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| Into the Night by Sarah BaileyStarring: Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock, who's just moved to Melbourne and is struggling with the changes in her life after leaving her five-year-old son in the custody of his dad in her small hometown.
What happens: In this complex sequel to The Dark Lake, Gemma and her hostile new partner investigate the murder of a homeless man as well as the fatal stabbing of a movie star, whose death took place on camera while filming a zombie crowd scene.
For fans of: atmospheric Australian mysteries and troubled-yet-smart heroines. |
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Run away
by Harlan Coben
What happens: By chance, you see your daughter playing guitar in Central Park. But she's not the girl you remember. This woman is living on the edge, frightened, and clearly in trouble. You don't stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home. She runs. And you do the only thing a parent can do: you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Before you know it, both your family and your life are on the line. And in order to protect your daughter from the evils of that world, you must face them head on.
Why you might like it: An absolutely brilliant, taut thriller that begs to be read in one sitting [Library Journal]
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| The Blood by E.S. ThomsonFeaturing: Jem Flockhart, a young woman who disguises herself as a man in order to work as an apothecary in Victorian London, and Will Quartermain, an engineer and friend of Jem, who knows her secret.
What happens: Called to a floating seaman's hospital on the Thames, the friends learn about deaths and disappearances of people connected to the hospital and uncover a secret society that may play a role.
For fans of: Victorian mysteries, like Will Thomas' Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn mysteries, Alex Grecian's Walter Day novels, and Charles Finch's (less gritty) Charles Lennox novels. |
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The Winter Sister
by Megan Collins
What happens: Strangled on a snowy night, 18-year-old Persephone O'Leary remains a mystery. Her younger sister, Sylvie, is finally ready to find some answers. Convinced she caused Persephone's death, Sylvie has never forgiven herself for locking their bedroom window that cold night 16 years ago. But she had grown tired of covering for her sister's lies--she shouldn't have been sneaking out with Ben Emory since their mother, Annie, had forbidden Persephone to date. And Sylvie had grown tired of covering her sister's bruises.
Why you might like it: Gripping to the last page, it's the desperation in the connections among these characters that will stay with readers [Booklist].
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The Big Kahuna
by Janet Evanovich
What happens: In this next in the New York Times best-selling series (following The Pursuit), rule-obsessed FBI Agent Kate O'Hare again joins with rule-bending con man Nicholas Fox to take on another case that the FBI would ordinarily shrug off. Now they are tasked with finding a Silicon Valley billionaire familiarly called the Big Kahuna. Beyond the man's wife and business partner, both rapacious, the only lead is the missing man's son, living the high life (think multiple meanings there) in Hawaii. So Kate and Nick go undercover as a married couple in a laid-back surfer community.
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Blood Oath
by Linda A. Fairstein
What happens: When 24-year-old Lucy Jenner is arrested in Brooklyn on an outstanding Manhattan warrant, Alex's lover, NYPD Det. Mike Chapman, has the job of bringing Lucy to Alex's office. At the Brooklyn precinct, Lucy freaked out after seeing a photograph on the wall, and Alex manages to elicit from her that one of the men in that photo raped her many years earlier, a crime that Lucy had reported to the police, who failed to follow up. Despite warnings from Lucy's aunt that she's unreliable and manipulative, Alex finds Lucy's account and her identification of a powerful man as her assailant credible.
Why you might like it: Fairstein's vast experience of working as a pioneer in sex crimes investigations enables her to make Alex's efforts both plausible and fascinating [Publishers Weekly]
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Chocolate cream pie murder
by Joanne Fluke
What happens: As Hannah Swensen struggles to come to terms with the revelation that her husband, Ross, is a bigamist, her family and friends rally around, sharing her outrage. With baking as her solace, Hannah, owner of the Cookie Jar, in Lake Eden, Minnesota, throws herself into work. However, Ross contacts Hannah, begging her forgiveness and asking for the money he left for her when he disappeared. Wanting nothing to do with him, Hannah refuses his request, and Ross threatens her. Her friends and family guard her day and night as they try to figure out why Ross needs the money so desperately. Meanwhile, an actress and friend of Hannah's mother is murdered, and naturally Hannah is determined to identify the killer.
Why you might like it: The recipes of course :-)
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The hunting party : a novel
by Lucy Foley
What happens: A group of London friends arrive at exclusive Loch Corrin in the Scottish Highlands for a New Year's get-together and find the location a bit too remote--it's a mile to the main road, Wi-Fi is unreliable, and, when they get snowed in, things turn frightening. A prologue reveals that a guest has been found dead, and the ensuing chapters switch back and forth between the days leading up to the death and those just after, all the while uncovering the friends' past misdeeds and entanglements.
