Category: Unusual Suspects

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)

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.)

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…

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.

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.

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…

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?

(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)

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?

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.

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)

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.

For fans of urban thrillers, assassins, and plots that feel like they’re ripped from the headlines!

Amelia Chess is a Black conservative TV personality who has made herself known for attacking marginalized communities, including her own. Now, after her most recent opinion on a police shooting, she is faced with death threats, and a bodyguard is brought in. Silence, known as a street executioner, has zero desire to be Amelia’s bodyguard, but he has no option when a kingpin calls in an owed favor…

For fans of YA thrillers and the how-is-the-dead-guy-messaging-me?! trope.

Charlotte is a high school junior with PTSD: her boyfriend Jerry, who was physically abusive, died in a car accident she survived on prom night. She’s doing her best to put her life back together while keeping the past abuse secret…until she suddenly starts receiving messages from Jerry’s phone and is forced to face the past and question: if the ghost of Jerry isn’t after her, then who is…?

For fans of celebrities writing mysteries, amateur sleuths, food, and murder mysteries set in network TV!

Before having to become an amateur sleuth, Billy Blessing is already busy running a NY restaurant, regularly being on the morning show Wake Up, America!, and working on a new food competition show. That is, until he becomes the suspect of murdering the executive producer in his new show. What’s a suspect to do but become a sleuth and clear his name!

For fans of stories about cults, past mysteries, and fictional true crime reporters!

Years ago, three members of a cult died by suicide, and the baby they believed to be the Antichrist and its mother disappeared. The baby, now reaching its 18th birthday, gives a literary agent the idea to assign the case to a true crime reporter for a book deal. The problem is, no one knows anything about who the baby is, so Amanda Bailey has a massive investigation ahead of her, which we get to watch be pieced together with messages, interviews, recordings, screenplays, a diary, a novel…It’s all just one twist after another, starting with the fact that Amanda isn’t the only person on this assignment: Oliver Menzies, whom Amanda blames for ruining her career once, is also on the same case and writing his own book!

If you like inventive format and watching a case from beginning to end, I inhaled this one in a day.

This has a great multicast audiobook — which clearly states before each entry who is speaking and through what format — narrated by Annie Aldington, Nneka Okoye, Gareth Armstrong, Sid Sagar, and Kristin Atherton.

(TW past child endangerment, attempted harm/ past assumption of postpartum depression / past mass suicide, detail/ house fire/ past child abuse)

For fans of domestic thrillers and “did he or didn’t he” mysteries!

Paige and Aaron Nichols hit a big rough patch in their marriage when Paige correctly accuses Aaron of having an affair with a coworker. He promises he’ll end it and work on their marriage, except what happens next is that the coworker comes forward with information that could get Aaron fired, and then she disappears, leaving Aaron as the prime suspect…

For fans of alternating POV (including letters!), returning home to an estate, family fortunes, murder, and secrets!

Ruby McTavish, who is famous for surviving a childhood kidnapping, died a decade ago. Her fortune, including a family estate, was all left to her son Camden. He hasn’t wanted anything to do with it, now living with his wife in California and making a living as a teacher. But the past comes for everybody, and Camden finally relents and returns home to North Carolina to finally deal with his mother’s will. What could go wrong?!

For fans of intergenerational family drama, being in the MC’s head, remote mysteries, and slowly getting past and present reveals!

Jia Shah is struggling as a single mom when her son gets into a fight in school, and she thinks her ex is ready to take him away. When a hurricane evacuation happens, she ends up going to her sister’s house, only to arrive and find out that the whole neighborhood — minus one neighbor — has left. Between the stress of the storm, her stress with her ex, being a mom, and her issues with her brother-in-law, the last thing she needs is a dead body…

The narrator, Soneela Nankani, does a fantastic job on the audiobook.

(TW fertility issues/ assumes domestic abuse, nothing on page/ past statutory involving 17-year-old)

For fans of remote mysteries, past friends coming together, secrets bubbling over, multiple POVs from adults and kids, and not knowing who the victim is at the beginning!

A married couple of architects left their city life for a quiet, remote life in hopes of helping their adopted son, who has PTSD because of his early childhood. They’re opening up a camping site and have invited their college friends for a weekend retreat reunion. Sounds fun, right? Except this is a remote mystery, and humans are gonna human. There’s a fight between the kids, in which the parents take sides, a teen who was forced to come along and is miserable, a loan amongst friends that is going sour, an arguing couple, and secrets amongst the friend group that start to accidentally be revealed. We begin with a scene that appears like someone is being forced to jump to their death, then you start getting DCI interviews and go back and forth between the arrival and reunion weekend and the investigation, which includes a missing person and a murder…

The audiobook has dual narrators, Beth Eyre and Jamie Parker, who kept me fully invested in this mystery!

(TW past child abuse/ past suicide)