Author: Jamie Canaves

Hello mystery fans! This week I have for you a mystery that punched me in the gut, a great procedural, and a vicious thriller.

---

Sponsored by Hangman by Jack Heath, new from Hanover Square Press.

An addictive debut thriller starring an FBI consultant with a peculiar taste for crime and punishment…

A boy vanishes on his way home from school. His frantic mother receives a ransom call: pay or else. Enter Timothy Blake, an FBI consultant with a knack for solving impossible cases but whose expertise comes at a price: every time he saves a life, he also takes one. But this kidnapper is more cunning and ruthless than any he’s faced before. And he’s been assigned a new partner within the Bureau: a woman linked to the past he’s so desperate to forget.

---

Impactful Missing Girl Story (TW: child abuse/ sexual assault)

Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson: Claudia doesn’t understand where Monday Charles can be. Junior High has started and Monday isn’t there. Nor did she reply to Claudia over the summer, which is strange because they are best friends. They rely on each other for a lot and are inseparable. So what is happening? Claudia keeps getting answers that seem like lies from Monday’s family… Told in multiple timelines you get to know Claudia and Monday as friendship, class, girlhood, abuse, and the secrets we keep even from our best friends are explored. (The timelines are told in chapters labeled like “before before” “after” etc so it may feel confusing but don’t worry about getting confused just go along for the ride.)

Great Procedural (TW: stalking / suicide)

Dead Loudmouth (Loon Lake Mystery #16) by Victoria Houston: Let’s start with: don’t be scared about the #16. You can 100% jump in here and not feel lost at all, it reads as a standalone. Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris is called when two people are found dead in a strip club. The question is whether this was an accident that lead to a pretty embarrassing way to die, or murder. At just over 200 pages this is a quick, satisfying procedural that not only takes you into the process of solving the case but also follows the community. I rank this read as highly successful considering I have zero interest in fishing, and I loved the fishing community setting.

Cruel AF (TW: revenge porn/ Heads-up a character deals with fat shaming throughout the entire novel.)

Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent: This one starts off with the crime: “My husband did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it.” And my brain went EXCUSE ME?! And then I read the entire novel in one sitting, which may not have been the wisest move since I needed to wash my brain out with unicorn rainbows after. You get the crime right out of the gate and then watch characters affected by said crime like the victim’s family, the murderer’s son… The novel is basically a page-turner of trains careening towards each other as you wonder what the wreck is going to look like–I was unable to look away! That’s all I’m giving you because if you like vicious thrillers you want to know as little as possible beforehand.

Recent Releases

Murder at the Grand Raj Palace (Baby Ganesh Agency Investigation #4) by Vaseem Khan (TBR: A delightful series about a retired detective and his baby elephant sidekick!)

Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht (TBR: Historical fiction with a female spy.)

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier (TBR: I downloaded the audiobook after seeing “dark, twisted, thriller.”)

Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin (Just started reading: So far feels like a gritty crime novel where the MC’s past is probably gonna come find him while he tries to solve a mystery in a remote forest preserve.)

Secrets, Lies, & Crawfish Pies (A Romaine Wilder Mystery #1) by Abby L. Vandiver (Humorous, good start to a cozy mystery series: Review)

Run for Your Life by Silvana Gandolfi, Lynne Sharon Schwartz (Translator) (I’m a huge fan of Restless Books and I’ve been looking forward to this thriller about a Sicilian boy and the Mafia.)

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt (Paperback) (Lizzie Borden retelling: Liberty’s podcast review and written review.)

 

AND Book Riot is giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice! Eat a four-leaf clover and enter here.

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.

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

Hello mystery fans! Hope you have a good book to read this weekend!

From Book Riot and Around the Internet

The Best Mystery Audiobooks for Road Trips

7 Books About Cults That Demonstrate How Dangerous Groupthink Really Is

---

Sponsored By The Shimmer by Carsten Stroud, from MIRA Books

A police pursuit kicks Sergeant Redding and his trainee, Julie Karras, into a shoot-out that ends with one girl dead and the driver of the SUV fleeing. Redding stays on the hunt, driven by the trace memory that he knows that running woman.

