Hello fellow mystery lovers! This week I’ve rounded up books that center around the Did he or didn’t he? mystery–think just the opening mystery of Gone Girl and whether Nick did or didn’t have something to do with his wife’s disappearance…
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Threads of Suspicion by Dee Henderson.
New from USA Today Bestselling Author Dee Henderson!
With the public eye fixed on the governor’s new Missing Persons Task Force, Detective Evie Blackwell and her new partner, David, are under pressure to produce results. As they investigate two missing-persons cases in Chicago—a student and a private investigator—they try to find patterns in the threads left behind. But when their personal lives get entangled with the cases and time runs short, will their theories still have too many holes?
“Henderson displays her usual keen understanding of the human psyche…These mysteries take unexpected, intriguing turns on their way to a satisfying finale.”—Publishers Weekly
Did he or didn’t he? for fans of Law & Order:
The Ex by Alafair Burke: Jack Harris has just been arrested for the murder of three people, including a person connected to Jack’s wife’s murder. Lucky for Jack his ex-fiance Olivia Randall is a criminal defense lawyer and believes him that he didn’t do this. But could she be right about someone she knew long ago? Could she have not really known him that well when they were together? Is she blinded by her own guilt from a past event and not seeing things clearly? Or is he really innocent?…
Did he or didn’t he? with a vicious bite!
Follow Me Down by Sherri Smith: Mia Haas is forced to return to her hometown when she’s alerted that her twin brother is missing. While Mia is trying to prove that something awful must have happened to her brother, everyone else is linking his disappearance to the death of one of his students. Mia can’t, and won’t, believe that the brother she’s always known to be the golden boy of the town would have any improper involvement with a student, let alone their murder. The problem is Mia is struggling with an addiction to prescription drugs while trying to lead her own secret investigation and the evidence she’s finding can read both ways to her: as possibly exonerating her brother or the nail in his coffin.
Did he or didn’t he? past & present mystery!
The Dry by Jane Harper: Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for the funeral of Luke, a childhood best friend. Making an already awful return home even worse is that he’d fled the town that turned on him twenty years earlier and his friend is believed to have died by his own hand in a murder-suicide. Now Falk finds himself being urged to look into whether it really was a murder-suicide and he’s forced to face a secret that him and Luke shared so many years before. Will the past make Falk look elsewhere for a killer or lead him to admit that Luke was capable of murdering his family? (Reese Witherspoon optioned the film rights back in 2015 and I’m hoping for another HBO type miniseries.)
AND unrelated to this Did he or didn’t he? theme BUT related to your give-me-more-mysteries desire here are four recent paperback releases:
You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
The Verdict by Nick Stone
The Kingdom by Fuminori Nakamura (Author), Kalau Almony (Translator)
I leave you with:
Over on Book Riot Deepali Agarwal takes a deep dive into the top 100 mystery/thrillers on Goodreads–sadly, none of the results are surprising.
An Author-to-author Interview: Fiction vs. True Crime where Celeste NG (Everything I Never Told You) and Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir) have a chat.
A real life mystery: Who is buried in H.H. Holmes’ grave? (You may know him as the “White City Devil” or from Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America) It turns out there is question about whether this serial killer is buried in his grave…or was someone else hanged and buried in 1896?…
And more news from the Patterson book machine: James Patterson will be partnering with former President Bill Clinton for a thriller novel titled–wait for it… The President is Missing. (<—You can already pre-order.)
Until next time, keep investigating! And in the meantime come talk books with me on Twitter and Litsy— you can find me under Jamie Canaves.