Hi, mystery fans! How’s the new year treating you? I’ve been laughing a lot watching Mr. Queen (Netflix), relieving stress by stress playing Rayman Legends (Nintendo Switch), and reading a ton—my first read of the year was The Swayze Year: You’re Not Old, You’re Just Getting Started!
2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!
Bookish Goods
Raccoon Reading Book Jigsaw Puzzle by SimplyIdeasShop
The squeal that left my body when I saw this! ($17+, Options on how many pieces you want)
New Releases
Last Seen in Lapaz (Emma Djan Investigation #3) by Kwei Quartey
This is a new-in-paperback release this week!
Here’s a series for fans of PIs at an agency, mysteries set outside of the US, and missing person cases that unfold into even more crimes.
Emma Djan is a PI working for an agency in Accra, Ghana. The case currently assigned involves a diplomat’s daughter, Ngozi Ojukwu, who, rather than starting college, disappeared in Lagos, Nigeria. It’s believed she ran off with her boyfriend, Femi, except he’s found murdered and has been involved in human trafficking. So Emma goes undercover in the hopes of finding out what happened to Ngozi.
If you want to start at the beginning of this series, pick up The Missing American, and if you like completed series, pick up Quartey’s Wife of the Gods, which starts the Darko Dawson procedural series.
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
For fans of secret identity, con women, and cat and mouse games!
Evie Porter isn’t really Evie Porter. She’s been assigned this identity, after screwing up her past assignment, by whoever her mysterious boss is. She’s determined to make up for her last job, except a few things happen: she likes the man she’s dating, Ryan Sumner, who is supposed to be her target, and a woman shows up in Evie’s life with Evie’s actual identity. Clearly, someone is after her, but who and why? And how is she going to outsmart them…?
This was an audiobook (narrated by Saskia Maarleveld) that I knew absolutely nothing about and hit play just to see if the beginning interested me, and OOP, suddenly all my chores were done, and I was at the end having read a very satisfying mystery.
(TW parent death by cancer)
Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!
Riot Recommendations
Here are two big mystery tropes in other genres!
The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu
For fans of Shakespeare retellings and locked-room murder mysteries, who want to try (or already read) sci-fi!
Imagine Hamlet but in a high-tech lab with an Operating System AI who wants to be called Horatio and Dr. Graham Lichfield, who has been murdered and needs his son Hayden to avenge his death! But who is Ophelia, you may ask? The security head of the lab’s daughter, Felicia Xia.
Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
For fans of cults and having to return to the town you escaped who are looking to try (or already read) horror!
Imagine leaving the cult you were raised in at 18 — your mother, a horror actress, is a leader in said cult — only to return home after receiving an invitation to the wedding of your ex-best friend and your previous boyfriend. What could go wrong?!
News and Roundups
New mafia book stands out because of the background of its author, an ex-mobster
The Most Anticipated Mystery and Thriller Books of 2024
The Novels of Argentine Author Claudia Piñeiro — More Than Mysteries
New Year, New Bullet Journal Supplies
Harlem After Midnight, Fall, and more mystery books to kick off the year
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!
Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.
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