Elyse Discher

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Karla’s Choice

Review by Elyse Discher

It seems like an impossible task to resurrect a beloved character, much less to do so in the voice of the most iconic espionage thriller writer after Ian Fleming. But in Karla’s Choice, author Nick Harkaway, son of the late John le Carré, manages to accomplish both, adding more nuance to the mythos of his father’s seemingly inimitable George Smiley.

Karla’s Choice takes place in 1963, shortly after the events of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, and British intelligence officer Smiley is questioning his place in “the Circus”: le Carré’s nickname for Britain’s MI6. Smiley’s reeling from the recent death of his colleague, Alec Leamas, and has become cynical after discovering his home country employing the same morally gray strategies of their Communist enemies.

Smiley is fully intent on retiring when a Soviet hitman defects, turning himself in to a young Hungarian emigre, Szusanna. He soon finds himself swallowed back into the fold of espionage, first agreeing only to interview Szusanna and the defector, but eventually traveling back to Berlin, the site of his recent trauma. As he excavates Soviet spy networks and counterintelligence plots, Smiley learns more about his nemesis, an agent named Karla who will feature heavily in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

“It was a benign, elective haunting”: How Nick Harkaway channeled his late father’s voice.

Smiley is an unlikely spy. Unassuming, a little frumpy and rather forgettable, his strength is his ability to blend in; he is a “Gray Man” in a genre of action heroes. He’s also a man conflicted about his country’s actions in a new type of war, where violence is carried out on a faraway stage. Despite being set in the 1960s, Smiley’s concerns will resonate with readers who are familiar with today’s geopolitical conflicts. 

Karla’s Choice may be best suited for fans of le Carré or vintage espionage thrillers: George’s world is a cerebral one—a chess game with a barely known enemy—not one of action or explosions. Harkaway mimics the tone of le Carré’s novels, which after 80 years may feel opaque and ponderous to newcomers.

However, Harkaway also does his late father justice in capturing Smiley’s subtlety and his shrewd ability to read the people around him. This, and the focus on the history of his nemesis, Karla, adds depth to the existing Smiley narrative, making Karla’s Choice a worthy and elevated addition to le Carré’s series.

In Karla’s Choice, author Nick Harkaway ably updates his father’s iconic George Smiley novels while lovingly preserving the tone and mood of the original novels.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

You Will Never Be Me

Review by Elyse Discher

In You Will Never Be Me, Jesse Q. Sutanto not only gives readers a voyeuristic glimpse into the lives of mom-fluencers, she pulls off a twist sure to surprise even veteran thriller readers.

Meredith Lee and Aspen Palmer were once friends, but the cutthroat world of influencing has driven them to frenemy status. When they met, Meredith’s career as a beauty and fashion influencer was on the rise, but after Aspen had children, she pivoted into the mom-fluencer sphere and skyrocketed to fame. Now Aspen and her perfect home, husband and kids are driving Meredith insane with jealousy. She’s been trying to break into mom-influencing with her own baby, but she can’t quite crack it, and Aspen’s easy-breezy success is pushing her to the edge. When Meredith snags an iPad from Aspen, giving her access to all of Aspen’s accounts, she can’t resist wreaking havoc on Aspen’s carefully cultivated internet presence.

When Aspen’s immaculately scheduled and sanitized life begins to fall apart due to Meredith’s meddling (surreptitiously rescheduled meetings, declined sponsorship opportunities, etc.), she starts to question her own sanity. But what Meredith doesn’t realize is that Aspen can only be pushed so far. Her children are tired of playing a role for social media, her husband is distant and resentful of her success, but she can’t quit her online persona because of the six-figure income it provides.

Jesse Q. Sutanto finds the anxiety beneath the aesthetics.

Sutanto pulls back the curtain on a culture that is as intriguing as it is narcissistic. Meredith and Aspen both have to maintain a perfectly curated image in order to monetize their online presences, but those images are far from reality. The dissonance between the real world of crying children, messy homes and diaper blowouts and the aesthetic both women present online is impossible to resolve, and this anxiety, so vividly conjured by Sutanto, is clearly enough to drive Aspen and Meredith to unimaginable acts.

You Will Never Be Me’s truly twisty, unexpected plot will hook readers, even those who don’t find either of its main characters particularly likable—it hardly matters, as both are absolutely fascinating. The eventual confrontation between Meredith and Aspen is shocking and brilliantly executed, the crowning achievement of this truly unforgettable read.

