Category: Unusual Suspects

For fans of cozy mysteries with bakery settings!

Lyndsay Murray has a lot on her plate (heh!): she’s running the Spice Isle Bakery in Brooklyn’s Little Caribbean and she’s hosting Emily Smith’s retirement dinner. The thing is, Smith is a local high school principal who was awful to Murray’s mom when she was her boss. So when she dies after eating at the event, all fingers are obviously going to point to the Spice Isle family. Time to start solving another murder mystery between all the great cooking!

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Against the Currant.

For fans of secret teen groups, alternating POV, and YA mysteries! This is my current audiobook listen (full cast!) and I am fully invested in finding out what exactly is going on.

Cassie, Eddie, Zoe, and Jacob are a group of high school friends (totally different with two in a secret relationship) on the verge of graduating who aren’t really known or popular in real life. Online however, anonymously, they have a massive Youtube channel where they record themselves breaking into places. They decide to hit one last place for the channel before starting their adult lives, grateful to have never been caught. Except the abandoned house they break into — famous for a past murder suicide — doesn’t go as planned and one of them doesn’t walk out (stabbed!) as the others are forced to flee. Now they’re trapped and they can’t reveal who they are, but how do they get answers to what happened?

For fans of gritty PI series!

Isaiah Quintabe, a PI in Long Beach known as IQ, has a new case and it’s very personal. Skip Hanson, a hitman and enemy of IQ’s, has kidnapped Grace, IQ’s love. While IQ and his on again off again partner Dodson (rhymes with Watson!) try to find Grace to save her, Winnie Hando, an LA homicide detective, feels that IQ is only going to hinder the case and get in the way…

If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up IQ.

For fans of hackers, neighborhood dramas, secrets worth killing for, and wealthy characters.

A neighborhood forum of NY elites allowed residents to post anonymous things that you don’t tell people. But nothing is ever really anonymous, and thanks to hacktivists, the people behind each post are revealed. And then someone ends up dead…

For fans of missing person cases, dual narrators, and past and present stories that collide!

Nicole Oruwari is a British woman of Jamaican decent who married Tonye, a Nigerian man, and moved to Lagos, Nigeria to start a family. This is where she met and became a part of the Nigerwives, a group of foreign women married to Nigerian men. But she doesn’t return after a boat trip, and her aunt Claudine — who raised her — is tired of not getting proper updates and travels to Lagos for the first time to find out what happened to Nicole. Instead of finding a search and rescue team, she finds that no one seems that concerned nor is actively looking for Nicole the way she thinks they should be, including Tonye who apparently is already set to marry someone else…

I loved the look at life in Lagos from the perspective of Nigerians contrasted by the perspective of Nicole, the Nigerwives, and Claudine. Also, as someone who is often disappointed with the ending of books, I really enjoyed this one. I’m excited for the HBO series adaptation and will absolutely pick up anything Vanessa Walters writes next.

The audiobook has two great narrators: Dami Olukoya and Debra Michaels.

(TW mentions of partner abuse, domestic abuse scene/ briefly mentions past suicide, no detail/ mentions past addiction, overdose/ past child sexual abuse)

For fans of Nordic noir!

Retired Detective Konrád is still trying to figure out who murdered his father years ago when elderly grandparents bring him a new case to look into: their granddaughter, a woman they know was smuggling drugs, has now gone missing. Could this disappearance tie into a case of a young girl found dead in a pond? And how?

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up The Darkness Knows.

Pushkin Vertigo’s classic mystery series is great. They’ve already released Ayatsuji’s classic The Decagon House Murders. This is another in the “let’s go to an isolated location, what could go wrong?” genre. It’s about a group of friends making the trek to a remote castle to check on an old friend who hasn’t left his home since a horrible accident. But this time, there will be blood. Lots and lots of it. (CW for violence, injury, murder, and death.)

And this is an excellent, atmospheric debut mystery. In 1983, the remains of a woman and two little girls were found in barrels in the middle of a New Mexico forest. One girl was the woman’s daughter, the other was not. No leads are found, no identities are attached to the victims, and slowly, the case grows cold. Now on the 30th anniversary of their discovery, a police detective and a woman recovering from a double mastectomy will both become obsessed with the newly-reopened cold case. In this age of science, what new discoveries can be made? And what are these cold spots and feelings of being watched that they are both experiencing? (CW for mentions of violence, assault, and murder against women and children, cancer and cancer recovery, injury and death.)

This is inspired in part by the true case of decades-old murders in New Hampshire that were solved with DNA by Barbara Rae-Venter, the same genetic genealogist who helped uncover the identity of the Golden State Killer. She also recently released a book: I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

This is a great genre mix of mystery/heist (second half) and YA contemporary (first half), that is set in the same universe as Firekeeper’s Daughter where Daunis is Perry Firekeeper-Birch’s aunt!

Perry, who has a twin sister with an opposite personality, is planning on doing nothing with her summer but fishing. Except she ends up in a car accident after dropping her twin off at her internship and has to pay her aunt for the repairs. So it’s working at a tribal museum for her instead, which is how she learns about the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the way some people and organizations are getting around returning items, including ancestral remains, back to their rightful tribes. The museum is currently holding onto 13 Anishinaabe ancestors and while Perry is doing her best to try and locate sacred items being sold and bought on eBay to recover them, she needs something bigger to return her ancestors. And so a heist it will have to be, but things do not go as planned and Perry isn’t the only one in great danger…

I loved this book, especially Perry and her snarky and caring personality, the juxtaposition with her twin sister, and the past and current Native history explored. Highly recommend the audiobook narrated by Isabella Star LaBlanc.

