Category: Unusual Suspects

For fans of Japanese crime novels, stories about serial killers, food, and a lead journalist!

Manako Kajii is a gourmet cook who is accused of luring men with her meals and killing them. While in Tokyo Detention Center, after being tried and found guilty, she is refusing to speak, including to the press. That is, until Rika Machida changes tactics and writes to Manako asking for her “beef stew” recipe. Manako can’t help but answer back, and soon the women are talking about food. Rika has a plan to soften Manako into talking to her about the murders, but the more recipes of Manako’s she makes, the more she seems to be the one changing…

This is my current read, which I’m taking my time with because I’m really enjoying the dive into Japanese society, journalism, food, culture, and misogyny. It’s an “after the crime” novel that isn’t so much trying to solve if Manako did or didn’t really kill the men, but instead, Rika is getting to know the woman who society is fascinated by — because how can a happy fat woman who is deemed unattractive have gotten so many men to not only be with her but love her to the point of being gullible enough for her to have conned them out of their money and possibly lured them to their deaths? Manako is a “traditional” woman in many ways: she loves to feed a man and take care of him. She also hates feminism and margarine. And Rika, along with her friend who has left her job and is in fertility treatments, are finding their own views challenged through getting to know Manako — Rika especially, who had never cared for food beyond picking something up from a convenience store and is now finding herself making Manako’s recipes and being changed by them.

For fans of journalist-turned-PI leads!

Natalee (Lee) Ellerin is a journalist who, a handful of years ago, wrote a piece about a suspect in a girl’s murder. After the suspect died by suicide, he was exonerated from new evidence, essentially ruining Lee’s career. Lee turns to PI work and ends up with a case of a pregnant young woman found close to death who the police are labeling an attempted suicide, but the woman’s mother wants Lee to prove it wasn’t. Lee takes the case and ends up finding herself circling back to the case that ruined her career…

Audiobook release (narrated by Akira Matsumoto)! For fans of classic detective stories, this is a great series!

Flautist Hidesuke was missing for months before being found dead, the death believed to be a suicide. His daughter and mother, however, invite PI Kosuke Kindaichi to a divination session, because they believe the body found does not belong to Hidesuke. But Kindaichi ends up with two cases: the one he came for, and the murder that happens during the divination!

You can read these in any order you’d like, but if you’d like to start with the first, pick up The Honjin Murders.

For fans of ghosts, multiple POVs (including a detective), romance, and a murder mystery!

Alyssa Mann was in a car accident that killed her husband and isn’t really in the party mood for her 40th birthday, but she humors her two best friends and ends up getting a tarot card reading. It’s all fun and games until you wake up the next morning seeing a ghost! Once Alyssa accepts what is now happening, she ends up on missions for the ghosts and finds herself ultimately having to solve a murder mystery with her two best friends and the single detective who lives next door…

For fans of remote settings (Alaska) and fictional serial killers!

Anchorage homicide detective DeHavilland Beans takes his new case personally, having known the murdered young woman, Jolene Nilsson, for years — she served him coffee at a local café. Because of the condition the body is found in, he first needs his ex-wife’s expertise, wildlife expert Raisa Ingalls. Then when more baristas are murdered, he also needs the FBI’s help. Can they identify and stop this serial killer?

For fans of thrillers, a wife trying to solve a husband’s mystery, and two POVs.

Cassidy Abbott is managing the apartment complex Sycamores, and blackmailing crappy men on the side, when a new tenant moves into her deceased husband’s art studio. Anna Hartley is a reporter whose husband called her out of the blue, confessed to killing someone, and then Anna heard a gunshot. Her husband was later found dead, suicide assumed. Anna has instead decided to find out exactly what was going on in her husband’s life by moving into the studio he was renting and learning about all the other tenants…

For fans of YA social crime novels!

On July 4th, an oil rig off Monarch Beach explodes. Six Muslim teens who are all from different backgrounds — from a soccer star to an influencer — become the suspects, accused of a terrorist act. With their basic rights denied, each can save themself by framing another as they are threatened with their own secrets being used against them.

For fans of multiple POVs including a detective and a reporter, past mystery involving a group of teens, now adults, still hiding a secret!

