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G. Robert Frazier

Dive into a summer of suspense

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Readers looking for a great escape from the everyday routine during their vacation will find it in five of the most offbeat thrillers to hit bookshelves this summer. Whether it’s an alternate history in which slavery never ended or a television reality show turned survivor tale, these books will keep readers turning the pages on the plane or on the beach.

MORE THAN A GAME
In her debut novel, The Last One, Alexandra Oliva delivers a pulse-pounding psychological tale of survival. The book starts innocently enough as the 12 contestants on a television reality show are pitted against each other in a game of endurance. The story follows the group through a series of physical challenges and tests of fortitude, with the winners advancing to compete on another night and the losers sent packing. But when a mysterious illness begins taking its toll, things take a dramatic turn. The competitors are all but cut off from the real world and even lose contact with their TV hosts and camera people, leaving them to fend for themselves. At first blush, main protagonist Zoo believes it’s all part of the game, but the deeper she treks into an increasingly apocalyptic landscape, the more desperate and real her situation becomes. The question she must inevitably ask is, how far is she willing to go before her emotional, physical and mental capacity give in to the truth? Oliva masterfully manipulates her characters and the setting, creating a mash-up of popular TV genres: “Survivor” meets “The Walking Dead.”

FORGET-ME-NOT
Wendy Walker continues the theme of psychological suspense with her latest novel, All Is Not Forgotten. The thriller, which has already been optioned by Reese Witherspoon for an upcoming Warner Bros. movie, poses a question: What if you could take a drug that would make you forget about a traumatic experience? The experimental drug is perfectly suited to military members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but what if it’s given to someone who is the victim of a violent rape? That’s exactly what happens to teenager Jenny Kramer. But while the drug is able to erase the experience of her rape from Jenny’s memory, the physical and emotional scars remain. Helping Jenny come to grips with the trauma is Dr. Alan Forrester, a psychiatrist who acts as the narrator of this harrowing story. But as Forrester delves deeper into the events of that awful night, and the search for the perpetrator intensifies, Forrester’s own life is rocked by the possibility that his son may have committed the foul deed. The twists and turns of the story all lead up to a read you will not soon forget.

ALT-WORLD RENEGADE
With a timely novel focusing on race and equality, Ben H. Winters turns the issue of slavery on its head in Underground Airlines. In this astonishing alternate history, slavery in America did not end at the climax of the Civil War, but instead has continued to the present day in four states in the Deep South. What’s more, Winters’ main character, Victor, is a free black man whose job is to return escaped slaves to their rightful owners. Like the famed Underground Railroad, slaves vying for freedom make their way across state lines via the Underground Airlines, a system of package trucks, over-the-road haulers and stolen tractor-trailers. Victor’s mission is to infiltrate the system, discover the whereabouts of each escapee and report them to his bosses, who in turn swoop in to apprehend the runaway slave. Of course, things aren’t always what they seem, and Victor’s bizarre allegiance to his employer comes into question when one of his cases turns out to be an insider working to upend the slave empire from within. With Victor’s routine shattered, he’s forced to question everything and determine what it is he stands for, regardless of the consequences. Winters handles the controversial topic with sensitivity, yet isn’t afraid to ask some bold questions along the way.

ONLY THE LONELY
Iain Reid’s debut novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, is a tightly crafted, taut thriller that readers can easily finish in a single sitting—perhaps on a lounge chair by the pool. The novel follows a pair of lovers as they embark on a long road trip to meet the parents of the boyfriend, Jake. Things start innocently enough as the narrator recounts how she met Jake, how she was drawn to him and him to her, despite their unremarkable features. But lurking behind everything, our narrator feels a sense of dread and malice altogether unexplainable. Part of it harkens back to a mysterious stranger she once saw looking in her window and to an anonymous caller’s unnerving phone messages. When Jake decides to take a detour, and our narrator is ultimately left abandoned at a deserted high school, the suspense and danger build. Reid’s straightforward voice firmly places the reader in the head of “the girlfriend” as she tries to cope with the psychological torment facing her in this dark and compelling novel.

