Author: Jamie Canaves

Hi mystery fans! If it’s cold where you are, I hope you have the warmest Snuggie and a good book!

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Sponsored by Bookclubbish

2019 has some truly spine-tingling suspense novels to sink your teeth into. Everything from exciting debut authors to new releases from best-selling authors, these suspense titles will take readers to some new, unexpected places and hit readers with more twists and turns than you’ll ever see coming!

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From Book Riot And Around The Internet

Rincey and Katie talk recent news, books written by Native and Indigenous authors, and what they’re reading on the latest Read or Dead.

33 Highly Anticipated Crime Novels: January–March 2019

18 Questions I Have For “You” On Netflix (Spoilers obviously)

This riveting suspense novel confronts the misogyny in stand-up comedy head-on

News And Adaptations

The 2019 Lefty Awards nominees were announced and I immediately spotted some favorites: Hollywood Ending, Broken Places, The Widows of Malabar Hill

Mystery Writers Of America announced their 2019 Edgar nominations and there are some great books on this list–and some more favorites of mine: A Treacherous Curse, The Feather Thief, Sadie, The Widows of Malabar Hill… but I’m going to be a broken record and point out that the lack of AOC/marginalized authors shows the narrow scope many are reading in the crime genre.

Chelsea Cain’s One Kick was adapted into a 12-episode limited series starring Leven Rambin, Chris Noth, and Danny Pino, and here’s the trailer! The show will premiere February 27th.

Kristen Lepionka couldn’t find an organization for LGBTQ+ crime writers so she created a twitter account “for sharing info and news about queer crime writers.” If you want to follow her and @crimequeer on Twitter click here.

According to Netflix, 40 million members watched the You adaptation in its first 4 weeks.

Watch Now

The adaptation for Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give is now out on DVD.

In theaters: King of Thieves, starring Michael Cain and Charlie Cox, is based on a true story about a group of retired thieves who pull off a jewelry heist. Watch the trailer.

Kindle Deal

The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong is $1.99 and perfect if you’re looking for a slow-burn psychological suspense that starts with a young man finding his mother dead with no memory…(Review) (TW: stalking/ suicide)

Bit Of My Week In Reading

I inhaled Tana French’s In The Woods audiobook (Yes, I keep reading series out of order because I’m me) and, seriously, French is top of the crime writing genre. If you haven’t read her yet, ruuuuuuun to her books.

I got my greedy hands on Tracy Clark’s Borrowed Time, the upcoming second book in the Chicago Mystery series, and I did a little dance and apologized to all my other books because they just moved down a spot on my TBR. I’m also super excited to have gotten an upcoming spy thriller by Lauren Wilkinson: American Spy. And for my mystery break, I muppet armed over Nicole Dennis-Benn’s upcoming Patsy because I loved her novel Here Comes the Sun so so so much.

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! This week I have a historical mystery, a small-town procedural, and a missing persons mystery.

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Historical Mystery (TW suicide/ pedophile–not graphic)

A Beautiful Poison by Lydia Kang: I loved Kang’s last novel, The Impossible Girl, so as soon as I finished that I went looking for more of her writing–and now I have a new author to love. This is set in New York in 1918 and follows three childhood friends, who have lost touch, brought back together to solve a murder. Allene is wealthy, engaged, and bored–so clearly the one who wants to play detective. Birdie is working at a factory, struggling to feed her little sister, and Jasper is working as a janitor, hoping to go to medical school one day and avoid the draft. While the deadly Spanish influenza is killing people Allene, Jasper, and Birdie are realizing that some deaths are murder and not sickness… This was a great read that showed you each character’s private struggles along with how childhood bonds evolve, break, repair, and change through life–all while staying focused on the mystery and teaching you some chemistry along the way.

