We usually celebrate our college alma maters with a sense of pride, while doing our best to forget high school altogether. But in Lori Rader-Day’s stunning second novel, a murder at a creepy roadside motel forces an unlikely heroine to revisit her painful high school years.

Somewhere in the cornfields between Chicago and Indianapolis, Juliet Townsend is trapped in a meaningless job as a maid at the seedy Mid-Night Inn in the small town of Midway, Indiana, “named for the fact that it wasn’t one place or another.” In high school, Juliet lived in the shadow of her best friend and track team rival, the beautiful and mysterious Madeleine Bell. Ten years later, Juliet’s still in town, living with her mother and scrubbing toilets after Madeleine left her behind for a glamorous life in Chicago.

Or so Juliet thinks, until the night Madeleine checks into the Mid-Night Inn. She’s still stunning, and sporting a giant diamond ring that Juliet—a kleptomaniac with a penchant for small, shiny objects—would love to get her hands on. But Madeleine isn’t there to gloat: She’s running from something and desperate to talk to Juliet. Overcome with jealousy, Juliet blows her off, and the next morning finds Madeleine’s corpse hanging from the motel balcony. When local police name her the most likely suspect, Juliet embarks on a mission to find the real killer by excavating her and Madeleine’s past as track stars at Midway High, when Madeleine mysteriously pulled out of a pivotal race and cost Juliet a scholarship.

Once again, Chicago author Rader-Day (The Black Hour) delivers a breathless psychological thriller with a killer first line, an irresistible mystery and lean chapters soaked with suspense. Comparisons to Tana French (A Secret Place) and Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train) have become all too common in the mystery genre, but with two consistently great novels now under her belt, Rader-Day has proved their equal in crafting taut, literary mysteries with fascinating heroines.

In a windblown field near the sea in Norfolk, England, a land developer’s excavating machine uncovers first a silver wing, then the cockpit of an American World War II fighter plane, then the ghostly remains of a long-dead pilot staring up from inside.

Enter forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway, the central character in the engrossing mystery series by author Elly Griffiths. Like the previous books in the series, The Ghost Fields combines an atmosphere of eerie beauty, a reach that manages to encompass millennia and a style of low-key, dry humor that’s just plain satisfying.

The discovery of the grisly human remains ignites a series of mysteries. (The body, by the way, is not that of the plane’s pilot.) Soon Ruth and company are investigating throughout the Norfolk countryside, from the developer’s digging site to a derelict WWII American airfield—one of many known as “ghost fields”—to an old family estate whose lands date back to the Iron Age and may contain a few more skeletons in the closet—and elsewhere.

The success of Griffiths’ series is due in no small part to central character Ruth and a creative, comfortable cast of characters, including a couple of druids, one or two mismatched couples who nevertheless make a match, a crazy British family living out in the wilds and, of course, the irreplaceable DCI Nelson, a cop for all seasons if there ever was one. Nelson’s unconventional social skills make him one of the more intriguing antiheroes to come down the pike in ages. He’s irresistible precisely because he seems to be clueless about the depth of his relationship with Ruth. Though Griffiths describes him as “not a fanciful man,” we’re drawn to his blind spots as well as his sturdy confidence as he works alongside his three detective sergeants, who play no small role in the proceedings. The author’s addictive sense of humor raises the series a cut above the ordinary—not loudmouth, wise-guy humor, but rather more subtle and lasting.

Add to this the book’s salty, desolate atmosphere of endless marsh and lonely, ancient sands, and the book achieves a shivery aura of mystery you won’t soon shake, one that laces past with present in the inescapable march of time.

Author Seán Haldane explores the frontier culture of 1869 British Columbia in an award-winning novel that wades through people’s preconceptions and ideas about savagery and civilization, set at a moment when geographic boundaries are expanding and Charles Darwin’s ideas are just beginning to challenge old frames of mind. This singular story offers a lively, up-close look at Victorian manners and views of that time, set in the context of cold-blooded murder.

