What are the Best Rated YA Mysteries to Read in 2026? I’ve done a post of my favorite YA Mysteries of all time, but I thought I should also highlight some brand new and highly rated YA Mysteries. If you love girl detectives and teen Scooby gangs, this is the list for you. Let’s go!
Best Rated YA Mysteries to Read in 2026
How did I pick these Best YA Mysteries to read? First I combed publishers lists for the newest mystery titles, then I cross-checked those lists against several review sources to find the ones that readers are loving. Many of them I’ve read myself!
I divided these into categories so you can find the one that’s right for you!
All these YA Mystery Books are either award-winning or highly rated on Goodreads… or both!
YA Mysteries About Friends and Frenemies
These are for fans of Veronica Mars. (I have a complete list of books about and like Veronica Mars that you should check out!)
“We used to be friends a long time ago but I haven’t thought of you lately at all…”
In Case I Go Missing by R.N. Swann (2026)
A Good Girls Guide to Murder meets This Story Might Save Your Life
Fenris “Fenny” and her best friend, Sam, search for Sarah, a member of their Scooby gang who went missing while trying to solve an unsolved mystery. Sam and Fenny comb through Sarah’s investigation notebook trying to figure out where she went, and why. Or what happened to her.
- Teen Scooby gang
- Secret notebook
- Small town secrets
- Cold case investigation
- Friendship story
- Very strong early reviews!
Not Like Other Girls by Meredith Adamo (2025)
Everyone thinks of Maddie as just another a runaway, but her friend Jo can’t shake the feeling there’s more to the story. Jo was cancelled after a nude photo scandal, but a fake dating scheme gets Jo back into her former clique to find out where Maddie went and why.
- Award winning (William Morris Debut award)
- A strong Veronica Mars vibe
- Fake dating
- Self-discovery
Girls Like Her by Melanie Sumrow (2025)
Law and Order meets Good Girls Guide to Murder
Ruby Monroe sits in a Dallas jail, accused of murdering a local Texas millionaire. Her only hope? A state-appointed caseworker (and forensic social worker) Cadence Ware, who find the real killer and clear Ruby’s name. Girls Like Her is an epistolary novel told through news articles, notes and letters, and legal transcripts.
- Epistolary story
- Deals with the criminal justice system
- Shocking twists
- Odyssey and Golden Kite award winner
Now She’s Dead by Roselyn Clark (2025)
Mandy is struggling with the death of her best friend Sara. Now Mandy is back at the site of Sara’s death (a lake resort) and crushed by her feeling that she’s responsible for what happened to her friend.
- Bisexual rep
- Multiple timelines
- Better for actual teen readers, as many adult readers found the teen vibe a little too authentic!
Check out my full list of Books Like Veronica Mars!
For Fans of Supernatural
These paranormal mysteries will thrill you!
Such a Lucky Girl by Wendy Heard (2026)
Single White Female but make it paranormal.
It stings when Kerry gets dumped by her best friend Bella. Then Bella transforms into Such a Lucky Girl, an influencer who brags about her perfect life and wants to help other girls be as lucky as she it.
Then Kerry finds a vintage self-help book on shadow work and plots her revenge.
- Best Friend Breakup
- Influencer Culture
- Revenge story
What Happened to Those Girls by Carlyn Greenwald
Mean Girls Meets the Blair Witch Project
Emma gets ditched by her friends who head out camping without her. After all of them turn up dead, Emma, now a suspect, team up with Beck, one of the girl’s sisters, to help figure out who did this and why.
- Camping trip gone wrong
- Found footage
- Small town secrets
- Unwilling alliance
- Creepy woods
Out of Body by Nia Davenport (2025)
Freaky Friday meets a murder mystery
Megan hasn’t yet found a friend group that fits. Then she meets LC, a girl who appears at her favorite coffee shop.
On the night of their friend-versary, Megan is no longer herself. She will need to get her body back or die trying.
- Fun body swap premise
- Friends and frenemies
- Comic paranormal vibes
The Wilderness of Girls by Madeline Claire (2025)
Yellowjackets meets Wilder Girls
After her father is arrested, Rhi is hungry for a fresh start and begins working at a nature preserve. While in the woods, she stumbles on four feral girls who reveal that they’re princesses from another land, and that Rhi is their lost sister.
Rhi takes the girls to civilization, where they’re dubbed “The Wild Girls of Happy Valley.” Rhi doesn’t know what to think. Are the girls for real? Were they brainwashed? Kidnapped?
- Dark and disturbing; read the content advisory on Goodreads!
- Unique premise and execution
- Finalist for the William Morris Debut Award
Sweetest Darkness by Leslie Lutz (2025)
Stranger Things meets The Outsiders
Quinn, a teen clairvoyant from a line of witches, has been having dreams about the Alvarado Hotel. So he visits with his best friend June and unrequited love Selena, looking for answers, he gets only one: ghosts aren’t the scariest thing lurking inside the Alvarado (although they’re there, cold and restless and angry).
- Teenage clairvoyant with a Scooby gang of ghost hunters
- Found family
- Spirit of Texas award, Washington State Book Award shortlist.