Why you might like it: For fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie
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After she's gone : a novel
by Camilla Grebe
What happens: An award-winning sequel to The Ice Beneath Her finds an amnesia-stricken psychological profiler struggling to figure out what happened, while a teen with a difficult secret considers exposing himself to save the profiler's life.
Why you might like it: Grebe delivers an unflinching, heart-wrenching message about the plight of refugees in this scorching thriller [Publishers Weekly]
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The lost man
by Jane Harper
What happens: When the sun-baked body of Cam Bright, experienced at desert survival, is found by his brothers adjacent to a lone headstone in the middle of nowhere, marking the "stockman's grave," they are hard pressed to find an explanation. The answer is found only by revisiting their childhood, which was hobbled by a battered mother and "flooded with terror" by an abusive father.
Why you might like it: New York Times best-selling Harper's two earlier novels were both constructed around the harsher extremes of the Australian outback, and in this one we experience the isolated and inhospitable desert in Queensland. [Booklist]
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Cemetery Road : a novel
by Greg Iles
What happens: Big-time journalist Marshall McEwan never thought he would return to his small Mississippi hometown, but his father is dying, and his mother can barely keep the local paper going. Alas, the town's economic rebirth seems to be based on corruption, and then an archaeologist is murdered at a construction site.
Why you might like it: The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Natchez Burning trilogy returns with an electrifying tale of friendship, betrayal, and shattering secrets that threaten to destroy a small Mississippi town.
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Death in Provence : a novel
by Serena Kent
What happens: Penelope Kite is fed up with her ex-husband, his ungrateful adult children, and the badly behaved grandchildren. A rundown house in Provence is a perfect escape. She envisions problems with French bureaucracy and slow workers but does not expect a dead man in her swimming pool, a persistent estate agent, or a sexy mayor. The French police may see a middle-aged British woman, but Penelope's background at the British Home Office, where she was the assistant to a forensic pathologist, taught her to evaluate a corpse and weapons. Penelope is shrewder than the police or her new neighbors think she is.
Why you might like it: While the quirky characters are enjoyable, it's the details of Provencal life that will attract armchair travelers, fans of Peter Mayle, Frances Mayes, or even David P. Wagner's Italy-set "Rick Montoya" mysteries [Library Journal]
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Stalker : a novel
by Lars Kepler
What happens: The Swedish National Crime Unit receives a video of a young woman in her home, clearly unaware that she's being watched. Soon after the tape is received, the woman's body is found horrifically mutilated. With the arrival of the next, similar video, the police understand that the killer is toying with them, warning of a new victim, knowing there's nothing they can do. Detective Margot Silverman is put in charge of the investigation, and soon asks Detective Joona Linna for help. Linna, in turn, recruits Erik Maria Bark, the hypnotist and expert in trauma, with whom Linna's worked before. Bark is leery of forcing people to give up their secrets. But this time, Bark is the one hiding things.
Why you might like it: The author's dark, complex procedurals are must-reads for readers drawn to Stieg Larsson, Mons Kallentoft, and Michael Connelly [Booklist]
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The silent patient
by Alex Michaelides
What happens: Alicia Berenson's life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London's most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia's refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia.
Why you might like it: The Silent Patient is unputdownable, emotionally chilling, and intense, with a twist that will make even the most seasoned suspense reader break out in a cold sweat [Booklist].
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The chef
by James Patterson
What happens: In the Carnival days leading up Mardi Gras, Detective Caleb Rooney comes under investigation for a murder he is accused of committing in the line of duty--as a Major Crimes detective for the New Orleans Police Department. Has his sideline at the Killer Chef food truck given him a taste for murder? While fighting the charges against him, Rooney makes a pair of unthinkable discoveries. His beloved city is under threat of attack. And these would-be terrorists may be local. As crowds of revelers gather, Rooney follows a fearsome trail of clues, racing from outlying districts into city center. He has no idea what-or who-he'll face in defense of his beloved hometown, only that innocent lives are at stake.
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Careless love : an Inspector Banks novel
by Peter Robinson
What happens: Inspector Alan Banks is puzzled when an apparent suicide is found in an abandoned car on a little-traveled road-the victim can't drive. Then a well-dressed man lacking any identification is discovered in a moorland gully, dead from what could be a slip or a push.
Why you might like it: From a best-selling author with Edgar, CWA Dagger in the Library, and Sweden's Martin Beck honors.
