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Unusual Suspects

Lux Pascal, Pedro’s Sister, Has Been Cast in the Upcoming Thriller SUMMER WAR

Hi, mystery fans! If you haven’t yet bought your Girl Scout cookies this year or have already eaten the ones you bought (raises hand!), you still have time and can easily order online. Two great options: Girl Scouts of Greater New York’s Troop 6000, which helps families living in temporary NY housing, and Erin Reed puts together an awesome list every year of trans girl scouts that you can buy from. And I’ll pass along a delicious tip I learned from a friend recently: Thin Mints are extra good straight from the freezer.

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

a round plaque for a bookshelf that has a cat on a stack of books illustration and can have your name customized to say it's your library

Bookshelf Library Sign on Etsy by AnchoredSoulCreate

If you’re looking for a library sign for your shelves and want one you can pick from various designs, colors, and customize with your name, here ya go. ($38)

New Releases

cover image for Tender Beasts

Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury

For fans of dark academia, family drama, and murder mysteries blended with social horror and a bit of slasher film!

Sunny Behre is one of five kids when her mom, owner of a private school, dies. Sunny had been taught she’d be taking over her mom’s role one day, but instead finds that the only thing her mom left as instructions is that she’s to watch out for her brother Dom. She’s not really close with Dom and would rather be an ambassador for the school her mom ran, but after a murder that implicates Dom as the killer, Sunny has to make difficult choices. Especially since she’s not even sure if Dom is innocent and the murders continue…

I’m currently listening to and enjoying the audiobook, which is narrated by Kimberly Woods.

cover of Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra; glimpses of a woman's eye and a snowy house in the letters in the title

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

For fans of home invasion thrillers!

A mother is with her two kids (eight and five) in a secret room in her home in New England. She’s hiding from an intruder and must keep the kids quiet so that he doesn’t figure out where they are. As they hide, petrified, debating what to do, there are flashbacks to her life as a child and her marriage. Who is the intruder, what does he want, and why is she hesitant to call the police…?

This is high on my list, and I’ve heard nothing but good things—I am just a chickenshit and have to pep myself up to read this and not sleep for a month! (I have gotten so far as downloading the audiobook, so wish me luck!)

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

Riot Recommendations

Can I summon spring by recommending some backlist mysteries with flowers on the cover? Worth a try!

cover of The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

The Frangipani Tree Mystery (Crown Colony #1) by Ovidia Yu

For fans of historical mysteries with an amateur sleuth partnering up with a detective!

In 1936 Singapore, SuLin is a teenager who was orphaned at a young age and has a limp from Polio. Thanks to her aunt, she received an education, and rather than allowing herself to be married off, she wants to work. Since the nanny in the Acting Governor’s house is murdered, a new nanny is needed, and that’s where SuLin goes. While navigating the upstairs, downstairs, and racial politics, there’s also the murder of the previous nanny to solve, so she finds herself working with Chief Inspector Thomas LeFroy. Then there’s another death…

(TW suicide)

cover image for The Red Lotus

The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian

For fans of thrillers with doctor leads and missing person cases!

Alexis and Austin have recently started dating and take a trip together to Vietnam. Austin is a cyclist, doing a tour and also visiting where his father died. But Austin never returns from cycling. Alexis goes back to the US, where she’s an ER doctor. As the FBI looks into the case, Alexis discovers that maybe she didn’t know everything about Austin…

(TW Main character has history of self-harm, details/ mentions murder-suicide, details/ ER stories recounted/ recounts past war scenes)

News and Roundups

Excerpt: The Other Americans: Read the opening pages of Laila Lalami’s novel, the March CBC selection

True Detective Renewed for Season 5 With Night Country Creator Issa López Returning Under New HBO Overall Deal

L.A. Times Book Prize finalists

Book deals: Tori Eldridge has a two-book deal for an upcoming new series starring a park ranger returning home to Kauaʻi, where she finds two of her cousins are missing.

Lux Pascal, Pedro’s Sister, Has Been Cast in the Upcoming Thriller Summer War

Only Murders in the Building Season 4 Casts Eva Longoria

Pamela Salem: James Bond and Doctor Who star dies aged 80

Anti-trans bills keep citing The New York Times

If you love courtroom dramas, this Oscar-nominated film is not to be missed

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

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Unusual Suspects

Whodunits Abroad: 8 Historical Mysteries Set Outside the U.S.

This post is written by Vanessa Diaz

The only thing I love even more than a good whodunit (or howdunit or whydunit) is one with a historical setting. There’s something about unraveling a mystery without the benefit of modern technology that is fascinating to me, of watching sleuths, whether amateur or professional, untangle a knot of clues using nothing but their little grey cells. Add in a setting outside the U.S. and I’m doubly satisfied. I get the satisfaction of a resolution that my anxious brain craves, and a little bit of armchair travel all in one pretty package.

But first: what do I mean by “historical?” Some would argue that to count as historical fiction, the story should be set at least 50 years in the past. Seven of the eight titles I’m recommending fit this bill, but one is set in the ’80s (and also partially in the U.S.). I opted to include it because a) it’s that good, and b) if I have to live with the fact that the ’80s are not, in fact, 20ish years in the past but 40+, then you do too.

I’ve rounded up eight of my favorite historical mysteries set outside the U.S., many of which are starts to excellent series, so there’s lots to explore. These reads will transport you to 1920s India, 1980s Burkina Faso, Victorian England, 15th century Korea, 1970s Mexico City, and more. Enjoy!

