Category: Unusual Suspects

Here’s a new short story collection with a really interesting theme: what would you do if you witnessed a crime? Rather than following the criminals, these 14 short stories explore how witnessing a crime can shape and alter a person and their life — and lead them to seek justice for the victims. Bonus: “with proceeds benefitting the Alliance for Safe Traffic Stops.” Contributors include: Pamela Samuels Young, Alex Segura, Cara Black, Sarah M.Chen, Teresa Dovalpage, Scott Adlerberg, Christopher Chambers, Aaron Philip Clark, Tod Goldberg, Gar Anthony Haywood, Darrell James, Richie Narvaez, Gary Phillips, SJ Rozan.

For fans of bookstore mysteries, sisters, and Agatha Christie. Ellie returns home to Colorado to run a bookshop accessible by mountain road and ski gondola. But nothing is picturesque when a dead man is found in the gondola and a rockslide traps everyone in town. Naturally two sisters who love Agatha Christie, including naming their cat after her, will have to put all they know about sleuthing into play when their friend becomes a suspect…

If you’re getting a bit of déjà vu, it’s because I told you about this title in August except the pub date got moved. So now I’m telling you about it again when you can actually go and get it!

For fans of past mystery and coming-of-age stories! Anna Xu is a university freshman so school and everything related should be taking up all her time, except seven years ago her childhood babysitter went missing as a sophomore at the same university. So naturally she’s going to solve the case, which is difficult enough but she has way more stress on her plate considering her parents’ bakery now has competition and the son of the competing bakery is also in school with her. How will he fit in with everything already going on in her life?!

For fans of historical fiction and vigilante leads! Bonus if you’re a fan of Jane Eyre; if not, or you haven’t read it, you won’t be confused or anything. While many might find being sent away to boarding school a punishment, Adele is excited to go to a school in London. That is until a brutal attack, and the realization that the men circling her friends have malicious intent. Enter a con woman and a vigilante team is born…Come for the vengeance, stay for the empowerment, and love story.

For fans of returning-home-to-solve-a-mystery-fight-for-your-home reads. Mud left her Kiowa tribe behind in Oklahoma and now works at an agency in Silicon Valley. She has a huge project at the moment that could change everything for the agency when she gets a message from her grandfather back home: “I have a bad feeling. Come now.” And so she does, trying her best to manage what is needed from work over the phone while trying to help her grandfather. Except it’s not a happy homecoming when she returns to the Plains Indian tribe. Her grandfather is missing, she finds a dead man in his workroom, and he’s accused of having stolen a Jefferson Peace Medal. It’s up to her, and her cousin, to clear her grandfather’s name.

I have about 10% left of the book and am really enjoying it, especially the look at history (artifacts and the history behind them) and Mud’s character. Her grandfather is a storyteller and she is supposed to be too but some members of the tribe treated her like she wasn’t Kiowa enough because of her curly hair, so she left instead of taking her place in the tribe. Something she has to deal with now that she’s back and faced with what she’s left, lost, and forgotten. And she also has to deal with seeing the ex-girlfriend she left behind, which did not end on good terms. It appears to be the start of a series and I am absolutely here for the second book.

This is a great series with tons of nods to the mystery genre where each book reads as a standalone — they are all multiple points of view with just one detective character connecting all the books. The first was for fans of a book within a book (short story) and a nod to Gothic stories: The Stranger Diaries. The second one is for fans of not-dark murder mysteries with found family: The Postscript Murders. And this one is for fans of “a group of friends did something bad a long time ago and now someone is killing them off, maybe.”

Harbinder Kaur has taken a new position in London and is getting to know her officers, her roommates, and a new city. She has also just landed her first case: an MP is found dead at his school reunion. What Harbinder doesn’t know is that one of her new officers, who is also at the reunion, was part of a group of high school students who got away with murder once…

This is a good read if you like murder mysteries, friend groups, past and present, multiple points of view, and a few “say what now?” reveals.

