Hello mystery fans! I have a great cozy mystery, fun psychological thriller, and a snowed in Inn where guests are being murdered!
We’re giving away 16 of the books featured on Recommended! Click here, or on the image below to enter:
Day is Back in Another Funny Cozy! (TW suicide)
Hollywood Ending
(Detective by Day #2) by Kellye Garrett: I do not need to like my characters to enjoy a book, especially in the crime genre, but when it comes to cozy mysteries, the series I end up sticking with are the ones where I either love the main character or want to join in and solve with them. In this case it’s both: I love Dayna “Day” Anderson and would totally join her, and her group of friends, in solving any mystery. Especially, to sit back and watch Day try to explain things since she usually makes them worse in a hilarious-to-me-not-so-much-to-her way. Day is just about to the grab the brass rings: She’s finally a PI apprentice (But there’s a hitch!); She’s happily dating an actor (But everyone thinks he’s dating someone else!)… It is one of my favorite things about this series, how Day is always so close but life is life. This time around she’s trying to solve a publicist’s murder, get her ex-cop turned PI partner to help her PI, all while dealing with the Hollywood machine behind the actor she’s dating. Awesome friendships, annoying partnerships, Hollywood, laugh out loud scenes, and a solved murder–I can’t ask for anything more in a great cozy mystery! (Can be read as a standalone.)
Fun Page-Turner Psychological Thriller! (TW suicide/ animal cruelty)
A Noise Downstairs
by Linwood Barclay: This had that fun horror-ish “Omg did you hear that? There has to be someone in the house” feeling without being a horror novel, which is something I love. Imagine accidentally stumbling upon the aftermath of a double murder, barely surviving, and then not knowing if you need to check into a psychiatric hospital or if your house is haunted by the victims… Or maybe it’s one of your therapists patients who assaulted you… If you’re looking for something to keep you up past your bedtime, that delivers the thrills and twists, here you go! (I put this book down after the opening, said “I need to make popcorn for this,” did, and then proceeded to inhale the book and my popcorn!)
For Agatha Christie Fans (TW rape / suicide)
An Unwanted Guest
by Shari Lapena: There’s a blizzard in the Inn in the Catskills and you know the drill people, there’s gonna be a murder and it had to have been one of the guests! Except at first everyone thinks the guest died by accident, so while everyone is disturbed with having to leave the body where it is until the storm passes, and the police can arrive, they aren’t afraid. That is until there’s another death… Someone amongst these strangers clearly has murder in mind and not a weekend getaway, but who and why?! This was a good mystery with a group of strangers all stuck together for most of the book and, at the end, the police come in with the solve and wrap-up. Can you figure it out before the police?
Recent Releases
Baghdad Noir
edited by Samuel Shimon (A good series of short story crime collections set in a specific place–a great way to discover new authors.)
Marrakech Noir edited by Yassin Adnan (Ditto)
Twisted True Story of One of the Biggest Cons in History by Blake Ellis, Melanie Hicken (TBR: True crime)
Blood Highway by Gina Wohlsdorf (TBR: I really enjoyed her slasher film in a book Security and am looking forward to getting to sit down with this one.)
Desperate Girls (Wolfe Security #1) by Laura Griffin (TBR: Romantic suspense starring a defense attorney.)
Absinthe by Guido Eeckhaut (TBR: International crime thriller)
Judas: How a Sister’s Testimony Brought Down a Criminal Mastermind by Astrid Holleeder (TBR: True Crime)
Our House
by Louise Candlish (Good psychological suspense about a woman who comes home to find another family moving into her house!) (TW suicide)
Sister of Mine by Laurie Petrou (Currently reading: Sisters with a secret–murder?–that they use against each other…)
Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day (TBR: A group of people staying at a dark sky park are all suspects when one is murdered–I’d never heard of a dark sky park before and am even more intrigued.)
Walking Shadows (Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus #25) by Faye Kellerman (Currently reading: Good procedural so far trying to solve the murder of a young man that is also focusing on the police department’s politics.)
Toucan Keep a Secret (Meg Langslow #23) by Donna Andrews (TBR: funny cozy mystery)
Sweet After Death (Alice Madison #4) by Valentina Giambanco (TBR: Procedural set in Washington)
Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. And here’s an Unusual Suspects Pinterest board.
Until next time, keep investigating! And in the meantime come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canaves.
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