Widows of Malabar Hill Book Cover

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Perveen Mistry #1)

Perveen Mistry is a lawyer in 1920s India—the first and only female lawyer in the country. Though she can’t legally practice on her own, she is uniquely qualified to investigate a suspicious will involving three Muslim women living in purdah. The case takes a deadly turn, and Perveen must get to the bottom of it before others wind up hurt or dead. We get flashbacks throughout the story revealing Perveen’s tragic past, a past that drives her in her fight for women’s legal rights. Four books later, the Perveen Mistry series it is still one of my favorites, and it’s inspired by a real person!

TW: domestic violence

American Spy Book Cover

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

Set in the mid-1980s, this spy novel follows a Black woman FBI intelligence officer writing her young sons a letter in order to explain a series of recent events, from her initial recruitment to a dangerous assignment to seduce the Communist president of Burkina Faso and help bring about a coup. You get the espionage, the high stakes, the twists and turns, plus the challenges unique to a Black woman navigating an old white boy’s club. This character-driven story is not what you might expect from a spy novel, trading in a thrilling, break-neck pace for slow suspense. It’s worth the wait.

If you’re an audiobook person, the one and only Bahni Turpin reads this one.

A Study in Scarlet Women cover image

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas (Lady Sherlock #1)

The Lady Sherlock books are a gender-flipped reimagining of Sherlock Holmes where there is no Sherlock at all. In Victorian England, Charlotte Holmes and her benefactor Mrs. Watson pretend to assist their brother Sherlock with his cases, but are really solving them on their own through some light subterfuge (“he’s just in the other room!”). Charlotte is one of my favorite characters ever, a woman whose powers of deduction are matched only by her love of a good slice of cake. She’s found a way to live independently in a society that does not typically allow women agency, cracking cases while also pursuing the object of her affection in the mother of all slow burns—as in we’re eight books in, and the game has only recently been afoot.

This series is another excellent one on audio—Kate Reading could read me the back of a shampoo bottle, and I’d pay for the privilege.

TW: violence against children, off-page

book cover of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Flavia de Luce #1)

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Flavia de Luce #1)

In the 1950s, a young girl named Flavia lives with her widowed father and sisters in a dilapidated estate in the English countryside. Flavia has a habit of stumbling upon dead bodies and can’t help but stick her nose in other people’s business, a winning combination for an amateur sleuth. Flavia is smart and delightfully snarky, precocious but not annoying like I just know I was (sorry, Mom and Dad). The mysteries in each of the books in this completed series are great on their own, but there is a separate mystery running throughout the series that really takes a turn if you stick with it. Can I just say how much I adore Flavia’s relationship with Dogger? The gardener saved her father’s life during the war and now experiences symptoms of what we know as PTSD. Their bond is just so damn tender and makes me go all soft.

I know I keep saying this, but it’s just true: this series, read by Jayne Entwistle, is fantastic on audio.

The Forest of Stolen Girls Book Cover

The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur

In 1426 Joseon (Korea), Hwani is searching for her father, a detective who went missing while investigating the disappearance of 13 girls in a forest with a dark history—and a connection to Hwani’s own past. Hwani and her sister also went missing in that very forest years ago, but she has no memory of the incident. The disappearances are all linked, and Hwani must figure out what the connection is in order to find her father. Doing so will mean diving deep into buried memories and the secrets of the forest. This is such a suspenseful, atmospheric mystery, and it kept me guessing until the end.

Book cover of A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

This speculative historical mystery is the third book in P. Djèlí Clark’s Dead Djinn Universe, set in an alternative version of Cairo in 1912, where angels and djinn exist alongside humans. Decades earlier, a Sudanese mystic named Al-Jahiz was said to have shaken the world when he drilled a hole in the veil between the magical and non-magical worlds before vanishing without a trace. Agent Fatma el-Sha-arawi is a special investigator and the youngest (maybe only?) woman at the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, and she’s been brought in to investigate the suspicious murder of an entire brotherhood dedicated to Al-Jahiz. This blend of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery examines gender, class, and colonialism in such a fun steampunk setting. It’s full of twists and red herrings with a side of queer romance, and I hope we get more books set in this world.

book cover of A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn (Veronica Speedwell #1)

A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn (Veronica Speedwell #1)

This series set in Victorian England features adventuring sleuth and scientist Veronica Speedwell. After the two aunts who raised her both pass away, Veronica finds herself free to roam the world as a lepidopterist and enjoy the company of men (heyyy!). Before she can do any of that, she is attacked by an intruder but rescued by a mysterious stranger who tells her that he knew Veronica’s mother, that she’s in grave danger, and she needs to follow him right away. She agrees (mostly for the free trip to London) and gets paired up with a cranky taxidermist named Stoker until the stranger, named Baron, can figure out their next move. When Baron is found dead in his home, Stoker and Veronica go on the run from an unknown villain. This series is currently nine books in and is every bit as fun as when it started. You get some romance with the adventure times and the excellent dialogue Raybourn is known for.

Velvet Was The Night cover image

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This historical thriller from Silvia “Watch Me Write All the Genres” Moreno-Garcia is set in Mexico City during the Dirty War of the ’70s. Maite is bored with the ho-hum pace of her life, begrudging her desk job, her overbearing mother, and her lack of romantic prospects. When her glamorous next-door neighbor Lenora goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Maite goes looking for her and winds up elbow-deep in Leonora’s secret life of radical activism and dissidence. Meanwhile, hitman (and kind of a goon) Elvis has been hired to track down Leonora but winds up tailing Maite and growing more and more obsessed with this woman who appears to share his love of rock’n’roll and longing. As Maite and Elvis attempt to discover the truth behind Leonora’s disappearance, they’ll face down hitmen, government agents, and Russian spies, “because Mexico in the 1970s is a noir, where life is cheap and the price of truth is high.”