HOW HE DIED
At first take, Everything I Don’t Remember by Jonas Hassen Khemiri may seem like a daunting read. The novel swiftly hops from one narrator to another, from one time frame to the next, as it follows a decidedly unconventional story structure. But once readers dive in and allow themselves to become fully immersed in the narratives, they’ll be in for one of the most engrossing novels of the summer. A winner of the August Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious literary honor, the novel recounts the tragic life of a man named Samuel through interviews and conversations with the people around him, all leading up to a fatal car crash. At the root of the novel, however, is a complex puzzle of whether Samuel’s death was the result of a tragic accident, a planned suicide or murder. Piecing together the answers is an unnamed narrator who must come to grips with his own interpretation of himself and those around him. Khemiri’s stylistic approach is sure to keep readers of Everything I Don’t Remember enthralled every step of the way.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! All month long, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers. Look for the Private Eye July magnifying glass for a daily dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.

Readers looking for a great escape from the everyday routine during their vacation will find it in five of the most offbeat thrillers to hit bookshelves this summer. Whether it’s an alternate history in which slavery never ended or a television reality show turned survivor tale, these books will keep readers turning the pages on the plane or on the beach.
Fiction

Heart-pounding suspense for summer

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

If you’re seeking edge-of-your seat thrills and psychological suspense to keep you turning pages long into the humid summer nights, then look no further. From exotic locales like the Greek islands to the seamy underbelly of New York City, these books have the right ingredients for an entertaining escape.

Years and miles apart will change people. So will wealth—or a lack of it. Ian Bledsoe discovers this the hard way in Christopher Bollen’s engrossing new novel, The Destroyers. Set on the Greek island paradise of Patmos, the novel reunites Ian with his childhood friend and college pal, Charlie Konstantinou, who may be Ian’s best chance of getting out of a precarious situation. Ian is on the outs with his affluent New York family after stealing $9,000, and he’s currently on the run following a failed business venture in Panama (rumored to involve drugs). Charlie, who hails from a wealthy family of his own, readily offers Ian a job with his tourist-centric yacht company. Ian is further surprised to be reunited with his former college girlfriend, Louise Wheeler, who has also found a refuge of sorts amid Charlie’s eccentric circle of friends and extended family. But before Ian gets a chance to repay Charlie for his generosity, Charlie vanishes after a business trip, leaving his friends and family to fend for themselves. Bollen takes his time unraveling the seeds of deceit, obsession and secrets, building suspense with each page.

MAP QUEST
Obsession takes many forms. In Colin Harrison’s new novel, You Belong to Me, the consequences of various obsessions are often messy and deadly. Successful immigration lawyer Paul Reeves is obsessed with his hobby of collecting rare archival maps. His neighbor, Jennifer Mehraz, is obsessed with her long-lost lover, former Army Ranger Bill Wilkerson. Jennifer’s husband, Iranian-American entrepreneur Ahmed Mehraz, is obsessed with her. Paul, being the good neighbor and friend that he is, soon becomes entangled in Jennifer, Bill and Ahmed’s complex love triangle, even as he tries to focus on acquiring an elusive, rare archival map of New York City. Events quickly careen out of control as neither Paul’s nor Ahmed’s wealth can easily buy the two out of the situations they’re in, forcing the men to resort to other, less reliable alternatives to get what they want. Harrison, who is the editor-in-chief at Scribner and the author of eight previous novels, explores how far each of these characters will go to conquer their obsession and attain the unattainable. You Belong to Me is an intriguing, moody tale of love, lust and avarice—and great summer reading.

ALL IN THE FAMILY
You’ll want to buckle up and hold on tight for Jordan Harper’s debut novel, She Rides Shotgun, a fast-paced, energetic noir about an ex-convict and his 11-year-old daughter. Nate McClusky isn’t your typical protagonist—he’s done a lot of bad things in his lifetime, both beyond and behind bars. But his compassion for his daughter, Polly, drives everything, making their quest for survival one readers can embrace. Nate makes the drastic mistake of killing a member of the Aryan Steel gang in jail, resulting in a bounty being put on his head and on the heads of his wife and child. Nate is too late to save his wife, but he manages to get to Polly, setting off a cat-and-mouse chase. Along the way, Nate becomes the dad he never was to his child, a spunky and smart girl whose infatuation with her long-missing dad grows the longer they are together. Polly, in turn, grows up much too fast as Nate begins training her to fend for herself. By turns heartwarming and shocking, this book entertains on numerous levels. Harper is also a talented screenwriter, and it’s easy to envision this electric story unfolding on the silver screen. Get in and go along for the ride.

