Author: Jamie Canaves

Hello mystery fans! I am properly stuffed with pecan pie and finishing off my holiday shopping. Inspired by that I have a list of gifts for mystery fans and a couple bibliophile gifts–sorry, technology doesn’t let me share my pecan pie via newsletter yet. Oh, and I found a bunch of Kindle ebook deals for you!

Stickers for any reading fan: Bibliophile stickers

This pin set is so adorable how do you not wear all 3 at once? Book Lover Pin Pals Gift Set

For fans of bookmarks and quotes: The Hate U Give Angie Thomas Quote Bookmark

For Star Wars, pun, and detective fans: Best detective mug

Because who doesn’t love Murder, She Wrote: Murder, She Wrote t-shirt

And who doesn’t love Jessica Fletcher! Murder, She Wrote unisex tshirt

Where are my Veronica Mars fans at? I’m a Marshmallow mug

For all the armchair detectives with unicorn souls: Armchair detective mug

For the Sherlock fans: Sherlock Holmes – Literature Rocks Glass

For fans of purdy books: The Folio Society has a section of crime & thrillers classics special editions.

And for true crime readers: In Cold Blood enamel, gold plated, pin.

Kindle Deals!

Start a great procedural series with Attica Locke’s Black Water Rising for $1.99!

Start another awesome procedural with Kathleen Kent’s The Dime currently $2.99! (Review) (Don’t remember TWs, sorry!)

And one more procedural series to start for $2.99! The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey (Review) (TW domestic violence/ rape/ suicide)

A great Chicago PI mystery: Broken Places by Tracy Clark is $2.99! (Review) (TW suicide)

A great P.I./Bounty Hunter teamup thriller: Two Girls Down by Louisa Luna is $2.99! (Review) (TW child cruelty/ pedophilia/ suicidal thoughts)

For a twisty past prep school mystery The Reunion by Guillaume Musso is $2.99! (Review) (TW talk of rape/ suicide, thoughts/ teacher student relationship)

If you like to see the fallout of a crime in a small community Alison Gaylin’s If I Die Tonight is $1.99! (Review) (TW suicide/ addiction)

Ben H Winter’s procedural meets apocalyptic is $1.99: The Last Policeman (If you’ve been waiting to read this trilogy the sequel and final book are also each $1.99: Countdown City and World Of Trouble)

If you’re looking for a small-town unsolved mystery Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus is $1.99! (Review)

Start a great cozy series: Friday The Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman is $1.99!

Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth retelling as a procedural is $4.99!

Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. See 2020 upcoming releases. An Unusual Suspects Pinterest board. Get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.

Hi mystery fans! It is that time of year where I look back at all I read this year and tell you my personal favorite reads. And I rounded up your personal favorites too!

My Favorite 2019 Crime Reads

The Things She’s Seen by Ambelin Kwaymullina, Ezekiel Kwaymullina: A beautiful crime novel about grief, death, family, and friendship–starring a ghost. (Review)

Heaven, My Home (Highway 59 #2) by Attica Locke: Locke is one of THE BEST crime writers. (Review)

Know My Name by Chanel Miller: One of the best memoirs, true crime books I’ve ever read. (Review)

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay: Excellent mystery and coming-of-age! (Review)

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha: I’m still thinking about the characters in this novel. (Review)

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson: Not like other spy novels! (Review)

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami: Exploring the fallout of a crime–perfect for character driven and literary fans. (Review)

A Deadly Divide (Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #5) by Ausma Zehanat Khan: My favorite entry in one of my favorite procedural series. (Review)

As Long as We Both Shall Live by JoAnn Chaney: My favorite thriller this year! (Review)

The Lost Man by Jane Harper: Makes the atmosphere a character! (Review)

Death Prefers Blondes by Caleb Roehrig: Fun, heartfelt, and full of found family! (Review)

The Stories You Tell (Roxane Weary #3) by Kristen Lepionka: Great PI series with a character I’m always rooting for. (Review)

Code Name: Lise. The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy by Larry Loftis: Page-turning narrative nonfiction! (Review)

Alice’s Island by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo: So many surprising turns! (Review)

The Vanished Bride (Brontë Sisters Mystery #1) by Bella Ellis: Fun and clever reimagining of the Brontë sisters as detectors! (Review)

And The Art of Theft (Lady Sherlock #4) by Sherry Thomas and A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4) by Deanna Raybourn are both series that any year there is a release it’s one of my favorites. (Review) and (Review)

Your Favorites! (I asked and you told me: here’s a big selection of what your fellow newsletter readers loved reading this year!)

