Author: Jamie Canaves

Veracity is a business people on dating apps go to when they want to verify a match, meaning you want to make sure they aren’t really married, are telling you the truth about things, etc. This is where Claudia Lin has started working, a secret she’s keeping from her family.
But her first case immediately goes sideways and Claudia basically goes rogue continuing to investigate, breaking all kinds of protocols. But what else would a young woman who grew up reading mysteries do in this situation? Especially one who constantly thinks of the fictional Inspector Yuan, and how he solves cases.

That’s not all she’s dealing with though, as we get to see a lot of her interactions with her Chinese-American family and how they play a huge role in her decisions whether because of or against them. She’s her mom’s favorite, through no fault of her own, and that causes tension with her siblings. Her brother wants to get her the kind of job he thinks she should have and so she tells no one about her real job. The book explores the roles expected of us in families and the push and pull through them even when there is love.

(TW case revolves around whether a death ir suicide or not, detail/ brief mentions of past domestic and child abuse)

I’d place this book in the mystery category because the first half is solving a mystery, but I’d also gently move it into the crime category.

Sam and Elli are twins who grew up working in television. The problem was that only Sam wanted to act, not Elli, so they learned how to switch places whenever one didn’t want to do something the other did. Cut to Sam as a child star addict and Elli desperately wanting to go back to just being a regular kid.

Now Sam is a year sober, and a year into not having seen or spoken to Elli when Sam gets called home by her parents because Elli hasn’t returned home from a retreat. Turns out her parents can no longer watch Elli’s toddler, a toddler that Sam had no idea even existed. Wanting to make up for years of being viewed as a disappointment, she decides to care for her niece and continue to work on her sobriety. But where exactly is her sister and what kind of retreat is it?…

The book is sectioned into three parts, taking us into each sister’s life then and now through their perspective of how they got to where they are. There’s the current crime, the predicament, and what exactly happened to Elli. The book dives into identity, child acting, what we owe other people and ourselves, and feminist wellness cults.

I definitely got sucked into these women’s lives with the audiobook, which gives each sister a narrator: Julia Whelan and Kate Rudd.

(TW infertility/ addiction/ brief biphobia/ brief fatphobia, diet culture/ emotional cult abuse)

This is a great book that really sucked me into these women’s lives. It starts with “Aftermath” which is a brief opening that gives the impression that a crime has been committed, but we don’t know who or what really. And that’s it, until the end…

We follow Ronke, Boo, and Simi who have been really close friends for almost two decades, having bonded initially over all of them being Anglo-Nigerian. They’re all in very different places in their lives and trying their best, but not always succeeding. Ronke is really happy with her boyfriend Kayode and thinks she’s finally found the one but she can’t get her friends on board with this idea since she’s had really bad boyfriends in the past and they assume it’s just another repeat. Boo has the “perfect” life but is unfulfilled and frustrated and taking it out on her husband and daughter. Simi is secretly on the pill while her husband thinks they’re trying for a baby and she’s always stressed at work, while everyone thinks she’s got the perfect life/career. Then Simi brings along a childhood friend, Isobel, to one of the girls’ lunches; some take a dislike and others love how Isobel seems to make them feel freer and opens doors. Slowly each of the friends’ personal lives and friendships start to crack…

I loved the audiobook narrator, Natalie Simpson, and the dive into biracial Nigerian British women’s lives and I inhaled this one. Definitely one of my favorites of the year.

(TW recounts partner abuse, including sexual, not graphic/ stalker/ mentions cancer diagnosis, not detailed/ brief moment partner possible attempted assault/ colorism/ fatphobia/ mentions past suicide, no detail/ mentions past suicide attempt, detail/ domestic abuse)

Equally for fans of Big Little Lies and dark academia. I got sucked into this audiobook (narrated by Teri Schnaubelt) as an escape into other people’s fictional drama, and there is plenty of it. We start with a crime, a police interview, and then we’re taken six months back into time—very much follows the setup of BLL.