For even more historical whodunits, try these 17 historical mystery books and these newer batches of historical mysteries, too.

Categories
Unusual Suspects

The 20 best courtroom dramas in film

Hi, mystery fans! Fantastic news (do we even get to say that lately anymore?!): Nimona is now on YouTube FOR FREE to watch. It’s gorgeous and hilarious and will hit you in all the feels — it more than deserves the Oscar nomination. And I’ll just keep saying that streamers are leaving a ton of money on the table by not releasing, at the very least, DVDs after a certain amount of time.

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

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Bookworm Cat Enamel Pin by SoulCatStudio

Look at this pudding pop hugging its book and carrying a book purse! ($11)

New Releases

cover image for A Step Past Darkness by Vera Kurian

A Step Past Darkness by Vera Kurian

For fans of returning back to a hometown where a past mystery remains involving a group of childhood friends, a bit of the supernatural, and a giant nod to a huge classic book (not gonna say in case of spoilers!).

In the ’90s, six teens went to a party in a coal mine, and after what they witnessed, they were never the same again. They all escape the town and don’t speak for twenty years — until now, when Jia, one of the original six who has been dealing with visions, is called to return home to help with a missing person case. Jia helps and ends up finding one of the original six dead. It’s evident that the five remaining “friends” must return to town and once again join together to rid the town of evil…

If you like revenge thrillers, definitely pick up Kurian’s debut, Never Saw Me Coming!

cover image The Rumor Game

The Rumor Game by Thomas Mullen

For fans of historical fiction (WWII, Boston) with dual POV, including an FBI agent and a reporter!

Anne Lemire is a reporter for the Boston Star, writing a gossip column and recently using it to look at antisemitic attacks, including one involving her brother. Special Agent Devon Mulvey, whom Anne knew in childhood, ends up teaming up with her when her brother’s attack and Devon’s dead factory worker case intersect. They’ll face organized crime and domestic fascists as they try to solve their cases and dabble in a relationship.

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

Here are two fun middle grade series with a bit of quirkiness that I think read well for all ages.

Goldie Vance the Hotel Whodunit cover image

Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit by Lilliam Rivera

This entire series has a great setting and wonderful characters. Goldie Vance works as a valet at the Florida hotel her father manages — her mom is a local performing mermaid! — where her bestie also works, and she has a crush on the girl working at the record store. But Goldie’s main focus is always having her sights set on becoming the in-house detective! The mystery this time (kicks off about halfway through) is a monster movie being filmed where a swim cap with diamonds goes missing, and Goldie’s mom, one of the actresses, is accused!

This series takes the graphic novels’ characters (Goldie Vance Vol. 1, which I highly recommend) and creates new mysteries in novel form. But you don’t need to have read the graphic novels to read the novels (Rivera does a great job of introducing the characters and setting), and each novel in the series is a self-contained story, including the sequel Goldie Vance: The Hocus-Pocus Hoax. I hope there is more to come: the universe and characters are a delight.

cover image for The Swifts

The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln, Claire Powell (Illustrator)

Shenanigan Swift got her name (along with sisters Phenomena and Felicity) in a most curious way: the family dictionary is used on the day they’re born to pick their name with the belief that they will grow into the word’s definition. As you can imagine, Shenanigan is having a bit of a struggle at the moment with the question of destiny vs free will related to her name and who she is and will be. But Shenanigan is also about to solve a murder mystery with her sisters and cousin Erf when a family reunion takes a turn…

This is a fun book that takes a look at words and has zany characters. Plus, Nikki Patel does a delightful narration on the audiobook. I’m looking forward to the sequel, The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues, releasing in late August.

News and Roundups

Screen Rant is excited to provide an exclusive look at the new ComiXology original series, Cold Hard Cash: A Martha Chainey Escapade #1. This 5-part series brings one of Gary Phillips’ heroines, Martha Chainey, from novels to comics. The former Vegas showgirl is set to solve a crime in her comic debut.

Richard Osman teases exciting news and updates for Thursday Murder Club

West Virginia House Passes Bill Allowing Prosecution of Librarians

Catch Will Trent on Tuesdays at its new time for season 2

7 best shows like True Detective to watch right now

The 20 best courtroom dramas in film

New Mystery Novel, The Night We Lost Him, Promises Twisty Thrills — And We’ve Got a Sneak Peek (Exclusive)

Maryland Introduces Freedom to Read Act

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

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Unusual Suspects

The Best Agatha Christie Novels, Ranked

Hello, mystery fans! I’m back on my K-drama bullshit and watching Destined With You — hello, creepy bloody hand! I love a curse plot. I’m also watching Pretend It’s a City after listening to Fran Lebowitz on Julia Gets Wise With and falling down a rabbit hole. I, too, am cranky AF about all the nonsense in this world and would like to stand on a lawn beside Lebowitz, shaking my fists.

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

a rectangle enamel pin with a red background and illustrated image of Audre Lorde with the quote "revolution is not a one-time event"

Audre Lorde Inspired Enamel Pin by twistedEGOS

You know I love enamel pins, and it’s been a while since I found a new one. Here’s a great one of Audre Lorde. ($13)

New Releases

cover image for Ill-Fated Fortune

Ill-Fated Fortune by Jennifer J. Chow

For fans of foodie cozy series starters and a dash of magic (adding emotion into food)!

In Pixie, California, Felicity Jin grew up a part of her mom’s magical bakery, but Felicity has never had her mom’s gift for baking or having people feel joy with her food. Through a turn of fortune (heh), Felicity finds herself making fortune cookies and coming up with the fortunes written inside. It’s one of these cookies and a dead rude customer that lands Felicity in the hot seat as a murder suspect! Guess she’ll have to learn to sleuth while honing in on her new cookie-baking hustle.

cover image for Where They Lie

Where They Lie by Claire Coughlan

For fans of historical mysteries, a Dublin setting, and reporter leads!

