A deep investigation into the lives of two women: a mistress and her maid. Maju is one of scores of the “white army,” maids and nannies in São Paulo; she cares for young Cora, whose parents pay the child little attention. Fernanda, Cora’s mother and a successful TV executive, is uniquely self-involved; even when Maju and Cora disappear one day, Fernanda can’t stop obsessing over an affair she’s having long enough to focus on her own daughter’s abduction. Dad, meanwhile, has pretty much checked out. But once Fernanda does realize her daughter is gone, her whole world begins to cave in. Maju and Cora, meanwhile, have boarded a bus for a multi-day trip that Maju barely plans—they have limited food and money—and that begins to unravel after the first day. Each woman is confronted by a harrowing series of events that forces them to confront maternal guilt, poverty, and society’s expectations.
Review
Appreciate dark psychological thrillers packed with twists and turns? Then this book is for you. Clarissa Virtanen, a renowned but troubled therapist, who remains guilt-ridden over the death of a young patient, takes on Ida, another young client. Ida is one disturbing young woman: angry, damaged, messed up, full of suicidal ideations. But Clarissa believes she can help Ida, providing that Ida agrees to refrain from self-harm for six months—enough time for Clarissa to unlock her past, learn her secrets, and save her. But what Ida has in store are murderous secrets that she’s been harboring for years, and that may well be Clarissa’s undoing.
Locals call small-town Juliana, Georgia, “Gentle Juliana.” New York chef Bille Hope calls it her family’s best chance at a new start after the pandemic finished her restaurant. The offer to move to Juliana is incredibly generous: the ad Billie spots says that the family can buy any vacant home in the town—look at those Victorian mansions!—for just $100 if they open a business there. Billie; her husband, Peter; and their daughter, Mere, are Georgia residents before you know it and even purchase a fabulous house that wasn’t supposed to be available. In no time, Billie’s new restaurant is booming, but so is the family’s fear that they have made a bad mistake. The house has a malevolent feeling and Peter is exhausted and depressed by his never-ending search for a dangerous open well that a strange neighbor tells them is on the land. While Billie begins to fall for the owner of the store next to hers, she also starts to investigate what’s really going on in the town and why she and Mere have the same nightmares about trapped, crying children, a puzzle that readers know a little about from the book’s sinister opening chapter detailing an event in the town’s early years. This has just the right amount of creepiness to add a scary but not terrifying element to the promised gothic tale, and the post-pandemic what-do-I-do-now feeling is spot on. Read this alongside Sylvie Perry’s The Hawthorne School and start looking gift horses in the mouth.
Thirty-two years ago, curmudgeonly, old-school Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond of the Bath CID made his literary debut in the Anthony Boucher Award-winning The Last Detective, exonerating a woman accused of murder. Three decades later, the seasoned cop, much to his dismay, is under pressure to retire. For Diamond, whose identity is tied to his job, “retirement is the waiting room for death.” But his partner, Paloma, convinces him to accept his former colleague Julie Hargreaves’s invitation to visit her in the quaint village of Baskerville. Leaving the mean streets of Georgian Bath for rural Somerset, Diamond soon learns that Julie has an ulterior motive for his visit; unable to proceed further in her inquiries due to a physical disability, she wants her old boss to reexamine (unofficially) the manslaughter conviction of farm owner Claudia Priest for the suffocation death of a man in a grain silo. Julie suspects that the fatal accident was murder and that someone other than Claudia was responsible. Embarking on a busman’s holiday as an undercover detective, Diamond aims to solve his first village mystery, even if it means mucking in real mud (including reluctantly helping a cow give birth). As he tries on different amateur sleuthing hats (bumbling Columbo, nosy Miss Marple), he begins to learn things about himself that reveal there might be a possibility of a good life after retirement. MWA Grand Master Lovesey bids a fond farewell to his protagonist with this bittersweet series finale that mixes a cozy Midsomer Murders setting with colorful characters, surprising twists, and plenty of heart and humor.
It’s hard to imagine, but one of the very best series has gotten even better. While the first three books were set around 2016, and featured Rozie Oshodi, Assistant Private Secretary (APS) to the Queen, here we jump back to 1957. The Queen is a young woman, still new to her role as monarch; the U.K. continues to recover from the Second World War; and a new APS emerges out of the typing pool: Joan McGraw, whose wartime work included decoding. This case is centered around a notorious murder: a young woman, a high-class escort, is found dead in a house in Chelsea that belongs to an elite men’s club. She is wearing only silk underwear and a diamond tiara. Nearby lies the body of an older man, garrotted. The double-murder grips Londoners, including the Queen, who has her own reasons for fearing that someone close to her could be implicated. Elizabeth doesn’t trust the old courtiers who surround her and turns to Joan for help in solving the case of the “tart in the tiara.” Besides a bang-up plot, this novel reaches brilliantly into Elizabeth’s life, from real-life state visits to Paris and North America, trying to bolster the U.K.’s relationships, to her tumultuous relationship with Philip, to her fear of a scandal that could take down the monarchy. This is deep, rich writing that should attract the millions who enjoyed The Crown, and want yet more.