Jesse Q. Sutanto pulls back the curtain on the world of mom-fluencers in her unforgettable, brilliantly executed thriller You Will Never Be Me.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Middle of the Night

Review by Elyse Discher

Bestselling author Riley Sanger’s latest spooky thriller, Middle of the Night, is reminiscent of a ghost story told around a crackling campfire. This missing-person mystery dances tantalizingly on the edge of horror without ever totally crossing the line.

One summer night in 1994, 10-year-old Ethan Marsh invited his neighbor, Billy, over for a backyard sleepover. When Ethan woke up in the morning, the tent was slashed open and Billy was nowhere to be found. Until that moment, the Marshes’ suburban neighborhood was considered extremely safe, but Billy’s disappearance irrevocably changed the lives of everyone living on Hemlock Circle.

Now 40, Ethan is back in his childhood home, after his parents moved to Florida. He’s not alone either; various circumstances have brought the now-adult children of 1994 back to the cul-de-sac where they lived that fateful summer.

Ethan never recovered from Billy’s disappearance, and being in his childhood home has triggered PTSD symptoms like insomnia and nightmares. Then, in the middle of the night, messages start appearing that seem to be from Billy to Ethan. Ethan can’t help but wonder if Billy is somehow reaching out to him from the afterlife, and he becomes obsessed with solving the mystery, a quest that involves reaching out to the people he grew up with—some of whom want nothing to do with the case. There is also a matter of the Hawthorne Institute, an occult research center that Billy was obsessed with the summer of his death.

Despite its ghostly happenings and some genuine jump-scare moments, Middle of the Night never veers into full-on horror. Instead, Sager builds tension by casting doubt, never letting the reader forget that the shadows in the corner could be ghosts—but they could also be products of Ethan’s own mind, trying to protect him from an even more awful truth. Either way, this thriller unfolds with a frenetic, almost feverish pace that will keep readers hooked, even as Ethan’s own hold on reality seems ever-closer to breaking altogether.

Riley Sager’s Middle of the Night dances tantalizingly on the edge of horror without ever totally crossing the line.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Assassins Anonymous

Review by Elyse Discher

Packed with nonstop action, globe-trotting adventure and laugh-out-loud humor, Rob Hart’s Assassins Anonymous is an absolute blast.

We open as main character Mark is celebrating a year of sobriety in his 12-step program, but as he cleans up after the meeting, he’s violently attacked by a Russian man he’s never met. For Mark, AA stands for Assassins Anonymous, and he was celebrating a year without killing anyone—a vow he manages to keep even after his unknown assailant stabs him in the side.

In his life before AA, Mark was a government assassin known as Pale Horse, and built a reputation as a ruthless and skilled killer. A terrible mistake led him to quit the game and vow to never take another life again. That’s a lot easier said than done when someone is trying to kill him. Mark needs to figure out who wants him dead, and the list is not short. Complicating matters, he’s determined to accomplish this without sacrificing his sobriety: He can’t kill anyone, even the people determined to annihilate him. 

Hart takes readers on a wild ride across the globe as Mark searches for the person behind the assassination attempt, reliving his former exploits along the way. He partners up with potential love interest Astrid, a trauma surgeon for the criminal underworld, and his much beloved cat, P. Kitty, is also in tow. The supporting cast really makes this novel shine, from Astrid’s wry reactions to Mark’s fellow Assassins Anonymous members to the colorful group of criminals and spies from his dark past. 

Assassins Anonymous is hilarious and irreverent (e.g., a hitman bringing his cat along on his adventures) without ever falling into the trap of being ridiculous. With his dry sense of humor and self-deprecating nature, Mark is a fantastic narrator. Add to that some global intrigue and a dash of romance, and this novel is an immensely satisfying read.

The story of a former hitman with a target on his back and a vow not to kill, Assassins Anonymous combines a fantastic narrator, global intrigue and dash of romance for a hilarious read.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Darling Girls

Review by Elyse Discher

Sally Hepworth’s Darling Girls is a feverish thriller rife with gaslighting and unreliable narrators, perfect for fans of Freida McFadden or Loreth Anne White.

