Author: Jamie Canaves

For fans of historical mysteries (Philadelphia, 1875), amateur sleuths, and doctor leads!

Dr. Lydia Weston has her schedule full as she helped create a low-cost clinic for the working class where she treats patients, and she’s also a teacher for future doctors at the Woman’s Medical College. After a patient of Weston’s goes missing, and an unidentifiable body with the patient’s diary is found, Weston ends up assisting with the autopsy and then the detectives on the case. But will what she knows about her patient help solve the case, and do they, in fact, have the correct body?

For readers of forensic science, cold cases, and true crime.

Norton is the host of the podcast The Fall Line, which focuses on cases that haven’t gotten much attention, centering minority communities in Georgia. In Lay Me To Rest, she takes a deep dive not only into cold cases, but into the unidentified dead cold cases specifically, and the forensic science/tools for identification throughout history up until the newest generation of the science.

For fans of family cozy mysteries with delicious recipes!

Lila Macapagal’s life revolves around the cafe she runs with two of her friends. But now her godmothers–the Calendar Crew, which consists of April, Mae, and June–are opening up a laundromat, and many in town are not happy. Plus, April’s niece, Divina de los Santos, is visiting from the Philippines, and Lila isn’t enamored with her. Throw in the laundromat being vandalized and a murder, and Lila is back to baking and solving crimes!

If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up Arsenic and Adobo.

For fans of L.A. settings and elderly PI series!

Al Pupik, a legendary late-night comedian, has been murdered in his L.A. home, which becomes Jewish PI Amos Parisman’s new case. The police are looking at this case with the comedian’s best friend, Benny Wolf, as the suspect, hence why Benny hires Amos. Not only are Benny’s recent memory issues complicating the case, but it also overlaps with Amos’ personal life, where he’s recently had to put his wife in a care facility because of her dementia.

If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up An Old Man’s Game.

For fans of spy organizations and prequel stories!

While this is the second book to be released in this series, after Undercover Latina, it’s a prequel and can be read as a standalone.

At 15, Amani Kendall’s entire life is upended when her family goes on the run: her mom is being pursued by a stalker, and her scientist father is missing. This leads to her being moved from a wealthy, all-white school to an underfunded school where her fellow classmates look like her. With everything going on in her life, she’s worried about who is after her family, how much danger they are in, and how easy it may be to find them. But her mom isn’t giving her satisfactory answers, so she decides to investigate herself…

I recently wrote a Reading Pathways to reading Aya de León if you’re looking for where to start with her work.

For fans of modern historical fiction and ex-cops turned PI!

Andy Mills is now a PI in San Francisco during the early 1950s. But business is certainly not booming for a few reasons, including that many people in the queer community aren’t signing up to trust a former cop. This is why he feels he has to take a case from an old flame—plus, how hard can a simple blackmail case be? Ha, it’s a PI novel, so of course, it’s going to get complicated. And for Andy, that means getting drawn back into the world of the Navy.

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Lavender House!

For fans of new amateur sleuth series with older protagonists!

Glory lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, and works as a bookie after church services at a coffee shop. When local officer Beau Landry is called to the scene of a crime, Glory learns that her best friend, a local nun, is dead and tags along with him. The police are quick to rule it a suicide, but Glory won’t accept that, so she teams up with a NY lawyer, her daughter, to find out exactly what is going on.

For fans of past mysteries, small towns, and multiple POVs!

Fifteen years ago, Ashley Hay showed up at Liss Kehoe’s doorstep with her infant and then disappeared. Liss has since raised Callan, always fearing Ashley would return at any moment for her son. But instead, Callan is in an accident that unearths Ashley’s car and body, opening an investigation into the murder and casting suspicion on those from her life years ago…

For fans of YA mysteries focused on past secrets with past and present chapters!

Harlow Ford’s life has never had stability: her mother moves them often like they’re on the run but has never shared with Harlow what exactly the danger is. Then, her mom dies in a car accident and leaves 17-year-old Harlow with instructions for where to find a safety deposit box. This leads Harlow to a house in a small town in Washington, along with photos that introduce her to her mother’s past. Now, instead of running, as she was instructed, Harlow is ready to make a decision for herself and stay in a possibly creepy house and find out what her mother was running from and why…

The audiobook has great dual narrators: Jade Wheeler and Kimberly Woods.

For fans of unsolved missing person cases, older protagonists, and two timelines!

In 1951, two teen girls, Edie Green and Lucy Theddle, became friends. Lucy tells Edie a secret, something Edie is conflicted over keeping secret, but then Lucy disappears.

In 2018, Edie, now 84, still lives in the same town and swears she sees Lucy. Except the Lucy she sees is the one still age 15, and so this gets brushed off by everyone as part of her dementia. But she won’t leave it alone and instead gets her granddaughter to help her finally find out what happened to Lucy…

For fans of bounty hunters!

Domingo is a Filipino American bounty hunter and also fancies himself a writer, working on an advice book for aspiring immigrants. One of his assignments has actually crossed Domingo’s path three times: she escaped the first time, he released her the second time, and now he’s once again given the job to apprehend her. Third time’s the charm and it looks like this time catching her will make him question his job…

For fans of groups of sleuths, older characters, and mystery fans who like books that don’t tip into cozy but aren’t too dark, either!

In a retirement village in Kent, England, four pensioners (Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron) meet weekly to discuss true crime and solve cases the local police have been unable to figure out. This is their fourth book in the series so they’re used to getting up to trouble and solving mysteries, the latest involving the antiques world when a friend guarding a package is killed…

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up The Thursday Murder Club.