Young Chad Hobbes has come from Victorian England to settle in Victoria, British Columbia, and after searching for work he joins the area’s new police force, assuming the duties of a sergeant after a white man is found brutally mutilated and murdered near an Indian encampment. The book becomes a fascinating detective story as Hobbes, dissatisfied with the quick arrest of an Indian for the crime, painstakingly pulls apart the seams of the case to discover the real perpetrator.

Hobbes’ investigation begins to uncover odd stories about the murdered man—an alienist, or early psychologist, of the time—who pursues an interest in “magnetation,” methods that employ both sexual and mystical “treatments.” The sergeant’s discoveries multiply as he questions the people whose lives touched that of the mesmerist, including those who sought his help.

The eventual solution of this superb crime novel is described in satisfying detail. The book, however, is not so much about the crime as about the mindset of this late Victorian era, told in an unvarnished way as Hobbes visits pubs, docks, parlors and police offices, and by all manner of people, from low-born servants to military officers, from clergy to members of the “finer” classes, each with long-held attitudes about their class-bound society. Each story adds a different slant to the tale.

Haldane gets under the skin of his characters, stripping away the civilized veneer to reveal the inner thoughts and desires of each individual, often at great odds with their public facades. Hobbes himself is forced to grapple with a confluence of feelings when he falls in love with a young Indian woman and must contrast his own preconceived notions of how “savages” think and act with the very different people and circumstances he actually encounters. All this happens at a crucial time in history when traditional ideas come face-to-face with a new world that’s about to lay waste to long-accepted notions about human nature.

The World War II era is fertile soil for writers of crime fiction, and Francine Mathews follows hard on the heels of her exceptional Jack 1939 (2012) with a crackerjack espionage thriller, Too Bad to Die, both set in that time. Mathews, a former intelligence analyst for the CIA, knows all the tricks of the trade, and her novel imagines the words and actions of bona fide participants in one of the seminal events of that war—the Tehran Conference in 1943, where Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin come together to plan their final move against Nazi Germany, the invasion of Europe. The three Allied leaders are portrayed as multilayered personalities weighing their own countries’ post-war welfare against the cooperation needed at this crucial moment to win the war.

Mathews brings in yet another real-life figure from that era, the soon-to-be-famous author Ian Fleming, and imagines how he might have participated in the dangerous, game-changing meeting, as the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

In real life, Fleming was an assistant to Britain’s director of naval intelligence; in Too Bad to Die, he gets to play a down-and-dirty role in Tehran after he uncovers a plot to assassinate all three Allied leaders at the conference. He must discover the identity of the assassin, a mastermind known only as the Fencer, as clues are sent to him from Britain via Alan Turing’s famed Enigma machine.

Young Fleming’s imagined early years at Eton and Sandhurst are played out in the shadow of his idol and father, Val, who died a hero during World War I, and in the details of Ian’s friendship with American and schoolmate Michael Hudson. There’s an imaginative take on how the character of James Bond takes shape in Fleming’s mind as he races against time to intercept the killer, aided—or perhaps impeded—by two women, a comely British Signals operator and a Soviet spy named Siranoush, who may or may not be leading him to his death.

We’re right behind Fleming as he races against time to discover the Fencer’s identity. The book is great sport for lovers of quick-fire espionage yarns, filtered through the lens of one of the most pivotal eras in world history. And if you haven’t figured out the identity of the would-be assassin pretty early on, you need to turn in your detective badge.

Crime fiction groupies can usually form a pretty quick mental picture of the cop, PI or little old lady detective in any new mystery novel, and that take remains, embedded in the reader’s imagination, for the duration of the story.

In David Handler’s new series, however, it’s not easy to get a handle on Benji, whose feet meet the street for Golden Legal Services, a mom-and-son detective agency in NYC. He’s barely five-foot-six, with a baby face that looks younger than his 25 years, and he tends toward madras shorts and Converse high-tops. Still, the mental image is elusive and doesn’t intrude in the mind like Sam Spade or Hercule Poirot. Maybe it’s to Benji’s advantage, as he searches out the bad guys in Phantom Angel.

