Author: Jamie Canaves

Hello mystery fans! I’m doing things a little differently this time because I just finished a book I loved that won’t be out for a bit, so I’m going to highlight some upcoming crime books that should be on your radar. Great for anyone who loves to pre-buy or be first on their library hold list! Or, if you want to just shake your fist at me for telling you about an awesome book you can’t read just yet, that works too.

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Sponsored by The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton. Published by Graydon House Books.

Juliette loves Nate. She will follow him anywhere. She’s even become a flight attendant for his airline, so she can keep a closer eye on him. They are meant to be. The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing. Because Juliette has a plan to win him back. She is the perfect girlfriend. And she’ll make sure no one stops her from getting exactly what she wants. True love hurts, but Juliette knows it’s worth all the pain… Entertainment Weekly says of The Perfect Girlfriend, “this twisted page-turner should appeal to fans of the Netflix series YOU.”

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The Things She’s Seen by Ambelin Kwaymullina, Ezekiel Kwaymullina (May 14th): I was writing about upcoming crime novels for a post and the summary left me so curious I decided to just read the first chapter and, instead, I ended up reading it in one sitting. It was so good. It’s an Australian novel that follows Beth Teller, an Aboriginal girl who died at fifteen and is now a ghost. A ghost that her father, a detective, can see. And talk to. She’s trying to help him solve a case involving a fire at a children’s home that left an unidentified dead body and missing caretakers. She’s helping him stay focused on the case in order to help him get past grieving for her, but then she meets a witness to the fire who can also see her. The novel alternates between Beth and her father solving the mystery and Isobel Catching, the witness, telling her story–one told almost like poetry. It’s a beautiful crime novel about grief, death, family, and friendship, that never feels heavy but rather uplifting. I’ve been thinking about it for days–publishing really needs to be putting out more crime novels like this.

The Best Lies by Sarah Lyu (July 2): This is one of those you had me at the cover and tag line books: “Thelma and Louise meets Gone Girl.” It centers around a toxic friendship, the mystery of why one shot her friend’s boyfriend dead, and it’s told in a lyrical prose style–seriously I am all in for this.

 

 

Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada, Louise Heal Kawai (Translator) (June 25): All I needed to hear was that the author of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders has another novel being translated and I became all gimme-gimme hands. TTZM is one of the only mystery novels where I had no idea what the solve was, and I will forever love Shimada for that. And this is another locked room mystery–my excitement can’t be contained!

The Stories You Tell (Roxane Weary #3) by Kristen Lepionka (July 9): this is one of my favorite PI series, I love not only watching Weary solve a mystery, but also her personal growth through the first two books. It’s one of those reads where I’m cheering for her to solve the mystery, and also cheering for her personally because, as much as she starts off as a hot mess at the beginning of the series, she’s a person trying to figure it all out. This time around, her brother looks like a suspect after a DJ friend shows up at his house and vanishes, leaving behind her blood.

Recently Release

Murder Lo Mein (A Noodle Shop Mystery #3) by Vivien Chien (Enjoyable cozy mystery set in an Asian mall that will leave you hungry.)

Killing November (Killing November #1) by Adriana Mather (Fun!–Group of kids at a spy school but who aren’t allowed to get to know each other…)

Murder by the Book: A Sensational Chapter in Victorian Crime by Claire Harman (True crime)

The Night Visitors by Carol Goodman (Great suspense–when you’re on the run can you trust anyone?) (TW child and domestic abuse/ suicide/ rape)

No Tomorrow (Killing Eve #2) by Luke Jennings (The sequel to the book the hit BBC show is based on.)

The Ancient Nine by Ian K. Smith (Paperback) (For fans of secret societies.)

Walking Shadows (Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus #25) by Faye Kellerman (Paperback) (Police procedural set in upstate New York.)

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 Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.

Hi mystery fans!

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Sponsored by Forge Books

When former police detective Ted Conkaffey was wrongly accused of abducting Claire Bingley, he tried to disappear in the tiny town of Crimson Lake. But now Claire’s devastated father shows up with a choice for Ted: help find the real abductor or die. Meanwhile, two young bartenders have been murdered, and private detective Amanda Pharrell is assisting on the case. Amanda’s decade-old conviction for murder left her with odd behavioral traits, but a keen eye for killers. As they hunt for the truth, redemption is on the cards for Ted and Amanda―but it could cost them their lives…

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From Book Riot And Around The Internet

50 More Must-Read YA Mysteries

Rincey and Katie talk news, creepy books, and what they’re reading on the latest Read or Dead.

Quiz: Which Kickass Literary Investigator Are You?

15 Biographies That Tell The True Stories Of Infamous Women Killers

News And Adaptations

Rachel Howzell Hall’s Land of Shadows has an audiobook narrated by Je Nie Fleming and you can hear a sample here. I love this series and am happy to see it have audiobooks–Review. (TW rape/suicide)

This book announcement sounds awesome: Delighted to announce that Ecco/HarperCollins will publish my thriller WINTER COUNTS. An examination of the broken criminal justice system on the rez and a meditation on Native identity. 