For Fans of Dark Academia
A House of Vipers by Emma Jackson (2026)
The Inheritance x Dark Academia
Sutter Heyward’s brother, Lawson, disappeared from the secluded campus of Meddlehart Academy. After more than a year, everyone has given up on finding him except for Sutter, who discovers Lawson was searching for their school’s rumored buried treasure the night he went missing . . . and there is a secret society on campus still trying to find it. They are the Order of the Vipers.
- Secret societies
- Buried treasure
- Boarding school setting
Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (2025)
Pretty Little Liars x issue-driven Dark Academia
Check out my review of Ace of Spades and Where Sleeping Girls Lie!
Devon, a scholarship student, and Chiamaka, his Nigerian-Italian classmate who is aiming for the Ivy League are drawn together after an anonymous group called the Aces starts texting secrets about them to the rest of the student body. What they discover is way worse than they ever imagined.
- Award winning (Chicago Public Library and Audible)
- Boarding school setting
- A missing roommate
- FREE on Kindle Unlimited
Check out my Dark Academia favorites here!
For Fans of Holly Jackson
Holly Jackson writes about the dark side of small towns and her books feature spunky female detectives with cute sidekicks who charge into danger.
Check out my Series Spoiler Review of ALL The Good Girls Guide to Murder Books!
The Names We Buried by Mia Siegert (2026)
The Face on the Milk Carton (dated reference!) brought into the 2020s
Jaden, a trans boy, is taken by his dads to the courthouse to formally change his name on his birth certificate. But one of his dads is arrested after the court accuses him of forging Jaden’s documents. A shocked Jaden takes a DNA test and learns that his former identity: Holly, a girl who was kidnapped from the hospital as a baby. When Holly’s wealthy parents find out, things get even more complex.
- Identity issues
- Who am I?
- Class and LGBTQT issues
- Holly Jackson connection: a cold case investigation
Beware the Abbott Boys by Chelsea Ichaso (2025)
The Summer I Turned Pretty, but make it creepy.
Triplets Henry, Bram, and Adam Abbott were exonerated when teenager Mariana Flores died in a car accident on their property the year before. Still, everyone in town suspects that the Abbotts brothers had something to do with it. Hayden, who is close friends with the brothers, believes in their innocence, but when another teen girl is found dead in the woods near their school Hayden starts investigating.
- Small town secrets
- Class differences
- Love triangle
The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson (2025)
A real true crime case with a YA spin
Check out my Readers Guide to the Reappearance of Rachel Price
When a film crew starts making a documentary about the Disappearance of Rachel Price, her daughter Bel is wary. But then Rachel suddenly turns up, throwing a wrench in everything. Is this person really Rachel? And where was she?
- True crime inspiration (see my post linked above)
- Documentary on a missing persons case
- Loads of family drama
- A Pip and Ravi vibe
Murder Between Friends by Liz Lawson (2025)
Killing Mr. Griffin for the 2020s
I was a big fan of The Agathas series, which was co-written by Liz Lawson, so decided to try this. It definitely has a bit of a Good Girl’s Guide vibe, as a student accused of the murder of a teacher is let out of prison on a legal technicality, which makes everyone rethink the case. Did he really do it?
- A trio of friends torn apart
- Revisiting an old crime
- Murder of a high school teacher
- Friends and frenemies
Difficult Girls by Veronica Bane (2025)
Adventureland with a missing persons case
Check out my review of Difficult Girls
In Difficult Girls, Greta is hiding from an event in her past that she keeps a secret. Shunned at school, she gets a job at a local theme park and is soon intrigued by a) a cold case murder that occurred there twenty years ago and b) the star performer of the park, Mercy Goodwin.
When Mercy disappears, Greta is convinced that the two cases are connected and starts investigating, alongside her sidekick Liam.
- Amusement park setting
- Girl with a past searches for her missing co-worker
- Dark secrets
- National bestseller!
Wander in the Dark by Jumata Emill
The Fugitive but with half-brothers
Check out my Review of Wander in the Dark
After his parent’s divorce, Amir’s dad has moved on with a big house and a new son, Marcel. Amir reluctantly attends Marcel’s birthday party in the hope of seeing Chloe, a classmate who sent him a flirty text. Then Chloe is dead and Amir becomes the only suspect. Unless he finds the real killer, Amir knows he’s headed to prison.
- New Orleans setting
- Black main character accused of the murder of a white classmate
- Stepfamily drama
- Half-brothers must unite to solve the crime
Check out my Series Spoiler Review of the Good Girls Guide series.
I also have two trivia quizzes for the Good Girls Guide series!
For Fans of One of Us is Lying
One of Us is Lying is a locked room mystery with an 80s Breakfast Club inspiration.
Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell
- At a ceremony to honor the main character’s missing sister, a girl is murdered
- Four suspects, each with a history with the missing girl
- Native American author
- FREE on Kindle unlimited
- 4.0 on Goodreads
We Won’t All Survive by Kate Alice Marshall
- The “hero” in a mall shooting is invited on a reality show
- But something is wrong and one by one the contestants are ending up dead
- Locked room mystery!
- 4.4 rating on Goodreads
Kill the Lax Bro by Charlotte Lillie Balogh
- 1990s mystery
- Murder at the school lock-in
- More locked room madness!
- 3.9 rating on Goodreads
Check out my series review of the One of Us Is Lying series with SPOILERS!