Redding and his partner chase a seductive serial killer who can ride ‘The Shimmer’ across decades. The stakes turn brutal when Jack, whose wife and child died in a crash the previous year, faces a terrible choice: help catch the killer, or change time itself and try to save his wife and child.

---

Catapult has a monthly column that explores out of print African-American authors and last month the spotlight was on Charlotte Carter and her noir novel Rhode Island Red. (While the paperback/hardcover are out of print you can still read it in ebook.)

Giveaway: Book Riot is giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice! Enter here you lucky people!

News and Adaptations

Here’s the official trailer for the adaptation of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which will be in theaters November 9th.

Rea Frey’s Not Her Daughter, releasing in August, has sold its film and television rights. The novel is “The story of a child kidnapped away from a mother who isn’t sure she wants her back.” Well now I’ve got to read it to find out why…

Kelley Armstong’s popular Canadian Rockton crime thriller trilogy has sold TV rights to Temple Street Productions (Orphan Black and Queer As Folk). If you like to read the books first: City of the Lost; A Darkness Absolute; This Fallen Prey.

The Lambda Literary Awards were announced and here are the crime winners: The Fact of A Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (Review); Night Drop by Marshall Thornton; Huntress by A.E. Radley.

After Hulu decided not to go forward with its adaptation series of Joe Hill’s crime graphic novel Locke & Key, it seems Netflix has swooped in and is locking in that deal. But it won’t be the Hulu series– apparently Netflix’s deal is for the rights and there will be redevelopment and recasting. Guess we’ll have to stay tuned.

Not an adaptation but if you’ve been wanting more Gillian Flynn in your life she co-wrote the upcoming thriller Windows with Steve McQueen. Watch the trailer here.

The BBC’s fantastic Killing Eve (adapted from Luke Jennings’ Codename Villanelle) will stream later this year on Hulu.

True Crime

California judge unsealed suspected Golden State Killer’s search and arrest warrants.

An editor from The Staircase apparently fell for the doc’s subject and I swear Twitter always gives me the news I don’t want to know. Here’s the thread.

And in fake news: The Twitter Crime Mystery that Gripped Spain “Police! I have just resolved a crime via Twitter! You need to deal with it immediately,” wrote a Spanish social media user going by the name of Mr Brightside on Saturday afternoon.

Kindle Deals

Penance by Kanae Minato, Philip Gabriel (translation) is $2.99! (Dark, character driven crime novel: full review)

All three books in Marcia Clark’s (yes, that one) Samantha Brinkman series are each $1.99: Blood Defense; Moral Defense; Snap Judgement. (review)

 

Currently Reading:

I really enjoyed William Shaw’s procedural The Birdwatcher (review) and had wanted more of one of the side characters. And my wish was granted with Salt Lane which follows DS Cupidi as the main character. So far it’s really scratching my itch for a good procedural.

After Blackout I was left with wanting more cults so I’m making my way through Cult X which has the bonus for fans of university lectures as it also goes into religious/philosophical/scientific lectures.

And I’ve been craving more YA mysteries lately so I started, and am really enjoying, Marisha Pessl’s Neverworld Wake. It has a super strong voice from the beginning.

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.

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

Hi mystery fans! I’ve got a vigilante, a missing artist, and toxic friendship for you this week in the world of crime novels. Plus, a ton of recent releases.

---

Sponsored By Murder In Greenwich Village, by Liz Freeland

After fleeing rural Pennsylvania for the bright lights of New York City, starry-eyed twenty-year old Louis Faulk finds herself investigating a big-city murder mystery when she comes home to the sight of her roommate’s cousin with a ten-inch butcher knife in her back in Liz Freeland’s historical mystery debut.

