Spooks in the Stacks

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Unlike many adults (unfortunately), I find great delight in welcoming, on my doorstep, children dressed up as ghouls, vampires, mottled zombies, and—occasionally—milk maids, and sending them away into the gloaming with additional handfuls of candy. Yet I’m having difficulty acknowledging the imminence of All Hallows’ Eve this year, perhaps because I have so much to finish before October 31.

Maybe what I need is a good book to put me in the right mood.

Last year, I dove into a re-released edition of Edith Wharton’s ghost stories. This time around, I’m mulling over some of the reading suggestions made in three recent articles: Abby Endler’s recommendations of 13 spooky yarns, from Crime By the Book; British blogger Rekha Rao’s half-dozen suggestions of suspenseful mysteries in The Book Decoder; and, in CrimeReads, author Raquel V. Reyes’ alternative list of “cozy mysteries with lush autumnal settings and Halloween themes (without the terrifying stuff).”

For still more choices, look through Janet Rudolph’s extensive index of Halloween crime and mystery novels. She hasn’t yet updated her list for 2022, but here’s what she had on offer last year.

There should be options here for every taste. Mine included.