Catherine House, the debut novel by Elisabeth Thomas, defies categorization; it is a coming-of-age story, a thriller, science-fiction and a Gothic novel all at once. These elements should feel incongruous, but in the strange world of Catherine House they blend together in a way that makes perfect internal sense.

Ines is a young woman running from her past. Once a dedicated student, her life changed dramatically during her senior year of high school, leading to a horrific tragedy. With nowhere left to go, Ines is fortunate to have been accepted into Catherine House, an elite, unconventional university. Isolated in the Pennsylvania woods, Catherine House’s campus is at once beautiful and moldering. Students agree that for three years they will focus solely on their course of study with no interaction with the outside world—no TV, no radio, no calls or visits home. The book’s mid-1990s means that students don’t have access to Wi-Fi or cellphones either. If they should fall behind in their studies or violate the university’s rules, they are sent to a facility called The Tower for “restoration” and contemplation.

Ines is never quite sold on Catherine House’s exclusive charms. While other students, like her roommate Baby, focus entirely on succeeding in the rigorous course study, Ines sees the decaying grandeur of Catherine House for what it is: an institution hiding secrets in plain sight. Among these secrets is the university’s research and highly secretive experiments into a mysterious substance called plasm.

Catherine House employs that wonderful Gothic convention of an inexplicable sense of wrongness, which pervades the narrative. We see the institution through Ines’ point of view; she craves its sanctuary, but is simultaneously also too cynical to accept it. There is never a moment when Ines, or the reader, can fully let her guard down and trust that any of Catherine House’s strange rituals and traditions are benign, and as Ines’ curiosity about plasm becomes a fixation, the atmosphere of the novel takes on an even more sinister feel.

Much of Catherine House is devoted to building the world that Ines and her friends inhabit, a narrative strategy that delays some of the suspense. However, by crafting a truly immersive experience, Thomas ratchets up the sense of dread as both Ines and readers begin to see Catherine House for what it truly is. With a compelling narrator and truly inventive setting, Catherine House embraces Gothic conventions even as it defies expectation and utilizes them in new and exciting ways. It challenges the genre while embracing it and takes readers on a truly unique journey.

Jack Dixon is not a conventional PI, at least by the standards of your average mystery novel. He’s strong but has no stomach for violence, and while a glass of good bourbon won’t go unappreciated, he joneses more often for apple slices dipped in almond butter. Work takes him on the road when a teammate from his college wrestling days who’s since turned professional starts receiving threats; his character, “U.S. Grant,” rips up Confederate flags in the ring, and not everyone is a fan. Now Jack has his back, but life in the “squared circle” (a wrestling slang term for the wrestling ring) may prove deadly to them both. Cheap Heat leaves it all on the mat.

Daniel Ford’s second Jack Dixon novel carries over a bit from Body Broker, his series debut. Jack gets around on his motorcycle, but the roar of a hog engine puts him on high alert thanks to a prior deadly run-in with a biker gang. Depictions of the pro wrestling circuit are grimy and depressing but manage to convey the thrill and glory of a good match—the ring announcer/chaperone for the wrestlers is a minor character juicy enough to take up a book of her own. Good food and good company are healing for Jack, but he trades the solitary claustrophobia of his houseboat for a series of cruddy motel rooms on this job.

The conclusion involves a showdown that pulls a thread from the first book and ties both stories together, then blows a hole in what we think is coming next. There will be a third volume, thankfully, because we could all use more stories about a secretly shy, carb-counting hero. Cheap Heat contains no cheap thrills; there’s a big heart and quick mind at the helm.

Heather Chavez’s No Bad Deed is a fast-paced, high-anxiety tale of a good Samaritan’s offer of assistance gone very, very wrong. On her drive home from work after a 12-hour shift at her veterinarian practice, Cassie Larkin pulls over to mop up a spilled drink—and sees a man throw a woman into a ravine.

A shocked Cassie calls 911 and, despite the dispatcher’s exhortations to stay in her minivan, she gets out and stumbles down a steep hill in an attempt to save the woman. The attacker offers a terrifying bargain—“Let her die and I’ll let you live”—before running off, stealing Cassie’s van (as well as her wallet and keys) along the way. The woman lives, and Cassie pushes through her shock and fear to give a statement to Detective Ray Rico, who tells her, “Every crime is personal, even the random ones.” But Cassie can’t imagine how on earth this crime could have anything to do with her, nor can she figure out why Rico seems to be regarding her with skepticism rather than focusing on catching the criminal who knows where she lives and has the keys to her house.