---

Great Cat-and-Mouse Game! (TW suicide/ rape)

Death Notice by Zhou Haohui, Zac Haluza (Translator): The BBC show Killing Eve has definitely reinvigorated my love for a great cat-and-mouse game, and this novel delivered. Eumenides (or so he calls himself) is a vigilante out to make sure those who have escaped punishment get what’s coming to them. The police are racing to stop Eumenides from his next target, as he’s stated in his death notice, but Eumenides is always one step ahead. And there are more death notices to come. Will the police ever catch-up?… A great thriller with interesting characters that is filled with tension and action. And the audiobook had a good narrator, Joel De La Fuente, who changed his voice for characters without doing a weird high and low, plus you get the proper pronunciation of names.

A Mystery in the Modern Art World (TW suicide/ rape/ stalking)

Still Lives by Maria Hummel: An interesting read which used art to speak about violence towards women. Maggie Richter is an editor for an LA museum who is currently working with the rest of the staff to save their museum with this one, hopefully great, art show. The artist of the show is Kim Lord whose exhibit is paintings of famous crime scenes where women were murdered that she has painted herself into. The problem is Kim Lord has disappeared on opening night. I’d say the first half of the book explores the art world and violence towards women–including how our society obsesses over the crimes–and the second half focuses on the mystery and solving it, which totally worked for me.

Slow-Burn With Bite! (TW suicide/ rape)

Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton: This had almost a wonderful frenzied mood that takes you into a friendship where one woman isn’t necessarily who she says she is, and the other is a larger-than-life selfish woman. What could go wrong? Lavinia’s family is wealthy, and she’s living off this money while basically partying her life away. Louise struggles to make ends meet and has never felt like the beautiful social butterfly. Until Lavinia takes her under her wing. The problem is we’re told from the beginning that Lavinia is going to die soon… If you’re a fan of Gillian Flynn/Megan Abbott, and the novels Green Girl, Paulina & Fran this should definitely be on your must-read list.

Recent Releases

The Good Son by You-jeong Jeong (Good psychological thriller that is more of a whydunnit.) (TW stalking/ suicide)

The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson (There weren’t galleys so this thriller is currently high on my TBR list.)

Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto (Great way to find new crime writers with these bites of mystery stories.)

Invitation to a Bonfire by Adrienne Celt (Currently reading: I think historical fic slow-burn mystery told through diary and letters.)

The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World’s Most Powerful Mafia by Alex Perry (My next true crime read)

A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising by Raymond A. Villareal (Currently reading: labeled as “part International thriller,” so far I’m at the mystery part where the physician for the CDC is trying to figure out how the dead body in the morgue got up and left and has left a wake of dead bodies and missing people.)

Lagos Noir edited by Chris Abani (Abani wrote the literary mystery The Secret History of Las Vegas which I love so this is automatically on my TBR list.)

Santa Cruz Noir edited by Susie Bright

São Paulo Noir edited by Tony Bellotto

Dreams of Falling by Karen White (Currently reading: Think this is mostly a family novel with the mother-missing-secrets-to-come-out element.)

The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (Author of Magpie Murders which I really enjoyed.)

White Bodies by Jane Robins (Paperback) (Suspense with bite: Full review) (TW: domestic abuse)

Sunburn by Laura Lippman (Paperback) (Suspenseful noir: Full review) (TW: domestic abuse/ rape)

Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica (Paperback) (Domestic suspense: Full Review)

AND Book Riot is still giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice!

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.

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

Hello mystery fans! I hope the week was good to you and you have a good book–or pile–to read!

From Book Riot and Around the Internet

Rincey and Katie talk news, recent releases, and books by Asian/Asian American authors in the latest Read or Dead.

---

Sponsored by Hangman by Jack Heath, new from Hanover Square Press.

An addictive debut thriller starring an FBI consultant with a peculiar taste for crime and punishment…

A boy vanishes on his way home from school. His frantic mother receives a ransom call: pay or else. Enter Timothy Blake, an FBI consultant with a knack for solving impossible cases but whose expertise comes at a price: every time he saves a life, he also takes one. But this kidnapper is more cunning and ruthless than any he’s faced before. And he’s been assigned a new partner within the Bureau: a woman linked to the past he’s so desperate to forget.

