Category: Unusual Suspects

This is the perfect beach read to escape your winter situation. Aarav Rai is a 26-year-old bestselling crime author whose mother disappeared–with a quarter of a million of his father’s money–when he was a teenager. Was she a missing person who should be presumed dead or a woman in an abusive relationship who took money and ran?

Those have been the questions left behind in an Auckland, New Zealand, cul-de-sac. Except now Nina Rai’s car has been found with her body inside at Waitākere Ranges Regional Park adding new questions: did she die in a car accident; was she murdered? Aarav has plenty of theories from his crime writing brain, but he was recently in an accident and is having memory issues–including around what he remembers from the night of his mother’s disappearance. But he does remember her screaming.

And so we’re taken not only into Aarav’s thoughts and memories of his childhood but also into the cul-de-sac of wealthy neighbors as he tries to unravel everyone’s secrets and dirty deeds…

I love small communities and watching all the secrets being exposed, so this was already my catnip, and then it had the added bonus of a great location we rarely get to armchair travel to. Aarav is an interesting, layered, on-and-off unlikeable character forced to face his complicated feelings and memories of his childhood and parents.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Raj Varma, which is always my go-to format for settings I am unfamiliar with in hopes to hear proper pronunciations. I really liked Varma’s voice, accent, and that he did not do high pitched women’s voices.

(TW alcoholism/ domestic abuse/ statutory (19/16)/ dog death questioned as poisoning, no graphic details/ past suicide, detail/ past eating disorder, detail)

I love that I can count on Harper to deliver an immersive, page-turning, atmospheric mystery every single time.

I’m not going to give a lot of plot away on this one because a lot is revealed in fragments and I loved collecting the pieces as I was getting to know the characters. Kieran Elliott has returned home to a small south coast town in Tasmania. His father has dementia, being looked after by his mother, and he’s come home with his girlfriend Mia and new baby daughter to help pack up the home.

He’s not only dealing with the current situation and emotional toll of an ill parent but it’s also forcing him and the community to face a past many would rather bury. There was an accident. There may still be a missing person. There have only ever been questions and accusations. And now there is a murdered woman. Kieran is about to learn that you can’t run away from an unresolved past…

I loved watching Kieran and Mia reconnect with people they hadn’t seen in a long time and all the complexities involved, the tension of a place trying so hard to forget the past, the family dynamics, the complicated nature of grief, all playing out along the ocean coast, which can quickly turn from tranquil to violent.

(TW parent with dementia/ drowning/ suicide on page)

Did I drop everything to read Megan Abbott’s upcoming suspense novel? Yes, of course! The thing I love–there are many but here’s one–about Abbott’s books is that she envelopes readers in feelings. While many mysteries start with a crime, Abbott just starts by plunging you into the lives of characters and slowly this feeling of dread sets in because you don’t know what but you know something is certainly coming, and it’s never good.

It’s always fascinating to watch. There’s also usually an “extreme” element as the backdrop–this time dance. A ballet studio, to be exact, left to two sisters when their parents died in a car accident. They teach and live together with one of their husbands. Until one sister moves out of the house and into the dance studio. There’s a fire. A contractor. And suddenly things are unraveling… If I close my eyes and tell you the feelings: breathless, chaotic, loneliness, restless, reckless, pressure cooker, intensity, desire, regret, passion, obsession, visceral, longing… Abbott manages to make her characters’ lives so vivid and real I can smell and taste their world, all while making me uncomfortable and unable to stop turning the page. It’s a train wreck I always know is coming and can never look away from (don’t want to!) that always ends up living with me afterwards as she explores how we get to these wrecks and how we can continue after. She has an extensive backlist and here is me raving about them all. (TW disordered eating and eating disorders/ past alcoholism/ sexual abuse of teen/ suicide scene, detail/ past domestic abuse)

I got my hands on an early copy of this upcoming cozy mystery and it’s my weekend read. Look at that cover! I am already salivating, so must prepare proper snacks for reading.

