Author: Jamie Canaves

If you’re looking to start a new procedural series, this is your book. I’m a huge fan of Zehanat Khan’s Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak detective series so I was thrilled to see that she had a new series and devoured this book. Set in a Colorado town, a teen from a Syrian Muslim refugee family is murdered and her body positioned in the mosque. Assigned to the case are Detective Inaya Rahman and Lieutenant Waqas Seif, two very different people who may have more in common than they think, which they’d realize if Seif were to stop keeping his personal life so close to the vest. You get the detectives’ personal lives, and past lives, as they focus on trying to solve a difficult case made even more difficult by a town unwelcoming to immigrants, unsolved missing girls cases, and a motorcycle gang.

(TW teen boys attack teen girl to rip her hijab off/racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia/police brutality stories/brief mention of past mother death from cancer/brief mention of past domestic abuse, not graphic/brief recount of groping, not graphic/mentions stalking/scene inside a meat packing plant)

For fans of procedurals, multiple POV, plenty of suspects, and a forced detective pairing. This is one of my favorites this year, and it reminded me of Bad Sisters in that the dead dude was a crappy person so there are plenty of suspects in people who wished him dead. Rhys Lloyd is found dead on New Year’s Day and being an ex-celebrity and current developer selling to wealthy outsiders, he has a fair bit of enemies in his small town. DC Leo Brady of Cheshire Major Crimes and Ffion Morgan who is with the North Wales Police are forced to work together to solve the murder as we also get to see the lives of various community members leading up to the murder.

If you’re in the mood for a good murder mystery that sinks you into a small town, pick this one up. I’m super glad it’s apparently going to be the start of a series.

(TW mentions past overdose/mentions violence towards sex workers/sexual harassment/misgendering/teen sexual assault by adult/past father cancer death, not detailed/mentions miscarriages, no details/attempted rape/lesbophobia/secretly drugging child to sleep at night)

For fans of social thrillers and dark academia. Allie Douglass becomes Chair of Philosophy at a NY university while other crucial things happen: she learns from the police that one of her grad students has gone missing, her grandmother dies, and she meets the man who will kidnap her…

This made me think of Casey Cep’s Furious Hours, as both take a true crime case and an author digging into the story hoping for it to be their huge true crime book. In Furious Hours it was Harper Lee and in Deliberate Cruelty it’s Truman Capote. In 1955 Ann Woodward shot her husband, claiming she thought he was an intruder. Having been a showgirl turned socialite married to a banking heir, the story played out like a scandal amongst many elite circles and Truman Capote became obsessed with the Woodwards. He decided it would be his next hit after In Cold Blood had been a bestseller. Instead Ann Woodward died by suicide and Capote faced his own downfall.

I am at least halfway through the audiobook and it is fantastic! The only reason I wasn’t able to finish it in time for writing this is because life thinks it has the right to interrupt my reading time.

This is a historical crime story that follows two sisters and the man hired to find one of them. It has a super strong voice from the opening and really immerses you in the character’s lives and the time period. After Violet Richards is sexually assaulted (so far not graphic) she tries to file a report with the police, but their response is to ask why a white man would want to touch a Black woman. So she kills him and uses a white man in love with her to get her out of Mississippi, but when she steals his wallet and peaces out, he hires someone to find her. Violet running away puts a target on her sister Marigold’s back, who is already a bit backed into a corner: she’s unwed, pregnant, and the father just hightailed it out. And she’s been working to help secure Black voters’ right to vote. Now Marigold finds herself also with no choice but to flee. With their past coming for them, Violet accidentally taking a job in the Sheriff’s house, and a man hired to find Violet, how long can they run?

The audiobook narrators do an exceptional job bringing the characters to life: Janina Edwards, Shayna Small, and Adam Lazarre-White.

