Perfectly Nice Neighbors

Book of the Week

It’s the rare writer who can create an intense, well-paced thriller while taking on one of the greatest social issues of our time. And Kia Abdullah is one of those few writers. Salma Khatun, her husband Bil, and their teenage son, Zain, have just arrived at a new development in the London suburb of Blenheim. They’ve left behind the far more diverse and comfortable community of Seven Kings for fear that Zain may be getting in with the wrong crowd. Will it be a fresh start or a crash landing? Here’s the first clue: the next-door neighbor rips Zain’s Black Lives Matter poster out of the front garden, and when Salma puts it in the window, they paint over the window! Things escalate from there, but in a manner that is free of cliché and grows from the characters, who represent a range of opinions and emotions. In a nice aside, Zain and the boy next door, both budding programmers, manage to strike up a friendship that leads to the development of a software for use by those with hearing impairments. But the story doesn’t end there, and where it does lead us is shocking, tragic, and damning. One of the best books I’ve read this year; I can’t wait to discuss this with a book group

The Golden Gate

Death in Splendor

Depression-era San Francisco’s Claremont hotel is a wonderful playground for sisters Isabella and Iris Bainbridge Stafford, six and eight years old, respectively, who roam through it while their wealthy mother plays tennis. The luxurious hotel has a seven-story-long spiral slide that guests can use as a fire escape, one that Iris might think she’s entering to play when she fatally plunges down a laundry chute. Years later, tragedy visits the hotel again—many say it’s been cursed all along—when Presidential candidate Walter Wilkinson is found murdered in his room (murdered twice, in fact—the book explains all). Police officer Alejo Gutiérrez, passing as Al Sullivan, is the slightly jaded, but still caring, investigator who must sift through the jumble of rumors, racism against Asian hotel workers and city residents, and secretive behavior by rich characters who think the law doesn’t apply to them in his efforts to discover who killed the politician. This saga—the story has as many twisting corridors as the hotel–allows Chua to dig deep into the privileges and invisible barriers at work in any haves-and-have-nots meeting, with memorable results. Pair this with the information on the treatment of San Francisco’s Chinese citizens in David Quammen’s excellent Spillover for a sobering and enlightening view of that community’s history.

The Gulf

The Lonely Hunter

Southern Gothic meets crime fiction in this beautiful, haunting tale set in the 1970s. Parson, Texas is a place to leave, not stay. But twenty-nine-year-old Lou keeps finding reasons to hang on, despite that Hurricane Celia destroyed much of the town; the Vietnam War is still consuming many of Parson’s youth, including Lou’s brother; and any work is scarce. But Lou keeps thinking about Miss Kate, her surrogate mother of sorts, whose murder Lou can’t shrug off, even if the rest of the town can. The situation grows more complicated when Joanna, Miss Kate’s daughter and Lou’s first, great love, arrives on the scene. Joanna made her escape years ago—off to a fancy college, then grad school—only to be tugged back to Parson on account of Miss Kate’s house, a huge and creepy mansion that’s tumbling down. Joanna hires Lou to help her renovate the structure, which slowly leads to revelations that help Lou in discovering Miss Kate’s murderer. Insights into Parson’s queer community, and the decisions they make to survive, are fascinating. If Carson McCullers were to write a mystery, this would be it.

What Never Happened

Overtown, as California’s Catalina Island residents call the mainland, Disneyland has been closed. On Catalina, the ferries have stopped and even the St. Patrick’s Day karaoke is off. COVID is on the way, if it isn’t there already. But Collette “Coco” Weber has bigger worries. She’s back on the island where her parents and brother were murdered years ago, a crime against the only Black family on Catalina. Coco herself escaped as she had sneaked out against her parents wishes. She’s hardly in line with others’ wishes now, either. Aunt Gwen—famous for stealing trinkets from rich tourists—has been living in the house Coco inherited when her parents died, and isn’t thrilled to share it. And Coco’s determination to continue owning the house clashes with someone’s plan: there’s a housing shortage on Catalina, and she’s violently pressured to sell. At the same time, island widows are being found dead, alone in remote spots that they wouldn’t likely have visited without coercion. As Catalina gets ever more dangerous, a peril nicely juxtaposed against Coco’s job as an island newspaper obituary writer, readers will fall deeper into the compelling mysteries of who killed the protagonist’s family years before and who’s behind today’s mayhem. Hall’s writing of a PTSD-stricken protagonist rings true, with her “warts and all” presentation offering veracity, resilience, and exasperation in equal measure. Those new to the author will want to go back to her previous, also fast-moving puzzles such as last year’s We Lie Here.

A Shimmer of Red

Book of the Week

I eagerly await the books in the Odessa Jones series, and the latest offering is better than ever. Odessa (Dessa) is a realtor/caterer in suburban New Jersey. Life is going well—housing sales are way up—until one of her realtor colleagues, Anna Lee, is killed in a hit and run while out jogging. Could it have been murder? Dessa can’t help but become involved. She goes deep into her colleague’s life, uncovering a surprising past and a present in which Anna was being stalked. But why would anyone threaten this young woman? In a brilliant move on the author’s part, Dessa ends up discovering her connection to Anna, one that extends back decades to Dessa’s first fiancé, when she was barely in her twenties. Part of the delight of this series, which is set in a diverse community, is the recurring characters, from Dessa’s family-like colleagues to restaurateur Lennox Royal—a possible love interest?—to Aunt Phoenix. Dessa’s second sight—she sometimes has the ability to see aura-like glimmers over people, among other paranormal skills—is a gift she has along with her aunts. It’s introduced deftly in the book, and even skeptics will find the protagonist’s gift wholly credible–at least while they’re wrapped up in the plot. This is billed as a cozy—there is a cat and plenty of tea—but Wesley pushes a bit beyond the genre’s traditions. Dive in with this volume, but if you have the time, start with volume one, A Glimmer of Death. You won’t be disappointed.

What the Neighbors Saw

For God’s Sake, Stay in Brooklyn

What’s the scariest place in crime fiction these days? Yes, that would be the suburbs. Alexis and Sam, her husband, buy a run-down house in a super-posh neighborhood in the DC suburbs. They love what the home could become, but for now it just feels like a bottomless money pit. Alexis is pregnant with the couple’s second child, and with little help from Sam—he’s trying for partnership at his law firm—motherhood is no picnic. To say the two grate on each other is an understatement. It doesn’t help that most people in the neighborhood assume that brown-skinned Alexis (she’s part Honduran) is one of the help. But the women in the neighborhood, chardonnay in hand, do try to make her feel welcome, while pumping her for gossip. When their neighbor Teddy is found dead by the nearby Potomac River—he was out for a run—everything takes on a sinister patina. In the ensuing weeks, Alexis grows close to Blair, Teddy’s widow, offering support while Blair fills her in on the lives of their neighbors. They’re a creepy crew if there ever was one, forever loitering in each other’s backyards, peeking into windows. Could Teddy’s death be linked to one of them? In the armful of suburban domestic thrillers publishing this summer, this debut—with its wild, super-spin of a plot, in which everything is turned upside down—is one not to miss.

Dead Man’s Wake

Vacation Intrigue

Both fans and newcomers to the series can sink deep into the pages of Doiron’s latest Mike Bowditch adventure, which sees the Maine game warden’s family vacation upended by what at first appears to be a boating accident. A man’s arm is found floating in the lake, clearly torn off by a boat propeller. Finding the related body opens a new scenario that Mike, local police, and the local forensic examiner puzzle to solve while also navigating the behavior of the rich. They live on the lake where the arm was found and aren’t keen on having their vacations interrupted. Law-enforcement politics are also to be maneuvered around, a tricky task when the lake constable wanted a game warden’s job but was considered too erratic. At the center of the maelstrom is the calm circle of Mike’s family, whose love and stability provide a stark contrast to the nail biting scenes facing the warden. Wilderness thrillers provide a great break from the real world—get this one on your list.

Wednesdays at One

This unexpected and brilliant work examines the work of life: self love, self forgiveness, and the need to have others see us as we really are. Cambridge, MA psychologist Dr. Gregory Weber’s life is chugging along, grumpy teenager daughter notwithstanding, despite Gregory living every day with a horrible mistake he made when he was 17, something he’s told nobody about and that stops every relationship from being whole. All is turned upside down when a patient who claims he asked her to start therapy shows up, a woman he could swear he never encountered before. In no time, he’s deeply in love this intriguing woman and desperate to see every Wednesday at 1:00, even though from the beginning she takes his seat at each session and insists that he’s in the patient role. What happens over time, with old and new secrets increasingly working their way toward the surface, threatens to destroy Gregory’s life as he knows it. The ending here, which includes a startling twist, is both satisfying and teaches readers profound lessons about the nature of what we owe others and ourselves. A must read.

All the Sinners Bleed

Book of the Week

A school shooting in fictional Charon County, VA, reveals horror and catalyzes reckoning in S.A. Cosby’s eagerly awaited follow-up to Razorblade Tears. This is, unsurprisingly, a masterpiece of Southern noir, but that’s selling it short: it’s a fantastic novel, period. The first responders to the shooting are led by Sherriff Titus Crown, a Black man who won a contentious, racist battle for his seat and who now safeguards Klan members and kind neighbors alike. Titus is able for them all, alternating deep kindness with cutting, politically savvy one-liners that put racists in their place. (Appropriate, given his lack of fondness for “stand[ing] there like an extra in Gone with the Wind.”) But even he is thrown when the investigation into the school shooter—a Black man killed at the scene by white cops—uncovers a grisly secret. Join Titus and his meticulously drawn, flawed family, colleagues, and townsfolk for a deep introspection on how evil begets evil and good begets good. And watch for the gripping movie that’s sure to spring from Cosby’s pages.

The Curse of Penryth Hall

A Life Not Led

Devil-may-care heiress Ruby Vaughn has just sent the latest of her boss’s housekeepers running, with the woman on the way out muttering something about “a den of sin and vice.” Ruby does like to knock back a few drinks and scarcely cares about propriety, having planned, while a nurse during the Great War, to set up home with her fellow nurse and lover, Tamsyn. When that antiquarian-bookseller boss announces, “I’ve been thinking,” Ruby knows it doesn’t usually bode well, but this time there’s an upside. The trip he wants her to undertake, delivering mysterious books to a Ruan Kivell in Cornwall, brings her back in contact with Tamsyn, now Lady Chenoweth. Penryth Hall, Tamsyn’s miserable home with her abusive husband, only makes Ruby long all the more for the life she could have had with Tamsyn. When awful Lord Chenoweth is found dead, his body slashed as though by animals, the area’s depths of superstition and past misdeeds begin to reveal themselves, as do the powers of Ruan, the local Pellar, a powerful folk healer. Ruby refuses to believe in the curse that the locals say Chenoweth perished from, pursuing instead the help of the fledgling science of forensics to figure out what happened and restore Tamsyn’s happiness. This debut won the Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur First Crime Novel Competition, a well-deserved honor for a book whose gutsy main character and immersive world-building will remind readers of Margaret Dove in Evie Hawtrey’s And By Fire.

Seams Deadly

Where Sewists Fear to Tread

True confession: I can’t sew. Not to even to hem a pair of pants. But that hardly stopped me from enjoying Seams Deadly. After discovering her teaching assistant in bed with her boorish, snobbish husband—cheap, too, if he won’t rent a hotel room—middle-school teacher Lydia Barnes ups and moves from Atlanta to the mountain town of Peridot, Georgia. It’s very Mayberry RFD, with friendships and gossip galore. Lydia connects with her fellow sewists—in fact, she gets a job at the Measure Twice fabric store—and before you can say “zigzag stitch,” she’s set up on a date with her handsome neighbor and the town’s bookseller, Brandon Ivey. It’s one weird date, and Lydia’s comedic voice comes to the fore as she narrates the evening. But weird only gets weirder as later that night, she comes across Brandon dead as can be, with a pair of dress shears lodged deep into his neck. Ouch! Newcomer Lydia is the police’s number one suspect, and when another body is found, the cops are ready to lock her up. Lydia turns to the sewists to help get her out of this mess. If only it were that simple. Special mention goes to Baby Lobster, Lydia’s cat, for valor extraordinaire.

Six Ostriches

The Manitoba Vet

My favorite veterinarian/amateur detective is at it again. Winter is just winding down in rural Manitoba when Dr. Peter Bannerman is called to care for an ostrich who’s swallowed a bright and shiny object, which turns out to be an ancient Viking medallion—or at least a good facsimile. The object undergoes analysis as Peter investigates a horrifying series of animal mutilations, accompanied by his prize-sniffing dog, Pippin. In this book, Peter learns to keep his investigations quiet. His wife is concerned over his safety, and his Mountie brother-in-law is sick of what he brands as useless interference. But Peter can’t quit, he’s far too caught up in the tragic deaths of his patients. Described as having a mild case of Asperger’s, he brings to bear strong logical skills and the ability to see connections among the mutilations, the artifact, and the white-supremacist communities in Manitoba. A compelling read, a fascinating community, and a knock-out lead character. More, please.

Urgent Matters

Book of the Week

“The only way to survive a whirlpool is to let yourself be dragged along by it,” realizes Evelyn, the confused daughter of an accused murderer. The murderer, Hugo Lamadrid, has been missing since a Buenos Aires train crash killed and maimed scores of passengers. Readers know that Hugo escaped the wreckage, where bodies are “piled up, jumbled together, crushed against the walls of the carriage, spilling out the window, dislocated, broken, busted.” But the police don’t know and have just been to his house about the murder. What the authorities do know is that Evelyn and her mother, Marta, suddenly and mysteriously got the urge to leave town after the police’s visit, and now the national media is fixed on the shrine they’ve set up at the home of Marta’s sister that begs the wounds “ofourlordjesuschrist” to help find poor, hapless Hugo alive on the train. A whirlpool indeed, in a book whose baroque abundance of language, strange observations, and even stranger ending are memorable and striking. For those who loved Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic.

Relentless Melt

When Holmes Met Houdini

A supernatural mystery—part Stranger Things, part Enola Homes, but very much itself—set in 1909 Boston. Young Artie Quick, a Filene’s basement “shopgirl” by day, is fascinated by criminal behavior and signs up to study Criminal Investigation at the YMCA’s Evening Institute for Men. One problem? Artie is a young woman, and to pass, she has to adopt male drag and attempt to alter her voice. While she still lives with her working-class family, most of her time she’s at well-off Theodore’s digs—her charming if awkward best friend. Theodore is as obsessed with magic as Artie is with crime, and the two take on a case: the investigation into unnatural screams heard at night in the Boston Common by homeless men and petty criminals. What seems like a minor quest ends up taking the two on a sojourn that reveals the abduction of young women, a cover-up by city officials, and the existence of a spirit underneath the city, ready to wield even greater destruction. This book is way, way over the top—and is sure to delight its intended audience. Artie grows to love her menswear, and seems to love women as well, and her embrace of her queerness is just one of the many transformations in the book. For young adults on up.

Don’t Forget the Girl

The Truth about True Crime

First, there were three. Now only two women are left, estranged but still desperate to know what happened to their college friend Abby, who disappeared years ago. They might never know, as serial killer Jon Allan Blue, who killed other young women in the area around the same time, is about to be put to death. The two remaining friends can’t be more different. Bree is a college professor who’s having an affair with an underage student, which sets in relief the unending turmoil caused by Abby’s death. Chelsea is an Episcopal priest whose collar and steadfast demeanor hide an inner longing to break out of her marriage to a man who “looks like a photo of himself that [has] been left too long in the sun.” The two must interact again when a true-crime podcast covers Blue’s killings. The producer tries to convince Bree and Chelsea that their friend’s case deserves to be investigated, but with the show breathlessly feeding the media frenzy with comments like, “Friends don’t let friends get murdered” and Blue himself relishing the spotlight, participation seems counterproductive, not to mention tacky. While Abby’s fate is debated, we flash back to the three friend’s lives in the run up to her disappearance. This and the carefully posed exposé of podcast politics will leave readers looking differently at the spectacle that is the true-crime world, especially when it comes to women victims.

Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust

When Smoothies Kill

First things first: Quigley’s sophomore effort is every bit as witty, character-driven, and well-plotted as last year’s Six Feet Deep Dish. As always, Geneva Bay, Wisconsin chef and pizzeria owner Delilah O’Leary has a few too many things going on. She’s hoping to win the “Taste of Wisconsin” culinary contest, but can’t quite get the recipe exactly right. Her BFF and sous chef, Sonya, is having an affair with none other than the wife of a celebrity chef. And as luck would have it, he’s the judge for the competition. Bad timing! Meanwhile, her pit bull of a great-aunt is suddenly throwing a lot of shade her way. With no explanations. Even Butterball, the cat she shares with her ex-fiancé, wants out. But when visiting the new juice bar—owned by her ex’s annoying girlfriend—she witnesses one of the customers keel over, likely dead from a poisoned smoothie. And before you can say Pretzel Crust Deep-Dish Bratwurst Pizza, Delilah is drawn into some very risky goings-on. The satire is a joy, Delilah’s narration is sheer pleasure, and her restaurant crew provides plenty of balance. This is turning out to be one of the best new cozy series going.

Between Two Strangers

You Can’t Take it With You

Kate White’s suspense novels always provide me with the perfect imaginary getaway—and Between Two Strangers does not disappoint. Struggling artist Skyler Moore gets summoned to a posh Scarsdale law firm on a matter of private business, only to discover that she’s to receive a large inheritance. We’re talking millions here (feel free to take ten minutes and imagine this happening to you). The catch? She has no idea who Christopher is, the guy who left her such a sum. Only after research and days of reflection does she realize he was a one-night stand from over a decade ago, when she was a grad student in Boston; she has had no contact with him since. It’s not surprising that Skyler suppressed memories of that evening as it was just a few days later that her younger sister, also a student in Boston, went missing. While being harassed by Christopher’s family, especially his wife, who’s convinced Christopher and Skyler were having an affair, Skyler has to keep it together for an important exhibit she has coming up…but can’t help being drawn back to that one fateful weekend. What was Christopher trying to tell her through the trust he left her?

Everyone Here is Lying

It’s Tuesday afternoon in suburban Stanhope, and all is as it should be. Family man Dr. William Wooler is at a local motel with one of the hospital volunteers. Except it turns out that today she’s decided to dump him. Furious, he heads home, only to discover his nine-year-old daughter, Avery, in the kitchen, having skipped out on choir practice. As “difficult” as she is mouthy, she’s sucking down Oreos and doing a good job of pressing her father’s buttons. But when Wooler strikes her with a blow to the head that knocks her to the floor, it’s still a shock, to both of them and the reader. Dad-of-the-year hightails it out of there—he goes for a drive to cool off—and when the Woolers’ son gets home from basketball practice, he finds the house empty. Where’s Avery? Thus begins this intense domestic suspense novel in which an entire community is taken apart and turned inside out. Families are interviewed, oftentimes iteratively, histories are resurrected, houses are searched, motives are examined, and what the cops don’t expose, the media does. All the pieces come together brilliantly in a shocking finale.

