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Best Hispanic and Latinx titles of 2024 (so far)

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15) by reading one of these excellent books by Hispanic and Latinx authors.
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15) by reading one of these excellent books by Hispanic and Latinx authors.
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Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Local Gone Missing

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

Nothing ever happens in Ebbing—until one horrific weekend. Local Gone Missing follows a variety of residents in the tiny English seaside town, from an inquisitive cleaning lady with a dark past to vacationers with a secret agenda. It all comes to a head during a chaotic musical festival, one that ends with dual overdoses, a possible murder and a host of spilled secrets. Hopping back and forth before and after the incidents, New York Times bestselling author Fiona Barton spins a tangled web of dirty money, bloodshed and deceit.

For Dee Eastwood, a cleaning woman and wife of a recovering addict, it’s business as usual until one of her clients, the demanding Pauline, asks if Dee has seen Pauline’s husband, Charlie. The retired, formerly wealthy couple are living in a trailer until they have the money to fix up their crumbling estate, and Charlie has been struggling to pay the residential facility fees for his adult daughter, Birdie, who incurred a brain injury after a home invasion decades ago. Meanwhile, Detective Elise King, newly in remission from breast cancer, recalls seeing Charlie pre-disappearance at Ebbing’s first music festival—right before two young people overdosed on drugs of unknown origin. Are the two events related? When Elise finds Charlie’s decomposing body, even more questions arise.

Though Local Gone Missing‘s plot is wonderfully twisty with a surprising and satisfying conclusion, it’s the characters who stand out. Ebbing’s weekenders have their own complex motivations—especially a mild-mannered gay caterer and a middle-age father who are mysteriously connected to each other, and maybe to Charlie as well—but it’s the locals who will really draw readers in. Foremost among them is the compelling and well-drawn Elise, who’s struggling to adjust to life back on the force after returning from medical leave. Her retired librarian neighbor Ronnie, who’s eager to play amateur sleuth and surprisingly adept at sussing out clues, provides much-needed comic relief in this intense story of greed gone terribly wrong. Thanks to Barton’s airtight plotting and impeccable characterization, a minibreak by the sea will never seem relaxing again.

Using airtight plotting and impeccable characterization, Fiona Barton spins a tangled web of dirty money, bloodshed and deceit in Local Gone Missing.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Whodunit: August 2022

Feature by Bruce Tierney

To Kill a Troubadour

Everyone’s favorite French police chief Benoît Courrèges—aka, Bruno, Chief of Police—faces a new threat to his usually bucolic Périgord existence: Spanish terrorists protesting the Catalonia separatist movement. As Martin Walker’s To Kill a Troubadour opens, controversy swirls around “Song for Catalonia,” a wildly popular song that, because of its tacit support for the separatists, has recently been banned by the Spanish government. Les Troubadours, the music group that popularized the song, are gearing up for a free concert in Périgord that promises to be the best-attended event of the summer. Meanwhile, Spanish nationalist extremists have been observed crossing the border into France, intent on inflicting mayhem—or worse—on the assembled music lovers who have given voice to the separatist movement. Then a bullet is found in the wreckage of a recently stolen car, a bullet designed for a high-powered sniper rifle that can kill from several kilometers away. Bruno fears snipers will set their crosshairs on the crowd, on the band or on the songwriter, who openly sympathizes with the Catalonia movement, but the real scheme is much, much worse. But do not fear—despite the tenser-than-usual plot, all of Walker’s fan-favorite characters are present and accounted for, as well as all of Bruno’s treasured pastimes: sports competitions, gourmet cooking and, of course, his engaging basset hound, Balzac.

★ The Shadow Lily

Swedish author Johanna Mo returns with The Shadow Lily, the suspense-laden second book in her series featuring police detective Hanna Duncker, who, after years of working in Stockholm’s urban center, has returned to her small island homeland of Öland. Both Hanna and the other islanders have mixed feelings about her return, as her father was convicted of one of the most brutal murders the community has ever seen. In her latest case, Hanna is tasked with locating a missing man and his infant son, knowing that as the hours tick by, the chances of finding them alive grow smaller and smaller. Mo employs alternating perspectives to great effect, using them to deepen the reader’s understanding of the events and the characters involved. One arc covers the final day of a character who is killed off relatively early in the narrative; in the second, we observe the day-to-day police procedural; in the third, Mo reveals the backstory of the victim from the first arc and the decisions that led to his untimely end. But most compelling of all, The Shadow Lily sheds further light on what drove Hanna back home: the visceral need to know the whole story about her father.