---

If you’re working your way through the Read Harder challenges Rincey has some suggestions for Read a Mystery by POC and/or LGBTQ Author. It’s also an excellent list of books if you’re just looking for a great mystery.

12 Mystery Novels for Fans of Literary Fiction

9 Scary Books Set In British Towns (Some mysteries included)

  You can hear an extended excerpt from Ruth Ware’s new book The Death of Mrs. Westaway. (Review here) (Ware’s other novels: The Woman in Cabin 10; In A Dark, Dark Wood; The Lying Game)

Three exclusive excerpts from the anthology Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto.

You can read an excerpt from Bill Clinton and James Patterson’s The President Is Missing thriller on EW.

(Spoilers for the entire s1 of Killing Eve) Killing Eve and the Riddle of Why Women Kill: Villanelle insists on being taken at face value; to search for a noble motivation is to trap oneself in her psychological labyrinth.

Giveaway: Book Riot is giving away $500 (look at those zeros!) to the bookstore of your choice!

Adaptations and News

With the film adaptation for The Girl in the Spider’s Web releasing in November there will be a new three-part comic: The Girl Who Danced With Death. An all-new Lisbeth Salander adventure written by Sylvain Runberg, with art by Belen Ortega, will be in stores and digital devices in August.

John Malkovich has been cast as Hercule Poirot in The ABC Murders BBC adaptation. Inspector Crome will be played by Ron Weasley–whoops, I mean Rupert Grint.

The Dee Rees political thriller adaptation of Joan Didion’s The Last Thing He Wanted will star Anne Hathaway and be backed by Netflix.

Lamar Giles (Little Q&A) has an upcoming YA thriller and here’s the first look at the gorgeous cover for Spin!

And the cover reveal for J.T. Ellison’s Tear Me Apart.

Interview

Video interview with Jessica Knoll author of Luckiest Girl Alive and The Favorite Sister.

Watch Now

Streaming on Amazon: Picnic At Hanging Rock, adapted from Joan Lindsay’s novel, is a six-part miniseries set in the early 1900s in an Australian boarding school where a group of students disappear during a field trip. (Trailer)

On DVD: Red Sparrow, adapted from Jason Matthews’ novel, and starring Jennifer Lawrence tells the story of a Russian intelligence officer who is sent to make contact with a CIA agent in the hope of discovering the identity of a mole. (Trailer)

Kindle Deals

The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh is $1.99 which is a ridiculous deal for this excellent mystery! (review)

Dead Loudmouth (A Loon Lake Mystery #16) by Victoria Houston is $2.99 and one that made it onto my TBR list because of Liberty’s review so I just bought it.

AND it looks like you can pre-buy Mary Kubica’s upcoming thriller When the Lights Go Out for $2.99!!

And Finally My Week In Reading

I read Liz Nugent’s Lying In Wait in one sitting and the level of cruelty was cranked to a level of high that my brain needed to be bathed in unicorns immediately after. It starts by revealing a crime and then follows the characters affected in different ways. If you like crime novels where you know a train wreck is coming and enjoy “that was forking cruel as fork” don’t miss this one. (TW revenge porn/ and a heads-up that a character experiences constant fat shaming throughout the book)

Started Sheena Kamal’s It All Falls Down (July 3), which I’ve been looking forward to since I really enjoyed The Lost Ones (review). So far Nora Watts is still her same difficult self except she no longer trusts her lie detecting abilities. I’ve been having a hard time putting it down because Watts is an interesting character. (TW suicide)

 

Picked up All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth (July 10) thinking I’d just read the first page and ended up inhaling half the book. It’s prep school secret society + a mother that disappeared during her daughters childhoods + family secrets and it’s ringing all my bells. (TW suicide/ domestic abuse/ rape)

 

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.

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

Hi mystery fans! I’ve got a witchy girl, tarot card reader, and an FBI investigator for you this week!

