Category: Unusual Suspects

For fans of YA mysteries where all the friends are suspects!

Dawn Foster’s life has dramatically changed recently: following her parents being injured in an accident, the family has moved from California to Wisconsin to live with an aunt. Dawn attempts to fit in by joining the cheerleading team, but after a party, one of the girls is dead and the rest are brought in for questioning…

For fans of historical mysteries with time travel and past and present procedural timelines!

In our present time, Mallory Atkinson was a homicide detective who went to visit her grandmother in Edinburgh, got attacked in an alley, and woke up in 1869 in the body of housemaid Catriona Mitchell (the first book)! What is a detective to do? Solve crimes in a different era while trying to figure out what is happening. Her current case: A host disappears during a mummy unwrapping…

If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up A Rip Through Time.

For fans of historical fiction (1960s), a photographer PI, and an L.A. setting!

Harry Ingram is a photographer and PI who finds himself somewhat famous when he photographs police shooting an activist during the Watts riots. This places him with a target on his back from police and also gets him a new client: Betty Payton can’t find her business associate who disappeared during the riots. Dodging all the unwanted attention coming his way, Harry finds himself following leads into robberies and conspiracies…

While you can read this as a standalone if you want to, for the introduction of the character, pick up One-Shot Harry.

For fans of YA mysteries, fictional missing persons cases, ex-best friends, and characters taking on rape culture.

Jo-Lynn Kirby lost her social standing in school after nude photos of her were leaked. Now her ex-best friend Maddie Price suddenly wants to talk to Jo, asking for help. But Maddie vanishes before Jo can find out what Maddie needed, and this forces Jo to find a way back into the inner circle to investigate, all while reckoning with the past she’s trying to forget…

For fans of FBI main characters, social thrillers, and cat-and-mouse chases!

A mall bombing days before a presidential election in the US left over 50 people dead and a lot of questions, starting with who is responsible. Yasmin Malik, a young British Muslim woman, is labeled the culprit, as she died having been witnessed near the bomb. FBI agent Shreya Mistry not only has to solve this crime, but the tension of the election and the state of the country is putting even more pressure on the need to get answers immediately. It’s how Shreya ends up outside Portland, Oregon, paired with FBI agent Susan Kramer while the father of a radicalized British woman is on his way from London, hoping to keep his daughter from following her leader’s mission…

If you’re a backlist reader, Mukherjee has written one of my favorite historical mystery series, starring a Scotland Yard detective who has moved to Calcutta (British ruled in 1919): A Rising Man.

For fans of young PIs, noir-ish novels, and small Texas town settings!

Annie McIntyre is in her mid-twenties and using her new PI license to solve some mysteries. Her current client, Clint Marshall, is an adoptee who wants Annie to help him find his birth parents. It’s an easy case, until it isn’t. Annie finds Clint’s father and his brother, but Clint’s father is a bank robber whom her grandfather, the sheriff, put away. When Clint’s brother dies by suicide, Annie sees red flags — ultimately needing her grandfather’s help when Clint disappears…

If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up Pay Dirt Road.

For fans of dual POV mysteries (one a detective), and a missing person now found mystery!

Ellie Black disappeared when she was 17. Now she’s 19 and has been found. Her family is thrilled to have her back, even knowing that whatever may have happened to Ellie could have changed her. What no one is prepared for is that Ellie doesn’t want to participate in her own investigation. This doesn’t stop Detective Chelsey Calhoun from investigating. Not only is she doing it for Ellie, but Detective Calhoun’s sister was murdered when she was a kid, and she’s always felt guilty, like somehow she could have done something to stop it. So she’s going to help Ellie regardless of what Ellie wants, and she’s going to need to figure out what Ellie isn’t sharing…

This does a great job of going into both women’s lives, slowly revealing the past, along with everything that is unfolding in the present.

(TW past father death of cancer/ sexual assault exam/ mentions past overdose/ mentions past suicidal thoughts, attempt/ kidnapping/ past murder suicide/ sexual assault/ hunting)

For fans of twisty thrillers with multiple POV including a detective and the bad guys!

Richard Boyle is a high school English teacher thrust into the spotlight as a hero when he saves the school from a suicide bomber. Except his life quickly spirals into a nightmare: the bomber’s parents are suing; former student Billy Finster sees Richard on the news and decides to blackmail him. Billy owes drug dealers money when his stash was mysteriously lighter than it was supposed to be and he sees Richard as his way out by blackmailing him that he’ll tell everyone that Richard sexually abused him once unless he pays him the money he needs. Richard, who is married to a school principal in the district and has a detective sister-in-law, assumes Billy is confusing him with another teacher and quickly makes a series of ill-advised decisions thinking he can handle these problems quietly on his own. Both Billy and Richard find themselves further down the hole, playing a cat-and-mouse game, as Richard’s sister-in-law is dangerously following a pair of drug dealers…

Linwood remains one of my go-to thriller authors!