Julia Bridges, an actress in Dublin, disappeared in 1943, with her last known sighting being at Gloria Fitzpatrick’s home. Years later, Fitzpatrick, tried for a separate murder, dies from an apparent suicide in an institution.

In 1968, Bridges’s bones are found, and junior reporter Nicoletta Sarto decides to dive into the mysterious case of what happened to Bridges and Fitzpatrick’s role in illegal at the time abortions.

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

When the crime affects your job!

Book Cover for All her little secrets by wanda morris, red-tinted photo close up of a Black woman wearing sunglasses

All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris

For fans of lawyer leads, past and present chapters, corporate intrigue, family drama, and the lead being a murder suspect!

Ellice Littlejohn is a corporate lawyer who finds her mentor dead at his desk. She does not say anything but leaves, letting someone else find the dead body. She was having an affair with him and wants nothing to do with being roped into the mystery. But she’s instead given his position, and then the detectives zero in on her, wanting answers. Between the murder at work, caring for her maternal figure, and her brother constantly being in financial trouble, she already had enough on her plate before needing to solve a murder and workplace mystery…

(TW main case questioned as suicide/ alcoholic parent/ dementia/ teen sexual assault recounted, not graphic/ child abuse/ brief mention partner abuse/ fat-shaming)

The Echo Wife cover image

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

For fans of scientific jobs, crime coverups, and our world setting with a little scientific advancement (clones)!

Evelyn Caldwell is hiding a giant secret that could ruin her career: her husband stole her research and cloned a new wife, Martine, to be like Evelyn but the way he wants her. I know! Obviously, shit hits the fan, and Martine and Evelyn are forced to team up…

(TW past child and domestic abuse, mostly alluded/ present domestic abuse recounted/ death faked as suicide, brief detail)

News and Roundups

Targeting Demographic Data to Skew Reality

True Detective: Night Country Just Gave the Series Its Best Finale Ever

2023 was the year of the social thriller. Here are six favorites.

The Night Agent Season 2 Adds Stars From Vampire Diaries, The Expanse, Homeland, Station 19

Autauga-Prattville Library Board Bans LGBTQ+ Books for Under 17s; Red Labeling Queer Adult Books

11 Shows Like True Detective to Watch After Season 4

You’ll savor the off-beat mysteries served up by The Kamogawa Food Detectives

Author Brandy Schillace says new mystery book draws inspiration from her life

The Best Agatha Christie Novels, Ranked

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

Categories
Unusual Suspects

You’ll Love These Books With Unreliable Narrators

Hello, mystery fans! I had a fun time watching Bottoms, and I’ll sum it up by saying, “Make more weird films and TV, you cowards!”

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

a sticker sheet with 8 bookish stickers including of Black women reading and hugging books

Bookish chapter stickers by eboniismoon

A lovely sticker sheet for book lovers. ($5)

New Releases

cover image for Village in the Dark

Village in the Dark (Cara Kennedy #2) by Iris Yamashita

For fans of procedurals, multiple points of view, past and present cases — including a personal one for the lead detective!

First, a bit about the series as a whole: the first book, City Under One Roof, introduces us to Anchorage Detective Cara Kennedy about a year after her son and husband died during a camping trip. She’s on a case in the remote Point Mettier that ends up having the access bridge closed during a snowstorm. This sequel takes us into the death of her husband and son, and it does tell you the solve from the first book, so you may want to start there if that matters to you. If it does not, you won’t be lost or confused starting here.

Anchorage Detective Cara Kennedy now has questions about what happened to her husband and son when they went missing, later found dead, during a hike. She’s having their bodies exhumed, and she’s getting their DNA tested again after a gang member was found with photographs of her family from the trip. Even more WTF-y is that every other person in those photographs is missing or dead. One of the missing we get to know is a woman living in Unity, an isolated village that offers protection to women and children hiding from abuse. How does this all connect? And what actually happened to Kennedy’s husband and son?

If you enjoy multicast audiobooks, go with that format, narrated by Sophie Oda, Blaire Chandler, and Aspen Vincent.

(TW past child death/ domestic abuse/ mentions past sexual assault/ off page addiction, overdose death suspected/ past miscarriage mention/ traditional hunting/ terminal lung cancer, not main characters/ mentions past child abuse/ dementia)

cover image for The Framed Women of Ardemore House

The Framed Women of Ardemore House by Brandy Schillace

For fans of book editor amateur sleuths, inheritance, and English country estates!

Jo Jones, an autistic book editor working in NY, leaves her current life for an abandoned country estate in England following her mother’s death. It’s the perfect opportunity to start her life fresh and put her energy into restoring the estate. But it’s a mystery, so you know she’s going to instead happen upon a murder: Sid Randles, caretaker, dead in the cottage. She obviously reports this to the local police, along with a woman she saw disappear, but since she’s autistic and from NY, the police take the skeptical shitty approach to the case. So Jo, along with some people she’s befriended in town, get to sleuthing!

This is one of my most anticipated 2024 mystery reads, and the only reason I haven’t gotten to it yet was HarperCollins no longer has an ALC (Advanced Listening Copy) program, and I wanted to read this book in audiobook, so I had to wait until pub day. (Life, it is so hard.)

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

Here are two crime books that have multiple POVs and a (fictional) true crime book/writer focusing on the unsolved case in the book.

The Aosawa Murders cover image

The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda, translated by Alison Watts

For fans of translated Japanese novels, multiple POVs, and a narrative structured as responses to an interviewer!