PREDATOR AND PREY
Author Gin Phillips thrusts Joan and her 4-year-old son, Lincoln, into the middle of a life-and-death scenario in one of the summer’s most action-packed and emotionally harrowing thrillers, Fierce Kingdom. The pair are just about to wrap up a visit to their local zoo when the sounds of gunshots shatter the otherwise tranquil environment. Joan’s motherly, protective instinct immediately kicks in as the pair hide from the shooters amid the zoo’s exhibition spaces. Their only connection to the outside world is through Joan’s text message exchanges with her husband, who is unable to reach them. Joan must rely on her own wits and courage to see them through this frightening situation in one piece, but with a young child in tow who sees everything as a game, doing so proves easier said than done. Fierce Kingdom unfolds at a rapid-fire pace with each chapter upping the tension and danger.

LAST WOMAN STANDING
Stephen King recently praised Final Girls by Riley Sager as “the first great thriller of 2017,” an assessment we’ll second. This suspense-packed novel—written by an established author under the Sager pseudonym—follows the life of Quincy Carpenter, the lone survivor of a horror movie-like massacre of five college friends that happened 10 years ago during their vacation at Pine Cottage. Somehow Quincy eluded the assailant long enough to reach a nearby cop for help, but the memories of that harrowing ordeal—or more precisely the trauma-triggered absence of those memories—never let go. When the lone female survivor of a similar ordeal dies and a third “Final Girl” of another incident winds up on her doorstep, Quincy is immediately thrust into yet another do-or-die scenario. To survive this time, Quincy will have to solve the mystery of her past. Sager quickly ratchets up the mystery and the psychological suspense in classic slasher-movie fashion. Unlike those movies, however, Sager takes time to delve into the head of the main character, creating an emotionally charged experience readers won’t soon forget.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

If you’re seeking edge-of-your seat thrills and psychological suspense to keep you turning pages long into the humid summer nights, then look no further. From exotic locales like the Greek islands to the seamy underbelly of New York City, these books have the right ingredients for an entertaining escape.

Fiction

Stay up all night with cold-blooded fiction

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! This month, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers. Look for the Private Eye July magnifying glass for a dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.

The latest wave of suspenseful novels brings thrills and chills to your summer reading list. These five stories of mystery, intrigue and horrific happenings are perfect for lazy days at the beach or hot summer nights.

What begins as a fun, relaxing getaway at a New Hampshire lake for 7-year-old Wen and her dads, Andrew and Eric, turns into a terrifying ordeal of survival in The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay. When the trio is visited at their cabin by four mysterious strangers—Leonard, Adriane, Redmond and Sabrina—their familial bond is put to the ultimate test. “We are not going to kill you, Wen, and we are not going to kill your parents,” promises Leonard, the smooth-talking leader of the visitors and an alleged bartender from the Chicago area. He goes on to explain: “The four of us are here to prevent the apocalypse.” But to ensure that happens, Wen, Andrew or Eric has to die, and they must choose among themselves who it will be. The unusual deal thrusts the family into a tense moral dilemma that tests the limits of their love. Tremblay won the 2015 Bram Stoker Award for A Head Full of Ghosts and may be on his way to a repeat with the chillingly good The Cabin at the End of the World.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Tremblay for The Cabin at the End of the World.

DON'T DIG TOO DEEP
What secrets do a mother and her son keep, and how far are they willing to go to protect those secrets? These are just two of the questions facing Lydia Fitzsimons and her son, Laurence, in Lying in Wait, set in 1980s Dublin. Lydia explains on page one that her husband, Andrew, “did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it.” It’s off to the races from there. Within short order, 18-year-old Laurence—who recently had sex for the first time with his girlfriend and endures bullying every day at school because of his excess weight—discovers Annie’s body buried in their backyard. As Laurence wrestles to learn what happened and how his parents could have done such a thing, Lydia goes about her business as if nothing happened. Elsewhere, Annie’s twin sister, Karen, begins a meticulous investigation into her sister’s disappearance. Events cascade toward a collision as the trio’s stories unwind in alternating chapters. Author Liz Nugent, whose debut novel, Unraveling Oliver, earned high critical praise, has upped her game here with a darkly twisted tale of murder, lies and secrets best left buried.