Jessica, Norah and Alicia grew up in the same foster home, Wild Meadows, with a seemingly perfect foster mother, Miss Fairchild. When the novel opens, the now-adult women are all struggling thanks to what they endured in Miss Fairchild’s “care.” But when Wild Meadows is demolished and human remains are found underneath it, the ensuing investigation forces the three sisters to excavate their own complicated memories of what happened there.

Hepworth cannily builds this novel around the understanding that childhood trauma doesn’t always make sense to adult eyes. Each of the sisters’ experiences with Miss Fairchild are horrific in slightly different, almost inconceivable ways, leaving readers feeling like they are participating in some kind of collective hallucination. All three sisters have memories of babies being brought into the home, then disappearing at night. All three claim to have lived with a toddler named Amy—except the only Amy that existed in the house, according to police, was a doll. Hepworth’s deep dives into the point of view of each character keeps things feeling off-kilter and unmoored. As the tale of their spooky and bizarre childhood at Wild Meadows unfolds, we can’t help but wonder if the sisters’ odd experiences are a means of covering up their involvement in something dire. This is a novel where no one can be trusted at their word: Even as adults, the sisters are all still unreliable narrators. Jessica is addicted to Valium, Norah has severe anger issues that manifest as violence and Alicia has buried her past in a way that can only end in crisis. 

Extremely dark without ever showing violence on the page, Darling Girls portrays the horrors of psychological abuse, but the novel also offers catharsis. Jessica, Norah and Alicia survived a horrible ordeal. The discovery of the bones under Wild Meadows is the catalyst for them to be able to tell their story and begin to heal. 

With an emphasis on psychological versus physical terror, Darling Girls is a one-sitting read full of twists and turns.

With an emphasis on psychological versus physical terror, Darling Girls is a one-sitting read full of twists and turns.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Daughter of Mine

Review by Elyse Discher

When she was 8 years old, Hazel Sharp came to Mirror Lake, North Carolina, with her mother, a grifter who, in the span of six years, married the local police detective, embezzled money from her brother-in-law and vanished, leaving Hazel behind. Hazel spent her adolescence balancing relief that her stepfather still loved her with suspicion surrounding her mother’s crimes and disappearance.

After her stepfather dies, Hazel is shocked to learn that he left her his lake house. Her two stepbrothers are similarly stunned and immediately suspicious of Hazel. Her curious inheritance comes with its own mysteries, like lights turning on by themselves, shadowy figures appearing in photos and cryptic messages left behind by her stepfather. Then, Hazel’s world is thrown into even more chaos when a relentless drought causes the murky waters of Mirror Lake to recede and reveal two sunken cars. One of the cars is the vehicle her mother allegedly fled in.

Megan Miranda’s last thriller, The Last to Vanish, danced with adding gothic elements to its remote Appalachian setting. In Daughter of Mine, the bestselling author fully embraces the gloom. The tone is decidedly oppressive, as if a noxious secret is waiting to envelop Hazel and Mirror Lake like a fog. The other residents’ open hostility to Hazel, who was after all just a child when her mother’s embezzlement occurred, doesn’t seem so much unrealistic as it does befitting of the threatening atmosphere. Another chilling element is how Hazel’s stepfather appears to be communicating with her from beyond the grave, both in extremely creepy notes left on the fridge—check the basement, check the crawl space, check the attic—and the fact that he left the house entirely to Hazel rather than his biological children, as if he knew only she can uncover the secrets it keeps. Hazel is something of an unreliable narrator, but not because she’s dishonest: Her memories of the summer her mother disappeared are understandably clouded by the fact that she was only 14 when it happened.

In Daughter of Mine, Miranda commits to her flirtation with the gothic, embracing all things creepy, unexplainable and unreliable as the mystery unravels.

In Daughter of Mine, Megan Miranda commits to her flirtation with gothic elements, embracing all things creepy, unexplainable and unreliable.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

A Grave Robbery

Review by Elyse Discher

Veronica Speedwell, Deanna Raybourn’s lepidopterist turned sleuth, returns for the ninth time with all of her signature wit, wry observations and keen detective work.