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Say you're sorry
by Karen Rose
What happens: There is a serial killer on the loose, preying on vulnerable women. The only identifiable mark the killer leaves are letters—sometimes one, sometimes two—all carved into the torsos of his victims. Together they spell “Sydney.” When he grabs Daisy Dawson, he believes he has found his next victim. But despite her small stature, she fights back with an expertise that quickly frees her. Before fleeing the scene, Daisy also manages to grab what proves to be crucial evidence: a necklace from around the killer’s neck. The necklace is more than a trivial item—it is a link to a cold case that Special Agent Gideon Reynolds has been tracking for seventeen years.
Why you might like it: The thriller elements heavily outweigh the romantic ones, but fans of Lisa Gardner and J.D. Robb will enjoy this outing and be on pins and needles waiting for the next installments [Publishers Weekly]
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The Black Ascot : an Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery
by Charles Todd
What happens: When he helps a former soldier find his wife, the grateful man gives Ian Rutledge a tip that might help Rutledge find one of the most wanted men in Britain, Alan Barrington, who was accused of murder over a decade earlier and hasn't been seen since. Rutledge's boss gives him the unwelcome job of following up the clue, which begins the inspector's unrelenting search for the truth.
Why you might like it: Inspector Ian Rutledge's 21st case
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The hiding place : a novel
by C. J. Tudor
What happens: Something isn't right in Arnhill, a former mining town in England. Following the gruesome murder of a young boy by his mother, and her suicide by shotgun, the only clue left behind was "Not My Son," written in blood. English teacher Joe Thorne, who turned his back on Arnhill 25 years earlier, receives an anonymous email: "I know what happened to your sister. It's happening again." Joe returns reluctantly, intrigued by the email but also because he owes someone big money and needs a place to hide. He rents the cottage where the murder occurred, and shortly after moving in strange occurrences begin that stir memories of the disappearance and reappearance of his eight-year-old sister years ago.
Why you might like it: Fasten your seat belts, for this book takes off in the first chapter and never lets go. Tudor (The Chalk Man) has written what begins as a mystery and ends up as something akin to a Stephen King thriller [Library Journal]
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| Size 12 and Ready to Rock by Meg CabotWhat happens: When New York College hosts the first ever Tania Trace Teen Rock Camp, assistant residence hall director (and former teen singing sensation) Heather Wells finds herself trying to stay alive while surrounded by teenage divas in training and working with her P.I. fiancé Cooper Cartwright to catch a killer on the loose.
Read it for: Like the other books in the series, this frothy 4th Heather Wells mystery has a chick-lit feel and plenty of humor. |
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| Fall of Angels by Barbara CleverlyWhat happens: Handsome, well-bred young World War I vet DI John Redfyre begins work with the Cambridge CID in 1923 and attends a holiday concert scandalously headlined by a female trumpeter, who later suffers a suspicious, near-fatal accident.
Series alert: This is the 1st in a new series by the bestselling author of the Joe Sandilands mysteries; the 2nd John Redfyre book, Invitation to Die, comes out in August.
Read this next: If you enjoy this look at Cambridge in the 1920s, try Dorothy L. Sayer's Gaudy Night, which is set at Oxford in the 1930s and also deals with women's rights and poison-pen letters. |
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A free man of color
by Barbara Hambly
What it's about: In 1833, Benjamin January, a doctor and free man of color, has returned to New Orleans after years in Paris, and must earn his living in the racially divided city as a piano player. But after doing a favor for a former piano student -- a white woman -- he's suspected of murder and turns sleuth to clear his name.
Series alert: Originally published in 1997, A Free Man of Color is the 1st in a 16-book series (the latest, Cold Bayou, came out in October).
Want a taste? "January knew the man would hit him the moment he let go and knew also that he'd better not hit back."
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| The Prague Sonata by Bradford MorrowWhat happens: In New York, musicologist and former concert pianist Meta Taverner is given a partial manuscript of a mysterious 18th-century sonata. The dying old woman who gave it to her requests that Meta find its true owner...who hasn't been seen since World War II. This leads Meta to Prague, where she looks for answers and the rest of sonata.
Is it for you? Pick it up if you appreciate complex historical stories with multiple perspectives and timelines, missing-item mysteries, and lyrical language. |
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The beautiful mystery : A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel
by Louise Penny
The setup: In a remote monastery, 24 monks should be contemplating nature and God, but one brother's mind -- and hand -- turns to murder.
What happens: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec arrive to investigate the murder of the order's choir director and meet with the monks, who've taken vows of silence but are the voices on a bestselling album of Gregorian chants.
Series alert: This is the 8th in an elegant, award-winning series; since the well-drawn characters evolve over time, newcomers may want to pick up the 1st in the series, Still Life.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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