AND THE CREDITS ROLL
Sibling rivalry and Hollywood obsessions collide in young adult novelist Jennifer Wolfe’s adult fiction debut, Watch the Girls. From the start of her acting career, Liv Hendricks (formerly known as child actress Olivia Hill) has been pushed at every turn by her domineering mother, Desiree, and has lived in the shadows of her successful sisters, Miranda and Gemma. Then Liv’s career reaches a dead end when Miranda goes missing. Years later, after a bout of alcoholism and being ousted from a reality series, Liv decides to reignite her career by filming her own detective web series. Her first case: find the missing daughter of auteur Jonas Kron, whose horror films have earned him a cult-like following. Liv follows the trail to Kron’s California hometown of Stone’s Throw, where fans are converging for an annual film festival in Kron’s honor. With bitter townsfolk, a none-too-helpful sheriff and Kron’s crazed followers to contend with, Liv discovers that finding the truth will be a challenge. When Liv’s younger sister Gemma also goes missing in the haunted woods of Stone’s Throw, the stakes intensify. Wolfe incorporates text message exchanges into the more traditional first-person narrative to create a novel that reflects today’s social media-obsessed world. Fast-paced and fraught with suspense, Watch the Girls unravels like a perfect summer-night movie.

WELCOME BACK TO CAMP
Riley Sager, who made a splash with last year’s Final Girls, returns this summer with another tense thriller. Whereas Final Girls followed the plight of the sole survivor of a horror movie-like massacre whose past comes back to haunt her, The Last Time I Lied follows Emma Davis in her quest to find her friends, who disappeared in the dead of night during a camp outing 15 years ago. Emma, who has become an accomplished New York artist, is invited to return to Camp Nightingale as an art instructor and sees it as an opportunity to learn what really happened that night. The past has a way of repeating itself, and it isn’t long before Emma suspects she and her new camp companions may be in as much danger as her lost friends. The tension ratchets up with each chapter, leading to a suspenseful showdown. Like Final Girls, The Last Time I Lied has all the earmarks of a campy Friday the 13th-type horror flick, but Sager elevates the story with a strong lead character and a grounded, realistic threat.

MONEY WON'T SAVE YOU
In case the previous thrill-a-minute reads are a little too intense, or readers are looking for a more intellectually stirring, sophisticated mystery, The Banker’s Wife by Cristina Alger may fit the bill. A former financial analyst and corporate attorney, Alger brings her real-world experiences to bear in this novel about the world of global finance, insider trading and corruption. After Swiss banker Matthew Lerner’s private plane bound for Geneva crashes in the Alps during a storm, his wife, Annabel, is left to piece together her life and, perhaps more importantly, the mysteries he leaves behind—namely, an encrypted laptop and a client who doesn’t want Matthew’s secrets getting out. At the same time, journalist Marina Tourneau is enlisted to obtain a USB drive containing highly sensitive materials from a Luxembourg courier that may reveal the whereabouts of long-thought deceased financial schemer Morty Reiss. Along the way, Marina discovers a financial web with far-reaching implications, inevitably bringing the two storylines together. With global settings, covert government agencies and intricate plotting, The Banker’s Wife reads like an old-fashioned international espionage thriller. But Alger’s talents keep the plot digestible for readers while her female protagonists provide strong, smart alternatives to this typically male-dominated genre.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The latest wave of suspenseful novels brings thrills and chills to your summer reading list. These five stories of mystery, intrigue and horrific happenings are perfect for lazy days at the beach or hot summer nights.

FictionMystery

Powerful women stand apart in new crime fiction

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

For readers who enjoy fascinating characters, gritty plots and unforgettable settings, Jonathan Lethem and Katrina Carrasco have crafted two detective novels with a distinctive edge.

The Feral Detective is Lethem’s first mystery since his award-winning 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn, while Carrasco’s The Best Bad Things is an unforgettable debut. Both novels spotlight smart female protagonists whose determination and feisty dispositions see them through a barrage of incredible situations that would send a lesser person running.

Phoebe Siegler, the lead character in The Feral Detective, is a fiercely independent, modern-day woman with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. When a close friend’s teenage daughter, Arabella, goes missing from her university in Portland, Oregon, Phoebe welcomes the opportunity to drop everything and go find her. A credit card receipt points Phoebe to California’s high desert, where she enlists the aid of mysterious private detective Charles Heist, whom she quickly dubs “the feral detective” after meeting his unusual pet, an opossum named Jean that’s living in his desk.

Rather than sit back and wait for Heist to do his job, Phoebe insists on accompanying him on his quest into the desert. In this landscape that is as dangerous as it is beautiful, Phoebe meets an assortment of enigmatic characters living off the grid (including a tribe of women known as Rabbits who are feuding with a clan of men known as Bears) and discovers Heist’s bizarre relationship with this desert underworld. But with Arabella in danger, Phoebe and Heist must risk it all to get her home safely.