Kate Myles has a lot going on. The former LAPD cop, her career ruined by a pain-pill addiction brought on by a car crash, has lost her marriage and custody of her beloved daughter, Amelia. She’s now working as a private detective, rolling her eyes at old-time movie assumptions. It’s far from glamorous, and she’s far from ready for more drama in her life. But no matter: while living at her mom’s, she discovers paperwork that leads her on a quest to find biological relatives, a plot line that includes an intriguing aspect of the use of DNA in crime cases, and that also leads her to Idlewood, a town with a sad history. Hired to clear the name of a drug addict who’s accused of killing his sister in an arson attack, she also investigates a local cold case, of a young woman who was killed years before. How all these things are related is the story of every small town, with Kenna perfectly portraying the intertwined regrets, missed opportunities, and love that make each place unique. Better again is her portrayal of Myles, a gutsy, lovable character who pushes herself to the brink and more for those she loves. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Settle in for a truly wonderful read as Geneva Bay, Wisconsin prepares for the holidays. For pizza chef Delilah
O’Leary, and her crew, a glitzy Chrismukkah catering gig in one of the local mansions gets things started, but when Delilah’s family shows up out of the blue with their own set of hostilities and anxiety-producing behavior in tow, things take a decidedly unpleasant turn. And any hopes that the next day’s annual snow-sculpting championship will cheer everyone up—Delilah attends with now-boyfriend Detective Calvin Capone (yes, that Capone family)—are dashed when a corpse is found frozen in the ice. Quigley employs a large cast of characters, from the formerly incarcerated and now dishwasher “Rabbit” (where did he disappear to?) to Sonya, Delilah’s bestie who helps Delilah sort out her relationship with Capone, to Delilah’s grumpy sister Shea, who most definitely has something up her sleeve. The miracle is that we can follow each character with ease, their identities are so well drawn, while caring about each of them. Add to this a bucketful of red herrings sure to send readers in a dozen different directions. Fire up the pizza, cue Mariah Carey, and make sure the cat is comfortable: cozies just don’t get better than this.
The love surrounding a beloved neighborhood institution shines through in Swanson’s latest, in which a 1979 Denver record-store owning mom is shot dead in a robbery, her forlorn young daughter, Suzanne, left behind. But Suzanne’s hapless dad has the perfect solution. It’s all figured out! His old girlfriend, Peggy, is moving in. Peggy seems much too eager for this arrangement. She’s also far more motherly toward Suzanne’s devastated little brother, Chris, than Suzanne would like, while nasty toward Suzanne herself. But Suzanne’s mom used to call her daughter “my little seer,” and indeed, after some time, she gets visits from her mom, hearing again her “warm, round voice–like the sun speaking.” When we fast forward in alternating chapters to 2004, adult Suzanne is moving back to Denver from California with her husband, disgruntled teenage daughter, and nine-year-old son. Trying to settle in, she opens a new business in her mom’s old shop, but sinister things start cropping up–a girl is missing in town, and elements of the case are strangely familiar. Then there’s the rat left on the family’s doorstep. What it all means leads this protagonist on a frightening and gripping path to the truth about what happened in 1979, a tale that is enriched with details on the music of the time and the feeling of enduring love. For fans of T. Jefferson Parker’s A Thousand Steps, which is steeped in the same emotions, and all who love a solid mystery
The best-selling French author of psychological suspense makes her U.S. debut with an intense and heartbreaking homage to an American literary classic, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. For 16-year-old Léonard, who suffered brain damage as an infant, there is no place in the village of Granviller to escape the school bullies who torment him daily. The only people kind to the powerfully built but mentally challenged teen are his adoptive mother, Mona, who discovered the abused toddler in a ditch; his best friend, 13-year-old Victoria, the daughter of Mona’s boss; and furniture restorer Sacha. Léonard finds consolation in nature (“no animal or tree has ever made fun of him for being different”) and dreams of joining his older brother in beautiful Glen Affric in the Scottish Highlands. But Jorge has not been in Scotland, as Mona had told her son; for the past 16 years, his brother has been in prison, convicted of the brutal rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, a crime he claims he didn’t commit. After Jorge is paroled, the siblings finally meet for the first time, but Jorge’s attempt to rebuild his life is hobbled by a hostile community. As the brothers endure mounting cruelties and injustices, their tentative relationship blossoms into a tender and abiding love. When both are accused of another murder, readers will cheer on Jorge and Léonard’s flight to Glen Affric. Will they make it? Giebel has written a haunting, dark, and tough read that in its emotional brutality may remind some readers of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life.
Traci Beller is a popular influencer with millions of followers inspired by watching her bake. It’s been ten years since her father, Tommy, never returned home, with the local police attributing it to him abandoning his family. Now, Traci wants answers. She reaches out to the best detective to learn the truth, Elvis Cole. Elvis has his work cut out for him trying to track down someone missing for a decade, but he’s willing to give it a shot, though he’s doubtful he will uncover anything more than what the police could find. But the detective stumbles upon a mystery involving the last person who saw Tommy alive and refuses to talk about it. He starts seeing the same dark-colored vehicle following him and soon learns that people don’t want him to discover the truth and are willing to kill anyone to keep everything secret. This case started as a simple missing person case for Elvis, but becomes the one that could be his last. Crais masters compelling crime fiction by blending humor, terrific main characters, and suspense into a phenomenal package. Empty might be in the title, but this story is far from it.