This highly-anticipated political thriller debut by one of the most well-known politicians in the country is a twisty puzzler reminiscent of Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code and John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief. Avery Keene is the senior legal clerk for “hippie libertarian” Supreme Court Justice Howard Wynn, a grouchy old man whose irascible attitude hides…

Available wherever books are sold on January 11, 2022 — pre-order today from any of these partner bookstores: Anderson’s Book Shop (Naperville, IL) BookBar Denver (Denver, CO) Book Carnival (Orange, CA) Cavalier House Books (Denham Springs, LA) Copper Dog Books (Beverly, MA) Fiction Addiction (Greenville, SC) Fountain Bookstore (Richmond, VA) Itinerant Literate (Charleston, SC) My Sister’s Books (Pawley’s Island, SC) Murder by the Book (Houston,…

Lila Macapagal’s life, as she wryly notes in the opening sentences of this charming new culinary cozy series, has become a rom-com cliche. After moving from her small Illinois hometown of Shady Palms to Chicago for school, she fell in love with a guy who not only broke her heart but left her nearly unemployable…

A Peculiar Combination by Ashley Weaver is the first book in the new Electra McDonnell series, set in England during World War II, and a delightful mystery filled with spies, murder, romance, and the author’s signature wit. Like they always say: desperate times call for desperate measures. Electra McDonnell and her Uncle Mick know it’s…

The Granite Coast Murders combines many felicitous elements, like stunning surroundings, a fish-out-of-water commissaire, and a chère amie determined that Commissaire Dupin fully embrace a fortnight’s vacation at the beach in Brittany. Claire is thwarted by the Trégastel-Plage villagers who are eager to enlist Dupin into solving the myriad mysteries on their doorstep. Dupin seems…

A messenger dressed all in black, his ensemble topped off with a “pillbox-like cap,” delivers a message to Delaney Nichols at the Cracked Spine, the bookstore where she works.  Ms. Delaney Nichols,   Your presence is requested this afternoon at 2:00 at Deacon Brodie’s Tavern to discuss Ms. Shelagh O’Conner’s vast collection of rare and…

Portland–and Oregon in general–has had its share of crime: We’re the home of D. B. Cooper, the I-5 serial killer, Diane Downs, Tonya Harding, and Westley Allen Dodd. The Green River Killer and Ted Bundy committed some of their crimes here, and a cult in eastern Oregon once tried to poison a river that fed…

Like Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol opening: “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever, about that,” the premise of Will Thomas’s thirteenth Barker and Llewelyn tale is also without doubt. Tsesarevich Nicholas (heir to Czar Alexander III) was a dead ringer for his cousin, Prince George of England.  Their uncanny resemblance,…

Who are the real Baker Street Irregulars?  Are they a gang of street kids who worked for Sherlock Holmes, appearing in only three stories but nevertheless spawning at least three major TV shows in the last 30 years; or are they the US’s first and most famous Sherlockian society? Or are they actually Winston Churchill’s…

A Lonely Man by Chris Power is an existential mystery that explores the uncertain intersection between fiction and reality and the disastrous consequences of a chance encounter. In a Berlin bookstore, two Englishmen meet while reaching for the same volume of Bolaño. Robert Prowe is an author with an acute case of writer’s block, constantly…