Risks, meanwhile, are par for the course for Alma Rosales, a take-no-prisoners woman of the 1880s who doesn’t hesitate to bust a few knuckles in The Best Bad Things. A former agent with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Alma uses her sharp wit and guile to deceive her targets any way she can, even by disguising herself as a man.

“Wearing only her own skin and hair, she is unbound,” Carrasco describes Alma. “Unbound. Powerful. She can mold her form into any shape.”

It’s this effort—when she’s disguised as goon Jack Kemp—that gets Alma in trouble with local smuggler Nathaniel Wheeler and a step closer to exposing crime boss Barnaby Sloan’s opium operation in Port Townsend, one of the nation’s busiest ports of entry in 1887. Alma infiltrates the smuggling operation at the behest of her lover/employer Delphine Beaumond, while secretly working to get back in with the Pinkertons. The complicated plot, subplots, violence and double-crosses all serve to keep readers hooked from start to finish.

While both books offer memorable characters and wild situations, the authors’ vivid use of language, deep points of view and evocative settings make these novels a special joy to read.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

For readers who enjoy fascinating characters, gritty plots and unforgettable settings, Jonathan Lethem and Katrina Carrasco have crafted two detective novels with a distinctive edge.

FictionDebut Fiction

The mountains are calling

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Certain places have a tremendous power to influence people, informing their choices and inspiring their lives, past and present. For the lead characters in two remarkable novels from Jess Montgomery and Mesha Maren, the Appalachian Mountains hold sway.

In Montgomery’s The Widows, the coal mining industry of Rossville, Ohio, in 1925 serves as the ominous backdrop to the lives of Lily Ross and Marvena Whitcomb. The story opens with a catastrophic mining explosion of methane gas that kills Marvena’s husband, John, which is soon followed by the death of Lily’s husband, Sheriff Daniel Ross, at the hands of an escaped inmate.

While Marvena fights to unionize mine workers for safer conditions and better wages, Lily assumes the mantle of acting sheriff in order to track down and apprehend her husband’s killer. Unaware that Daniel has been killed, Marvena goes to his house to ask his help in finding her missing 16-year-old daughter, Eula. Lily promises to help in Marvena’s search, oblivious to the fact that Marvena sought out Daniel’s assistance because of their prior relationship. Standing in their respective ways is the coal company and its Pinkerton detectives, thugs hired as enforcers to keep the coal miners in line, even as local politicians and law enforcement officials look the other way.

Inspired by the real lives of Ohio’s first female sheriff, Maude Collins, and community organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, The Widows is told in alternating chapters from the two women’s points of view. This is the first book published by author Sharon Short under the pseudonym Jess Montgomery, and her writing is brisk, yet it lingers long enough to indulge readers with beautiful prose along the way.

In Maren’s debut novel, Sugar Run, characters looking for a fresh start are also drawn to the Appalachian Mountains, specifically a tiny village in rural West Virginia, where fracking and drug running have all but replaced coal mining and moonshining.

The novel follows two eras in the life of Jodi McCarty, with the bulk of the story set in 2007 as she tries to acclimate to freedom after 18 years in prison for manslaughter. Guilt-ridden over the death of her former lover, Paula Dulett, Jodi is compelled to seek out and then look after Paula’s younger brother, Ricky, now grown but mentally handicapped as a result of a beating he took at the hands of his abusive father.

Along the way, Jodi meets Miranda Matheson, the young mother of three children, who has left her country music-star husband and his drug-addicted lifestyle. Jodi, perhaps yearning for what she once had with Paula and a chance at a do-over, brings Miranda and her boys home with her. But Jodi’s hopes for a fresh start are almost immediately dashed when she learns that the West Virginia property her grandmother left to her has been snatched up by a Florida investor. As Jodi struggles to find a job and resorts to the drug trade just to make ends meet, Miranda once again falls for her former husband.

An accomplished short story writer, Maren makes her debut count with emotionally charged prose and a sense of the yearning we all have for home.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Behind the Book feature by Jess Montgomery on The Widows.

This article was originally published in the January 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Appalachian Mountains hold sway for the lead characters in two remarkable novels from Jess Montgomery and Mesha Maren.

Fiction

NYC crime stories

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

One night can change everything. For better. For worse. Forever.

The characters in two new novels from Karen Ellis and Andrea Bartz experience the immediate and long-term ramifications of ill-spent nights to drastic effect. In Ellis’ novel, Last Night, the distinctly different lives of Titus “Crisp” Crespo and Glynnie Dreyfus intersect in unexpected and unfortunate ways when they attempt to purchase weed from a shady supplier. Meanwhile, Lindsay Bach struggles to piece together the fleeting memories of a tragic night ten years earlier in which a college friend, Edie, committed suicide in Bartz’s The Lost Night. Both novels offer mystery, suspense and unforgettable characters caught up in situations that swiftly spiral beyond their control.

