Around the World in 80 Murders: Mexico, Central America, and South America

Sleuth your way around the world, explore novel destinations, and help catch a killer as you go…Around the World in 80 Murders

Mexico and Central America

Grave Secrets  by Kathy Reichs

While investigating an old massacre in a Guatemalan village, a forensic archeologist begins to uncover evidence of a new one. What happened, she wonders, to the four missing girls of Guatemala City and who was the woman on the phone, screaming until her last breath?

Fallen Idols by J. F. Freedman

Walt Gaines is a prominent archaeologist, husband of thirty years, and father of three. But after his wife is murdered near an ancient Mayan ruin, he cuts off nearly all contact with his family. Now Walt's sons decide to perform an excavation of their own.

Down Among the Dead Men by Robert Gregory Browne

Five Catholic nuns were brutally murdered in a grisly house of horrors in the Mexican desert. A freelance journalist looking to revitalize his career knows this will be a terrific subject for a true crime book, but he learns there may have been a sixth victim, an American woman whose body has disappeared, and he has to find her…..

Desert Blood by Alicia Gaspar de Alba

By the summer of 1998, over a hundred mangled bodies have been found dumped in the desert outside of Juarez, Mexico. Most of the dead are poor Latino women, and inhabitants on both sides of the border are terrified. A young woman’s sister is missing and, despite her growing fear, she must try to find her.

Skull Duggery by Aaron Elkins

A forensic anthropologist on vacation in Mexico is asked to help the local police chief by examining the mummified remains of what appears to be a murder victim. One skeleton swiftly leads to a second—and from there smack into a secret someone will apparently kill to protect.

Beneath a Panamanian Moon by David Terrenoire

An ex-spy/piano player takes a job at a fading luxury hotel in Panama City, where ongoing paramilitary training appears to be building to an unknown event planned for New Year's Eve. The previous piano player got eaten by a shark that increasingly appears to have had help.

South America

Bel Canto  by Ann Patchett

Somewhere in South America, a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks into a birthday party for the vice president and takes the entire party hostage. The drawn-out hostage situation comes to seem normal until the inevitable rescue attempt occurs, with astonishing consequences.

Buried Strangers by Leighton Gage

In the Brazilian rain forest, a sheepdog discovers a human bone. This discovery leads to a secret cemetery in a park near Brasilia that contains more than three dozen corpses, including those of 24 children who have been buried in family groups.

Resurrecting Midnight by Eric Jerome Dickey

An assassin-for-hire’s latest assignment takes him to Argentina to obtain and secure a package, a package that many will kill for and that many will die for. This package is now in the possession of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a team of ruthless mercenaries led by an assassin simply known as The Beast.

Innocence by David Hosp

Operating solo in the legal world after leaving a prestigious firm, Boston lawyer Scott Finn accepts a dangerous assignment involving an attack on a policewoman and an El Salvadoran immigrant with ties to one of South America's most notorious gangs.

The Hunters by W.E.B. Griffin

Acting on orders from the president, the presidential agents team travels to Uruguay to find out who ordered the murder of an American diplomat involved in an oil-for-food scandal. Who is responsible? Most likely, the people higher up in the money chain, those willing to risk anything to keep their secrets from being revealed.