Category: Unusual Suspects

A fantastic coming-of-age meets a missing person mystery. Jay Murphy is a junior in high school who has just started dating the girl he’s had a forever-crush on. He’s also saving as much money as he can (writing papers for wealthy students and working at Taco Bell) in order to retire his grandmother, Mimi, who has raised him and his sister Nicole. Jay is so sweet that, because his father died before he could live out his dream of retiring to Florida, he doesn’t want Mimi to miss out on that luxury, especially after raising him and his sister, so he’s just working to raise money to surprise her with a retirement.

But his life gets derailed when his sister Nic, who is dating the neighborhood drug dealer they are warned to stay away from, calls him high one night while out with her boyfriend. Annoyed, he doesn’t pay her much attention and then ignores her next phone call. When she doesn’t come home he assumes she’s doing one of her temporary disappearing acts, so he lies to Mimi and covers for Nic. But days pass and Nic doesn’t even reach out to Jay, which never happens, and he finally realizes it’s more likely she’s missing than hiding. This sets him, and an unlikely friend, in search of answers since Jay feels the police aren’t helping and Mimi’s blood pressure is too high.

There are books that require time to get to know a character and place, but this is one of those works where, from page one, you get a great sense of Jay and his life. He’s funny without trying to be funny, thoughtful, introspective, and trying to find his way in life after grieving two parents’ deaths. He’s fiercely loyal to his sister and grandmother, and I love that as real as this book is about the hardships of life, there is also very much hope.

If you listen to audiobooks, the audiobook is a must: Preston Butler III is an excellent narrator, and I will for sure pick up books just for his narration–I better see this submitted for the 2021 Audie Awards. And if this wasn’t Pamela N. Harris’s debut, I would be getting her entire backlist right now. I’ll just have to immediately get anything she puts out in the future.

(TW past parent cancer death mentioned, not detailed/ briefly mentions past sexual assault, no details)

There are times when the right book comes into your life at the right time, and this book was that for me during the scary things happening in 2021. This was my temporary escape. It’s a cozy historical mystery smashed with a romance novel.

In 1865 there is a serial killer in London killing both men and women and branding them with Bible sins. Lady Katherine Bascomb, who owns a newspaper after her husband’s death, decides to start writing about the murders in order to help keep women informed and safe. Problem is, her first article gets the murders pinned on an innocent man, and now Detective Inspector Andrew Eversham is dealing with the consequences of her article and trying to undo the damage. While they do start off “hating” each other because they don’t understand the other’s point of view, it isn’t an enemies to lovers trope since it doesn’t really last long before they’re actually working together, and you can predict what is coming.

While this is very much a historical romance where the two main women buck at society–owning a newspaper, having affairs–it also isn’t the full “do as they please”, and they are very much aware of consequences. It’s also part of the story that Katherine is a do-as-she-likes woman because of how awful her husband and marriage was, and now, as a widow, she has found a kind of freedom she realizes would never have existed in marriage or under her parents’ roof.

If you want to watch a detective and widow try to uncover a serial killer while falling in love with each other, here’s a little escape from the world.

(TW briefly mentions past assumed suicide article, brief detail/ past case of domestic abuse, not on page but aftermath briefly detailed)

Start a delicious cozy mystery series for $2.99! (Review)

I’ve told y’all about the new middle grade novel series based on the graphic novels, and now you can read the first volume of the graphic novel for $4.99! (Review)

I feel like the nonfiction titles I always want to add here are never on sale so I get extra excited the rare times they are! This is Farrow’s story–currently $4.99!– about trying to break the Harvey Weinstein story and how at every turn his investigation was hindered, including by higher-ups at NBC. (Review)

This recent, ongoing series has two books out so far, with the sequel released last year: The Shadow Mission. It’s for fans of YA and action films–so think CW show. The secret organization, Athena Protocal, is vigilante women fighting evil around the world but they’re top secret and have no ties to any other organizations (think CIA, MI5 etc). The series starts with the women of the group going after human traffickers and one member being kicked out, having to fight her way back in. The second takes us to India to investigate a girl’s school bombing and reveals the history of the organization.