The Craft Meets Veronica Mars Is As Awesome As It Sounds! (TW suicide)

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson: Mila Flores is naturally having a hard time since her best friend’s death. The problem is that she’s certain Riley didn’t take her own life, but no one believes Mila. Instead, they think she’s refusing to accept her best friend’s death. But Mila is head-strong and won’t let it go so she conjures up a spell in hopes of bringing back Riley to find out what really happened. And that’s when things really take a turn because Mila isn’t an experienced Wiccan, and not only does she bring Riley back but she also brings back two recently dead girls who she really didn’t like. And they’re all going to be around for seven days until the spell ends. Hopefully they can all work out their issues and come together to solve who exactly murdered them… A fun, smart, and excellent read with a great lead.

---

Sponsored by Penguin Teen

Quiet, shy Elyse can’t believe it when she’s cast as the lead in her high school’s production of Romeo and Juliet. But when someone at rehearsals starts to catch her eye–someone she knows she absolutely shouldn’t be with–she can’t help but be pulled into the spotlight.

Austin native Gabe is contemplating the unthinkable–breaking up with Sasha, his headstrong, popular girlfriend. She’s not going to let him slip through her fingers, though, and when rumors start to circulate around school, he knows she has the power to change his life forever.

Gabe and Elyse both make the mistake of falling for the wrong person, and falling hard. Told in parallel narratives, this twisty, shocking story shows how one bad choice can lead to a spiral of unforeseen consequences that not everyone will survive.

---

Would You Pretend To Be Someone Else For An Inheritance?

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware: Hal has been struggling since her mom’s death. While she took over her mom’s tarot card reading business it hasn’t been enough to pay the rent, and now she’s in way over her head after a bad loan. That’s why when a letter clearly wrongly addressed to her arrives, she decides to pretend to be someone else. If there really is an inheritance awaiting the person the letter was meant for, maybe it’ll save her. And so she makes the trip to Mrs. Westaway’s mansion and decides to use her tarot card people reading skills to pretend she’s the person the letter was meant for. At first her fear is that she’ll be discovered, but there’s just something off about this family and maybe she’s made a grave mistake… A good suspenseful mystery novel with a character I was rooting for from the beginning.

Great Atmospheric Procedural (TW domestic violene)

A Sharp Solitude (Glacier Mystery #4) by Christine Carbo: FBI investigator Ali Paige knows better than to investigate a case not assigned to her–especially, since the suspect is Landon, her daughter’s father. And yet, she can’t stop herself. She’s quickly lying to her partner and doing seriously questionable things in order to prove the investigation is focusing on the wrong person. Told in alternating POV between Ali and Landon, you get to watch Ali try to prove his innocence while slowly watching Landon’s life up until the photographer he was accused of murdering is killed. I really love procedurals like this that give you a good look into a case but also the personal lives of the characters–especially when there is an interesting job involved like Landon’s, who uses a dog for finding animal scat in the woods for scientific research. (The series is linked only by setting so it reads as a standalone. If you’re curious about the previous book in the series, The Weight of Night, I reviewed it here.)

Recent Releases

The Fourth Monkey by J.D. Barker (Paperback) (For fans of serial killer arcs on procedural shows–full review) (I don’t remember the TWs but there are, think horror movies.)

The Accidental Mistress (Justice Hustlers #3) by Aya de Leon (Series I love about women who steal from crappy rich men to fund their women’s health clinic.)

Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts

AND Book Riot is still giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice!

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.

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

Hello mystery fans! Killing Eve‘s season finale is this Sunday and it’s all I can think about! I just know they’re going to leave a major cliffhanger and waiting a year for Season 2 is going to be really difficult.

---

Sponsored By Wicked River by Jenny Milchman

Six million acres of Adirondack forest separate Natalie and Doug Larson from civilization. For the newlyweds, an isolated backcountry honeymoon seems ideal…and adventurous. But just as Natalie and Doug begin to explore the dark interiors of their own hearts, as well as the depths of their love for each other, it becomes clear that they are not alone in the woods. As they struggle with the worst the wilderness has to offer, a man watches them, wielding the forest like a weapon. He wants something from them more terrifying than death. And once they are near his domain, he will do everything in his power to make sure they never walk out again.

