Hello, mystery fans!
2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!
Bookish Goods
Cute reading monsters earrings by MilosMarvelousCrafts
Cute, fun earrings — plus you can select the earring type. ($22)
New Releases
The Misfits #1: A Royal Conundrum by Lisa Yee and Dan Santat
For fans of middle grade and crime-fighting teams!
Olive Cobin Zang is 12 and swears her busy parents don’t care about her. Her grandma recently passed away, and now she’s starting a new boarding school…which Olive quickly learns is a cover for a crime-fighting organization that uses kids. Adults didn’t work, and teenagers really didn’t work, so why not try kids?! They aren’t spies, and they aren’t police, and no one knows who is really in charge of the youth operatives, but they’re trained and taught to “prevent chaos, catch lawbreakers”. So that’s what Olive and her fellow team do in this fun, fast-paced, high-stakes (dangerous missions!) mystery!
The audiobook has a great narrator, Cindy Kay.
Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski
For fans of self-destructive main characters and the theater!
Former actress Vivian Parry is now a theater critic for a NY magazine. She ends up making a trade with a graduate student: he’ll put her on a panel (to help her career), and she’ll give him the interview he wants for his thesis. The problem? The graduate student’s fiancée claims Vivian is the last to see him before he disappeared. What’s Vivian to do other than self-destruct and try to find him…?
Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!
Riot Recommendations
It’s a shame that there isn’t more middle grade and YA nonfiction, so I wanted to highlight two titles.
From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement by Paula Yoo
For readers of true crime and the US justice system.
In Detroit in 1982, a fight that began in a bar ended with Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, being beaten to death by two white men after Chin left the bar and they went searching for him. The men who killed Chin only received three years of probation and a $3,000 dollar fine. Paula Yoo dives into interviews, court transcripts, and news to focus on the night Chin was killed, the court case, protests, the following federal civil rights trial, and the Asian American movement.
(TW mentions past suicidal thoughts, not detailed/ xenophobia, racism)
The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity by Nicholas Day, illustrated by Brett Helquist
For fans of art, history, and theft!
Back in 1911, when the Mona Lisa was not famous, a guard at the Louvre shouted, “La Joconde, c’est partie!” (The Mona Lisa, she’s gone!) A man had walked in, taken the painting off the wall, and walked back out. This book is about a heist, and it has Pablo Picasso, conspiracy theories, art, and history! It’s enjoyable for all ages!
News and Roundups
5 under-appreciated crime novels you should read
The 25 Best Books of 2023 Are Just Right for Thrill-Seekers and Go-Getters
Seven classic mystery books to curl up with over the winter
12 new crime shows we’re most excited about in 2024
11 Best Detective Series Set in London
DC Comics kicks off 2024 with the launch of a brand new series of The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!
Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.
If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.