Exhausted and distraught, she pushes the weirdness aside and goes home, hoping the police will soon catch said criminal and resolving to start fresh tomorrow. Alas, rather than a festive day with a candy-filled finale, Cassie’s Halloween ends on a strange and terrifying note. Her husband Sam takes their 6-year-old daughter trick-or-treating and then disappears. Cassie wonders if he’s having an affair, but can’t believe that he would abandon their child.

Chavez, a former newspaper reporter, does an excellent job of pulling the reader along with Cassie as she tears around town assembling clues in an effort to figure out what the hell is going on. Thanks to the uncanny timing, Cassie wonders if Sam’s disappearance is related to the bizarre assault she witnessed. That would be a wild coincidence, but as the hours pass and the danger and strangeness increases, Cassie’s sense of reality warps and changes, and her instincts are increasingly at odds with what she’s seeing and hearing.

No Bad Deed is an exciting exploration of what might happen when a person’s ordinary life is suddenly thrown into chaos, and knowing whom or what to trust is no longer possible. It’s also a delightfully Harlan Coben-esque tale of the ways in which the past can influence the present—for better or much, much worse.

Screenwriter Christian White knows his way around a plot twist. Even the most die-hard thriller reader will be surprised at the direction The Wife and the Widow takes, but even without its truly shocking reveal, White’s thriller stands out for its penetrating examination of marriage and the lies that build between spouses.

Abby and her husband, Ray, are eking out a living on a gothic, windswept island off the coast of Victoria, Australia. When the police find the body of a man who died under suspicious circumstances, it disrupts the sleepy island community—and makes Abby notice how strangely Ray has been acting. Suddenly distant and secretive, Ray has disposed of his work clothes and can’t account for all his time away from home.

Just as Abby is struggling to reconcile her husband’s odd behavior, stay-at-home mom Kate is suddenly questioning everything she knows about her husband, John. After he doesn’t come home from what he said was a business trip, Kate learns that John quit his job three months ago. The only place she can think to look for her missing husband is the island where they own a vacation home.

White’s eerie, patient unraveling of small deceptions makes The Wife and the Widow a hypnotic reading experience. Both Kate and Abby’s worlds experience seismic shifts, but due to what appear to be, at first, trivial lies. Even as the suspense builds and trivial lies snowball into something much more devastating, a sense of sadness grounds the novel as Kate and Abby grieve for the relationships they thought they had. Unlike most domestic thrillers, the female leads here aren’t the victims of violence; rather their trauma comes from living lives they realize were permeated with lies. When the truth about John and Ray is finally revealed it feels explosive, but also like a relief from a nagging ache.

Heartbreaking and contemplative, The Wife and the Widow is one of those mysteries that lingers in the reader’s mind long after it is finished.

Naked Came the Florida Man, the newest novel by Tim Dorsey, is a crazy read from start to finish, and I mean that in a good way. The novel—part comedy, part thriller—follows the latest exploits of Dorsey’s oddball duo of Serge Storms and his weed-addicted sidekick Coleman on a meandering trek across the Sunshine State, with no real end goal in mind. And that’s just part of what makes this book so fun.

Longtime Dorsey fans already familiar with Serge and Coleman’s antics will have the distinct advantage of knowing what to expect heading into the novel (but they won’t be able to rekindle the feeling of discovering the intrepid pair for the first time like new readers). Admittedly, the misadventures and seemingly aimless wanderings of Dorsey’s characters take a bit of getting used to, but once you do, you’ll be all too eager to go along for the ride.

What starts out as a simple tour of the state’s historic graveyards (complete with fascinating lessons about the state and its people that you probably won’t find in tourist brochures at the state line) turns into a series of escapades resulting in Serge’s unique brand of vigilante justice. Between tombstone rubbings, the pair intervene in a so-called pastor’s scheme to bilk needy seniors out of their money through shady reverse-mortgage deals, exact punishment on a man filming birds that explode after consuming Alka Seltzer tablets and help save a young football player from a greedy pirate.

If that’s not enough to pique your curiosity, Dorsey peppers the novel with Serge’s one-of-a-kind social rants on anything that comes to mind, from tangents in internet comment threads and why the U.S. cares about soccer to the length of receipts from drug stores. At one point, Serge even admits to being completely “off his rocker” and adopts a ferret as an emotional support animal.