The unsolved case: In the 1970s, on the coast of the Sea of Japan, the Aosawa family hosted a party where almost 20 people died from cyanide poisoning, which was inside drinks delivered as gifts.

The (fictional) true crime writer: More than 30 years later, Makiko Saiga, who was a neighbor child at the time, wrote a book about the crimes and is now talking to an interviewer about the case.

cover image for The Nothing Man

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard

For fans of cat-and-mouse thrillers, Irish settings, and dual-narrated audiobooks!

The unsolved case: A serial killer murdered a family with only a little girl escaping.

The (fictional) true crime writer: Eve Black is that little girl, now an adult, who has written a true crime book about her case. We read her book and also the serial killer’s POV as he reads it too…

If you’re always in need of a page-turning thriller, Howard has yet to disappoint me. In no particular order, also check out 56 Days, Run Time, The Trap, and The Liar’s Girl.

(TW rape/ domestic abuse/ mentions suicide, detail)

News and Roundups

Diary of an Abomination (an excerpt from My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two)

Unreliable narrators, food detectives, and more exciting February reads

Amazon Prime Video Ad Tier Sparks Class Action Lawsuit From Subscribers

Anthology in the darkness: True Detective: Night Country features some of Jodie Foster’s best work

15 Thrilling Movies Where the Mystery Doesn’t Get Solved

Trust Us: You’ll Love These Books With Unreliable Narrators

Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith Is The Reimagining You Didn’t Know That You Wanted

Over 600 writers have signed this open letter to PEN America.

Autauga-Prattville Library Board Bans LGBTQ+ Books for Under 17s; Red Labeling Queer Adult Books

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

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Unusual Suspects

WATSON Drama With Morris Chestnut a Go at CBS

Hello, mystery fans! The Marvels is now on Disney+ if you’re in need of something fun with a hilarious surprise. And streamers need to get their shit together because there really needs to be a season two of Ms. Marvel!

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

a tote bag to look like "thank you" shopping bags but with text saying in repeat "sorry I'm late" and at the end "I didn't want to stop reading"

Sorry I’m late I didn’t want to stop reading tote by booksrbtrthanreality

If you’re looking for a new tote bag and don’t want to explain your late entrances, here you go. ($25)

New Releases

cover image for Cosplay Crime

Cosplay Crime by Marty Chan

For fans of middle grade mysteries that focus on a theft with a fun setting and friendship!

Young teens Bree and Alix are best friends having a great time at the Anime Expo. Bree is especially excited to meet the voice actor from her favorite series—she is after all dressed as Red Squirrel! But the panel is cancelled after an expensive print is stolen, so naturally, it’s time for Bree to put on her amateur sleuth hat! Not so easy, though, at a convention where everyone is in costumes and masks…

cover image for The Spy and I

The Spy and I by Tiana Smith

For fans of romantic thrillers—especially if you love “chick-lit,” action, and spies!

Dove Barkley has one of those cool-sounding jobs: she is paid to hack into companies’ networks to show them where their vulnerabilities are. That’s as much excitement as Dove would like in her life, so she’s not really thrilled when a man is murdered in front of her, and a CIA agent claims to be her sister’s partner—which is how Dove learns her twin is a spy! She’s roped into the mission, trying to find her sister and basically trying to stay alive. Oh, and her sister’s partner, Mendez, seems to be short-circuiting Dove’s brain, even though she’s certain this is not the time for romance and doubting everything he’s told her about himself…

Reach for this one when you need a fun action read that throws romance into the mix.

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

Here are some mystery/thrillers with lawyer leads! Both are series starters, so if you read them when they were first published and have yet to continue, take this as a reminder to pick up the next in the series.

cover image for By Way Of Sorrow

By Way of Sorrow (Erin McCabe Mysteries #1) by Robyn Gigl

Erin McCabe has been hired to defend Sharise, who is accused of murdering a prominent New Jersey man’s son. Sharise, a Black transgender woman, is being held in a male prison and says the murder was in self-defense. McCabe knows firsthand the dangers transgender people face and also thinks there might be more to this case than has been shared with her. As McCabe manages her personal life and career, she and her ex-FBI partner realize Sharise’s life and their own lives are in danger as witnesses in their case start dropping dead.

Continue the series with Survivor’s Guilt and Remain Silent!

(TW transphobia/ misgendering/ mentions groping and sexual assault threats in prison/ child abuse scene/ murder made to look like suicide, detail/ brief mention past cancer death, not graphic)

cover of while justice sleeps by stacey abrams

While Justice Sleeps (Avery Keene #1) by Stacey Abrams

Avery Keene is the most shocked upon learning that Justice Howard Wynn is in a coma and he’s left her, his law clerk, power of attorney. His estranged family is also shocked and really not happy. To find out what happened to Howard, why he left her in charge, and to keep herself safe, she’ll have to dig into his cases, work, and personal life.

Pick up the sequel, Rogue Justice!

(TW attempted suicide, detail/ addiction/ briefly threatens sexual assault, doesn’t/ degenerative brain disorder/ genocide/ Islamophobia)

News and Roundups

Crime Writers of Color Podcast: Danielle Arceneaux, author of Glory Be is interviewed by Robert Justice.

Watson Drama With Morris Chestnut a Go at CBS

Iliad on the Strip: PW Talks with Don Winslow

Waunakee writer gets national attention for murder-mystery Northwoods

Watch every movie trailer that aired during Super Bowl 2024

The Final Days of Coyote vs. Acme: Offers, Rejections, and a Roadrunner Race Against Time | Exclusive

14 February 2024 Book Club Picks, From Reese’s Book Club To Sapph-Lit

Apple TV+’s 2024 lineup, including the Lady in the Lake adaptation (Laura Lippman)

LeVar Burton Responds to Book Bans with Reading Rainbow Video

Why Do We Even Read?

