Author: Jamie Canaves

Dag Hammarskjöld was a Swedish economist and the second Secretary-General of the United Nations whose death in a plane crash on Sept. 17, 1961 has remained unsolved. Along with the history of the Congo and the founding of the U.N. you get spies, governments planning assassinations, an unsolved mystery, conspiracy theories, and a reminder that history continues repeating itself if we don’t learn from it. “Nobody could call them off—only wind them up, set them off, and semi-legitimately deny any involvement in the destruction that followed.”

For audiobook fans, it’s is narrated by the author.

(TW attempted suicide recounted, detail/ mentions group rape not detailed or graphic)

This is a serial killer true crime book that focuses on the victims written by a journalist who does not insert himself or make this partially a memoir, as has become popular recently. Instead the book recounts the victim’s lives in all their reality, focusing on the queer community of the ’80s and ’90s in NY, how difficult if was for many to exist as gay men publicly, and the activists working to protect LGBTQ+ lives and rights. It’s a huge case of a killer who preyed on gay men for two decades but that most know nothing about because the media and genre have never focused on cases where marginalized communities are the targets. With all the anti-LGBTQ+ policies, laws, bills and book banning currently happening, it was impossible to read sections of this book without seeing the parallels in rising hate.

The audiobook is narrated by David Pittu.

(TW it was hard to keep track of these because much is mentioned as part of history and cases but the main ones are homophobia/ alcoholism/ hate crimes / racism)

This is a crime novel with a murder mystery that people are certain they know the murderer of but aren’t actively trying to solve, because they spent years ignoring abuse. It’s a novel about unknowingly paying for other’s pain and other’s sins that asks big questions, like can you save people from their situation? From themselves? Especially, when they refuse? What binds us to others?

We follow Ruby King, her mother, and her father (her mother murdered in their home and her father suspected), Ruby’s best friend Layla, and her family, including the church pastor and what the walls of the church see. Everyone is connected and bound by friendship, secrets, pain, and a shared knowledge that Ruby’s mother was being abused by her husband for years. After the murder Ruby doesn’t know what to do, Layla doesn’t know how to help Ruby, and the pastor finds himself once again being blackmailed from helping…

The audiobook is narrated by Kim Staunton, Imani Parks, Ron Butler, Adam Lazarre-White, Lloyd Roberson II, Terra Strong Lyons.

(TW domestic abuse/ past suicidal ideation and attempted suicide, detail/ alcoholism/ child abuse/ mother with terminal cancer/ past child sexual abuse)

Dustin Tillman’s brother was convicted of murdering their mom, dad, aunt, and uncle in the ’80s–leaving Dustin, his adopted brother, and twin cousins orphaned. Now thanks to DNA evidence, his brother is exonerated. We get a past and present view including in the present all the things that Dustin is dealing with: his wife is dying; he has a new patient convinced that he can crack a serial killer conspiracy involving college athletes getting drunk and drowning; his brother Rusty is reaching out to his son; he and his cousin were the ones who sealed his brother’s conviction. It’s a fantastic read if you love deep dives into multiple characters’ lives and thoughts mixed with a background mystery running throughout.

The audiobook is narrated by Ari Fliakos, Edoardo Ballerini, Michael Crouch, Alex McKenna, Scott Aiello.

(I don’t remember TWs, sorry.)

Ever since reading this one I’ve found myself randomly thinking about it. It’s a layered tale exploring some interesting things while remaining focused on the humanity of each situation. In present time Sumiko is becoming a lawyer and finds herself with the case file of what happened to her mother years ago–something she was never told about. In the past Rina, Sumiko’s mother, falls in love with a wakaresaseya — the man Sumiko’s father hired to seduce Rina so that he could use the affair to file for divorce and take what he wants. This is particularly interesting if you like looking at the legal system outside of the U.S.