A Grave Robbery finds Veronica and her lover, Stoker, faced with a strange and unsettling case on their home shores of England. When their patron, a collector of natural wonders and (occasionally) unnatural curiosities, acquires a lifelike wax model, he assigns Stoker the task of inserting a clockwork mechanism into his “Sleeping Beauty” so that she will appear to breathe. Much to their horror, Stoker and Veronica discover that the model is not a waxwork at all, but a meticulously preserved cadaver: a young woman who was pregnant at the time of her death. The pair embark on a quest to discover Beauty’s true identity, ascertain the means of her demise and determine if foul play could have been involved.

As with the other novels in her series, Raybourn revels in the minutiae of the Victorian era, this time providing readers with an ever-fascinating study of the period’s rituals—and technological advances—regarding mourning and the preservation of the dead. Nods to Mary Shelley as well as Burke and Hare compliment the macabre subject matter, which lends a darker spin to the proceedings this time around.

Longtime readers of the series will be pleased, and perhaps relieved, to find Veronica and Stoker in lockstep in this installment, with any romantic conflict set aside for the time being. As in prior books, their relationship offers a delightful counterpoint to the tension of the central mystery. An abundance of secondary characters, including fan favorites like J.J. Butterworth and Lady Rose, make frequent appearances (which may overwhelm readers who haven’t started from book one). Raybourn also introduces a young mortician named Plumbtree, who may become a series regular from hereon.

Fans of the Veronica Speedwell series certainly won’t be disappointed with this latest, more gothic mystery—and they’ll be thrilled to see Veronica and Stoker happily in love.

Fans of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries certainly won’t be disappointed with this latest, more gothic installment—and they’ll be thrilled to see Veronica and Stoker happily in love.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Nightwatching

Review by Elyse Discher

Tracy Sierra’s debut novel is so terrifying that it can easily be considered horror-adjacent. A claustrophobic examination of the “freeze” response to trauma (as opposed to “fight” or “flight”), Nightwatching follows a mother desperate to protect her two young children amid unthinkable circumstances.

We open with an unnamed single mother half-asleep during a blizzard, listening for signs that her sleepwalking daughter may be wandering their old farmhouse. What she hears instead is an intruder ascending their creaky staircase, and the next several scenes unfold with horrifying slowness. Our main character can barely see the intruder in the dark, but feels an eerie sense of familiarity with him. With exquisite care, she manages to smuggle her two young children downstairs and into a secret compartment built into the old house, where they wait like cornered animals.

We never learn the name of our narrator, but she pulls the reader into the story with a point of view so close it nearly lapses into stream of consciousness. As she waits silently, comforting her petrified children and trying to keep them quiet, we see flashes of her life. In the past, she has always responded to shock and crisis with silence, making herself smaller, invisible. When she’s startled by a college boyfriend playfully tackling her from behind, she collapses, unable to make a sound. When her abusive father-in-law slaps her while in a rage, she’s unable to sever their relationship, instead trying to find fault in herself.

Sierra argues that there is value and bravery in the freeze response, showing how her protagonist’s ability to stay small and quiet protects her children with as much valor as a confrontation. But when she’s pushed beyond her limits, our heroine goes to extraordinary lengths to protect her family and advocate for herself, even when the police later question her story. Gaslighting and misogyny, evidenced not only by law enforcement but by the broader society around her, threaten the narrator’s family almost as much as the intruder, who vanishes as mysteriously as he came. Convinced he will return, she tries to make the police see and believe the threat against her and her children, despite her wavering voice.

Nightwatching is best suited for the thriller reader with nerves of steel—while rarely violent, it is a truly scary book. The intense plunge into the main character’s traumatic experience feels incredibly real and immediate, and the suspense doesn’t let up until the last moments of the novel.

Nightwatching is best suited for the thriller reader with nerves of steel—while rarely violent, it is a truly scary book.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

The Frozen River

Review by Elyse Discher

Ariel Lawhon’s expertly researched and immediately gripping The Frozen River transports readers to 1789 Maine, where a midwife must solve a murder to get justice for both a rape survivor and the deceased.

Martha Ballard is the midwife of the town of Hallowell, a position that also makes her the town’s unofficial keeper of secrets and women’s advocate. When pastor’s wife Rebecca Foster is violently raped by two men, Martha acts as her witness, hoping to help get justice for a crime that is notoriously difficult to prove.

