Category: Unusual Suspects

This is a fun audiobook with heart and a great full cast of narrators. It’s set in the ’80s in Rhode Island when four partners at a law firm die in a jet crash. Now three widows and a girlfriend are not only grieving but about to find out that a lot of money is missing and the mob is here to collect.

This does have a mystery component—where is the money, why is it missing, and what is going on with this project the firm was working on? But I’d move this more to the crime side of the genre since we’re mostly following the women trying to survive and scheming to find the money and get it to the mob. We get to know four very different women and watch as their own grievances come out, they learn of secrets, and are forced to find a way to work together in order to stay alive.

Camille is the second wife with a stepdaughter that no one takes seriously, Justine has a young son and her husband was having an affair. Krystle is the funny smart-mouth who knows how to talk to the mob and will do anything for her grown son who she wants to take over the firm. Meredith is a stripper that no one knew had paperwork leaving her everything.

The book strikes a really good balance between heartfelt and real life struggles and witty banter and running from the mob. And the narrators—Dina Pearlman, Karissa Vacker, Helen Laser, Ariel Blake–knock it out of the park.

(TW a young child with cancer, not terminal / sexual harassment, groping / diet culture)

This is a middle grade whodunnit following Eleven-year-old Amelia (Millie) Ashford focused on solving the crime of the missing goggles. Not just any googles, these are Amelia Earhart’s goggles and Millie was the last to see them in the display case in Earhart’s childhood home where Millie and five other girls, who she doesn’t know, are spending the night. I’m currently listening to the audiobook and enjoying it: Millie is a sweet kid in therapy, with anxiety ever since her mom left the family. All the kids love Amelia Earhart so you get a bunch of facts on her and also learn about fellow ground breaking aviators like Bessie Coleman and Nellie Zabel Willhite.

Rooted in the tradition of call-and-response, prison activist, artist, and scholar Bryonn Rolly Bain speaks with those working to expose the systematic injustice and fighting to abolish the prison industrial complex. You’ll hear from the founder of Los Angeles’s A New Way of Life Reentry Project, Susan Burton, a Sing Sing Correctional Facility warden, and the author’s brother upon being released from prison in an intimate conversation, to name a few. “Reimagining the role of the writer and scholar as a DJ and MC, Bryonn moves the crowd with this unforgettable mix of those working within the belly of the beast to change the world.”

I really like books with interesting settings, especially places that you could not pay me to even think about going to. That’s the beauty of reading and getting to watch someone else do it.

In this case the majority of the book takes place on a mountain, Manaslu, the eighth-highest peak in the world. Cecily Wong is trying to basically make her career and she’s hit a moment in her life where she believes it’s now do-or-die: either she takes—and accomplishes–this opportunity, or she’s never going to be a journalist. Charles McVeigh is a world famous mountaineer and he’s agreed to let Wong interview him, a huge deal, but only after she completes the summit with him.

Teeny tiny problem: she’s broke and it costs a lot to buy equipment, she’s not a climber, her journalist boyfriend dumps her when she gets offered this assignment, and most importantly for the purposes of a mystery, people start dying. Will she make it, not only to the summit to get her interview, but back down alive?

The book has amazing detail that puts you right on the mountain, constantly aware that one slight misstep—literal and figurative—will leave you dead. Which then starts to get paired with the drama of people in dangerous situations, and the whole Agatha Christie plot of a remote place where people are popping up dead. But in a place so dangerous, surely there isn’t anything sinister beyond extreme conditions? Or is everyone in even more danger?

The author’s bio states “In September 2019, she became the youngest Canadian woman to climb Mt Manaslu in Nepal – the world’s eighth highest mountain at 8,163m (26,781ft),” and it really shows in the book that mountaineering is a thing she knows a lot about. It also shows how much the sport (? is it considered a sport) discriminates against anyone who isn’t a cis man, making an already incredibly difficult thing even more difficult for so many people. I learned a lot from this book and while I remain forever and ever certain this is not a thing for me, I loved getting to experience it while all cozy inside my home. The audiobook, narrated by Katie Leung, paired really well for me with a jigsaw puzzle.

This is part of the new true crime subgenre that melds memoir with true crime. The true crime aspect is the still unsolved murders of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans, who were murdered in 1996 in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. The memoir aspect is Kathryn Miles talking about how she came to learn of this case, her ties to hiking and how this case spotlighted the dangers of hiking and camping for especially people who aren’t cis men.