Death Doesn’t Forget

Jing-nan, a dumpling stall operator in a Taipei night market, is not your typical food dude. He is a tech-savvy social media influencer, a born marketer—and an inadvertent sleuth. While Jing-nan is cursed with nefarious family members and cronies, Death Doesn’t Forget starts out with some good fortune: Jing-nan’s girlfriend’s mother, Siu-lien, wins half of a sizable lottery, which she must share with her ne’er-do-well boyfriend. But by the very next day, the good fortune has all dried up. The boyfriend has been killed, the winnings are in the wind and Jing-nan is on the hook for finding, if not the murderer, at least the missing money. Complicating matters further is the fact that Jing-nan’s girlfriend, Nancy, wants to get married. Barring that, she wants a proposal that she can consider, so that “the egg timer would be set . . . a countdown to either getting married or breaking up for good.” Siu-lien looks on this union with disfavor, but successfully returning her money would go a long way toward warming her chill toward Jing-nan. Author Ed Lin recounts all this cultural and familial interplay with good humor, peppering the text with Taiwanese bromides both old and new. (My favorite is this gem regarding prison terms: “Sentences handed down were longer than the gaps between Ang Lee films.”) With its great suspense and plot development, Death Doesn’t Forget is good fun all-round.

★ The Murder Book

Mark Billingham’s Detective Inspector Tom Thorne books are consistently excellent, but his 18th entry in the popular series, The Murder Book, raises the bar considerably. In a twist that will thrill longtime fans of the series, arch villain Stuart Nicklin, described as “the most dangerous psychopath [Thorne] has ever put behind bars,” is back for a return engagement. This time, Nicklin is serving as Svengali for Rebecca Driver, a female serial killer who mutilates her victims a la the dictates of the three wise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. For bonus points, she even honors a fourth monkey that is sometimes included in the traditional crew, along with the maxim “Do no evil.” (I will leave the details of Rebecca’s gruesome methodology to your imagination.) Nicklin’s own bad deeds were well chronicled in Thorne’s 12th adventure, The Bones Beneath, and suffice it to say that the intervening years have done nothing to mellow his penchant for brutality. Thorne turns to the ubiquitous British camera surveillance system to bring Rebecca to justice, but as Billingham takes pains to point out, surveillance cameras can be employed with devastating results on either side of the thin blue line. How, exactly? Thorne, and the reader, will soon find out.

This month's cleverest whodunits feature idiosyncratic, complicated gumshoes.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Take No Names

Review by G. Robert Frazier

Daniel Nieh’s Take No Names is a blast from start to finish, a classic crime thriller that shifts into an over-the-top action romp.

Chinese American Victor Li is keeping a low profile in Seattle after being wrongfully accused of killing his father, who secretly worked for a Chinese criminal syndicate (the plot of Nieh’s 2019 debut, Beijing Payback). Drinking buddy Mark Knox recruits Victor to his security tech business for Victor’s computer skills and ability to speak Chinese and Spanish. But it’s not long before Mark enlists Victor in a lucrative side job: breaking into a government storage yard to steal and then sell unclaimed items seized from deported immigrants. It’s on one of these ventures they discover a painite, a rare gem worth a cool $250,000. The pair smuggle the gem to a buyer south of the border, where they are soon embroiled in a scheme by a U.S. military contractor to derail construction of a new Chinese-built airport in Mexico City.

Along the way, the two men form uneasy alliances with Victor’s estranged sister, Jules, and Sun Jianshui, who once worked for the same criminal syndicate as Victor’s father—and was the person who actually killed him. The interactions among all four main characters lead to both humorous and emotionally charged moments as they try to worm their way out of the mess they’ve gotten themselves into. Victor and Mark are particularly likable, a pair of outcasts who have forged a unique and unexpected friendship.

Nieh, who has lived in the United States, China and Mexico, maintains a steady balance of humor, action and thrills, while also making some barbed commentary on American capitalism and Chinese globalization. The twists and turns come often, keeping the intrepid Victor and Mark on their toes as they run for their lives from one chapter to the next. What starts as a Joe R. Lansdale-esque crime thriller morphs halfway into an espionage caper à la Mission Impossible. If it sounds a bit over the top, it is—but that’s what makes Take No Names such an irrepressibly fun read.

