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Book of the Week

Review

Someone Saved My Life Tonight

by Dodie Ownes

Book of the Week October 29, 2026

Sestina is the hottest pop performer of the moment; her highly personal songs capture the attention of fans who call themselves “Tinas” and flock in droves to her stadium shows. Olive, a musician herself, adores Sestina’s music, though her soulmate, Felix, simply endures it. Another concertgoer, Jeremy, does appreciate the music, but is heartbroken as his girlfriend Alma broke up with him on the way to the concert. Suddenly, a massive explosion splits the night. Prompted to write his first YA novel since The Edge of Everything by the Ariana Grande concert suicide bombing, Giles focuses not on the “why?” but on the survivors’ desperation to find loved ones, weaving in their back stories, which include divorce, transphobia, and the effects of stardom. The dialogue is pitch perfect, capturing the challenges of teen/adult communication. The book is part thriller and part love story, complete with unlikely heroes. Readers will find themselves completely immersed in this feverish tale, their hearts pounding right up ’til the final page. Write us another one, Mr. Giles.—Dodie Ownes

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What She Knows

by Chris Kahn

Book of the Week October 22, 2026

Franny admits to being quite the unreliable narrator—when in the throes of addiction, she only cared about her next fix. Now clean, she is starting life back up in tiny Orion, NY and things are going well. Shortly after moving to town, she met Joshua, handsome and steady, a widower with two girls, and soon married. When Franny takes over the pharmacy where Joshua’s wife was murdered when an attempted burglary went wrong, she begins to question her own memories of that very night. She didn’t pull the trigger, did she? With only her long-distance sister Jackie and local reporter Annette as support, her paranoia becomes justified when someone starts sending threatening messages to Franny and her new family. Joshua turns cold and it seems that their perfect love story is over. But small-town secrets don’t stay secret for long, and soon the local police have another murder on their hands. Feldman gifts readers with a tense and twisty tale that has all the feels—sympathy for a recovering addict, trust in friends and family, and finally, a bullseye on the killer. A debut that hits the mark.—Dodie Ownes

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Animals of the French Species

by Chris Kahn
Book of the Week October 15, 2026 After the traumatic events of The Wonder Test, FBI agent Lina Connerly and her teenage son move from California to Paris, where she is posted to the American Embassy as a liaison between U.S. and French counterintelligence agencies. Mother and son are also dealing with their lingering grief over the death of Lina’s husband in a car accident two years ago. Still, the Paris they find is not a romantic refuge but a gritty and dirty metropolis (“you can almost smell the French Revolution”). The French present Lina with a 20-year-old unsolved case—the Train Fantôme—involving the bloody deaths of nine passengers in a single metro car. Could it be connected to a mysterious device found in a tunnel wall, which might be linked to a secret weapons program in Eastern Europe? Covertly, Lina is also tracking an Edward Snowden-like American intelligence agent who leaked classified documents, fled to Russia, and is now rumored to be hiding in France. Her need to find him becomes urgent when her sources start turning up dead. Richmond skillfully weaves two complex espionage plots into a touching family drama about rebuilding a life after a tragedy. Fascinating spycraft details are mixed with amusing observations about expatriate life and Franco-American cultural differences. Fans of Chris Pavone’s The Expats will enjoy this.—Willy Williams
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Review

Nothing Human Left

by Dodie Ownes

Book of the Week October 8, 2026

Gracie is constantly under her mother’s surveillance. If it weren’t for her cousin Desi and her brother Kit, she would have no friends—or protection—at school, where most consider Grace and Marge weirdos. But Marge is sure that there are enemies out there, whom she calls People Faces, waiting to hurt them. Moving through dual timelines, readers meet grown up Gracie, now a social worker with friends and a job she enjoys, trying hard to put her past behind her—a past that includes her mother murdering her best friends in the most horrific ways. When Marge is given early release because she is dying and asks to see Gracie once again, the memories come flooding back. As her mother denies the murders, the events of 20 years ago start to come into focus, and even though she thought Marge completely insane, incidents begin to make Gracie think otherwise. The flips between past and present serve to build incredible tension as each unknown is teased out and the psychological twists become more and more tangled. When Gracie decides to visit her former home, the murder scene, she is no longer sure whom she can trust, including herself. The monsters that Hart has created will leave readers gasping at their cruelty, intent, and complete lack of humanity. Can old wounds still heal?—Dodie Ownes

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Dead Matters

by Chris Kahn

Book of the Week October 1, 2026

A man is found dead in his home, his body devoured by some kind of animal. Bank surveillance footage from nearby captures what looks unmistakably like a zombie, a detail that, if real, matches the wounds on the victim. FBI Agent Ella Penrose heads the Paranormal Crimes Unit and handles cases that defy science and logic, and this one lands squarely on her desk. The strangeness only deepens as extinct beetles turn up, a severed arm surfaces belonging to a second victim, and another attack follows, leaving Ella and her partner, Holden, questioning everything they thought they knew. Meanwhile, the pair are fighting a personal battle, too: helping Ella’s relative Celest win parole for a killing that was self-defense—but someone is determined to keep her locked away. Berman’s debut novel blends the eerie mystery of The X-Files with the procedural rigor of CSI, and it succeeds on both fronts. The author spent years as a writer and producer on CSI, which shows in the book’s richly detailed forensic work, but he also understands when to hold back and let a mystery stay unexplained. Berman’s characters are sharp and memorable, and readers will be eager to see them in future installments.—Jeff Ayers

