I have always liked a good mystery.  I am now wanting to branch out into science fiction.  I got some great suggests of books to start with and have a couple of those coming to me now.  What I was wondering is if anyone knows of a sci fi mystery type of books....do they even exist???

Then there are The Disappeared series by Kristine Katherine Rusch - these are sf/police procedural murders. And very good.

The Disappeared, Extremes, Consequences, Buried Deep and Paloma.

Thank you for your help....I am headed to Borders later today to pick up a book I ordered for my grandson and will check out these titles while I am there.

Ivy

I was able to find The Disappeared so will start on that one and try to find the others when I am finished. 

Ivy

A most excellent set of SF mysteries are by Jack McDevitt: A Talent for War, Polaris and Seeker.  These are "mysteries" of future history -- the disappearance of a beloved military leader and his ship, a lost space ship, and a lost space colony.  Very well written and easy to read page turners, with the right amount of tension and satisfying endings.  I recomend reading them in order, with A Talent for War as the first in a series.

Zylyn

SF detective stories are actually one of my favorite sub genres.  Try these:

Kiln People by David Brin (brilliant premise that you can make copies of yourself that last a short while to do your tasks for you)

The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton by Larry Niven (about an interplanetary cop who deals with organ-legging and other crimes of the future)

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.  There are now others in his series about Takeshi Kovacs, future detective.  Basically he is stored on a chip and goes through a  lot of bodies in his dangerous profession.

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester (classic SF about a guy who commits a murder among telepaths and how he tries to get away with it).

  And of course the others mentioned already.  These were my favorites.

A new one: Majestrum, by Matthew Hughes. They are set in a world related to Jack Vance's The Dying Earth (which is SF but feels like fantasy). He's been publishing short stories set in this universe in Analog for a couple of years and then just published this book.

And if you're up for fantasy mystery as such, Glen Cook's Garrett Files.

Denny DeMartino has a two book series out.  The first book is Heart of Stone.  The second book is  Wayward Moon.   The protagonist is a "forensic astrologer.

This author also writes under her real name "Denise Vitola."

Deep Storm is a REALLY good, new book. I gave it to my sister to read who will probably pass it on to my mom whenever she gets done with it but after that i will post it on here. Here's the synopsis i got from another website:

"12,000 feet under the North Atlantic Ocean rests the technological marvel “Deep Storm.” This stunningly advanced science research facility is designed for one purpose: to excavate a recently discovered undersea site full of unimaginable and unexplained power, buried beneath the earth’s crust, that could come from the legendary, ancient civilization.

But a strange illness is affecting Deep Storm’s crewmembers. It seems to be turning some of them psychotic—and homicidal. It’s up to Dr. Stephen Crane to discover what’s causing the insanity, but what he finds is that Deep Storm’s discovery may change the world…or end it."

0451455924 "Sci-Fi Private Eye" anthology of short stories.

I concur with Asimov's Robot series.  They read just like a detective story set in a sci-fi world to me.

I've got a Star Trek who-dunnit on my bookshelf - The Case of the Colonist's Corpse.  It was actually kind of a fun read - the main character was the lawyer who represented Captain Kirk during a murder trial in one of the original series' episodes.  I don't know if they ever turned this one book into an ongoing series, though.

I'll second the "in Death" recommendation. They are very good police procedurals.

You might also try John Stith. I particularly like Red Shift Rendezvous which is a murder mystery set in a ship that travels near the speed of light by shifting into a dimension where the speed of light is much slower than in our dimension. The dimensional effects complicate the mystery without any deus ex machina because the physics are so well thought out.

I just finished Down these Dark Spaceways, a collection of sf mysteries edited by Mike Resnik.  It included stories by Catherine Asaro and Jack McDevitt.  I recommend it.

If you don't mind my recommending something that's on my own bookshelf, you might have a look at "A Philosophical Investigation", by Philip Kerr.  It's pretty dense - not an easy read - but I found it fascinating and thrilling.  If you're interested, ask me for a deal.

I'll second the recommendations of some of the Vorkosigan books and the Asimov books. (Actually, all of the Vorkosigan books, but only some are mysteries; most are straight-up space opera, one is a "comedy of biology and manners.")

Sharon Shinn's Wrapt in Crystal is a sci-fi mystery novel with a heavy dose of romance and philosophy. By far my favorite from this author.

And Elizabeth Bear's serie of short stories titled New Amsterdam is sort of alternate history mysteries. . . turn of the century America with vampires and other creatures. (The lead detective is, in fact, a vampire.)