Dirty Laundry

Village Viciousness

An unnamed village in Cork, Ireland, is a social-media-fueled soap opera in Bose’s suspenseful debut. Ciara lives for her own camera, with her rich husband and three perfectly-dressed-at-all-times children supporting actors in an Instagram fiction. The mostly fawning comments from the neighbors include some from her Indian neighbor, Mishti, who left love in India for an arranged marriage to cold, miserly Parth. Her only joy is her daughter, Maya. Decidedly not fawning is neighbor Lauren, who inherited her home in the wealthy enclave that Ciara rules. Lauren doesn’t fit in and doesn’t care to. She carries a child in a sling almost constantly, while Ciara’s Instagram-approved parenting involves virtually no contact. Lauren’s house is dirty, her clothes are too, and her husband is the furthest man from Parth imaginable. The women’s sniping relationships with each other and their families build to a boiling point, one whose violent outcome is revealed near the beginning of the story in a scene that lingers mysteriously in the background as the drama festers. Mishti’s struggles are a highlight here, sad though they are, with Bose’s writing of a desperate character sadly reminiscent of Parini Shroff’s The Bandit Queen.

The Rescue

Prepare to Cry

Parker, author of one of last year’s most memorable crime novels, A Thousand Steps, is back with something different, but with echoes of the best of that book. It opens with a gunfight between Tijuana, Mexico drug cartels that ends in human loss but, more importantly for this story, the shooting injury of a dog who’s rescued by a passing boy. Later, waiting for adoption in a shelter, the dog becomes the unexpected star of a viral video made by Bettina Blazak, a California journalist who can’t resist him; she names him Felix after the vet who saved the dog’s life and takes him home. Bettina quickly sees that this might not be the street mutt everyone thinks. He is used to being on a leash and understands commands in both Spanish and English. Enter the multiple characters who have seen the video and want Felix for themselves. The dog is a former drug and currency sniffer for the DEA, and lately his superior skills have been used by a drug gang to find and steal their rival gang’s wares, hence the opening shootout. They want him back, and another previous owner, the child who first discovered Felix’s superior ability to find anything by scent, has also seen the video and is sending Bettina heartbreaking emails. Who will win? It takes some violent scenes to find out, and along the way we’re treated to a look at the world of sniffer dogs—it’s fascinating!—and, even better, a look at love, loyalty, and resilience through canine eyes. Sounds odd? It is, but it’s also heartwarming with a side of fear and thrills.

The Body in the Back Garden

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

Growing up, Luke Tremblay loved being sent off to spend his summers with family on a small hamlet on Vancouver Island. Until high school hit and his parents learned he was gay and disowned him. Even his beloved Aunt Marguerite, a full-time island resident, refused to see him. So decades later, when his aunt dies and leaves Luke her estate, including a charming cottage and antique business, it’s a shock. He returns to the island with one goal: sell the properties and get back to Toronto. But when he’s attacked at the cottage by a seemingly random guy, who’s making crazy claims about his aunt, and when that guy is discovered the next morning dead in the garden, Luke can’t help but get pulled deeper into island life. Thanks also go to the Mountie, Sergeant Munro, aka Officer Beefcake, who, wouldn’t you know, was a childhood friend of Luke’s and still harbors a grudge for Luke disappearing all those years ago. There’s plenty to enjoy in this qouzy, from a budding romance to more crimes that need unearthing. And while Luke may not be the most charming of protagonists—he’s just a wee bit bitchy and somewhat of a snob—he’s certainly realistic. For anyone needing a quick vacation, this is it.

Ukulele of Death

Book of the Week

I hesitate to review this novel—which is quite fantastic in every sense of the word—for fear of giving away one iota of the plot. Fran and Ken Stein (get it?) are a Manhattan-based brother and sister duo, in their mid-twenties, who operate a private-investigation firm. Having lost their parents when they were babies—or did they?—they focus on helping adoptees find their birth parents.

Whether their mom and dad are alive or not, the two have good reasons to be obsessed with their parentage, since they’re not exactly 100 percent human (let’s just leave that alone for now), stand well over six feet tall, and have the physical prowess of junior superheroes. The real delight is our narrator, Fran—equal parts snarky, witty, and loving—who agrees to find a client’s missing father, with only a rare ukulele for a clue. Ken is more of a bro, a frat boy who’s packing major muscle. But as trying as he might be, the siblings stick together because, well, there’s no one quite like them in the world.

The little ukulele caper becomes so much more, and before you know it, the two are running all over New York City, whether in pursuit or in hiding. This book is a total delight. But more than that, I’m obsessed with the storyline (it ends on a big of a cliffhanger) and if the next volume in the series isn’t released soon, I’m heading to New Jersey and downloading it from the author’s computer myself.

Her Deadly Game

Legal Twists and Thrills

Keera Duggan has had her fill of being pushed around. She had to leave her promising job in the Seattle prosecutor’s office because her one-time romantic interest couldn’t take no for an answer She’s now reluctantly taken her legal skills to Patrick Duggan & Associates, a move she swore she’d never make. Patrick is her alcoholic father and the associates are Keera and her long-suffering sisters.

As the newbie, Keera’s paying her dues on small-time cases until the last straw: her father is too drunk for court and she must step in. So, when a big case comes up on a night when she’s on phone duty, she grabs it and verbally elbows her family out of the way the next day. An ultra-rich money manager is accused of killing his wife, a disabled woman (she uses a wheelchair and is unfortunately described throughout the book as “confined” to it). She couldn’t have killed herself, even though she’s found at home alone, shot in the head, with a gun beside her. The only possibility seems a SODDI defense (some other dude did it).

Then Keera, a skilled chess player, gets an email from a stranger warning her that, “You’re in the game of your life, so play like your life depends on it.” As well as following an entire game of chess, move by move, that Keera plays with an online opponent, readers will eagerly follow the wonderfully obstinate Keera as she refuses to let up on this case even as the obstacles, puzzles, and twists keep coming. Dugoni’s afterword explains that legal thrillers are his roots, and with the intricate plotting and winning characterization here, readers will be glad he returned to them.

Without Saying Goodbye

Who Runs the World? Girls!

Cerys and Lily have fled their homes for very different reasons, but they end up in the same place, both emotionally and physically: at their wits’ end in a miserable Wales park, where together they embark on restarting their lives.

Lily might be the most terrified young mother Cerys has ever seen. She grew up in foster care and had only a drug-addicted mother as a role model before that. That doesn’t explain her terror, though, but Cerys sidesteps the whys—she has enough to deal with, having left her husband and grown children and attempted suicide the day before. The pair, along with Lily’s little boy, finds housing with a curmudgeonly old lady who threatens to shoot them if they steal anything, but becomes their refuge, and slowly build a new family.

All isn’t rosy though, and readers will remain in suspense, always waiting for the danger that Lily ran from—a verbally and physically abusive husband—to reappear. Jarratt maintains the tension throughout and does a superb job of portraying a victim who’s on the edge. If you enjoy a tale of triumph, along with perhaps throwing a book across the room when a character is that much of a bastard, this one’s for you.

Death in the Dark

Murder on the Dance Floor

The Dublin Drag Mysteries, of which this is Book 2, is a bit like the TV shows “Friends” combined with “Cheers.” Except it’s contemporary, set in Ireland, everyone is a drag queen—except for our narrator and lead, a 20-something woman named Fiona (Fi) McKinnery—and the bar is a nightclub called TRASH. It’s sort of the B-list—or maybe even the C-list?—of Dublin drag venues.

As in the first book, Death in Heels, Murphy is quick to get to the action. Here it’s the disappearance of Sparkle McCavity, a vivacious young drag queen and assistant to the renowned bridal couturier, and queen in her own right, Miss Merkin. Merkin turns to Fi, asking for her help in finding Sparkle. Reluctantly, Fi agrees, only to be caught up in a murder at TRASH that’s absolutely ghastly.

Centered on Fi, her best buddy and roommate Robyn, and their tight circle of friends, the bon mots fly despite the tragedies that surround them. As the situation grows direr, and another queen disappears—with the Gardaí (police) increasingly looking at Fi & Co. with suspicion—the pressure is on for Fi to do what the detectives can’t do: solve the case. Death in the Dark is an exceptionally engaging read leaving this reader wondering: where will Murphy go next with this crew?

Prom Mom

Book of the Week

Laura Lippman’s standalone novels are tremendously smart, descend deeply into the lives of a small cast of characters, and slowly build the readers’ anxiety to a nearly unbearable level. Prom Mom doesn’t disappoint.

Amber Glass left Baltimore decades ago, and for a good reason. The night of her prom, Amber gave birth, alone and without fully understanding she was pregnant. The baby died, and Amber, burdened with the tabloid moniker Prom Girl, was briefly incarcerated. Meanwhile, her prom date and crush, Joe Simpson, escaped largely unscathed, free to pursue the girl of his dreams.

When circumstances align to bring Amber back to Baltimore, she can’t stop thinking of Joe. Both have full lives. Married to a plastic surgeon he adores with a younger girlfriend on the side (yes, he’s that guy), Joe runs a busy commercial real estate firm, while Amber is using an inheritance to create a surprisingly successful gallery. Yet encounters are inevitable—Baltimore’s a small town—and slowly the two are drawn into a relationship they seem powerless to stop.

Set during 2020-2021, when the pandemic was at its peak and so many lives were being upended, Prom Mom brings us somewhere so shocking, yet so credible, we’re left contemplating this story for days to come.

Girls and Their Horses

Horse Sense Only

The Parker family started off as regular Texans, but now financier Jeff just can’t fail and they are Rolling. In. Money. His wife, Heather, seems unaware of how he makes such a fortune, but who cares? Home is now a California mansion where they have a few shelves of books in an otherwise empty library; the rest of the house is almost empty as well, but with Heather determined to spend their fortune as fast as possible, the minimalist look won’t last.
Daughter Piper, 18, misses her old friends and hates her mom’s relentless efforts to live through her children, primarily by making them into champion horse riders. Piper has rejected that life and Heather’s focus is now on younger daughter Maple, who’s terrified of the huge horses she’s forced to ride and a terrible equestrian, but desperately trying to improve. Her tortured lessons quickly become a cash cow for Kieran Flynn, the cult-leader-like boss of the $10,000 per month (PER MONTH!) stables near the Parker’s behemoth home.
What starts as dysfunction becomes much more serious when a body is found at the stables. Stories of Mable’s horse-obsessed, mean-girl acquaintances and their horse-obsessed, mean-girl moms alternate with interviews by the steely Detective Perez, who wants none of these characters’ nonsense. Get ready to enter another world and a perplexing puzzle: we don’t even know who’s dead till near the end of the book, let alone who the killer is. A great summer read

We Love to Entertain

A Building Fear

Praise to Strohmeyer for creating a novel both so funny—the behind-the-scenes details of the HGTV-like show To the Manor Build are a hoot—and so frightening. When a character is locked in a root cellar, I had to remind myself that this wasn’t Scandi Noir and she would survive.

The setting is Snowden, Vermont, where Holly and Robert Barron are one of three teams that are renovating fixer-uppers, with the public voting on the winning home. Lots of money hangs in the balance, both for the winners and for To the Manor Build through endorsements.

It would seem that the attractive Barrons have the lead—nauseatingly, they actually get married on the show to help boost ratings—when things start to fall apart. And I’m not talking about the late delivery of the blue, $16,000 French stove. Holly and Robert disappear, leaving a trail of blood in their wake.

Quick to be blamed is twenty-something Erika Turnbull. A daughter of Kim, the town clerk, she was working as the Barron’s assistant—no job too menial—and had a pretty major crush on Robert. Small-town Snowden is lit up with gossip.

To clear her name, Erika’s forced to work with her most unlikely partner, her mother, and the two of them—along with some truly memorable hangers-on—head off to solve the murders, shut up the obnoxious To the Manor Build producers, and resolve a secret of Kim’s that might provide the answers they need.

This book should appear to a broad range of readers, from twenty- and thirty-somethings to cozy fans and those looking for traditional mysteries.

Hollow Beasts

Terror in the High Desert

This propulsive series debut from the author of The Dirty Girls Social Clubsees the filthy, heavily armed, and none-too-bright Zebulon Boys arrive in rural New Mexico to take on a mix of Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and interracial locals, all of whom the would-be terrorists see as Mexicans who have to go. The leader, General Zeb, gets his hateful fans from around the country to come to his camp. They keep kidnapped “Mexican” women in a hole in the ground and take them out to be hunted. They’re also planning to bomb local sites to stop the Reconquista, the reclaiming of culture and land by those who lived in the area when it was part of Mexico.

The Zebulon Boys meet their match in Jodi Luna, a former poetry professor who’s returned to her roots in the area, taking over her retiring uncle’s job as the local, and sole, game warden. It’s a dangerous job—the most perilous in U.S. law enforcement, we learn. But Jodi is ready, using her intelligence, humor, and compassion to take on the men—one of whom starts to stalk her—and protect her daughter, her growing circle of friends, and two admirers.

Game warden is an unusual and interesting take on a police-procedural set up, and Valdés can surely tell a story, making this a winner all round.

Evergreen

Book of the Week

Edgar Award-winning Hirahara’s first novel in this series, Clark and Division, was a New York Times Best Mystery Novel of 2021, among many other accolades; this follow-up will please fans with more thoughtful, poignant, and historically accurate investigations of Japanese American life after World War II.

After leaving the Manzanar camp in the first book and moving to Chicago, nurse’s aide Aki Nakasone and her parents have returned to California, where they prospered before being imprisoned, and where her father and others desperately hope to reclaim their land and businesses. Aki’s husband, Art, gets work at the Rafu Shimponewspaper (where Hirahara has worked), but his after-work drinking with other journalists leaves Aki feeling she saw more of him when he was in the army. She’s distant from her parents, too, despite sharing their home, with Hirahara portraying the generational difference as part of the estrangement that is the central theme of the book. Her characters raised in the camps display a kinship that transcends other bonds and leaves them markedly and painfully adrift from their parents.

When Art’s army buddy Babe goes missing after his father’s battered body is found, Aki sets out to find Babe and restore balance to her own unsettled life. This quest sees her explore elements of postwar life such as the competition between returning Japanese and Black Americans for housing and the effects of “shell shock” (PTSD) on a community. A must-read.

The Spare Room

When Three Isn’t a Crowd

It’s the early months of the pandemic, and Kelly Doyle—who has recently moved to Philadelphia to live with her fiancé—finds herself with few friends and no job. But when her spouse-to-be calls off their wedding, Kelly hits a new level of despair. Her one bright spot is her childhood friend Sabrina; the two recently renewed their friendship thanks to the socials.

Sabrina has it all: a career as a best-selling romance author, a Virginia mansion right out of Elle Decor, and a handsome albeit hyper-masculine husband. So when Sabrina invites Kelly to move in with them—yes, it’s a little weird—Kelly is desperate enough to say yes. Before you can say “throuple” (why wasn’t that the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year?) the three are in bed together—this ain’t no cozy—and quickly establish a threesome. Until Kelly comes across the naked photos of another woman, who could well be her doppelganger, and learns that she is a former lover of the couple who has mysteriously vanished. Will Kelly be next?

A sexy read in which no one is right, no one is wrong, and everyone is lying. By the author of We Were Never Here, this is the ultimate summer read.

Second Shot

Murder in Middle Age

DC resident Helen Warwick is ready for the quiet life now that she’s retired. Her frequent, moments-notice travel as a state-department trade specialist all but ended her marriage, and her grown children have had it, too. What they don’t know is that Helen (like author Dees) was actually a CIA operative, and all those times she was absent were because she was involved in “wet work”—killings—rather than diplomacy.

Helen is determined to put it all right and win her family back. But when she arrives at her son’s house to babysit his dog, her plan goes up in gun smoke as the windows are shot in and, oops!, she’s forced to kill intruders who themselves seem like trained killers. The unique habitat that is DC comes to life here as Helen tries to figure out who’s after her, or who else the killers may have been targeting—perhaps there’s another family member with a clandestine background?

At the same time, she’s drawn into investigating a separate case that her lawyer-son asks for her smarts on—that of the DaVinci killer, who emulates artworks with the bodies he sadistically kills (there is one VERY gory scene here). The pages fly by as Helen dashes through family spats and deadly maneuvers toward and away from killers, while enduring realistic turmoil regarding her exasperated family.

Look forward to more from this engaging, still-got-it character! This, the first in a series, ends on a cliffhanger; it will also be a TV series starring Sharon Stone.

The Centre

This Is What’s Called “Deeply Disturbing”

London-based Anisa is a translator—she provides subtitles for Bollywood movies—but dreams of translating great works of literature. Her spare time is spent hanging out, talking politics, and complaining about her rather useless white boyfriend, Adam, himself a highly successful translator. In fact, on a trip with Anisa to visit her family in Karachi, Adam reveals that he’s also become fluent in Urdu, speaking it better than Anise. Anise goes into a tailspin. “This is shady as fuck.” There’s no way that Adam could become that fluent in years, never mind days. When she presses him for details, he lets her in on the Centre, where after thousands of dollars and ten days of study—living there, avoiding all contact with others, and listening only to your chosen language—you emerge completely fluent.

Skeptical but eager to give it a try, Anisa enters the Centre to learn German—and indeed, after several days of study she has a breakthrough. Along the way, she becomes close to Shiba, who manages the Centre and whose father was one of four men who, while Oxford students, developed this radical approach to language learning. But how radical is it? On a trip to New Delhi with Shiba, Anisa finally learns how the Centre works—and the discovery is shocking.This is a debut, but Siddiqi writes like a pro, slowly building the character of Anisa, so that when the big reveal is made, it’s all the more meaningful.

The Ocean Above Me

An Examination of Conscience

Lukas Landon is a former war correspondent, with multiple deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s seen plenty of dangerous situations, but being trapped on the ocean floor in an upside-down shrimp trawler, with the water rising and oxygen depleting, beats anything he’s experienced. Landon is living on the boat while writing a feature on the crew of the Philomena, which went down during a freak storm.
The novel jumps among Landon’s attempts to survive his water soaked prison, reflections on his military experiences, retelling of his failed marriage, and, most compelling of all, interviews with the crew of the Philomena. These include Captain Clarita Esteban, an ex-sergeant and Black woman trying to make it in a white man’s world. A first mate who came to Florida during the Mariel boatlift. And a Haitian-born cook with a wealth of knowledge far beyond traditional medicine.
But as far as we may wander, Sites pulls us back to Landon locked in that trawler, the clock ticking. Will he survive? And will he ever find the forgiveness he so desperately craves.A unique, taut read by the author of the nonfiction The Things They Cannot Say that illustrates the impact of trauma and the hope for redemption.