The Frozen River begins four months after Rebecca’s assault, when one of the accused, Joshua Burgess, is found dead in the titular body of water. Martha acts in the capacity of a medical examiner, determining that Burgess was beaten and hanged, and she testifies to such in court. This places Martha in a perilous position, as the man she is testifying to is Colonel North, the second rapist and someone who certainly had motive to see his accomplice dead.

This historical mystery explores the inner lives and societal pressures of women in colonial America with nuance and complexity. Martha is a precise and knowledgeable healer, who chronicles her forensic insights in her precious journal. Her occupation affords her protection and status in her community; however, Hallowell is still a place where the word of a female victim has little weight and where mothers who give birth out of wedlock are fined for the crime of fornication—while the fathers are not.

Even as Martha bristles at the inequity women in her town face, she still seeks justice for Burgess, even if he was a violent criminal himself. All of this puts her at odds with men in seats of power—primarily Colonel North as well as a doctor who doesn’t respect her practice—and puts her livelihood and family at risk.

Atmospheric, unique and elegantly written, The Frozen River will satisfy mystery lovers and historical fiction enthusiasts alike.

Atmospheric, unique and elegantly written, The Frozen River will satisfy mystery lovers and historical fiction enthusiasts alike.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

The Professor

Review by Elyse Discher

The Professor, Lauren Nossett’s sophomore mystery, is a deep dive into the world of academia, where ivy-covered walls hide forbidden love affairs, deadly competition and plenty of secrets.

Former police detective Marlitt Kaplan is still reeling from the events of The Resemblance, which saw her removed from the force. Living with her parents and trying to find her way, she agrees to help when one of her mother’s colleagues at the University of Georgia finds herself the subject of a Title IX investigation.

Professor Verena Sobek has been struggling. A Turkish German woman, Verena is not what her students expect in a German language professor. Every day is plagued by anxiety: Her students are distant and often cutting in their remarks, and then there’s the relentless nature of academia’s “publish or perish” mindset. The one student who shows her kindness is Ethan Haddock. But when Ethan shocks everyone by killing himself, leaving behind an apology to Verena, rumors of a scandalous affair begin to swirl.

Marlitt agrees to investigate Ethan to help clear Verena’s name—and to ease her own mounting boredom—but she finds the case to be anything but straightforward. Posing as a student and moving into Ethan’s old room in an off-campus apartment he shared with some peculiar roommates, Marlitt immerses herself in a world that is as adversarial and alienating for students as it is for professors. Although older, Marlitt finds that she, discomfitingly, has a lot in common with the students. Unmoored after her dismissal from the police force, she is also transitioning between phases of her life, and given her current reliance on her parents, she lacks the independence of most people her age.

Nossett is a professor herself, and her portrayal of UGA is immersive and filled with real-life details. A whodunit with dark academia undertones, The Professor can be read as standalone, but readers may find themselves immediately seeking out The Resemblance after finishing Nossett’s impressive mystery.

Lauren Nossett’s The Professor is an immersive and impressive whodunit with dark academia undertones.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

A Sinister Revenge

Review by Elyse Discher

Veronica Speedwell returns in A Sinister Revenge, the eighth mystery in a series best described as Agatha Christie in the world of Victorian science and natural history.

Natural historian and butterfly hunter Veronica has been separated from Stoker, a fellow scientist who had become her sleuthing partner and lover. But Stoker’s brother Tiberius, Lord Templeton-Vane, reunites the couple by giving them a dangerous new case to solve. 

In his youth, Tiberius ran with a group of students who called themselves the Seven Sinners, but then tragedy struck at his family’s Devon estate when one member of their party died in an accidental fall while trying to claim a fossil from a cliffside. During the following years, two other members also met an early demise, and now a threatening letter has Tiberius believing that they may all have been murdered by one of their own—and that he might be the next victim. In a Christie-esque conceit, Tiberius invites the remaining members of the Seven Sinners to an elaborate house party, where he plans to confront them and, hopefully, where Veronica and Stoker will uncover the murderer. 

As the house party unfolds, it becomes apparent that the history of the Seven Sinners is more complex than Tiberius let on, with secret affairs and bitter jealousies complicating the past. Even as Veronica untangles the web of complex relationships, she struggles to reconcile Stoker’s distance from their own romantic partnership. As usual, Veronica’s keen observations and sharp wit contrast with her own occasional lack of self-awareness (especially when it comes to romance), making for a delightful read. Longtime readers of the series will be pleased to see regulars such as intrepid reporter J.J. Butterworth and ingenious chef Julien d’Orlande return. But ultimately, Raybourn’s masterful entanglement of Veronica and Stoker’s love story with the mystery at hand makes A Sinister Revenge a standout entry in an already excellent series.