Jane is a detective who is six months pregnant. Her fiancé disappeared while hiking before he knew she was pregnant. Her current case involves bones found during an excavation. A reporter not really inspired by ethics immediately jumps on the story and pressures her boss to let her run with it. This leads her boss to freak out, being a man who, in his teens, blacked out the night a friend of his went missing. It was always suspected the missing teen’s friends were lying about the night she disappeared, but when a local teen also vanished, they decided to blame him for kidnapping her. Now there’s a body, and it’s been 50 years since those teens decided to alibi each other, and not all of them are willing to continue lying…

(TW claustrophobia/ fatphobia, lesbophobia/ addiction/ incest/ suicide/ statutory)

For fans of historical murder mysteries, action, humor, and Sherlock Holmes-inspired duos!

A series of events — including Lao being asked to impersonate a missing man at a jail and causing a riot — results in academic Lao She, who teaches Chinese at a university, being partnered up with Judge Dee Ren Jie to solve a murder. Store owner Ma Za Ren was killed with one of the swords from his own store, and it’s only the beginning of the murders! Pick this up for the murder mystery, action, and adventure!

For fans of Hawai’i-set murder mysteries and amateur sleuths!

Valerie Corbin is a retired caterer who was recently in a car accident that killed her brother. To help her grieving process and her marriage, she goes on vacation to Hawai’i with her wife, Kristen. The vacation turns murder mystery when Valerie swears she sees a man’s leg right before a volcano’s lava covers it. Kristen might not believe Valerie saw this, but it won’t stop Valerie from investigating!

For 14 years, everyone thought Geo was mourning her friend, Angela, who disappeared without a trace. They thought Angela was another victim of the local serial killer Calvin James. How devastating for Geo to lose her best friend that way. But for 14 years, Geo has kept a terrible secret. And now Angela’s remains have been found, and the truth will no longer stay silent.

Four bored teenage girls are spending a hot summer in a Tokyo suburb. When the neighbor of one of the girls is murdered, and her teenage son is suspected, suddenly, things are more interesting for them. A murder next door, how exciting! And they know the killer! While the suspected killer is on the run, the girls speculate about events, and keep secrets, and get closer and closer to danger as the days go on.

This is a YA thriller about a group of friends who reunite at the site where one of them died the year before. Emily’s death in a fire on the lake drove a wedge between the once-close friend group. But in honor of her memory, they decide to gather together a year later. Only it’s seeming more and more possible that, somehow, Emily has joined them as well. What really happened to Emily last summer, and who was responsible? Inquiring ghosts want to know.

For fans of dark academia at a boarding school, a missing student case, and murder mysteries!

Sade has had a lot of loss in her life — most recently, her father’s death, leaving her alone and attending a boarding school. It’s difficult enough to deal with grief, being a sleepwalker with no memory of the events, and being at a new school. Then, after one night at her new school, Sade’s roommate goes missing…Now she’ll have to team up with a new friend to figure out what exactly is going on!

If you’re looking for backlist and have yet to read Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s debut, go pick up Ace of Spades!

For fans of past and present storylines, and a murder mystery where whoever solves the case gets the inheritance!

In the 1960s, Frances Adams is at a fair when a fortune teller informs her she’ll be murdered. In the present day, she summons her 25-year-old great-niece, whom she hasn’t met, to her English estate to discuss her will. But instead of a meeting, Annie finds her great-aunt dead and a will stating she knew she’d be murdered, and whoever solves the case gets the estate. Making this even more complicated, there’s a one-week countdown, and Annie isn’t an investigator. But she is an aspiring mystery writer, so she’s up for the task!

For fans of comedy of errors, big bickering and loving families, and accidentally getting roped into crime!

Meddy Chan started her life of crime in the first book when she accidentally killed her date in self-defense, and then her family spent a weekend trying to keep the body hidden while planning a wedding. Now Meddy is newly married and she’s brought her husband Nathan to Jakarta, where he is going to meet a lot of relatives at once during Chinese New Year. While Meddy is at first nervous that he’s going to not understand her culture and family, her worries soon shift to crime when an old beau of her aunts, now in organized crime, decides to woo her again. Except something, of course, goes wrong during the courtship, and now Meddy, her mom, her aunties, and Nathan are in the crosshairs of a business rivalry that will put them in danger…

The audiobook series is narrated by Risa Mei, who does a great job with all the big personalities!

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Dial A For Aunties.

For fans of female serial killer leads, revenge, dark humor, and past and present storylines!

