September 15 – October 15 is National Latinx Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the cultural contributions made by Americans whose ancestors came from Mexico, the Spanish-speaking countries of the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Looking for a list of Mysteries and Thrillers by Latinx and Hispanic Authors? Look no further! This article was updated in May 2025!
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Mysteries and Thrillers by Latinx and Hispanic Authors
You can read more about the fifty-year history of National Hispanic Heritage Month and its transformation into National Latinx Heritage Month. (Edited in 2025: Okay, according to Teen Vogue, some people now prefer Latine, and some prefer Latino/Latina. And some are fine with Latinx.)
If you have suggestions for my list, please let me know in comments!
Paranormal Suspense Written by Latinx Authors
House in the Pines by Ana Reyes (2023)
This Reese’s Book Club pick for January 2023 is a trippy, confusing story of a girl whose best friend dropped dead when they were teens.
Now a young adult and trying to kick a prescription drug addiction, Maya delves back into the case.
Check out my Review of The House in the Pines AND my popular Spoiler Discussion for House in the Pines!
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas (2022)
This debut Gothic supernatural suspense novel set immediately after the Mexican War of Independence follows Beatriz, whose father was executed during the overthrow of the Mexican government. When Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise.
But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined. Far from a refuge, San Isidro may be Beatriz’s doom.
In 2023, Isabel Cañas published Vampires of El Norte, a historical vampire thriller about Nena, a woman who was attacked by vampires and left for dead, and Néstor, the man who loves her, but doesn’t’ realize she is alive.
When the United States invades Mexico in the 1840s, the two are brought back together : Nena as a curandera, a healer worried that her father will marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020)
In glamorous 1950’s Mexico, a woman heads to an isolated mansion to save her cousin, who married into a family of chillingly charismatic aristocrats. After receiving a strange, desperate letter, Noemí heads to High Place, a house in the Mexican countryside. Her only ally seems to be the family’s youngest son. and as Noemí digs into the family’s past, she unearths stories of violence and madness.
In 2023, Moreno-Garcia published Silver Nitrate, about Montserrat, a 90s-era movie sound editor in Mexico City and her best friend, Tristán, a washed-up soap opera star, whom she’s been in love with since childhood.
Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is a cult horror director Abel Urueta, wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot a missing scene and lift the curse on his film.
As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.
A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising by Raymond A. Villareal (2018)
Part mystery, part social-political satire: what happens when a new virus turns people into something a bit more than human? First, the body of a young woman disappears from an Arizona border town morgue. Then, more bodies, dead from an inexplicable disease, are found, only to also vanish. It’s an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep first the United States, and then the world.
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova (2021)
The Montoya family are gathered by Orquídea Divina. She invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. But Orquídea is transformed into a ceiba tree, leaving the family with more questions than answers.
Seven years later, Orquídea’s gifts have manifested in different ways. But someone begins to tear through the family tree, picking the Montoyas off one by one as it seeks to destroy Orquídea’s line. Determined to save what’s left of their family and uncover the truth, her descendants travel to Ecuador—to the place where Orquídea buried her secrets and broken promises and never looked back.
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
Buried in debt due to the illness of his young daughter, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to a final high-risk job that will either leave him with $200,000 or dead. As he and two companions travel across the Mexican border and back, their hidden motivations are revealed alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. Even if Mario makes it out alive, he will never be the same.
Historical Mysteries by Latinx Authors
Also see The Hacienda, Mexican Gothic, and Silver Nitrate above, which are historical paranormals.
The Paris Enigma by Pablo Santis (2009)
This gripping tale of murder and the art of crime solving is written in a strikingly original voice, poignantly evoking a world about to lose its innocence forever. Two detectives who find themselves in a race against time around glorious fin de siècle Paris, encountering all manner of secret societies and solving philosophical puzzles, while also trying to save a dangerously beautiful woman.
The Mystery of Rio by Alberto Mussa (2013)
In 1913 Rio de Janeiro, The Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic is found murdered at a place known as the House of Swaps, a sophisticated brothel where secret liaisons are orchestrated and monitored. Under the guise of a medical clinic, the brothel is run by a scientist obsessed with the study of female sexual fantasies. During the criminal investigation, a forensic expert who frequents the House comes face-to-face with a rogue from Cais do Porto who is possibly involved in the murder. The two begin a competition to decide who is the greatest seducer.
Secret Identity by Alex Segura (2022)
It’s 1975 and Carmen is an assistant at Triumph Comics. She’s thrilled when one of the writers enlists her help to create Triumph’s first female hero. But her colleague asks to keep her involvement a secret. Then then he’s found dead, with their scripts turned into the publisher without her name. A tenacious cop starts piecing everything together and the tangled web of secrets and resentments among the passionate eccentrics who write comics for a living.
