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Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

The Resurrectionist

A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
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Review

Review by bookpagedev

Fans of psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis will satisfy their need for thrills with Jonathan Kellerman’s latest, Monster. Never before have the combined talents of this pair, such opposites in many ways, yet complementary where it counts, been so carefully drawn by the author.

At the novel’s start, authorities are baffled by a series of horrific murders. While police try to uncover a link among the slain, the death toll mounts quickly amid a flood of dead-end leads, investigative miscues, and bureaucratic footdragging. Milo’s dogged probing and ability to turn up the tiny, pivotal clue is sorely tested by the elusiveness of the killer. Although there is no obvious common thread connecting the victims except the method of their deaths, Alex puts together a unifying personality profile, identifying them as well-liked loners capable of social interaction but uneasy about real intimacy.

A break in the case emerges when Ardis Monster Peake, a bona fide madman who killed his mother and an entire family of do-gooders, suddenly begins stream-of-consciousness rants that contain genuine clues. Kellerman keeps the suspense taut as Peake’s bizarre ramblings lead them deeper into the inner lives of the victims. Kellerman’s knack for creating short, terrifying scenes is accomplished here with all the skill of a seasoned veteran novelist.

Even though all evidence points to Peake, Alex and Milo conclude that the answer to this puzzle goes beyond the usual follow-the-dots murder case. What stumps the team is how the killer could know so much about their next move, as if he were reading their minds.

With Monster, the reader follows clues, both big and small, until the book cranks up for its big finish. Peake is one of Kellerman’s most fully realized crazies, a character of unbounded lunacy and diminished humanity. Though its occasional nod to old genre formula sometimes gets in the way, Monster, a furiously paced mindbender, contains enough mystery to hold readers spellbound. Robert Fleming is a writer in New York City.

Fans of psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis will satisfy their need for thrills with Jonathan Kellerman's latest, Monster. Never before have the combined talents of this pair, such opposites in many ways, yet complementary where it counts, been so carefully drawn by the…

Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Fans of psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis will satisfy their need for thrills with Jonathan Kellerman’s latest, Monster. Never before have the combined talents of this pair, such opposites in many ways, yet complementary where it counts, been so carefully drawn by the author.

At the novel’s start, authorities are baffled by a series of horrific murders. While police try to uncover a link among the slain, the death toll mounts quickly amid a flood of dead-end leads, investigative miscues, and bureaucratic footdragging. Milo’s dogged probing and ability to turn up the tiny, pivotal clue is sorely tested by the elusiveness of the killer. Although there is no obvious common thread connecting the victims except the method of their deaths, Alex puts together a unifying personality profile, identifying them as well-liked loners capable of social interaction but uneasy about real intimacy.

A break in the case emerges when Ardis Monster Peake, a bona fide madman who killed his mother and an entire family of do-gooders, suddenly begins stream-of-consciousness rants that contain genuine clues. Kellerman keeps the suspense taut as Peake’s bizarre ramblings lead them deeper into the inner lives of the victims. Kellerman’s knack for creating short, terrifying scenes is accomplished here with all the skill of a seasoned veteran novelist.

Even though all evidence points to Peake, Alex and Milo conclude that the answer to this puzzle goes beyond the usual follow-the-dots murder case. What stumps the team is how the killer could know so much about their next move, as if he were reading their minds.

With Monster, the reader follows clues, both big and small, until the book cranks up for its big finish. Peake is one of Kellerman’s most fully realized crazies, a character of unbounded lunacy and diminished humanity. Though its occasional nod to old genre formula sometimes gets in the way, Monster, a furiously paced mindbender, contains enough mystery to hold readers spellbound. Robert Fleming is a writer in New York City.