And my current audiobooks which I’m really enjoying! Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen, which is all about when you’ve had the same limited social group of friends and find yourself branching out. And Alone in the Wild by Kelley Armstrong, which is one of my favorite thriller series with an interesting setting: in a remote place where victims and predators have all been given a new chance in this community. If you need thrills, it’s an awesome series.

This is a character driven crime novel that follows the fallout from a hit-and-run as the family grieves and an investigator looks into the crime. It’s fantastic and $1.99! (Review)

This is a great breaks-the-mold thriller that is smart and deliciously wicked about a woman who is tired of cleaning up her sister’s messes (literally) and may get pushed too far when her sister sets eyes on her crush. It’s $1.99! (TW child and domestic abuse/ rape–I want to say past briefly recounted)

A great read for historical fiction fans with a murder mystery that unravels amongst the upper class while the city deals with anarchists and terrible working conditions for the lower class. It’s $2.99! (Review)

If you’re looking to start a new PI series, here’s one of my recent favorite pairings (a bounty hunter and PI) which is $4.99! (Review)

Here’s a great mystery for fans of historical mysteries, Sherlock, and Acorn TV mystery shows. Captain Jim Agnihotri, born to an Indian mother and British father, is recovering in a military hospital in 1892, Bombay. After reading Sherlock Holmes as well as a case about two young women who fell from a university’s clock tower, he ends up on the case, hired by the women’s widow and brother (one woman was his wife, the other his sister, in case you thought something gross).

For Sherlock fans: you get walked through the investigation step by step as he asks questions and digs into the story, including him wearing disguises. For history fans: you get little known history (this is based on real events you can fall down a rabbit hole looking into) and submerged into India under British rule and the Parsee community. There’s also a nice romance subplot as Captain Jim falls in love but is warned by the woman’s family that he isn’t allowed to be with her because of their culture. For Acorn TV fans: this does deal with real life history and cruelties but does not go into graphic detail beyond what you’d see in historical mystery shows.

(TW case believed suicide at first/ mentions domestic abuse, no detail/ child marriages, slavery/ child death)

This book has the comps for “The Silence of the Lambs meets Sadie” and I never say this: I can totally see it. For Silence of the Lambs you have the young woman sent in to interview the captured serial killer, and for Sadie you have a great voice of a young woman trying to survive her past, and the writing also takes care to not be graphic for the sake of it or be problematic.

This did a great job of balancing the things I like from fictional serial killer stories without being dark and graphic for the sake of it, and being catnipy like a network show without being too networky (I swear that makes sense in my head). Oh, and bonus points for being set in the ’80s! Although sadly no one gets assaulted by an Aqua Net spray can.

It starts with Emma Lewis and Travis Bell, two young adults, being recruited by the FBI to interview teen serial killers in the hopes of gaining more knowledge about them. Lewis is a serial killer survivor and Bell is a US Marshal candidate whose father died in the line of duty at the hands of a serial killer. Yes, they are being used. And they quickly realize it and go rogue every opportunity they can because there is an active serial killer and they want to help catch him.

This has all the elements of great backstory to the characters that fits perfectly with where they currently find themselves, the young “recruits” clashing with the bureaucracy, the tension of a serial killer, “you in danger!” scenes, and a great partnership unfolding between Lewis and Bell. This is definitely one of 2020’s best thrillers. And if you see the YA tag and are skipping it because you don’t read YA, I’d give this one a try, it reads adult for me, or at the very least the line between the two genres and does not have the elements I hear non-YA readers complain about.

I really enjoyed the audiobook which is narrated by Christine Lakin (you’ll know if you watched Step by Step!), Maxwell Hamilton, and Zach Villa (American Horror Story: 1984) so you get the multi voice narration, including for the serial killer’s chats with Lewis. It’s really well narrated and produced and totally worth my libro.fm credit!