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

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Unusual Suspects

Idaho Murders Docuseries Reveals How Dangerous Internet Sleuths Can Be: THEY ARE NOT QUALIFIED

Hi, mystery fans! Carla Hall has a new food show on Max, Chasing Flavor, and it is as delightful and adventurous as she is! My only complaint is no one has designed TVs where I can grab and eat the food on the screen.

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

6 stickers with watercolor style illustrations of bookmobiles in different weather

Mobile Bookshop Sticker Bundle by TerraVCo

I love bookmobiles, and I found these illustrations lovely. ($19 — they’re also sold individually if you prefer.)

New Releases

cover image for A Matrimonial Murder

A Matrimonial Murder (Temple Hill Mystery #2) by Meeti Shroff-Shah

For fans of armchair traveling while solving a murder mystery and novelist-turned-amateur sleuth MCs!

Novelist Radhi Zaveri is once again finding herself solving a murder mystery: the killing of a matchmaker’s assistant in Mumbai. With a long list of clients (any who could have motive), first, Radhi will have to figure out if the assistant was even the target or the actual matchmaker.

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up A Mumbai Murder Mystery.

cover image for The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder

The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller

For fans of stories where wills leave someone a business and a mystery, British murder mysteries, and antiques (C.L. Miller is the daughter of the late Judith Miller of the BBC Antiques Roadshow)!

Divorced and with a kid in college, Freya Lockwood learns that the man she tracked down valuable antiques with 20 years ago has died and left her and her aunt his business in a small English village. But that’s not all he left: there’s also a cryptic letter for Freya that she’s about to realize puts her on the hunt for his murderer…

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

Based on two new releases of things to watch, I thought I’d give “buddy” book recs.

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson cover image

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson

Film: Lisa Frankenstein, written by Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body) and directed by Zelda Williams (Robin Williams’s daughter), is inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and is now playing in theaters. It’s a horror comedy following a teen girl struggling with her new family dynamic and hanging out in the cemetery when she accidentally brings a dead guy to life.

Book: While the film and this book have different plots, I immediately thought of this book when I heard about the film: misunderstood teen lead, bringing back a dead person, living teen + the “dead” teaming up, the Lisa Frank aesthetic, and the fun, smart, humor mix! Plus, in the book, you get the bonus of a mystery: the mean girls accidentally brought back to life were murdered, but by who?

furious hours cover image

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

Series: Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (an 8-episode limited series on FX that you can stream on Hulu) is based on the book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer. It’s about Truman Capote, known for his true crime book In Cold Blood, and his final novel, which he spent years talking about but never published, as he befriended a group of wealthy women he called his Swans, and the betrayal that led to them never speaking to him again. The series has a hell of a cast if you grew up when I did: Naomi Watts as Babe Paley, Diane Lane as Slim Keith, Chloë Sevigny as C. Z. Guest, Calista Flockhart as Lee Radziwill, Demi Moore as Ann Woodward, Molly Ringwald as Joanne Carson.

Book: This is a super interesting true crime + history + biography that delves into the story of a serial killer preacher, the lawyer who defended the preacher and then defended the man who killed the preacher (!), Harper Lee’s (To Kill a Mockingbird) research for Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and how Lee wrote about the preacher’s case because she wanted to write her own true crime book. Did you wonder how I was going to pull this all together? Always have faith in my twisty, turny brain!

News and Roundups

Missouri Secretary of State Candidate Promises to Burn Books

Anna Diop Joins Corey Hawkins, Willem Dafoe in The Man in My Basement (an adaptation of Walter Mosley’s The Man in My Basement)

Idaho Murders Docuseries Reveals How Dangerous Internet Sleuths Can Be: They Are Not Qualified

Downton Abbey and Line of Duty stars team up for new Netflix crime series – and it sounds gripping (based on The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen)

Legal Worlds Collide When the Suits Cast Meets Judge Judy in e.l.f. Cosmetics’ Super Bowl Spot

Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel Author Lisa Jewell Shatters the Promise of Perfection

Black-Owned Bookish Etsy Shops for You to Support

First Look at Sugar, Colin Farrell’s Slick Detective Series Inspired by ’40s Noir

Hijack, Starring Idris Elba, Renewed at Apple TV+

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

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Unusual Suspects

ARGYLLE Might Be Bombing, But at Least Its Fake Author Mystery Has Been Solved

Hello, mystery fans! I was so incredibly happy to see Tracy Chapman at the Grammys that I am still playing her performance with Luke Combs on repeat.

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

two bookmarks one with an illustration of a white goose that says "you're on this page silly goose" and the other with just a bunch of white geese on a beige background

Silly goose bookmark by CuppaSeriously

I regularly get yelled at by geese and can confirm they are this cute but not this friendly if you’re in “their” territory. Still love them and would recommend. ($4)

New Releases

cover image for When She Left

When She Left by E.A. Aymar

For fans of a reluctant assassin, mob books, multiple POV, and people-on-the-run crime books!

Melissa Cruz commits no crime when she leaves her boyfriend, Chris, for Jake, a photographer she meets. But Chris is part of an organized crime family, so Melissa and Jake are forced on the run, and Chris hires the family’s assassin, Lucky Wilson, to go after them. But Lucky doesn’t want to be an assassin anymore; it’s greatly affecting him and has him in a cycle of panic attacks. So he strikes a deal with Chris: one last job, and he’s out. What could go wrong?

cover image for Prima Facie

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

(TW rape)

This is based on the same-titled play which has been awarded an Olivier and Tony Award and starred Jodie Comer (from Killing Eve!). Comer also narrates the audiobook which is exceptional!