Daniel Nieh's Take No Names is a blast from start to finish, a classic crime thriller that shifts into an over-the-top action romp.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

The Lies I Tell

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

A decade ago, Kat Roberts was an L.A. Times rookie, part of a team working on a high-profile news story about a predatory high school principal. In hopes of jump-starting her career, Kat decided to conduct her own secret side investigation and wow her new boss with the results. But things went terribly wrong, and to this day, she blames the person who sparked her interest in the side story: a young woman named Meg.

Fifteen years ago, Ron Ashton rendered a teenaged Meg Williams homeless. Her mother fell in love with the successful real estate developer and was grateful when he agreed to help refinance their beloved home. Alas, he lied about the documentation as well as about his intentions; Meg’s mom died not long after, leaving her daughter alone to deal with unresolved grief and sudden housing insecurity. 

But an incandescently angry Meg determinedly clawed her way to solvency one con job at a time, with impeccably thorough research as her secret weapon and terrible men as her favored targets. She’s become very, very good at conning people: As she asserts in the opening pages of Julie Clark’s intricate and engrossing The Lies I Tell, “By the time you’re saying nice to meet you, I’ve already known you for months. Does this worry you? It should.” 

Why Julie Clark refuses to write unreliable female narrators.

In present-day Los Angeles, a Google alert lets Kat know that Meg’s returned to town, right in the middle of Ashton’s run for state senate. A strong researcher herself, Kat has some idea of Meg’s backstory, plus her current false identity as a real estate agent. Kat resolves to use that information to launch a con of her own: She’ll pose as a potential buyer, befriend Meg and twist trust into revenge. Or will she?

It’s an exciting premise, bolstered by intriguingly detailed descriptions of Meg’s various ruses, compelling character growth and lots of slow-building tension via complex manipulation. Clark, author of New York Times bestseller The Last Flight, has yet again crafted a fascinating pair of women who wrestle with trauma, sexism, identity and whether it’s ever okay to do bad things for good reasons.

Julie Clark's intricate and engrossing suspense novel is the story of a con artist, a reporter and whether it's okay to do bad things for good reasons.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Little Nothings

Review by Carole V. Bell

In Julie Mayhew’s Greek island-set thriller, Little Nothings, little cuts do lasting damage and friendships are as intense and heartbreaking as romantic relationships.

Thanks to her friendless childhood and dysfunctional family, Liv Travers never felt like she belonged. Even getting married to her husband, Pete, and giving birth to a daughter, Ivy, didn’t fundamentally change how she felt. But bonding with Beth and Binnie at a singalong music class for mothers and babies radically shifted her perspective.

So when an interloper comes along and rocks their happy triad, it’s intolerable. The new girl, Ange, is shinier and bossier than Liv’s other friends. Soon she has them all in her thrall, and the vibe shifts from supportive and homey to acquisitive and competitive, like a suburban London version of “Keeping Up with the Kardishians.” Regular group outings now take place at fashionable restaurants with bills totalling hundreds of pounds a pop. Every part of the group’s lifestyle gets an upgrade, and everyone is expected to conform. It’s hard to keep up financially, and even worse, Ange seems to want to run Liv off. Liv is excluded from group events with flimsy excuses, and no one else notices the manipulation. All the “little nothings,” the cuts and insults delivered so casually, add up, and the hostilities increase during an expensive group vacation to the Greek island Corfu. How far will Liv go to protect her found family, and what will she risk?

Rather than follow a chronological timeline, Mayhew uses flashbacks to reveal what pushed Liv and her friends to the brink. It’s an effective, psychologically driven structure, with each flashback being triggered thematically by an event in the present. As the full picture emerges, it’s easy to wonder if any friendship is worth all that drama, especially as neither Beth nor Binnie really seems to have Liv’s back. But to Liv, these women aren’t just friends, they’re soulmates; Mayhew even likens the intimacy of these female friendships to marriage. In a way that’s reminiscent of both Nikki May’s thriller Wahala and the novels of Patricia Highsmith, the intense relationships are vital to the women’s sense of their own identities. Vowing to not be that lonely girl again, Liv in particular hangs on with the fervor of a person in a rocky marriage warding off divorce.