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Dovecombe

by Chris Kahn

Book of the Week September 24, 2026

Between her controlling wife and the loss of her beloved stonemason job, Dorrie’s life feels empty—until ebullient Alys and her boyfriend move in next door. Chatting over the fence leads to clandestine outings to gardens and castles, and as their friendship grows, Dorrie begins to fall in love with Alys. When Alys leaves her boyfriend and returns to her childhood home, Dovecombe Manor, Dorrie sees this as the perfect escape. The manor turns out to be half burnt down and somewhat decrepit, sparking long-held anxieties for Dorrie. Why won’t Alys talk about the fire, and what are those figures in the woods? Add in a creepy housekeeper and her son; and Alys’s overbearing mother, Caroline, who wants to restore Dovecombe to its former glory, to complete the formula for this contemporary Gothic to ignite—literally and figuratively. Against the backdrop of small-town gossip and ancient folklore as well as Clark’s expansive knowledge of stonecutting, this atmospheric novel surrounds readers with a palpable sense of dread and malice.—Dodie Ownes

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Complicit

by Chris Kahn

Book of the Week September 17, 2026

Knapp’s debut tells a dark story laced with hope and courage. Dr. Randi Jewell recently lost her police officer husband to violence during a robbery and her sister has mysteriously vanished. She buries herself in her work as an OB-GYN, overworking to forget. Her 13-year-old daughter, Alaina, asks her to help a friend who’s pregnant and having complications. The friend, who calls herself Holly, is 18, and her living conditions are far from safe. She doesn’t trust Randi at first but slowly begins to warm to her care. Randi starts noticing patterns that tie back to her husband’s death and her sister’s disappearance as she learns more about Nora, Holly’s real name. Doing the right thing could cost Randi her career, or worse, land the rest of her family in the local cemetery. Knapp’s background as an OB-GYN in rural communities lends authenticity to this disturbing yet uplifting tale. Don’t be complicit in overlooking this terrific medical thriller. Knapp has a long career as a gifted storyteller ahead of her.—Jeff Ayers

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Winter Song

by Chris Kahn

Book of the Week September 10, 2026

It’s January 3, 1986. Two and a half hours west of Minnesota’s Twin Cities sits the “back-of-beyond hamlet” of Monte (short for Montevideo), with “a population of five thousand snowbound souls.” Heading its tiny police department is recently widowed 59-year-old Gordon Trent, who is determined not to retire. On this same frigid winter day, as the police chief goes about his daily routines, 26-year-old Byron Lugo is released from Stillwater prison after serving almost four years for vehicular homicide. At the time of his trial, Byron refused to acknowledge his guilt. Now free, he aims to clear his name and get his old life back despite resistance from a hostile community wary of the felon in their midst. It’s Byron’s unrelenting insistence on his innocence that awakens uncertainty and doubt in Trent as he begins to reexamine the case. Morales’s beautifully written debut is both a slow-burn of a literary mystery, gradually revealing a tragic secret, and an evocative portrait of Midwestern small-town life with a vivid sense of place and well-developed characters.—Willy Williams

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Bitter Fruit

by Chris Kahn

Book of the Week September 3, 2026

The light and darkness that are modern and past Ireland are embodied in Detective Inspector Lewan Kane, who in this kick-in-the-gut debut investigates the death of a man who’s been decapitated and left in an Irish field. As in the best crime fiction, that’s just the surface layer of a tale that takes readers on a journey through geography, the past, and terrible misdeeds and puzzles. Lewan is at first (barely) politely rejecting of help from a young woman whose dreams make her beg him to investigate a seemingly unrelated missing-person case. As the images and names she comes up with start to be relevant to the case, he can no longer ignore her. The symbolism of names plays a major role here, perhaps unsurprisingly given the author’s own meaning-laden name, and add to the idea that every word of this story is to be closely turned in the readers’ hand. Move over, Tana French.—Henrietta Thornton

 

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Murder on 34th Street

by Chris Kahn

Book of the Week August 27, 2026

It’s a chill November afternoon in 1932, the day before the ninth annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Grace Verlander, the assistant to the store’s head of personnel, receives a note from Santa Claus saying that his life has been threatened. Who would want to kill jolly old St. Nick, or rather, gentle, sixty-ish Harry Gardner, who works in children’s shoes? Having been put in charge of talent for the parade and having cast Harry in the iconic role, Grace must now ensure his safety and enlists the head of store security, Frank Halsey, to protect Harry. Unfortunately, at the end of the parade, Halsey is found shot to death in the workshop on Santa’s float, and Grace turns store detective to identify the killer. Fredericks’ fourth historical standalone after The Girl in the Green Dress is a holiday charmer, mixing fascinating, immersive behind-the-scenes details about the world’s largest department store (the author did her homework!) with a vintage New York Christmas atmosphere and a touch of romance. Grace is a fantastic protagonist: whip-smart, funny, and empathetic, she passionately loves her job and her Macy’s coworkers. Readers may also want to rewatch Fredericks’s obvious inspiration, the classic 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street.—Willy Williams

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