Sponsored by Size Zero by Abigail Mangin
Condom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways.
A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion’s biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend’s New York City mansion.
This new evidence casts suspicion back on the former boyfriend, Cecil LeClaire. Now a monk, he is forced to return to his dark and absurd childhood home to clear his name. He teams up with Ava Germaine, a renegade ex-model. And together, they investigate the depraved and lawless modeling industry behind Cecil’s family fortune.
Hi mystery fans! I have a great addition to the not-like-the-others spy stories and a Regency mystery that is delightful.
A Spy in the Struggle by Aya de LeĂłn: Remember on Friday when I said I was looking forward to reading this over the weekend? Well, I ended up reading the first half in one sitting Friday night—until that pesky thing of needing sleep happened—and finishing it Saturday morning, hence why I’m starting my raving about a December book in August. It’s very good and worth the pre-buy and letting your library know you want them to have it.
Aya de LeĂłn never fails to create excellent characters while bringing communities, and their different voices and complexities, to life. Yolanda Vance is a Type A personality who has done nothing but focus on school and work until she finds herself handing in evidence during a raid of her law firm and becoming a pariah in the legal field. With that path blown up, she ends up hired by the FBI as a lawyer. Before she can settle in, she’s given an undercover assignment she has no training for—because she’s all they have in the form of a young Black agent who can relate to teens. She isn’t that confident about her ability to blend in seeing as she’s never felt she fit in anywhere; but she has a positive-thinking-book’s lessons always at the ready and never quits, so off she goes from NY to California.
The assignment is to bug the center of Red, Black, and Green!, a teen activist group the FBI has labeled as extremist, while volunteering for the group and reporting back what she learns. While she struggles to keep her opinions to herself—that anyone who doesn’t like their situation can just work hard enough to change it—she also learns a few interesting things: that a recent overdose isn’t believed by the community to be an OD, that the informant who came before her was murdered, that she may not be as anti-love as she thought, and that many of her beliefs are about to be challenged.
We get to know Yolanda as she gets to know the FBI team, her new Red, Black, and Green! team, a suitor, and through memories of her childhood with her widowed mother and her years at a prep school and then law school. We also get to know the community fighting against the government-tied corporation that RBG! is protesting and the hilarious, creative, and smart teens making their voices heard, along with the rookie cop who found the OD in question, and adult coordinators of RBG!. I absolutely loved the characters, story, and the bonus of a few shexy-time scenes. Add this to the list of fantastic mold-breaking spy novels like American Spy and the Vera Kelly series. I’m always here for more de LeĂłn novels and would be thrilled for more Yolanda Vance—this could easily be a series, and I would totally be here for that! (TW drug overdose, talk of addiction/ brief past mention of child-on-child attempted sexual assault)
The Body in the Garden (Lily Adler Mystery #1) by Katharine Schellman: A delightful Regency era murder mystery. Lily Adler is recently widowed and while she chooses to be an independent woman, she in no way wants to be shunned by society. At a ball in London, she’ll get more than she bargained for: she overhears blackmail, a man is murdered, and she discovers the magistrate is bribed to not solve the case. Whatever is a lady to do? Investigate herself, of course! I mean she doesn’t have a plan, nor does she think she knows what she’s doing. But she figures she can’t make the situation worse, so why not? Seriously, I love her.
She won’t be working—secretly on solving a murder—alone, however. And she certainly will not be ignoring all of society’s gender and class rules—maybe just a couple. She has navy captain Jack Hartley, who was her husband’s friend, and nineteen year old West Indies heiress Ofelia Oswald, who has ties to the dead man, to help. And oh are they going to bicker, and question each other, and bicker some more—in the fun, amusing way. There may even be some love in the air? There will definitely be more murder, so they better get their antics under control and solve this quickly! If you need a truly enjoyable start to a new historical murder mystery series, this is your book. Also, the audiobook has a lovely voiced British-born narrator, Henrietta Meire, so highly recommend that format. I can’t wait for the next mystery!
Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. See 2020 upcoming releases and 2021. An Unusual Suspects Pinterest board. Get Tailored Book Recommendations!
Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canavés.
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