Category: Unusual Suspects

A great read for fans of YA with high school settings, multiple POV, a twisty mystery, the murder victim’s best friend trying to solve the mystery, and social mysteries (which hits #3 on this year’s Read Harder challenge)! Nova Albright would be celebrating being the first Black homecoming queen in Lovett High’s history, but she’s been murdered. Her best friend Duchess Simmons has absolutely no doubt who the murderer is: Tinsley McArthur, the girl who thinks the crown is rightfully hers because all the women in her family were homecoming queen before her. It was her turn and she was not quiet about her distaste over Nova getting the crown. But Duchess can’t get anyone to actually do something about her certainty, including her father who is a police officer, so she’ll just have to investigate herself. But Tinsley isn’t going down that easily and she swears she’s innocent…

I got fully sucked into these character’s lives and enjoyed the way the story was put together and then unraveled. Will definitely pick up whatever Jumata Emill writes next.

For audiobook fans you get two great narrators — Angel Pean and Erin Spencer — plus, really effective atmospheric sounds. I have not been in school in a very long time and yet I swear I thought I was late to class a few times during this audiobook and almost started hustling when the school bell sounded.

(TW past parent death from cancer/ mentions past suicide/ mentions past date rape, not graphic/ mentions past child molestation, not graphic/ statutory)

New Jane Harper! For fans of Australian crime novels, small towns, past unsolved mystery, and childhood friends who are now adults.

First, you can read this as a standalone and won’t be lost in any way. I love the whole series though and do recommend all three books.

Harper created a character with Falk that I have been rooting for to find his place in the world. He’s basically a workaholic as a financial crimes detective and doesn’t have a personal life. He just focuses on work. Finally he takes some time off to go visit friends for the baptism of their child, who he is the godfather to. So Falk is now in a small town in Australian wine country where a year before he was one of the last people to see Kim Gillespie while visiting a yearly festival. Kim has been missing since, leaving behind her husband, teen daughter, and toddler. Falk is staying with the family who grew up with Kim, related to her ex-husband, and getting to know her teenage daughter as the town tries to use this year’s festival to remind everyone of her disappearance, hoping to finally get enough clues to find out what happened to Kim.

Falk isn’t there as a detective, but he can’t help getting involved and following the threads presented to him and asking questions. As he battles himself for what he needs — human connections beyond work — he also finds himself unable to work on solving what happened to Kim…

I’ve been shouting my love for Jane Harper’s work since her first Aaron Falk book, and will continue to. If you’ve yet to pick up Harper, I highly recommend tucking yourself in with her entire catalog for a wonderful balance of character exploration, small town life, and twisty mysteries.

(TW talk of postpartum depression/ recounts attempted date rape)

For fans of thrillers told through diary, interviews, and social media posts. Amelia Ashley’s disappearance has the world’s attention. She’s an influencer who went missing while in Rome with her boyfriend and blood was found in his suitcase. But as Harper Delgado, a hacker, goes through Amelia’s posts, she wonders if anyone really knows Amelia…

For fans of past mysteries, family reunions, books inside a book, and treasure hunts. Fifty years ago, Nell Churcher’s father published a book with a treasure hunt in it to find the buried jewels around England that were meant to each be a bone of the fairy character. It created a frenzy and an obsessive fandom. Now the family is reuniting with a rerelease of the book, a new treasure hunt, and a film crew to document. But in the first go around, no one ever found one of the “bones” (jewels) and now it gets revealed…

Armchair travel to New Zealand! Hana Westerman is a Māori detective working with the Auckland PD. As a single mother, she’s juggling a lot with her stressful job, which lands her a murder case with very few clues. But soon it’s not the only murder and Hana tries to connect the crime to others, only to find that the past is never really in the past…

The audiobook is narrated by New Zealand actors Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are.

For fans of past mysteries, unique formatting, and amateur sleuths. Steven Smith has just been released from prison and decides to look into a mystery that happened in his childhood that he can’t quite remember: after finding a book that his teacher confiscated, his teacher disappeared on a field trip. Now Smith is looking into that book — including interviewing people about the author — and getting past students together to figure out what happened to their teacher. But we’re hearing this story based on transcripts made from recordings found on an old iPhone…

The audiobook is narrated by Thomas Judd, who has such a long list of narrated books you’ve certainly heard him before.

