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Wreck Your Heart
by Lori Rader-Day
Chicago's Doll Devine hopes to make it as a country singer, but for now she's singing at a tavern owned by Alex McPhee, who's helped her since she was a kid. When her estranged mom briefly shows up after 20 years, followed by a woman claiming to be Doll's half-sister, Doll doesn't know what to think, and then her ex is found dead outside the bar. For fans of: standalone mysteries with a strong sense of place and a wisecracking main character.
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Eleanor and the South Beach Murders
by Ellen Yardley
For fans of Colleen Cambridge, S.K. Golden, Jacqueline Winspear, and Ashley Weaver, a brilliant 1950s Cold War historical mystery featuring the former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's indispensable assistant as an equally resourceful sleuth. As the duo become entangled in a deadly international mystery connected to famous performer Josephine Baker, can Kay trust her own instincts before it's too late?
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| Robbie McNeil's Hit List by Brianna HeathMilitary vet Robbie McNeil is busy running the Indiana karaoke bar she co-owns with her queerplatonic partner and fellow contract killer, Dee. The two are also writing and staging a musical. Needing money for their theatrical ambitions, Robbie takes a sketchy contract job and soon her target disappears, leading Robbie to investigate in the midst of everything else. For fans of: found family themes; slow-burn crime novels with likeable morally gray characters. |
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To Kill a Cook
by W. M. Akers
Tender at the Bone meets Finlay Donovan is Killing It in this hilarious, fast-paced mystery about a feisty food critic in 1970s NY who finds her chef friend murdered and realizes she might be the only one to find the killer.
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Murder Will Out
by Jennifer K. Breedlove
Since she hasn't heard from her godmother Sue in years, Willow Stone is surprised by a letter asking her to visit her Maine island home. When Willow arrives, she learns from locals that Sue recently inherited a historic mansion and had a fatal fall there. When another death connected to the house occurs, Sue investigates, getting a bit of ghostly help. For fans of: award-winning debuts; cozyish mysteries with paranormal elements, like Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity series or Olivia Blacke's Ruby and Cordelia mysteries.
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Don't Step Into My Office
by David Fishkind
A gripping debut novel of literary suspense and a vivid portrait of wealth's hidden violence. Aspiring writer and general layabout Jacob Garlicker doesn't expect--walking along the beach on the night of his twenty-sixth birthday--to witness a murder. After a hapless attempt to help the victim, Jacob decides to forget the incident entirely. And for a while, he does, returning to his bohemian life in NYC as if nothing of consequence had occurred. Seven years later, Jacob is blissfully married. Now mostly sober, and mostly at peace with his failed writing career, he's feeling alright as he heads to his father-in-law's birthday celebration in the Hamptons, even as he knows the well-heeled WASPs that populate his in-laws' social circle will spend the weekend treating him with polite disdain. Everything shifts, however, when Jacob arrives on Long Island and begins to realize that those well-heeled WASPs are not as harmless as they seem. Over the course of this propulsive, at times blackly comic narrative, Jacob wavers between addled narcissism and earnest commitment as he searches for the brutal, booze-soaked truth. Indebted to the suspenseful, page-turning plotwork of Patricia Highsmith and the operatic madness of Dario Argento, Don't Step into My Office is a mesmerizing literary puzzle.
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The Midnight Taxi
by Yosha Gunasekera
New York taxi driver Siri Perera loves true crime podcasts, so when she picks up public defender Amaya Fernando, they bond over this and their shared Sri Lankan heritage. This connection comes in handy when Siri's next customer is somehow murdered during the ride. Arrested, Siri has five days to clear her name with help from Amaya and the childhood best friend who pays her bail. Witty and clever, this debut will please fans of Mia P. Manansala, Gigi Pandian, and Sarah Fox's Definitely Maybe Not a Detective.
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Children of the Savage City
by Elizabeth Heider
Criminal networks rule Naples, but detective Nikki Serafino is doing everything she can to set things right. But can her work ever extinguish the long shadow of her family's past? Nikki Serafino leads a disciplined life: She works as a liaison between Italian police and the U.S. military, she takes care of her aging family, and she runs a women's self-defense clinic. The moments when Nikki has allowed her life to deviate from this structure-usually for love-have always led to chaos. So she's determined to keep her head in the game. But when she is thrust into the investigation of a murdered au pair, her family's ties to organized crime in Naples threaten to upend the high ground Nikki has clawed her way to. Along with her partner Valerio, Nikki sets out to solve the case. But can she and Valerio stay clean in a world the seems to always leave soot on your hands?.
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Crown City
by Naomi Hirahara
After his parents' deaths in 1903 Japan, 18-year-old Ryui Wada lands in Pasadena, California. Grief-stricken and in culture shock, he works and adjusts to life in a boardinghouse with his enigmatic roommate, Jack. When a painting is stolen from a famous Japanese artist, Ryui and Jack investigate, and then a murder occurs. Focusing less on the mystery aspect than earlier books, Naomi Hirahara's well-researched 3rd Japantown novel will also please fans of historical fiction.
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Dirty Metal
by Allison Lamothe
In 1992 New York, pill-addicted journalist Parker Snow messed up a story and was bumped from reporting on street crime to covering organized crime. While writing about the new influx of Russian gangsters, she can't help but also investigate the deaths of two women found in different parts of the city and wonder if a serial killer is at work. For fans of: atmospheric 1990s New York settings; gritty noirish debuts.
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Contact your librarian for more great books! |
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