(TW parent with terminal cancer, death/mentions death recorded as suicide, no detail/recounts sexual assault, and attempted assault, with some details)

Collections like this are a fantastic way to get a lot of mysteries at once and find new authors! It’s also a great way to sneak in reading, especially when you’re having trouble finding the time or staying focused, because short stories work so well as a one sitting read. Here you’ll find 22 crime stories set around the world. And this collection is literally filled with fantastic crime writers and so many of my favorites: Oyinkan Braithwaite, Abir Mukherjee, S.A. Cosby, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, J.P. Pomare, Sheena Kamal, Vaseem Khan, Sulari Gentill, Nelson George, Rachel Howzell Hall, John Vercher, Sanjida Kay, Amer Anwar, Henry Chang, Nadine Matheson, Mike Phillips, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Felicia Yap, Thomas King, Imran Mahmood, David Heska Wanbli Weiden and Walter Mosley.

For fans of dark academia! Detective Marlitt Kaplan is assigned a hit-and-run case on the university campus where her mom is a professor. The victim is in a fraternity, and witnesses swear the person who killed him smiled. Not only will Kaplan have to dive into campus Greek life and fight against those trying to stop the investigation, but she’ll also have to wrestle with her own issues after losing a friend years before to a fraternity…

The audiobook is narrated by Saskia Maarleveld, who has a huge list of narrated books including The Impossible Girl.

(TW brief mention past suicide, detail/brief mention of handful of headlines with cases from sexual assault to animal cruelty/mentions open sexual assault case/briefly recounts past murder suicide, mass shooting/panic attack/past baby death from illness)

If you’re looking to start a new procedural series, this is your book. I’m a huge fan of Zehanat Khan’s Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak detective series so I was thrilled to see that she had a new series and devoured this book. Set in a Colorado town, a teen from a Syrian Muslim refugee family is murdered and her body positioned in the mosque. Assigned to the case are Detective Inaya Rahman and Lieutenant Waqas Seif, two very different people who may have more in common than they think, which they’d realize if Seif were to stop keeping his personal life so close to the vest. You get the detectives’ personal lives, and past lives, as they focus on trying to solve a difficult case made even more difficult by a town unwelcoming to immigrants, unsolved missing girls cases, and a motorcycle gang.

(TW teen boys attack teen girl to rip her hijab off/racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia/police brutality stories/brief mention of past mother death from cancer/brief mention of past domestic abuse, not graphic/brief recount of groping, not graphic/mentions stalking/scene inside a meat packing plant)

For fans of procedurals, multiple POV, plenty of suspects, and a forced detective pairing. This is one of my favorites this year, and it reminded me of Bad Sisters in that the dead dude was a crappy person so there are plenty of suspects in people who wished him dead. Rhys Lloyd is found dead on New Year’s Day and being an ex-celebrity and current developer selling to wealthy outsiders, he has a fair bit of enemies in his small town. DC Leo Brady of Cheshire Major Crimes and Ffion Morgan who is with the North Wales Police are forced to work together to solve the murder as we also get to see the lives of various community members leading up to the murder.

If you’re in the mood for a good murder mystery that sinks you into a small town, pick this one up. I’m super glad it’s apparently going to be the start of a series.

(TW mentions past overdose/mentions violence towards sex workers/sexual harassment/misgendering/teen sexual assault by adult/past father cancer death, not detailed/mentions miscarriages, no details/attempted rape/lesbophobia/secretly drugging child to sleep at night)

For fans of social thrillers and dark academia. Allie Douglass becomes Chair of Philosophy at a NY university while other crucial things happen: she learns from the police that one of her grad students has gone missing, her grandmother dies, and she meets the man who will kidnap her…

This made me think of Casey Cep’s Furious Hours, as both take a true crime case and an author digging into the story hoping for it to be their huge true crime book. In Furious Hours it was Harper Lee and in Deliberate Cruelty it’s Truman Capote. In 1955 Ann Woodward shot her husband, claiming she thought he was an intruder. Having been a showgirl turned socialite married to a banking heir, the story played out like a scandal amongst many elite circles and Truman Capote became obsessed with the Woodwards. He decided it would be his next hit after In Cold Blood had been a bestseller. Instead Ann Woodward died by suicide and Capote faced his own downfall.

I am at least halfway through the audiobook and it is fantastic! The only reason I wasn’t able to finish it in time for writing this is because life thinks it has the right to interrupt my reading time.