Fans of psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis will satisfy their need for thrills with Jonathan Kellerman's latest, Monster. Never before have the combined talents of this pair, such opposites in many ways, yet complementary where it counts, been so carefully drawn by the…

Mystery & SuspenseThrillerSuspenseMystery

Whodunit: January 2022

Feature by Bruce Tierney

Find Me

Three women take center stage in Alafair Burke’s latest thriller, Find Me: NYPD detective Ellie Hatcher, attorney Lindsay Kelly and amnesiac Hope Miller, who remembers nothing of her life prior to a devastating car crash she survived 15 years ago—or so she says. Now, sans ID or history, Hope works under the radar for a real estate agent, getting paid under the table to stage houses for prospective buyers. Then, as often happens in novels about amnesiacs, a random aha! moment triggers a memory, and we’re off to the races. Hope disappears, blood is spilled and the DNA found at her last-known location matches that of unidentified blood found at an old crime scene halfway across the country. The crime in question is one of a spate of killings thought to be the work of a serial killer, and the case was supposedly solved 15 years ago. Lindsay, who has been Hope’s friend ever since her accident, begins to investigate her disappearance and eventually draws Ellie into the fray. Ellie’s father, who was also a cop, was assigned to the same serial killer case that’s somehow connected with Hope’s disappearance. The two women feverishly piece together the disparate parts of the story, and Burke’s masterful control over pacing and plot reveals will make readers just as anxious to uncover the truth. 

★ A Narrow Door

Joanne Harris’ darkly humorous and deliciously evil A Narrow Door is a quintessential and unputdownable English mystery. Rebecca Buckfast, headmistress of noted Yorkshire boarding school St. Oswald’s and one of the first-person narrators of this tale, is nothing if not straightforward. She recounts the steps she had to take to become the first female head of the school in its 500-year history. Rebecca doesn’t sugarcoat anything, including the two murders she committed (“one a crime of passion, the other, a crime of convenience”), and yet it is difficult not to respect her motivations and even like her. Sort of. Meanwhile, a parallel tale is offered up by St. Oswald’s teacher Roy Straitley, in the form of a diary that outlines the discovery of what appears to be human remains in a construction site on the school grounds. As Roy’s and Rebecca’s stories unfold, both of the narrators take satisfaction in the secrets they are hiding from each other—or, more precisely, the secrets they think they are successfully concealing. A Narrow Door is an exceptionally good novel, such a masterpiece of storytelling that when Rebecca likens herself to a modern-day Scheherazade, it doesn’t feel like hyperbole in the slightest.

Silent Parade

By all accounts, 19-year-old Saori Namiki was on track to become the next big thing in the world of J-pop music. And then, inexplicably, she vanished, and stayed missing until her remains were discovered three years later in a suburban Tokyo neighborhood. Another body is found at the same place: Yoshie Hasunuma, an unremarkable woman save for her stepson, Kanichi, who is widely believed to have skated away from a murder charge years ago and looks pretty good for this latest double homicide as well. In the same way that Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade often sought the assistance of supersleuth Sherlock Holmes, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Chief Inspector Kusanagi regularly summons brainiac physicist Manabu Yukawa, known as Detective Galileo, to consult on particularly difficult homicides. Keigo Higashino’s Silent Parade showcases the fourth such pairing, and is in many ways the most intricate. Detective Galileo must reconsider his theory of the crime again and again, tweaking it repeatedly until he is more or less satisfied with his assessment. He is a very clever man, smart enough to stay a step or two ahead of the police department, the perpetrator (or perpetrators?) and the reader, and that is no mean feat.

★ BOX 88

The title of Charles Cumming’s latest espionage thriller, BOX 88, refers to a fictional clandestine ops organization that is jointly operated by the United States and the United Kingdom. BOX 88 does not possess a license to kill a la James Bond, but the management certainly utilizes a “license to look the other way” on occasions when wetwork is required. BOX 88 begins a series starring Scottish spy Lachlan Kite, who in this book must come to grips with a very cold case: the 1988 downing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Close to half the narrative consists of flashbacks to immediately after the plane crash, when Lachlan was a green recruit. In the present day, Lachlan lets down his guard at the funeral of his old friend, with disastrous results. He is kidnapped by an urbane-seeming Iranian man who turns out to be anything but urbane when it comes to securing intelligence from a perceived enemy combatant. Worse yet, the kidnapper’s team has also captured Lachlan’s very pregnant wife. If torture will not get them what they want, perhaps threats to Lachlan’s family will do the trick. Despite his mistake at the funeral, Lachlan is a seasoned operative and, if anything, more dangerous to his captors than they are to him. Meanwhile, British intelligence agency MI5 is in hot pursuit, not to help Lachlan but rather to out him as an operative of a rogue agency. The suspense is palpable, the characters flawed but sympathetic in their own ways and the story gripping. In a month of really excellent reads, BOX 88 is a clear standout.