Three women aren’t really thriving: Natalie is taking care of her brother and working at an elite school where she does not have the financial status of everyone she’s surrounded by; Brooke’s husband left her after one too many affairs on her part and she’s trying to get him back while separately trying to keep her daughter’s boyfriend away from her daughter; Asha thinks her husband is having an affair and is trying to get her daughter into college based on her athletic abilities and is afraid to reveal she is accidentally pregnant.

In this one while you do get sucked into the women’s lives, you also never forget that there has been a crime committed and someone is under suspicion because we get some police interrogation chapters throughout.

(TW addiction/ nude photos taken and shared without consent/ use of date rape drugs/ predator/ brief mention past suicide attempt, detail/ brief suicidal ideation mention, no detail/ potential past sexual assault questioned/ brief pregnancy complication that turns out fine)

If you’re looking for a PI mystery and like missing person cases, here’s a great start to a new series. Yolanda Avila is now a PI, having left the LAPD because of harassment. She’s trying to ignore what may be prophetic dreams, something she’ll have to come to terms with when her godson is kidnapped and her wife begins getting threatening notes at work… Bonus if you’re a fan of PIs with great family and friend support systems.

(TW child abduction/ active pedophile case in the city, no graphic details/ anxiety attack)

This is a perfect choice for mystery lovers whose taste falls in the middle between cozies and dark mysteries. Lena Scott is estranged from her half-sister Desiree Pierce, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know her sister well enough to know she didn’t die the way investigators are saying. So Lena goes digging into Desiree’s life to not only solve the case but also process a lot of past hurt and family issues. (Review)

Alex Segura took his immense knowledge of the comic book industry (having worked as Co-President at Archie Comics and Executive Director of Publicity at DC) and set a murder in the center of 1970s comic industry drama, all revolving around a Miami transplant in NY trying to break into the industry as a writer. (Review)

If you like your mysteries with humor and romance, this is a great series full of entertainment. This is the sequel to Dial A For Aunties (review) and it continues that story. Meddy Chan is a wedding photographer with a family that works in the wedding industry, but she has to give up the reigns for her own wedding. That is until she discovers someone is planning on using her wedding to go through with a hit job—let all the ridiculous antics ensue.

(TW non graphic brief discussions of past sexual assault)

What happens when you’ve dedicated your life to being an assassin and have reached an elderly age? Hornclaw is about to find out!

(TW attempted sexual assault/ mentions drug overdose/ baby murder/ child kidnapping/ natural dog death)

If you’re looking for something fun, with the feel of magic that isn’t fantasy, and that relies on the puzzle solving of mysteries, this is a great new series starter! Come for the mystery, stay for the family, magic, and food. (review)

This is the third entry in this great PI series that usually pairs two complete opposite PIs together. If you avoid darker content you can start with this one–you won’t be lost–which is based on a missing person case when a husband hires Vega to find his wife’s long missing boyfriend. If you want to start at the beginning of this series, pickup Two Girls Down (review)

(TW suicide not on page, detail, questioned as murder/ animal cruelty/ white nationalist, nazi group)

If you’re looking for a mystery with a ghost, love past and present mysteries, and true crime bloggers as the lead, this is a great page-turner!

(TW mentions past attempted child kidnapping, brief mention of sexual assault, not graphic/ alcoholism/ brief mention of past partner abuse/ mostly alludes to child abuse incident, not graphic/ speculates sexual assault, mentions past rape, not graphic)

This is a dark series that starts at the ending of the first book, so pick up The Initial Insult (Review) if you haven’t already. So I won’t say much about the sequel other than if you’re a fan of revenge tale,s pick up the first book and you’ll automatically need the second to see the fallout and consequences…

In need of a popcorn thriller and love Dolly Parton’s personality? You’ll quickly be turning the pages as a young woman lands in Nashville trying to make it as a singer while trying to outrun her past… (review)