(TW victims of sexual assault name assaulter, brief general idea of what happened/ mentions past sexual assault, not graphic/ trichotillomania, anxiety)

For readers of true crime that focuses on a case to look at the broader issue.

Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind disappeared in Fargo, North Dakota during the summer of 2017 at the age of 22 while eight months pregnant. Savanna, a member of North Dakota Spirit Lake Nation, would be found murdered and her baby alive in her upstairs neighbor’s apartment. Gable uses this case to show the long history of violence targeted at Native Americans and the lack of police response.

For fans of domestic suspense with the trope of “do you know who you married?”

Alexis Roberts left the relationship she was in for Marcus, an attorney she met at a fundraiser. Those in her life had concerns: things were going too fast and there were rumors about what happened to his previous wife. But Alexis married the handsome, wealthy man anyways because that’s what you do when you meet the man of your dreams. Now, with Marcus away, Alexis is attacked in her home, barely escaping. Is it time she finally start taking a closer look at who she married?

For fans of domestic suspense.

The title refers to a seven-day retreat where couples go and get a daily question to discuss to work on their marriage. The idea is that you either end up strengthening, solving problem(s), or realizing it’s time to pull the plug on your marriage. It’s where Daisy has decided to take Craig. What neither knows about the other is that Daisy has been hiding since before their marriage and Craig has been having an affair and has his bags packed, ready to leave with his mistress. Now they have one week to figure out if the past will make or break them…

(TW stalker/ domestic violence/ past miscarriage remembered)

For fans of YA mysteries with school settings, and fictional podcasts.

Four high school students were in a car accident that left one of them dead. Spencer Sandoval survived but not without injuries, including no memory of the accident or most of the night. She doesn’t know why she was in the car with her ex Ethan, or what happened, but soon Ethan is accused of being the driver. Making matters worse is a gossip podcast that has plenty of snide to throw out about the students at an elite prep school in LA. So Spencer, with her new service dog in tow, teams up with Ethan’s best friend to get answers.

And the audiobook gives you a multicast: Lori Felipe-Barkin, Inés del Castillo, André Santana, Eunice Wong.

For fans of long running series, archeologist leads, and procedurals!

First, and don’t blame the bearer, this is being marketed as the final Ruth Galloway for now. Dr. Ruth Galloway is dealing with the university she works at threatening to close her department when she’s called to a cafe renovation turned crime scene because they unearthed a skeleton. It turns out the skeleton belongs to a missing archeology student, so Ruth is going to know those on the suspect list…

If you want to start at the beginning of the series pick up The Crossing Places.

For fans of history, music, the art enthused being threatened by shady peeps, and past and present storylines!

Frederick Delaney is a renowned 20th century composer whose legacy included a lost opera. Bern Hendricks, a music professor and an expert on the composer, could not run fast enough at the chance to authenticate what is believed to be the found opera. In the current timeline we watch Bern and Eboni work for the Delaney Foundation to authenticate the piece and learn its history. In the 1920s we watch Frank Delaney in Manhattan meet Josephine Reed, one is a struggling musician and the other is a musical prodigy living on the streets.

1. If the cover is giving you SFF vibes, it isn’t at all — it’s pure YA amateur sleuth mystery.

2. It’s so fun and funny, and one of my favorite characters that I’ve read this year.

Bianca Torre has a lot of anxieties. So many in fact that they have a list! What’s a teen with a lot of fears who is trying to figure out their gender to do? Join a bird watching group of course! And maybe do some spying on neighbors (people watching?) with their binoculars. That’s how Bianca sees a neighbor’s murder, and realizes that after the police label it a suicide, the case must be solved properly. Bianca goes into sleuth mode with their best friend — both anime lovers — even though neither are true crime enthusiasts.

This is one of those books that’s fun, has a large dose of friendship, and makes the mystery solve the right kind of ridiculous. And it looks like Justine Pucella Winans has a middle grade fantasy, The Otherwoods, releasing this fall which I am definitely looking forward to — along with any future books.

(TW suicide assumed in murder case/ anxiety, fears, panic attack/ animal cruelty, bird)

For fans of mystery/thriller with some horror elements, based on real social issues, missing person cases, and unsolved decade old murder.

Anna Horn is a high school student, working at the reservation casino, who has always felt like an entity is following her. To add to her plate, girls are disappearing from her tribe and she’s being bullied at school. She’s trying to find her own place in life and in her tribe when her sister becomes one of the missing girls. Anna has no choice: to bring home her sister she’ll have to figure out who is responsible for the missing girls.

For fans of the trope where former schoolmates reunite years after a deadly accident, only to have bad things happen in the present…

The past: a decade ago, high school students on a trip were in an accident and only nine students survived when the vans they were in ended up in a river. One of the survivors died by suicide a year later.

The present: the eight survivors are going to have their annual reunion in a secluded North Carolina beach, except the day of there’s an obituary and they are now only seven.

The timeline cranks up the suspense between past and present, revealing secrets…

For historical mystery fans!

Kaveri Murthy has already learned what it’s like to be an amateur sleuth, so she shouldn’t be surprised to find herself on another murder mystery when looking into a potential embezzling case for her mother-in-law!

I adored the characters in the first book, The Bangalore Detectives Club, where Kaveri is a wiz at math and a recent newlywed figuring out her life who stumbles upon a murder mystery. I was only bummed out by the use of the mental illness boogeyman trope, but look forward to following Kaveri on another mystery set in 1921 Bangalore!

For fans of thrillers, revenge, and a party setting!

The opening setting is a New Year’s Eve party in Edinburgh. Instead of everyone happily ringing in the new year, two people are found impaled on a railing. Readers then go back in time to follow two women and their friendship through time, building up to get answers, secrets, and revenge for the present…