Cutting Teeth

Toothy Trouble

I had a moment of “yuuuuup” when I read that Baker’s debut adult novel, Whisper Network, was chosen as a Reese’s Book Club Pick, because more than one of the characters here strongly telegraphs “unhinged woman played by Reese Witherspoon.” The women are uber-mothers at the martyrdom competition that is a private preschool. Everyone’s life is perfect, thank you, no sacrifice is too great, and the mom committee has everything very much under tight control. There is one problem. The four-year-olds like to bite. Not little bites, either. Their parents and siblings are the victims of vicious, prolonged attacks that draw copious blood that the biters seem to enjoy swallowing. Then their teacher is found dead outside the classroom, with a pool of blood surrounding her that has little footprints in it. Everyone knows that their child didn’t do it, but Ms. Ollie is dead, and the investigation is on. This book is at times as funny as it is strange, with Baker hilariously skewering modern parenthood and its obsessions, while also giving us behind-the-plastic-smiles looks at parents’ inner thoughts. (I think we can all agree that “just a month or two break from giving a shit” isn’t much to ask for). Did you like Big Little Lies? This one’s for you.

Where the Dead Sleep

Minnesota’s Hercule Poirot

In this second in the series, Assistant Sheriff Ben Packard is juggling two major incidents. One is the death of his mentor, Sheriff Stan Shaw, which raises the question of whether Ben should run to replace Shaw as Sheriff of Minnesota’s Sandy Lake County, several hours north of the Twin Cities and a popular vacation spot. For someone who’s lived in the county for only a year or so, Ben’s got plenty of supporters, but he isn’t sure he’s ready to give up being a detective. Plus, he’s anxious about how being gay is going to play out at the polls. The other incident is the death of Bill Sanderson, shot multiple times in his bed. Nobody loved Bill—except maybe his ex-wife, who’s the sister of his new widow—but nobody seemed to hate Bill enough to actually kill him. Not his business partner, not his gambling buddies, not his spouse. To solve Bill’s death, Ben goes even deeper into the Sandy Lake community than ever before, peeling off the many dark and gritty layers, deciphering the complex family relations, and at one point putting his own life at risk. This novel works fine as a stand-alone, but readers of the first in the series, And There He Kept Her, will appreciate seeing Ben’s development and piecing together the disquieting world of Sandy Lake.

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge

A Different Type of Vampire

Just try not to fall in love with Loretta Plansky, the plucky, 70ish hero of this sweet, feel-good mystery. A widow—she regularly chats with her deceased husband, Norm—Loretta keeps busy in Florida with friends, family, and a mean game of tennis. She and Norm invented the Plansky Toaster Knife, which toasts as you slice—is that that genius or what?—and they managed to accumulate quite the nest egg. Which is helpful, since Loretta’s kids seem to be forever circling, seeking investments and loans for their hair-brained schemes. So when her grandson Will calls from college, and needs to be bailed out because of a DUI, it’s Loretta to the rescue—or at least Loretta’s bank account. Of course, the caller wasn’t Will, and the normally savvy Loretta wakes the next morning to find herself divested of savings, investments, and worse of all, her self-respect. After reviewing her finances and discovering that to get by, she’d need to do the unthinkable and move her 96-year-old father in with her, Loretta makes the shocking decision to head off, track down the thieves, and recoup her funds. This second part of the novel is a real delight. Yes, there is quite a bit of coincidence and luck, but there’s also a wild cast of characters, some surprising relationships, and real evolution on Loretta’s part. For fans of Simon Brett’s Feathering novels and Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series

Tell Her Everything

Is Remorse Enough?

“With most first times, you don’t really know it’s the beginning of something,” explains Indian surgeon Dr. Kaiser Shah in a letter to his estranged daughter as he prepares for her to visit. And so it is with the practice that engulfed and destroyed Dr. K’s professional life in an unnamed oil-rich country. The task in question—you must remember, he says, it wasn’t his whole job!—is never mentioned directly, and certainly not described, with the doctor convincing himself ever harder that his secrecy is motivated by benevolence toward his lessors. The punishment for stealing is hand amputation, and before he began “helping out Corrections from time to time,” the procedure was much worse. The story of his involvement in this horror, and how it slowly eats his family life, friendships, and any sense of an inner life, is absorbing; adding a striking air is the doctor’s struggle toward self-acceptance in his letters to his daughter. Extremes underlie the violence here: Dr. K’s quiet sycophancy toward his superiors compared to his friend/rival’s gluttony; his love for his daughter compared to her disgust at his work; his initial bootlicking acceptance of the amputation work compared to his feelings about it after a shocking pivot. Those who enjoy an introspective read are the audience for this one, and they will want to go back to Waheed’s award-winning debut, The Collaborator, for more from this author.

Central Park West

James Comey, Act 2

Celebrity books are hit and miss. It often seems like they hired a ghost writer, and worse again is when you wonder why they didn’t. But this crime-fiction debut, the first in a series by former FBI Director and October-surprise specialist Comey, is firmly in the hit category. Comey draws on his decades of experience to show the hectic activity behind the big-name trials that appear in New York State Supreme Court, the imposing steps of which we’ve all seen on the news. Two interrelated cases, and two teams of lawyers and investigators, are his focus: the trial for the murder of a former philandering Governor of New York, Tony Burke, and another murder case, one that features possible mafia violence and intimidation. A feeling of danger is introduced by Comey, a long-time mob prosecutor, with the lawyers maintaining a psychological operation as they massage the egos of mafiosi to encourage them to cooperate while keeping them alive. We also get a sense of a clock ticking ever more ominously as a fair outcome in one trial depends on the other one finishing first, with the justice system anything but swift. The layers of New York society are also well displayed here, from the ”fucking rich people” loathed by Burke’s long-suffering Central Park West doorman to striving single-mom Assistant U.S. Attorney Nora Carleton—more of her in the next book, please!–whose Jersey home is far in every way from the Upper West Side. An engrossing look at a longtime prosecutor’s world and its pain and triumphs.

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies

Women in Trouble

An absolute delight, wonderfully written and with enough plot to keep the reader zooming through the book then quickly asking for more. Regency London is the setting and the twin Colebrook sisters, Lady Augusta (Gus) and Lady Julia, are our amateur detectives. Unusual for women of this period, they were left with personal incomes by their late father, allowing them independence and the ability to thumb their noses at their useless younger brother. In their early forties and unmarried, the two can’t bear the injustices they see heaped on the women around them, and Gus is determined to do something. When word reaches them that a friend’s goddaughter has been locked away by her husband with the intent to kill her—as she’s unable to have children—the sisters head off to spring her from her country house. Along the way, they pair up with an old interest of Gus’s, Lord Evan Belford, back from exile in Australia—it’s a long story—and hotter than ever.  What’s unusually successful about this book is that instead of focusing on one case, the sisters take on a series, including one case in which Gus, disguised as a man, infiltrates a brothel. While their identities as detectives grow, several themes emerge, including Julia’s struggle with breast cancer, their need to surrender their home to their brother and his fiancé, and, of course, what to do with Lord Belford. The Regency era, feminism, and romance all work together to create a book that will delight many. And how about that cover?

My Husband

My Life is Perfectly Normal

Since forever, French authors and screenwriters have been writing about heterosexual marriage and infidelity as though these were the only tales worth telling. They are not. But My Husband certainly does a smashing job of upending the traditional domestic narrative with one that is terrifically creepy, darkly obsessive, and uncomfortably humorous. The finely translated novel—a fast read, if there ever was one—is told from the wife’s perspective, a woman who’s entire being is centered on pleasing/controlling her husband. At one point, she describes herself as co-dependent, but that’s like saying the Pope is Catholic. A beautiful woman with a great wardrobe and a lovely apartment in the Paris suburbs, she pretty much ignores her two young children (“Today, I think I can say with certainty that I could survive the death of one of my children, but not of my husband.”)  The perfect life? Restricted to her home with her husband, “endless one-on-one time…Sometimes I picture myself alone on the Earth with him.” Got the picture? But the husband isn’t perfect; sometimes when they are sitting on the sofa, watching TV, he’ll be the first to stop holding hands. Infractions like these deserve punishment, usually moving or hiding his personal belongings. It’s mesmerizing, and try as one might, you can’t look away. As the book progresses, the reader’s anxiety mounts, until we reach an ending which is quite the tailspin. Hip reading groups will tear each other apart over this book.

The Last Songbird

Noir on Wheels

Addy Zantz is like a cold-blooded animal, taking his emotions from his environment as some creatures take their body heat from the sun. He’s an Uber driver, working what he calls the River Styx, the loop from LAX to various hotels, all the while investigating the fully clothed-drowning death of Annie Linden, music legend and a customer who turned into a friend. Annie was a contemporary of Joni Mitchell, and seemed to resemble Mitchell in feeling shut off from the world, taking tentative steps into reality through music and trips in Addy’s car, when she sampled humanity in tiny sips. At first, Addy’s investigation seems borne of nothing else to do. But when a friend, an orthodox Jew who’s too much of a stoner to save himself from the accusation, is accused of the crime, with Addy as an accessory, the cabbie must hit the road hard to find out what really happened to Annie. As the best noirs do, The Last Songbird stays inside the mind of its investigator even while the case casts its glance from distant acquaintances to distant times and decisions. This one keeps returning to the same questions even as it explores the possibilities: who was Annie really? And if Addy finds that out, can he find himself? If you liked T. Jefferson Parker’s A Thousand Steps, try this.

Flat White Fatality

Coffee Kills

While I love an old-fashioned cozy as much as anyone—the guest everyone loathes is found dead on the library floor, a fatal slash across a carotid artery, or perhaps a touch too much monkshood in the afternoon tea?—I especially enjoy mysteries located in the present, with settings and characters that are fresh and idiosyncratic. This Portland (OR) based series, Ground Rules, fits the bill perfectly. In the first volume, barista and total hipster Sage Caplin just opens her new coffee cart when, as luck would have it, a corpse is found dead by her wheels. In Double Shot Death, the coffee cart is at a sustainable music festival—how PDX is that?—when a body is found in the woods clutching one of her coffee mugs. In Flat White Fatality, Sage has a side gig modeling as a character for her boyfriend’s game development company, Grumpy Sasquatch Studio. But then, during a team-building event, the most annoying of the company’s coders is murdered, in Sage’s own roastery no less. When another employee is almost killed, Sage realizes she needs to step it up and find the murderer before she becomes suspect number one. Plenty of satire, lots of fascinating local detail, excellent friends and family, and an insider look at the world of special coffees.

Life and Other Love Songs

The Book of Longing and Forgiveness

A brilliant and moving telling of a Black American family’s struggle to survive despite traumas both old and new. It’s 1981 Detroit, and the Armstead family is celebrating Ozro’s 37th birthday. Treated to lunch by his brother, with a large celebration planned for that night, Ozro heads back to work. Except he never gets there. Ozro disappears, leaving his briefcase and suit coat in his office, abandoning his wife Deborah, his young daughter Trinity, his family and friends. Shifting between the perspectives of Ozro, Deborah, and Trinity, Gray reaches back to Orzo’s time as part of the Great Migration, traveling from the south to Detroit in the 1970s; to his early courtship with Deborah, an aspiring singer; and to Trinity growing up in a world that’s been shattered. Ozro’s disappearance is like the sun, with the other characters as moons, forever circling around it. “I wondered about him all the time because absence was not the same as death,” says Trinity. “It was worse, given all the not knowing.” But it turns out that the mystery of Ozro’s vanishing is only one in a series of traumas that extend from his childhood to his death. Beautifully executed and tremendously poignant, this book is absolutely perfect for reading groups.

Trouble

Secrets and Shadows

Hella Mauzer, 29, is both very much of Finland—she’s a dour private investigator who seems made from her country’s six-months of darkness —but completely not what her fellow 1950s Finns want her to be. Put flowers under your pillow on midsummer night and you’ll dream of your future fiancé, they hint, with marriage and motherhood then all but guaranteed. Hella wants none of it. She keeps both her ex-boyfriend, who can’t grasp that things are over, and her new, interested neighbor at arm’s length while immersed in two investigations. One is a favor to her father’s former secret-police colleague: a background check on the prospective head of Helsinki’s homicide squad. The other is more personal. Hella is desperate to find out who killed her parents, sister, and nephew, all of whom died when hit by a truck when Hella was a teen. Getting the courage to read the police file on her family’s deaths is a big step, and one that immediately leads her to suspect that there was much more to the tragedy than an accident. The background check is far from straightforward either, adding up to a tale that brings to mind Game of Thrones, with all that story’s evil and power-hungry machinations. If Scandinavian mysteries are your thing, try this, as well as Ann-Helén Laestadius’s Stolen, and Joachim B. Schmidt’s Kalman for great stories that take place outside the more common urban settings in Sweden and Denmark.

I’ll Stop the World

A Timely Mystery

It might be a while since you read a book with teenage protagonists. It’s time. This coming-of-age story has characters who are adolescents to the core, spending their too-fast days on intense friendships, pulling away from parents, and fearing that their high school woes are their destiny. Small-town Warren High School in 2023 is the setting, and the story centers on Justin Warren, whose name is no coincidence: the school is named after his grandparents, who were killed in a fire at the school years before, his mother an infant in the car outside. Things haven’t gone well for Justin. He’s not going to college and he’s in love with his best friend, Alyssa Vizcaino (while they’re seatmates in every class because their last names “function as the alphabetical equivalent of an arranged marriage,” she’s not interested). Then there’s a bizarre twist: an accident throws Justin over a bridge and into…1985. He’s not born yet, his grandparents are still alive, and he still has a chance to change his 2023 lot in life. He meets fellow teen Rose Yin (he’s her pen pal who’s come for a fun visit!), and the two set out to solve a mystery that could mean the world to Justin. Romance is thrown in of course, including a sweet same-sex relationship; combined with the mystery and the tricky logistics of time traveling back to your own town and family in the past, this is one to recommend to book groups and all who like an emotional saga.

The Wrong Good Deed

When the Past Won’t Stay There

Clemmie and Muffin, friends in an active senior community (it’s not a retirement home!) are attending church together, content in their matching jackets and cozy friendship. Then Clemmie spots someone she knows from the past and is terrified and desperate to get out NOW. In flashbacks to the 1960s, when Clemmie was married to a man from their small South Carolina town’s most prominent family, we find her in a quandary. The men in her husband’s family are violent racists, but she’s too afraid of them to do anything about it…until she must take action and then run away forever. In the present, things are heating up as a white reporter makes an incendiary claim about something that happened to him in the town and a Black resident wants answers on her nephew’s disappearance. Then there’s a death among the seniors and history can’t be swept under the rug any more. This is a compelling read on many levels. The senior community’s friendship, backbiting, and the everyday indignities of growing “less active” are portrayed with wry accuracy by Cooney; Muffin’s disdain for Clemmie’s casual racism is a highlight. The author raises important questions: Can people really change? What is the responsibility of the bystanders to a crime? How can small-town residents from opposite sides of the fight for Civil Rights deal with one another today? For those who like a controversial mystery and fans of Richard Osman’s retirement-community-set The Thursday Murder Club.

The Lost Pope

Where Angels Fear to Tread

A wonderfully constructed thriller with several narratives, ranging from the 1st century to the present, that eventually come together in the most satisfying of ways. At the outset we have a newly elected pope who has created havoc within the Church with his appointment of a nun, Elisabetta Celestino, as his secretary of state. At the same time, a strip of ancient papyrus that comes from the long-lost Gospel of Mary Magdalene is discovered in a Cairo museum; just a snippet, it still manages to contain shocking information about the role of women in the early Church. It’s stolen and sold to a powerful, conservative U.S. billionaire—and collector of early Christian writings—who wants nothing more than to suppress the content. Alternating with the present-day narratives is the story of Mary Magdalene herself as we follow her from Jerusalem to Egypt to Ancient Rome. At the book’s center is Harvard Divinity School professor Cal Donovan, the protagonist of several of Cooper’s novels, the lynch pin who connects all the narratives. Often thrillers with historical backgrounds like this get weighed down with too much information and overly elaborate plots. But readers will move through this book like a hot knife through butter. For fans of Dan Brown and Steve Berry.

The Game She Plays

Heading to Paris for a much-needed vacation after a bad break-up, Nicola Harris meets Englishman James Shuttleworth on the flight and the two fall madly in love. They vacation in the south of France and move to his flat in London, while Nicola practically forgets about her life back in Buffalo. And why not, when they probably have ten feet of snow to shovel? All is going swimmingly until James suggests they spend the weekend at a house party, complete with shooting pheasants and lots of Barbour, where Nicola will finally have a chance to meet his friends. The book is set in 1980, so we don’t yet have the term social anxiety, but that’s exactly what Nicola is experiencing. And rightfully so. This lot of private-schooled, Cambridge-educated, alcoholic aristocrats, with their insider language and weird nicknames, is terrifying. Nicola gives it the old college try—she does love James—but just when she thinks she’s broken through, Juliet arrives. James’ ex-fiancée. Beautiful and seductive. And a genius at undermining Nicola, especially when no one else is around. But what Juliet’s after may be far greater than just destroying Nicola, and we slowly come to realize that everyone is in danger from Juliet. A slow simmer that’s full of great characterization, this should appeal to fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.

Speak of the Devil

A Fitting End

Jamie Spellman is dead and nobody’s sorry. The women in his life are not only fine with the loss, we find eight of them sitting in a disused room above a Manchester pub with Jamie’s head on the table before them, a smell of “rot and pennies” in the air. One of them probably did the gruesome deed, but it’s hard to tell who when the story of each woman’s awful interactions with loathsome Jamie gets underway. It could have been his wife, Sadia; god knows he treated her badly enough. But Kaysha, the journalist investigating the story, knows that even though it’s always the spouse, the other women had equally valid reasons to hasten Jamie’s end. Another possibility is the teenager he was stringing along. Or maybe the mother who’s lost a daughter thanks to Jamie. Everyone’s got a story, and as they unspool, a lot is squeezed in, from infertility to alcoholism and from anger-fueled affairs to vicious gaslighting. It all comes together to link the women, whose stories converge in a way that will appeal to Kate Atkinson’s readers, and to create an ending that brings us back to that head on the table, but in a twisting, unexpected way. This debut author is one to watch.

Just One More

Friendship Never Dies

Librarian Jenn thinks her husband, Rick, will be thrilled with his birthday gift. He’s often wistfully mentioned his days as an avid surfer, when he hated leaving the beach, always staying for “just one more” wave. But when Jenn shows him the phrase “just one more” tattooed on her shoulder, he says she’s a tramp. And to Jenn’s further shock and puzzlement, he says he’s never surfed. A chill sets into the newlyweds’ days, with Rick becoming more distant and controlling. But surely things will improve, thinks Jenn, if she does her best. When she finally feels ready to ask when they should start to try having children, which they’ve decided is in the cards, she’s dismayed to hear him say that he’s been clear that he never wanted kids. That increasingly red-flag-filled saga is one half of this rollercoaster tale; the other part is narrated by Jenn’s best friend, Becca, who in the beginning of the book arrives at Jenn’s house to find her drowned in the bathtub. The two women’s investigations—Jenn’s library research on her husband’s past and Becca’s digging into what happened to Jenn—unfurl in tandem, an effective device that allows the narratives to complement each other’s details and tone and enables the women to seemingly work together across the time lines. Just wait for that satisfying ending.