Back by popular demand after 2013’s Runaway Man, Benji is hired by aging producer and showman Morrie Frankel to find his missing “angel,” a financial backer who emerges to support—or save—a Broadway show, and who supposedly functions as an incentive for other would-be backers to pony up some cash. Morrie claims his angel is a hedge fund billionaire named R.J. Farnell, but “phantom” becomes the operative word when Farnell goes missing. Besides cultivating hedge fund managers, Morrie is in deep to the Joe Minetta crime family, who also back shows—for a hefty price. If Farnell isn’t found, Morrie claims his Broadway version of Wuthering Heights will never make it to the stage—not to mention he’ll have to watch out for Minetta’s goons.

Benji’s investigation leads to the doorstep of Farnell’s supposed girlfriend, a 19-year-old cutie nicknamed Boso. But Boso’s career as a webcam bimbo connects her to organized crime and—surprise, surprise—Minetta’s organization, and when Morrie is murdered in broad daylight on a New York street, Benji must penetrate the surface glitz to separate the good guys from the bad.

Handler’s strength lies in his stable of marvelous characters, who could be straight out of a Damon Runyon story: Benji’s mother, Hattie, retired pole dancer; Rita, his gorgeous co-worker and former erotic performer; and Cricket, an online huckster for whom no item of gossip is too sleazy.

The author has notched another urban treat full of opportunistic Broadway producers, grabby wannabe stars and the hardscrabble world of mob connections. In this book, as in New York City, it ain’t movin’ unless it’s movin’ fast.

The great Richard Price (Clockers, Lush Life) dons a new literary persona as Harry Brandt for this crackling thriller. Haunted NYPD Detective Billy Graves' very name suggests not only his bleak working hours but also a death that landed him on the, well, graveyard shift. Det. Graves is a second-generation cop and had been a rising star until a mishap killed an innocent bystander, leaving Graves with a ghost—a crook that got away.

Several of Graves’ equally dysfunctional co-workers are similarly haunted by these “whites,” bad guys “who had committed criminal obscenities . . . then walked away untouched by justice.” To call these cops flawed would be like describing the Grand Canyon as a mere hole in the ground, but they are also dedicated. Perhaps too much so, as Graves begins connecting the dots when his “white” turns up dead.

The Whites is ultimately not quite as intricate or poetic (or long) as Price’s best work. It is a great read nonetheless, laugh-out-loud funny at times, whether the source of the humor is grim, mundane or—in the case of a handcuffed lawnmower—downright absurd. Price’s best passages are rooted in his peerless urban realism, though he also has lots of fun letting the plot drift away from the realm of strict plausibility. None of this makes The Whites any less entertaining, nor should this obscure genuinely emotional elements of the story, including Graves’ shaky but loving marriage and a touching mystery involving a hematologist.

So long as your tolerance for NYPD lingo (“One PP,” anybody?) is high, and your patience for cops who bend (or obliterate) the rules even higher, The Whites is (either) an impressive debut or a high-octane addition to the already-impressive Price oeuvre.

Don’t look for a boilerplate story or predictable characters in Becky Masterman’s surprising second mystery, Fear the Darkness. There’s no letdown after Masterman’s first book, the Edgar Award finalist Rage Against the Dying. Her extraordinary heroine, 59-year-old FBI retiree Brigid Quinn, is front and center for a second time in this surprising thriller.

Who knew that all Quinn’s job-related physical and mental skills would be called into play in her life as a newlywed, as she and hubby Carlos, a priest-turned-philosophy-professor, start to enjoy their days together in sunny Tucson? As a former agent who’s lived a very private and secretive life in many different identities, Quinn is slowly adjusting to being a new wife and to making real friends for the first time. She’s shopping, gossiping, enjoying a glass of wine with new friend Mallory, hiking and attending church socials and local events.

But there are threats in the most unexpected places and hiding just below the surface in the most unlikely people. After her sister-in-law dies following a long illness, Quinn fulfills a promise by taking in her 17-year-old niece, Gemma-Kate. The girl seems oddly unemotional and occasionally disconnected, causing Quinn to wonder whether Gemma-Kate is involved in the odd occurrences that begin to crop up.

The book’s multilayered characters continue to offer surprises, including Mallory’s bedridden husband, Owen, paralyzed in an accident and unable to speak; and Owen’s doctor, Tim Neilsen, and his wan, lost-looking wife, Jacquie. There’s an added sense of menace when she agrees to look into the strange death of the Neilsens’ son, after she picks up a piece of paper on which Jacquie has secretly scribbled “Help me.”