In a month overflowing with superb mysteries and thrillers, a deliciously evil boarding school-set thriller and a pitch-perfect espionage novel rise to the top.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Bad romance

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Love gone terribly wrong is at the heart of two paranoid thrillers that ask: Is a fresh start possible if you don’t fully reckon with the past? Two female protagonists contend with corrosive lies, nefarious intentions and gaslighting galore as they struggle to drag long-buried secrets into the light.

Reading Darby Kane’s The Replacement Wife is like looking at the world through a window that’s blurry with the lingering fingerprints of traumas past and suspicions present.

Narrator Elisa Wright spends her days feeling fragile and distressed, still reeling from a horrific event at her workplace 11 months ago. But things have been looking up: She’s focusing on caring for her son, Nate, and has even ventured out of the house for an occasional errand or lunch with her husband, Harris.

Despite these improvements, Elisa grapples with a disturbing question that her gut won’t let her push aside. Is her brother-in-law Josh a good guy with very bad luck . . . or is he a charming sociopath with a penchant for murdering women he professes to love? 

Elisa knows it’s a wild-sounding train of thought, one Harris is extra-loath to entertain because his and Josh’s lives are so enmeshed. But she’s always wondered if there was more to the story Josh told them when his fiancée, Abby, disappeared seven months ago, leaving without a goodbye to Elisa, her close friend. Now Josh has a new girlfriend named Rachel with whom he’s already quite serious. Does Rachel know about Abby—or Candace, Josh’s wife who died in an accident at home? 

Determined to protect Rachel, Elisa struggles to appear supportive of the new relationship while searching for clues and clarity. It isn’t easy, especially with everyone looking askance at her whenever she wants privacy (read: an opportunity for serious snooping). She can’t tell if she’s paranoid, or getting close to a terrible reality.

Kane has created a compellingly claustrophobic thriller rife with gleeful misdirects, possible gaslighting and plenty of damaging secrets. Readers will feel dizzy and disoriented right along with Elisa as she tries to discern whether her instincts are steering her in the right direction or putting her in the path of danger, all while hoping against hope that she’ll figure it out before it’s too late for Rachel—or herself.

The three women in Leah Konen’s The Perfect Escape venture farther from home than Elisa does, but not as far as they’d like. 

Sam, Margaret and Diana don’t know each other that well, but they’ve bonded over a few months of intense venting and drinking sessions concerning the sad state of their respective relationships. A Saratoga Springs girls’ weekend, complete with spa treatments and margaritas, sounds like a logical next step in their quest to shake off the tarnish left by love’s demise. What could go wrong?

The trio merrily sets off from New York City, but just a couple of hours north in the small town of Catskill, Margaret loses the keys to their rental car. No others are available nearby, so Diana suggests a pivot: They’ll rent a house for the night, go out for some fun and figure out the rest of their trip in the morning. 

It’s not what they had planned, but it’ll distract them from their crumbling relationships nonetheless, so they go to a local bar called Eamon’s for booze and adventure. Sam is especially enthused; she knows her ex-husband, Harry, lives in Catskill and is likely to see a strategically tagged Instagram post. In the meantime, Margaret grooves with a sexy local guy named Alex, and Diana sashays out to the patio.

The next morning, Sam and Margaret awake to hangovers and confusion as they realize Diana is missing. To their horror, they learn that blood has been found at Eamon’s—and suddenly, skeptical police officers are asking questions the women don’t want to answer.

Konen pulls the reader into Margaret’s and Sam’s perspectives in turn as they reluctantly reveal their sad backstories and unseemly secrets and try to figure out just who they should be scared of. This twisty, creepy and increasingly disturbing story has a delicious, unhinged energy, hinting at all manner of suspects as the women’s motives are gradually revealed to be even deeper—and perhaps darker—than they first seemed.

Love gone terribly wrong lies at the heart of two paranoid thrillers.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

A single mother trying to raise a teenage son; a past affair she cannot forget; a resolute belief in justice despite the death of her husband and the threats issued by his killer. These are the elements that have defined Lake Tahoe lawyer Nina Reilly’s life in the earlier bestselling legal thrillers written by sisters Pamela and Mary O’Shaughnessy under their common pen name, Perri O’Shaughnessy. These terms also dominate their latest work, Move to Strike, in which Reilly struggles to prove the innocence of a 16-year-old girl accused of murdering her wealthy uncle, a prominent Lake Tahoe plastic surgeon.

