Our Reviews

At firstCLUE, we only review books we love, or at least like a whole lot—and the reviews appear months in advance of publication.

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firstCLUE: New reviews every Thursday.
Monthly: Reviews of books publishing that month.

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Recent Reviews

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by Brian Kenney

Fifteen years ago, a small group of young writers were invited to a retreat on the Greek isle of Eris. (Eris, by the way, …

by Jeff Ayers

Pote’s debut thriller mixes the best of Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, and Dan Brown to weave an unputdownable tale. An incident on the International …

by Henrietta Thornton

Humor, up-to-the-minute political clashes, and more humor meet in this cozy-adjacent small-town mystery. Our protagonist, Canadian journalist Cat Conway, has had it with the …

by Danise Hoover

We don’t know anything about Annie when Max hires her to find his sister, Molly. Molly has been missing for 10 years, and Max …

by Brian Kenney

Lucky us suspense readers. If you don’t know Rachel Howzell Hall’s books, then this novel is one fantastic introduction. If you do know Hall, …

by Jeff Ayers

An annual tradition goes horribly wrong at a lake retreat in Vermont in Day’s latest thriller. Three families have grown up, and lifelong friendships …