Missing Persons Mystery

The Suspect (Kate Waters #3) by Fiona Barton: First, for any readers who may skip this thinking it’s the third in the series, the books are connected by a reporter character but read as standalones, so this series works both for standalone readers and series readers. What I really like about Barton’s novels is she creates unrelated characters and slowly starts weaving everyone together. This time there are two families who haven’t heard from their just-graduated-from-high-school daughters and aren’t sure what to do since they’re in England and their daughters are in Thailand. Journalist Kate Waters, with a somewhat missing son of her own, goes searching for answers along with DI Bob Sparkes, whose wife is terminally ill. Told in present, from multiple POV, it also weaves in one of the missing girl’s journals, which tells a very different trip from what they’d been reporting back home and posting on social media…

Procedural (TW suicide/ gambling addiction/ ableism)

Lost Lake (Detective Gemma Monroe #3) by Emily Littlejohn: This procedural follows Detective Gemma Monroe in Cedar Valley, Colorado. She’s a recent mom, has a fiancé, has a bit of an obnoxious work partner, and a grandmother with dementia. While juggling all those things she takes the case of a missing woman who was camping with her boyfriend and friends. Then there’s a museum theft and a murder and Monroe must figure out if the cases are related or not–all while trying to figure out who in her department is leaking information to the media. This gives you a good amount of procedural, as she tries to figure out what is happening, while also giving you scenes of her private life, but it never becomes a character driven novel. What I liked about Monroe was that she makes mistakes while investigating, as I imagine happens more often than we see with fictional detectives, and watching her try to balance her personal life with the work hours of a detective who can’t let go of cases. I jumped in here with the series and wasn’t lost at all. She gives you brief summaries of past cases without revealing the solve, and gives you enough information to know why her personal relationships are where they are.

Recently Released

The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2) by Maureen Johnson (TBR: I’ve been really looking forward to this sequel since the first book, Truly Devious, ended on a cliffhanger!)

The Smiling Man (Aidan Waits Thriller #2) by Joseph Knox (TBR: Procedural set in Manchester.)

The Hangman’s Secret (Victorian Mystery #3) by Laura Joh Rowland (Currently reading: Historical mystery, with characters I really like who photograph crime scenes and play detective.)

The Burning Island (Charlie Cates #3) by Hester Young(TBR: A journalist who has visions/dreams that lead her to find missing children.)

The Current by Tim Johnston (TBR: “One girl’s survival, and the other’s death—murder, actually—stun the citizens of a small Minnesota town, thawing memories of another young woman who lost her life in the same river ten years earlier, and whose killer may yet live among them.”)

Golden State by Ben H. Winters (TBR: Dystopian-mystery/speculative-mystery)

The Golden Tresses of the Dead (Flavia de Luce #10) by Alan Bradley (TBR: Flavia is a delightful child chemist who runs towards solving murders.)

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! It’s the weekend and I’m excited to watch the start of True Detective‘s third season and read every book–every single one is my goal! Hope you have a good book or are out being your best Scooby gang–that makes sense in my head.

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Flatiron Books, publishers of As Long As We Both Shall Live by JoAnn Chaney

You can’t be married to someone without sometimes wanting to kill them…As Long As We Both Shall Live is JoAnn Chaney’s wicked, masterful examination of a marriage gone very wrong, a marriage with lots of secrets.

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From Book Riot And Around The Internet

3 Fun & Light Mysteries Rincey Recently Read

Caleb Roehrig Talks About His New Novel Death Prefers Blondes

10 British Crime Shows You Can Watch On Netflix

Alice Feeney’s psychological thriller Sometimes I Lie is being adapted by Ellen Degeneres’ production company and Sarah Michelle Geller will star in and executive produce.

Best-selling author Sherrilyn Kenyon tells fans she suspects her husband poisoned her

An excerpt from Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married by Abby Ellin

Here’s an awesome Kickstarter: A new graphic novel based on the 1978 series by Eve Zaremba starring Helen Keremos, crime fiction’s first lesbian private eye.

AND get the muppet arms ready because we get to read Attica Locke’s Bluebird Bluebird sequel this year!

Kindle Deals

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero is $2.99 if you’re looking for a modern twist on the Scooby-Doo gang.

The Winters by Lisa Gabriele is $2.99 if you’re in the mood for a suspenseful new take on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Broken Places by Tracy Clark is $2.99 (which I just reviewed this week) if you haven’t gotten it yet it is beyond worth this ridiculous sales price.

Some Books I Acquired This Week

I just got galleys for House Of Beauty by Melba Escobar (which is pitched as “Narcos meets Claws in this thought-provoking Colombian crime novel set in and around a beauty salon in Bogotá.”); The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda (Miranda is an author I follow because I’ve enjoyed all her mysteries so far); The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides on audiobook (a thriller a fellow Rioter really enjoyed, which is all I needed to know.)

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.