While this deals with very real, awful issues around the world–acknowledging terrorism exists everywhere–as mentioned before, it feels like an action/CW show and isn’t in the dark/gritty category of books. It is intense though, with those action film scenes like “will they disable the bomb with only ten seconds remaining?!” And the women have real relationships with each other that involve having each other’s backs while also bickering and picking on each other. Bonus: Unlike most action films, the POC are not only in roles of bad guys and the series is queer. Review for first in series here, and TW for the sequel: suicide. This is a series where you need to start with the first book–who am I, saying this?– but it’s only at two so far, so you’ll be caught up real quick.

This was a fun read that blended a bunch of tropes while feeling fresh. Signal Deere was convicted of her best friend’s murder and while she has no memory of what happened she continues to maintain her innocence. So when a secret organization offers her a chance to skip prison and join–they only select dangerous and manipulative under-18 prisoners–she reluctantly accepts. It’s the kind of organization that is training them to be assassins. The problem is nothing about Deere fits the profile of someone who wants to be an assassin, she instead is using this opportunity to try and solve the case of who murdered her best friend.

But first she’ll have to actually survive this “boot camp” training. She meets the other kids in training, all labeled as wastes and being used. They fight, form friendships, and fall in love, all while trying to stay alive and prove that they’re not wastes. Did I mention they’ve all been implanted with a little thing that will instantly kill them if they run away or go rogue? Fun organization. This was a page-turner as you try to solve who murdered Deere’s best friend while also watching the intense training and nail-biting mission…I found this balanced, entertaining while exposing our society’s treatment of teenage criminals well, and I really liked that Deere wasn’t the bad-ass becoming an assassin, but rather a scared young woman trying to survive. I went with the audiobook and inhaled it. It’s narrated by Jesse Vilinsky, an actress, who acts out the narration really putting you into the intense scenes. (TW past sexual assault)

And now we go to historical fiction and lean closer to the cozy side of crime writing. While this isn’t a puzzle solving adventure, and it’s a totally different book, I think those who were fans of Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts would find this entertaining. It’s set in the 1950s where a secret organization exists under London in its tunnels. Basically, people send notes requesting assistance from their detectives. Marion Lane is in training looking to make her way up Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries when one of their own is murdered. Clearly with an organization as secret as theirs it had to be one of them…

Lane, who is not only new and having the bit of personal life she has falling apart, finds herself investigating and questioning whether she even knows anything about the people she works for, and with–especially when she decides to put herself in danger to prove they have accused the wrong person.

This was a bit 007 with fun gadgets and inventions (and dangerous, not fun ones) with a wounded bird type lead trying to make her way in the world and prove herself. The audiobook has a delightful narrator, Karen Cass, and the story whisks you away to a whodunnit below London’s streets that will equally make you jealous you aren’t a part of this organization and maybe make you want to run away. (TW past suicide mentioned kind of as reveal, brief detail)

I absolutely adored this upcoming historical mystery by the author of Dread Nation. Ophelia Harrison’s life abruptly changes when her father is murdered and her and her mother flee Georgia to Pittsburgh–thanks to what Ophie has yet to realize is her ability to see ghosts. No longer attending school, the young Ophie is put to work as a maid in a wealthy white family’s home where her mother is also working, trying to save enough money to move out of a shared family home where they are not welcomed by most.

And so Ophie, trying to make sense of the world around her in 1922 and her seeing ghosts (which a relative is trying to guide her through), discovers that the “help” she was getting in her new job is not from a living woman. And she’s no longer living because she was murdered. This sets Ophie off to figure out who would have done such a thing and why.

