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Review

The Shadow Step

by Willy Williams

Book of the Week February 19, 2026

In ballroom dancing, a shadow step involves a pair of dancers facing the same direction, one of them standing behind and slightly to the left. In Blackpool, detective (and ballroom aficionado) Declan Miller’s third outing (after The Last Dance and The Wrong Hands), Afghan-war veteran Barry Cheshire and his wobbly dachshund, Ruby,  find themselves in this position when they are menaced in a local park by a teenaged drug dealer and his two very large XL Bully dogs. Cheshire accidentally pushes the knife-wielding lad into the lake, unwittingly setting off a chain of escalating disastrous events that include murder and kidnapping. While Miller works to connect the dots between the crimes, he continues to mourn his late wife (he frequently chats with her ghost), parent as best he can his drug-addicted stepdaughter, attend his weekly dance classes, and torment his police colleagues with his cheeky and sometimes tactless humor. This series is lighter in tone (although there’s still some grim violence) than Billingham’s DI Tom Thorne mysteries, and there is enough backstory to inform newcomers. Quirky humor, strongly developed characters, and plenty of exciting twists make this a refreshing read for fans of British crime fiction.—Willy Williams

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Review

Look What You Made Me Do

by Henrietta Thornton

Couples facing upheaval, from romantic to criminal, are under the microscope in Whitbread award-winning Lanchester’s unusual thriller. The book opens at Oxford University in the 1980s, where we meet a young woman, Kate, who’s obsessed with another student after seeing him just once. With internet sleuthing not yet possible, we get a refresher on how stalking happened before social media as well as a reminder that people were no less devious back then. In the current day, TV-writer Phoebe is finding her first success; her show Cheating is suddenly what everyone’s talking about. At the same time, Kate’s just lost her husband and finds that her relationship with him is almost perfectly depicted in the show, with unique language they shared used by the show’s cheating partners, far past the point of coincidence. Kate is devastated, with Lanchester’s writing of the character’s grief and shock a realistic visit to the fog of loss. Twists come into play to bring the stories together and the ending, which takes the “dish best served cold” to incredible extremes, is both satisfying and strikingly strange.—Henrietta Thornton

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Review

Whidbey

by Dodie Ownes

In her fiction debut, Madden gifts readers with a complex psychological story that explores the lasting effects of violence and who controls the narrative of trauma. The novel unfolds from the alternating perspectives of three women whose lives are linked by one man, Calvin, who has just been murdered. They are Birdie Chang, a woman who was sexually abused by Calvin and is now on the run from him; Linzie King, another victim of Calvin’s, a former reality-TV star who has published a bestselling memoir about her experience; and Mary-Beth, Calvin’s devoted mother, who fiercely defended him throughout his legal troubles and struggles to reconcile the son she loves with the person capable of such actions. Moving across their voices and time, from Whidbey Island’s lush cool green to a sticky, tacky North Pole gas station in Florida, each woman examines what part she played in Calvin’s actions. A cast of secondary characters fills in the blanks. There’s Syl, Mary-Beth’s sister, who wonders why she ever allowed Cal into her home, which put her twin daughters in danger. And Rich, who meets Birdie on the ferry to Whidbey and offers to “take care of” Calvin for her, as well as Trace, Birdie’s girlfriend, who travels to Florida to do that herself. Madden masterfully captures the haze of lost and found memories, the urges to take revenge, and the regrets of those who knew, but did nothing.—Dodie Ownes

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Review

Time Travel for Beginners

by Jeff Ayers

When single-mom Anna gets hit by a car, she makes a life change and accepts a job working for an agency that claims that customers can time travel. Traveling to the past to fix a mistake or witness history seems irresistible, but online reviews of the experience are predominantly accusatory or complain about the high cost. Anna witnesses strange things on the job, including a door she’s not allowed to enter and a recurring visitor who either screams or cries after their trip through time. Then she learns about a mysterious death. Is the company a scam? What is the truth behind what Anna’s supposed to be selling? The reader follows Anna as she tries to uncover the truth along with Teddy, a man whose recent marriage imploded after his wife ran off with his brother; and Jade, who believes the Time Travel Agency is the root cause of her trauma. With compelling characters, a baffling mystery, and an ending that even savvy readers will not see coming, Moriarty’s latest is a winner that explores fate and how we are all connected.—Jeff Ayers

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Review

The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

by Brian Kenney

A delightful take on espionage fiction, laced liberally with wit, mystery, romance, and a bit of Muriel Spark. It’s 1951, and England is busy putting itself back together, from physical infrastructure to its notorious class system. The setting is Oxford, where we are introduced to two students who couldn’t be more unalike: Honorable Ginevra Bishop (destined to wear red lipstick and earn top marks) and Sidney Braithwaite (from a mining family and now a war veteran who wants a successful career). The two are brilliant at ignoring each other, but M15 has its ways, and soon enough Gin and Sidney are working together to track down a poison victim and seek out a Soviet spy. Who could be next? While there is plenty of antipathy between the two, there’s also quite a bit of romantic tension, which rears itself from times to time. For fans of historical cozies and fun-yet-frightening spy capers.—Brian Kenney