If you’re looking to start a brand new cozy mystery series and love a bakery backdrop, here you go! Lyndsay Murray is working hard to open her bakery Spice Isle Bakery in Brooklyn NY. It’s a dream for Murray to open this bakery for her community and get to work with her family. Problem: Claudio Fabrizi, a fellow bakery owner, doesn’t want any competition. Naturally he ends up dead after a fight with Murray, leaving Murray with the task of having to prove her innocence!

For fans of (fictional) missing child cases, insomniac leads, and fictional true crime podcasts. Mason Drake was taken from his crib one night while his parents slept in the room next door. One year later and there are no clues or leads to point to what happened to the toddler. His mother Isabelle, unable to sleep and desperate to get the case moving, agrees to an interview with a true crime podcast host. Except the interview makes Isabelle paranoid about her past and herself and her own memory…

I immediately got the audiobook for this one since I enjoyed Willingham’s previous A Flicker in the Dark.

(TW suicide) This is my current audiobook — with a fantastic narration by Hannah Choi — and I am loving it! It’s for fans of a possibly unreliable narrator and psychological works where you’re really up in the main character’s brain. And wow, she has a fantastic voice. Katrina Kim read a children’s book as a child that stuck with her and she now uses the world of the book to create scenarios in her current life to basically try and cope with her mental health and life stresses — including being broke. She is also stalking a coworker, which she argues is in no way stalking! She is just doing this as part of her rituals to help her out. While desperately needing to do one of her rituals — going to Cayatoga Bridge — she watches her coworker die by suicide. And he blames her. Needing to understand how this happened, she tries to go through everything she’s learned about him in the years she was stalking him, but a different picture starts to present itself. What if every time she was watching him, he was watching her?…

This is the kind of book I would inhale in one sitting, and the only reason I haven’t is because life keeps getting in the way!

For fans of childhood friends brought back together to solve a childhood mystery, and past and present stories. Decades ago, as children, Naomi, Cassidy, and Olivia were playing in the woods when Naomi was repeatedly stabbed by a serial killer. Naomi managed to survive and the girls identified the attacker and ended up getting a serial killer sent to prison. The thing is, they didn’t tell the truth: Naomi didn’t really remember who attacked her. Now a photographer in Seattle, she’s back home in her small-town in Washington where she’s reunited with Cassidy and Olivia after the killer dies in prison. But things aren’t well, Olivia wants to finally come forward and tell the truth. When she’s found dead, Naomi is forced to try and find out the parts of her attack that she’s never remembered.

(TW past suicide attempt, detail/ suicidal ideation/ mentions serial killer that sexually assault, not graphic/ mentions past child abuse/ assumed suicide case, detail/ suicide note, read/ past stories of older boy preying on 11 year old girl/ past statutory)

For fans of procedurals, missing persons cases, past and present, and fictional serial killers. Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput’s lover, Tara Mondal, disappeared over a decade ago in Mumbai wearing a blue-sequined saree. Now, mutilated women’s bodies are found in graves with scatterings of blue sequins. There’s a serial killer on the loose, and someone doesn’t want Rajput on this case…

I have been waiting for a new Jordan Harper novel since the second I finished She Rides Shotgun, which is one of my favorite crime novels and one of my favorite child characters. I mention this because that’s the high bar I had when I dropped everything last year to inhale a galley of this book and it immediately became one of my favorites of 2023. It’s an L.A. crime novel that follows the kind of people that are the behind-the-scenes puppet masters no one really knows about. But bad puppet masters. Mae Pruett works for a firm that basically cleans up celebrity and wealthy people’s messes. Sometimes Mae is tasked with dealing with a once child star and other times she’s helping bad, cruel people just get away with anything. She’s always been okay with her job, she’s good at it, until a coworker who had something to tell her is murdered. It’s ruled a car jacking gone wrong, but Mae isn’t letting it go. Instead she ends up partnering with Chris, an ex who was once in law enforcement and has since gone private after being forced out. He’s also on the not right side of the law or ethics in his field of work. And like Mae, he’s willing to start risking the life he has to figure out what is really happening behind a murder. The further they dig, and the more they put their lives in danger, the more Chris and Mae are going to have to question who they currently are and whether they’re okay with that…

And just like that I’m back to awaiting for Harper’s next novel!

Great read if you’re looking for a procedural, multiple POV, and remote mystery — will be on my end of year Best Of list. Cara Kennedy is a detective in Anchorage dealing with the loss of her husband and son, who died a year earlier while hiking. When a teenager finds severed body parts in the remote Point Mettier, Kennedy ends up on the case. She’s partnered with local officer Joe Barkowski, and also stranded there thanks to a blizzard. It’s a place where all 205 residents live in the same high-rise building so certainly someone must know something, but as small communities go, this one isn’t looking to talk. I loved the town characters — including a teen girl struggling with the life her mother has laid out for her and the one she wants to carve for herself — and how we get to know some of them as the POV rotates between residents and the officers. Plus, the unique setting. Count me in for whatever Iris Yamashita writes next.