Needle in a Haystack by Ernesto Mallo (2010)
Lascano is a detective working under military rule in Buenos Aires in the late 1970s. Sent to investigate a double murder, he arrives at the crime scene to find three bodies. Two are clearly the work of the Junta’s death squads, murders he is forced to ignore; the other one seems different.
The trail leads Lascano through a country poisoned to its core by the tyranny of the regime. The third corpse turns out to be that of an Auschwitz survivor. When Lascano digs too deep, he must confront Giribaldi, an army major, quick to help old friends but ruthless in dealing with dissenters such as Eva, the young militant with whom Lascano is falling in love.
Detective and Police Procedural Stories by Latinx Authors
The Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado
Antonia Scott is a certified genius who quit her top secret job after a terrible tragedy. Bilbao Police Inspector Jon Gutiérrez lost his job after a well-intentioned bending of the rules went terribly wrong. Jos is offered the chance to work again, if he can convince Antonia to join him.
Together, they investigate two baffling kidnappings. They are working parallel to the police, trying to balance Antonia’s intense focus with Jon’s more freewheeling style.
Check out my review of the book here!
The Cipher by Isabella Maldonado
FBI Special Agent Nina Guerrera escaped a serial killer’s trap at sixteen. Years later, a video of her attack goes viral and the man who abducted her is watching. He commits a grisly murder designed to pull her into the investigation…but his games are just beginning. And he’s using the internet to invite the public to play along.
Ripper by Isabel Allende (2014)
Mother and daughter Indiana and Amanda are different as night and day. Indiana is a free-spirited holistic healer, while Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature, like her police officer father. Addicted to crime novels and Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world, Amanda starts investigating a string of murders. But the case becomes all too personal when Indiana suddenly vanishes.
Zia Summer by Rudolfo Anaya
Sonny Baca, a 30-year-old fledgling PI, investigates the murder of his cousin Gloria. Sonny believes Gloria’s spirit calls to him for vengeance and pursues the case throughout New Mexico’s South Valley, from the cocktail-party circuit of the arts community and the company of monied business developers to an assemblage of witches in an environmentalist commune in the mountains.
A Spy in the Struggle by Aya de León (2020)
When Yolanda’s prestigious law firm is raided by the FBI, Yolanda turns in her corrupt bosses and goes to work for the Bureau. She’s sent back to her California college town to go undercover in an “extremist” activist group. An unexpected romance opens her heart and a suspicious death opens her eyes. Dark money forces will do anything to bury Yolanda and the movement.
The Little Death (Henry Rios series) Michael Nava
Burnt-out public defender Henry Rios meets Hugh Paris when Paris is arrested for drug possession and being high on PCP. Paris is mysteriously bailed out, but a few weeks later, turns up on Rios’s doorstep. Skittish and paranoid, he says he’s afraid that his wealthy grandfather wants to murder him. Rios tries to help Paris get clean, but when Paris is found dead of an apparent heroin overdose, Rios is the only one who considers foul play.
Precinct Puerto Rico by Steven Torres (2002)
In his time as the sheriff of a small town in Puerto Rico, Luis Gonzalo has seen his share of violence. During a visit to his wife’s family in the seaside town of Rincón, a midnight call brings Gonzalo to a beach where bodies are washing ashore, victims of human trafficking from the Dominican Republic. Soon Gonzalo is enmeshed in a mystery no other law enforcement agency wants to help him solve.
Bitter Sugar (Lupe Solano series) by Carolina Garcia-Aguilera (2001)
Ramón Suarez was the owner of a prosperous sugar mill back in Cuba until Castro forced him into exile. Now an unnamed Spanish source wants to purchase the confiscated property at a fraction of its true value. Suarez asks hot-tempered South Florida P.I. Lupe Solana to find out why. Lupe’s routine journey down a paper trail now turns into something darker and more twisted, entangling her in a mysterious web of spun sugar and blood that will bring death to her door.
Cozy Mysteries by Latinx Authors
Mango, Mambo and Murder by Raquel V. Reyes
Food anthropologist Miriam Quinones-Smith moves from New York to Miami and is offered a job as an on-air cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV show. But when Miriam attends a Women’s Club luncheon, a socialite sitting at her table suddenly falls face-first into the chicken salad.
Suspicions coalesce around a controversial Cuban herbalist, but then fingers point at Miriam’s close friend Alma. Miriam uses her understanding of Coral Shores’s Caribbean culture to help find the killer and clear Alma’s name.
I hope you have more titles to add to my list of Mysteries and Thrillers by Latinx and Hispanic Authors. Tell me in comments!
Thanks for the recs !