Reilly is drawn into the case at the urging of her son, only to learn that the case is considered a slam dunk by a district attorney who easily establishes her client’s means, motive, and opportunity. Nina finds herself trying to picture the crime based on the widely divergent accounts offered by an array of suspects. Her adolescent client does not help with a series of misguided attempts to mislead the police and withhold vital information.

Nina turns to a former lover and private detective, Paul Van Wagoner, to help piece together the conflicting details surrounding the sensational case. Like Nina, Paul brings his own problems: his agency is about to fold; he never fully recovered from his earlier affair with Nina, and he carries a deadly secret that could end their relationship forever. There is no shortage of suspects: the mother of a teenage patient who died on the surgeon’s operating table and has sworn vengeance; a local burglar observed at the scene; a bearded foreigner seen arguing with the victim shortly before the murder; Nina’s client, a juvenile delinquent who was seen at the crime scene and acknowledges an intent to rob the victim; and, finally, the client’s mother, a ditsy, aspiring actress whose car was spotted at the scene of the crime.

O’Shaughnessy’s solution to this vexing puzzle comes as a sudden and violent surprise proving that the Irish sisters have not lost their touch for providing suspenseful, entertaining reading.

John Messer writes from Ludington, Michigan.

A single mother trying to raise a teenage son; a past affair she cannot forget; a resolute belief in justice despite the death of her husband and the threats issued by his killer. These are the elements that have defined Lake Tahoe lawyer Nina Reilly's…
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Fly on the wall

Behind the Book by Hannah Morrissey

Must have typing speed of 55 words per minute. Must not be emotionally affected by violent or traumatic reports. All hired candidates will be required to swear an oath of confidentiality. 

When I first read the job description for a police transcriber, I could hardly believe it was legit. This suspended belief percolated within me even as I applied, tested, interviewed, got hired, and sat down to type my first report. 

Hello, Transcriber. 

Those two words welcomed me into a world I’d never been privy to before—a world rife with death and derelicts and drugs. So many drugs. In my two years of having lived in that industrial Wisconsin city, I’d been oblivious to the underground economy that flourished there, the biggest players being heroin and crack cocaine. Sometimes prescription pills made their way into the mix. Suddenly, I knew every bad thing that happened before it hit the news. If it hit the news. 

In the days and weeks that transpired as I transcribed case after case—suspects in interview rooms, search warrants, homicide investigations, cell phone logs and more—I realized something: I had become the proverbial fly on the wall. I was a nameless, bodiless thing who stole into the police department at 10 p.m. and left before most people punched in for the morning, the only trace of my having been there a stack of perfectly typed reports and completed arrest paperwork. 

I slept by day and typed by night, utilizing my in-between hours to write another novel that would ultimately go nowhere. But if nothing else, it kept me afloat during a time when I was untethered and adrift. This dream of becoming a published author was my lighthouse when I feared I might never find my way out of the dark. 

Read our review of ‘Hello, Transcriber.’

My office was a terrarium, a narrow space with an outside wall that was a sheet of glass—the only shield between me and the horrors I typed up every night. I learned more in that small space, in that small slice of time, than I learned during any other period of my life. 

First, I awakened to the fact that I now existed in two parallel realities: one in which I was oblivious to the murders that happened just a few houses down from mine, the drug deals on the sidewalk, the car chases down Main Street; and the other in which I was the conduit between an investigator’s report and a criminal going to jail. I learned that just because the police arrest a violent criminal one day, it doesn’t mean they won’t be walking the streets the next. It’s up to the district attorney’s office and the judges to make the charges stick. 

I also learned that people are people, regardless of which role they’re assigned in a report (police officer, victim, suspect, etc.). The word sonder is a neologism from John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows that he defines as “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.” I think that’s important for writers and human beings in general, having the ability to see things through a different lens. When you do that, you realize how fragile your own circumstances are. 

