Hi, mystery fans! If you’re a Nintendo Switch player, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying playing Rayman® Legends Definitive Edition — it’s fun, just the right amount of increasingly challenging, and reminds me of a combo of the things I like about Nintendo’s Super Mario and Sega’s Sonic. My current life mission is beating this game! (“You gotta have a goal. Do you have a goal?”)
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
Book Stud Earrings by OliveAndIvyByWhitney
These are lovely stud earrings for book lovers — and make a great gift. ($10)
New Releases
Wander in the Dark by Jumata Emill
For fans of YA murder mysteries, family drama, siblings (brothers), and amateur sleuths!
At the heart of this murder mystery are two half-brothers: Amir and Marcel Trudeau. They aren’t on speaking terms, rooted in their mothers’ dislike of each other and their father raising one son while essentially having left the other. Amir ultimately goes to Marcel’s 16th birthday party, though, because of a girl, which turns out terribly for everyone: the girl is murdered, Amir is the suspect, and now Marcel and Amir are forced to hash out their family issues and solve a murder.
I really enjoyed the balance of the family drama, Amir and Marcel fighting their way to a better relationship, Marcel investigating, the New Orleans setting, and the dive into the prejudice in our justice system and our current media.
I love that the audiobook gave each brother his own narrator: Kevin R. Free and Nile Bullock.
I also really enjoyed Emill’s previous YA murder mystery, The Black Queen, and look forward to future books.
(TW past animal cruelty)
Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect (Ernest Cunningham #2) by Benjamin Stevenson
For fans of author main characters, bookish books, remote mysteries, and murder mysteries where a handful of people are all suspects with motives!
Author Ernest Cunningham is invited to attend the 50th Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival to be on writing panels, along with bestselling authors, while on a luxury train traveling the Australian desert. Surely (don’t call me Shirley!), you can see all the delicious mystery tropes ahead: an author is murdered, and the fellow authors become both prime suspects and essentially “detectives” to find out what actually happened!
You don’t need to read the first in the series — they can each be read as standalones — but it’s a fun, creative, remote mystery if you’re interested: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone.
Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!
Riot Recommendations
If you’re a fan of adaptations, here are two January mystery/crime adaptations that are under the radar.
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
The book: For fans of character-driven novels following a desperate, self-loathing woman who is slowly building up to an ending of crime/suspense! Eileen Dunlop explains how, in the 1960s, at age 24, she disappeared from the small town where she worked at a boy’s prison.
The adaptation: The film, starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin Katherin, is available on VOD and DVD at the moment.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
The book: For fans of classic detective novels! A simple enough case at the start turns into anything, but when Miss Wonderley hires Detective Spade to locate her eloped sister, only Spade’s partner ends up shot, and Spade is now being hunted…
The adaptation: Monsieur Spade, starring Clive Owen, takes us into the detective’s retirement (30 years after the novel’s setting) for a “one more case” plot. It’s currently playing on AMC and streaming on AMC+.
News and Roundups
5 of the Internet’s Theories About the Author of Argylle, From Most to Least Ridiculous
Congrats to all the finalists and the crime books Vengeance Is Mine by Marie NDiaye, Judgment and Mercy: The Turbulent Life and Times of the Judge Who Condemned the Rosenbergs by Martin J. Siegel, and Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba: 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalists Announced
Fascinating and soothing to watch: Syndetics Unbound’s year-end “Top Titles” list for all of 2023!
Amanda Seyfried To Headline Limited Series Long Bright River For Peacock
2023’s Most Influential Authors Reveal The 2024 Novels They’re Most Excited To Read
As Long As It Isn’t True: A Literary Scandals Podcast — Friends With the Monster: Truman Capote’s ANSWERED PRAYERS
Bookish Valentine’s Day Sweatshirts to Celebrate Your One True Love
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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