Anchored by a deliciously layered and desperately unreliable narrator, Little Nothings enriches the familiar setup of an intruder shaking up a happy idyll with a compelling, creative structure and distinctive voice. It’s obvious that what Liv needs are better friends and a truckload of therapy, but singular obsessions make for seductive and fun reading, even if the depth of Liv’s interiority makes the other characters look thin and shabby by comparison. A good choice for fans of relationship-driven stories with a sinister edge, Little Nothings hits the same sweet spot as the works of Lucy Foley and Liane Moriarty.

With her Greek-island set thriller, Little Nothings, Julie Mayhew hits the same seductive sweet spot as writers like Lucy Foley and Liane Moriarty.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Miss Aldridge Regrets

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. In her U.S. debut, Miss Aldridge Regrets, British author Louise Hare illustrates that idea with deliciously suspenseful, Agatha Christie-esque results. 

The year is 1936, the place is Soho, London, and the star of the show is 26-year-old Lena Aldridge. She has a regular gig at the Canary Club, owned by sleazy criminal Tommy Scarsdale. When she’s not singing, she goes on dates with her married lover and tries not to think about how much she misses her late father, Alfie.

Every day, Lena wonders: Will her big break ever come? The future’s looking bleak, but then a stranger named Charles Bacon appears with an astonishing proposal. His employer, an old friend of Alfie’s, is offering Lena a role in his Broadway play, and he’ll pay for first-class passage to New York City aboard RMS Queen Mary. Lena is thrilled and trepidatious, but then her boyfriend dumps her. And then Tommy’s murdered. After deciding that fate is urging her to exit stage right, Lena sets sail. 

Readers will be enchanted by the period charm of Hare’s ocean liner setting and will swoon as Lena gets to know Will, a Black musician. Will notices right away that Lena is also Black, even though she’s been successfully passing as white for years. Lena knows that being Black will be even more of an issue in America than it was in England, a big change she’s not sure she’s ready for.

She’s also not ready for what happens on the Queen Mary: Someone murders one of the Abernathys, a wealthy family that Charles insisted Lena spend time schmoozing. As the ship glides across the Atlantic, its posh sheen gradually dulls in the wake of destructive secrets and even more murders. Everyone’s a suspect, and the red herrings pile up as an alarmed Lena thinks, “I felt as though I were trapped inside my own detective novel.” Readers will enjoy playing sleuth, racing to figure out who did it, how and why, even as they ponder the ultimate question: Will Lena survive the trip to New York unscathed?

Miss Aldridge Regrets' 1930s ocean liner setting will enchant mystery readers even as author Louise Hare seeds disquiet and red herrings amid all the glam.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryCozy Mystery

Death by Bubble Tea

Review by Jamie Orsini

Jennifer J. Chow kicks off a new culinary cozy series with Death by Bubble Tea, a delicious mystery that centers on a family-run food stall.

After Yale Yee loses her job at the local bookstore, her father talks her into running a food stall for the family’s dim sum restaurant at the inaugural Eastwood Village Night Market. Yale hasn’t worked for Wing Fat in years, not since her mother’s untimely death. Everything about the restaurant reminds Yale of the loss of her mom, but she still agrees to help out, even though it means working with her cousin Celine, whom she hasn’t seen in 20 years.

The women are polar opposites: Celine likes to flaunt her wealth and is a tech-obsessed foodie Instagrammer, and Yale, who doesn’t even own a cellphone, prefers to learn about the world through books. But Yale’s tasty drinks and Celine’s marketing know-how help their food stall, Canai & Chai, find success. Then one night, Yale literally stumbles over a body on her way home from the market. Police believe the victim, local foodie Jordan Chang, was poisoned, possibly by something from Canai & Chai. Yale and Celine are forced to work together again, this time to clear their names in a murder investigation that could also ruin Ba’s business.

Set in west Los Angeles, Death by Bubble Tea takes readers to real locations like the historic Gladstones restaurant and the Lake Shrine Meditation Gardens. Chow’s choice to set the mystery in a night market is a stroke of genius. Not only are there dozens of vendors, guests, witnesses and potential suspects, but the impermanence of the pop-up market makes it even more difficult for Yale, Celine and the police to solve the crime. Also, be warned: Chow’s descriptions of the food vendors’ offerings may make your mouth water. Luckily for readers, she includes a few recipes at the end of the book.