Invitation to a Killer

Nowhere to Hide

Love a good locked-room mystery? Well, here’s a book with two, sort of. Augusta Hawke, crime writer with a developing side gig as an amateur detective, has been invited to a dinner party at the home of Callie Moore, wife of one of Washington, DC’s biggest lobbyists, making Callie herself a sort of demi-goddess. Turns out Callie is eyeing Augusta to ghostwrite her memoirs; in fact, everyone at the dinner has some sort of publishing aspiration. And it’s quite the assemblage, including a congressman and his wife; a CIA couple; and Doc Burke, a famous humanitarian. Augusta may have little interest in ghostwriting, but the menu is delectable, the libations lavish—until the doctor seems to fall asleep. Except you, me, and Augusta all know he’s not sleeping. He’s dead, likely, it turns out, from his heart condition. O.K., it’s not a locked-room mystery if everyone Ubers home, but certainly it has the makings of one. Over the next several months, Augusta researches and ruminates, deciding that indeed the good Doc was murdered, likely poisoned. But how to find the murderer? Augusta decides to host a writers’ retreat, in the Shenandoah Mountain, just for the dinner guests. This crazy/fun plan—yes, it snows abundantly—provides the true locked-room experience. For all who love Augusta’s wit, insights into DC and the publishing industry, and a little bit of Agatha.

What Remains

When Gratitude Turns Deadly

A particular type of horror needs nothing supernatural: It’s when a mundane task suddenly requires every ounce of will and wits to survive. Police officer Elise Sutton is shopping for towels—her kids have been hinting that the threadbare affairs they’ve been using are not the world’s only towels, but who has the time?—when her training kicks into gear: there’s a shooter in the store. The scene that unfolds is a highlight of the book, though far from the only tense moment, and a meticulous portrait of human nature under pressure. Elise gets the gunman in her sight as he takes aim at a tall man who then escapes; the gunman is killed by Elise and the clothing racks come alive with shoppers who were hiding, terrified. Elise must now deal with her own trauma, having killed a man, and with the doubt that plagues her: did she need to kill him? Just as readers settle in for a tale about survivor’s guilt and PTSD, the story takes a turn: the tall man shows up, way too grateful for being saved, and by the time Elise realizes that he’s acting oddly, he’s become her obsessed stalker. Alternating with this inward-focused tale of one woman’s turmoil and peril is the saga of a burned body that’s found in the Connecticut woods, in an oven used by hunters. Finding out how these stories are related, and whether Elise’s marriage and career can survive the terror she faces, makes the pages turn quickly. Ideal for those who enjoyed Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love, another tale of obsession.

Nonna Maria and the Case of the Stolen Necklace

Where are the Recipes?

Having loved Nonna Maria and the Runaway Bride, I started Carcaterra’s second in the series with some trepidation. Would it hold up to the first? But I’m happy to report that the newest Nonna book provides all the pleasures of the earlier title—and then some. If you aren’t familiar with Nonna Maria, then make it a point to remedy that. A widowed grandmother, Nonna Maria, in an oh-so-subtle way, runs the island of Ischia, just 20 miles from Naples. Through her myriad connections, which include the carabinieri, members of organized crime, the clergy, and of course family, Nonna rights many wrongs—all while cooking the most delectable meals. In this installment, Nonna Maria’s goddaughter, who works as a maid, is accused of stealing a necklace while a woman, who was once a native, returns to the island, only to be murdered. Through Nonna’s investigations, we learn more about how the island, and its economy, is changing, while the conservative social mores that are such a part of island life live on. Cozy readers will love this book both for the indomitable character of Nonna Maria and the chance to travel to this paradise in the Bay of Naples.

Night Will Find You

A Psychic Investigator

Vivvy Bouchet—the last name is one her mother made up as fitting for a psychic—is an astrophysicist who’s working to prove that a glimpse of far, far off light she once detected is artificial light from extraterrestrial life. There’s serious grant money in the balance, but she’s pulled further and further from her day job by her side gig as a psychic working with an old friend (it’s complicated), Mike, who’s a cop. Mike and his gruff, hostile coworker want Vivvy’s take on the case of Lizzie, a missing girl. Lizzie’s mother is in jail for the girl’s murder, but swears she’s innocent, and Vivvy gets a vision that there’s more to the situation than the police know. Discovering Lizzie’s fate and who’s responsible begins to take over Vivvy’s life, not only because she’s determined to find the girl but also because an Alex Jones-type radio and podcast host starts making her life a misery. Getting his fans away from her home and getting back to her research, if her colleagues can ever take her seriously again, are the goals. But Vivvy’s relationship with Mike isn’t the only complication, making this a maelstrom of worldly and otherworldly detective work, satisfying twists, and relationship drama. A fast-moving thriller with an unusual protagonist.

Stolen

Seeking Justice in Sápmi

Elsa knows you have to keep your hands in the sled so they’re not sliced by sharp ice. She’s learning to sew gákti, her Sámi family’s traditional clothes. She’s even big enough to surprise her parents by skiing to the reindeer corral and feeding the animals by herself. But one day, when she gets there, in the opening of this unusual and immersive novel, Nástegallu, the reindeer her father has given her as her own, has been murdered. More terrifying, the killer stares at Elsa and draws his finger across his throat to show that she’d better keep her mouth shut. The lonely terror triggered by this gruesome event seeps into Elsa’s bones and shapes her life for the decades spanned by the book. As a frightened child and later a fledgling Sámi-rights activist, Elsa stands on the tenuous border between the indigenous reindeer herders who are trying to maintain their traditional way of life and the more modern Swedes around them who treat the “bloody Lapps” (Lapp is a slur) as either entitled leeches on the state or quaint artifacts of pastoral innocence. Always at the center are the reindeer and the serial killing of them, a destruction of Sami food, transport, heat, and sense of self. A reindeer serial killer? I know. But this is one of those books that will draw you in, teach you, and stay with you. Sámi journalist Laestadius’s adult debut, this book won Sweden’s Book of the Year prize in 2021 and is being adapted into a film that will be on Netflix in 2024

The White Lady

What Elinor Learns

Jacqueline Winspear, author of the hugely popular mystery Maisie Dobbbs series set in England during WWII, here moves into the post-war world with a new heroine. Elinor White has had a lifetime of espionage. Born in Brussels, daughters of a British mother and a Belgian father who died in the early years of the WWI, she and her older sister spent WWI in Brussels, working as trained spies, going so far as derailing German supply trains in the dead of night. By age 14, already an expert markswoman, Elinor moves with her family to England. But by the beginning of WWII, she’s back in the espionage game, although eventually a terrible injury behind enemy lines sends her back to England and a lengthy hospitalization. When the war finally ends, she moves to the country, promising to forget the past and live a life of monotony. But when the lives of a neighboring family are threatened—they too are seeking anonymity—Elinor becomes involved, facing the country’s largest crime family head on. Throughout, readers will sense that Elinor is keeping something from us, and when her secret is finally revealed it brings about a type of healing. As always, Winspear is brilliant at bringing us into the past and into the lives of women, so often left out of accounts of war efforts. Winspear fans will find much to enjoy here, as will other readers of historical fiction.

A Cryptic Clue

A former university librarian, forced into early retirement, takes on a new job cataloging a book collection, only to find herself spending more time solving a crime than applying the Library of Congress subject headings. Jane Hunter is making lots of changes in her life. She’s downsized her home, is living alone—her actress daughter is off on a national tour—and is about to bring in some much-needed funds by cataloging 33-year-old Cameron “Cam” Clewe’s vast crime fiction collection. But on the first day at the job, at Cam’s sprawling mansion, she discovers—wouldn’t you know it?—a corpse on the floor of the library. And not just any corpse. Cam’s latest ex-girlfriend. To make matters worse, several people saw the couple arguing the night before. With handsome Cam the number one suspect, if Jane wants to keep her job, she’s got to keep her boss out of jail, so the two team up to find the real perp. The fun here is in what an odd couple they make. Sherlock Cam has “anxiety, OCD, occasional depression, and a general lack of social awareness.” And while Watson Jane may not have been diagnosed with anything listed in the DSM-5, she’s darn nosey, quite pushy, a bit of a rumor monger, and has some dubious professional ethics (she brings items home, and shows them to a neighbor, without Cam’s permission.) Everything is in place here for a successful series sure to delight traditional cozy readers for years to come. Now let these two go at each other.

A Good Family

When Minnesota Nice Takes a Turn

Katie Kuhlmann lives in an Edina, Minnesota, neighborhood called Country Club, and it’s like what you would imagine. Katie didn’t grow up rich, but she married old Minnesota money and now lives among neighbors who might “chip in on a private jet” so they can all vacation in the same luxurious place. Having endured a sad upbringing with her grandparents after her parents and brothers were killed in a car crash, Katie’s happy to roll with the pampered oddness that is her new life as long as she’s got her family close. But her safe haven is beginning to show signs of rot. When he’s not ignoring his family or disappearing for lengthy stretches, Katie’s husband, Jack, is angry and tense. Out of the blue, a wayward college friend of his arrives and takes up residence in the family’s garden apartment, and Katie fears that things are going from bad to worse. She has no idea how dire things will get and the gut-punch of betrayal that’s in store. When her husband confesses a crime to her—is it even true?—it’s just the beginning. Goldman writes a woman’s inner voice perfectly, and his background as a TV writer (Seinfeld, Ellen) shows on the page, with tense and thrilling scenes quickly alternating with romantic interludes and domestic entanglements. Jodi Piccoult readers will enjoy Katie’s climb out of a painful trap.

A Cry in the Dark

Finding Goodness in Horror

Christian fiction readers and those who enjoy a chilling, tense thriller will relish the trip to Night Hollow, a desolate part of rural Kentucky that locals call “the holler.” Set deep in Appalachian hills, the holler is darker than its surroundings, in both meager daylight and social conditions. It’s particularly bad for women, but the holler keeps all its residents in its sad grip, while outsiders leave the poverty and crime to continue providing it stays contained. That ends when the FBI shows up to investigate the murder of several local women who’ve been found beaten and with their eyes removed and eyelids sewn shut (a process that happens “offstage,” thankfully). Two very different protagonists lead the story: FBI psychologist Violet Rainwater, who’s a product of her mother’s lengthy abduction and rape years ago and struggles to face the current crime’s echoes of that past, and John Orlando, a detective whose FBI-agent wife’s killing may have a link to the Blind Eye Killer, as the media has dubbed the area’s monster. Patch offers spiritual insights via believer John’s kind advice and support of atheist Violet, with the religious theme taking a back seat to the characters’ personalities and the layered mysteries that swirl in the holler. The scary ending, which also has a great twist, will leave readers ready for more from Patch.

The Saint Ambrose School for Girls

Sometimes I Could Kill Her

A powerful coming-of-age novel that gradually, and brilliantly, morphs into crime fiction. Sarah Taylor didn’t apply to the prestigious, all-girl prep school Saint Ambrose. Her mother—and sole parent—who works as a lunch lady and barely has $200 in the bank, completed her application. “You’re nationwide smart, Sarah, not small town bright,” her mother reminds her when dropping her off on the first day. But Sarah, dressed all in black, with hair dyed to match, isn’t exactly fitting in at Saint Ambrose, and her diagnosis of bipolar with mania doesn’t help. But the worst is queen mean Greta, who, along with her court, goes after Sarah, humiliating her whenever there’s an opportunity—including Xeroxing and distributing a very personal essay Sarah wrote about being diagnosed bipolar. But slowly Sarah starts to build alliances, including “hot RA,” her incredibly handsome resident advisor, and Strots, her privileged, tough as nails, super-jock roommate, who’s gay and has her own set of challenges (the novel’s set in 1991). Serious stuff, but Sarah has a wild sense of humor that keeps you glued to the page, and the depiction of a New England prep school is spot on. Tensions mount, hatreds grow, violence is inevitable, the community becomes unglued, and readers are left gasping. As Sarah says: “There’s going to be no setting what just happened to rights. Ever.” Fans of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and Rebecca Makkai’s forthcoming I Have Some Questions for You will love this.

Murder in Times Square

his series debut features a woman who’s so glamorous and strong she has a superhero persona, complete with the superhero’s inner conflict. Deirdre Flanagan is a model, a beautiful 19-year-old who purposely makes herself uglier in daily life so she can pass unnoticed. While she loves clothes and the drama of a professional fashion shoot, modeling is very much her nine to five. In her spare time, she works with her doting father and his brother—they’re a former world-champion boxer and an NYC police captain, respectively, and the only parents she has known—to solve crimes against young women. When a woman in a striking red dress falls to her death from the roof of 1 Times Square, Deirdre hits the scene, finding another body as well as unexpected emotions upon viewing the remains. Why this case has hit her so hard and whether she can escape the escalating danger facing those involved with the victim and the case is a mystery that will keep readers rapt—although they’ll also enjoy being dropped into the world of New York City haute couture. Baer, who worked briefly in that world and is the author of the successful Jack Colt series, also offers a gritty contrast to the ritziness of fashion in his protagonist’s personal life: home is her father’s boxing gym, and between that setting and her life as an NYPD sidekick, the sarcasm and bullets keep flying. A fast, absorbing introduction to a daring star.

Small Town Sins

“I can trace so much of my life back to a summer night when I was seventeen,” opens main character Nathan, and right away you’re reading through your fingers like watching a horror film. Nathan’s a good boy until that summer night, when racy LeeLee takes him to a party. One thing leads to another and next thing he gets The Phone Call: LeeLee’s pregnant and needs $1,000 to fix the problem. Nathan has $100. He has tough decisions to make and no perfect options, a problem faced by the other struggling characters in this book, all of whom are scraping by in Locksburg, PA. Years later, Nathan comes upon a chance to leave his troubles behind: when he rescues a man from a burning building, he finds a sack of money that he impulsively puts in his truck. Then we meet the other main characters, whose narratives alternate and overlap with Nathan’s: Paula, Nathan’s wife, a nurse who wants nothing to do with the money; Callie, a nurse who works with Paula and who wants to give a dying young patient one last chance at happiness, defying the girl’s fundamentalist Christian parents in the process; and Andy, a recovering heroin addict who, facing bottomless grief, puts his remaining days into punishing an evil man. New York Times editor Jaworowski’s characters are so real, their struggles so palpable, you won’t want to leave them. A must for fans of This Is Us.

Bad Summer People

Are There Any Good Summer People?

Yes, it’s only October. But my money is on Bad Summer People as the best beach book of the summer of 2023. Set in Salcombe, a made-up community on Fire Island—not the like the gay Pines, more the reclusive and ritzy Saltaire—this book, in the great literary tradition of Peyton Place, has it all: adultery, fashion, tons of gossip, backbiting, lying, hot sex with the tennis pro, tasteful plastic surgery, alcoholism, and even a corpse. Plus the sort of casual racism and classism liberal one-percenters indulge in. It opens with a prologue, set at the end of August, in which a body is discovered face down off the boardwalk. The book then backs up to late June, as the all-white residents arrive from the Upper East side and Scarsdale for the start of a new season. From there we follow the tumultuous summer in chronological order, moving quite handily among a group of narrators, from the above-mentioned Stanford tennis coach to the Filipino nanny to the gay Yale student/bartender and many more. At the gravitational center of the book are Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker, the “it moms” who married into Salcombe—their husbands are best friends—and oversee the social action. Not another word from me, lest I spoil any of the fun, except to say the identities of both the victim and the murderer pack quite the punch. This book really hits the sweet spot for popular fiction and will appeal to a broad swathe of readers.

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

Unsolicited But Not Unwelcome

A wonderful, moving stand-alone in which Sutanto, author of the Aunties series, is at the absolute top of her game. Sixty-year-old Vera Wong is lonely, although she’d never admit it. A widower, she’s the mother of a lawyer consumed by work—he rarely returns her texts, even though she offers such good advice!— and her days consist of a 6 am brisk walk through San Francisco’s Chinatown—she needs to get her steps in!—then opening her tea shop which, on the best of days, has only one customer. Extraordinarily opinionated, quite a bit eccentric, yet utterly charming, Vera’s voice is captivating. But readers will be completely beguiled after she comes downstairs one morning (she lives above the shop) and discovers a young man lying on the floor. She does call the cops, and tries her very, very best not to disturb the crime scene, but not before prying a flash drive out of the man’s very dead hands. Then the novel takes off as Vera—believing the cops are incapable of solving the crime—assumes the role of detective. In the process, she befriends several young people, including both the victim’s wife and his brother, and while Vera still considers them all to be prime suspects, she can’t help but care for them. Initially this protagonist may seem like the cliché of the dominating Chinese mom. But Vera, it turns out, is pretty damaged herself, much like her new, thirty-something friends. Come for the mystery, but stay for the healing. One of the best cozies I’ve read this year.

The Last Word

Why I Never Write a Negative Review

Emma Carpenter is house-sitting in near-total isolation on the Washington coast. For company there’s Laika, her Golden Retriever; a retired alcoholic author a half-mile up the coast with whom she exchanges brief messages; and the occasional delivery person. Something’s bugging Emma. After all, you don’t take a gig like this unless you’ve got a project you’re working on or some issues you need to resolve, and for Emma it’s the latter. She keeps herself occupied by walking Laika and reading thrillers, plowing through two ebooks a day until she comes across a novel so misogynistic, so poorly written, she can’t help but give it a negative review, setting off an online dialog with the author, who demands the review be retracted. That’s when things start to get weird—and tension starts to heighten—as every evening the security lights switch on and off, or Emma hears footsteps in the house, or the CCTV catches an intruder outside her door—complete with ghoulish mask. Could it possibly be the author Emma has been arguing with? Whomever, it is, Emma is no damsel in distress, and she’d rather fight than run. From there the narrative speeds up, the terror mounts, and the layers of plot begin to unfold until the reader feels like they’re strapped to a one-person luge, runners greased and no way to get free. Perfect for the nail biters.

Murder at an Irish Bakery

A Sweet Story

We don’t normally review the 11th book in a series, because typically after a few titles the series needs no further introduction. But I grabbed this one from the (virtual) pile because 1. It’s set in Ireland, my former home; 2. It’s set in a bakery, my spiritual home; 3. Murder. The Ireland here is a thoroughly modern one, with the tale set around a baking-competition reality show. Famous cookbook author Aoife McBride is the one to beat, as the contestants vie to impress the judges with elaborate chocolate constructions, fancy layered creations, and to-die-for tea cakes, all to win twenty-thousand Euro and a boost to their baking-career ambitions. The producers throw in reality-show-required conflict, of course, but get more drama than they bargained for when a protester (“Sugar kills! Stop the show!”) outside the studio mysteriously drops dead. His is not the last face to fall in the flour, so to speak. Gardaí (police officers) Siobhán O’Sullivan and Aretta Dabiri and Siobhán’s new husband, Detective Sergeant Macdara Flannery, must solve the mystery while the cameras roll and the baking puns fly. This has more than the contestants’ groan-worthy puns, though, with O’Connor (No Strangers Here) giving readers a healthy balance of whodunit and bitchy competition, not to mention a cute relationship in still-in-the-honeymoon-phase Siobhán and Macdara. The closing recipe for Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake alone is worth the book price.