Claire kills people who piss her off and has managed to not get caught. But when she’s shortlisted for a prize, and then the follow-up email informs her it was a mistake, she has a new target, one that puts a target on her!

After her kill — he was not apologetic at all — Claire has to join a bereavement group because her doctor won’t give her meds for her headaches, thinking they are caused by her grief over her father’s recent passing. So off she goes, only to discover that one of the grievers in the group witnessed Claire’s killing and is going to tell the cops if Claire doesn’t join her blackmailing business. What’s Claire to do?

I picked this up based solely on the title, knowing nothing about it, and was not disappointed! Grab this one if you like dark humor and not feeling bad about “liking” a fictional serial killer.

The audiobook is narrated by Fiona Hardingham, who has a ton of work under her belt, including Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes series!

(TW child abuse, mostly emotional/ suicide, suicidal thoughts scene, almost attempt/ dementia/ bereavement groups: discussion of loved one’s deaths including parent death from cancer/ memory of mental health facility abuse/ elder abuse/ panic attack/ recounts past miscarriages, not graphic)

For fans of thrillers, writer main characters, murder mysteries, the MC becoming a suspect!

Theo has decided to no longer study to be a lawyer. Instead, she leaves her home in Australia and moves to the U.S. with her brother to finally be a writer. Lucky for her, local author Dan Murdoch becomes her friend and says he’ll read her manuscript. Unlucky for her, Dan is murdered, and he may be the first but not the last…

If you’re looking for backlist, pick up Gentill’s The Woman in the Library and the historical mystery series starting with A Few Right Thinking Men.

For fans of multiple POVs, sisters, stories about organized crime, and obsession!

Crissy Dowling works in Vegas, playing Diana Spencer in her one-woman show. She has fully taken on the role, but her life at the moment is far from glamorous, including that her separated-from-his-wife boyfriend, a senator, has cut ties with Crissy to go back to his wife. And one of the owners of the hotel she’s working at has been murdered by a hitman. Things can only go up from here?

Of course not; this is a crime novel: the other owner puts Crissy in the position to do him a dangerous favor. Then, Crissy’s estranged sister, Betsy, moves to Vegas from Vermont after dumping her previous life as a social worker, getting a boyfriend, and adopting a tween. When the criminals realize Betsy has a resemblance to Crissy, things only get worse…

If you’re a fan of dual narrators, the audiobook is narrated by Saskia Maarleveld and Grace Experience.

If you’re looking for backlist, I’ve always found Bohjalian to be a reliable crime/mystery/thriller author: The Flight Attendant, The Red Lotus, The Guest Room.

For fans of puzzle mysteries, tight-knit families, amateur sleuths, murder mysteries, and book-loving characters!

Tempest Raj, who fled her life as a magician in Vegas, is back living with her father and grandparents and working for the family business, Secret Staircase Construction, which creates secret nooks/rooms in homes. It’s not all fun and games, though, because the business is being sued by the husband of a woman in a coma who fell down the stairs the Secret Staircase Construction built. Rumor is, the husband pushed his wife! So Tempest is obviously on the case, but she’s also rebuilding her life, including working on repairing a childhood friendship with Ivy, who is also super helpful in mystery solving as a lifelong mystery reader.

Did I mention there is a family curse?: Three deaths on stage across three generations that also need solving…

I love this series for two main reasons: the family dynamics and getting to watch puzzle mysteries unraveled and solved as the reader gets to also play sleuth!

You can start here and not be lost; however, this book solves a past family mystery that runs through the first two books, so if you want to follow along from the beginning, pick up Under Lock & Skeleton Key!

(TW suspected past suicide of missing person)

For fans of YA, books with a mental illness focus, and did-I-or-did’t-I-commit-a-murder mystery?!

Neely Hawtrey is struggling. At 16, her mom has just died in a car accident, her brother died by suicide, and she’s now living with her grandparents and what she calls her monsters. The monsters are a girl and a man in her closet, and a voice following her called Shitbird Man. With mental illness running in her family, she’s aware of the problem and hopes that a new job working in caverns as a tour guide will help since the monsters can’t follow her there. Soon, she’s doing better, making friends, and spending time with her coworker crush Mila. Until Mila is murdered…

I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve read by McGinnis, which I’ve found contain dark humor and angry teen girls: The Initial Insult and The Female of the Species.