For fans of fun YA, heists, and competitions!

Ross Quest is a thief because it’s the only life she’s ever known–her mom trained her for this life. But even though Ross is really good at heists, she wants her own life and to not be controlled by her mom. So she’s planning another life for herself until her mom is kidnapped, and Ross needs a billion dollars to save her. Enter the Thieves’ Gambit, a competition that pits thieves against each other in international heists. Quickly, Ross learns that she may be good, but there’s a lot of talent out there. She’s also been raised to rely only on her immediate family and be suspicious of everyone else, which is immediately put to the test with a past friend turned enemy and a potential romantic interest. Can she trust any of the other contestants as friends or more? Can she save her mom? Can she have the kind of life she wants, and what exactly even is that life?

Come for the fun action heist scenes (aplenty!) and stay for the dive into family and found family.

For fans of British spy series!

Emma Makepeace and her handler Ripley work for MI6 in a section that’s so secret it’s not listed as existing. So it’s especially troubling when an operative is found dead in a suitcase in his apartment. Now Emma is digging into what the murdered operative was looking into (Russian oligarchs), but if he was murdered because of his case, how is Emma going to fair?

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Alias Emma.

For fans of gritty, historical crime novels!

Clyde “The Viper” Morton decided to leave Alabama in 1936 to pursue his dream of being a jazz musician in Harlem. But when his dream doesn’t happen, he finds a “career” in selling pot. That is until heroine becomes the drug, which he won’t sell, but it still manages to threaten the life he’s made for himself. Follow Viper from the ’40s to the ’60s as the music scene and crime scene unfold around him—including why he’s about to be arrested for murder.

For fans of murder mysteries with unique formats!

You will be fully immersed in solving this cold case murder mystery, which is entirely told through interviews, newspaper articles, text messages, and docuseries episode transcripts.

That docuseries you’re reading is put together by Guy Howard, who, as a child, was the only person in the house when his stepfather, Luke Ryder, was murdered in the garden. It’s been almost two decades since it happened, and no one was ever arrested, so Guy thinks this docuseries, and going over all the information of the case, will finally solve it. His mom has dementia, and his sisters want nothing to do with the show, but Guy is determined to have the case solved…

If you’re wondering how you know the author’s name, it’s because she’s had “controversial” and “Tiger mom” attached to her name since she published a parenting memoir in 2011. In 2019, she made headlines when her daughter got a clerkship under Brett Kavanaugh less than a year after Chua defended him in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Her latest release is great for fans of historical fic, past and present mysteries, and procedurals!

Homicide Detective Al Sullivan is drinking in the bar of the Claremont Hotel in 1944 Berkley, California, when a presidential candidate is murdered upstairs. The case is immediately complicated because it draws in a wealthy family, the grandmother a socialite. Not only are two of her granddaughters on the suspect list, but years ago, her third granddaughter, Iris, died in this hotel at the age of 11 while playing hide n’ seek. Sullivan is going to have to navigate politics, his personal life as a caretaker for his younger sister, and the long tangled webs of the wealthy Bainbridge family to solve the most recent murder–all while trying to figure out if it ties to Iris’ death a decade before.

I was totally absorbed with this one, especially the bits of California history and following the lead detective who, while biracial, navigates a world of privilege because he passes as white.

If you go with the audiobook format, you get multiple narrators (Robb Moreira, Suzanne Toren, Tim Campbell), and there’s a bonus chat with Amy Chua on how the book came to be.

(TW child murder/ mentions past suicide attempt and suicides, detail/ brief mention past lynching/ mentions past assumed statutory/ mentions postpartum/ mentions past antisemitic attack/ farm animal butchering/ mentions of historical sex trafficking/ brief testimony of past rapes, including children/ past institutionalization/ suicide, partly on page, detail)

For fans of YA, teams of amateur sleuths creating a PI team, fictional true crime podcasts, and past and present mysteries!

Iris Blackthorn is on a serious deadline: she’s very close to turning 18 and the detective on her sister Stella’s missing person case has warned her the second she’s an adult, she will be prosecuted if she keeps investigating her sister’s year ago disappearance. So Iris, and her two friends who make up their amateur detective agency, are on the case. That’s all complicated enough–especially since Iris isn’t being totally forthcoming with her team–when another girl goes missing. This time it’s Iris’ ex girlfriend who just happened to be hosting a true crime podcast about Stella…

If you’re looking for a sapphic YA mystery with found family and hard lessons learned, grab this one.

(Tw questions parental emotional abuse, no details/ alcoholism, including parent in past/ mentions statutory involving teacher)

For fans of historical mysteries!

This is a great historical mystery series that starts with Captain Jim Agnihotri solving a murder mystery and meeting and falling in love with Lady Diana Framji (Murder in Old Bombay), then the newlyweds move to America with Jim teaching Diana how to sleuth and her having to find him after he goes missing (Peril at the Exposition).

The third book sets readers in 1894, and Jim and Diana are on a ship to England. They meet Don Juan Nepomuceno, but he’s murdered onboard. That leaves six days until the ship docks to solve this murder…

For fans of a fictional horror podcast and murder mystery!

Tinsel Monroe has the dream job without the dream life: she hosts a horror podcast she loves, but it’s for awful pay and a terrible time slot so as much as she loves it, it’s just a strain on her life. That is until there is a live on-air murder and people start getting murdered in historic film locations, drawing Tinsel and her sister into the investigation…