Hi, mystery fans! Hulu is chasing the success of Only Murders in the Building with a new mystery show: Death and Other Details is set on a cruise ship, has Agatha Christie vibes, and stars Mandy Patinkin (“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”).
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
Born to Read bookish hoodie by ChapterCatchers
The accuracy hurts! ($37+, available in a handful of colors)
New Releases
The Night of the Storm by Nishita Parekh
For fans of intergenerational family drama, being in the MC’s head, remote mysteries, and slowly getting past and present reveals!
Jia Shah is struggling as a single mom when her son gets into a fight in school, and she thinks her ex is ready to take him away. When a hurricane evacuation happens, she ends up going to her sister’s house, only to arrive and find out that the whole neighborhood — minus one neighbor — has left. Between the stress of the storm, her stress with her ex, being a mom, and her issues with her brother-in-law, the last thing she needs is a dead body…
The narrator, Soneela Nankani, does a fantastic job on the audiobook.
(TW fertility issues/ assumes domestic abuse, nothing on page/ past statutory involving 17-year-old)
The Search Party by Hannah Richell
For fans of remote mysteries, past friends coming together, secrets bubbling over, multiple POVs from adults and kids, and not knowing who the victim is at the beginning!
A married couple of architects left their city life for a quiet, remote life in hopes of helping their adopted son, who has PTSD because of his early childhood. They’re opening up a camping site and have invited their college friends for a weekend retreat reunion. Sounds fun, right? Except this is a remote mystery, and humans are gonna human. There’s a fight between the kids, in which the parents take sides, a teen who was forced to come along and is miserable, a loan amongst friends that is going sour, an arguing couple, and secrets amongst the friend group that start to accidentally be revealed. We begin with a scene that appears like someone is being forced to jump to their death, then you start getting DCI interviews and go back and forth between the arrival and reunion weekend and the investigation, which includes a missing person and a murder…
The audiobook has dual narrators, Beth Eyre and Jamie Parker, who kept me fully invested in this mystery!
(TW past child abuse/ past suicide)
Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!
Riot Recommendations
Since there are 24 tasks for this year’s Read Harder, which breaks down to two per month, I thought after doing the first task, I’d knock out the second one by finding the mystery versions: “Read a YA book by a trans author.”
No One Left But You by Tash McAdam
For fans of past and preset murder mysteries with a lead who has no memory of the night in question!
Two timelines careen towards each other with a before-the-murder storyline and an after-the-murder storyline. Max has recently transitioned, which led his best friend and hookup partner to turn into his bully; his mom is an alcoholic who keeps misgendering him; and the only thing he has is his music and song lyrics he writes. That is until Gloss, an uber-popular and shiny cool new girl, shows up and takes Max under her wing. But the veneer starts to crack, and a murder at a party lands Max in an interrogation room with someone confessing to the crime and Max still not remembering what exactly happened…
(TW alcoholic parent, child abuse/ misgendering, transphobia / mentions past suicidal ideation)
Saint Juniper’s Folly by Alex Crespo
For fans of horror-lite, found family, and haunted house mysteries!
We follow three teenagers in small town Saint Juniper, Vermont. Jaime ran away from his past but is now back in his hometown, and after going into the woods, he disappears! Theo is a senior who feels totally stuck in life until he goes into the woods and finds a haunted house with Jaime trapped inside! Naturally, Theo turns to a local teen, Taylor, for her witchy powers and help to free Jaime. But Taylor is grieving her mother and is banned from using magic by her father. How did Jaime get stuck, what is this haunted house, can they all solve a mystery together, and can Taylor and Theo save Jaime?!
News and Roundups
Book Banning Will Not Stop at Schools
The Most Anticipated Books of 2024
10 New January 2024 Book Club Picks, From GMA Book Club To Amor en Páginas
Start 2024 off on a thrilling note with these 4 crime fiction novels
Line of Duty’s Anna Maxwell Martin teams up with David Mitchell in new BBC crime drama
Giancarlo Esposito’s Crime Thriller Parish Gets Teaser From AMC
Another Round of Public Library Bomb Threats
ChatGPT Owner Admits to Needing Copyrighted Material to Train Its AI Tools
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.
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