Author: Jamie Canaves

Here’s a beautiful Australian crime novel about grief, family, and friendship, that manages to feel uplifting. Beth Teller, an Aboriginal girl who died at 15, is now a ghost following her father, a detective, around. Since he can see and hear her, she’s helping him solve a case—a children’s home fire that left an unidentified body and a missing person—while also trying to help him grieve her death. I read this three years ago and still randomly think about it and Beth.

This is a great wait-for-it crime novel that is set in Tel Aviv. It follows three completely different women, each story being one of three parts of the book. It starts with Orla: a recently divorced single mother who is struggling financially and emotionally and has slowly started dating. And if you’re in the mood for a police procedural series, Mishani has an Israeli procedural series that starts with The Missing File.

(TW talk of suicide as a cover for murder/ briefly mentions past loss of pregnancy)

Liberty and Vanessa chat new books on All The Books! including The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill.

Jess Sutanto announced a new book and I want it now: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is KNIVES OUT x KIM’S CONVENIENCE.

How to Murder Your Husband writer gets life in prison for husband’s murder

James Patterson apologizes for saying white male writers face ‘another form of racism’

Blue plaque recognition for Highland crime writer

Zoinks! We’re Revealing 22 Secrets About Scooby-Doo

Dear Hollywood: Stop Playing With Our Emotions and Make Idris Elba the Next James Bond Already

‘Only Murders In The Building’ Season 2 Trailer

In Detroit in 1982 Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American was beaten to death by two white Americans. The fight started in a bar and the men then went searching for Chin and killed him outside of a McDonald’s. The court case rightfully enraged the Asian community when the men only received three years of probation and a $3,000 dollar fine. This book goes into the events the night Chin was killed, the court case, the protests, the following federal civil rights trial and the Asian American movement, through interviews, court transcripts, and news.

(TW mentions past suicidal thoughts, not detailed/ xenophobia, racism)

I think the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado on April 20th 1999 remains to this day a horrific moment that most people still have wrong information about. It’s as much about the massacre as it is damning evidence against when the media gets it wrong and how it feels impossible to ever correct the information. And also how a select few in power have allowed this to continue happening in the US unlike comparable countries around the world.

(TW mass shooting/ homophobia/ ableism/ suicide, suicidal thoughts/ PTSD and survival guilt discussed)

I’m a big fan of Zehanat Khan’s Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak detective series so I did actually drop everything to read this one when I got my hands on a galley. While we move from Canada to Colorado for this series, we once again get another fantastic pairing between two detectives. One of my favorite things about Zehanat Khan’s writing is how different the characters are, even when containing many similarities. Immigrants and marginalized people so easily and constantly get painted and viewed as a monolith and it’s comforting to not only avoid that in Zehanat Khan’s novels but also find nuance.

The mystery is in a town in Colorado where a teen from a Syrian Muslim refugee family is found murdered and deliberately positioned in the local mosque. Detective Inaya Rahman—who comes with a past she’s trying to shake and is sent to places with high complaints against officers—is investigating along with Lieutenant Waqas Seif. Rahman is American, half Afghan and half Pakistani with a loving family who may drive her up a wall sometimes and are split on supporting her career but are close and always there for her. Seif has been raising and supporting his two younger brothers and unlike Rahman keeps his culture/ethnicity to himself. Enter a motorcycle gang, the discovery of missing girls the police have done nothing to look for, and a community that isn’t all welcoming and it’s a race against time to figure out who is responsible.

If you’re a fan of police procedurals don’t miss this new series and getting to know Detective Inaya Rahman.

(TW scenes of assault to rip off a hijab/ racism, xenophobia, islamophobia/ police brutality stories / brief mention past domestic abuse, not graphic/ brief recount of groping, not graphic, mentions stalking/ scene in a meat packing plant)

Sadie fans will be thrilled by Summers’ upcoming novel and its ripped-from-the-headlines story. Just note that while Sadie kept the graphic things off the page, I’m the Girl does not.

Sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis has only one goal: becoming an Aspera girl. Her mother worked at the members-only resort and after once making a comment that Georgia couldn’t, it’s all she’s ever wanted to do. With her mother dead and her older brother in charge of her, her life really takes an even darker turn when she discovers the body of a younger teen girl right before being hit by a car. Now she’s determined to solve the murder along with continuing to become an Aspera girl, which she gets one step closer when she gets hired by the owner for a different job. But obsessions can so easily impair us from seeing reality, leaving us vulnerable to danger… Much of this book is just an ominous feeling layered on top of Georgia’s obsession–it’s hard to watch and harder to put down.

(TW rape and murder of young teen case, not graphic/ past parent cancer death, not graphic/ teen sexual assault by adult on page/ brief suicide mention, detail/ predators)

On the latest All The Books! Liberty and Danika chat new releases including Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen.