Death of a Bookseller

The Making of a True Crime

A dangerous obsession, true crime, bookselling, alcoholism, and trauma—add some dark humor—and you have the ingredients for this utterly unique tale set in Spines, a present-day-London bookstore. Young, post-punk Roach has only ever worked as a bookseller at Spines, where she can indulge in her obsession with true crime—female victims only, please—and way overstock the true-crime section. Her Mom runs a bar and basically ignores Roach, while Roach’s boyfriend is an unwashed brute in a death metal t-shirt. But things aren’t going so well at this branch of Spines these days, and the corporate office has transferred some seasoned employees to bolster sales. This includes Laura, who’s all vintage dresses and rose oil, berets and hand-rolled cigarettes. She’s what Roach would call a “normie,” until Roach hears her give a poetry reading in which she references many of Roach’s favorite true-crime victims. Roach becomes obsessed with Laura, eventually going full-on stalker. But while Roach is fascinated with the perps, Laura is disgusted by the true-crime genre for glorifying these creeps. Instead, she pays homage to the victims, and does so from a very personal perspective. As Laura’s drinking becomes more and more out of control, it becomes easier and easier for Roach to take over, playing with Laura’s sense of reality and leading to an ending as dark as it is credible. The novel includes a wonderful cast of booksellers who bring some humorous subplots to the book. Readers who enjoyed Laura Sims’ How Can I Help You, reviewed here last week, will be ecstatic to meet these women.

The Other Mistress

In the introduction by Williams (The Wife Before, The Perfect Ruin), readers are forewarned, that child abuse and sexual assault feature in this novel; they should still be prepared for whiplash when this turns from a “girl’s night in” kind of story to something much, much darker. Black couple Adira and Gabriel are living the high life—at first appearance. Adira’s an entrepreneur, the successful owner of a luxury clothing brand, Lovely Silk. Gabriel isn’t as successful—Adira’s keeping them afloat—but she doesn’t mind. She’s crazy about her husband and is shattered to see an email pop up on his phone that makes it clear he’s seeing another woman, Jocelyn. Actually, make that two women, Jocelyn and Julianna, with the former woman, when confronted by Adira, offering to join ranks with the wronged wife to make Gabriel pay. Thus starts the darkness, with stalking, lies, and desperation taking turns with another story, of two little girls, one of whom is being sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Williams ramps up the tension and the mystery from the first page so that as the stories converge and a terrible truth is revealed, readers will be both enthralled and aghast. One for all those who’ve done what they had to do and lived to tell the tale.

Tina, Mafia Soldier

Under the Sicilian Sun

My first impression of this 1994 Italian novel was that the translator must have gotten quite a workout, with, for example, a character described as exhibiting “childish mischievousness…elusive, playful provocation” and the setting called “contaminated, ruined, corrupted, infested, dirty.” Next came the confusion over the story’s era. It takes time to grasp that we’re visiting the 1980s in Sicily, which is one part of what makes the book so rich; the island is an anachronism. The Sicilian words sprinkled throughout also seem fermented relics of a bygone time; words like scassapagghiara, thugs, and spasciamarroni, guttermouth. Growing from this arid dystopia is a masculidda, or tomboy, called Tina (she creates this nickname for Cettina because it’s “short, hard, a bit foreign”). Time is again confused here, with Tina acting both much older than her teenage years, such as when she takes over a band of boy mafia trainees, and much younger, in her obsession with impressing grownups so that she can become “respected,” i.e., a mafia member. The narrator, who’s writing a book about Tina, leads us to the Bronx, as Tina’s run-down neighborhood is called by locals. Our protagonist is strangely absent from the town and readers aren’t sure until the end if she’s on the run, in prison, or maybe dead. Through the book we get a look at the notorious, shocking life of the girl who defied her father’s saying that “A night [is] wasted when you make a girl” to satisfy violent ambitions. Well worth the read, especially for those who enjoy stories of women smashing barriers.

I Have Some Questions for You

The Story I Knew Had Never Felt Right

This book is centered on one question: back in 1995, did Omar Evans, then a twenty-five-year-old Black man and athletic trainer, murder high school student Thalia Keith? And it’s narrated by one woman, podcaster and Thalia’s roommate, Bodie Kane. From there this novel extends in myriad directions, covers over twenty years, takes us across the country, and dives into Bodie’s past and present, as well as the questionable memories of a whole cast of characters. Yes, it’s a lot, but it’s also brilliantly successful and absolutely riveting. In 2018, Bodie was invited back to teach for two weeks at The Granby School, the elite New England boarding school she attended over 20 years ago. Her students are creating podcasts, with one choosing to revisit Thalia’s murder, a topic Bodie has kept at arm’s length. But gradually Bodie wonders if the police arrested the wrong man and the murderer is walking free. Ultimately convinced of Omar’s innocence, she reaches out to classmates for memories, photographs, any records that could help piece together that evening over twenty years ago. In many ways, what Bodie does is reopen a cold case, without any help from the cops, one that’s rich in newly found details, tacitly informed by #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. While addressing much of the book to a suspect we never meet, over the next several years, Bodie and her students raise enough questions to be taken seriously. Overlaying all this is Bodie’s personal life, including trauma from her past and a break-up with her husband, an artist accused of sexual harassment. Add to this the murders of other women that Makkai tucks around the main narrative, giving Thalia’s murder ever greater context. This is one of the books I’m most eager to share with a book group. It demands discussion.

Gone Tonight

Running from the Past

Catherine Sterling’s personal and professional worlds are beginning to collide: she’s a nurse who cares for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, and her mother is starting to show classic symptoms. The two live together, making the forgetfulness hard to miss, with Ruth Sterling looking very confused when recent events are discussed and forgetting words—calling ice cubes “water squares,” for example. Ruth is reluctant to get any scans that could confirm the likely diagnosis—her mother died of Alzheimer’s, she says, and she knows what’s ahead. But then Catherine makes a discovery that causes her to doubt that her mother’s problems are real. As the point of view shifts between the two women, readers get Ruth’s first-person point of view; her odd behavior is hiding an explosive past that Catherine knows nothing about. Readers are in for a wild cat-and-mouse game as this tight duo (boundaries, what are they?) faces terrible odds when Catherine delves into her mother’s past and Ruth hides the pair from an encroaching threat. There are some very sad moments here, related to dire poverty and child sexual abuse. Overall, it’s an eye-opening look at how “our minds…talk us out of things we don’t want to know.”

How Can I Help You

My Own Beautiful Monster

Clear your calendar, silence your phone, and settle down to enjoy Laura Sims’ latest book in one joyous sitting. You deserve it and I guarantee you’ll thank me. Set among library workers in a small public library—no author has ever gotten library culture as right as Sims—this book is as unsettling as a Shirley Jackson novel with the same crazy stalker energy of a Patricia Highsmith tale. It’s time to move on for ex-nurse Margo, who leaves in her wake scores of suspicious deaths in a handful of hospitals. A library clerk position at the Carlyle Public Library gives her a chance at redemption, along with a new name, hair color, and wardrobe. And she can still help people, “not the way I helped them before, at the hospital, but still.” She’s able to keep the lid on her urges, for the most part, until two years later when Patricia, a new reference librarian, is hired. The two strike up a friendship of sorts—they live in the same apartment building—but when an elderly patron dies in the bathroom, and Margo becomes way over-excited, Patricia finds herself becoming obsessed with Margo and begins documenting her actions. The narrative alternates between the two women as the novel grows deeper, darker, and creepier, ending in a stunning, perfect climax.

The Personal Assistant

A Viral Nightmare

@UnapologeticallyAlex is Alex Hutchinson’s wildly successful Instagram account, one that is moving toward a million followers until she and her personal assistant AC hit the booze and the next morning her following has turned rabid. Through her hangover haze, Alex sees that she has fifteen thousand notifications that give her in ALL ANGRY CAPS the information she dreads: last night, she trashed another online celebrity in a three-paragraph-long diatribe that might or might not have used the words “attention-seeking slut.” And that’s only the beginning. Alex and her handsome, financial-guru husband, Patrick, who has a successful TV show, along with their twin daughters, find themselves suddenly locked in a spiral of misfortune. Alex’s personal assistant—the one person who could fix this Insta nightmare—is missing. The police discover evidence of a crime in their carriage house. And the normally well-behaved twins are in trouble at school for drinking. Can it get worse? Oh yes, it can. Join Alex for this wild ride—you won’t be sorry!—and get ready for a look at the real world of online fame, which is made to seem both frighteningly exposing and frighteningly isolating by the masterful narrative and especially the inner dialogs of Alex, AC, and Patrick. While this is a thriller with tech as a catalyst, anyone who likes a great story will eat it up (the heaping spoonful of schadenfreude doesn’t hurt).

Killingly

This World of Women

A haunting tale set in the rarefied world of Mount Holyoke college, the oldest of the Seven Sisters, and inspired by a true story. It’s 1897 and Bertha Mellish, a quiet and rather odd junior, has gone missing, last seen walking into the woods that surround the college. As days go by, her disappearance draws to campus her sister and father—an enfeebled minister from Killingly, Connecticut—the police, and a private investigator hired by the family. But the one person who likely knows what happened to Bertha is Agnes Sullivan, and she’s being incredibly circumspect. Agnes is poor and Irish, a promising scientist, and Bertha’s closest friend…or lover? At a time when women in an environment like Mount Holyoke could establish romantic relationships, and display affection, Agnes and Bertha were such a couple—in fact, they planned after graduation to live in a Boston Marriage, the name for two women who set up a household together. So why is Agnes so tight-lipped? Rape, incest, abortion, vivisection, and insanity swirl around the narrative, as does the imagining of the precarious lives of women, even when privileged. Beutner does a wonderful job of pulling the reader into this world then locking the door behind us, keeping us engaged until the very last page.

Device Free Weekend

Social Networking

Get-togethers with college friends can often be bittersweet, although as we age reunions tend to be more mellow. Except in this novel, in which a weekend with your now-middle-aged friends doesn’t just end in acrimony. It leads to unimaginable destruction, and I’m not talking about damage to the wine cellar. Über billionaire Ryan Cloverhill—substitute him with your least favorite tech CEO—has invited his six closest college friends to an all-expenses-paid weekend on his private island in Puget Sound. Although they haven’t been in touch much lately, this group lived together throughout college, dated one another, and roomed together as adults, with the assumption that they would always be there for one another. After Ryan collects all their devices and locks them away—painful!—the weekend kicks off with plenty of wine, glorious food, and a sunset cruise. But the next morning, the six wake up, bleary-eyed, only to discover that Ryan is gone, they’re locked in the mansion, there’s a tablet computer teasing them (“Unlock Me!”), and they need to work together to discover the code. Yes, it’s another locked-on-an-island mystery, but the ingredients are so unusual and the plot so outrageous that this is completely unique. Readers will love the fast pace, the wonderful integration of technology, the mad Ryan—somewhat reminiscent of Dr. No—and the development of the hostages.

The Boys from Biloxi

Mississippi Vice

The 48th novel from the biggest name in legal thrillers is a departure for him, with the book taking place over generations and lots more of it outside the courtroom than usual, all to great effect. The boys of the title are two sets of fathers and sons on very different sides of the law in Biloxi, Mississippi. Their saga starts with a look at the founding of the hardscrabble city by Croatian fishermen. By the time we reach the 1950s and meet Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco, the sons in question, the city has thriving clubs with prostitution, gambling, and all the violence and intimidation that go alongside. Hugh’s father, Lance, is the head of organized crime in Biloxi, able to grow his awful interests with the help of corrupt police. Fighting against him and his ilk is Keith’s father, Jesse, a lawyer whose education and climb we’ve witnessed and who dreams of becoming DA and cleaning up his city for good. As the two sides becomen entrenched, Grisham takes us on side trips that follow the various small-time and not-so-small-time criminals whose work feeds the Rudy-Malco divide, with the story building toward an epic legal showdown that pits honor against evil. There are no major female characters here, and the book may not pass the Bechdel test, but readers who can overlook that will be treated to vintage Grisham: a great story, characters to cheer for and loathe, and gripping legal drama. Fans of Jeffrey Archer as well as of Grisham will love this.

Locust Lane

Affluenza and Affairs

The puzzle pieces that make up the rich town of Emerson, Massachusetts don’t quite fit and in the cracks between, unhappiness grows. Michel is a striving Lebanese restaurant owner, his son Christopher a quiet kid who’s trying his hardest to fit into a very white town, with his most strident effort expended on friendship with bully Jack. Michel’s fancy restaurant often hosts the ladies-who-lunch crowd, most frequently Alice, Michel’s married girlfriend who’s stepmom to volatile teen Hannah. The façade of prosperous goodness collapses in a heap of gossip and accusations when “that girl Eden,” who’s from the other side of the tracks and has a troubled background, is found dead after partying with Christopher, Hannah, and Jack. The usual haves-and-have-nots divide becomes starker as the pressure mounts on the police to solve this quickly, and secrets and bigotries are revealed…but who did it is tantalizingly unclear until the very end. All through the book, the testing and twisting of relationships keeps the drama high and Amidon leaves us pondering the question of what’s worth sacrificing for love. For Celeste Ng’s many fans.

Bright and Deadly Things

Everything but an Avalanche

Oxford don Emily is off to a retreat of sorts at Chalet des Anglais—a large estate in the French Alps, owned by several of the Oxford colleges. Emily is recently widowed, and this Alpine sojourn, including students and faculty—several of whom are her friends—seems to be exactly what the doctor ordered. But from the get-go, something isn’t right. Her house is burglarized as she is leaving for the airport. At the Chalet, someone rifles through her belongings and attempts to log into her laptop. Friends, too, are acting oddly, while an attractive undergrad is busy putting the moves on nearly everyone, including Emily. Not exactly a locked-room—let’s call it a locked chalet—the house is tremendously remote and, naturally, without any Internet access. Elliott slowly and skillfully builds the tension, carefully layering conversations, glances, overheard conversations, diary entries, and annual reports from the Chalet’s earlier years. When all hell finally breaks loose—and it certainly does, in multiple ways—Emily is left without anyone she can trust, forced to recreate her world

A Mother Would Know

Suspicions on the Street

Remember We Need to Talk about Kevin, Lionel Shriver’s dark novel about a mother’s fraught efforts to understand her violent son? Here, neighbors believe Valerie Jacobs has set up her own version of Shriver’s book: her son, Hudson, suspected years ago of a violent crime, is back home and seems eager to live off mom. Valerie’s daughter, Kendra, is against the arrangement. Valerie has always spoiled Hudson, Kendra says between snapping at her mother’s attempts to be a new grandma and pushing miracle cures for Valerie’s seemingly encroaching Alzheimer’s disease. Then a shock crashes into the setup: a young woman is found murdered in the neighborhood and Valerie’s neighbors immediately point the finger at her home. Even Valerie herself suspects Hudson, except when she’s suspecting herself and her memory gaps. Garza (When I Was You) excels at making our heads spin as facts emerge, some from the present and others the past, adding to both the murkiness and the drama. This tale is constructed on a scaffold of slights, family grudges, deceit, and quiet love, all of which build to an out-of-the-blue reveal. This isn’t—thankfully!—as dark as We Need to Talk about Kevin, but it’s every bit as gripping.

The Last Grudge

Horror in Helsinki

A classic police procedural that does a miraculous job of balancing the investigation on the one hand and the complex personal lives of the detectives on the other. One of Helsinki’s most successful business leaders is murdered in his home, by a kitchen knife to his heart. He was on his way to a dinner celebrating his company’s fiftieth anniversary, an event overshadowed by protests because of recent layoffs he’s authorized. Yusuf, one of the leading detectives throughout this series, is put in charge of the investigation, which leads inward, with a meticulous examination of the apartment, and outward, contacting many of the executive’s colleagues and just individuals with whom he may have had contact. Unnerved at his leadership position, Yusuf brings on Detective Jessica Niemi, his partner in the earlier books, who’s now on leave trying to escape from her personal demons—literally, not metaphorically. As the story briskly unfolds—Seeck keeps the plot moving—the past and the present collide in a terrifying way. While this can be a stand-alone, it’s best to read it as part of a series. For fans of Camilla Läckberg and Jo Nesbø.

Waste of a Life

What do you remember most about a Simon Brett novel? The characters. Brett, a genius at writing traditional mysteries, has created several series over the years, all based on personalities that draw readers back again and again. These days, Brett has two series in the works, the long-standing Fethering mysteries—featuring two sort-of best friends in a very English village—and a newer series featuring professional declutterer Ellen Curtis. Having a declutterer as your protagonist is inspired: they allow for easy access into other people’s lives—through their stuff—whether those people are dead or alive. Here, Ellen has been hired to work with Cedric Waites, an octogenarian who hasn’t left the house since his wife died years ago. Yes, there are mountains of empty frozen-dinner containers, but Ellen is slowly making headway with Cedric. Only to find him, one day, dead. And not just dead, but likely murdered, with Ellen one of the suspects. The novel goes deeply into Cedric’s past, marriage, and his dealings with his awful son and even worse daughter-in-law. But more compelling is Ellen and her relationships with her two adult children, both of whom are deeply troubled, and both of whom end up moving home at some point. The publisher describes this as a light-hearted mystery. It’s not. It’s actually a darn good novel about families—the good, the bad, and the ugly—set against a murder inquiry.

The Survivalists

But it’s an Artisanal Bunker

Ready for something completely different? This brilliantly odd and unexpected tale sees striving corporate lawyer Aretha go on—finally!—a great date, one that doesn’t end with her crawling out the bar’s bathroom window to escape (yes, she has) or wondering mid date if she’s already dead. Aaron does arrive in the bar looking like he “[chops] wood for a living right there in the middle of Brooklyn,” but that’s not so unusual for the area. What is unusual is that he’s part of the “dead parents club.” His mom died of cancer while Aretha’s were gored by deer, but her past dates have made her less choosy. This might be why Aretha tries to chalk it down to individuality when she finds that Aaron and his housemates have built a bunker in their garden to keep safe when the world is destroyed, eat only optimized protein soy bars, and own guns (not just a few). As Aretha drops further into this bizarro world, into crime, and away from Aaron, the sadness underneath the spectacle shows itself: this tale is about the rot that sets in when you sell something that doesn’t belong to you. Plagiarism features, with housemate James a perpetrator and Aretha, in a separate event, a victim, but even worse is Aretha and Aaron selling versions of themselves that can never be. A must-read debut.