Death by Bubble Tea is a fun, fast-paced mystery, but the heart of the story lies in Yale and Celine’s deepening relationship. Though they grew up in different circumstances on opposite sides of the world, the women learn to trust and rely on each other, finding out what it’s like to have not just a cousin but also a friend.

Death by Bubble Tea is a heartfelt and delicious mystery that, in a brilliant choice by author Jennifer J. Chow, centers on a family-run food stall.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

The Drowning Sea

Review by Elyse Discher

The Drowning Sea is an atmospheric procedural starring a detective at a crossroads in her life.

Retired Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is spending the summer in West Cork, Ireland, with her Irish boyfriend, his son and her teenage daughter. They vacation in the picturesque village of Ross Head, but the idyllic trip is cut short when human remains wash up on the shore near their cottage. The body is that of Polish immigrant Lukas Adamik, whose disappearance months earlier led many in Ross Head to assume that he had returned to Poland. But when the police determine that the body was only recently deceased and rule out an accident or suicide, the mystery of where Lukas has been—and what happened to him—consumes the small community.

In addition to that, Maggie’s hostess, Lissa Crawford, asks her to look into the disappearance of her childhood governess, Dorothea. The Crawfords were once the owners of the local manor, Rosscliffe House, which Lissa sold after her family was beset by unfortunate circumstances. Chief among them was her father’s tragic suicide on the cliffs, after which Dorothea vanished. As Maggie investigates what happened to Dorothea, she realizes her case may be linked to the murder of Lukas.

The previous two Maggie d’Arcy mysteries have been set in both Ireland and Long Island, but The Drowning Sea completely immerses readers in Ross Head. Author Sarah Stewart Taylor creates a rich and slightly gothic atmosphere, with the ocean beating against the treacherous, wind-swept cliffs as Rosscliffe House looms over it all. Despite this subtle shift in tone, The Drowning Sea continues the series’ exploration of the inner life of its main character: Maggie becomes increasingly obsessed with the case, her dogged detective work serving as a distraction from the reasons for her retirement and the question of whether to uproot her and her daughter’s lives by permanently moving to Ireland.

The Drowning Sea‘s gorgeous backdrop and stalwart sleuth will satisfy and impress mystery readers, particularly fans of traditional whodunits.

The Drowning Sea's gorgeous setting and stalwart sleuth will satisfy and impress mystery readers, particularly fans of traditional whodunits.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

6 thrilling international mysteries

List by savanna
international mysteries
STARRED REVIEW

July 2022

6 fast-paced international mysteries

Have your passports and alibis ready—your ultimate summer getaway awaits.

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Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Outside

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

What better to read on a hot summer day than a chilling thriller set in, well, Iceland? In Outside, Reykjavik native and internationally bestselling author Ragnar Jónasson turns the snowy “fjord-indented coastline [and] reindeer-haunted wilderness” of the Nordic island’s eastern highlands into an antagonist just as dangerous to the book’s central characters as the murderer (or perhaps murderers?) in their midst.

At first, there’s no thought of life-threatening peril when four college friends reunite for a woodsy weekend hike to hunt ptarmigan and catch up on one another’s lives. There’s Daniel, an aspiring actor who lives in London; Gunnlaugur, an argumentative lawyer; Helena, an inscrutable engineer; and Ormann, a wealthy tour company owner and leader of their trip.

An unexpected blizzard catches the quartet off guard, its fierce winds and zero visibility sending them into survival mode. Ormann knows of a hut they can hole up in until the worst of the weather passes—but just getting there is onerous as the snow piles higher, the air gets colder and the mostly amateur hikers’ nerves become frayed.

Once they get to the cabin, things get even scarier as frustration transforms into fear and life-or-death decisions are made more difficult by years-old resentments boiling up to the surface. Their paranoia grows in the cabin’s suffocatingly small space as Helena thinks to herself, “Guns, isolation, fear, and uncertainty—they were such an explosive cocktail.”

Jónasson inspires fast page turns via quick cuts among the four characters as they reflect on the past (so many secrets!) and frantically strategize about the present. Mini cliffhangers keep the story humming along; the author doesn’t shy away from ending chapters with lines like, “He had never been so afraid in his life.”