A former reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune until 1999, Dorsey has shirked his commitment to serious recounts of the day’s top events in favor of over-the-top tall tales and wacky characters like Serge and Coleman. I have to admit, they are a lot more fun.

The moment you think you have the latest Valerie Hart thriller figured out, Saul Black takes the narrative in a new and stunning direction. Exquisitely plotted, this police procedural unravels with the deftness and striking prose that Black fans have come to expect.

The plot of Anything For You hinges on the personal dysfunctions of two women who occupy vastly different spaces—one a homicide detective and one a killer—but feel remarkably alike in their intelligence and canny ability to read others. Valerie Hart is a seasoned homicide investigator with the San Francisco Police Department, and she’s working to stifle her self-destructive tendencies (booze, promiscuous sex and an addiction to work, to name a few) in order to make her marriage work. She’s even contemplating having a child; it's an idea that terrifies her as much as it excites her.

Valerie’s latest case is an example of how her personal life and work have become toxically entangled: The victim, prosecutor Adam Grant, once spent a night in her bed. Grant was brutally killed in his own home, with his wife barely surviving the attack. At first, it seems a cut-and-dry case in which a former inmate with a grudge against Grant is the perpetrator. But as Valerie digs deeper she learns that both Grant and the ex-con were linked by a mysterious escort known only as Sophia. Valerie knows she should remove herself from the case due to personal conflict, but she’s too invested to let go.

There’s an icy self-awareness and a self-deprecation to both Valerie and Sophia that helps them transcend typical femme fatale stereotypes. Black gives Sophia, in particular, a complex and sometimes unsettling back story that makes her feel like more of an anti-heroine than a villainess. By the time Valerie is closing in on her quarry, we are so invested in both of these characters, and in the incredibly intricate plot, that it is almost a disappointment to see the mystery solved. Black blends nuanced characters, immersive prose and complex plotlines so skillfully that it feels practically magical. When Valerie and Sophia finally meet face-to-face, readers will be breathless with anticipation and the promise of delicious secrets being revealed.

In Catriona McPherson’s new thriller, Strangers at the Gate, Finn and her husband Paddy Lamb have a helluva week.

Things start out promisingly enough for the couple, who are making multiple life changes all at once. Paddy’s got a new law-partner job, Finn’s going to be a deacon and they’re leaving the city to move into a gatehouse on a sprawling estate owned by Paddy’s employer. Life’s looking up, even though, to Finn, it seems almost too good to be true.

And then, things go horrifically awry: after a lovely dinner with their new benefactors (the fabulously named Lovatt and Tuft Dudgeon), the Lambs discover the Dudgeons’ very, very bloodied bodies—apparent victims of a murder-suicide. Finn and Paddy keep this gruesome discovery to themselves (they’ve got their own reasons for avoiding police scrutiny), and wait . . . and wait . . . and wait . . . for someone else to come upon and report the crime. In the meantime, they strive for nonchalance as they get to know their new colleagues and neighbors, including well-meaning church folk and the beautiful, enigmatic Shannon.

But as Finn struggles to acclimate to her new and creepy surroundings—such a dark and craggy landscape, so many looming trees—her paranoia grows. And it doesn’t really stop, as McPherson ramps up the tension with ever more creative revelations and twists that will have readers eager to see what on earth is coming next. It’s a fascinating study of what can happen when we suppress our instincts or aren’t sure who to trust, and a delightfully torturous day-by-day recounting of the aftermath of a life-changing lie: everyone seems suspicious, using the proper verb tense is suddenly crucial and eccentricity begins to feel a lot more sinister.

Fans of McPherson’s award-winning work (the Dandy Gilver and Lexy Campbell series, plus numerous standalone novels) will relish whipping right through Strangers at the Gate, guessing and gasping all the way.

Nevada Barr, bestselling author of the Anna Pigeon series, pens a superlative standalone chiller with What Rose Forgot. Right from the outset, it appears that Rose has forgotten quite a lot. First, she awakens in a forest, clueless about how she got there. The next time she wakes up, she is in a home for elderly dementia patients, still somewhat clueless although with the nagging suspicion that she does not belong there. So she secretly stops taking her meds. This is not immediately life-changing in and of itself, but it does serve to solidify Rose’s belief that she does not belong in a dementia ward. After making good on her escape, Rose joins forces with her late husband’s 13-year-old granddaughter, who possesses remarkable skills that help cover her step-grandma’s tracks. The longer Rose stays off the medications, the more she becomes convinced that someone (or ones) are out to get her. But is Rose just paranoid? What if she’s not? What Rose Forgot capitalizes on the resourcefulness of a pair of quite clever women and an equally clever pair of teens, all dedicated to stymieing some particularly unpleasant members of the opposing team. When a mystery features a 68-year-old protagonist, one could be forgiven for assuming that said mystery will fall into the cozy subgenre. What Rose Forgot is anything but.