Tessa Ensler is a criminal defense barrister who tells us stories of hardship growing up, going to law school, and her current cases where she deeply believes that the justice system always works as it should—including when she defends clients accused of rape. Then she’s raped by a co-worker who she has begun dating, and she is put through what rape victims endure if they want to take their assaulter to trial.

This is a sharp legal novel—Comer deserves all the awards—and I highly recommend also reading the memoir versions of #MeToo stories, including Know My Name by Chanel Miller, Black Box by Shiori Itō, and Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement by Tarana Burke. And for nonfic/memoirs that aren’t specifically about sexual assault but do delve into the author’s experience with sexual assault, these are must-reads: All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler, Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba, and Inverse Cowgirl by Alicia Roth Weigel, Jonathan Van Ness (Foreword).

(TW past domestic abuse/ sexual assault on page, rape culture, sexual assault cases)

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

A thing I am doing this year is catching up on some of my favorite series, which I am behind on for reasons that have nothing to do with the books: I was waiting for the format I wanted, I was spacing them out to not run out of them, and there are so many freaking books I want to read right this second but puny human brains don’t allow for reading multiple books at the exact same time. So, along with catching up with The Murderbot Diaries and finishing An Ember in the Ashes series, I’m working my way through the series below this year.

audibook cover for Bury Me When I'm Dead

Bury Me When I’m Dead by Cheryl A. Head

I love that this series features a team of PIs, which makes it feel like many of my favorite procedural TV shows that walk you through a case from beginning to end while putting them in danger and also having real relationships of friendship, partnership, and also major head-butting as happens in teams.

(TW parent early-stage Alzheimer’s/ ableism/ forced vasectomy on teen)

The Spellman Files cover image

The Spellman Files (The Spellmans #1) by Lisa Lutz

I love that this is a family of PIs—focusing on the middle child—that is full of shenanigans, dark humor, case-solving, and the kind of ridiculousness I love and appreciate.

(TW alcoholism/ suicide attempt mentioned/ molestation incident mentioned)

News and Roundups

Attica Locke’s third book in the Highway 59 series comes out this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you’ve yet to read Bluebird, Bluebird, and Heaven, My Home, I am very much suggesting you go do that right now. I am a non-rereader am seriously debating doing both on audio before the third book.

Inside the Writer’s Studio: Charlie talks with British mystery writer Janice Hallett about her novel The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. They discuss writing in documentary form, cold cases, religion, cults, classic mysteries, journalistic ethics, and much more.

The 12 Best Thriller Movies of 2024 (So Far)

Tim Burton to Direct Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman Remake With Gone Girl Author Gillian Flynn

Police raided George Pelecanos’ home. 15 years later, he’s ready to write about it

Tirzah Price revealed the cover for her upcoming In Want of a Suspect, “out from @harperteen on November 12, 2024! This is a Lizzie and Darcy spin-off and features murder, mayhem, a cute dog, and more shenanigans! Cover art by Emma Condon and design by Corina Lupp!”

S.A. Cosby is one of the hottest authors in crime fiction, and his new novel, All The Sinners Bleed, continues his momentum. CBS News’ Jeff Glor talks with Cosby in his Virginia hometown to discuss his novels, career, and more.

Argylle might be bombing, but at least its fake author mystery has been solved.

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

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Unusual Suspects

HBO to Develop Gillian Flynn’s Novel DARK PLACES as a Limited Series

Hi, mystery fans! I hate that things like this have to exist, but here’s the great show Abbott Elementary (which returns in February with a new season!) being the helpers we need.

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

illustrated sticker of a mint colored dinosaur with a giant stack of books that says Readosaurus

Reading dinosaur sticker by namicraftlove

Would follow this little pudding pop to its cave of books, no questions asked! ($5)

New Releases

cover image for Almost Surely Dead

Almost Surely Dead by Amina Akhtar

For fans of psychological thrillers with a genre blend, fictional true crime podcasts, and past and present stories!

A pharmacist in NY, Dunia Ahmed, finds her life suddenly in danger multiple times — the first attempt is when someone tries to push her in front of a subway train. But now Dania is missing and considered dead. What happened? Will the answer lie in the true crime podcast transcripts?

cover image for The Expectant Detectives

The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes

For fans of funny new cozy series, murder mysteries, rural settings, and amateur sleuths!

Alice and Joe are just weeks away from her due date when they up and move from London to a small village for a quiet life. But you don’t get quiet in cozy mysteries! During a birthing class, where a fellow student goes into labor, a shop owner downstairs dies. What’s Alice to do? Join forces with fellow birthing class ladies to solve the crime! Bonus: if you’re not a fan of waiting a long time for the sequel, you’ll only have to wait until the beginning of summer for Dead Tired.

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

I’m going to skip doing the third Read Harder prompt for middle grade horror because I’ve recently covered the books I’d select: The Keeper by Guadalupe García McCall and Warren the 13th and The All-Seeing Eye by Tania del Rio and Will Staehle (Illustrator). Instead, here are two great options if you want to do the fourth prompt but add in true crime: Read a history book by a BIPOC author. Bonus: both have great audiobooks.

The Golden Thread cover image

The Golden Thread: The Cold War and the Mysterious Death of Dag Hammarskjöld by Ravi Somaiya

History: The focus is on the history of the United Nations, but you also get a lot of other history, like of the Congo.

True crime: Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, died in a plane crash along with everyone on board in 1961. The case, fueled with plenty of theories (many conspiracies), has remained unsolved, with the UN waiting until 2014 for anyone to be appointed to look into the case.

