Whether they feel watching eyes or hear the sound of quickening footsteps behind them, the potential victims in these unnerving stories sense a predator’s approach, and so can we. As these characters hurry to the relative safety of their homes and rush to lock the doors behind them, readers of these smart and suspenseful books will be turning pages faster and faster in hopes of catching the criminal before it’s too late.

EYES IN THE WOODS
The smartest, and perhaps most sarcastic, private investigator in Atlanta has lost none of her spunk in the third installment of Amanda Kyle Williams’ Keye Street series. In Don’t Talk to Strangers, the worldly Street is a little out of her element. Instead of working from her high-tech office in the city, she’s drawn deep into the woods of rural Whisper, Georgia, to help solve two murders with the same M.O. but a decade between them. The killer keeps young girls captive for months, maybe years, before disposing of their bodies in the same remote location. Street is determined to stop it from happening again, but she finds herself in a precarious position: The locals don’t want her help and make their feelings menacingly clear. With potential enemies all around, our tenacious detective is clearly at risk. The reader feels the pressure, too, and shares the intense need to solve this mystery right alongside the intrepid investigator.

ESCALATING DANGER
A world away from the wilds of Georgia, Detective Inspector Mike Lockyer faces a different kind of killer on the streets of south London. In Clare Donoghue’s debut novel, Never Look Back, the murderer is brazen, practically daring the authorities to discover the women’s bodies he leaves poking out of alleys. Three victims into his warped scheme, the killer’s timetable is accelerating, and Lockyer doesn’t have much time to stop him from striking again. As with the most compelling cases, Lockyer’s quest isn’t merely police work; it’s personal. The victims are young and bear a startling resemblance to his daughter, Megan. Plus, Lockyer’s more than a little attracted to stalking victim Sarah Grainger, who may be next on the killer’s list. By involving the detective so intimately in the details of the case, Donoghue shows how a stalker’s threats infiltrate the lives of his victims on every level. Readers will be just as desperate as Lockyer, Megan and Sarah to see the end of this killer’s spree.

ON-AIR VICTIM
Eyes on You, the new standalone novel from Kate White, author of the Bailey Wiggins mystery series, is set in the brutally competitive world of modern media. Television news personality and rising star Robin Trainer is the co-anchor of a successful, gossipy news show, so she’s used to the political backstabbing that’s part of every day on set. However, she never expects it to turn deadly. When threatening notes start to appear in her purse and gruesome dolls turn up in her office chair, she begins to realize that the threat is real. But in the house of mirrors that is the media, who can she trust? Trainer’s first-person narration lets us in on every thought and interaction— from her reluctant attraction to her charming co-host to her confrontations with a vicious competitor—leaving us feeling as vulnerable as our haunted heroine.

UNDER HER NOSE
Clever and likable Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan has appeared in three previous books by Jane Casey. In her newest adventure, The Stranger You Know, Kerrigan returns to the London police office where she works with her abrasive, yet intriguing, partner, Josh Derwent. On her latest case, Kerrigan faces a serial killer who performs bizarre rituals on his victims—after he kills them. He leaves a scrupulously clean crime scene and no clues. Kerrigan has little to go on, and even less help from Derwent than usual, as he’s been abruptly banned from the case. As Kerrigan creeps closer to secrets from Derwent’s past that parallel the current crime, she can’t stay away from him. But will her presence help exonerate him, or does it put her own life in jeopardy? Casey expertly dangles the solution just out of Kerrigan’s reach, putting readers in the roles of the pursuer and the pursued until the final pages.

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Looking to take a journey through time with some compelling, out-of-the-ordinary sleuths this summer? Then look no further than these four new titles that are sure to keep you immersed in times gone by and flipping pages long into the night.

SEARCHING FOR SANCTUARY
In Defectors, Joseph Kanon’s smart new thriller, two American brothers meet for the first time in 12 years. It’s no ordinary reunion, though both have a backstory as bright young CIA operatives in the late 1940s. Frank, the elder, was exposed as a Communist spy and fled to Moscow in 1949 to avoid prosecution.

A decade later, Frank has written a memoir, and younger brother Simon, now a publisher, travels to Moscow in 1961 to read and edit the manuscript. But Frank appears to have another agenda. He signals to Simon that he wants to escape back to the states.

Defectors offers a story of divided loyalties and fast-moving Soviet action. Kanon's evocative language and masterful ability to ratchet up the suspense will immerse readers in the conflicted, claustrophobic world that awaits those whose political passions may waver or change. In Kanon’s chilling narrative, every line is a zinger. In this gray world of watchers and watched, where does ultimate loyalty lie?

A BELOVED CITY'S ANCIENT SECRETS
Outrageous face masks are the required costume during annual carnival celebrations just before Lent in 1358 Venice. The masks' grotesque features throw into stark relief the revelry, brutality and hidden secrets of this fabled city, where Brit Oswald Lacy and his mother have traveled as a stop in their pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

While billeted there with the family of John Bearpark, an English merchant, young Oswald embroils himself in gambling debts with John's Italian friends. When a secretly gay member of the Bearpark household is killed, the victim leaves a murky trail that pushes the Oswald into imminent danger. Oswald's mother volunteers him to solve the case, an arrangement he quickly accepts as a way to pay off some of his mounting debt. In an eerie twist, a fearful apparition from Oswald’s life in London follows him from the shadows, grasping at him until he is forced to look upon its face.

S.D. Sykes, author of two previous Lord Somershill mysteries, spares readers none of the 14th century’s malodorous streets and dark alleyways as Oswald tries to unmask the killer and save his own life.

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
The State Counsellor, by popular Russian author Boris Akunin, is the latest Erast Fandorin detective novel to be made available to his U.S. fans.

In 1891, an assassin in clever Fandorin disguise boards a train, killing a Russian official who’s being secretly transferred to Siberia. The famous detective (home at the time practicing gymnastics with his Japanese valet) quickly proves his innocence and sets off in pursuit of the revolutionary Combat Group responsible for the murderous deed.

Fandorin’s exploits involve the usual intriguing women, including a seductive, fiery-tempered revolutionary and an informer who notably receives visitors while heavily veiled, sitting in a darkened room.

The State Counseller is full of irony and subtle humor as well as glitz and excitement, from an attack in a bathhouse to a daring escape from a railway carriage to Fandorin’s impossible rooftop jump using a trick called “The Flight of the Hawk.”

SHADOWY SECRETS IN PRAGUE
Murder and betrayal are everyday functions of life at court in Wolf on a String, an amazing novel that showcases author Benjamin Black’s extraordinary ability to thrust readers into the world of late 16^th-century Prague.

Bright young scholar and alchemist Christian Stern is thrust into the intrigue at court when he arrives in Prague and is immediately commissioned to find the murderer of the Emperor Rudolph’s new mistress, discovered with her throat cut. Sorting out who may be his enemies, who friends, assumes overriding importance as the young man is twisted into relationships at court with deceitful, dangerous men of high office out to gain favor and riches.

By the end of this sometimes overwrought but intensely atmospheric novel, readers may have little sympathy for young Stern, but a heightened appreciation for anyone who could survive even a day or two in the midst of the pervasive, dark circuitry of court rivalries in an era still struggling with the intricacies of civilization.

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! All month long, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers. Look for the Private Eye July magnifying glass for a daily dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.