In the second Detective Betty mystery, Kathleen Kent’s protagonist Det. Betty Rhyzyk goes rogue, leading her into the dark underworld of the Dallas drug cartel. Dallas native Kathleen Kent began her career in publishing by writing bestselling, award-winning historical novels—The Heretic’s Daughter, The Traitor’s Wife, and The Outcasts. She made her crime fiction debut with…
The Only Child by Mi-Ae Seo is an eerie and absorbing novel following a criminal psychologist who has discovered shocking and possibly dangerous connections between a serial killer and her stepdaughter. Yi Seonkyeong is a young criminal psychologist who’s just wrapping up her first semester of teaching when she receives a curious request. A convicted serial killer named…
Hannah Capin’s terrific debut novel, The Dead Queens Club, was a YA thriller that re-examined the legacy of Henry VIII via transplantation to a present-day Indiana high school. With her sophomore effort, Foul Is Fair, she continues her quest to reclaim the role and agency of women in history and literature via a devastating adaptation…
Death in the Family introduces Senior Investigator Shana Merchant as she attempts to solve a murder on a small, storm-struck island. The setting for a Death in the Family is privately-owned Tern Island, one of the Thousand Islands. The Sinclair family owns it lock, stock, and baronial-splendor barrel. Senior Investigator Shana Merchant and her colleague,…
Before plunging into the Patricia Marcantonio’s second Victorian mystery, consider, what are the most famous unsolved crimes in history? Ding ding, Jack the Ripper: check out a short refresher on his hideous crime spree. The sensational brutal murders of five prostitutes in London’s East End in the autumn of 1888 by an unknown killer who…
Over a hundred years ago, the Catskills village of Galesburg was destroyed in the name of progress. Flooded, so the Chilewaukee Reservoir could be built, in order to funnel water downstate to quench the thirst of New York City. But the people of Galesburg didn’t go without a fight. Some didn’t go at all… They…
Golden In Death marks the 50th book in J. D. Robb’s remarkable In Death series following homicide detective Eve Dallas in a futuristic New York City. The opening paragraph of Naked in Death, the first book in what’s now a fifty-book mystery series, has Lieutenant Eve Dallas, New York Police and Security, waking up to…
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s first thriller, Untamed Shore, is a coming-of-age story set in Mexico that quickly turns dark when a young woman meets three enigmatic tourists. Sharks don’t just swim in the ocean, they can come ashore and slip seamlessly into your life. Untamed Shore attests to this as Silvia Moreno-Garcia juxtaposes the life of Viridiana,…
One Day You’ll Burn by Joseph Schneider is the first in the new LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel Mysteries series featuring an unusual sort of police officer: a near-30-year-old history professor turned police recruit. Tully Jarsdel is an unusual sort of police detective. Nearing 30 and on track to become a professor of history—following in the…
The Killing Tide is Jean-Luc Bannalec’s fifth novel in the Brittany Mystery Series set in the small coastal community of Brittany, France. Five years ago, I read the first of the series, Death in Brittany, but I haven’t read any of the series since. In the series opener, Dupin was a recent transplant from Paris…