Ophie is one of those child characters in literature that I immediately fiercely loved, rooted for, and enjoyed watching every moment of her navigating her way through life. The opening chapter is so well written that as soon as I finished it I turned back to the beginning to read it again, as to not miss a single moment or feeling. If you like books that grab you with their voice immediately, and properly sink you into a place and time, this is a must-read. It’s already at the top of my 2021 best books. And if you’re doing Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge, here’s your middle grade mystery read.

One of 2020’s best crime titles is currently $3.99 so snatch this one up RUL quick! (Review)

Miller has written an absolutely beautiful memoir on a difficult subject and this is one of my all time best memoir reads, which is currently $4.99. (Review)

For those who love a book inside a book that is a nod to the mystery genre, here’s one currently at $3.99, with the sequel having just released. (Review)

And for historical fiction fans here’s one at $2.99 from an author with a deep backlist you can go through. (Review)

If you’re a fan of teen detectives, you should absolutely get to know Goldie Vance. This is a delightful new series based on the Goldie Vance graphic novels–if you’ve read them, all the characters you love are here with all new mysteries, and if you’ve never read them, you are in for a real treat! This is the second original novel, and I will say that if you like character development and don’t mind the mystery starting at the halfway mark, start with the first book, Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit (Review), but if you need the mystery from the beginning, and a fast pace, start with this one–you won’t be lost, I promise.

This is a fun book set at the Florida beach resort where Goldie Vance works as a valet, but really she shadows the in-house detective and is always solving a mystery. Her parents are divorced–her dad manages the hotel, and her mom is a performing mermaid (!!)–her best friend also works at the hotel, and she’s finally asked out the girl she has a crush on and has a date set. But when a magician’s convention comes to the hotel, Goldie is forced to move her date to the convention and solve the mystery of who is stealing the magicians’ items–plus, deal with a pesky newcomer determined to solve it himself. Or annoy Goldie to death.

A first date, magic tricks, friendship, mystery, chaos, and a determined teen detective who lets nothing stand in her way of solving a crime adds up to a fun book to curl up with. I’m very much looking forward to there being more in this series.

This is a cinnamon roll of a cozy mystery and absolutely what I needed to read while ending 2020. It’s about a lovely couple, Valor and Bishan, in an English village who find a dead body in their garden. Naturally, one of them is the suspect (Bish)–especially, since the body ends up being a former schoolmate of the couple.

Now Valor needs to figure out who would put a dead body in their garden to frame Bish, while Bish sits in jail. Complicating matters–like it’s not already complicated–is that jail is even more difficult for Bish who is autistic, and Valor comes with all the family drama, being the son of a Countess and Earl. Valor even suspects that one of the family members he no longer speaks with is involved. Oh, and add in a zany neighbor with a billion frogs and Bish’s sweet family for this entertaining and gentle mystery. If you’ve been watching a lot of gentle reality shows lately, this will give you that same feeling.

It’s only 130-ish pages, a novella, that ends on a cliffhanger so have the sequel handy or do a mad muttering in the middle of the night as you quickly purchase the second, like me.

If any year were to need a cozy mystery marathon read, it would be this-year-I-refuse-to-name. Anyhoo, this is a fun series with a helpful ghost that will let you armchair travel to Ireland. (Review)

If you’re so absolutely over this year that you’d like to be immediately transported into another, enjoy New Year’s Eve 1929 in a New Orleans speakeasy. Don’t mind the murder. (Review)

This is a recent P.I. series with an ex-cop lead who is still friends with her ex-partner, manages the apartment complex she lives in, and has a nun for a friend. Every book has been a satisfying mystery, with a character I enjoy spending time with, that leaves me wanting the next book. And if you want a marathon, three books is totally doable. (Review)

I very much recommend getting to know Mishani’s work, and his latest is perfect for fans of suspense who don’t want to know the ride they’re on until it’s too late. (Review)

This was so intense towards the end that it successfully transported me from an IRL tense world to a fictional one where I was yelling (out loud like anyone could hear me), “Look out!” If you like YA mysteries with true crime podcasts enjoy! (Review)