I picked up a lot of spontaneous knowledge, too, such as learning people by voice instead of face and knowing their pet words; thus, however and indicative are a handful that come to mind. I memorized badge numbers for all 216 sworn personnel, and I could guess the nature of the crime based on the length of the report. Car thefts were generally only a few minutes long, and your average search warrants were in the 7- to 12-minute range, unless you got stuck typing the report for the evidence technician. That could land you upward of 40 minutes, depending on how many items of evidentiary value were found. Homicides tended to be longer, especially if there were interviews or a neighborhood canvas involved. And so on and so on. 

Finally, I recognized that I had accidentally landed in a writer’s dream position: a unique job with behind-the-scenes access to fascinating stories and all the quiet time in the world to come up with a story of my own. This was the spark for Hello, Transcriber, a book that explores this unique and crepuscular work. Contrary to popular belief, there are professions much more solitary than being a writer. Take it from a former fly on the wall.

Author photo by Alaxandra Rutella.

Author Hannah Morrissey explores how her work as a police transcriber gave her the perfect perspective for her debut novel.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Edward Rollins is worth something in the neighborhood of $2 million dollars. He works at an investment firm in Boston in a dead end job, and he has no aspirations to move higher. He was once a reporter but he got burned out when he took a certain story too far. He is also a voyeur. Following people and watching their mundane lives is the one thing he enjoys no one in particular, just a random car here or there. He details each “pursuit” on a tape recorder, and through this hobby, he comes alive.

One night he follows an Audi chosen for no particular reason. As he tails the car north out of Boston, it proceeds as a normal pursuit for Rollins. However, following a number of quick, unsignaled turns, the Audi pulls into a quiet residential neighborhood and parks in front of an unassuming house. The driver quickly heads to the door, unlocks it, and slips inside. Rollins is perplexed and a little unnerved though, when no lights are turned on. Fearing that he was spotted and wanting to avoid confrontation, Rollins heads off into the night.

That experience rattles and unnerves him to the point that he breaks one of his own rules; he shares some personal information with someone. That lucky person is a younger co-worker named Marj. She is eager to learn more and actively pumps Rollins for further details. And that’s when the troubles begin.

The Dark House is a tense and intriguing debut novel from author John Sedgwick. He has created a complex and troubled hero in Edward Rollins, and a spunky, if somewhat less fleshed out, heroine in Marj. Both characters behave in a realistic fashion. There are no unbelievable heroics, no Einsteinian leaps of logic, simply basic human reaction. Granted, Rollins has his problems, and his family is certainly dysfunctional, but the characters are the heart of this story, and they do not disappoint.

Sedgwick has a way with words as well. He has created a multi-layered mystery, which does not immediately surrender its secrets.

While readers may begin to intuit the direction the mystery is heading, Sedgwick is able to throw them off the trail with unexplained twists. Each time the plot appears to be sorting itself out another surprise is added, keeping his reader in suspense until the very end.

Wes Breazeale is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest. The fact that he grew up in an unassuming house north of Boston is purely coincidence. Really.

Edward Rollins is worth something in the neighborhood of $2 million dollars. He works at an investment firm in Boston in a dead end job, and he has no aspirations to move higher. He was once a reporter but he got burned out when he…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Nine hundred years ago Hasan-I-Sabah founded the Assassins, the most effective killing machine in the world. Their cult of political murder created a terrorist environment throughout the Middle East.

In this realistic novel by Gerald Seymour, their progeny continue that tradition. Now the murder motive is vengeance.

Frank Perry is living a quiet, hidden life on the shore of Suffolk. A decade ago Perry was known by a different name and was caught by the British government selling machinery to Iran that would enable the Iranians to create chemical and biological weapons. Perry decided to help the British spy agency and became an information courier. At the end of the project he is given a new name and a new life. Now the Anvil is the assassin assigned by the Islamic movement to terminate Frank Perry.

When an FBI agent in Saudi Arabia learns of the mission and warns British authorities, they attempt to rescue Frank Perry by offering him yet another relocation. Perry refuses. He is tired of running and determined to stay. The tension builds as the assassin travels by ship from Iran to England and makes his way to Suffolk.

This is High Noon with Frank Perry in the Gary Cooper role. Seymour’s elegant and nuanced details of espionage activities lend realism as the novel moves toward its stunning climax.

Larry Woods is an attorney in Nashville.

