Let Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Detectives Choose Your Next Mystery Read

Jake Peralta

Jake Peralta’s love of action movies, matched with his bravado and enthusiasm, make the perfect fit for crime-comedies with loose cannons at the helm. And what better example of that style than Carl Hiaasen’s acclaimed Bad Monkey? The novel follows Andrew Yancy, a Key West restaurant inspector and former offer with the Miami P.D., who is presented with a severed arm that was fished out of the Keys by a vacationing couple. Yancy gathers a colorful cast of characters, including a fugitive, his ex, and his new true love to help him figure out where that disembodied arm came from, which only leads to more murder and chaos. Filled with satire, action, and a noir-esque setting in the Sunshine State, you can bet you’d find this book in Jake’s library (well, if he had one).

Amy Santiago

Amy is a genius and proves it at every turn, whether it be by outsmarting the rest of the precinct in the Halloween heist, attending math conferences, or acing her sergeant’s exam. So surely the best book to complement this brainy cop is a mystery involving complex math puzzles. The Last Equation of Isaac Severy follows Hazel, who has received a letter from her adoptive grandfather and mathematician after his death, asking her to get his final work to a trusted colleague. She soon finds that a shady organization is trying to take Isaac’s work, and she must team up with the other brilliant but strange members of his family to make sure the equation doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Full of twisting clues, shifty characters, the pursuit of knowledge, and a dying wish, this book will keep you wracking your brain right up ’til the very end…unless you attended “Funky Cats and Their Feisty Stats” with Amy, that is.

Rosa Diaz

Rosa is a stone-cold badass, and one of the most capable detectives in the Nine-Nine, even if she’s not the friendliest. If you’re looking for more rough-and-tumble kick-ass women solving mysteries, look no further than Find You in the Dark. Detective Sandra Whittal, a rising star in her local police department, is deeply suspicious of the Finder, a mysterious source who keeps leading the police directly to murder victims. The Finder himself, Martin Reese, claims he's merely an amateur sleuth whose research (which includes police files he purchases on the black market) has turned up the exact location of the bodies. But there are twists and turns that Whittal can’t see yet, including a serial killer who isn’t who she suspects. In this dark tale of weird hobbies and moral gray areas, author Nathan Ripley creates several unforgettable characters, especially Whittal, a detective Rosa would likely really respect.

Terry Jeffords

There are a few things to know about Terry: he’s competitive, loves his family, inhales yogurt, and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, lives for a fantasy series called the Skyfire Cycle. So the perfect pick for a Terry fan is The Spirit Lens. This fantasy mystery follows Portier de Savin-Duplais, a failed sorcerer, who is tasked by the king of Sabria to investigate an attempted murder. Portier, along with an inane nobleman, uncovers dark secrets, conspiracies, and unholy magic that will change the kingdom forever. The first of a trilogy, The Spirit Lens brings readers into a grand and sweeping world of magic versus reason and explores themes of loyalty and family, as well as nature versus man and tradition versus progress. This is just the kind of all-consuming fantasy series that Terry would love, with a dash of intrigue thrown in for good measure.

Charles Boyle

Charles is, admittedly, a little peculiar. A foodie with a big heart but a penchant for saying the most awkward thing with the upmost confidence, he’s the kind of cozy-mystery personality that would thrive in an Agatha Christie novel. In fact, he reminds me a little of Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian detective. And there’s no better book for those in need of more Boyle-like eccentricities than Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the first book in the Poirot series.  Following the murder of Emily Inglethorp at Styles Court by poisoning, Captain Hastings knows just the man to help solve the case. Although Poirot’s investigation reveals dark secrets and hidden motives, it also displays a fair amount of strange behavior from the enigmatic detective. Great if you’re looking to get into a new series, or just seeking another odd little man who doesn’t always say the right thing.

Raymond Holt

Raymond Holt is nothing if not intellectual and witty, even if his humor often goes over the heads of his colleagues. You can bet that Douglas Adams’s brand of thoughtful and dry comedy would appeal to the former captain and current patrolman. Trying to describe the plot of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency would do a disservice to this uniquely structured book, but long story short, it is about several seemingly unrelated plots that are tied together by eponymous Dirk Gently, who strives to understand the interconnectedness of all things. A strange, whimsical, and compelling journey into the peculiar, it’s definitely a thinking-person’s mystery, which is probably why Raymond would have structured debates about it with his husband, Kevin (with proper citations, of course).