Domestic

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.

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.

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.