Hello fellow mystery fans! If you will be in NY on the 28th (currently wishing I still lived there–remembers it’s cold, forgets wish) Megan Abbott and Patton Oswalt will be at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights presenting Michelle McNamara’s true crime I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. (To buy tickets) No, you’re crying already!
Sponsored by Flatiron Books
My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:
- I’m in a coma.
- My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
- Sometimes I lie.
Walter Mosley Has a New Novel and I Hope It Becomes a Series (Trigger Warning: rape)
Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley: Joe King Oliver was an NYPD cop until he was accused of rape and went to jail. Years later, after being released, his life now basically revolves around his PI work and his teenage daughter who helps out in his office. King finds himself needing to solve two cases: his own, after the woman who accused him of rape sends him an apology (this does not go down the route of women are psycho and vindictive so they falsely accuse); trying to find justice for a journalist convicted of killing two cops. As always, Mosley does a great job navigating between law and justice, and exposing racism–my favorite part of the book though was King’s relationship with his daughter and her character. I hope if this is the beginning of this series that we get to see a lot more of that. (If you’ve never read Mosley before and are overwhelmed by his immense catalog, here’s a Reading Pathways.)
Good Ol’ Fashion Detective Work to Catch the Killer! (Trigger Warnings: child murder/ suicide)
A Grave Talent (Kate Martinelli, #1) by Laurie R. King: Recently promoted to Homicide Detective, Kate Martinelli is paired with veteran Al Hawkins on a difficult case: a string of child murders. The case only gets more complicated once they think they’ve got a huge break in the case in finding a once convicted child murderer hiding out in a small community outside San Francisco. This is really my favorite type of mystery: psychology and human behavior are explored; the detectives are interesting with great chemistry (not romantic in nature, Martinelli is a lesbian); the clues slowly build up; there’s an “obsession”– in this case painting. I was left wanting to immediately grab the next in the series and I really enjoyed Alyssa Bresnahan’s calm, smooth narration on the audiobook.
Links:
If a giveaway for $500 of Penguin clothbound classics sounds amazing to you then head on over to Book Riot’s Instagram to enter!
Rincey and Katie talk about suspenseful romance novels on the latest Read or Dead.
Amazon’s Bosch series (adapted from Michael Connely‘s novels) has been renewed for a 5th season and here’s the trailer for season 4 which premieres April 13th.
Alicia Vikander will star in the thriller adaptation of Karen Dionne’s The Marsh King’s Daughter.
The true crime podcast Criminal is doing a six-part series This Is Love which started on Valentine’s Day.
Another book (McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny) saw a huge jump in sales thanks to a popular adaptation: The real McMasterminds behind McMafia: The BBC thriller isn’t just must-see TV, it’s a scarily realistic portrayal of international crime – and these are the villains it’s based on.
The Onion onioned: the ‘Onion’ skewers the true-crime podcast.
I don’t necessarily agree with all the points, but I’ve been thinking about this one a bit: Why Our True Crime Obsession is Bad For Society. ( My Friend Dahmer didn’t read like an obsession about the serial killer so much as a look at the time before he began killing, showing so many ways in which help was never offered or even attempted. And I think there is a lot of bad work regarding true crime but I think there needs to be a space to study how our society creates problems in order to do the work of doing better.)
Suspenseful Noir (Trigger Warnings: domestic abuse/ rape)
Sunburn by Laura Lippman: I kind of want to just say that if you’re a fan of the exploration of the “unlikable woman” and Megan Abbott, go read this without knowing anything about it. But here’s more info: Polly leaves her husband and child for good, without any notice, while on vacation. While debating her next life move she takes a job as a waitress in a small Delaware town. That’s where she meets Adam, who’s passing through. But soon their lives begin to meld, which really isn’t great for a woman trying to reveal as little about herself as possible. The suspense grows from all that we realize we don’t know about characters with the little reveals we get… (Susan Bennett narrates the audiobook in a calm, slightly monotone-ish voice which is exactly the voice I’d heard when reading the book.)
Kindle Deals:
Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson is $1.99 (review)
Dragon Bones (Red Princess #3) by Lisa See is $1.99 (The last book in this trilogy that pairs an American lawyer with a Chinese lawyer who met while studying in the U.S.)
Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. And if you like to put a pin in things here’s an Unusual Suspects board.
Until next time, keep investigating! And in the meantime come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canaves.