(TW mentions past child abuse/ talks about serial killer cases/ briefly mentions past suicide, no details/ mentions past animal cruelty)

A coming of age, a love letter to Brooklyn, and a murder mystery by one of the best YA crime writers is $2.99! So obviously run to this. (Review)

A Japanese murder mystery, sectioned into parts following different residents living and/or working in a business district as Detective Kyoichiro Kaga tries to unravel who is a murderer and why. If you’re looking for more mystery and translated work I read everything translated to English that Higashino has written. And here’s one for $2.99! (Review)

This is one of my recent favorite series, which is just those mysteries that you pick up and are fully absorbed from beginning to end as it hits all the procedural notes you look for. And it’s $2.99! (Review)

Nonviolent true crime + bananapants is a thing I am ALWAYS here for. Who owns dinosaur bones and can you just dig them up and sell them for ridiculous sums of money? Find out for $2.99. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio seems to make appearances in the nonviolent true crime I read, including this one. (Review)

Prep school setting, secret society, drama, secrets, and past mystery for the winning price of $1.99! (Review)

This has it all: spies, history, governments planning assassinations, the founding of the United Nations, unsolved mystery, conspiracy theories, and a reminder that history continues repeating itself if we don’t learn from it–“Nobody could call them off-only wind them up, set them off, and semi-legitimately deny any involvement in the destruction that followed.”

Dag Hammarskjöld was a Swedish economist and the second Secretary-General of the United Nations whose death, along with the deaths of everyone on board, in a plane crash on Sept. 17, 1961 has remained unsolved. The fact that a prominent political figure, with many enemies, died in a plane crash that went unchecked until the next day; that there were over 10 known spies from various countries in the area; that the investigation deemed a dozen witnesses who all saw the same thing (another plane in the sky) as not reliable; and more, fed the flames of conspiracy theories for years. And it wasn’t until 2014 that the U.N finally appointed someone to reexamine this case.

Here, Somaiya–who narrates the audiobook–which I highly recommend!–unravels the man, Hammarskjöld; the politics, including the history of the Congo, the creation of the U.N., and the hatred towards it; and looks at all the theories that have been presented over the years. “Never believe anything until it is officially denied.”

I liked that I didn’t need to pause to go look up footnotes etc for more information, but, rather, Somaiya makes clear in the narrative whether it is one person’s uncorroborated or corroborated account, and the source material, or when it’s unknown, without this ever feeling like a textbook. There is a lot of interesting information in here, especially if you don’t know much about the Congo or the U.N. Spoiler: colonizers ruin everything. While the book does not end with a pretty bow and a “solved” stamp, it does make clear from all the gathered evidence and information the most likely theory, including explaining the points that work and don’t, and why, for each of the main theories over the years, including mercenary planes, hijackers, and government assassination plots.

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

Did you know that the queen of crime Agatha Christie has a very real mystery from her life that has remained unsolved? She disappeared for 11 days in 1926 and claimed memory loss of that time when she was found. I mean if anything is prime for conspiracy theories, a mystery author disappearing and almost 100 years later it still being unsolved should do it.

Here, Benedict has imagined a why/how for the part we don’t know by writing a novel that alternates between Agatha Christie and her husband Archibald Christie. We start with Agatha Christie loosely engaged to a man when she meets Archie. We watch their courtship, her home life with her mother, her relationship with her sister, and how she started writing. Archie’s chapters alternate starting with his learning of his wife’s disappearance, the case that ensues, the media focus, and him becoming a suspect.

For a book that is based on a mystery I already know, and had assumptions about what it was going to do before reading, I still found myself very much turning the pages late into the night fascinated by Christie and enraged by the “life lessons” she was taught about marriage. While I generally very much move away from things that impose themselves on very real people without their consent, something about the hundred year time span let me pick this one up. Watching Christie’s life unfold as she became a mystery writer and became a mystery herself was clever and I think has a broad reader appeal. I will note that if you’ve still never read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd it will be spoiled for you (if it hasn’t already), and also you may be left with a very strong desire to (re)read all of Christie’s work.