The true crime part really focuses on who Lollie Winans and Julie Williams were: their lives growing up, how they met, and their lives at the time of the murders. While there was a suspect in the case, a man in prison for assaulting a woman that was publicly named, and Attorney General John Ashcroft said he’d seek the death penalty in the case and try it as a federal hate crime, he later suspended the case. To this day the same person has remained accused but not tried and the case is unsolved.

Miles lays out the case and doesn’t believe the accused is the killer. She also meets and interviews the accused’s legal team, who always believed him innocent, as well as criminal investigators, and even presents the case to a class to get the student’s opinion on who they think the killer is. I can’t say I was sold either way in the argument mostly because I did feel there was a feeling of the end of the book being rushed (can you put publishing deadlines on investigating cold cases?) and Miles posits herself that investigators will zero in on someone they believe and only use the facts to prove that, and questions whether she too was doing that in the reverse. There were a few parts where it felt that. On the plus side Miles steered clear of giving unnecessary gruesome or graphic details. And I really hope this case gets the right kind of attention that may finally help solve what happened so the women’s loved ones can at least have answers.

What I did find absolutely fascinating about this book was the deep dive into national parks, their history, how they operate, and most importantly their safety. How safe is it for people, especially non cis white men, to hike and camp out in national parks? Again, you can miss me with any hiking and camping trip, no matter how much I love nature, but that didn’t stop me from being fascinated by all the information related to those activities.

(TW child sexual abuse, not graphic/ date rape recounted, not graphic/ stalker/ brief suicide, detailed/ women and girls sexual assault cases/ mentions past child abuse)

Veracity is a business people on dating apps go to when they want to verify a match, meaning you want to make sure they aren’t really married, are telling you the truth about things, etc. This is where Claudia Lin has started working, a secret she’s keeping from her family.
But her first case immediately goes sideways and Claudia basically goes rogue continuing to investigate, breaking all kinds of protocols. But what else would a young woman who grew up reading mysteries do in this situation? Especially one who constantly thinks of the fictional Inspector Yuan, and how he solves cases.

That’s not all she’s dealing with though, as we get to see a lot of her interactions with her Chinese-American family and how they play a huge role in her decisions whether because of or against them. She’s her mom’s favorite, through no fault of her own, and that causes tension with her siblings. Her brother wants to get her the kind of job he thinks she should have and so she tells no one about her real job. The book explores the roles expected of us in families and the push and pull through them even when there is love.

(TW case revolves around whether a death ir suicide or not, detail/ brief mentions of past domestic and child abuse)

I’d place this book in the mystery category because the first half is solving a mystery, but I’d also gently move it into the crime category.

Sam and Elli are twins who grew up working in television. The problem was that only Sam wanted to act, not Elli, so they learned how to switch places whenever one didn’t want to do something the other did. Cut to Sam as a child star addict and Elli desperately wanting to go back to just being a regular kid.

Now Sam is a year sober, and a year into not having seen or spoken to Elli when Sam gets called home by her parents because Elli hasn’t returned home from a retreat. Turns out her parents can no longer watch Elli’s toddler, a toddler that Sam had no idea even existed. Wanting to make up for years of being viewed as a disappointment, she decides to care for her niece and continue to work on her sobriety. But where exactly is her sister and what kind of retreat is it?…

The book is sectioned into three parts, taking us into each sister’s life then and now through their perspective of how they got to where they are. There’s the current crime, the predicament, and what exactly happened to Elli. The book dives into identity, child acting, what we owe other people and ourselves, and feminist wellness cults.

I definitely got sucked into these women’s lives with the audiobook, which gives each sister a narrator: Julia Whelan and Kate Rudd.

(TW infertility/ addiction/ brief biphobia/ brief fatphobia, diet culture/ emotional cult abuse)

This is a great book that really sucked me into these women’s lives. It starts with “Aftermath” which is a brief opening that gives the impression that a crime has been committed, but we don’t know who or what really. And that’s it, until the end…

We follow Ronke, Boo, and Simi who have been really close friends for almost two decades, having bonded initially over all of them being Anglo-Nigerian. They’re all in very different places in their lives and trying their best, but not always succeeding. Ronke is really happy with her boyfriend Kayode and thinks she’s finally found the one but she can’t get her friends on board with this idea since she’s had really bad boyfriends in the past and they assume it’s just another repeat. Boo has the “perfect” life but is unfulfilled and frustrated and taking it out on her husband and daughter. Simi is secretly on the pill while her husband thinks they’re trying for a baby and she’s always stressed at work, while everyone thinks she’s got the perfect life/career. Then Simi brings along a childhood friend, Isobel, to one of the girls’ lunches; some take a dislike and others love how Isobel seems to make them feel freer and opens doors. Slowly each of the friends’ personal lives and friendships start to crack…

I loved the audiobook narrator, Natalie Simpson, and the dive into biracial Nigerian British women’s lives and I inhaled this one. Definitely one of my favorites of the year.