From Poe to Mao: piecing together the evolution of detective stories

‘Deadly Scrolls’: Jewish mystery book takes place in Jerusalem, Qumran

James Patterson Is Unapologetically Rich

Under the Banner of Heaven Was No Mystery

Zoinks! You Can Spend a Night in The Mystery Machine—Find Out How

‘Masoom’ Trailer: Disney+ Hotstar’s Psychological Thriller Series Shows How Family Ties Unravel

Cosby’s writing puts you in every scene where you will not only reach to put your seat belt on, but also have all your senses on alert including feeling like you can taste the danger. Beauregard “Bug” Montage turned his life around to be an honest man, husband, father, business owner. But his mother is ill, his daughter needs tuition money, and bills are piling high. So he decides to take one last job from a past career–wheelman/getaway driver. He thinks that if he plans this robbery down to the T, it’ll solve all his problems and he can continue living his nice life. Except this is a crime novel so of course that’s not going to happen and Bug is going to have to figure out how to save himself, his family, and the life he’s built.

(TW parent with cancer/ homophobia, racism, slurs/ fat shaming/ torture)

This book is so good that I still regularly check to see if Harper has an upcoming book. Nate and his entire family are marked by the Aryan Brotherhood to be killed right before he’s released from prison. So even though he doesn’t really know his eleven-year-old daughter Polly, he picks her up and they go on the run—Nate trying to keep them alive and outrun the hit on them and Polly trying to process everything happening as she gets to know her dad. My favorite line of the book pretty much sums up my love of this book: “She had a teddy bear in her arms and murder in her eyes.” Polly is a forever fiercely loved character.

(Sorry I don’t remember the TWs)

‘The Fields’ Thriller Novel In Works For Television By Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories & Jennifer Todd Pictures

Sisters In Crime Opens Submissions for the Pride Award: Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writer Will Receive $2,000 Grant to Support Career Development

Cover reveal: A Good Day to Pie by Misha Popp (sequel to Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies)

We’re Living in a Golden Age of Australian Crime and Mystery Television

8 Novels about Family Secrets Lurking Right Under Your Nose

8 Shows Like The Flight Attendant to Watch While You Wait for Season 3

Tracy Beaumont has spent years trying to get an innocence project to take her father’s case. Now with only 267 days left before her father’s execution her brother is suddenly arrested, accused of killing a white girl. Tracy decides she also has to save her brother by investigating what really happened…

This is the start to a legal series that I think fans of Stephanie Plum’s humor will really enjoy. Mary DiNunzio just made partner at her law firm when Allegra, a young teenager, hires her to investigate her older sister’s murder. The thing is that murder was solved years ago, and the man accused was found guilty and is in prison. But Allegra is certain that they have the wrong man, and wants them to investigate even though her parents are against it, making this is an all around tricky case. Complicating things even more is that Mary is emotionally invested having had her husband murdered years ago, is currently debating the marriage proposal she just said yes to, and comes with a very loud family–and three Tony’s that can easily cause trouble.

(TW recounts past teen attempted suicide, detail/ recounts cancer diagnosis, not terminal/ car accident/ anti psychotropic medication conversations)

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Nell Young worked with her father in the Map Division of the New York Public Library until he became infuriated over her challenge that a gas-station highway map should be checked over rather than assuming it was not important. He had her fired and they haven’t spoken since. Now he’s found dead in his office and she discovers that he’d kept the map—and more importantly that map has been marked missing in libraries all over the country. You’ll get to know Nell in the now as she tries to solve the mystery of the map and you’ll get to know her parents and their group of friends, the Cartographers, when they were in graduate school.

This is one of those books that deals with a dark topic without being graphic for the sake of it, and using humor as a great balance. Plus, revenge. Nessa, Harriett, and Jo are three middle-aged women who during turmoil in their lives realize they’ve suddenly got a gift. Like Nessa being visited by the ghosts of dead girls hoping to be found, their killers punished. And it’s through finding a body that these different women come together to try and solve a slew of missing girl cases that the police have been treating as runaways for far too long. This is easily one of my favorite books this year, with a great audiobook narrated by January LaVoy.

(TW adult predators of teen girls as theme/ suicide / sexual harassment, groping/ domestic child abuse, not graphic/ mentions past late term pregnancy loss / sexual assault not on page or detailed, aftermath from a character not involved’s POV of being blocked from calling police)

Jerald Walker’s parents were both people born sighted who, through unrelated childhood accidents, became blind. The promise of sight is what got them into a doomsday cult that was segregated, along with their children. Here, Walker recounts his childhood, including what it was like to be a Black boy in a segregated dooms cult that was almost all white. (Zero memory of trigger warnings but I don’t remember this as being a brutal nor graphic book.)

Faith Jones grew up in Macau on an isolated farm as the granddaughter of the founder of the Children of God. While she was special for her familial connection, it in no way spared her from the cult’s abuse. (This one comes with all the trigger warnings, particularly child and sexual abuse.)