I regularly think about a quote from this book and how sadly applicable it continues to be: “Nobody could call them off — only wind them up, set them off, and semi-legitimately deny any involvement in the destruction that followed.”

(TW attempted suicide recounted, detail/ mentions group rape not detailed or graphic)

cover image for Tremors in the Blood

Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession, and the Birth of the Lie Detector by Amit Katwala

History: The history of the lie detector, along with criminal justice/forensics, and the history of crime at the turn of the century.

True crime: Katwala takes readers into the courtroom for a dive into cases throughout history where the lie detector was used, including in deciding whether to execute a person or not.

(TW domestic violence/ brief mentions of past child sexual assault, no detail/ suicide, detail, including murder-suicide)

News and Roundups

The 2024 Audie Award Finalists (Lots of favorite authors and great books on this list — S.A. Cosby up for Audiobook of the Year AND best thriller.)

With Mindy Kaling in her corner, author Amina Akhtar sets out to shake rather than strangle stereotypes

Love streaming on Prime? Amazon will now force you to watch ads unless you pay more

Bookish Valentine’s Day Cards for Friends and Lovers

End of Story: Controversial Author A.J. Finally Set to Release His Second Novel

HBO to Develop Gillian Flynn’s Novel Dark Places as a Limited Series

Washington State Introduces, Advances School Anti-Book Ban Bill

No, Argylle won’t be on Netflix after theaters (but it will be on another streamer)

Rhode Island native Kali Reis on starring in True Detective: Night CountryThe Boston Globe

Julia Roberts Thriller Leave the World Behind Enters Netflix’s All-Time List of Most-Watched Films

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

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Unusual Suspects

Amanda Seyfried To Headline Limited Series ‘Long Bright River’ For Peacock

Hi, mystery fans! If you’re a Nintendo Switch player, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying playing Rayman® Legends Definitive Edition — it’s fun, just the right amount of increasingly challenging, and reminds me of a combo of the things I like about Nintendo’s Super Mario and Sega’s Sonic. My current life mission is beating this game! (“You gotta have a goal. Do you have a goal?”)

2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!

Bookish Goods

book stud earrings of three books stacked on each other

Book Stud Earrings by OliveAndIvyByWhitney

These are lovely stud earrings for book lovers — and make a great gift. ($10)

New Releases

cover image for Wander in the Dark

Wander in the Dark by Jumata Emill

For fans of YA murder mysteries, family drama, siblings (brothers), and amateur sleuths!

At the heart of this murder mystery are two half-brothers: Amir and Marcel Trudeau. They aren’t on speaking terms, rooted in their mothers’ dislike of each other and their father raising one son while essentially having left the other. Amir ultimately goes to Marcel’s 16th birthday party, though, because of a girl, which turns out terribly for everyone: the girl is murdered, Amir is the suspect, and now Marcel and Amir are forced to hash out their family issues and solve a murder.

I really enjoyed the balance of the family drama, Amir and Marcel fighting their way to a better relationship, Marcel investigating, the New Orleans setting, and the dive into the prejudice in our justice system and our current media.

I love that the audiobook gave each brother his own narrator: Kevin R. Free and Nile Bullock.

I also really enjoyed Emill’s previous YA murder mystery, The Black Queen, and look forward to future books.

(TW past animal cruelty)

cover image for Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect (Ernest Cunningham #2) by Benjamin Stevenson

For fans of author main characters, bookish books, remote mysteries, and murder mysteries where a handful of people are all suspects with motives!

Author Ernest Cunningham is invited to attend the 50th Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival to be on writing panels, along with bestselling authors, while on a luxury train traveling the Australian desert. Surely (don’t call me Shirley!), you can see all the delicious mystery tropes ahead: an author is murdered, and the fellow authors become both prime suspects and essentially “detectives” to find out what actually happened!

You don’t need to read the first in the series — they can each be read as standalones — but it’s a fun, creative, remote mystery if you’re interested: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone.

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

If you’re a fan of adaptations, here are two January mystery/crime adaptations that are under the radar.

cover image for Eileen

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

The book: For fans of character-driven novels following a desperate, self-loathing woman who is slowly building up to an ending of crime/suspense! Eileen Dunlop explains how, in the 1960s, at age 24, she disappeared from the small town where she worked at a boy’s prison.

The adaptation: The film, starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin Katherin, is available on VOD and DVD at the moment.

Watch the trailer!

cover image for The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

The book: For fans of classic detective novels! A simple enough case at the start turns into anything, but when Miss Wonderley hires Detective Spade to locate her eloped sister, only Spade’s partner ends up shot, and Spade is now being hunted…

The adaptation: Monsieur Spade, starring Clive Owen, takes us into the detective’s retirement (30 years after the novel’s setting) for a “one more case” plot. It’s currently playing on AMC and streaming on AMC+.

Watch the trailer!

News and Roundups

5 of the Internet’s Theories About the Author of Argylle, From Most to Least Ridiculous

Congrats to all the finalists and the crime books Vengeance Is Mine by Marie NDiaye, Judgment and Mercy: The Turbulent Life and Times of the Judge Who Condemned the Rosenbergs by Martin J. Siegel, and Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba: 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalists Announced

Fascinating and soothing to watch: Syndetics Unbound’s year-end “Top Titles” list for all of 2023!

Amanda Seyfried To Headline Limited Series Long Bright River For Peacock

2023’s Most Influential Authors Reveal The 2024 Novels They’re Most Excited To Read

As Long As It Isn’t True: A Literary Scandals Podcast — Friends With the Monster: Truman Capote’s ANSWERED PRAYERS

Bookish Valentine’s Day Sweatshirts to Celebrate Your One True Love

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.