---

From Book Riot and Around the Internet

Vanessa Diaz makes a case for why you should be reading the Flavia De Luce mystery series.

Not Your Grandmother’s Detectives (Or maybe they are, I don’t know your Nana.)

5 Page-Turning Mysteries Starring Indian Detectives

Agatha Christie: world’s first historical whodunnit was inspired by 4,000 year-old letters

25+ YA Mystery Series To Read

Giveaways

Book Riot is giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice! Oh, the books you can buy!

And you can still enter to win 5 Megan Abbott books! Here’s my “I Just Read Every Megan Abbott Novel (And You Should, Too)” post in case you wanted to know why Abbott’s work is amazing.

Watch that, Read This

Claws season 1 (10 episodes) is now streaming on Hulu, and if you like crime novels/shows it’s a must-watch. Set in Florida, you have a group of women working in a nail salon who are all struggling in life in a different way and involved in some way in criminal activity while friends. The acting is excellent, the story is great, the characters are amazing. It’s smart, dramatic, funny, and thrilling. 100% recommend watching before season 2 starts June 10th on TNT.

And a great series to read if you want more fantastic women, friendships, and criminals is Aya de León’s Justice Hustler series. It starts with Uptown Thief and follows a group of women running a women’s clinic in New York who fund said clinic by robbing rich men who are not good people–it’s as awesome as it sounds. The sequel, The Boss, changes main character but keeps the series focused on heists and awesome women fighting for women’s rights.

True Crime

The Staircase Will Be Your Next True Crime Obsession

Oxygen has 3 new shows for true crime fans.

Toronto Is Hosting A Huge True Crime Film Festival This Summer

Kindle Deals

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti is $1.99 (Literary mystery high on my TBR–All The Books review)

Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrette is $5.99 (Funny amateur sleuth trying to solve a hit and run for the reward money– Full review)

 

My Week In Reading Was Fantastic!

I have been DYING to read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite since I heard about the book sale and it was not only as good as I wanted it to be but BETTER. (Nov 13, Doubleday Books) (TW domestic/child abuse/ rape)

(TW rape/ suicide/ cutting) Amber Tamblyn’s Any Man novel uses poetry and prose to highlight male victim’s of a female serial rapist as they struggle to deal with the attack and the way our society treats rape victims. Pretty powerful read with plenty to think about.

Death Notice by Zhou Haohui, Zac Haluza (Translator) was a great read about a vigilante playing a cat-and-mouse game with the police as they try and save his victims who he believes need to pay for their sins. (TW suicide/ rape)

I listened to the audiobook of The Good Son by You-jeong Jeong which is a whydunnit psychological suspense that slowly reveals the characters life as flashbacks build after he wakes up covered in blood… (TW stalking/ suicide)

If you’re looking for a new cozy mystery series I enjoyed Abby L. Vandiver ‘s Secrets, Lies, & Crawfish Pies. Starring a New York medical examiner who moves back to her small Texas town and ends up solving the case of the murdered man in her aunt’s funeral home. (The pre-order kindle price is $2.99!)

And great reads I think will be big books this summer Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton (perfect for fans of Green Girl + Paulina & Fran + Gillian Flynn/Megan Abbott) (TW suicide/ rape) and The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas about a girl who investigates 3 separate incidents that killed cheerleaders, one being her sister. (TW suicide/ statutory rape/ sex offender)

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.

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

Hello mystery fans! I’ve got three books this week that could not be more different from each other if that had been my goal. AND Book Riot is giving away $500 (look at those zeros!) to the bookstore of your choice! Enter here, you lucky people!

---

Sponsored by The 49th Mystic (Beyond the Circle Series #1) by Ted Dekker.

Some say the great mystery of how one can live in two worlds at once died with Thomas Hunter many years ago. Still others that the gateway to that greater reality was and is only the stuff of dreams.

They are wrong.

In the small town of Eden, Utah, a blind girl named Rachelle Matthews is about to find out just how wrong.

