Octavia Spencer's 6 favorite books
The Academy Award winner has launched a series of young-adult novels starring an amateur ninja detective
![Octavia Spencer](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/dFqUAdfAgtUxjyhRtuW4Hm-415-80.jpg)
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol (Puffin, $5). My love of mystery began at the ripe old age of 8 with the Encyclopedia Brown series. I highly recommend it to parents who want to experience a touch of nostalgia or to help their children become better at deductive thinking.
Mind Hunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker (Pocket Books, $9). As a budding mystery writer, I realized that I had to understand the criminal mind. This book, co-written by the man who developed the FBI's profiling system, gave me the insights I needed. I consider his system one of the greatest innovations in criminal investigation since latent fingerprint analysis.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Bantam, $14). Two words: pure pleasure. For crime-fiction aficionados like me, having the Sherlock Holmes canon on hand is a must. All four novels and 56 stories are here, including my favorites: the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles and the short story "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Dead Time by Eleanor Taylor Bland (out of print). A bit of detective work might be required to secure all the books in Eleanor Taylor Bland's Marti MacAlister series. But consider it a treasure hunt. Bland immediately hooks you into the professional life of a recently widowed detective who is bound by her familial obligations.
Point of Origin by Patricia Cornwell (Berkley, $10). What's better than a tenacious, hard-boiled lady detective who has nothing to lose? A tenacious, hard-boiled, forensic pathologist with everything at stake! Kay Scarpetta is one of my all-time favorite characters. I first met her in these heartrending, thrill-a-minute pages.
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson (Grand Central, $8). To this crime-fiction lover, there is nothing more fun than reading an Alex Cross thriller and rooting for its protagonist, a black psychologist turned detective turned FBI agent. I've always felt a strong connection to Cross, a widower with three young children who are looked after by his grandmother, Nana Mama. Patterson had me from the start.
— Octavia Spencer's The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit is the Academy Award winner's first book and launches a planned series of young-adult novels starring an amateur ninja detective.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
The manosphere: the shady online network of masculinists
The Explainer A new police report said a rise in radicalised young men is contributing to an increase in violence against women and girls
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Published
-
How can we fix tourism?
Today's Big Question Local protests over negative impact of ever-rising visitor numbers could change how we travel forever
By The Week UK Published
-
Simone Biles: Rising – an 'elegantly paced and vulnerable' portrait of the gymnast
The Week Recommends Netflix's four-part documentary is more than a 'riveting comeback story'
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published