(TW forced kiss/ brief-ish recount of domestic abuse)

Twenty years ago Abby and Nate met after an accident and Abby moved away with Nate and married him. She never told him she’d just broken up with the love of her life. In the present Abby, Nate, and their daughter Sarah meet their new neighbors: Liam, his wife Nancy, and their son Zac. Liam is Abby’s past love and neither mentions this, both pretending to be meeting for the first time. From there we watch the past relationship and the current as secrets build…

(TW diet culture/ mentions labor complication, necessary hysterectomy after delivery/ parent with terminal cancer)

Will Chen is a senior at Harvard when he’s hired for a job: steal Chinese sculptures from museums. So he puts together a team to accomplish the mission. While you get to follow all five of them as they try to accomplish their mission, the book is about much more than heists. It’s about colonization, the diaspora, and the Chinese American identity. Rather than just one character’s story, we get a variety showing how different the experience and views can be from within the same community. While I was invested in whether they’d pull this off, and more importantly get away with it, I think I was more invested in the characters and their lives. I’ve been really enjoying recent releases that focus on immigrant/diaspora experiences in the crime genre.

Maggie Richter and the rest of the staff at an LA museum are trying to save the museum. They are hoping to accomplish this with the current exhibit they are mounting: Kim Lord paints herself into famous crime scenes where women were murdered. But on opening night Kim Lord disappears… The setup for this book really worked for me as the first half focuses on the art world and the second half on the mystery.

Here’s a remote suspense novel set in the Appalachian woods, starting in the dead of winter. It has characters you’ll fiercely love and root for, suspense, and is the kind of atmospheric novel that will transport you from wherever you are straight into the pages. Cooper and his eight-year-old daughter Finch live in a cabin in the woods and only two people know this: a nosy neighbor and a friend who comes once a year to bring them the supplies they’ll need to survive the upcoming year. Except Cooper’s friend doesn’t show up this year, and the neighbor keeps making Cooper uneasy…

(TW PTSD/ fat shaming/ panic attack/ animal deaths, killings related to survival)

Here’s a snowed in remote mystery that’s also a locked room mystery! In 1984 a father and daughter invite guests to stay at their remote and literally crooked house (sloping floors and the building is leaning) in Hokkaido island (northern tip of Japan). It’s all fun Christmas festivities until the murders start…

(TW attempted suicide, brief detail mentioned/fatphobia)

Mary grew up in a small Minnesota town wanting to flee, which she finally accomplishes when she’s accepted into an Ivy League college. But more than an education, she wants to be a different person, one who isn’t bullied and unpopular, a thing she works for until she’s expelled and finds herself back in her hometown, living at home, lying to everyone about why she’s there. With her life in chaos and her childhood frenemy gone missing, she decides to start looking into missing girl cases…

(TW eating disorder/ fatphobia, bullying/ racism/ attempted suicide not completed, detail/ sharing of nude pic without permission)

This time around the woman returning home is a lawyer and we’re in Australia. Eliza Carmody is visiting her home town because of a case she’s on at her firm which is basically a case against the town. And in this town her best friend went missing when they were teens and her father/brother were/are the police. Immediately upon arriving, she witnesses a crime and from there readers are treated to a past and present timeline that will force a town’s reckoning.

(TW suicide/ rape)

If you’re in the mood for a cozy mystery set in South Florida and love food, here’s a new series for you. Miriam Quinones-Smith has just moved back home for her husband’s work but is finding it more of an adjustment than she’d thought. Her parents have since moved away, her mother-in-law is passive aggressive, her husband is always working, and someone has been murdered in the same room as her. So as she puts her degree in food anthropology to work by hosting a food show she’s also poking around in a murder plot. The sequel, Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking, comes out in November giving you plenty of time to read the first in the series.

If you like big books and you cannot lie (not sorry), have I got a massive two-volume translated work for you. This is inspired by a true unsolved kidnapping case in Japan. The novel follows five men in 1995 Tokyo who are upset with the state of their lives and come together to kidnap Japan’s largest beer conglomerate’s CEO for blood money… The sequel, Lady Joker Volume Two, will be out in October.

While this book isn’t focused on a legal case, it has a corporate lawyer lead and is full of corporate intrigue. It’s also a great read for fans of past and present chapters–which I love. Ellice Littlejohn already has a lot on her plate, including putting the woman who raised her in a home and worrying about her brother, when she walks into work and finds a partner dead by apparent suicide. Rather than calling it in, she leaves and lets someone else find him, opening the door for her to become the prime suspect as the firm she works for decides to promote her. Everything quickly is spiraling out of control and she needs to figure out what is happening…

(TW main case questioned as suicide/ alcoholic parent/ dementia/ teen sexual assault recounted, not graphic/ child abuse/ brief mention partner abuse/ fatshaming)

This follows an actual case but in a very clever and unique way–the format is different from what you’re used to. It’s the kind of book where going into it knowing nothing or as little as possible is the funnest way, but I know some readers want to know as much as possible so I’m splitting this review first with the bare bones and then with more info.