The audiobook has a great multicast: Aspen Vincent, Shannon Tyo, and Anna Caputo.

(TW questions suicide as cause for case/ past child deaths/ recounts domestic abuse, murder/ recounts child abuse)

For fans of school mom mysteries (think Big Little Lies) and amateur sleuths returning home. Paige Lancaster was a successful Hollywood writer, until she was passed up for a promotion and cheated on by her husband so she vandalized some stuff. Now a single mom, she’s back in her hometown in Connecticut living with her mom after her father, who’d been police, passed away. She enrolls her 8-year-old daughter in a new school and quickly finds out that some of the moms are a bit intense about the Parent’s Booster Association, which has always had 100% parent involvement and they are not going to let Paige mess that up. Then one of them is found dead — a death thought to be an accident — but she was married to Paige’s high school boyfriend and, well, Paige may have gotten into a fight with the wife the night before… We watch as Paige tries to figure out this new life, and investigate what really happened, while also getting to know some of the PBA members — including Nina, an on-the-outs mom who just wants people to listen to her about an accounting program having an issue. If you’re looking to get sucked into a town’s gossip while watching a murder mystery play out, grab this one.

The audiobook has a great multicast: Amanda Dolan, Sura Siu, and Lanna Joffrey.

(TW mentions past miscarriage/ mentions past alcoholism/ mentions past rape, no details)

For fans of a fallout from a crime, wealthy family saga, and books set in India. In the middle of the night in New Delhi, an expensive car hits and kills five people. But instead of the owner of the car being there, the only person is a servant with no explanation as to how this crime happened…

For fans of Scandinavian crime novels. Two horrible acts of violence happen on the same night in 1986, Sweden: the prime minister is murdered, and a will-be serial killer calls the police after murdering his first victim, stating he’s just beginning. Sven Jörgensson is assigned the serial case and is hounded for years trying to solve it. Could those two unrelated events have more in common?

If you like dark humor and crime novels, run to this one. It’s also a smart take on the revenge tale, and although a different tone and style, it should satisfy fans of My Sister the Serial Killer.

Geeta’s husband disappeared years ago, saddling her with debt. But everyone in her village in India suspects she up and murdered him. So a woman tired of her abusive husband decides to blackmail Geeta into killing her husband for her — after all, she’s already done it before. But Geeta continues to profess her innocence and instead finds herself a pawn while trying to fix her own life. I loved the use of dark humor to explore social issues like the caste system, and also the silly humor of all the characters having random criminal knowledge because they all watch the same popular crime show.

Bonus: Soneela Nankani does an excellent narration on the audiobook.

(TW domestic violence/ mentions child abuse, no detail/ rape stories/ animal cruelty/ metnions past suicide, detail/ sexual assault/ infertility/ colorism/ fat shaming/ mentions past cancer death/ femicide/ pedophiles)

If you’re looking for a dual timeline, two POVs, a remote village in Scotland, and slow burn Gothic suspense, here you go! At the age of five Maggie MacKay proclaimed she knew a murder had occurred, and that she was the reincarnation of the murdered man, Andrew MacNeil. As an adult she decides to finally return to Kilmeray, where the murder happened. Even if she’ll be shunned by all the townspeople, she has to finally get to the bottom of what happened. In the ’90s, Robert Reid moves his family to Hebrides, outrunning his past and thinking a new start will work. But he remains an outsider and you can’t really ever outrun your past…

As a big fan of Clark’s first PI series, Broken Places, I am super excited to see she has a new series! For fans of procedurals and fictional serial killers. Detective Harriet Foster is having to get to know a new partner while grieving her last as she lands a murdered woman case in Downtown Chicago. Soon another victim has the same lipstick markings around the wrists and ankles and Foster is hunting a serial killer…

If you’re looking for a long running cozy series that has an adaptation here you go! M.C. Beaton passed away in 2019 and R.W. Green has continued the series. Agatha Raisin and her PI partner Toni Gilmour are on their way to a wedding when a nudist runs at their car shouting he’s seen a dead body. But when they go to see, the body has disappeared. Agatha and Toni need to figure out what happened and it looks like going undercover in the Mircester Naturist Society is the best way…

If you want to start at the beginning pick up The Quiche of Death.