If you take the John Wick and “Sons of Anarchy” series, blend them with the movie Taken and then dial the intensity up to 11, you have Seven Crows. This gritty thriller unapologetically celebrates its violent antihero, ex-con Killian Delaney, as she navigates the criminal underworld in search of her missing niece.

Killian Delaney grew up in a tough world. Before most people were graduating college, she was the “Old Lady” (aka girlfriend) to a member of the Crows motorcycle club, as well as a celebrated MMA fighter. When her boyfriend was gunned down in a hit by another club, Killian found the man responsible, Rank Cirello, and almost killed him, leaving him permanently disabled and in chronic pain. After nearly a decade in prison, Killian is out on parole, but Rank hasn’t forgotten her. His payback? To kidnap Killian’s 15-year-old niece Shannon and traffic her on the illegal sex market. This plot sounds dark, and it is, but it’s also surprisingly satisfying.

Seven Crows opens with a bang and doesn’t slow down. Spanning only a few days, the action is compressed into a breathless timeline. Killian recruits some of her old criminal friends and makes a few new ones as she (sometimes literally) burns through the underworld in search of Shannon. There are plenty of casualities along the way, but Killian never slows down in her pursuit and never flinches away from the trauma she inflicts.

This novel is staggeringly violent, but its violence feels almost cathartic, rather than gratuitous. Killian and Shannon live in a world dominated by dangerous men who commoditize (literally) the women around them. In one scene, Killian and an accomplice tear through a brothel that sells underage girls with brass knuckles and a shot gun, and it’s impossible to feel anything but a sense of justice watching them put these predators out of business. That said, I must add the caveat that, in keeping with its tone, the book references sexual assault in a candid and descriptive way that may be off-putting to some readers.

The ending of Seven Crows hints at the beginning of a series and I hope that comes to fruition. In the era of #MeToo, vicariously experiencing Killian’s brutal form of justice feels just right, rather than too much.

The title of T. Jefferson Parker’s The Last Good Guy refers to its protagonist, private investigator Roland Ford, who is indeed a good guy, albeit one beset by troubles. But his latest case seems pretty straightforward, at least at the outset. A teenage girl has run away, an action not inconsistent with her wild nature, and her elder sister is anxious for her safety, especially since the young girl has a 20-year-old boyfriend who is a decidedly unsavory character. But rest assured, an author the caliber of Parker will not spin a simple tale of a runaway. Instead, there is nuance upon nuance, misdirection upon misdirection, including a celebrity evangelist, the aforementioned unsavory boyfriend, an enclave of neo-Nazis and a client whose motive for finding her sister may not be exactly as she represented it. As is typical for Parker’s novels, the stage upon which the story unfolds is a microcosm of today’s America, with racism and intolerance, the escalating struggle between conservatives and liberals and the pervasive influence of megachurches and the politics espoused therein. As is also typical of Parker’s novels, it is a mighty fine read.

C.J. Box’s latest thriller, The Bitterroots, follows a family that redefines the word dysfunctional: the Kleinsassers, longtime ranchers and influential denizens of remote Lochsa County, Montana. Private investigator Cassie Dewell, on retainer with a local law office, has been tasked with the defense investigation of family black sheep Blake Kleinsasser, who has been credibly accused of the rape of his 15-year-old niece. It’s pretty much inevitable that this investigation will not end well, as there is quite a bit of enmity among the family members, and no resolution to the case will be satisfying to all the players. The evidence is compelling, with a positive ID from a DNA sample and Blake’s statement that he cannot remember any of the events of the night in question. Yet when Cassie ramps up the investigation, she is stymied at every turn by the Kleinsasser family, to the point of being jailed on trumped-up charges. Clearly someone is invested in derailing the investigation and seeing Blake put away for a very long time, irrespective of his guilt. Box is in top form here, gilding his reputation for finely crafted suspense novels of the New West—a place you wouldn’t necessarily want to live but that is endlessly intriguing to read about.