For fans of romantic thrillers, lawyer leads, and missing persons cases. Ava Burch left her city life as a corporate lawyer and moved back to Texas where she grew up. She comes across an abandoned campsite that she photographs which makes Detective Grant Wyoff think of a missing person’s case. When another person disappears, it forces Ava and Grant to work together, even if Grant thinks she isn’t cut out for the wilderness…

This is a fun romance meets crime novel with great audiobook narrations by Soneela Nankani and Shahjehan Khan. Mira Chaudhary has not been having a lucky streak with the men she’s matched up with through a matchmaker. When her aunt dies, she shows up to deal with the will at the lawyer’s office and discovers it’s Naveen Desai, the first match she’d had that ended after a brief relationship. Fate may have thrown them back together to have a second chance at love, but first they’ll have to survive the night when they’re kidnapped. Turns out Mira’s con artist father left behind some angry criminals who are demanding Mira pay them back. It’ll be a long night as Naveen and Mira try to deal with their feelings for each other while trying to outsmart the criminals, figure out what’s really going on, and get out ahead. If you like films like Date Night and Lovebirds, or action and fun crime mixed with romance, this is your book.

(TW recounts past alcoholism)

For fans of author MCs and wealthy toxic families. Harry is a novelist who has recently become engaged to Edward Holbeck. She’s never met his family, who Edward himself has issues with and has been estranged from. But he’s now started to connect with his family again — he is the one to inherit everything — and it’s time for her to meet them. Turns out there is definitely something off about this super wealthy and powerful family, but what exactly? And are they dangerous?

This was a book that hadn’t been on my radar until I came across the audiobook and decided to just press play and then I found myself fully immersed in a past and present mystery with a bruja at the center (not fantasy)! Eva Santos Moon watched a friend drown as a teenager and now a woman working with her husband has been found murdered in the river. Soon her husband is taken into custody, an affair suspected, and Eva doesn’t know what to believe, who to trust — including herself because of recent blackouts. She’s a glass artist who has been dabbling in black magic lately, against her husbands wishes, hoping to get her creativity back. Has she brought all this upon her family? Did her husband really commit murder or is he trying to protect Eva? Does her childhood best friend’s death make Eva a suspect again?…It’s a great read for fans of unreliable narrators, characters making messy decisions, brujeria, and a central past and present murder mystery. I really enjoyed Kyla Garcia’s narration on the audiobook which really sunk me into Eva’s head.

(TW mentions postpartum depression/mentions domestic violence)

For fans of remote mysteries, royals, Christmas, and Scottish settings. For the holidays, a fictional royal family is celebrating in the Scottish Highlands. King Eric plans on making an announcement (will it be the next heir?) that will impact the monarchy, except he drops dead from poisoning. And that’s how the King’s personal chef, Jon, ends up investigating a murder…

This Chinese crime novel is one of my favorite reads of the year and perfect for fans of dark Japanese crime novels. The audiobook is available in the U.S. and Jason Vu does a great narration between adults and teens. If you read print/digital it’s available in the UK now, and in those formats in the U.S. in the summer of 2023. (I don’t understand publishing!)

It’s the story of three young teenagers who become friends, starting with two who’ve run away from an orphanage. There’s an accidental murder of a sibling and separately an unintended recording of a man murdering his in-laws. The latter leads the kids to blackmail the man starting off a game of wits and crime for money, control, freedom, and getting away with murder!

(TW brief domestic abuse, mention of child abuse/briefly mentions rape, not detailed/mentions past child sexual abuse/police discussions of child sexual assault)

For true-crime readers of historical cases — in this case (heh) one that was sensationalized. Set in British Columbia and England, it’s the case of a murdered architect and the trial of his much younger wife and the even much younger wife’s lover (17) who was the chauffeur, both of which plead guilty in order to say the other was innocent.

If you’re in the mood for a foodie cozy and one set at a fall festival (mind you, we’re talking Miami fall), here you go! When the houses are decorated for Halloween it isn’t strange to find a corpse in your yard; but when it’s someone you know and human, things take a turn. That’s how things are going for Miriam Quiñones-Smith, a local food show host who has a knack for getting involved in murder mysteries. So naturally she’ll have another body on her hands when a chef is found dead at the bottom of a staircase — the chef for the gala Miriam is in charge of and who was just fighting with the club’s manager. It’ll only be a matter of time before Miriam herself is in danger…If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Mango, Mambo, and Murder.