Nine hundred years ago Hasan-I-Sabah founded the Assassins, the most effective killing machine in the world. Their cult of political murder created a terrorist environment throughout the Middle East.

In this realistic novel by Gerald Seymour, their progeny continue that tradition. Now…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

A new legal thriller star makes his debut

Review by bookpagedev

Toronto’s leading radio host Kevin Brace greets the newspaper deliveryman at the front door of his luxury condo, covered in blood, a confession on his lips.  His beautiful common-law wife lies dead in the bathtub. The crime appears to be solved before the first chapter is over, but the way the case unfolds makes Old City Hall, by newcomer Robert Rotenberg, an exciting addition to the legal thriller genre.  

Like Scott Turow and John Grisham, Rotenberg is a criminal lawyer turned writer with almost 20 years of legal practice behind him. Old City Hall is a tightly plotted thriller, but what lifts this book to the next level is the engaging cast of characters, from the legal workers right down to the Iranian doorman at Brace’s condo. And Rotenberg writes with relish of the neighborhoods, architecture, and multicultural population of his beloved hometown of Toronto. He is sure to have some avid fans by the close of this striking debut—which luckily contains signs of a sequel in the works.

This review originally appeared with the hardcover edition.

Toronto’s leading radio host Kevin Brace greets the newspaper deliveryman at the front door of his luxury condo, covered in blood, a confession on his lips.  His beautiful common-law wife lies dead in the bathtub. The crime appears to be solved before the first chapter…

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The 10 most heartwarming books of 2021

Feature by the editors of BookPage

Think about the way you feel after a delicious meal. Although you know there are dishes to wash and leftovers to put away and perhaps a long drive home or work in the morning, as you look around the table at the faces of the people you love, and for that one moment, your spirit feels full, safe, happy, loving and loved. 

If that’s how you’d like to feel after your next read, the BookPage editors suggest one of these 2021 releases. 

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

The latest novel from Pulitzer Prize winner Doerr is a vast undertaking, spanning centuries and incorporating multiple storylines. Amid this tangle of events, each character must face what feels like the end of their world, and it feels like a gift to the reader that Doerr’s response to each of these characters, even those who commit potentially unforgivable deeds, is mercy and hope and compassion. We have seen dark times before, and we’ll see them again—and maybe, if we trust in each other, it will all work out in the end.

—Cat Acree, Deputy Editor

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

If possible, this mystery is even better than the Osman’s charmer of a debut, The Thursday Murder Club. It’s a load of fun and an ode to how important the power of friendship is throughout one’s life but especially during the final stretch. 

—Savanna Walker, Associate Editor

These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett

As BookPage reviewer Kelly Blewett put it, “These Precious Days reinforces what many longtime fans like best about Ann Patchett: her levelheaded appraisal of what is good in the world.” Indeed, this essay collection overflows with goodness: good writing, good stories, good people. (One essay is literally about a priest whose work with unhoused people in his community caused Patchett to label him a “living saint.”) This is a companionable book, full of warmhearted reflections on how to love what we love—books, dogs, family—a little better.

—Christy Lynch, Associate Editor

Love Is a Revolution by Renée Watson

Today’s young readers are so lucky to have a writer like Renée Watson creating books for them, and Love Is a Revolution is a perfect example of why. This YA novel is a master class in characterization, from its grounded yet swoony central couple, to the family and friends who surround them, to Harlem itself, which Watson evokes vividly. Her respect for and belief in the power of young people comes through on every page, but what sets Watson apart are her words. Watson is a poet who writes novels, and that means every few pages, you will encounter a sentence so beautifully phrased that your eyes will brim with tears and your heart will be quietly filled.

—Stephanie Appell, Associate Editor

Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey 

A sweet and lighthearted rom-com that will appeal to readers who prefer stories that focus more on character than conflict, Very Sincerely Yours centers on the epistolary relationship between Teddy, a young woman who feels somewhat adrift in life, and Everett, the beloved host of a local children’s show. Both characters are lovingly and carefully drawn by Winfrey, who also creates a cozy, friendship-filled environment around her central pair. 