Such Pretty Flowers

When Botanicals Go Bad

A little bit of a mystery, a whole lot of a thriller, and definitely a Savannah gothic, this novel is 100 percent guaranteed to creep you out. Holly and Dane are close as brother and sister, but when Dane starts having psychological problems in his final semester of college, Holly pulls back. After all, Dane now has Maura, his girlfriend who he has moved in with and who is taking care of him. But when Dane dies from suicide—he actually tried to disembowel himself—Holly spirals into a guilt-induced depression. “Get it out of me,” reads Dane’s last text to his sister. To understand what happened to Dane, Holly seeks out the mysterious and beautiful Maura, a florist obsessed with carnivorous plants and harnessing the power of botanicals. From stalking Maura to rooming with her to surrendering to her erotic powers, Holly realizes that if she doesn’t solve the mystery of what Maura did to Dane, then she will be forced to reenact it, with the same tragic results. A steamy f/f romance. Gothic vibes. A love story gone terribly wrong. Carnivorous roses. Get this title on Booktok!

Murder Book

It’s no wonder Harry Duncan’s ex-wife, Ellen, a U.S. Attorney, calls him when her cases need some extrajudicial help. Former cop Harry is an expert at getting himself into trouble—just the kind that suits his investigations—and getting back out, with each leg of the journey equally satisfying. His current murder book, or record of a crime investigation, opens when Ellen asks him to hit the road on her behalf to look into what might be a new criminal organization setting itself up in Indiana. Arriving in Parkman’s Elbow, a town identified as one focus of the possible gang, Harry stops for lunch, the action finds him immediately, and his combination MacGyver/James Bond maneuvers are decidedly ON. The investigation often takes a back seat as readers get lost in Harry’s vigilante moves—defeating bumbling bad guys in ways that ridicule them, saving a woman the gang is trying to extort—and his smart evasion and tracking methods. But the case is almost beside the point when such exciting chases and devastating put-downs of criminals are on the menu. Would the police really ignore the wild things Harry does? Probably not, but you won’t care. One for a late-night binge.

The Thing in the Snow

Ice Capades

Not a mystery, but darn mysterious. The Northern Institute is located somewhere in the far north, the only place on the planet where the temperature continues to drop while the snowfall continues to increase. At some point, the vast building held hundreds of scientists, who were presumably studying life in such an extreme climate. But after an unexplained incident, the great building was quickly shut down to researchers. Today, the only residents are three caretakers, led by supervisor Hart, and one remaining scientist. Contact with the world comes from a weekly mail drop that, in addition to food, gives them their assignment for the next week; testing all the doors to determine if any squeak is a prime example. Life for the caretakers is so unspeakably dull—except for Hart, who’s sadly consumed by becoming a better manager—that when a strange object appears in the snow, where there is nothing else on the horizon except snow, the caretakers become obsessed with it. Forbidden to ever go outside, the mysterious snow sickness is given as one reason, the three gaze longingly at the object. Is its color changing? Is it moving? While they are instructed to ignore the object, that eventually becomes impossible, even for manager-in-training Hart, and the three venture out to confront their visitor. A satirical take on corporate life and a darkly suspenseful tale of isolation.

How I’ll Kill You

Sisterhood is Powerful

I’ll admit it: it took me several tries to get past this novel’s disturbing opening scene, in which two women violently murder a man they just met and with whom they have zero connections. They stick him in the trunk of their car for a few hours, only to discover he’s not actually dead. Then they meticulously prep the body—who knew removing teeth to minimize identification was a thing?—and heave the now assuredly dead man over the side of a mountain. Turns out, this is just the latest murder of the serial killer sisters, identical 25-year-old triplets. Typically, their thing is to make men want them and fall in love with them. Then they kill them. It’s about a six-month process, and the first two sisters have racked up three murders each. But Sissy, our protagonist, has yet to make her first kill. She’s pulled her weight with her expertise in cleanup, removing any evidence that could connect the sisters to a murder site or a corpse. But she’s overdue in the murder department. The women have arrived in Arizona so that Sissy can focus on herself, and in no time she’s met the handsome, gentlemanly, church-going widower Edison. They quickly bond, and Sissy delights in her love affair with Edison as much as she enjoys imagining how she’ll kill him and where she’ll bury him. Until things change. Her desire to kill ebbs away, and her sisters grow increasingly anxious as they fear Sissy is pulling out of their agreement. A new, terrifying take on serial killers that will give fans the sleepless nights they crave.

Your Driver is Waiting

Driving to Extremes

Damani Krishanthan’s life is drudgery. Her Amma, or mother, is housebound and expects to be waited on hand and foot, even leaving food all over her face for that extra touch of martyrdom. When not on Amma duty, Damani drives for an Uber-like service that’s taking an ever bigger cut of her proceeds, even her tips, as time goes by, so that she takes every customer who pops up, sleeping only at red lights. A few times in the book the character directly addresses the reader, telling us for example that the city that this story takes place in will remain nameless because cities are all the same now; the effect is to telegraph that she’s so tired that she can’t even maintain the façade of fictionality and will just talk to us, OK? The non-stop grind lifts a bit when Damani gets a cute customer, Jo, who then shows up at a club the cabbie goes to with friends. She’s unlike anyone Damani has dated, but the same is true for Jo, who is not used to being in spaces where she’s a minority, a situation with results that push Damani over the edge. This protagonist’s life is a slow-motion train crash that you won’t be able to look away from, and Guns paints a scathing portrait of the gig economy, both in literal terms and in terms of those considered a temporary novelty in relationships. A debut with shades of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan series, but also memorably and refreshingly unlike anything else.

The Book Spy

It’s Not about the Microfilm

The walled-off feeling of loneliness in a crowd pervades the pages of Hlad’s piercing historical thriller. Based on a fascinating and little-known true story of World War II, the tale sees librarians from New York Public Library sent throughout Europe to gather materials published by axis powers, photograph it, and send it via microfilm (the thumb drive of its day) back to New York to aid in overthrowing Hitler. Our hero is Maria Alves, a Portuguese American who, due to her parents’ jobs as newspaper photographers, lived all over the world as a child and speaks six languages. Sent to a neutral—but still dangerous—Portugal to scour bookstores for war-relevant information, her cover is that she is working for the Library of Congress to gather materials that are in danger of being destroyed in the conflict. Under no circumstances is she to engage in spying, but that undertaking soon falls by the wayside as the extent of the horror in nearby occupied France becomes apparent. Also affected by the French occupation is Tiago Soares, a Lisbon bookseller whose Grand-père and Grand-mère in Bordeaux run an operation that smuggles Jews to Lisbon, where increasing crowds of penniless, paperless refugees await passage to the United States. Hlad’s immersive portrayal of wartime Lisbon and its inhabitants, of the loneliness caused by the terror that anybody at any time could be an informant, plus his captivating thriller/romance tale make this a must-read, especially for fans of Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code.

Feel the Bern

A Grade-A Golden of a Cozy

I love mysteries that feature the famous, from Walt Whitman to Dorothy Parker to Eleanor Roosevelt. But featuring a living celebrity—in this case, Bernie Sanders—is even more of a challenge, one that Shaffer succeeds at wonderfully. Gen Z intern Crash Robertson is our wisecracking intern and narrator, and after months of answering phones in the DC office—from constituents who don’t know how to text?—she gets to accompany the senator on a fall-recess trip to Vermont. By chance, they head to Eagle Creek, Crash’s hometown, and end up staying in her mother’s B&B. But what has the makings of a low-key visit with constituents, and plenty of apple griddlecakes, suddenly gets upended when Crash finds the body of the local banker floating in Lake Champlain. Crash’s running commentary on Bernie—who’s always ready to deliver a lecture on the declining honeybee population, or the cozy series he’s reading, set in a cannabis bakery in the Northwest—makes for a good part of the humor in the book. But when a second citizen goes missing, it’s time for our team to get down to work. The biggest suspect is a tech-obsessed one-percenter, think Elon Musk, who’s buying up acres of maple trees, driving out local farmers, and monopolizing maple syrup production in a move Bernie dubs “Big Maple.” Unmitigated fun for everyone, no matter where they might fall on the political spectrum. Shaffer is also the author of the Obama mysteries, Hope Never Dies and Hope Rides Again.

The Dig

Adopting Antigone

Sophocles’ play Antigone, written in 441 BCE, is here pulled into modernity by Burt, a consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The ancient play sees brothers instigate a civil war, and one of their daughters, Antigone, defies her uncle and puts her brother first. So it is in The Dig, which opens amid a civil war, this time in 1993 Sarajevo, Bosnia. Andela, age three, and her brother Mujo, six, are found by American construction-worker brothers in the rubble of a destroyed building, their dead mother nearby. Their Antigone takes place in Thebes, Minnesota, where the children, now called Antonia and Paul, have a “typical American upbringing, blah, blah, no drama,” after being adopted by Eddie King, one of the brothers. Except it’s not really drama free. The blond and hearty residents of Thebes are not ready for the dark-haired, reticent Antonia and Paul, and Eddie dies of an overdose when he can’t handle the new responsibility. What the King family decides for the town is taken as local law, but Antonia defies her Uncle Christopher, graduating from law school and decidedly not working for her family. Paul rebels even more, protesting the Kings’ development of a new shopping area that displaces his Somali immigrant friends and then disappearing. Finding him and getting to the bottom of their pasts, both in Bosnia and more recently, will draw Antonia into a storm of lies and corruption and a fierce battle for control of her life. Feelings when ambition and family collide are no different today than in 411 BCE, and the resulting spectacle is no less captivating.

A Half-Baked Murder

Baked by Chloe

This is one richly drawn mystery that does a great job of introducing us to a wonderful protagonist, a compelling group of characters, and a fascinating community. Poor 28-year-old pastry chef Chloe Barnes. Not only does her engagement end up in smoke, she gets panned in a review, then learns that her beloved grandmother is being treated for cancer. Time to leave Paris and head home to Azalea Bay, California. But what to do with herself? Fortunately, her Aunt Dawn has an idea: take her fancy, pastry-making skills and apply them to cannabis to create edibles so good they can hold their heads high in the best pâtisseries. Together they begin to plan for a store, Baked by Chloe, when there’s a murder—of a creepy guy who’s loathed by most of the female population of Azalea Bay—and Aunt Dawn ends up the number one suspect. Clearing her aunt’s name draws Chloe further into the past and the community as she creates a list of suspects. The book also goes deep into the weeds (see what I did there?) as Chloe learns the complexity of cooking with cannabis. And did I mention Jake? Cute, single, and lives next door. In this debut, author George has laid the foundation for a series that feels fresh, young, and full of surprises.

The Ex Wives

The Ex Wife Survival Guide

Elana knows she should have heeded the red flags. When she met her husband, Jackson, it was a whirlwind romance…a little too whirlwind, as they got engaged within weeks. Right before the wedding, he admits that he was married before, twice, and is twice divorced. He also seems to have rigid ideas about what she and her young daughter, Phoebe, can eat, that she should stay home rather than work, and that every penny she spends should come from him and be accounted for. But he also seems head over heels, as is she. Maybe she’s overreacting? Then on their wedding day, one of his ex wives shows up to warn Elana not to go ahead with the ceremony, claiming that Jackson is a controlling, violent monster who took her daughter, who’s still missing, and will take Phoebe, too. That’s the past portion of the story; flash forward to the present and Elana is in a way-too-real version of the life she was warned about, afraid to stay but even more afraid to go, even if she weren’t penniless and surveilled at every moment. While readers drop deeper into the emotional hole dug by Jackson and feel the walls closing ever tighter, they’ll empathize with every uptick in Elana’s fury and despair. And as they begin to wonder whether it’s possible to kill a fictional character themselves, and how slow a death they could make it, the pages fly by, as do the twists, for better and much worse. Don’t start this on a work night, there’s no hope you’ll put it down.

The Golden Spoon

Scrumptious!

Bakers, cozy fans, and those who just love a fun, traditional mystery will want to abandon whatever they’re doing to read this novel to its very bloody end. A mashup of the TV series The Great British Bakeoff and the film Knives Out, the book stars Betsy Martin, “American’s Grandmother,” who’s sweet as pecan pie on the outside but tough as overmixed batter on the inside. Betsy created the show Bake Week, which is filmed at her Grafton, Vermont mansion—no fear of Spotted Dick in New England, TG— which also houses the six well-drawn contestants. For years, Betsy has ruled supreme over the show, but this season she’s being forced by the producers to take on another judge to—shudder—sex things up. What could go wrong? First, someone switches the sugar and salt, then a burner “accidentally” gets set on high. In the end, the whole show comes crashing down like some deflated meringue. But you’ll hear no spoilers from me—getting to the resolution on your own is too much fun.

A Flaw in the Design

Psychopaths Just Want to Have Fun

Oates, Nathan. A Flaw in the Design. March, 2023. 304p. Random.
Gil and his wife are living their dream. He’s a writing professor at a small Vermont college, she’s an artist, their two daughters are as smart as they are well-behaved. Sure, money is tight, but life is rich. Until his sister and her husband die under distinctly odd circumstances and their only child, 17-year-old Matthew, comes to live with them. To say there’s history here is an understatement. Gil’s sister married way up, well into the realm of the one percenters. While the wealth disparity made for awkwardness, it’s Matthew’s crazy, violent behavior that sets everyone on edge. The last time the two families got together, seven years ago at the sister’s house in Montauk, Matthew tried to drown Gil’s youngest daughter. But Matthew 2.0 is completely different. He charms the daughters, ingratiates himself with Gil’s wife, and even signs up for Gil’s fiction-writing class. But while most of the world is taken in by this brilliant and handsome young man, Gil remains a suspicious outlier. Slowly Matthew begins to undermine Gil, submitting for class stories that fantasize about the death of Gil’s daughters and explain how Matthew’s own parents were killed. Eventually Gil is alone in believing that Matthew is a psychopath, creating a growing estrangement from his own family, who are convinced he’s fallen off the deep end. Yes, this is a thriller, but a deeply thoughtful one that skillfully plays at what is true, what is imagined, and how genius can be used in the evilest of ways.

Swann’s War

Swann’s Way

We’re deep into the Second World War, and Archie Swann—the police officer on Fourth Cliff, a fishing island off the Massachusetts coast—is fighting in the Pacific theater. But his wife, Mary Beth, herself a cop trained by the Boston Police Department, has stepped into his position. While Archie was beloved, Mary Beth is loathed, largely because of her gender, and the easiest of tasks is a struggle. While the island has traditionally seen little crime—settling fights between drunk fishermen and resolving domestic disputes seemed to be the bulk of the work—things have changed under Mary Beth’s watch. The body of a soldier, who lived in a camp for Italian POWs on the island, is hauled up from the sea by fishermen, a murder that creates unrest among both islanders and prisoners. When that murder is followed by others, Mary Beth, whose supports are a doctor who is untrained as a coroner and a deputy who is intellectually disabled, turns to the only real help she can find: organized crime from the mainland. But the real story here is the internal one: Mary Beth’s loneliness, her longing for Archie, her need to always maintain a tough outer shell, her battle against feeling like a failure. Novels about women in the War have blossomed in the past few years, but few have the grittiness, honesty, and authenticity in emotion, language, and detail of Swann’s War.

You Will Never Be Found

Dark Shadows

Classic Nordic noir: a bleak, northern Swedish town; a serial killer whose victims are each murdered in the same, horrifying way; alcohol is always the drink of choice; a mother’s mind is being stolen by dementia. In Malmberget, above the Arctic Circle, houses are being relocated by a mining company—or else they’ll fall into a huge sinkhole. But as they review the empty homes, workers discover a man locked in one of the basements, barely alive. Over 600 miles south, Detective Eira Sjodin is investigating the vanishing of a middle-aged man, a much-beloved actor, whose disappearance is inexplicable. Slowly Eira is able to connect the dots, and while the man’s identity becomes clear, motive does not. Like Tana French’s work, this novel is a richly character-driven procedural, and Alsterdal digs deeply into the backgrounds of several of the detectives—examining their lives and loves. Eira’s spare time is consumed with relocating her mother to a nursing home for memory loss while recognizing that her feelings for GG, her boss, run deeper than she would like to acknowledge. But when GG goes missing, it is no holds barred as the Detective sets off on her riskiest move yet. This novel is seriously dark but at the same time absolutely compelling. While the book works as a stand-alone, readers will appreciate reading the initial title in the series, We Know You Remember, first.

The Writing Retreat

Mean Girls

Expecting a cozy retreat the likes of MacDowell or Yaddo, with the residents being slowly and genteelly knocked off? Then look elsewhere. This intimate retreat is the brain child of the renowned feminist horror writer Roza Vallo, who invites a handful of women under 30 to a month at her Victorian mansion in upstate New York. The women are all fierce Roza devotees, especially our narrator, Alex, who’s hoping the experience will help her push past a yearlong writers’ block. No sooner do they all gather for their first dinner than Roza starts revealing her crazy cards: the cohort will have to turn in 12 pages a day; read each other’s work; participate in group workshops; meet regularly with herself, Roza; and complete a novel by the end of the month. Whew! But best of all, at month’s end, a winner will receive a publishing contract for seven figures. This largesse, combined with Roza’s cruel badgering of the participants, ups the anxiety and tension in the group. But if only it stopped there. Slowly the cohort begins to come unhinged, false identities are discovered, one woman disappears in the midst of a horrendous snow storm, and everything the women hold to be true about Roza turns out to be false. This book is one hell of a wild romp.

He Said He Would Be Late

An Ambiguous Affair

Ready for a psychological game? Liz Bennett wasn’t, but that’s what her marriage has turned out to be—but is the game a one-sided figment of her imagination, or is her husband, Arno, an adulterer who’s playing her along? The backdrop to the maybe game is deep unhappiness and insecurity on Liz’s part. She and Arno are new parents, and motherhood is more difficult than she imagined. It’s not very enjoyable, with baby Emma looking at her “like she’s an elderly spinster I’m grooming for her banking information,” and no time or energy to write a follow-up to her semi-successful first novel. At least she has Arno, who’s worried about his wife’s happiness and shows love and support for her at every turn—a steadfast situation that she’s terrified to lose after she sees a text to him from an attractive coworker, a message that could signify a romance. Liz is soon spiraling into an abyss of fear and suspicion, one that’s incredible enough to keep readers turning the pages but believable enough to elicit real empathy for this broken soul. Sullivan has a way with characters, using dialog and Liz’s astute, cutting observations to bring Arno, crunchy-granola nanny Kyle, and bitchy-perfect sister-in-law Rose (“I’ve been up since 4 a.m.”) to gossip-worthy life. Fans of women’s fiction will eat this up.