(TW recounts partner abuse, including sexual, not graphic/ stalker/ mentions cancer diagnosis, not detailed/ brief moment partner possible attempted assault/ colorism/ fatphobia/ mentions past suicide, no detail/ mentions past suicide attempt, detail/ domestic abuse)

Equally for fans of Big Little Lies and dark academia. I got sucked into this audiobook (narrated by Teri Schnaubelt) as an escape into other people’s fictional drama, and there is plenty of it. We start with a crime, a police interview, and then we’re taken six months back into time—very much follows the setup of BLL.

Three women aren’t really thriving: Natalie is taking care of her brother and working at an elite school where she does not have the financial status of everyone she’s surrounded by; Brooke’s husband left her after one too many affairs on her part and she’s trying to get him back while separately trying to keep her daughter’s boyfriend away from her daughter; Asha thinks her husband is having an affair and is trying to get her daughter into college based on her athletic abilities and is afraid to reveal she is accidentally pregnant.

In this one while you do get sucked into the women’s lives, you also never forget that there has been a crime committed and someone is under suspicion because we get some police interrogation chapters throughout.

(TW addiction/ nude photos taken and shared without consent/ use of date rape drugs/ predator/ brief mention past suicide attempt, detail/ brief suicidal ideation mention, no detail/ potential past sexual assault questioned/ brief pregnancy complication that turns out fine)

If you’re looking for a PI mystery and like missing person cases, here’s a great start to a new series. Yolanda Avila is now a PI, having left the LAPD because of harassment. She’s trying to ignore what may be prophetic dreams, something she’ll have to come to terms with when her godson is kidnapped and her wife begins getting threatening notes at work… Bonus if you’re a fan of PIs with great family and friend support systems.

(TW child abduction/ active pedophile case in the city, no graphic details/ anxiety attack)

This is a perfect choice for mystery lovers whose taste falls in the middle between cozies and dark mysteries. Lena Scott is estranged from her half-sister Desiree Pierce, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know her sister well enough to know she didn’t die the way investigators are saying. So Lena goes digging into Desiree’s life to not only solve the case but also process a lot of past hurt and family issues. (Review)

Alex Segura took his immense knowledge of the comic book industry (having worked as Co-President at Archie Comics and Executive Director of Publicity at DC) and set a murder in the center of 1970s comic industry drama, all revolving around a Miami transplant in NY trying to break into the industry as a writer. (Review)

If you like your mysteries with humor and romance, this is a great series full of entertainment. This is the sequel to Dial A For Aunties (review) and it continues that story. Meddy Chan is a wedding photographer with a family that works in the wedding industry, but she has to give up the reigns for her own wedding. That is until she discovers someone is planning on using her wedding to go through with a hit job—let all the ridiculous antics ensue.

(TW non graphic brief discussions of past sexual assault)

What happens when you’ve dedicated your life to being an assassin and have reached an elderly age? Hornclaw is about to find out!

(TW attempted sexual assault/ mentions drug overdose/ baby murder/ child kidnapping/ natural dog death)

If you’re looking for something fun, with the feel of magic that isn’t fantasy, and that relies on the puzzle solving of mysteries, this is a great new series starter! Come for the mystery, stay for the family, magic, and food. (review)

This is the third entry in this great PI series that usually pairs two complete opposite PIs together. If you avoid darker content you can start with this one–you won’t be lost–which is based on a missing person case when a husband hires Vega to find his wife’s long missing boyfriend. If you want to start at the beginning of this series, pickup Two Girls Down (review)

(TW suicide not on page, detail, questioned as murder/ animal cruelty/ white nationalist, nazi group)

If you’re looking for a mystery with a ghost, love past and present mysteries, and true crime bloggers as the lead, this is a great page-turner!

(TW mentions past attempted child kidnapping, brief mention of sexual assault, not graphic/ alcoholism/ brief mention of past partner abuse/ mostly alludes to child abuse incident, not graphic/ speculates sexual assault, mentions past rape, not graphic)

This is a dark series that starts at the ending of the first book, so pick up The Initial Insult (Review) if you haven’t already. So I won’t say much about the sequel other than if you’re a fan of revenge tale,s pick up the first book and you’ll automatically need the second to see the fallout and consequences…

In need of a popcorn thriller and love Dolly Parton’s personality? You’ll quickly be turning the pages as a young woman lands in Nashville trying to make it as a singer while trying to outrun her past… (review)