7 votes for Jane Harper’s The Lost Man: “This book has a great mystery, great characters, and made me ugly cry.”–Aimee Dars Ellis

2 votes for The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

2 votes for Pete Fernandez conclusion Miami Midnight by Alex Segura: “A perfect encapsulation of the evolution of the character and Segura’s skills as a writer.” –Scott Cumming

2 votes for Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling’s Lethal White

Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware: “I was completely lost in the story within the first couple of pages. The suspense kept me going and I could not stop reading until I was finished.”–anonymous

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold:  “It’s a fascinating look at the lives of Victorian women and how the lives of victims of a terrible crime are often overlooked or misrepresented while the (usually male) criminal is glorified into a cult figure.”–Greg Baird

Curious Toys by Elizabeth Hand: “Incredibly well-researched and written Historical Fiction. Feels like a true crime novel with references to well known historical figures, a movie studio, and a long gone amusement park. Added bonus for it’s respectful treatment of gender identity and mental health issues. Gritty, but not gory.”–Heidi

4 votes for A Better Man by Louise Penny (and for the series): “The entire series is amazing and each book seems to get better and better. I love the characters and wish I lived in Three Pines with them.”–Anne Egbert

2 votes for The Whisper Man by Alex North: “phenomenal! Intense & creepy, awesome debut.”–Rhonda

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim: “was a unique story told by a group of interesting characters and an exciting courtroom drama.”–anonymous

Heaven, My Home by by Attica Locke

Heart of Barkness (Chet and Bernie Mystery #9) by Spencer Quinn: “Chet the Jet is why I loved it so much.”–TVL

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips: “Interesting geographical location, good characters, unique story about how one crime impacts how other people alter their behavior or thinking.”–Rachel Gould

Knife by Joe Nesbo: “This series by a Scandinavian Author is always so complex you just can’t put it down.”–Cherre Grunert

2 votes for American Predator by Maureen Callahan: “This one was really scary, in large part because of the ruthless, random, anyone-could-be-the-next-victim nature of Israel Keyes’ crimes.”–Amy Pickett

Backlist

3 votes for My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: “not like anything else I’ve read.”–Craig Pittman

The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones: “Tokyo is a big part of the story and a city I seldom read books with that setting. It features a very unlikeable main character but I was still rooting for her. Extremely unsettling ending.”–Carol

Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

In the Woods  and The Likeness by Tana French: “When the detectives make you more anguished than the criminal.”–Daniela Lopes Araujo / “Re-read in prep for the tv show! I love this series so, so much!”–Kristen

Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin: “Wilderness and crime”–Sandy

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: “One of my top five books of all time and I reread it every year or two.”–Leona Judge

The Third Squad by V. Sanjay Kumar: “I thought the writing was strange, something about the way we sat in any particular character’s viewpoint was offkilter/unstable, which completely adds to the noir setup.”–April Lott

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

The Knowledge (Richard Jury #24) by Martha Grimes: “Grimes writes beautifully, and I love the idea of a secret bar for cabbies!”–anonymous

A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem: “brilliant writing, well-drawn characters and thoughtful plot.”–Lora Martin

“I think the Stumptown series by Greg Rucka is really enjoyable. The various misadventures of a down on her luck bisexual PI picking up cases was interesting and sometimes, funny.”–Ash

“I loved Bones of the Earth by Eliot Pattison because it’s the last of a wonderful series, contains pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion and environmental protest. I also loved seeing Eliot Pattison speak about this book at the Bay Area Book Festival.”–Linda Frankel

Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. See 2020 upcoming releases. An Unusual Suspects Pinterest board. Get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.

Hello mystery fans! It’s the end of the year so publishing is starting to take some naps in preparation for the big book explosion that comes in the new year. But I still have links to click, Kindle deals and such. Next week, I’ll have my favorite reads of 2019 and yours–so many of you told me your favorite reads, I love it!

From Book Riot And Around The Internet

United States of a Mystery: Essential Georgia Crime Fiction

8 Edge-of-Your-Seat Thriller Novels You’ll Want to Read In 2020

QUIZ: How Many Teen Detectives Can You Name?

Enter to Win $50 to Your Favorite Indie Bookstore

“When I sold [Gone Girl] in 2006, no one wanted it,” Gillian Flynn told EW last year. “They said men don’t like to read about women, and women don’t like women like this woman. We’ve come a long way, but it’s important to have this vocabulary. It’s dangerous to pretend women don’t have anger.” —The unreliable narrator is the biggest book trend of the decade

Take a break from turkey and stuffing to dig into these 6 paperback titles

Best Crime Fiction 2019

Crimen Latino: Latin Crime Fiction Is the Genre’s New Wave

News And Adaptations

I am making ALL the popcorn for USA Networks’ adaptation of Megan Abbott’s Dare Me!

Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs and Alison Gaylin’s If I Die Tonight adaptations in the works.

Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen Are Incredible in ‘The Good Liar’ Adaptation

Dean Koontz reveals 6 new thrillers — and why you won’t find them in bookstores

Kindle Deals

Dark Chapter by Winnie M Li is $4.99. A novel Li wrote a decade after having been raped, exploring her ordeal from her and the attackers point of view. (Review)

Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine is $1.99 and one of those books I’ve randomly had recommended to me a lot so time for me to read it!

 

A Bit Of My Week In Reading

The end of the year always makes me restless to read all the books I was really excited to read outside of the crime genre so that’s what I’ve been doing. My libro.fm pick last month was Jaquira Díaz’s memoir Ordinary Girls (all the trigger warnings) and I loved it! This has certainly been an exceptional year for memoirs/nonfic, especially new voices loudly proclaiming they are here. I inhaled Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (TW suicide) which is funny and perfectly weird and Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet, which bathed my soul with violetas. They all have fantastic narrators on the audiobooks too!

My crime reads were/are: The Missing American by Kwei Quartey which I really liked–especially the internet scam view it gave and I’m excited it starts a series! (TW attempted rape on page/ suicide on page/ heads-up for ableism re autism) And I’m halfway into The Burn (Betty Rhyzyk #2) by Kathleen Kent and I love this character and series so much–if you’ve yet to read the first, The Dime, I highly recommend you do so before the sequel release next year.

Hope you’re reading something great!

Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. See 2020 upcoming releases. An Unusual Suspects Pinterest board. Get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.

Hi mystery fans! It’s that time of year where there are tons of Best of Lists which always reminds me that those lists are based on the writers’ limited reading and most likely publishing’s marketing. There is a misconception that books with low number of reviews aren’t good. But the case is usually that the book just didn’t get a lot of marketing (if any), got the wrong marketing, or other factors like it released when other things were very loud, and it never had a chance to get heard. So with that in mind I want to list books from this year that are under the radar but definitely deserve more noise and readers. They’re good books! (I have limited space so for full reviews/TWs click the links.)

A Prayer for Travelers by Ruchika Tomar: This was one of my favorite reads of the year, and if you were a big fan of last year’s hit Sadie by Courtney Summers you should definitely pick this one up. In a small Nevada desert town, Cale is dealing with her dying grandfather–who raised her–and trying to find her missing friend Penny. A friend who only she seems concerned to find. (Full review)

The Black Jersey by Jorge Zepeda Patterson, Achy Obejas (Translation): A whodunnit on the tour de France that’s an entertaining read even if you have zero interest in cycling. Marc, and his best friend, are racing on an elite Tour de France team when accidents start to happen. Accidents that sure could be construed as eliminating the competition. But whose competition?… (Full review)

Second Sight by Aoife Clifford: This is a great read for fans of past and present mysteries, Australian crime, missing person case, legal cases, towns reckoning with their past, and family drama. And it opened with a hell of bang! (Full review)

Girl Gone Missing (Cash Blackbear mysteries #2) by Marcie Rendon: There’s a lot of voices missing from the crime genre that I want a lot more from and Rendon is one. This is a character-driven crime novel (reads as standalone) with suspense that follows 19-year-old Chippewa woman Renee Blackbear, known as Cash, living in Fargo in the 1970s who has dreams of missing women calling to her… (Full review)

A Deadly Divide (Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #5) by Ausma Zehanat Khan: This is one of my favorite procedural series which follows two detectives working on minority cases in Canada that travels around the world and really explores a lot of social issues with nuance. (Full review)

Spin by Lamar Giles: Giles gives us three different girls, with different families and struggles who are all trying to find their way, while shining a light on the inequalities of social justice, obsession, and the dark side of social media and fame as everyone tries to find out who murdered an up-and-coming DJ. (Full review)

Borrowed Time (Cass Raines #2) by Tracy Clark: This is a great new detective series, set in Chicago following an ex-cop, that is great for fans of Sue Grafton type series. I love that this one follows Raines’ steps through the investigation from clue to clue and has character growth as her ex-partner, nun friend (who is awesome), and possible romantic partner keep orbiting her, trying to be let in. If you like solid mysteries with explosive endings and funny no-nonsense leads, you’ll really enjoy this series. (Full review)

Iced in Paradise: A Leilani Santiago Hawai’i Mystery by Naomi Hirahara: This was such a a great mystery read that is filled with family, culture, food–and if you didn’t already want to go to Hawai’i you certainly will now. I think this one works really well for fans of cozy mysteries, but also for those who shy away from cozy mysteries thinking they’re too slow. (Full review)

Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. See 2020 upcoming releases. An Unusual Suspects Pinterest board. Get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.