As Quinn’s unease mounts, she begins to wonder whom she can trust. This story thrives on the unexpected and unforeseen, and as tension builds, readers can expect a plot that morphs into something bigger than a curious death or two. There’s something to boggle the mind on nearly every page and a death-defying scene near the finale that’ll curl your hair. The monsters in the shadows—the ones we thought were completely exaggerated—are only too real.

The members of the Last Death Club are kicking the bucket one by one, some of them practically under the nose of irascible Victorian detective Sidney Grice, in The Curse of the House of Foskett. It’s the second book in M.R.C. Kasasian’s intriguing new series that debuted in 2014 with The Mangle Street Murders, featuring Grice and his young ward, March Middleton, who narrates the books in a most unusual fashion.

Death Club member Horatio Green approaches Grice, asking him to investigate the suspicious passing of one of the club’s original seven members, whose wills collectively stipulate that the last living member will reap all the financial benefits that have accrued in the combined coffers. During the interview, Green suddenly drops dead in Grice’s study, leaving just five members still alive. As March and her guardian begin their investigation, members continue to die in bizarre, unpleasant ways.

Kasasian has a macabre sense of humor, or perhaps it’s just a heightened sense of the macabre. Graphic descriptions can be black enough to corrode the soul—or they may leave you relishing each page, depending on your capacity for unsavory, sometimes tongue-in-cheek details. During a tidy Victorian dinner scene, we learn that the napkin ring is fashioned from a human femur. Floors, handkerchiefs and faces are never clean; the London streets are dark and rainy; one death club member sits in the filth of a decaying mansion, hidden behind a sheen of black gauze. At the same time, each page is shot through with dry humor and clever ripostes, including some humdinger non sequiturs from housemaid Molly.

The book’s period details are impeccable. Each murder is clever and twisty, and the methods employed by the unconventional—one might even say mad—detective duo may leave you shaking, though only occasionally with laughter.

Side stories are engrossing in their own right: the ongoing mystery behind the story of March and her now-dead lover, Edward; hints of a strange past involving Grice and one club member, who happens to be one of the “cursed” members of the titular Foskett family; and the quiet tie growing between March and a police detective she has nearly killed (unintentionally).

Readers alternate between exasperation at these eccentric characters and the desire to read more and more about them in this absorbing and provocative series.

The first book in a new crime series, Winter at the Door introduces Lizzie Snow, a Boston cop turned police chief, now ensconced in the remote town of Bearkill in northern Maine’s Aroostook County, which runs right up against the Canadian border. Bearkill barely manages the necessities with a supermarket, Laundromat, luncheonette and corner bar appropriately named Area 51.

It’s not her first choice for a working venue, but the “grim little town miles from anywhere” may offer a clue to the whereabouts of Lizzie’s young niece, Nicki, who went missing after her mother’s death eight years before. The child’s body was never found, and Lizzie desperately hopes there is substance to a slim lead involving a youngster who’s living somewhere in this area.

Besides adjusting to a new location and searching Maine’s dark corners on her personal quest, Lizzie is confounded by a spate of mysterious crimes and a killer who lurks just out of reach. The deaths are one reason Lizzie’s smart and steady new boss, Sheriff Cody Chevrier, is counting on her fresh eyes to separate what looks like accident from premeditated murder. There are many puzzles to decipher in Winter at the Door, and the primary one is why so many local ex-cops are suddenly meeting an unexpected death.

Another conundrum involves Lizzie’s former lover and the cause of her recent heartbreak, state police detective Dylan Hudson. Dylan is the source of the information on Nicki, but how much substance is there to his timely lead?

This twisted, gritty tale is full of wintry touches, but for all of its atmosphere it takes a surprisingly superficial approach, even with a potentially fascinating cast of characters. Many scenes sacrifice depth and nuance for a screenplay veneer, and Dylan lacks the panache to be a devastatingly attractive lover. Still, the snow-muffled setting works well, leading readers into the heart of a thankless and dangerous darkness, one that will continue to lure as the series progresses.