The #MeToo movement, created by Tarana Burke in 2006, exploded on social media in 2017 following sexual abuse allegations about Harvey Weinstein. It’s been years and we are still living in a rape culture. What the movement did was publicly speak on how prevalent sexual assault is, the failings of our system to stop or punish perpetrators, and it helped victims feel less alone. This memoir moves us out of the US’s rape culture and takes us instead to Japan. Shiori Itō shares with us how she got into journalism, her studies, her pursuit of a job and how that led to her sexual assault by a fellow journalist promising to help her get a job. She takes readers into what she remembers of the assault, going to the police (being assigned a traffic cop and having to then explain it again to a detective), and all the ways the system fails victims of assault. Her goal with writing this memoir and sharing her story is to discuss trauma more openly, fix the legal system (she points out many places where a different option, type of help, and/or process could have helped her), and to end rape culture. As an American reader I couldn’t help but see the differences and similarities in our rape cultures, legal systems, and victim advocacy groups. It’s not an easy read, I spent most of it infuriated, but it’s an incredibly important read.

(TW rape/ talks of suicide, thoughts in diary, detail/ sexual harassment/ child public groping/ PTSD/ panic attacks)

This cozy mystery became a great audiobook pairing with jigsaw puzzle-making when my brain was just oozing out of my ears at the end of the work day. Hayden McCall is a teacher and blogger who goes home with a go-go dancer who accidentally kicked him in the face. After a night of just cuddling (it’s a cozy) McCall discovers that Camilo Rodriguez is no longer there, which is strange considering it’s Rodriguez’s home. Then the police knock on the door looking for Rodriguez and soon McCall is in a full blown mystery of finding where his one-night cuddle buddy has gone off to. He finds Rodriguez’s social circle and ends up joining with his friend Hollister to follow clues to figure out what was going on in Rodriguez’s life to make him leave his car abandoned and disappear. All the while McCall keeps coming up with ideas and writing blog entries—think Carrie Bradshaw but a short, redheaded gay man trying to solve a missing person’s case.

(TW mom passed away from cancer in past)

I really enjoyed this audiobook a lot. I’m a huge fan of Tamaki’s graphic novels and would also love to see this story adapted in her style and using a color story like she did for This One Summer and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me.

In Cold we get a slightly outside-the-box mystery, which I really appreciated. Todd Mayer is found naked and dead in the snow. Classmate Georgia didn’t know him but becomes obsessed with the idea of how she can relate to him and his death. Then she suddenly realizes she had recently seen him before he died… We get narration from Georgia and from deceased Todd.

Siblings: Georgia’s mom is a bestselling author of children’s books where she uses Georgia and her brother as characters. While no longer close, much of the book is Georgia trying to connect with her brother or orbiting around him as she tries to figure out who Todd was, what happened to him, and who she is.

(TW homophobia/ fatphobia/ brief mention of child predators, not graphic nor detailed)

The mother of a family has gone missing and the question is: could the father have had anything to do with it?

Siblings: We watch the relationship of four children, now adults, who were raised by tennis coaches and forced into tennis competitions growing up. They’re now all very different, struggling in their own ways, carrying grievances from childhood and now dealing with the disappearance of their mother.

(TW domestic violence/ briefly mentions past date rape, not detailed/ eating disorder/ mentions past teen having suicidal thoughts with no details/ anxiety)

This has all the fun of an is-the-house-haunted horror with all the smarts of a social thriller.

Siblings: Marigold (Mari) has a younger brother and now a younger stepsister. This newly blended family has moved to a new city to help Mari leave the past behind, but does the present mean having an evil stepsister?

(TW addiction/ past overdose mentions, not graphic/ obsessive thoughts/ past child murder mentioned, not graphic or detailed)

Ellice Littlejohn is a corporate lawyer who walks into work early one day to meet with her boss, also lover, and finds him dead. Wanting nothing to do with having to answer questions, she leaves and lets someone else find him. But the detective zeroes in on her as she’s suddenly fast tracked up the ranks. Now she has to keep herself from being the main suspect while also figuring out what actually happened, and how much danger she’s in…

Siblings: We get the past and present story of Ellice and her brother. In the past we watch them grow up with a surrogate mother as their birth mother deals with addiction and in the present we watch how the past still has its hooks in their relationship.