For fans of recent historical mysteries, the “is it a murder or not” trope, and books set in a home where everyone is a potential suspect. Andy Mills was an inspector for the San Francisco police until he was caught in a gay bar, was outed, and fired for being gay. Which is how he ends up being hired by a recent widow to look into the death of Irene Lamontaine, the head of a soap empire. Irene lived on an estate with family and staff that created a safe place to live for members of the LGBTQ+ community, while keeping the world out. The question is whether Irene’s death was a murder (remember: big ol’ company and money at stake), and if so: is someone who lives on the estate a murderer? As Andy visits the estate and gets to know everyone, who can he trust?

I was in the middle of writing this when the Angela Lansbury news broke 🙁 Jessica Fletcher has a grandniece following in her footsteps! Bea Fletcher is a teen who writes a cold case column for a website. One night she’s meant to meet up with her best friend Jackson and he doesn’t show up. Startled, she runs off and ends up instead meeting three students from the elite boarding school Broadmoor Academy. It turns out they’re playing a secret society game and she’ll have to join in if she wants to find Jackson…I’m halfway through the audiobook and I like that it’s written as a modern thriller with teens, and mental health, in mind rather than trying to create another version of the show Murder, She Wrote.

For fans of graphic novels and the Enola Holmes Netflix adaptation! It’s a new story that is the life of Enola Holmes between the first film and the upcoming new film. The younger teen sister of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes sets out to find not only Mycroft, who has been taken by anarchists, but especially to retrieve something he has taken from her…

And here’s the second trailer for Enola Holmes 2.

This is a fun, family of spies book that also tackles important topics. Soon after finding out that her parents work as spies for a world organization, Andréa Hernández-Baldoquín ends up with her first solo assignment. She’s the only person the agency knows who can pass as white and is 14, the age they need to go undercover in a high school to befriend the estranged son of a white nationalist that they need to find. Not only is Andréa going to have the challenges of being in a new school, a new crush and friends, but she’s going to have to drop the accent in her name, pretend to not speak Spanish, and strip her culture from her life.

The audiobook narrated by Victoria Villarreal is great and I really recommend picking this up next time you need some action, spies, friendship, and fandom in your life. It was my pick for The Best Books We Read July-September 2022.

Here’s a true crime and narrative political nonfiction that is my current (as of writing this halfway through) audiobook. In 2016 Seth Rich was walking home drunk from a bar and was shot dead in the street. It was the kind of case that would normally only make local news and devastate his family and friends. Instead because he was a Democratic National Committee staffer, his murder and career was weaponized by Fox news creating ludicrous conspiracy theories, including that a pizza restaurant was involved in a global child-trafficking ring. Rather than Rich’s family getting to mourn him and focus on finding his killer, they were thrown into a world of people trying to use their son’s life and murder for political conspiracies. Kroll lays out the timeline of how the DNC’s leaked emails and Seth Rich’s murder were weaponized to fuel right-wing conspiracy theories and who Seth Rich was as his family tried to find justice for Rich. It’s also a look at how the people fueling these kinds of conspiracy theories operate — including making themselves rich – and how the media and social media has played a huge role in it happening.

For fans of MCs returning home to their hometown, past and present missing girls mysteries, and a dash of horror. Liz Rocher is returning to her small hometown in Pennsylvania and has a strained relationship with her mom. She’s only there for her best friend Mel’s wedding. That is until Mel’s daughter goes missing and Liz is forced to deal with sudden memories of her childhood, hiding in the woods the night another girl was murdered…

This is my current audiobook listen, which has dual narrators I’m enjoying: Sandra Okuboyejo and William DeMeritt.

For fans of Victorian mysteries and delightfully precocious kids. Myrtle Hardcastle’s father has a new case: prove or disprove that a girl who once went missing is in fact the current person claiming her family’s fortune. She’s either the girl once lost at sea with her parents or a con artist after money. But things get extra complicated when Mr. Hardcastle is in the hospital for surgery and claims to witness a murder. Now Myrtle has to figure out if it was a delusion or ifin fact her father may be in danger…

This is a delightful series I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Premeditated Myrtle.