—Savanna Walker, Associate Editor

Goodbye, Again: Essays, Reflections, and Illustrations by Jonny Sun

On the one hand, reading Goodbye, Again feels like sharing a warm cup of tea with author and illustrator Jonny Sun. On the other hand, your pal Jonny might be a little depressed, or at least deeply introspective, and so your time together, while enriching, might make you cry. They’re good tears though—an overflow of feeling understood, of relief after hearing from someone else who feels as lonely, burnt out and hopeful as you do. Each short essay touches on an aspect of modern life that makes true connection, with yourself and others, harder. Together, they form a kaleidoscopic declaration that it’s worth the effort to nurture yourself and see what grows.

—Christy Lynch, Associate Editor

A Hundred Thousand Welcomes by Mary Lee Donovan, illustrated by Lian Cho

In her author’s note, Mary Lee Donovan writes that this deceptively simple picture book is her “love song to our shared humanity.” In multilingual rhyming couplets, A Hundred Thousand Welcomes offers a benediction for the sacredness of gathering together. Lines such as “The door is wide open— / come in from the storm. / We’ll shelter in peace, / break bread where it’s warm” have a plainspoken power, and Lian Cho’s friendly, colorful illustrations capture the joy of greetings and the happiness to be found around a shared table.

—Stephanie Appell, Associate Editor

Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation by John Lewis

During the last months of Congressman John Lewis’ life, he put pen to paper to collect some parting thoughts after 80 years of remarkable activism and service. Carry On captures Lewis’ memories of growing up as the son of a sharecropper in Alabama, shopping for comic books at the flea market, joining the Freedom Riders movement and more. Interspersed are snippets of advice for the next generation who will carry on the justice work Lewis and others began during the civil rights movement. After his death in 2020, Lewis’ last book reads as an even more precious labor of love, laced through with the congressman’s trademark wisdom, patience, determination and hope.

—Christy Lynch, Associate Editor

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

The type of book that the word heartwarming was made for, Chambers’ sci-fi novella follows a monk who is literally devoted to small comforts as they brew tea, explore the wild edges of the world and try to offer solace and warmth wherever they can. There are some heady philosophical themes at play, but just enough to engage and not overwhelm your brain as you happily sink into this small, perfectly wrought gem of a story. 

—Savanna Walker, Associate Editor

Of a Feather by Dayna Lorentz

“Two lost souls find each other and the way forward” is a story I will read as if it’s the first time every time. In Dayna Lorentz’ middle grade novel Of a Feather, the lost souls are a young girl named Reenie who’s been sent to live with an aunt she’s never met and a 6-month-old owl named Rufus who has also found himself alone and unprotected in the wide, wild world. Watching these two slowly drop their defenses and open themselves up to healing, love and hope has tremendous appeal and power: It reminds us that no one is ever truly so lost that they cannot be found.

—Stephanie Appell, Associate Editor

If you’d like your next read to leave you feeling uplifted and filled with love, we recommend picking up one of these books.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Carol O’Connell’s sixth New York-based Kathleen Mallory mystery Shell Game is not the simple illusion its title suggests. Its convolution and deciphering transform penny-ante poker into high-stakes investigation, loyalties into levers to gain clues, dementia into a shield fordecades-old guilt.

Just prior to Thanksgiving, on national television, an old-school magician’s attempt at an ambitious, dangerous trick results in his death. His failings are blamed: He was out of his league; his timing was off. Unlike everyone else, detective Kathleen Mallory believes that the death was planned. When her initial attempts to gather information on a magicians’ float at the Macy’s Parade are twisted to her professional embarrassment, Mallory digs in deeper.

O’Connell’s protagonist is the veteran of a childhood on urban streets a focused, tough detective, a source of bafflement to her colleagues. But self-knowledge, stubbornness, and cyber-skills give her an edge in confronting clever, violent opponents. Be warned: Shell Game may result in lost sleep, not for its subject matter but for its relentless puzzle. You do not get what you see. Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the forthcoming Gumbo Limbo.

Carol O'Connell's sixth New York-based Kathleen Mallory mystery Shell Game is not the simple illusion its title suggests. Its convolution and deciphering transform penny-ante poker into high-stakes investigation, loyalties into levers to gain clues, dementia into a shield fordecades-old guilt.