(TW brief lore summarized vaguely alludes to assault and suicide/ a discussion about suicide not being a possibility)

If you’re looking for a modern mystery with nods to gothic stories and love a book inside of a book, here’s a great start to a recent series for $2.99! (Review)

If you’re looking for an international police procedural, here’s one set in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia written by a former Investigation Officer in the Malaysian police force. And it’s $1.99!

If you want a character-driven suspense novel with multiple points of view, here’s one for $2.99! (Review)

If you’re looking for a murder mystery that questions where exactly the line of good vs bad is, here’s one, by an author I really like, for $2.99! (Review)

If you’re looking to read short stories, here’s a collection by the queen of mystery herself for $2.99!

The 4th book in one of my all time favorite historical mystery series–and my favorite Sherlock– is only $1.99! (Review)

This is both a locked room mystery and a remote mystery, so basically two of my favorite things for the price of one! Wealthy Kozaburo Hamamoto has built a literally crooked house (sloping floors and the building is leaning–yes, think of Italy) in the remote northern tip of Japan, Hokkaido island. And, in 1984, Kozaburo and his daughter Eiko invite guest to stay over for Christmas in the house.

It starts with you meeting everyone as they arrive, Kozaburo setting up puzzle challenges for some guests, and telling his daughter if she wants to marry between two of the guests he could challenge them and see who solved his puzzles. But the festivities put the red in Christmas, no matter how much white snow is falling, when the murders start. In locked rooms! Clearly it has to be one of them, and the local detectives are staying over to figure out who. But they’ll be competing with Kiyoshi Mitarai, a famous detective who can obviously figure this out over the local detectives–you get Agatha Christie inspiration and Sherlock Holmes, more two for the price of one.

This was fun and balanced how much you care about people when you know people are gonna be dying, and it was interesting to see how much early British mysteries have influenced Japanese mysteries. I always figure these out, but this has an added element I don’t think anyone will solve 100% of, which I appreciated.

(TW attempted suicide, brief detail mentioned/fatphobia)

First a note: if you read Foley’s previous book and were bothered by the use of mental illness as the boogieman, I felt this one didn’t do that.

This is not a locked room mystery but a remote setting mystery that was one of the big books of last year. A clever thing I enjoyed about it is that you don’t actually know who is dead at the start so the mystery is both who did it, but also to whom? It’s a wedding and so everyone should be celebrating but L O L this is a murder mystery so it’s just gonna be drama and secrets and at least one dead body. The bride and groom are wealthy, influential, and one is a mild celebrity with a survival type reality TV show, and they’ve invited family and friends to an island off Ireland’s west coast.

We start with the scream, something awful has certainly happened and then we go back briefly in time to meet those arriving along with the bride and groom and the wedding planner who lives on the ten bedroom property the guests are staying at. Everyone has secrets and drama (family, romantic, friendship) and life problems as we rotate between the wedding planner, bridal party, bride, groom, and the bride’s best friend’s wife. The bride has issues with her mom stemming from her childhood, the bride’s sister is going through a breakup, the bride’s best-friend and his wife are trying to finally take a proper holiday from their kids, and the groom and his best mates are caught up in reverting back to adolescent behavior. It’s fun when it feels like many people have many reasons to want to kill a few people–it’s fiction, don’t judge me.

I went with the audiobook because it’s multi-voiced and that always makes me feel like the characters are easily separated and more defined. So if you audio, I recommend that format.

(TW self harm on page/ disordered eating talk/ fatphobia/ Non-consensual distribution of sexual images or video/ suicide, detail)

If you’re looking to read more translated work here’s a slow-burn Japanese crime novel for $1.99! (Review)

Snowed in strangers at an inn and someone dies; who amongst them did it? For $1.99! (Review)

For true crime readers, here’s one by a journalist who was friends with Michelle McNamara that you can read for $2.99!