Spare prose and brisk pacing make for an immersive read that’s less about the individual characters and more about what they become when they’re forced together, no longer able to dissemble or hide. Will they work together to save themselves before it’s too late? Can they? Outside is an intriguing study of isolation, claustrophobia and the particular menace to be found in beautiful yet unforgiving terrain.

Outside is an intriguing study of isolation, claustrophobia and the particular menace to be found in beautiful yet unforgiving terrain.

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Have your passports and alibis ready—the ultimate summer getaway awaits.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Outside

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

What better to read on a hot summer day than a chilling thriller set in, well, Iceland? In Outside, Reykjavik native and internationally bestselling author Ragnar Jónasson turns the snowy “fjord-indented coastline [and] reindeer-haunted wilderness” of the Nordic island’s eastern highlands into an antagonist just as dangerous to the book’s central characters as the murderer (or perhaps murderers?) in their midst.

At first, there’s no thought of life-threatening peril when four college friends reunite for a woodsy weekend hike to hunt ptarmigan and catch up on one another’s lives. There’s Daniel, an aspiring actor who lives in London; Gunnlaugur, an argumentative lawyer; Helena, an inscrutable engineer; and Ormann, a wealthy tour company owner and leader of their trip.

An unexpected blizzard catches the quartet off guard, its fierce winds and zero visibility sending them into survival mode. Ormann knows of a hut they can hole up in until the worst of the weather passes—but just getting there is onerous as the snow piles higher, the air gets colder and the mostly amateur hikers’ nerves become frayed.

Once they get to the cabin, things get even scarier as frustration transforms into fear and life-or-death decisions are made more difficult by years-old resentments boiling up to the surface. Their paranoia grows in the cabin’s suffocatingly small space as Helena thinks to herself, “Guns, isolation, fear, and uncertainty—they were such an explosive cocktail.”

Jónasson inspires fast page turns via quick cuts among the four characters as they reflect on the past (so many secrets!) and frantically strategize about the present. Mini cliffhangers keep the story humming along; the author doesn’t shy away from ending chapters with lines like, “He had never been so afraid in his life.”

Spare prose and brisk pacing make for an immersive read that’s less about the individual characters and more about what they become when they’re forced together, no longer able to dissemble or hide. Will they work together to save themselves before it’s too late? Can they? Outside is an intriguing study of isolation, claustrophobia and the particular menace to be found in beautiful yet unforgiving terrain.

Outside is an intriguing study of isolation, claustrophobia and the particular menace to be found in beautiful yet unforgiving terrain.
NonfictionMystery & SuspenseChildren's & YAPicture BookMysteryMemoirHistorical MysteryChildren's

Editors’ picks: These are a few of our favorite sleuths

Feature by the editors of BookPage

The Stranger Diaries

When you’re dealing with a murder mystery set in a possibly haunted high school, you need a practical, analytical lead investigator whose sense of humor is solidly intact. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur is my methodical queen, her assessments of characters both living and dead as sharp as a jagged piece of glass, her self- deprecation just the right amount of wicked. She’s been underestimated enough in her life—and experienced enough prejudice—to gain a significant chip on her shoulder, which is more pronounced now that she’s been called back to her alma mater to investigate a murder in Elly Griffiths’ The Stranger Diaries. A line from fictional gothic author R.M. Holland’s most famous story is found with the body, so Kaur pays special attention to English teacher Claire Cassidy. Scenes from Kaur’s family life (she lives with her Sikh parents) provide a soft place to land after her most biting appraisals, such as when she’s considering the inanity of celebrity dancing shows. Why do people like dance competition shows? DS Kaur knows many things, but she hasn’t got a clue there.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

Inheritance

She may not wear a trenchcoat or carry a magnifying glass, but novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro can investigate a mystery with the best of them. In her 2019 blockbuster memoir, Shapiro does an at-home genealogy test on a whim and accidentally uncovers a 52-year-old family secret: Her late father was not her biological father. This revelation kicks off a search for the truth that winds its way through all manner of thorny questions. What role did the emerging field of fertility science play in Shapiro’s conception? Were her parents aware that she was conceived using donor sperm? Did they intentionally keep this a secret? Were they duped by their doctor? Is her biological father still alive? Shapiro’s chops as a novelist shine in Inheritance, which is plotted as well as any mystery, with enough twists to keep you guessing about what detail she might uncover next. Determined to get to the root of her family tree, she is as indefatigable, dogged and determined as any fictional gumshoe.