Just prior…

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Review

Review by bookpagedev

Joseph Klempner begins his tale of murder and its aftermath by describing its setting a small, ordinary community in upstate New York called Flat Rock. Flat Rock is small enough to fill every public office with volunteers, and small enough to route weekend calls to police headquarters to the Officer on Call. It is through this quite ordinary relay system that Bass McClure, Flat Rock’s volunteer Fish and Game Warden, receives a phone call that proves to be less than ordinary.

Jonathan Hamilton a 30-year-old man most of the town charitably calls slow has called to say his grandparents have been hurt. McClure, long familiar with the Hamilton family, arrives at the main house of the estate to find Jonathan rocking, making trapped animals noises, and covered in blood. Saying to Jonathan, Show me, McClure is lead to an upstairs bedroom, two bodies, and a mess of blood. An investigation begins.

The investigation, conducted by McClure and Deke Stanton, turns up what appears to be solid evidence that Jonathan has brutally killed the two people he loves most in the world. Evidence seems to suggest the motive for the murders supposedly committed by a man most would label retarded was greed.

Because a double murder carries a possible death penalty and New York has recently placed special emphasis on cases in which the death penalty applies, the state calls Matthew Fielder to defend Jonathan. A graduate of Death School, and a firm believer that death is different, Fielder collects a team to assist him in developing a defense for what seems indefensible. With the expertise of a private investigator named Gunn and a social worker named Hillary, plus input from Jonathan’s family, Fielder makes a decision on how to best defend his client only to find his decision was based on inadequacies and clouded by his own prejudices.

Klempner, who has a background in criminal defense, does the expected, delivering an intriguing look at the nuances of the law; he also delivers the unexpected. He winds his courtroom drama around the landscape, characters, and subplot narratives in the same way a favorite uncle strings together seemingly unrelated anecdotes until, without understanding exactly how it happened, you realize a powerful story has been told and you have learned something in the telling.

Jamie Whitfield is a published author and teacher. She lives in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Joseph Klempner begins his tale of murder and its aftermath by describing its setting a small, ordinary community in upstate New York called Flat Rock. Flat Rock is small enough to fill every public office with volunteers, and small enough to route weekend calls to…

Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Review

Review by bookpagedev

What distinguishes the recent work of Michael Connelly from other current mysteries is his emphasis on the psychological terrain of his central character, Detective Harry Bosch. A man ravaged by inner demons, Bosch struggles to control them without losing grasp of his latest case. In Angels Flight, Bosch is confronted with his most difficult challenge to date: a prominent African-American attorney’s murder.

Set in a racially polarized Los Angeles, Howard Elias’s shooting threatens to trigger a series of bloody race riots unless Bosch can find the murderer. Elias, a civil rights attorney, has a reputation as an enemy of the LAPD, arguing countless lawsuits against the embattled police force. When Elias and a woman are found dead on a train car, Bosch is recruited by police brass to solve the case as quickly as possible.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Elias was killed just two days before arguing his biggest case against the department. Although the murder resembles a robbery-homicide, certain circumstances point to a possible inside job by rogue cops seeking to silence the black lawyer.

In typical Connelly fashion, there are clever turns and twists in the plot as the city simmers toward a massive racial meltdown. Bosch races against time to find the killers, before everything erupts. His superiors do not want him to turn up any evidence that would implicate the department, but everything suggests that the people involved could be members of the LAPD.

Fans of classic police procedurals will enjoy the well-researched investigation, with its numerous clues, lab findings, legwork, suspects, and astonishing dead-ends. Bosch, walking a tightrope between protesting blacks and fearful whites, seeks the truth despite stonewalling tactics by his department and threats from the black community. With a whiz-bang ending, Bosch uncovers the bitter truth that defies all he has ever believed about his profession or his community. This is sleuthing with smarts and suspense. Connelly’s eighth detective thriller, Angels Flight sets the bar for the standard of this type of fiction even higher and clears it with room to spare.

What distinguishes the recent work of Michael Connelly from other current mysteries is his emphasis on the psychological terrain of his central character, Detective Harry Bosch. A man ravaged by inner demons, Bosch struggles to control them without losing grasp of his latest case. In…

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Praised by horrormeister Stephen King, Paul Tremblay’s shocking new novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, is an often graphic account of one family’s ordeal when their vacation is shattered in a cult-like home invasion. We asked Tremblay about the book’s origins, its dark path and his inner fears that helped forge the novel.

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