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Review

Scorched Line

by Danise Hoover

It can be nearly impossible and certainly annoying to jump into a well-established series, a category that fits this title exactly, however, Baker is skilled at telling her story with sufficient detail to bring a new reader into the picture without bogging down the rest of the novel. Kate is faced with multiple family issues. She’s one of nine siblings and there are always issues, but these seem more intense than most. Their mother, someone with a nefarious past, disappeared three years ago, and strange clues seem to indicate her return. The FBI agent with a personal stake in capturing the fugitive is back in town; items of Kate’s clothes disappear from her house; and feathers, the mother’s signature, show up in odd places. Some of Kate’s siblings are willing to do anything to help their mother, others want her to turn herself in to the authorities. The landscape and cultural quirks of the Nebraska sand hills play an important part in the story, as do the family’s strong personalities, all of which contribute to the tumultuous ending. A really solid read.—Danise Hoover

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Review

The Neighbors Are Watching

by Henrietta Thornton

Eastbrook is the Right Kind of Town with the Right Kind of People. The parents are dual-income DC professionals, the kids are off to Georgetown and Princeton, and it’s graduation season, when everything is “just so.” Nobody wants blow-in Finn to keep papering local lampposts with flyers about the nanny who was shot dead in Eastbrook last summer. Ancient history, best forgotten, right? But things start to come further apart at the seams when a local mom, Caren, collapses on the way home from a block party. The next day, she can’t remember where she spent the night and has an injury to the back of her head. That story alternates with that of Tori, who’s new to the town and struggling to adjust. Local teen behaviors make their way in, too, with all combining to give a stealthy look at domestic turmoil and what rich people find important, with their priorities and desperation hit by twists more than once. Thompson’s spot-on language and characterization puts the suburbs under a microscope and will leave readers wanting more.—Henrietta Thornton

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Review

In the Spirit of French Murder

by Brian Kenney

Book of the Week February 5, 2026

The fourth in Cambridge’s series is a deeply compelling work of historical fiction that’s sure to appeal to a broad range of readers. Set in Paris in the years after the Second World War, these books have 30-year-old Tabitha Knight at their center, living with and cooking for her elderly uncles. She also enjoys occasional visits from her good friend, and Cordon Bleu student, Julia Child (who has just a few cameo appearances, but makes up for that by being loads of fun). In this volume, Tabitha is pulled deep into the world of the Resistance fighters, whose work often went unnoticed after the war, although the differences they made in many people’s lives were enormous. Nonetheless, not everyone is ready to celebrate their work, and when one of the Fighters is murdered, followed by another, and Tabitha’s beloved uncles are threatened, it is time for her to step up and investigate. Fortunately, she has the handsome Inspecteur Merveille on her side, and while he may look critically at Tabitha’s crime solving activities, her bravery and smarts incrementally win him over. Might we be getting close to a kiss?—Brian Kenney

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Review

The Ghost City

by Jeff Ayers

A ruthless billionaire discovers a method of creating more durable concrete, courtesy of an ancient manuscript written by Marco Polo, in Pote’s terrific follow-up to Blood and Treasure. This building material will be necessary for the future construction boom if Shan Zhang and his company succeed. An ecological disaster in Vietnam dries up an entire river, and what treasure hunter and adventurer Ethan Cain doesn’t realize is that this event is only the beginning of Zhang’s plans. An ancient city under the Antarctic ice holds the key to a dangerous technology that Zhang sees as the method to reach his goals, and who cares if Antarctica’s ice disappears in the aftermath? Ethan, with the help of his on-and-off journalist girlfriend, Lana, must work together at the bottom of the world to save millions of lives, even if it means they won’t survive. Pote combines the adventure of a Clive Cussler novel, the special-ops missions of a Brad Thor thriller, and the tech focus of a Tom Clancy story to create a fun and engaging tale. The slow build intensifies, making the last half of the book so gripping that readers will get paper cuts from turning the pages so fast.—Jeff Ayers

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Review

Unnamed Bones

by Dodie Ownes

Harrow Lane is 16 years old, and frankly, a mess. It doesn’t help that her mysterious hometown, Seeker’s Rest, seems to morph its landscape at will—a mountain that suddenly appears, a lake that shouldn’t be there, and a new island that shouldn’t have old-growth trees on it. Why doesn’t anyone else find this odd? Don’t they remember when those people disappeared in the lake? Considered an outsider, Harrow is surprised that when she announces she is going to explore the island, her ex-best friend and others want to join the expedition. As readers get to know Harrow, they may recognize that she is experiencing dissociative identity disorder; she has built a motel in her mind that houses Guilt, Fear, Hope, and other feelings. Her mental health struggles intertwine with the horror that waits on the island—trees that attack, water that poisons, a killer fungus—and as the group attempts to escape, their chances of survival dwindle, as do their numbers. Only when Harrow confronts her emotions is she able to see the clear path, but will the monstrous terror this island holds let them go? Themes of grief, isolation, and loneliness, as truly experienced by these trapped teens, will resonate with both young adult and adult readers.—Dodie Ownes

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