So begins a two-volume saga of high stakes and a mind-bending quest to find an ancient path that will save humanity. The clock is ticking; the end rushes forward.

Ready? Set?

Dream.

---

Mean Girls + Adam Silvera Breakup/Relationships + Whodunnit + A Bit of a Horror Movie Body Count! (TW: rape)

White Rabbit by Caleb Roehrig: This felt like a mashup between a bit of a YA coming-of-age with a whodunnit mystery being solved by an amatuer sleuth. Rufus Holt is having a hard time: he still hasn’t gotten over his ex-boyfriend, his dad is a terrible person, his mom is struggling to pay the bills, and his step-sister needs his help to prove she isn’t a murderer. Trying to solve a murder is hard enough as a teen that has no training in sleuthing, but it’s even harder to do with your ex-boyfriend (who you’re clearly not over) and for your step-sister (who isn’t very nice and comes from the family that pretends you don’t exist because they’re rich and you’re not). But Rufus has to help because his sister dangles the carrot of money in front of him, which he needs to help his mom. And so did Rufus’ step-sister murder her boyfriend and now she’s playing Rufus? Or did someone else kill Fox? Either way, Rufus is gonna be kicking a hornet’s nest when he starts investigating… A good mystery with a horror-ish feeling, that has a great main character to follow as he struggles through family, relationship, and anger issues.

Dark Nonfiction About A Brazilian Hitman (TW: child rape/ torture)

The Name of Death by Kléster Cavalcanti, Nicholas Caistor (translator): This is for people who like dark crime reads because I’ll admit I felt sick by the end of it. This is not a book about a psychopath who wanted to kill people so he became a hitman. Instead, it’s about a teen boy living in a village in the Amazon in Brazil who doesn’t understand electricity because he’s never seen it. A teen boy who looks up to his uncle, unaware that his uncle is a terrible person. The book takes you into Julio Santana’s life, as he reported it to journalist Klester Cavalcanti, from his first kill at seventeen–for his uncle–to his time in the military fighting communists. Towards the end of the book, Santana pulls out the book where he kept the information on all of his kills and some of the stories of specific murders are revealed, including how his wife discovered what he really did to make money, to an accidental murder, and the time he was arrested. While Santana looks back with regret, wishing he’d gone a different route–and still hopes to be forgiven by God–it is impossible not to think of all the victims and how easy the choice is to not kill someone. It was sad, interesting, and awful to see the reasons people choose to hire a hitman, and the way people move the line of what is right or wrong to fit their greed and agenda. (I could have done with much less pages of male gaze losing-my-virginity story.)

Great Character Driven Crime Novel

The Lonely Witness by William Boyle: I can see why people get frustrated with characters that don’t react/respond in situations the way a reader would, but for me I think we most likely won’t react the way we think we will in extreme situations. Also, I don’t find it interesting to watch characters behave like me. I enjoy reading the exploration of “But why would you do that?!”–and that was certainly the main character Amy. Living in a Brooklyn neighborhood, Amy has reduced her life after her girlfriend left her. She’s donated her time to the church and offers communion to elderly residents at their homes. It’s on one of these visits where the trouble begins: Mrs. Epifanio thinks her caretaker’s son murdered his mom, and that’s why she hasn’t shown up and he’s been coming instead with his mom’s key and rummaging in Mrs. Epifanio’s bedroom. Amy ends up trying to help Mrs. Epifanio by following the son, and finds herself witnessing a crime and opening the door to danger. A good crime novel that explores loneliness, regret, forgiveness, and whether we can ever make ourselves small enough to avoid the world, and our past, from hurting us again.

Recent Releases

Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson (Great YA mystery about a girl who won’t give up looking for her best friend.)

Cult X by Fuminori Nakamura, Kalau Almony (Translator) (Japanese mystery about cults that is high on my TBR list.)

Paper Ghosts by Julia Heaberlin (TBR: just downloaded the audiobook.)

The House Swap by Rebecca Fleet (TBR: domestic suspense.)

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.

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