(TW addiction, overdose death/ past teen sexual assault accusation/ panic attacks/ groping/ past suicide/ brief suicide on page/ teen predator, no graphic scenes)

For fans of dual POVs, exploration of mental illness, and domestic thrillers that start with moving to a new neighborhood!

Husband and wife Elizabeth and David Smith should be enjoying their new suburban Tennessee neighborhood. But Elizabeth is taking time to settle in, and after finally relenting to join a neighbor for a jog, she instead finds the neighbor dead. With police quick to rule it a suicide Elizabeth can’t let the idea of murder go. With her mental health declining, David thinks the solution is to hire her a personal assistant. But what if the person hired to distract you from a possible murder ends up having their own questions and wanting to join in finding out what really happened?

For fans of bookish whodunnits, author leads, and fun asides!

Eleanor Dash should be enjoying the benefits of her successful mystery series, but the real Connor Smith has been threatening her over her fictional Connor Smith. Her solution is to kill off her character and be done with both the fictional and real Connor Smith. But while on her Italian book tour, the real Connor Smith becomes the target of someone trying to kill him, and Eleanor has a not fictional mystery and book tour to get through!

For fans of fictional true crime, influencer culture, and murder mystery domestic thrillers!

Bree Wright is at the beginning of a relationship with Ty Franklin and is excited to go on a weekend getaway to a rental home in NJ. Despite Ty working too much, Bree thinks his assurance that he’ll now focus on her for the rest of the trip will be exactly what they need. Cue Bree waking up alone and finding a dead woman at the base of the stairs. Ty, now missing, becomes the suspect of the woman’s murder. Bree isn’t certain what is happening, but she’s fully aware that she and her boyfriend being Black and a dead white woman—one that a TikToker is using in a social media campaign for justice—mean danger for them. Plus, Bree was arrested a decade ago which she’s been hiding ever since…So Bree reaches out to a person she was happy to never speak to again, a best friend from college she had a massive falling out with, but who is now a lawyer. She really needs a lawyer…

I’ve been a big fan of Kellye Garrett since her debut and read her books as soon as I get my hands on them. If you’re a backlist reader looking for a cozy mystery, pick up Hollywood Homicide. If you’re looking for a murder mystery with sisters, pick up Like A Sister!

(TW assumed suicide)

For fans of fictional true crime and YA thrillers!

At the age of two, Bel was found in her mother’s car, her mother nowhere around. Now Bel is 18 and she still has no idea what happened to her mother, Rachel Price. Everyone has opinions, from the town believing Bel’s father killed Rachel to Bel’s own belief that her mom chose to leave. So when the Price family decides to help film a documentary about Rachel Price, the last thing anyone expects is for Rachel to show up—and for her reappearance to only be the beginning of more questions and mysteries…

For backlist readers, pick up the twisty YA trilogy starter A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (bonus: it reads as a standalone)!

For fans of YA historical mysteries, multiple POVs, sister sleuths, and Hollywood!

Lulu Wong is a movie star and former friend of May Chow. May, along with her two sisters Gemma and Peony, work for the family flower business in L.A.’s Chinatown. After discovering Wong’s dead body, the sisters decide they must solve her murder to honor their former friend’s legacy and to make up for the injustice of the police not wanting to label her death a homicide.

For fans of detective agencies, friendships, multiple POVs, and series where each book is a standalone book!

Edwin Fitzgerald, a former BBC presenter, and his caregiver Natalka Kolisnyk, a Ukrainian woman who is brilliant at math and dating a former Monk, have a detective agency. Two sisters hire Edwin and Natalka to solve their mother’s murder. She was a romance author, and they think her second husband murdered her. But soon there’s a second dead writer of romances, and the question is, who is killing writers and making it look like natural deaths? And why?

This is a great series with lovable characters, with the bonus of each book reading as a standalone: The Stranger Diaries, The Postscript Murders, Bleeding Heart Yard.

Elly Griffiths also has the completed (for now?) archaeologist Ruth Galloway series that starts with The Crossing Places.

For fans of slow burn suspense with a thriller ending set on an island!