—Christy, Associate Editor

I Want My Hat Back

The ursine protagonist of Jon Klassen’s debut picture book, I Want My Hat Back, is an exemplary detective. Faced with the mystery of his hat’s location, he immediately begins questioning potential witnesses. He’s polite and thanks everyone he meets for taking the time to speak with him, even though they offer no useful leads. He stays focused on the task at hand and isn’t waylaid by existential meanderings, such as when an armadillo asks, “What is a hat?” He’s helpful to his community, as we see when he offers assistance to a turtle who’s been trying to climb a rock all day. He believes the best of everyone, even rabbits wearing familiar red hats who claim they would never steal a hat. When he hits an investigative wall, he does exactly what I would do: He lies down and despairs until the solution comes to him. And he would never, ever, ever eat a rabbit. Not even a rabbit who stole his hat.

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

The Devil and the Dark Water

In Stuart Turton’s The Devil and the Dark Water, Samuel “Sammy” Pipps is basically a globe-trotting, 17th-century Sherlock Holmes. When a mysterious, seemingly demonic force begins to haunt Saardam, the ship he’s sailing on from the Dutch East Indies back to the Netherlands, you’d think that Sammy would immediately be on the case. There’s just one problem: Sammy’s locked in the Saardam‘s brig, where he is to remain for the entire voyage. Enter his bodyguard, Arent Hayes, an enormous former mercenary and all-around nice guy who’s deeply grateful to Sammy for giving him a purpose beyond body-slamming anybody dumb enough to face him in battle. As Turton gleefully tilts things into Grand Guignol horror, Arent is the down-to-earth port in the storm: humble to a fault, instinctively feminist when faced with a few female passengers who might be better at this whole sleuthing thing than he is and possessed of an unshakable (but still somewhat flexible) sense of justice. Turton maintains that he never conceived of Arent as being, well, sexy—but rather tellingly, many readers insist that he very much is.

—Savanna, Associate Editor

None Shall Sleep

To catch a teenage serial killer, the FBI recruits Emma Lewis and Travis Bell, who are teenagers themselves, for their capabilities as well as their atypical circumstances: Travis lost his father to a serial killer, and Emma is the sole survivor of one. The heroes of Ellie Marney’s thriller None Shall Sleep are remarkably refreshing as their personal and professional involvement in the investigation builds genuine tension and inner conflict. However, despite the novel’s many plotlines, Emma is at the heart of it all. I felt attached to her early on, especially when witnessing her navigate her sense of duty toward solving the case while grappling with the crime’s triggering nature. Her unique perspective and talents provide forward momentum, as she comes to conclusions that people who lack her insight would never think of. At the novel’s end, I wanted to keep following her as she drove away.

—Jessie, Editorial Intern

It takes a certain spirit to leap into action and pursue the slightest of clues. Our favorite sleuths, both real and fictional, get right down to business exposing the evidence and solving seemingly unsolvable quandaries, and we love them for it.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

The 4 mysteries you need to read in July

Feature by Bruce Tierney

★ The Hidden One

Lapsed Amish police chief Kate Burkholder returns in The Hidden One, the 14th entry in Linda Castillo’s popular series. This time, church elders call on Kate after the police unexpectedly make an arrest in a high-profile murder case that dates back more than a decade. It’s a little outside Kate’s bailiwick, but special circumstances apply: The suspect is Jonas Bowman, her first-ever boyfriend. He’s accused of killing Amish bishop Ananias Stoltzfus, whose remains have been unearthed in a recently cleared field. The murder weapon, an antique rifle found buried alongside the deceased, belonged to Jonas, a fact he freely admits while maintaining he had nothing to do with the crime. Kate’s nosing around brings to light some disturbing information about Ananias, suggesting that he had not been the upright individual one might have expected a bishop to be. And thus the suspect list lengthens, and then lengthens some more, as stories surface about Ananias’ malicious actions toward some of his parishioners. With great suspense, well-drawn characters and a totally unexpected ending, The Hidden One is a standout installment in a rightfully beloved series.