A cozy, with a ton of descriptions of ice cream I needed to get in my pie hole immediately. The bonus for me, this year, was that it had a really nice family and was very low on drama, meanness, etc, even though there was a dead body. (Review)

Knecht started the series with a spy novel unlike the rest and now transitioned into a P.I. series, both books focusing on history rarely used in historical fiction. If you like character driven books, the series is great; if you need more speed, start with the sequel. Either way if you need a fresh, new voice, grab these books. (Review)

And here is an absolutely delightful historical British mystery following a teen detective with a passion for criminal science. Think Enola Holmes and Flavia de Luce levels of enjoyable. (Review)

If you’re looking to finish the year reading more nonfiction and enjoy biographies (her grandson wrote it!) and history, this is a great read and it’s only $2.99!

If you want a translated, remote literary mystery with a unique lead written by a Nobel Prize winning author, it’s your lucky day. It’s on sale for $1.99! (Review) (TW hunting, animal cruelty)

If you want to start a funny new procedural that has a sequel publishing in 2021 and is great for fans of Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton, this one is $2.99! (Review) (TW past child suicide thoughts and attempt, detail/ past date rape, kidnapping)

Natasha Trethewey is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who served as the United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and 2013. This book starts with the memoir part as Trethewey recounts her early childhood as the daughter of a Black woman and a white man, along with their agreements and disagreements in preparing her for the world. There’s some history on Mississippi and Atlanta, her parents divorce, and then her mother’s second marriage.

Trethewey recounts the emotional terror she lived through with her stepfather, his physical abuse of her mother–which was ignored the one time she tried to speak up to an adult–and finally her mother’s escape from the marriage and her murder in 1985.

This is beautifully written, as one would expect from a poet, and also filled with introspection as Trethewey looks at what she thought and knew as a child, young adult, now through the eyes of an adult. She also learns, after so many decades, details about the case when she is given the case files. It’s absolutely heartbreaking and infuriating to see how a woman did everything she was told to do and was supposed to have a police officer outside her home and still was murdered by a domestic abuser.

I highly recommend going with the audiobook, narrated by Trethewey, which I ended up listening to in two “sittings” as I made tomato soup and a batch of pancakes for freezing and then watched the goat (angry goat trapped inside of dog) try to find the neighborhood raccoon to harass. This is one of those books where I will now carry the author, and her words, with me forever.

(TW domestic abuse/ emotional child abuse, gaslighting/ threats of murder suicide)

This is the type of true crime memoir where Cooper heard about the crime, as a rumor, and it stuck with her and she ended up deciding to look into it. As a whole I still have mixed feelings about the idea of people becoming obsessed with very real violent crimes, and inserting themselves in some way, but Cooper completely acknowledges this and calls herself out in explaining that, when her life was at a standstill, she found herself trying to relate to the victim, Jane Britton.

This book follows the author trying to solve the unsolved case, and the outcome isn’t revealed until the end when, after decades, it’s solved. While I don’t flat out reveal it, I will be talking about points pertaining to the end because 1) I don’t believe in spoilers in real life crimes, and 2) I think this book is a good pick for book clubs as it opens so many avenues of discussions, including the resolution.

Okay, so when Becky Cooper was an undergrad at Harvard she heard a “rumor” about a 1969 murder of a 23-year-old undergrad Anthropology student, Jane Britton. The story wasn’t completely accurate but the more Cooper asked about it over the years the more it turned out that fact was stranger than the rumor. And how did the murder of the daughter of Harvard’s sister school’s Vice President go unsolved for 40 years?

Cooper takes you into her life at Harvard, Britton’s life as an Anthropology student (including digs, Academic politics, sexism and harassment in the school and field), Cooper’s not knowing what to do once she left school, and her attaching herself to Britton, the case, and her speaking to those who knew Britton and those who had/were suspects.