If you’re a fan of smart and fun teen detectives with spunk, this is a great series–that comes with the bonus of even more reading with the graphic novels it’s based on!– to fall into. The first book introduces the characters and involves a set piece stolen from the monster movie being filmed at the resort where Goldie works (Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit), and this second book is about a magician convention and the mystery of who is stealing all the trick elements. (Review)

This is already in my top 2021 titles for sure! I love Sharpe’s ability to write tense crime novels with fantastic characters. Her previous novel, Barbed Wire Heart, is perfect for fans of Ozark, and this time she wrote a bank heist gone wrong with three teens determined to get out alive by tricking the robbers. Sharpe manages to run up to every trope, dismantle it, drop it, and give you something fresh, and I am forever looking forward to what she’ll write next.

If you like thrilling past and present storytelling that slowly unravels a character, run to this book. And if you enjoyed Sadie and No Exit, make this a must-read. Also, the less you know going in the better if you want the full ride experience. Oh, and one more thing: all of Sharpe’s crime novels are awesome, so go read those too. (Review)

This is the second in a new part PI series set in Ghana. The first book, The Missing American (Review) is half in the US and half in Ghana and this second one is fully in Ghana. I also said part PI because the books follow Emma Djan and the story of how she’s assaulted while a police officer and becomes a PI instead, and is still a rookie PI at a firm, but also follows many other characters. This time a woman has been murdered and we learn about the people who knew her, and all their secrets, and hers, until we find out the who and why. (TW mentions past child abuse/ child sexual assault/ alcoholism/ ableism/ stalking, peeping Tom)

An anthropologist, small-time thieves hired to steal maps, a sheriff, lobbyist, and a fixer hired to clean up the “they didn’t do the job right” mess. All those things are why I’m sold and looking forward to reading this one. Also, Liberty really enjoyed it and talked about it on All the Books!

Originally published in the 1930s, it’s listed as the first detective novel written by an African-American. Following one of New York’s few Black police detectives, Perry Dart, we watch as he tries to solve the murder of N’Gana Frimbo, with the help of a physician and two local boys who want to clear their names.

If you’re looking for historical crime novels, and especially like when they are inspired by real people, this is a series for you. Stewart even shows research for the inspiration if you like falling down rabbit holes. (Review for first in series Girl Waits With Gun)

I read the second book in this historical mystery series, A Decline in Prophets (Review), and very much enjoyed it. It follows a cast of fun characters, led by Australian Rowland Sinclair. This time he finds himself in Shanghai and, once again, there is a dead body and fingers pointing at him, so chop-chop he’s got to solve the murder.

Absolutely one of my top 2021 books–and an excellently narrated audiobook if you audio–about a teen boy trying to find his missing sister. If you’re a fan of Lamar Giles and Tiffany D. Jackson you should run to this one. (Review)

If you like shows that pair two people in different fields together to solve crime, and one that adds sexual tension (Castle; Bones), this series is perfect for you. (Review for first book The Vanishing Season)

For fans of character driven and atmospheric slow burn novels with a mystery told in past and present–with a group of friends at the center.

If you’re looking for a graphic novel, murder, and something set in the ‘80s, this is one of three planned volumes, all standalone complete stories, following “Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his radical student days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears…his own past.”

One of my favorite mystery authors who puts together their mystery plots so well. This is the first in the series of translations (I think it’s the 3rd in the series in Japan–the order really doesn’t matter, I swear!) and it’s only $2.99!

If you’ve yet to read Tiffany D. Jackson, remedy that immediately! Her most recent is once again another excellent YA crime novel and it’s $3.99! (Review)

Not to galley brag or anything but I got my hands on Stacey Abrams upcoming legal thriller and I’m the most excited to dive into this over the weekend.

Currently I’m reading this year’s release in one of my all-time favorite historical mystery series: An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell, #6) by Deanna Raybourn. Raybourn never fails to make me laugh from the opening page and I forever thank her.

And in my ears right now is Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks, which I picked up because ’80s and Salem and it is absolutely a delightful, fun, unique ride.