Vera Kelly: Lost and Found

The titular character in Rosalie Knecht’s Vera Kelly: Lost and Found is a PI (and ex-CIA operative) who lives with her girlfriend, Max, in Brooklyn in the early 1970s. When Max’s wealthy parents summon her to their home in Los Angeles, Vera joins her for moral support, although Max’s homophobic family would more likely refer to it as immoral support. Max disappears the next morning, and her parents’ cluelessness about what could have happened to her seems highly suspect to Vera. Seeing as she’s already persona non grata, Vera liberates Max’s Avanti sports car from the garage and sets off in search of her missing lover. And then, as they say, hijinks ensue. In addition to providing a fascinating and spot-on look at the LA of the 1970s and the lifestyles of the wealthy, entitled and dysfunctional, Vera Kelly: Lost and Found also contains my favorite line of the month: “To my surprise, I saw she was trying not to cry. It was like watching watercolor wick through paper.”

Hatchet Island

Paul Doiron returns with Hatchet Island, a new adventure featuring Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch. As the tale opens, Mike and his girlfriend, Stacey Stevens, are en route by kayak to Baker Island, home of the Maine Seabird Initiative, a project to restore puffin habitats and protect endangered avian species. It seems that the project manager, an irascible woman named Maeve McLeary, has gone missing, perhaps because of her anti-lobster fishing activism and the threats that followed. Three other researchers share the island with Maeve. In the following days, two of them are murdered and the third, Garrett Meadows, disappears. It is unclear whether Garett is another victim or the perpetrator, and the fact that he is the lone Black man in the lily-white community does not improve his prospects for vindication. Doiron paints a complex portrait of coastal Maine, where residents are caught up in uneasy alliances and squabbles among the townsfolk, the fishing community, eco-activists and the wealthy summer residents. It is a comparatively rare thing for tensions to rise to murderous levels, but when they do, it is a mighty fine thing to have a Mike Bowditch on hand to sort things out. Fans of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett mysteries will particularly enjoy this gripping tale. 

★ Little Sister

Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens has just settled in for a pint of lager in the garden of the Spreading Oak pub when a teenage girl covered in blood emerges from the trellised gateway adjacent to the road. Concerned, he asks if she needs some help. She replies, “I don’t. But maybe Nina does.” When queried as to Nina’s current whereabouts, the girl replies enigmatically, “Oh, I’m not going to tell you yet, detective. That would be too easy.” And thus begins Gytha Lodge’s Little Sister, a cat-and-mouse game between the seasoned DCI and the girl, Keely, while the life of Nina, her younger sister, may hang in the balance. The story unfolds at a tantalizing and deliberate pace, especially in the first-person chapters from Keely’s perspective that detail years of abuse in the English foster care system. Jonah and his team begin to notice small discrepancies in Keely’s narrative that they take for clues, despite worrying that these breadcrumbs might just be clever manipulations on her part. And the clock ticks on. . . . Despite its borderline improbable premise, Little Sister is suspenseful to the nth degree as Lodge raises the bar for twists and turns to lofty nosebleed heights and saves a deliciously diabolical surprise for the very end. 

A PI searches for her missing girlfriend in 1970s California and an Amish bishop has some dark secrets in this month's Whodunit column.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons

Review by Jamie Orsini

In 1923, Saffron Everleigh is the only female research assistant at University College London. She hopes to make a name for herself in botany and gain the respect of her male colleagues, many of whom question whether she deserves to be there. While attending a department party meant to celebrate an upcoming university-funded expedition to South America, Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives, is poisoned. When Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor and boss, is accused of the crime, she begins her own investigation to clear his name—and figure out which member of their group tried to commit murder.

Kate Khavari brings 1920s London to life in A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons, focusing on the era’s less commonly explored academic and scientific spheres and taking full advantage of the lush greenhouses and gardens where Saffron and her colleagues conduct their research. Khavari also notes how the trauma of World War I still affects several of the characters, particularly Alexander Ashton, a fellow researcher who joins Saffron in her quest. Alexander’s experiences with what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder feel authentic and contribute to this mystery’s realistic depiction of the ’20s.

Intelligent, witty and brave, Saffron makes for a delightful sleuth and protagonist. While trying to establish herself in a male-dominated profession, she must also navigate sexual harassment and discrimination. It’s a difficult position, but Saffron rises to the challenge.

Khavari has crafted a fast-paced, interesting mystery with two extremely likable central characters, and readers will be eager to follow Saffron and Alexander’s future escapades.

With its intriguing 1920s academia setting and two likable central characters, A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons is a promising start to a new historical mystery series.

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