Category: Unusual Suspects

This is a new-in-paperback release this week to read if you missed it in 2023! For fans of procedurals, fictional serial killers, Indigenous mysteries, multiple POVs including the killers, and armchair traveling to New Zealand!

Detective Hana Westerman works for the Auckland police and is a mother to a teen activist daughter and ex-wife to a superior officer when a new case develops: a killer announces revenge on six British soldiers’ descendants tied to the brutal murder of a Māori chief in the 1800s. Not only will Hana have to stop the killer, but she’ll also have to deal with the past, including her own…

The audiobook is narrated by New Zealand actors Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are.

For fans of murder mysteries with multiple POV procedurals!

This is a solid mystery that will satisfy many tropes: struggling detective (PTSD, alcoholism), small town, multiple POVs including from the sheriff, murder mystery + missing person mystery. It’s a great mix of following the clues of the mysteries mixed in with town life and the struggling characters’ personal lives.

Eli North has PTSD from war and is self-managing it with alcohol, which is obviously going terribly. Drunk, he stumbles across the body of a teen boy who appears to have drowned. He ends up being put on the case by his mother, who is the town sheriff and is trying her best to help Eli. She feels guilt over the death of the boy, whose mom is an addict, because she feels that as sheriff, she didn’t do enough. Added into the murder mystery is a missing teenage girl, a “miracle” drug from a pharmaceutical company, and Eli trying to do right by his son and ex-wife. If there is a sequel, I am definitely reading it.

(TW teen death/ PTSD, alcoholism/ drug addiction, drug overdose/ panic attacks/ suicidal ideation, attempted suicide/ past domestic, child abuse)

This is a new-in-paperback release this week!

Here’s a series for fans of PIs at an agency, mysteries set outside of the US, and missing person cases that unfold into even more crimes.

Emma Djan is a PI working for an agency in Accra, Ghana. The case currently assigned involves a diplomat’s daughter, Ngozi Ojukwu, who, rather than starting college, disappeared in Lagos, Nigeria. It’s believed she ran off with her boyfriend, Femi, except he’s found murdered and has been involved in human trafficking. So Emma goes undercover in the hopes of finding out what happened to Ngozi.

If you want to start at the beginning of this series, pick up The Missing American, and if you like completed series, pick up Quartey’s Wife of the Gods, which starts the Darko Dawson procedural series.

For fans of secret identity, con women, and cat and mouse games!

Evie Porter isn’t really Evie Porter. She’s been assigned this identity, after screwing up her past assignment, by whoever her mysterious boss is. She’s determined to make up for her last job, except a few things happen: she likes the man she’s dating, Ryan Sumner, who is supposed to be her target, and a woman shows up in Evie’s life with Evie’s actual identity. Clearly, someone is after her, but who and why? And how is she going to outsmart them…?

This was an audiobook (narrated by Saskia Maarleveld) that I knew absolutely nothing about and hit play just to see if the beginning interested me, and OOP, suddenly all my chores were done, and I was at the end having read a very satisfying mystery.

(TW parent death by cancer)

For fans of middle grade and crime-fighting teams!

Olive Cobin Zang is 12 and swears her busy parents don’t care about her. Her grandma recently passed away, and now she’s starting a new boarding school…which Olive quickly learns is a cover for a crime-fighting organization that uses kids. Adults didn’t work, and teenagers really didn’t work, so why not try kids?! They aren’t spies, and they aren’t police, and no one knows who is really in charge of the youth operatives, but they’re trained and taught to “prevent chaos, catch lawbreakers”. So that’s what Olive and her fellow team do in this fun, fast-paced, high-stakes (dangerous missions!) mystery!

The audiobook has a great narrator, Cindy Kay.

For fans of self-destructive main characters and the theater!

Former actress Vivian Parry is now a theater critic for a NY magazine. She ends up making a trade with a graduate student: he’ll put her on a panel (to help her career), and she’ll give him the interview he wants for his thesis. The problem? The graduate student’s fiancée claims Vivian is the last to see him before he disappeared. What’s Vivian to do other than self-destruct and try to find him…?

For fans of remote mysteries on a ship!

Olivia Campbell is an actuary who recently had a nervous breakdown because of work. Her boyfriend, Aaron, is an art curator who is planning a recently deceased artist’s exhibition on a luxury cruise. Hoping to reset herself, Liv decides to go on the cruise to Antarctica. Problem? Many! Liv is terrified of being out on the water since her father’s death; Aaron doesn’t make it onto the ship, Liv has to run the exhibition, and it’s a remote mystery, so there’s gonna be a lot of accidents, anxiety, and deaths…

Author’s backlist: Breathless.

The audiobook is narrated by Cathleen McCarron, who you may know from Conviction and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

(TW suspected suicide death/ recounts past desire for self-harm that could be triggering for suicidal ideation)

For readers of true crime, mafia, and history!

This is a deep dive that traces Italian organized crime throughout history, including the control of labor in Sicily, the American Mafia in lawless New Orleans, and the relationship with Jewish gangsters before prohibition.

This is historical fiction (late 1800s England) based on the real Tichborne case, which questioned whether the heir to a very wealthy family was, in fact, the person he claimed to be.

This historical novel takes you to Pennsylvania to a Jewish and African American immigrant neighborhood, Chicken Hill, during the ’20s and ’30s. But the novel opens in the ’70s when a skeleton is unearthed at the bottom of a well…

Jesse Q. Sutanto had a super productive year with, that I know of, four novels publishing!