Black Wolf

Not Your Father’s Spy Novel

This is an espionage story with a difference, featuring not a dashing ladies’ man but a young CIA operative, Melvina Donleavy, who knows her bureaucracy and sticks to it, offering an interesting look at modern-day tradecraft. Mel appears to her CIA colleagues to have no special skills, but when she’s in danger, top levels of government get involved. Readers are in on the picture, learning from the get-go that Mel has lifelong recall of every face she sees. It freaked out a middle-school crush when she mentioned having seen him at a sports event that had thousands in attendance, but when she’s sent to Byelorussia in 1990 to see if particular Iranian nuclear scientists can be spotted it’s a handy talent indeed. Mel and her colleagues are undercover, the others posing as accountants who are sent ahead of a U.S. donation to make sure none of it is earmarked for nuclear activity, she as their secretary. The stultifying Soviet observation machine moves into place, with the spies watched everywhere they go and a rigid air of we-know-you’re-spies-and-we-know-that-you-know-we-know coming off their hosts in waves. The group soon hears that a serial killer, the Svisloch Dushitel, or Svisloch Strangler, is at work in Minsk, but as its illegal to even mention the crime of serial killing, Mel has her work cut out to get to the bottom of it. Espionage, a love story, and murder mystery, all by a Department of Defense contractor assigned to the former Soviet Union in the ‘90s? Yes, please.

Twenty Years Later

9/11 Revisited

Crimes and investigators that could not be more different collide in Donlea’s immersive thriller. The first crime is the obscure possible suicide, possible murder of a man who’s found hanging off his balcony in the Catskills area of upstate New York on July 15, 2001, and the other the murder of thousands in downtown New York City 27 days later. The investigators are Avery Mason, a glamorous, up-and-coming TV journalist and Walt Jenkins, a burned-out, former FBI agent who’s now living in Jamaica and steadily becoming an expert on rum. Fate brings the crimes and sleuths together when, twenty years later, a stunned medical examiner finds a match to a body part from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. It’s from a woman who was under investigation for the killing of the hanged man, and Walt, who investigated that hanging in 2001, and Avery, who’s breaking the story of the 9/11 victim and hoping to prove the woman’s innocence, are pushed together (not exactly against their will, it turns out) to get to the bottom of the decades-old case. There are many twists here, both in the backgrounds of the characters and in the secrets that are revealed. The tragedy of 9/11 is not taken lightly, rather it forms a fittingly sober backdrop to the torment faced by the characters in the past and today. For a readalike, try a series character who on the surface is nothing like Walt Jenkins, but who has the same kind of rock-steady kindness and intelligence: Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie

The Villa

A double narrative, one in the present day, the other in 1974, both set in Villa Aestas on the outskirts of Orvieto, Italy. Emily, a 30-something writer of cozy mysteries, narrates the present. She’s going through a tough time: a messy divorce, writer’s block, and recovery from an awful, but undiagnosed, illness. So when Chess, her best friend since childhood, invites her to come along to the Italian villa she’s rented for six weeks, it’s a no brainer. Chess has become rich as a bestselling author of wellness/relationship books geared toward women and can easily afford an Italian villa fantasy. Villa Aestas is indeed charming, but it also has a dubious reputation, and Emily can’t help but investigate its past. It turns out that a famous rock star spent a summer there with several friends, a stay that ended in the murder of one of the men in the group. The two women in their midst fared far better; one went on to publish a horror novel that ended up a classic, while the other released a best selling album. Emily begins to recreate the narrative of that summer—through the novel, song lyrics, and documents she discovers in the villa—and becomes so obsessed that she begins a book about the summer of 1974. Chess meanwhile develops her own fascination with the murder, urging Emily to let her coauthor the book. As sinister details from the past emerge, equally disturbing revelations about the present come to light, and the two narratives begin to overlap. For fans of Lucy Foley.

The Mimicking of Known Successes

Who Needs Earth When You’ve Got Jupiter?

It’s hard to pull off a novel that attempts to have equal footing in two genres—never mind three—and typically one of the genres ends up taking on a minor role. Just think of all those unrequited romances lurking in the background of crime novels, sometimes through a whole series. But The Mimicking of Known Successes, a work of speculative fiction, a traditional mystery, and a romance is a walloping success. Earth is no longer a livable planet, and humans have long been settled on a colony located on the far outskirts of Jupiter, itself a gas giant. The worldbuilding here—how can humans survive in such an inhospitable environment?—is both subtle and fascinating. Layer over that a very traditional, academic, British mystery—think Gaudy Night—add a heart-felt romance, and you have one of the most unusual mysteries of the year. Terse and reserved, Investigator Mossa is seeking a man who’s gone missing, she doesn’t buy the notion that he committed suicide. He’s an academic, so the search takes her back to her university and Pleiti, an old girlfriend who’s now a professor researching the possibility of humans returning to Earth. Together they set out to find the missing academic, save themselves from death, and maybe even help rescue Earth from a calamity. Older is the author of the Centenal Cycle Trilogy. This would be a great choice for a book group.

The Kind Worth Saving

Committing Murder? Let Me Help

A sequel of sorts to the devious The Kind Worth Killing, this novel also features PI Henry Kimball, one of the more low-key but wry detectives in the business. Central to this story is Joan, one of Henry’s students from the one year he taught high school. She pops up in his life wanting him to prove that her husband is cheating on her—a bread-and-butter job for any detective—except Henry can’t quite shake the feeling that there’s more to the story than Joan is telling. As it turns out, Joan, helped out by her buddy Richard, has been a murderer since high school–it’s the only thing that really brings the friends to life–and Swanson takes us through each of the perfect murders the team has executed. By the time we get back to the present, it’s clear that there’s a whole lot more in store for Henry than he would ever have imagined. Swanson is such an adroit novelist, moving us smoothly from present to past and back again, building up the tension, stoking the anxiety, all while interjecting some perverse humor through the characters and their observations. And kudos for such a surefire depiction of the Boston suburbs. Reading the earlier book first would be slightly helpful, but this still works as a standalone. Wickedly delicious!

The Block Party

The Kids Aren’t OK

A brilliantly structured debut—alternately witty, poignant, and terrifying—that follows a cluster of suburban Boston families through one year, from summer block party to summer block party. The drama unfolds on the well-off Alton Road, a cul-de-sac in the town of Meadowbrook. While the point of view shifts throughout, at the center are Alex Fox, former lawyer, current mediator, and full-time drinker, and her daughter, Lettie, the high-school girl who dresses all in black and is committed to saving the environment. Around them swirl two planetary systems that rarely intersect: one made up of the adult women—there’s more than a touch of Desperate Housewives with this crew, although they somehow manage to keep the peace—and the other made up of teens, who have their own sordid histories and hatreds. As for the dads, they show up only to create turmoil and threaten violence. As the year goes on, the gossip and scandals grow, from the neighbor who’s a star on OnlyFans to the high school girl with the middle-aged lover to the dad who’s hiding a secret obsession. Ultimately, the suspense is too great, and the little world of Alton Road blows up, leaving no one untouched. Readers will love this fresh, satirical take on suspense in suburbia. Perfect for fans of Fabian Nicieza.

The Storyteller’s Death

Sinister Stories

Fraught connections between different worlds hold together this coming-of-age tale: connections between Puerto Rican families in the United States and their homeland; between the past and the present; between the real world and one made of stories. As the book opens, its shy protagonist, Isla Larsen Sanchez, is visiting her mother’s native Puerto Rico. Back in New Jersey, “everyone [looks] so colorless, like the underbelly of a fish,” but at least there she can do her own thing. The island, however, is overflowing with color but also with cheek-pinching aunts who expect proper behavior from a young lady with “not one drop of blood…that is not European.” Over the years, as she spends every summer in Puerto Rico, Isla comes to realize that her oh-so-pure blood may have given her…well, she’s not so sure it’s a gift. She sees visions of tales the cuentistas, storytelling women in her family, have told her—but only after their deaths. When one story involves a murder, and Isla finds that she can be physically hurt by weapons in the visions, readers find themselves dropped into a combination of magical realism, terror, and mystery, all wrapped in a shroud of family secrets and dubious honor. This rich story about stories can work as a crossunder, meaning it can be enjoyed by young adults as well as adult readers; Toni Morrison fans will particularly enjoy the otherworld-tinged drama

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

He Kindly Stopped for Me

From Sir Francis Bacon and Eleanor Roosevelt to Walt Whitman and Queen Elizabeth, famous people often make excellent amateur detectives. This volume introduces Emily Dickinson as sleuth. Enigmatic and reclusive, an iconoclast and a feminist, Emily lived in America during a time of enormous change and unrest. One of this country’s greatest poets, Emily has fascinated generations—and Flower does a wonderful job of introducing the 25-year-old Emily, years before she withdraws from most social contact. Here we enter Emily’s world through her family’s new maid, Willa Noble, who soon strikes up a cautious friendship with the unusual Emily. When Willa’s brother Henry is killed in the town stables, Willa turns to her new friend for solace, and eventually help. She believes that Henry was murdered, and Emily is quick to join the investigation as the two are drawn out of women’s traditional spheres and into the dark underbelly of Amherst. The book is rife with references to class and race, abolition and the Underground Railroad, yet the author manages to avoid tropes such as that of the white savior. Flower is an accomplished mystery author who moves the story along at a perfect pace while immersing us in the complexities of Emily and her time. A gem for historical-mystery fans.

Confidence

Confidence Boys

Meet the confidence man (or woman), also known as the scammer, the grifter, the swindler. He’s long been a part of our national identity. Don’t believe me? Go back 175 years and take a peep at Melville’s last novel, Confidence-Man. Here, Frumkin updates our national passion—American dream, by any means!—in an epic tale of betrayal, at once gloriously hilarious and heartbreakingly sad. Ezra and Orson meet up one summer as teens at Last Chance Camp, the final stop before juvenile detention. They become lovers of sorts, with homely Ezra in love and gorgeous Orson in like. They’re equally poor, already petty criminals as well as small-time dope dealers. This is a clear case in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because Ezra and Orson don’t just succeed at digging their way out of poverty. In ten years, they propel themselves into absolutely incredible wealth all through lying, scheming, and cheating. It’s a delight to watch. Eventually, they reach a sort of zenith with NuLife, a kind of wellness practice involving magnets—sort of a cross between L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics and Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop. This fast-paced, wonderfully unique novel holds a mirror up to American culture and asks all the right questions. It’s the answers that are so disturbing.

Red Queen

Hyped as sweeping bestseller lists in Europe, and for good reason, this has all the velocity and thrills of Stieg Larson’s Millennium series but none of the eyeroll-inducing misogyny. “Antonia Scott allows herself to think of suicide no more than three minutes per day,” opens the book. She believes her life to be destroyed as her husband has been in a coma for years. Jon Gutiérrez is the latest disgraced Madrid cop forced by a mysterious character, who calls himself Mentor, to try to get Antonia back on the force. Jon’s between police partners, having left “the Cristiano Ronaldo of Scrabble,” his previous partner, at his last job. He doesn’t have a boyfriend at the moment either. That’s lucky, because it takes all his wiles to deal with Antonia, a woman who’s been trained to have superhuman recall and powers of deduction. She returns to work, and her odd-couple partnership with Jon is pitted against the sinister kidnapper of one of the richest women in Spain, who has left what may be religious symbolism at crime scenes and who drags the partners into some incredibly tense situations (and has an out-of-the-blue twist in store). Word lovers will relish Antonia’s asides that spring from her hobby of collecting expressive words, such as the Inuit Ajunsuaqq, which means to bite a fish and get a mouthful of ash, and the Wagiman murr-ma, searching for an object in the water with your feet. It’s all engrossing, and best of all, this is the first in a trilogy.

Are You Sara?

Double Trouble

A complex tale centered around law student Saraswati “Sara” Bhaduri, who’s struggling financially to put herself through law school. One of her side gigs is bartending at a dive bar, which is how she meets up with Sarah Ellis, who’s passed out in the women’s room one closing time. Oddly, they hit it off as they wait for their Ubers, which arrive at the same time. Sara jumps in and in seconds is asleep—only to wake up miles from home in the rich part of town. There’s only one explanation: they mixed up their cars. When she makes it home, it’s to find her building a crime scene and Sarah dead. Is Sara in some way responsible? Sara’s guilt may seem odd at first, but as the novel expands—and we learn more about her life—the pieces start to fall into place. It’s fun to see Sara take even greater charge of her life as she fights to learn what happened to Sarah and what might be her own fate. A fresh and powerful new voice, this is a crime writer to watch.

The Mad, Mad Murders of Marigold Way

Trouble in Our Town

Benson is best known as the first American author of continuation James Bond novels, but apart from being fictional and starring a man, this unusual and excellent read is the furthest thing from 007 imaginable. The story starts with an omniscient, unnamed narrator introducing readers to Lincoln Grove, Illinois, where two back-to-back streets (map included) are the setting for what the gleeful narrator describes as an updated version of Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town.” (Readers will also be reminded of Jim Carrey’s synthetic surrounds in “The Truman Show.”) Scott Hatcher is having an unusual day there, awaking to find his wife, Marie, gone. They haven’t been getting along but have agreed to postpone a divorce decision because it’s May 2020 and the world is in pandemic turmoil. When Scott finally reports Marie missing, it turns out that a neighbor’s husband is also AWOL, a man who has recently been the subject of both Marigold Way gossip and police attention as masks, drugs and other COVID-related items have been stolen from his job. As the missing-persons investigation becomes much more, the narrator’s cheerful, exclamation-point filled observations take on a sinister cast and the neighbors—this takes place almost solely in one setting, just like a play—all become suspect, their foibles and ambitions revealed. What a saga! As well as “Our Town,” readers can try this alongside Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s The Dirty Dust: Cré na Cille, which features a town’s dead folks gossiping together in a graveyard

How to Kill Your Family

Best title of the year, amirite? And the best antihero as well. Grace Bernard was raised in London by her loving but impoverished single mom. Her father, a multi-millionaire, won’t have anything to do with them, even when Grace’s mother is dying and begs for support for their daughter, then a young teen. But by her mid-twenties, Grace is ready to take matters into her own hands and avenge her mother’s hard life. Grace doesn’t want to just polish off dear old dad. She slowly and meticulously plots the murders of everyone on the paternal side of her family, with her father last on the list, having watched his parents, children, and in-laws die before him. Yes, it’s dark, but it’s also deliciously wicked and brilliantly plotted, so much so that Grace is a bit wistful that no one except her will enjoy the genius of it all. Thus this book, which is meant to be locked away and discovered by future generations. Until something most unexpected occurs, upending Grace’s brilliant plan. Grace is sophisticated, urbane, droll, and at times risible. I could listen to her voice forever.

Race : A Caleb Moon Thriller

A Race for Justice

Reflecting the dark days of summer 2020, this book opens with Black reporter Caleb Moon covering the police killing of a Black boy and the local anger that has ensued. His editor is tiptoeing around the coverage and wants to cut the inflammatory detail that the police also shot the boy’s pet (“It’s just a fucking dog.”) He knows it’s relevant, though, when Caleb explains that the animal that three police officers found such a violent threat could fit in a colleague’s tiny purse. This is a case of overkill, and Caleb wants justice. He’s at first naïve enough to think that it might be in the cards, but then he attends the police chief’s speech about the situation, where white interlopers throw a bottle at the cops and disappear. Hope is close to vanishing; it evaporates entirely when a Black colleague is lynched. Things can hardly get worse, but Caleb soon finds himself in jail when he won’t plead guilty to causing trouble at the speech. His experiences in jail, coupled with the growing mystery of who’s behind the racist corruption eating away at his unnamed small town, paint a stark picture of a world built on greed and white supremacy. Readers will be eager to meet this understated, determined young protagonist in further mysteries. The book doesn’t reveal SLMN’s identity, but notes that he is a New York Times best-selling author and a movie producer.

Originally reviewed as Race: A Black Lives Matter Thriller

Sometimes People Die

Do No Harm?

If you open this book thinking it’s a medical thriller—which is how it’s marketed—then you’ll be terribly disappointed. But take it on its own terms and it is one of the most evocative and heart-rendering tales you’ll have encountered in quite a while. A young Scottish doctor, caught stealing and using opioids, is deemed fit to return to practice and lands in St. Luke’s—one of London’s roughest hospitals and a place that’s desperately in need of staff. Author Stephenson was trained as a doctor, and this book goes deeply—and fascinatingly—into life in the hospital. Add to this a great cast of characters, including George, an orthopedist, rugby player, and teddy bear of a man who rooms with our protagonist, helping to keep him grounded. The criminal element comes into play when it’s discovered that several of St. Luke’s patients have died from opioid overdoses, clearly at the hands of medical personnel, with our narrator suspect number one. Woven throughout the book are the stories of doctors throughout history who doubled as serial killers—these sojourns away from the narrative will drive some readers crazy but I found the context they provided fascinating. In the end, the book comes down to just a few characters and a couple of questions: How does medicine, “a dark and a terrible knowledge,” force its practitioners to see things differently? And what’s the impact when they do see differently?

The Wheel of Doll

The Mindful Murderer

This is turning out to be one of the most unique, captivating, and above all emotionally engaging crime fiction series being published. Happy Doll—yes, that’s his real name—is 50-ish, ex-military, and a former LAPD cop who lost his PI license and now calls himself a “security consultant.” Yes, Doll has many of the noirish trappings of your classic LA detective, from his worn-down office to his status as a regular at a dive bar. But he’s also a fledgling Buddhist who’s in love with George, a half-Chihuahua, half-terrier mix, is in psychotherapy, and is incredibly generous to those he comes across—provided they’re not trying to kill him. In this story, Doll is approached by a young woman to search for her mother, Iris Candle, who’s likely to be homeless. Candle and Doll, it turns out, were lovers years ago, and Doll can’t turn down an opportunity to see her again. After a week of searching, Doll finally locates Candle—worn down by drugs and years of living on the streets—and their reunion is one of the most poignant passages I’ve read in years. It also sets off the book’s real narrative, complete with some horrific, but highly entertaining, violence and a quest that brings Doll to the edge. As much as I love Ames’ novels and comic memoirs, Happy Doll is his most innovative and successful character yet. Fans of aged, semi-hard-boiled, humorous Los Angeles detectives will also enjoy Andy Weinberger’s The Kindness of Strangers.

Death and the Decorator

A Cold Case Heats Up

Having a rough week? Then take a break and head to the posh town of Fethering, the setting for Simon Brett’s many traditional mysteries featuring the unusual duo of neighbors Jude and Carole. Jude’s the outgoing one, who loves her curves—as well as an occasional lover—works as a healer, and gives off some serious hippy vibes. Carol, retired from the Home Office, is anxious, uptight, and suspicious of all that’s trendy (like healing!). Despite their differences, the two manage to maintain a friendship—a bottle or two of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc help—and regularly pair up to investigate the many murders of Fethering. Planning her own home improvements, Jude meets with interior decorator Pete, who is in the process of renovating a large Victorian building that’s had a checkered history. When Peter knocks down a wall panel, they are both surprised to find a woman’s handbag. Turns out it belongs to a young woman who disappeared decades ago, under suspicious circumstances, and Jude and Carole are off and running in pursuit of the lost woman. Brett skillfully has the duo work both apart and together, allowing us to enjoy their personalities while moving the story along at a nice clip. As always, what lies beneath Fethering isn’t always pretty. Perfect for reading in series, or as a stand-alone, this is one of Brett’s very best.

