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Celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May
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Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line: A Novel
by Deepa Anappara
What is it? An award-winning debut based on true events.
Starring: A 9-year-old reality-television enthusiast in India uses crime-show approaches to investigate the disappearance of a classmate, before additional abductions shatter life in his sprawling city home.
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Fatal Fried Rice
by Vivien Chien
Series Alert: The 7th Noodle Shop mystery
What happens: When her cooking instructor is found murdered after class, Lana Lee falls under suspicion and launches her own investigation that results in odd, threatening packages sent to Ho-Lee Noodle House from the killer.
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The Ninja's Blade
by Tori Eldridge
Starring: Lily Wong--a Chinese-Norwegian modern-day ninja--has more trouble than she was bargaining for when controlling grandparents arrive in Los Angeles from Hong Kong at the same time she goes undercover in the dangerous world of youth sex trafficking. As she hunts for a kidnapped prostitution victim, a missing high school girl, and a sociopathic trafficker, the surviving members of a murderous street gang hunt for her.
Series Alert: The Ninja's Blade is the 2nd installment in the Lily Wong series following The Ninja Daughter.
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Smoke
by Joe Ide
Starring: Isaiah "IQ" Quintabe, of East Long Beach, California, who's got a Sherlock-esque brain that he uses as an unlicensed detective.
What happens: Due to PTSD and threats on his life, IQ heads to a small Northern California town to lay low -- but he's soon pulled into a hunt for a serial killer. Back home, IQ's hustler friend Dodson accepts an advertising internship in his effort to go straight.
Series alert: Smoke is the entertaining 5th in a darkly humorous series; those who want to start with the 1st entry should pick up the award-winning IQ.
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Opium and Absinthe: A Novel
by Lydia Kang
Setting: A spellbinding historical mystery full of intrigue and unexpected twists set in New York City, 1899.
What happens: Tillie Pembroke's sister lies dead, her body drained of blood and with two puncture wounds on her neck. Bram Stoker's new novel, Dracula, has just been published, and Tillie's imagination leaps to the impossible: the murderer is a vampire. A ravenous reader and researcher, Tillie has something of an addiction to truth, and she won't rest until she unravels the mystery of her sister's death.
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Arsenic and Adobo
by Mia P. Manansala
Setting and starring: In the small town of Shady Palms, Illinois, Lila Macapagal and her relatives run Tita Rosie's Kitchen, serve delicious Flipino dishes, and solve crimes on the side.
What it's about: When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She's tasked with saving her Tita Rosie's failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves.
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The Bombay Prince
by Sujata Massey
Series Alert: The 3rd Perveen mystery
What it's about: India’s only female lawyer in 1920s Bombay, India, Perveen Mistry, as the streets erupt in riots to protest British colonial rule, investigates the murder of Parsi student at the behest of their suffering family while trying to save her own.
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The Aosawa Murders
by Riku Onda
Recognition: Selected by NYT as one of MOST NOTABLE BOOKS of 2020
What it's about: In the 1960s 17 people die of cyanide poisoning at a large party at the Aosawas, owners of a prominent clinic in an ancient castle city on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The only survivor is their teenage daughter Hisako, blind, beautiful, admired by all, but soon suspected of masterminding the crime.
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Becoming Inspector Chen
by Xiaolong Qiu
Series Alert: Inspector Chen’s 11th case
What it's about: Chief Inspector Chen, facing possible disciplinary action, is excluded from a new investigation that has seen a poem said to be criticising the current government removed from the Internet. Left fearing for his career he finds himself reflecting on his life growing up during the Cultural Revolution and his previous cases.
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The Mimosa Tree Mystery
by Ovidia Yu
Setting: 1930s Singapore
What it's about: Mirza, a secretive neighbour of the Chens in Japanese Occupied Singapore, is a known collaborator and blackmailer. So when he is murdered in his garden, clutching a branch of mimosa, the suspects include local acquaintances, Japanese officials - and his own daughters.
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| Guilt at the Garage by Simon BrettWhat it's about: In the coastal village of Fethering, West Sussex, straitlaced 50-something Carole and her more free-spirited neighbor Jude investigate after Carole's car is vandalized and a suspicious death occurs at the repair shop.
Why you might like it: This wryly humorous 20th Fethering novel offers a pleasing English locale, intricate plotting, and inheritance drama.
For fans of: M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin mysteries. |
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| The Stills by Jess MontgomeryOhio 1927: Sheriff Lily Ross tries to find out how a batch of her friend Marvena's moonshine was tainted, almost killing a local teen. But another bootlegger, his pregnant wife, and Lily's prohibition agent brother-in-law complicate matters -- and then there's a murder.
Series alert: This is the compelling 3rd Kinship novel after The Widows and The Hollows.
For fans of: Amy Stewart's Kopp sisters novels, which also have strong characters inspired by real women; Julia Keller's Bell Elkins mysteries, which have vivid characters and an evocative contemporary Appalachian setting. |
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| The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'DonnellWhat it is: an inventive Gothic-tinged mystery with supernatural elements set in 1893 London that was published to much acclaim in the U.K. in 2018.
What happens: A Cambridge student, a Scotland Yard detective, and a wealthy woman journalist work together to solve several disappearances and a suspicious suicide.
Read this next: Jess Kidd's Things in Jars |
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| Sleep Well, My Lady by Kwei QuarteyThe set up: In a locked house in a gated community in Accra, Ghana, talented fashion designer Lady Araba is horrifically murdered.
What happens: A year later the woman's chauffeur has been convicted of the crime, but her beloved aunt believes he's not the killer and hires a detective agency. Emma Djan, a former cop who's now a dedicated young PI, goes undercover and finds ugly secrets and powerful people.
Why you might like it: This sequel to The Missing American moves back and forth in time covering Araba's early life and career and offers a vividly described Ghana, intriguing characters, and tight plotting. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Dakota County Library
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