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is a fun, thoughtful murder mystery with a funny older sleuth who owns a tea shop. When a dead body is found in her shop, she steals some evidence—for personal sleuthing of course—and pisses off the cops by outlining the body with a marker!

I’m Not Done with You Yet is a twisty psychological suspense about obsession, and the ways we may think we know ourselves but don’t…

Didn’t See That Coming is a YA romance with tropes of best friends to love and secret identity!

Theo Tan and the Iron Fan is the sequel to Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit, a fantasy middle grade series following Theo Tan, a Chinese American boy, and his snarky fox spirit companion.

S.A Cosby put out two crime stories this year, one an Audible original crime spree and the other a small town crime mystery.

All the Sinners Bleed is a dark crime novel with a serial killer on the loose in Charon County, Virginia, where Titus Crown just became the first Black sheriff. It’s been a quiet town on the major crime front until Titus takes over and his new position starts with a school shooting that targets a teacher. The incident puts Titus on an investigation with horrific past crimes and an unidentified third party…

Brokedown Prophets is a full-cast audible original that follows Preach, Digit, and Maria after they accidentally kill someone and end up on the run together…

For fans of foodie cozy mysteries!

Lyndsay Murray is really excited that her Spice Isle Bakery is a vendor in this year’s Caribbean American Heritage Festival. It should be great for business and full of delicious food, fun, and dancing! And it is until the lead singer of a reggae band dies and the police determine it to be an accident. Case closed? Not so fast: Lyndsay’s cousin knew the singer and is not convinced the police got it right, so Lyndsay is brought in for proper sleuthing!

If you want to start at the delicious beginning, pick up Against the Currant.

For fans of historical and gothic mysteries!

Ruby Vaughn — an American heiress expat in Devon, England, working as a bookseller at the end of WWI — is sent to a Cornish village with rare books for a folk healer. There, she connects with an old, now estranged friend: Tamsyn is happy to see Ruby again, miserable in her marriage, but things take a deadly turn — it’s a mystery! — when Edward, Tamsyn’s husband, is found murdered. The town believes it’s based on a curse, and Ruby decides to start poking around, because she’s going to prove the murder was committed by a human!

For fans of cozy mysteries and doggos!

Priscilla Cummings is a former teacher now finding success as an author. So life should be great, except she uncovers the mean girl from her childhood — who grew up to marry her high school crush — dead. And because it’s a cozy, Pris is the prime suspect! Pris and her pooch Bailey are going to have to get to cracking this case!

For fans of historical mysteries!

Following real-life history, Eliza Hamilton is widowed after Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804 (Anyone else singing songs from Hamilton?!). In this fictional book, John Van Der Gloss was a friend of Hamilton’s, and following his death, Eliza watched his body, throat slit, pulled from the North River. Eliza and Hamilton’s son, having fought with Gloss, becomes a suspect, leading Eliza to get to sleuthing!

For fans of procedurals set in Chicago!

Detective Harriet Foster and her partner, Detective Vera Li, have their hands full and a ticking clock with their current case. Corrupt city council members are being murdered, and 30 dimes are left with the bodies. Clearly revenge is the easiest explanation, and since Marin Shaw was just released from prison and refused to point fingers at the rest of her corrupt coworkers, she seems the best suspect. But Shaw swears this crime she’s innocent of, leaving Foster and Li to either prove Shaw is lying or find out who has the motive and ability to frame Shaw…

I love Clark’s procedurals and characters — if you’re not already reading her work, definitely pick up her books. If you want to start at the beginning of this series, pick up Hide. And if you want a backlist series with four books, pick up Broken Places (A Cass Raines Mystery #1).

For fans of partnered PIs and historical mysteries!

This is a really fun mystery series that neither veers too dark nor light, with great character voice and humor.

Our narrator, Will Parker, has lived an interesting life, which she’s recounting by telling the big cases she’s worked on in her career. She works for a famous PI, Lillian Pentecost, who recruited her from the circus when Lillian needed an assistant because she has multiple sclerosis. Their current case, in 1940s New York, involves a missing woman who never left her apartment but had once been recruited to track Nazis by the FBI. Except that’s not the only thing in her past that would make her a victim of foul play, so Will and Lillian have their work cut out for them — especially since we start with Will being attacked and getting a concussion!

I love the narrator, and really need the next book in the series now, please.

If you want to start at the beginning (you do!), pick up Fortune Favors The Dead!

For fans of Japanese mysteries and completed detective series!

This is a great series that follows Tokyo police detective Kyoichiro Kaga. As the reader, you get to watch each clue found and mulled over as he slowly solves the cases. This time around, the mystery is a head-scratcher of a case that connects to Kaga’s personal life. His cousin, Shuhei Matsumiya, also works for the police, and although there is no evidence, he starts to suspect two unrelated cases that have to have some connection: the murder of an unhoused person and a strangled cleaning contractor found in a closet. And that’s before one of the murder victims has an item that is tied to Kaga’s mother’s death a decade prior…

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Malice.

For fans of fun mystery series with an amateur sleuth!

Morgan Carter lives in Wisconsin, where she owns a bookstore and is a cryptozoologist, believing in plausible existability. Basically, she isn’t certain that creatures like the Loch Ness Monster exist; she just doesn’t think it can fully be ruled out. So naturally, when a man is found dead from a vicious attack in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest — following sightings of Big Foot — Morgan is asked to help investigate…

If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up A Death In Door County!