Author: Jamie Canaves

A coming of age, a love letter to Brooklyn, and a murder mystery by one of the best YA crime writers is $2.99! So obviously run to this. (Review)

A Japanese murder mystery, sectioned into parts following different residents living and/or working in a business district as Detective Kyoichiro Kaga tries to unravel who is a murderer and why. If you’re looking for more mystery and translated work I read everything translated to English that Higashino has written. And here’s one for $2.99! (Review)

This is one of my recent favorite series, which is just those mysteries that you pick up and are fully absorbed from beginning to end as it hits all the procedural notes you look for. And it’s $2.99! (Review)

Nonviolent true crime + bananapants is a thing I am ALWAYS here for. Who owns dinosaur bones and can you just dig them up and sell them for ridiculous sums of money? Find out for $2.99. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio seems to make appearances in the nonviolent true crime I read, including this one. (Review)

Prep school setting, secret society, drama, secrets, and past mystery for the winning price of $1.99! (Review)

This has it all: spies, history, governments planning assassinations, the founding of the United Nations, 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.”

Dag Hammarskjöld was a Swedish economist and the second Secretary-General of the United Nations whose death, along with the deaths of everyone on board, in a plane crash on Sept. 17, 1961 has remained unsolved. The fact that a prominent political figure, with many enemies, died in a plane crash that went unchecked until the next day; that there were over 10 known spies from various countries in the area; that the investigation deemed a dozen witnesses who all saw the same thing (another plane in the sky) as not reliable; and more, fed the flames of conspiracy theories for years. And it wasn’t until 2014 that the U.N finally appointed someone to reexamine this case.

Here, Somaiya–who narrates the audiobook–which I highly recommend!–unravels the man, Hammarskjöld; the politics, including the history of the Congo, the creation of the U.N., and the hatred towards it; and looks at all the theories that have been presented over the years. “Never believe anything until it is officially denied.”

I liked that I didn’t need to pause to go look up footnotes etc for more information, but, rather, Somaiya makes clear in the narrative whether it is one person’s uncorroborated or corroborated account, and the source material, or when it’s unknown, without this ever feeling like a textbook. There is a lot of interesting information in here, especially if you don’t know much about the Congo or the U.N. Spoiler: colonizers ruin everything. While the book does not end with a pretty bow and a “solved” stamp, it does make clear from all the gathered evidence and information the most likely theory, including explaining the points that work and don’t, and why, for each of the main theories over the years, including mercenary planes, hijackers, and government assassination plots.

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

Did you know that the queen of crime Agatha Christie has a very real mystery from her life that has remained unsolved? She disappeared for 11 days in 1926 and claimed memory loss of that time when she was found. I mean if anything is prime for conspiracy theories, a mystery author disappearing and almost 100 years later it still being unsolved should do it.

Here, Benedict has imagined a why/how for the part we don’t know by writing a novel that alternates between Agatha Christie and her husband Archibald Christie. We start with Agatha Christie loosely engaged to a man when she meets Archie. We watch their courtship, her home life with her mother, her relationship with her sister, and how she started writing. Archie’s chapters alternate starting with his learning of his wife’s disappearance, the case that ensues, the media focus, and him becoming a suspect.

For a book that is based on a mystery I already know, and had assumptions about what it was going to do before reading, I still found myself very much turning the pages late into the night fascinated by Christie and enraged by the “life lessons” she was taught about marriage. While I generally very much move away from things that impose themselves on very real people without their consent, something about the hundred year time span let me pick this one up. Watching Christie’s life unfold as she became a mystery writer and became a mystery herself was clever and I think has a broad reader appeal. I will note that if you’ve still never read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd it will be spoiled for you (if it hasn’t already), and also you may be left with a very strong desire to (re)read all of Christie’s work.

(TW brief lore summarized vaguely alludes to assault and suicide/ a discussion about suicide not being a possibility)

If you’re looking for a modern mystery with nods to gothic stories and love a book inside of a book, here’s a great start to a recent series for $2.99! (Review)

If you’re looking for an international police procedural, here’s one set in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia written by a former Investigation Officer in the Malaysian police force. And it’s $1.99!

If you want a character-driven suspense novel with multiple points of view, here’s one for $2.99! (Review)

If you’re looking for a murder mystery that questions where exactly the line of good vs bad is, here’s one, by an author I really like, for $2.99! (Review)

If you’re looking to read short stories, here’s a collection by the queen of mystery herself for $2.99!

The 4th book in one of my all time favorite historical mystery series–and my favorite Sherlock– is only $1.99! (Review)

This is both a locked room mystery and a remote mystery, so basically two of my favorite things for the price of one! Wealthy Kozaburo Hamamoto has built a literally crooked house (sloping floors and the building is leaning–yes, think of Italy) in the remote northern tip of Japan, Hokkaido island. And, in 1984, Kozaburo and his daughter Eiko invite guest to stay over for Christmas in the house.

It starts with you meeting everyone as they arrive, Kozaburo setting up puzzle challenges for some guests, and telling his daughter if she wants to marry between two of the guests he could challenge them and see who solved his puzzles. But the festivities put the red in Christmas, no matter how much white snow is falling, when the murders start. In locked rooms! Clearly it has to be one of them, and the local detectives are staying over to figure out who. But they’ll be competing with Kiyoshi Mitarai, a famous detective who can obviously figure this out over the local detectives–you get Agatha Christie inspiration and Sherlock Holmes, more two for the price of one.

This was fun and balanced how much you care about people when you know people are gonna be dying, and it was interesting to see how much early British mysteries have influenced Japanese mysteries. I always figure these out, but this has an added element I don’t think anyone will solve 100% of, which I appreciated.

(TW attempted suicide, brief detail mentioned/fatphobia)

First a note: if you read Foley’s previous book and were bothered by the use of mental illness as the boogieman, I felt this one didn’t do that.

This is not a locked room mystery but a remote setting mystery that was one of the big books of last year. A clever thing I enjoyed about it is that you don’t actually know who is dead at the start so the mystery is both who did it, but also to whom? It’s a wedding and so everyone should be celebrating but L O L this is a murder mystery so it’s just gonna be drama and secrets and at least one dead body. The bride and groom are wealthy, influential, and one is a mild celebrity with a survival type reality TV show, and they’ve invited family and friends to an island off Ireland’s west coast.

We start with the scream, something awful has certainly happened and then we go back briefly in time to meet those arriving along with the bride and groom and the wedding planner who lives on the ten bedroom property the guests are staying at. Everyone has secrets and drama (family, romantic, friendship) and life problems as we rotate between the wedding planner, bridal party, bride, groom, and the bride’s best friend’s wife. The bride has issues with her mom stemming from her childhood, the bride’s sister is going through a breakup, the bride’s best-friend and his wife are trying to finally take a proper holiday from their kids, and the groom and his best mates are caught up in reverting back to adolescent behavior. It’s fun when it feels like many people have many reasons to want to kill a few people–it’s fiction, don’t judge me.

I went with the audiobook because it’s multi-voiced and that always makes me feel like the characters are easily separated and more defined. So if you audio, I recommend that format.

(TW self harm on page/ disordered eating talk/ fatphobia/ Non-consensual distribution of sexual images or video/ suicide, detail)

If you’re looking to read more translated work here’s a slow-burn Japanese crime novel for $1.99! (Review)

Snowed in strangers at an inn and someone dies; who amongst them did it? For $1.99! (Review)

For true crime readers, here’s one by a journalist who was friends with Michelle McNamara that you can read for $2.99!