Deanna Raybourn’s masterful balance between romance and mystery makes A Sinister Revenge a standout entry in an already excellent series.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

The White Lady

Review by Elyse Discher

Jacqueline Winspear, author of the beloved Maisie Dobbs series, has created a new character for readers to admire. Part Agatha Christie, part “The Equalizer,” The White Lady follows Elinor White, a former World War II operative unafraid to leverage her past to help those who cannot help themselves.

It’s 1947, and Elinor has settled into a home in the British countryside, one granted to her by the government as thanks for her classified service to the nation. Her bucolic life is missing one thing, though: the sense of purpose that came with her wartime career. But when Elinor sees her neighbors Jim and Rose Mackie being violently harassed by Jim’s criminal family, she decides to use her skills to protect them. 

The White Lady alternates between Elinor’s quest to bring down the Mackie crime family in 1947, her work during World War II and her initiation into espionage as a Belgian teenager during World War I. Winspear’s writing is especially effective when conveying the incredible danger Elinor and her sister, Cecily, face as they work to undermine the German military, and the wrenching moral decisions that come with such work. 

The traumas of the past, especially the difficulty of leaving violence behind, are constant refrains throughout the novel. Elinor is haunted by the premature loss of her childhood innocence and, eventually, her family, while Jim and Rose struggle to escape Jim’s criminal birthright. Elinor’s quest to bring down the Mackie family is prompted by her affection for Jim, Rose and especially their young daughter, Susie, but it also provides her with a way to seek absolution for the terrible things she did as a spy.

The White Lady doesn’t shy away from dark subjects, and historical mystery readers searching for a bit of grit and a complex main character will admire its uncompromising storytelling.

Historical mystery readers searching for a complex main character will admire the uncompromising storytelling of Jacqueline Winspear’s The White Lady.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

The Late Mrs. Willoughby

Review by Elyse Discher

Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney, amateur sleuths and the children of two of Jane Austen’s most beloved couples, return to solve another mystery together in The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray. 

Jonathan Darcy is attempting to fit in at a house party thrown by his former schoolmate and bully, Mr. Willoughby. Jonathan’s idiosyncrasies and difficulty with social situations made him an easy target at school, so he’s not exactly thrilled to see Willoughby again. However, he’s desperate to prove to his parents, Pride and Prejudice’s iconic Lizzy and Darcy, that he can make and maintain friendships. 

Willoughby is newly wed, although the marriage is already strained. His wife, Sofia, has realized her husband only married her for her fortune, and she is suffering from the simultaneous insults of his illegitimate child with a nearby village woman and his still-burning infatuation with his neighbor, Marianne Brandon.

Juliet, the daughter of Catherine and Henry Tilney from Northanger Abbey, is visiting Marianne, having befriended her during the first installment in the series, The Murder of Mr. Wickham. Marianne is still traumatized by the events of that book, but she’s doing her best to reenter society, even if that means attending a dinner party with her much loathed former beau and his new wife. Unfortunately, it’s at this very dinner that Mrs. Willoughby dies of poisoning, right in front of Juliet and Jonathan. 

Jonathan and Juliet once again set out to find the killer. Jonathan’s analytical mind and Juliet’s facility for observing and understanding others make them a powerful crime-busting pair, despite being confined by the social strictures of their time. They quickly realize that Mrs. Willoughby may not have been the intended victim, given that her husband has no shortage of enemies.

Gray firmly establishes that Jonathan is autistic in The Late Mrs. Willoughby, having hinted at such in The Murder of Mr. Wickham. While Juliet does not always understand his quirks, her easy acceptance of them is heartwarming. This also allows romance to begin slowly blossoming between the pair, which will thrill fans who picked up on Jonathan and Juliet’s chemistry in the first book.

The familiar conventions of Austen’s world, cameos from beloved characters and a potential new romance will make The Late Mrs. Willoughby a sure hit for historical mystery fans.

With cameos from beloved Jane Austen characters and a potential new romance, The Late Mrs. Willoughby is sure to be a hit for historical mystery fans.

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