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

Virgil Wounded Horse lives in South Dakota on the Rosebud Indian Reservation and is now responsible for his younger brother. That’s why he takes a higher paying job he would rather not touch for reasons that include that it’s his ex-girlfriend’s father hiring him. But when the case hits too close to home, he has to team up with his ex-girlfriend and the FBI to figure out what is happening on their reservation.

Siblings: Virgil is an introspective and curious person who has cleaned up his life and is now in the position of being a parent to his younger brother.

(TW addiction/ mentions suicides, one with detail/ past rapes including children mentioned, not graphic/ child death/ pedophile, crimes off page/ fat shaming)

For fans of historical mysteries, welcome to 1845, Yorkshire. A young mother has disappeared leaving only a pool of blood behind. Who will solve this case? The Brontë sisters! This works equally well for Brontë and classics fans and people who don’t care for either so long as you enjoy historical mysteries and old school detecting.

Siblings: Charlotte, Emily, and Anne all love each other while also bickering because they have totally different personalities.

(TW domestic violence/ addiction/ alludes to past statutory rape)

Here’s a mystery I like to call a “for everyone” since it never goes cozy nor dark and is a solid mystery that understands the genre allowing readers to help put together the pieces of the puzzle. Lena Scott doesn’t quite believe the story surrounding her sister’s death and she sets out to find out exactly what happened.

Siblings: Lena and Desiree are estranged half-sisters. Desiree got to grow up with a relationship with her father, while Lena did not. Now Lena has to delve into all the family issues and find her way back to her sister, even if she’s no longer alive.

(TW addiction/ speculation of suicide conversation)

Jess asks her brother Ben if she can crash with him for a bit, because as usual she’s in need. Ben isn’t ecstatic about it but surely he isn’t so upset that he just wouldn’t be at his apartment waiting for Jess like he planned? Except he’s not, and no one in the apartment complex seems to know where Ben is. So Jess starts trying to find out what happened to her brother…

Siblings: Ben and Jess are half-siblings who were separated as children in the foster care system and ended up with different lives.

(TW: diet culture, fatphobia/ brief mention past child abuse, not graphic/ potential partner abuse/ mentions past child predator, no details/ sexual harassment, flashing/ opiates/ mentions past statutory, not graphic/ date rape drug used, no assault/ stalking, obsession/ attempted suicide/ mentions past infertility/ forced prostitution/ brief mention of suicide, detail)

After Sadie’s younger sister dies, she sets out a plan for revenge only to disappear herself. We follow Sadie’s path and also a true crime podcaster who is following Sadie to find out what happened to her.

Siblings: Sadie had been raising her sister Mattie when Mattie was found dead and we get to know their relationship as Sadie sets out for revenge and as the podcaster looks into what happened.

(TW child abuse/ pedophile/ attempted suicide mentioned)

Fred and Sheila Merton are found murdered after Easter in their upstate New York home. The suspects: their three children. All claiming innocence, all wondering if the other did it.

Siblings: adult siblings who grew up wealthy who don’t get along and don’t trust each other not to be the murderer. They all look guilty.

(TW emotional abuse/ past child and domestic abuse, not graphic/ past suicide, detail)

Beth, Portia, and Eddie don’t get along and don’t even really speak to each other. And then they’re thrown into a car together, with spouses/partners, for a cross country road trip meant to relive a childhood vacation with their grandfather in order to inherit $3+ million. A thing I love about Downing is that you’re not even always sure you’re in a crime/thriller novel until she drives you off a cliff (figuratively).

Siblings: No one likes each other nor have even spoken in years. add in spouses and a clause in the will that nixes the inheritance if anyone is jailed, deviates from the plan, or doesn’t finish the trip: what can possibly go wrong?

(TW past partner abuse discussed discussions of molestation, not detailed or graphic)