An Anonymous Girl to Become Known As a TV Series

Lisa Jewell previews her intoxicating domestic thriller The Family Upstairs

Here’s an Exclusive First Look at Gaby Dunn’s New Graphic Novel, “Bury the Lede”

Watch Now

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley is now streaming on HBO Go if you didn’t get enough of this bananapants story from reading Bad Blood. I will say that John Carreyrou did a hell of a job describing Elizabeth Holmes in the book because in the documentary she is exactly what I imagined when I read the book. You can watch the trailer here. (TW suicide)

Kindle Deals

A Front Page Affair (Kitty Weeks Mystery #1) by Radha Vatsal is $3.82 and a good start to a series I love for fans of historical mysteries and cozy mysteries.

The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway #1) by Elly Griffiths is $4.99 and follows an archeologist living in a remote area in Virginia who is assisting the police in a murder case.

The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad #2) by Tana French is $1.99 and if you still haven’t read this fantastic procedural series do yourself a favor and get on that.

A Bit Of My Week In Reading

If you’re wondering how my beat-the-clock-because-all-my-library-holds-came-in-at-once game is going, I’ve read four of the six and then two more holds came in: Duped by Abby Ellin and The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas. My two favorite reads were The Night Tiger which isn’t a mystery but has a murder mystery throughout and I loved it, and City of the Lost is a great start to a detective in remote area series.

And because I’m me and all those books aren’t enough here’s the pile of books I’m eyeing for starting this weekend:

Borrowed Time by Tracy Clark; Beijing Payback by Daniel Nieh; A Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss; Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman; Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson; Necessary People by Anna Pitoniak; Folio Society’s The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, Illustrated by Ben Jones; Folio Society’s Thunderball by Ian Fleming, Illustrated by Fay Dalton

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 Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.

Hello mystery fans! This week I have for you a ghostly cozy, a book within a book, and a psychological thriller!

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Sponsored by Flatiron Books, publishers of Save Me From Dangerous Men by S.A. Lelchuk.

Nikki Griffin isn’t your typical private investigator. In her office above her bookstore’s shelves and stacks, she also tracks certain men. Dangerous men. She seeks justice for those who need her help in Save Me From Dangerous Men, the debut by S.A. Lelchuk.

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Cozy Mystery With A Ghost

Fatality in F (Gethsemane Brown Mysteries #4) by Alexia Gordon: I’m terrible at reading every book released in a cozy mystery series with the exception of a few, and this is one. It centers around Gethsemane Brown, an American classical musician living in a small Irish town, who can’t stop finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting into trouble. The trouble obviously means she needs to solve a murder. This time around we get gardens and rose bush competitions and a Flower Shop Killer–Gethsemane Brown to the rescue of course. What always draws me into this series is Gethsemane’s no-nonsense, sarcastic personality and her friendship with a ghost. Yup, as in now-dead-still-haunting-around spirit that helps her solve mysteries when he can–he can only visit places he was at when alive. I especially enjoy their bickering in public since no one else can see who in the world she’s talking to.

Book Within A Book!

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths: This is a modern murder mystery with wonderful nods to Gothic tales, including a short story layered within. Clare Cassidy is an English school teacher writing a book about R. M. Holland, a fictional Gothic author who once lived in the school she works at. When a coworker, and friend, is murdered, Cassidy finds strange things happening that have her and the police believing she too is in danger. That’s all I’m giving you on plot, because I really enjoyed feeling the tension of how this unfolds since I knew nothing about it. The story changes point of view between Cassidy, her 15-year-old daughter Georgie, and police detective Harbinder Kaur, while also weaving in R. M. Holland’s short story. It’s a great read for fans of The Magpie Murders, books within books, literary nods inside mysteries, Gothic tales, and anyone looking for a good mystery with great characters where you feel the emotions but never get plunged into dark and gruesome waters. The book also left me 100% wanting a series that follows detective Harbinder Kaur because I loved her, and being in her head as she puts together evidence in a case.

Psychological Thriller (TW domestic abuse/ PTSD)

Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward: This opens up with a crime, a bloody kitchen, without revealing the who or why, and then mostly takes you back to two time periods before the reveal. In the few months leading up to the crime you get to know Maddie and her toddler Charlie as she’s in therapy after an accident that scarred her face and left her with memory issues. The police think her accident was domestic abuse, but she thinks she just fell while camping and that her husband Ian wouldn’t have hurt her. But she’s using the writing therapy to try and work it out. We also go years further into the past to when Ian, a British soldier, met Maddie and her best friend Joanna in war-torn Southeast Europe to see how their love story came to be… While told mostly from Maddie’s point of view, we also get to hear Ian’s stories, especially of war, and Diane Varga the Kansas police officer that shows up to find the bloody kitchen… Even though I had this one figured out, which is usually the case for me, the audiobook kept me sufficiently glued to being in Maddie’s head and wanting to see how everything would be put together.

Recent Releases

Catch Me When I’m Falling (A Charlie Mack Motown Mystery)by Cheryl A. Head (Detroit PI series that I am super excited to start reading–the paperback is out now, the ebook next week.)

Redemption Point (Crimson Lake #2) by Candice Fox (Really looking forward to starting since I really liked the first in this Australian crime series.) (Review for first in series.)

Run Away by Harlan Coben (TBR: A father gets sucked into a dark world while trying to bring home his daughter who is an addict and in an abusive relationship–You can generally count on Coben for a page-turner and lots of twists.)

Murder Once Removed (Ancestry Detective #1) by S.C. Perkins (Cozy mystery following a Texas genealogist.)

If You’re Out There by Katy Loutzenhiser (TBR: A best friend is convinced she hasn’t been ghosted and needs to find out what happened to her friend.)

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 Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.