We start with law students being given case files of a real case to go through. All of the files are email exchanges and text messages between a group of people who overlap being in a play together and working at a hospital. You are provided with all the information to “play along” and solve the case.

Law students are given evidence from a real trial to go through which consists of email exchanges and text messages. There is a community play being put together by a wealthy family known for this and the toddler granddaughter has just been diagnosed with cancer. Quickly the community comes together to help raise a large sum of money to try and get her experimental drugs from America which have not yet been approved in the UK. We get to know all the characters involved through their messages to each other: from the play being cast, organized, practiced and performed, to the fundraising efforts that go into full effect. The students are tasked with reading everything in order to help with an appeal in the hopes that they will spot what was missed in the original murder trial. As the students are prompted to solve certain things, you as the reader also get to play detective/lawyer and try to answer the questions.

This book had me longing for the days that we used to have full conversations over email and I loved how much you could get to know the characters solely through their digital correspondence. There’s the busy body who emails one person one thing and then has a slightly different story in a different email exchange; the married couple trying to settle into a new place after working with a group like Doctors without Borders; the oncologist awaiting the money for the drugs ordered; the family trying to raise the money; and the woman in charge of all the fundraising. I was completely sucked into everyone’s life and rather impressed with how well this book works even though it’s all just digital correspondence. If you’re looking for a page-turner that is formatted differently from other books, and want to participate in the puzzle solving, pick this one up.

(TW child cancer/ past child deaths from illness/ pregnancy complications/ addiction/ mentions sexual assaults, not graphic)

In this historical fiction novel, Whitehead delves into the human cruelty of the very real Florida school presented as a reform school for boys. Elwood Curtis ends up there as an idealist who holds onto Dr Martin Luther King’s words “Throw us in jail, and we will still love you,” but his views will quickly be tested by cruelty and those who believe you have to be as cruel as your oppressors to survive, especially when no one is coming to help.

This is a true crime book written by the forensic anthropologist who worked to locate the graveyard and graves of the boys who “disappeared” at a Florida reform school. The school was able to operate for more than 100 years as it wasn’t until the reports of cruelty and mysterious deaths finally got the attention they should have always had that the school was closed in 2011. Erin Kimmerle and her team worked to find the bodies and through DNA testing let their families know their children’s bodies had finally been found.

This is such a great read as a standalone book with a completed mystery plot, but it also has one of my all time favorite child characters and I’d love to get to continue following Ophie in her life—it doesn’t even have to be a mystery. In 1922 Ophie is uprooted after her father’s murder from Georgia to Pittsburgh and in the process she learns she sees ghosts, something that can place her in danger, but also puts her in the position to see someone in the house she’s working in who may need their murder solved. It’s been some time since I read this and I still find myself randomly thinking about Ophie, how she’s doing, what she’s doing, where she’s going in life.

This hit so many things I like: a blend of adult and child characters, being nuanced and not falling into tragedy porn, and having the balance of humor. After a bombing on a school trip, a suspended MET officer has to find the kids who ran away while also figuring out the culprit. When I read this in 2017 I wrote “I can only hope I will one day get to meet Bish, his daughter Bee, ex-wife Rachel, Violette and her family again in a future book.” and I still feel exactly the same way.

Amina Akhtar in talks with Alex Segura for the Kismet book launch Mon, August 1, 2022 at Strand Book Store.

True-crime author Billy Jensen’s Bexley event canceled as book publication postponed

Fall 2022 Announcements: Mysteries & Thriller

On the latest All The Books! Liberty and Tirzah discuss new releases including Vera Kelly, Lost and Found by Rosalie Knecht and Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods by Lyndsie Bourgon.

(There’s mysteries!) 27 Books, TV Shows, And Movies Jane Austen Lovers Should Check Out