This is a historical crime story that follows two sisters and the man hired to find one of them. It has a super strong voice from the opening and really immerses you in the character’s lives and the time period. After Violet Richards is sexually assaulted (so far not graphic) she tries to file a report with the police, but their response is to ask why a white man would want to touch a Black woman. So she kills him and uses a white man in love with her to get her out of Mississippi, but when she steals his wallet and peaces out, he hires someone to find her. Violet running away puts a target on her sister Marigold’s back, who is already a bit backed into a corner: she’s unwed, pregnant, and the father just hightailed it out. And she’s been working to help secure Black voters’ right to vote. Now Marigold finds herself also with no choice but to flee. With their past coming for them, Violet accidentally taking a job in the Sheriff’s house, and a man hired to find Violet, how long can they run?

The audiobook narrators do an exceptional job bringing the characters to life: Janina Edwards, Shayna Small, and Adam Lazarre-White.

For fans of romantic thrillers, lawyer leads, and missing persons cases. Ava Burch left her city life as a corporate lawyer and moved back to Texas where she grew up. She comes across an abandoned campsite that she photographs which makes Detective Grant Wyoff think of a missing person’s case. When another person disappears, it forces Ava and Grant to work together, even if Grant thinks she isn’t cut out for the wilderness…

This is a fun romance meets crime novel with great audiobook narrations by Soneela Nankani and Shahjehan Khan. Mira Chaudhary has not been having a lucky streak with the men she’s matched up with through a matchmaker. When her aunt dies, she shows up to deal with the will at the lawyer’s office and discovers it’s Naveen Desai, the first match she’d had that ended after a brief relationship. Fate may have thrown them back together to have a second chance at love, but first they’ll have to survive the night when they’re kidnapped. Turns out Mira’s con artist father left behind some angry criminals who are demanding Mira pay them back. It’ll be a long night as Naveen and Mira try to deal with their feelings for each other while trying to outsmart the criminals, figure out what’s really going on, and get out ahead. If you like films like Date Night and Lovebirds, or action and fun crime mixed with romance, this is your book.

(TW recounts past alcoholism)

For fans of author MCs and wealthy toxic families. Harry is a novelist who has recently become engaged to Edward Holbeck. She’s never met his family, who Edward himself has issues with and has been estranged from. But he’s now started to connect with his family again — he is the one to inherit everything — and it’s time for her to meet them. Turns out there is definitely something off about this super wealthy and powerful family, but what exactly? And are they dangerous?

This was a book that hadn’t been on my radar until I came across the audiobook and decided to just press play and then I found myself fully immersed in a past and present mystery with a bruja at the center (not fantasy)! Eva Santos Moon watched a friend drown as a teenager and now a woman working with her husband has been found murdered in the river. Soon her husband is taken into custody, an affair suspected, and Eva doesn’t know what to believe, who to trust — including herself because of recent blackouts. She’s a glass artist who has been dabbling in black magic lately, against her husbands wishes, hoping to get her creativity back. Has she brought all this upon her family? Did her husband really commit murder or is he trying to protect Eva? Does her childhood best friend’s death make Eva a suspect again?…It’s a great read for fans of unreliable narrators, characters making messy decisions, brujeria, and a central past and present murder mystery. I really enjoyed Kyla Garcia’s narration on the audiobook which really sunk me into Eva’s head.

(TW mentions postpartum depression/mentions domestic violence)

For fans of remote mysteries, royals, Christmas, and Scottish settings. For the holidays, a fictional royal family is celebrating in the Scottish Highlands. King Eric plans on making an announcement (will it be the next heir?) that will impact the monarchy, except he drops dead from poisoning. And that’s how the King’s personal chef, Jon, ends up investigating a murder…

This Chinese crime novel is one of my favorite reads of the year and perfect for fans of dark Japanese crime novels. The audiobook is available in the U.S. and Jason Vu does a great narration between adults and teens. If you read print/digital it’s available in the UK now, and in those formats in the U.S. in the summer of 2023. (I don’t understand publishing!)

It’s the story of three young teenagers who become friends, starting with two who’ve run away from an orphanage. There’s an accidental murder of a sibling and separately an unintended recording of a man murdering his in-laws. The latter leads the kids to blackmail the man starting off a game of wits and crime for money, control, freedom, and getting away with murder!

(TW brief domestic abuse, mention of child abuse/briefly mentions rape, not detailed/mentions past child sexual abuse/police discussions of child sexual assault)

For true-crime readers of historical cases — in this case (heh) one that was sensationalized. Set in British Columbia and England, it’s the case of a murdered architect and the trial of his much younger wife and the even much younger wife’s lover (17) who was the chauffeur, both of which plead guilty in order to say the other was innocent.