. Senior Constable Lozza Bianchi takes up the case to discover what really happened.

July 8, 2025

After a family death Veronica Speedwell is now free to leave London and resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry. Familar with hunting butterflies and fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a sharpened hatpin with equal aplomb. She intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime. Fate has other plans when Veronica discovers a plot against her. A German baron from her past tries to help but before he can he is found murdered.

August 12, 2025

On New Year’s Eve, lonely outcast, Magnus Tait, stayed home waiting for visitors who never arrived. The next morning the body of a murdered teenage girl is discovered nearby, and suspicion falls on Magnus. Inspector Jimmy Perez enters an investigative maze that leads deeper into the past of the Shetland Islands.

September 9, 2025

Dr. Lydia Weston, professor and anatomist at Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, is immersed in teaching her students in the lecture hall and hospital. When the body of a patient, Anna Ward, is dredged out of the Schuylkill River, the young chambermaid’s death is deemed a suicide. But Lydia is suspicious and she is soon brought into the police investigation.

October 14, 2025

Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends, but Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered.

November 11, 2025

On Memorial Day the people of Jewel, Minnesota gather to honor soldiers. A half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to town.