This felt like watching an armchair detective bring to life the decades old case by getting to know Britton through people in her life, understanding the politics of Anthropology and Harvard (I could read an entire book on this), and following the pointed fingers at those close to Jane who had been the suspects. It’s also interesting to me that in these cases I feel like, while the “obsessor” might bring light/attention to a case, it is most likely going to be (if ever) solved by DNA testing. Which is what happens in this case, like I’ll Be Gone In The Dark.

This book and the case itself leave so much to be discussed and mulled over: Where is the line of intrusion into a crime–benefit vs not of armchair detectives? Sexism, misogyny, sexual harassment. Academic politics. How we treat/view victims based on a gross judgement that some did nothing to deserve it and others did. The statistics on women being assaulted by someone they know vs a stranger (much higher for someone known) and perpetrators are more likely to be white (57%) than Black (27%). The DNA testing backlog.

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read and it’s currently $4.99–and rarely drops to sale prices. Chanel Miller was the woman only referred to as Brock Turners victim, Emily Doe, The Stanford Rape Case and defined by the media, rape apologists, her rapist, and her victim impact statement posted on BuzzFeed until she told her story herself. She’s a beautiful writer and person and I highly recommend this true crime memoir. (Review) (TW rape/ gaslighting/ discussions of past suicides, with detail/ discussion of mass shooters, event details/ misogyny)

This is a very true story that reads like a thriller about a WWII spy who you’ve probably never heard of but should! This was one of my favorite reads last year and it’s only $1.99! (Review) (TW suicide/ torture/ concentration camps)

If you want a dark read about a time traveling serial killer unlike other books you’ve read, Beukes has written that for you and it’s currently $2.99! I don’t remember trigger warnings but assume ones that would be in a dark serial killer crime novel.

Hands down one of my favorite reads of 2020. I can’t tell you how much I needed The Great British Bake Off and Sugar Rush Christmas to stream on Netflix at the end of this year, so imagine my delight to learn that the main character of this book, Zoe Washington (thanks title!), is determined to get on a baking competition show.

The summer before 7th grade, Zoe Washington sets her sites on wanting to apply for a baking contest competition. She loves to bake, is self assured, curious, and currently her best friend is away for the summer and she’s in a fight with her other best friend. Her parents decide that before letting her apply she’ll have to prove herself, so they get her an internship at a bakeshop. She’s ready to work, even if the bakeshop is more inclined to treat her like a child and only let her fold boxes.

Okay, “but what is the mystery?” you’re surely shouting at me, and I’m getting there. Zoe’s dad married her mother when she was four, her bio dad, Marcus, is in prison for murdering a woman–which she’s always known. What she didn’t know was that Marcus still says he’s innocent and that his lawyer never found the witness that he says proves he was somewhere else. Zoe doesn’t know what to believe as she reads Marcus’ letters, hidden from her parents. But, to find out whether he’s telling the truth or lying, she decides she’s going to get the information needed to get an organization to look at his case.

This is a wonderful book in so many ways and a reminder that rather than aging out of reading categories we should just be adding new reading ages to the ones we already read. And for the biggest bonus ever: the audiobook is narrated by Bahni Turpin who is one of my all time favorite narrators: American Spy; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; Dread Nation; The Gone Dead–I could just keep listing so many books she’s fantastically narrated!

Think Jessica Fletcher but English and in a retirement community–must be over 65– with a group of elderly people who meet weekly to discuss true crime and the unsolved murder cases the local police haven’t been able to solve. Of course, they soon find themselves on a too-close-to-home case when a brash developer with an unwanted plan is murdered. Clearly they’ll figure this out!

This walked the line between cozy and not, which, to me, is part of why I think it’ll have mass appeal for many types of crime readers. It’s funny–let’s pretend to be a nun and see what information we get!–and rotates points of view, giving you many different voices and personal lives, including a detective not so much up for this group’s hijinks.

If you’re looking for a fun murder mystery that also has a bit of weight of emotion to curl up with this winter you’ll certainly be pleased with this one.

(TW suicides, details, letter read/ mentions past sexual assault with details)