Books Like The Inheritance Games

High-school murder mystery with secrets, twists, and ensemble suspects like The Inheritance Games.

Pick this if you liked the high-school/teen dynamics mixed with a mystery and want a similarly twisty YA ensemble where secrets and social pecking orders drive the plot.

Classic puzzle-driven inheritance mystery with eccentric heirs and clever sleuthing.

Pick this if what hooked you was the formal puzzle/boardgame feel of the inheritance mystery — this classic arranges clues and eccentric heirs around a will in the most direct, influential way.

Privileged family secrets, toxic legacies, and sharp twists in a suspenseful YA thriller.

Pick this if you want more contemporary YA about wealthy families with toxic legacies and sharp twists — similar social terrain and suspense, told in a modern YA voice.

Investigative YA mystery with obsessively plotted clues and mounting surprises.

Pick this if you were drawn to methodical clue-chasing and mounting revelations; this title supplies obsessively plotted investigative mechanics in a YA format focused on unearthed truths.

Boarding-school cold case, clever puzzles, and a determined young investigator.

Pick this if you liked the amateur-detective energy and puzzle-solving under pressure; this one relocates the concept to a school setting with its own long-buried cold case.

Clever cons, glamorous settings, and fast-paced capers starring a smart young thief.

Pick this if you enjoyed the clever scheming and morally nimble maneuvers Avery attempts and want a faster-paced caper featuring a brilliant young thief and glamorous heists.

Atmospheric summer, wealthy family, unreliable narration, and a shocking emotional payoff.

Pick this if it was the emotional gut-punch and unreliable-memory element you wanted more of — note: this is a looser fit plot-wise but a strong match on mood and the final emotional reveal.

Forensic-leaning YA thriller with gifted teens solving high-stakes crimes.

Pick this if you want more of Barnes’s style — gifted teens, procedural problem-solving and high-stakes cases — but with a forensic, profiler-driven emphasis rather than inheritance riddles.

Two mismatched teen sleuths dig into a disappearance in a wealthy, secretive town, trading clues and suspicion — the same puzzle-box pleasure as The Inheritance Games, where money, status and a missing truth are tangled together.

Pick this if you enjoyed the puzzle-box pleasure of status, money and a missing truth tangled together; this pair-of-sleuths title offers that same interplay, though from two teen perspectives and a different tonal mix.