Hello, mystery fans! If you’re looking for a funny show with a big heart, the second season of Loot, starring Maya Rudolph, has started on Apple TV+. It follows a woman who ends up a billionaire through a divorce and tries her best to give the money away while being totally out of touch with regular society.
Looking to elevate your reading life? Tailored Book Recommendations is here to help with handpicked recommendations. Tell the Bibliologists at Tailored Book Recommendations about what you love and what you don’t. You can get your recommendations via email or receive hardcovers or paperbacks in the mail. And with quarterly or annual plans available, TBR has something for every budget. Plans start at just $18! Subscribe today.
Bookish Goods
Public School Library Advocacy Shirt by SprinklesStudios
Unisex tee in 2 color options, with sizing up to 4XL. ($25)
New Releases
The Devil’s Flute Murders (Detective Kosuke Kindaichi #8) by Seishi Yokomizo, Jim Rion (Translator)
Audiobook release (narrated by Akira Matsumoto)! For fans of classic detective stories, this is a great series!
Flautist Hidesuke was missing for months before being found dead, the death believed to be a suicide. His daughter and mother, however, invite PI Kosuke Kindaichi to a divination session, because they believe the body found does not belong to Hidesuke. But Kindaichi ends up with two cases: the one he came for, and the murder that happens during the divination!
You can read these in any order you’d like, but if you’d like to start with the first, pick up The Honjin Murders.
An Enchanting Case of Spirits by Melissa Holtz
For fans of ghosts, multiple POVs (including a detective), romance, and a murder mystery!
Alyssa Mann was in a car accident that killed her husband and isn’t really in the party mood for her 40th birthday, but she humors her two best friends and ends up getting a tarot card reading. It’s all fun and games until you wake up the next morning seeing a ghost! Once Alyssa accepts what is now happening, she ends up on missions for the ghosts and finds herself ultimately having to solve a murder mystery with her two best friends and the single detective who lives next door…
Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!
Riot Recommendations
Who wants to play another round of 2024 Read Harder? A very popular trope in all genres is books about books (#20 Read a book about books), so I added an extra layer and these two books also go into the world of publishing.
Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
For fans of literary suspense/thrillers and “theft”!
Athena Liu has a good career as an author when she chokes on food and dies, leaving behind an unknown unfinished manuscript. June Hayward is an author who has yet to find success and decides to steal Athena’s manuscript and pass it off as her own. But as her author status rises for writing a great book about Chinese workers in the British army, it leads to questions, starting with why June Hayward published under June Song…She wanted attention, but with the secret of stealing someone else’s work, can she handle the spotlight?
Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews
For fans of slow-burn suspense and crime novels!
Florence Darrow is fired, with cause, from her publishing job, which leads her to actually get a dream job: a famously anonymous author is in need of an assistant. But after being situated in her new life, Florence starts to wonder: if no one knows who the author is, wouldn’t it be easy to just step into her life?
News and Roundups
The 24 most famous fictional detectives
Double Duty: Mystery Writers for Both the Series and Standalone Readers
Ethan Hawke To Exec Produce Happiness Falls Series Based On Angie Kim’s Bestseller With Eye To Star
Carrie Turns 50 Today, And Even Stephen King Can’t Believe It
Jordan Harper’s UK published novel will publish in the US! “My novel THE LAST KING OF CALIFORNIA, a dark and dare I say literary pulp novel set in the aftermath of the Edgar-Award winning SHE RIDES SHOTGUN, will come out in the US this fall. I think it’s my best prose to date and I’m awful proud of it.”
What I Would Do If I Were Starting Book Riot Today
Should AI Companies Buy Publishers for Access to Their Data?
Liberty and Vanessa talk new books, including The Gathering by CJ Tudor and Daughter of Mine by Megan Miranda.
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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