Kenetria (Ken) Nash was briefly taken from her parents as a child, leaving her traumatized, and she developed dissociative identity disorder. In college, she assaulted her boyfriend’s father and lost everything. Now Ken, who has a handful of “headmates” that take turns being in charge, is finally in charge after years of being dormant. She learns that she’s been evicted, the pandemic started a few years ago, and one of the headmates took charge by getting them a job — and most importantly, a place to live — as a caretaker of a historic home on an island. Ken is obviously incredibly confused by this new life of wearing a mask, catching up with everything the headmates have done — they keep a journal — and is really not thrilled about being a caretaker in a strange place, especially when she realizes that the place looks exactly like the place in her mind where the headmates reside. As she tries to situate herself, and the headmates catch her up on what has been happening, Ken can’t get past that something on the island is off…

(TW past suicide attempt, detail/ PTSD/ child abuse)

For backlist readers, pick up An Extraordinary Union if you want a historical spy romance and When No One Is Watching for a great suspense novel.

For fans of borders (between Wales and England), procedurals, reality TV show settings, missing person mysteries, and everyone-is-a-suspect murder mysteries!

Welsh Detective Ffion Morgan is called to a reality TV show set in the mountains when bones are found. It’s not an issue — they’re animal bones — but it introduces her to the set of a reality show that was pitched to contestants as a “survival” show and then revealed to the contestants — and audience — that, in fact, is not why they are there. This prompts a contestant to disappear, bringing Morgan back in for an actual case. The more she learns, the more obvious it is that the person in charge of this reality show is a garbage human, and she must find the missing contestant before he becomes a danger to himself or others. This is only the beginning of the case for Morgan, who is also dealing with a rambunctious dog she can’t handle, a personal life reveal from the first book, and another detective from a different department whom she started a relationship with but let fizzle out accidentally, because Morgan can’t help getting in her own way.

Between the great setting of the town — plus, the reality show set that dives into our society’s obsession with them — and the way Mackintosh creates mysteries around a despicable person so that everyone is a potential suspect with motive, this is a great series to keep you turning pages late into the night. May there be plenty more books in the series so Morgan can solve all the mysteries and slowly start to get her act together.

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up The Last Party.

(TW briefly recounts attempted suicide, mentions past suicide, details/ mentions past sexual assault by blackmail for sex, mentions of #MeToo without detailed stories)

For fans of sibling POVs (one a journalist!), historical fiction, and solving the murder to get the inheritance!

In the early 1900s, Sir Lawrence Linwood’s three adopted children return home from their lives around the world: Alan (archeologist), Roger (engineer), and Caroline (journalist). Their mother greets them by informing them their father was murdered and a detective will speak with them in the morning. Welcome home! What they learn is that their father’s will states that if he’s murdered, the children must find the killer — and whoever does gets the estate and can null the previous will!

For fans of remote mysteries and a writer taking what they think is their last shot to have a career!

Cecily Wong needs a high-profile interview to get a chance at the journalist career she wants. A world-famous mountaineer will let Cecily interview him, but only if she summits Manaslu, the eighth-highest peak in the world with him. So Cecily sets out with the group to get her interview, except she’s not an expert climber, and people start dying along the way…

For fans of thrillers, multiple POVs, assassin stories, action, and an investigative reporter who stumbles into a crime!

Ray Devlin is living the retired life, but his past as a mercenary comes to get him, literally: he’s almost murdered and needs to find out why a fellow mercenary is after him. Reporter Tracy Quinn is trying to keep her job by uncovering a big story for a newspaper that is struggling between the print and digital age when her path crosses with Devlin’s…

For fans of psychological suspense, unreliable narrators, mental illness exploration, and an artist lead!

Annie Shaw is a painter who lives in Virginia with her journalist husband and daughter, living the kind of life people dream of. Then Annie finds her mother dead in their carriage house, and Annie begins to unravel: Her meds seem to not be a match for her seeing her mother’s ghost, she’s a suspect in an art patron’s death, and then she has no memory of how she got to a murder scene…

For fans of Only Murders in the Building, enemies uniting, two POVs, and feel-good mysteries!

Residents of the multi-unit Shelley House building are not only facing eviction from a landlord wanting to sell the property, but a new young resident has the eldest resident on edge. Kat Bennett is in her mid-twenties and just moved into Shelley House, and she’s not the most approachable. Dorothy Darling is in her late seventies and watches everything happening in the building, telling everyone what they’re doing wrong. She does not like Kat. But when the person letting Kat sublet is injured, Dorothy and Kat put their war aside to find out who is harming tenants…