The Collector

The Vanishing

Hancock’s series debut, The Corpse Flower, which featured in this newsletter’s debut, introduced Danish journalist Heloise Kaldan and police officer Erik Schäfer. The somewhat jaded friends don’t work together per se—it’s more that they investigate the same crime in parallel while throwing each other tidbits that help move the case along. Their unusual arrangement swings into gear again when a child goes missing. Lukas Bjerre goes to the same Copenhagen school as Heloise’s friend’s daughter, so the journalist has an in, but that doesn’t make the search any easier. Lukas seems to have simply vanished, with the whole school day having passed before anyone noticed. At the same time, Heloise is going through personal turmoil as she’s unwillingly pregnant, the father “a crummy wolf in permanent press trousers,” according to Schäfer. Adding to Kaldan’s anguish is her inability to remember where she saw a barn that the missing boy might be held in—one that features in Lukas’s collection of photos illustrating his pareidolia, or tendency to see faces in inanimate objects. As the search continues, a suspect’s PTSD forms part of the tale, adding to the feeling that this whole case hinges on mental instability, with the danger to Lukas the one constant in a storm of fear. Kaldan and Schäfer form a realistic and entertaining if gruff duo, one whose work readers will gladly jump into again.

The Perfect Crime

A Required Purchase

An anthology of 22 short stories that are selected to witness, as Maxin Jukubowski writes in the introduction, “an explosion of crime and mystery writing by writers of all colours and ethnic backgrounds, winning awards and enjoying critical acclaim, as well as opening up a whole new readership in the process.” And this marvelous collection certainly doesn’t disappoint, with crime stories from diverse cultures, featuring works by S.A. Cosby, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Rachel Howzell Hall, Sanjida Kay, Walter Mosley, and so many more. It’s fun to encounter authors you think you know trying out something entirely new, such as Abir Mukherjee, who leaves behind 1920s India for a very contemporary tale of crime that ends in a most pleasing way. In fact, many of the stories are full-blown mysteries, just boiled down to their essence, with the shocking, O. Henry-like twists that readers love. Oyinkan Braithwaite’s “Jumping Ship,” a brilliant recounting of a love affair that goes way, way off the rails is so surprising it demands the reader give it a second, or even third, reading. A surefire way to introduce readers to authors, The Perfect Crime is a required purchase for all public libraries.

Bad Fruit

Rancid Relatives

Lily lives in Greenwich, England with her Singaporean mother and white English father, but really she lives entirely in a world of her mother’s creation and control. The teen must wear only pink sweaters to please mama, and she even dyes her hair black, wears colored contact lenses, and uses makeup to look more Chinese instead of the ang moh gui, or white devil, her mother accuses her of being. She’s also forced to taste-test spoiled orange juice to make sure it’s just the right level of rancid that mama enjoys, a bizarre task that will be readers’ first signal that something is seriously off here. The emotionally and sometimes physically abused teen is about to get out as she’s been accepted at Oxford University to study law—guess who chose that—but her subconscious seems to have other plans. What at first look like panic attacks turn out to be flashbacks to traumatic events—but ones that happened to mama. How Lily can have memories of her mother’s past, what made mama this way, and whether Lily can ever thwart her nightmare mother and useless father are puzzles that will keep readers rapt right till the end of Singaporean author King’s dark exploration of “the terrible economics of responsibility and blame.” This is one case in which the characters don’t have to be likable for the book to be brilliant. From the awful-mother-tiptoeing-daughter dynamic to weirdness with oranges, Bad Fruit is a perfect readalike for Joanne Harris’s Five Quarters of the Orange.

Light on Bone

Portrait of the Artist as a Detective

In real life, artist Georgia O’Keeffe began in 1929 to spend part of each year at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiú, New Mexico, and eventually moved there. When we join her at the ranch in 1934, she’s settled into an artistic rhythm in the desert landscape that so inspired her. O’Keeffe regularly drives into the desert to paint, enjoying a life that’s much looser than she lived with her rich, philandering husband back in New York. (In an amusing scene, the beat-of-her-own-drum-living O’Keeffe must genuinely have explained to her what a speed limit is.) On one of her excursions, the artist finds the vulture-attacked body of a priest, and the mystery only deepens when the man’s luggage contains decidedly unholy objects; it also has a map of the area with O’Keeffe’s house marked. As she investigates the strange man’s death, outsiders who visit Ghost Ranch, including Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne, add to the puzzles facing O’Keeffe. Neighbors’ lives, with their own difficulties, also feature prominently in the artist’s day-to-day life, with Lasky unobtrusively showing the twistedness of the Native’s subjugation. For example, white visitors who have spent their lives in this country have unfamiliar Native myths explained to them by reference to more familiar Greek myths and must be told not to take notes at a Native ceremony because “we are not museum artifacts.” While it’s apt for the time, the n-word features twice, and child sexual abuse is also a theme. Readers who enjoy this intriguing, emotional series debut could try another featuring celebrities: Erin Lindsey’s A Golden Grave, in which Nikola Tesla is a character; or for more New Mexico-set mysteries with a female sleuth, pick up Amanda Allen’s Santa Fe Revival series.

Lavender House

Safe Within the Walls?

It’s 2 p.m., and Evander “Andy” Mills is sitting alone at a bar, suicidal ideations dancing in his head. And for a good reason. A detective with the San Francisco police, his world was ripped apart when he was caught in flagrante delicto during a raid on a gay bar and thrown off the police force. This is, after all, 1952, and until now Andy has succeeded in keeping his sexuality locked away from the rest of his life. As he reaches for his fifth martini, he’s interrupted by a society woman who has a proposal for him: investigate the mysterious death of her wife, Irene Lamontaine, who died in Lavender House, the family estate. Did she say “wife?” Indeed she did. And off we go to Lavender House, home to the Lamontaine family, who own a soap dynasty, and where nearly everyone, from family members to the help, is absolutely queer. Their world is a fascinating one, as free as it is safe—until, that is, Irene was murdered. No reader who’s made it through the first chapter could ever think of abandoning this magical novel as it morphs into a sort of locked-room mystery with culprits everywhere. But as engrossing as the Lamontaines may be, it’s Andy who centers the narrative, and who emerges from the story—to use contemporary jargon—beginning to heal, both physically and emotionally. Here’s hoping this is just the beginning of Andy Mills’ investigations.

Knock Off the Hat

Other than Honorable Conditions

It’s summer in post-World-War-II Philadelphia. The temperature is rising, and so too is the gay bashing, thanks to the police department and the City’s hugely corrupt judicial system. Tough-talking, but also hugely funny, Clifford Waterman—a former police detective who received a dishonorable discharge from the Army for being caught in the act in Cairo—is trying to make a go as a noirish PI. He’s hired to get the charges against a young man caught up in a bar raid dismissed and his $500 bribe reduced. Shake-downs of lesbians and gay men are nothing new, but Waterman begins to realize that the scope of the attacks and the size of the bribes are escalating hugely—along with the psychological damage and suicides that the publicity is causing among the LGBTQ community. Waterman’s search is a broad one, taking him throughout the greater Philadelphia area and up and down the social ladder. Sex and lovers, the relationships between Black and white queer men—expect the racist language of the day—and jazz and the blues all contribute to creating a memorable time and place. It’s great to have the author of the ground-breaking Don Strachey novels back with what we can only hope will be as prolific a series.

Bottled Lightning

Lightning. In a Box

The catalyst for this fast-moving, Tokyo-set thriller is the invention of a way to chemically produce lightning, which creates an enormously efficient way to generate electricity. As in John Marr’s recent The One and The Passengers, for which this is a good readlike, the human side of the technology overtakes the invention itself, complicating relationships and putting all involved in peril. When the book opens, the danger hits the road, literally, as lawyer Torn Sagara and his client Saya Brooks, the lightning box’s inventor, are attacked on a Tokyo highway, first by men on motorcycle and then by others in a car. Were these separate attacks? Was Torn or Saya the intended target? All the while, Weeks (like Torn, born in Alaska and now a lawyer in Japan) creates an immersive view of the strange life of his protagonist, a half-Japanese, half-American man who shrugs off the slights and outright discrimination he faces from fellow Japanese. Readers will also find themselves voyeurs of the mental gymnastics it takes for the lawyer to sustain two affairs and even start a third before the book is over (physical gymnastics may also come to mind as Torn and one of his mostly ignored girlfriends take advantage of an airplane bathroom). As well as taking on many interesting details of Japanese culture, including its funeral rites, by the end readers will also be well acquainted with the flawed but lovable Torn and will hope for more visits to his between-worlds life.

Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder

#FreshStarts #NoLookingBack #New Values

Maddy Montgomery is in need of a major reset. Spoiled rotten—Daddy’s an admiral—the recent Stanford grad and social-media-marketing maven loves her Laboutins and Jimmy Choos, as well as her doctor fiancé . Until he abandons her at the altar. And the ceremony was being livestreamed. Time for #FreshStarts #NoLookingBack. As luck would have it, Maddy has just inherited her great-aunt Octavia’s estate in New Bison, Michigan, a quaint town on Lake Michigan. The catch? She needs to live in the town, run her aunt’s bakery, and care for Babe, a 250-pound English mastiff—I defy any reader not to fall in love with him—for one year. Octavia was one smart, independent woman, and it seems like she also knew that Maddy needed a reset. Maddy’s willing—does she really have a choice?—and before you can say Hicksville, she’s making new friends, learning to crack open an egg, and even dating. Until the much-maligned Mayor gets killed, and Maddy’s fingerprints are found on the murder weapon. Help comes from the Baker Street Irregulars, a group of her great-aunt’s friends, who help her navigate the treacherous waters of Great Bison and present a different set of values, values that Maddy finds herself adopting. A great start to a series that is part poignant, part humorous, and part suspenseful while introducing a wonderful, new, African American heroine.

The Shadow Lily

Going to Extremes

Everyone’s battling extremes in Mo’s latest Sweden-set psychological thriller-slash-police procedural. Thomas Ahlström loves his toddler son, Hugo, but has a daughter he abandoned when she was the boy’s age. That daughter, Lykke, starves herself for days on end just to have something she can control, but tenderly cares for the shadow lilies growing her in garden. Detective Hanna Duncker, back in her second installment in the series (after The Night Singer), is as determined a cop as they come but is sick of the job’s endless “death, lies, and families.” More of that is on the cards, though, when she and her partner must investigate the disappearance of Thomas and Hugo. Suspects and secrets abound, as do red herrings, and readers will be rapt as one by one, the innocent—of this crime, anyway—drop away and Hanna and Erik face danger over and over to get to the heart of a violent puzzle. At the same time, Hanna is tantalized by possible new details on an old killing; her father was convicted, but now a contact in that case wants to talk. We end on a cliffhanger—bring on #3!

The Guest House

Call the Midwife

Just take all those accolades used for thrillers—unputdownable, twisty, dark, chilling, vivid, explosive, intense—and heap them on. Because this book is that good. That credible. And that terrifying. Londoners Victoria and Jamie take a brief vacation in Cumbria. Victoria’s due to have a baby in a few weeks, and the trip is a last hurrah before parenthood consumes them. They’re booked into a remote guest house—what we’d call a B&B—and are absolutely charmed by the older couple that runs it. But when they wake up the next morning, the couple is missing, the doors and windows locked. Cell phones? Gone. Car keys? Ditto. Then Victoria realizes that the mild contractions she has been experiencing are becoming much more intense and that the baby is on its way. That’s all you’ll get out of me when it comes to plot, but be warned: as soon as you think you know what this story is about, Morgan-Bentley flips the narrative, providing an even scarier turn. Unusual for crime fiction, which rarely includes characters with disabilities, Jamie has cerebral palsy, and his challenges with movement and balance give the book an even greater realism. While this novel is perfect for fans of Ruth Ware, Emma Rowley, and Lisa Jewell, really, it’s in a class by itself.

An Honest Living

Brooklyn Revisited

Take a trip back to early 2000s Brooklyn in this work of literary noir that lurks on the edges of the art world. Noir novels present an investigator who’s down on his or her luck, and here it’s Dwyer Murphy—yes, the main character has the same name as the author—a former corporate lawyer who couldn’t take the hours, the billing in six-minute increments, or the colleagues. Now he’s going it alone, but he needs the odd lucrative job (even the odd shady one) to stay afloat. He takes a sad case: one party in an acrimonious divorce wants him to try to buy books off her husband; she suspects that he’s selling some of her valuable, inherited volumes and needs the proof. Two things are strange: the “books” are esoteric, early American legal pamphlets such as “Confessions of Tom Mansfield who Corrupted and Murdered His Servant,” which Dwyer had no idea were collectibles, let alone worth taking risks over. And then he faces being sued by the wife because he’s ruining her husband’s reputation. There’s no end to the rich-people twistedness here, which is both incredible and all-too believable. That’s enjoyable enough, but best is the slow-burn, quirky trip with the steadfast Dwyer, who puts one foot in front of the other until he figures out what’s going on. A kinda, sorta Thelma-and-Louise ending caps the saga, but leaves room to wonder what’s next for the lovable Dwyer.

Vinyl Resting Place

All Y’all Will Love This

More than most other kinds of mysteries, successful cozies rely on a strong community that we would like to return to and a cast of characters we would like to know more about—and Blacke’s first in this new series succeeds delightfully at both. Juni Jessup is back in Cedar River, Texas after six years in the Pacific Northwest. Laid off from her tech job and a bit homesick, she’s returned mainly to join her two sisters as partners in Sip & Spin, a record store and cafe. But at their blow-out opening party, the body of a young woman is found in the supply closet. Very dead. That’s bad enough, but she’s also clutching Uncle Calvin’s card. Calvin is arrested, the sisters put their shop up for collateral, then Calvin skips bail and disappears. This leaves the sisters with a double-headed mystery: who killed the victim and where in the world did Calvin get to? This is your sort of poke-around mystery, in which Juni bikes around town asking questions, although the way gossip flies in Cedar River, all you really need to do is stand in one place long enough and listen. But Juni’s a great storyteller, the small-town Texas-ness of it all is lots of fun, and there’s not one but two possible romances. What else could you ask for?

Forsaken Country

Fear and Loathing in Minnesota

Living a remote, punishing existence—he even asks to have the power to his cabin switched off in the Minnesota winter—former homicide detective Max Rupert has run away from his job more than retired from it. All readers know for most of the book is that he shoved a man through a hole in a frozen lake and is living with the aftermath of that choice. But why he did it, and whether he can allow himself to rejoin society, is a mystery. On a visit to town he runs into Lyle Voight, the former sheriff who’s been voted out of the job in favor of a corrupt newbie, and the man’s daughter, Sandy, and grandson, Pip. Seeing a family gives Max an unfamiliar and slightly disturbing feeling—happiness—and he’s helplessly drawn to jump in when, shortly after, Sandy and Pip vanish suddenly from their home. Puzzlingly, all signs point toward a planned absence. Next, we meet the sinister—and I mean sinister—duo behind the disappearance, and soon the chase is on, helped by Max’s former partner, Niki Vang. This thriller does a remarkable job of contrasting evil and love throughout, in the characters’ actions and dialog as well as in Max’s inner struggle between the positive force that keeps him going and the weight of self-loathing that holds him back. The three-dimensional portrayal of Niki, a wise-cracking and kind Vietnamese American detective and love interest, is a bonus. This is one to get lost in.

That Dangerous Energy

Love Conquers All

This novel should come with a warning label: start this book at your own risk. It’s that suspenseful, that seductive. We meet our hero, Morgan Faraday, running through the NYC subway to escape from Sebastian, her ex-fiancé, and two armed rent-a-cops. How does love go so wrong? We then jump to ten months ago for the backstory that answers this question. Morgan—who identifies as Black, she has North African heritage via Moorish Spain, but is often assumed to be white—escaped from a poor Pennsylvania town for NYC and art school. A textile artist, she’s struggling when she meets billionaire Sebastian Reid, the CEO of one of the world’s largest energy companies. The answer to all of Morgan’s problems? Perhaps, but sleeping with a man you don’t love and barely find attractive is still work, and even with best friend Dashawna’s how-to-marry-a-millionaire advice, Morgan remains conflicted. Marrying white men for financial security, while necessary, was never a good decision for the women in her family. Worse, once she moves in with Sebastian, she discovers that his claim that his company is going green is just a façade, and he’s still responsible for several ecological disasters, with communities of color the most adversely affected. Encouraged by an oh-so-hunky environmental activist, Morgan begins to spy on Sebastian, recording his calls and filming his meetings. It’s incredibly anxiety-producing, and readers will be madly racing to the book’s surprising conclusion. Social commentary, feminism, racism, family history, courtroom drama, plenty of suspense, and a very hot love affair all come together for one powerful read.

Of Manners and Murder

An Agony Aunt Makes Her Debut

“The right choice can be made to seem impossible, especially for a woman on her own,” learns “spinster” Violet Manville during her work as Miss Hermione, agony aunt for A Woman’s Place magazine. The usual Miss Hermione is Violet’s actual aunt, Adelia Henrietta Georgina Tylney Manville. When the feisty lady sets off from England for the Continent with her gentleman friend, she reveals that she is the mysterious author of the popular column and helpfully sets the shocked Violet up with folders of advice that have labels such as “Comportment,” “Mourning,” and “Mothers in Law.” Violet makes the right choice for herself, breaking out of her life as the studious, ignored, half-sister of the beautiful, flighty Sephora, who has an inheritance, which for a woman in 1865 is everything. Being unmarriageable frees Violet from some of the social duties Sephora adores, allowing her to visit a young woman who wrote to Miss Hermione for help. But when Violet reaches Ivy Armstrong’s village, she finds a very different scene from what she expected, and a murder investigation is soon afoot. Further choices abound, with Hastings keeping her hero within the boundaries of what a Victorian lady can do, while showing what life is like within those strictures and what happens when a woman has her freedom of choice stolen. Readers will empathize with Violet and even with her sad, social-climbing sister, both of whom are doing their best with what life’s dished out. Funny at times, this series debut is also an adventurous and thoughtful look at a time when women’s lives were on the brink of change. And it’s a puzzling whodunit to boot.

A Death in Tokyo

Kyoichiro Kaga to the Rescue

Some mysteries go deep into the lives of just a few characters. Others go wide, spreading the investigation across a community. Keigo Higashino, in his Kyoichiro Kaga police procedurals, manages to do both. Here a businessman is found dead on Tokyo’s famous Nihonbashi bridge, a knife in his chest. But he was attacked elsewhere and somehow managed to stagger to the bridge, dying beneath the statue of a kirin, a winged beast of Japanese mythology. Hours later, a young man is in a car accident nearby—he was killed trying to avoid the police—and the businessman’s wallet is found on his person. Sounds like a wrap, doesn’t it? Except we’re in the hands of Detective Kaga, and despite pressure from the higher ups, he isn’t ready to sign off on the case. Kaga investigates the lives and families of everyone involved, unpacking their secrets, holding them up to the light, seeking connections. Eventually, the narrative opens up, like one of the many origami cranes that end up being so important to the story. It’s a delight to again encounter the mysterious but brilliant Detective Kaga.