In Last Night, Crisp is an intelligent 19-year-old high school valedictorian with plans to enter Princeton on a scholarship in the fall. The novel opens as Crisp makes deliveries on his bike through the streets of New York on the eve of his graduation, only to see him unjustly arrested for arguing with a police officer who tickets him for riding his bike on the sidewalk in an obvious case of racial profiling. While spending time in a detention facility, he spies a neighbor, affluent white girl Glynnie, sunbathing on a nearby rooftop. Ashamed and unable to face his mother and grandparents once released, Crisp and Glynnie strike up an unlikely friendship that ultimately leads them in search of weed from a dealer in the Brooklyn projects. Crisp inwardly knows he’s making a mistake, but he is reluctant to abandon Glynnie. Plus, the trip to the projects offers Crisp a chance to find his father, whom he has never had the chance to know. Needless to say, Ellis heaps further misfortune on the pair as their drug buy goes horribly awry.

While the pair of friends struggles to regain control of their lives, their absence at home does not go unnoticed, leading to a pair of investigations by local detectives to find them. The detectives’ inquiries ultimately cross paths as they pool their skills to bring the teens home safely, and Ellis swiftly ratchets up the tension and the stakes in this gripping thriller.

The Lost Night, on the other hand, imbues its reader with a more subtle mystery that unravels piecemeal over time. As the tenth anniversary of her friend Edie’s suicide nears, Lindsay fails to recall precisely how she spent that fateful night. Plagued by alcoholism and faulty memories, Lindsay obsessively questions her friends and Edie’s relatives, only to discover inconsistencies, suspicion and revelations she never suspected. Her persistent desire to learn the truth tests her own conclusions, her friendships and the nature of the event itself. Could Edie have been murdered? Could one of her friends been involved? Or worse, was Lindsay herself part of the deed or involved in a cover up?

Bartz, who is a Brooklyn-based journalist, crafts an intense, emotionally gripping novel pitting memory and reality against each other. Readers, in turn, are left to wonder along with Lindsay whether she is being wholly truthful about the events of that night—recalling other recent unreliable narrators like Amy Dunne in Gone Girl or Rachel in The Girl on the Train—or whether Lindsay was deliberately misled.

Both Last Night and The Lost Night are set in Brooklyn, and their respective authors contrast their characters’ social and cultural differences to full effect. Both books will keep you awake long into the night.

One night can change everything. For better. For worse. Forever.

FictionMysteryGothic Fiction

8 killer page-turners scarier than sunburn

Feature by G. Robert Frazier & Julie Hale

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
If your dream vacation is getting cozy in a tiny English village

Jackson Brodie returns to bookshelves after a nine-year hiatus in Big Sky. Brodie is doing the typical PI work of spying on an unfaithful husband in the village of North Yorkshire when he encounters a man about to jump to his death from a cliff. Brodie intervenes and, in doing so, becomes embroiled in a complex case of murder, betrayal and sex trafficking. Meanwhile, police detectives Reggie Chase and Ronnie Dibicki are also caught up in the dizzying plot when their routine assignment to interview witnesses in a cold case brings them into contact with some of the same individuals as those in Brodie’s case. Atkinson expertly balances plotlines and viewpoints from chapter to chapter, giving readers a panoramic understanding of the characters, their motivations and the consequences of their actions. All of it coalesces into a wild, frantic finish in which each plotline is neatly tied together.

★ Your Life Is Mine by Nathan Ripley
For fans of “My Favorite Murder,” I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and all things Manson-­related

Blanche Potter thought she had put her past behind her. She never talked about what happened when she was 7 years old. She changed her last name. She moved to a new city. She started a life of her own. But as the daughter of Chuck Varner, a deranged mass shooter, Blanche realizes the past may be buried, but it never goes away completely. Blanche learns that lesson the hard way in Nathan Ripley’s shocking new novel, Your Life Is Mine. Things are going well in her career as an up-and-coming filmmaker when she is told that her estranged mother, Crissy, has been shot and killed at her trailer home. News of Crissy’s death, brought to Blanche by a sleazy journalist who knows of her past, opens the floodgates of her memories and traumatic childhood. But as she tries to reconcile her past experiences with the recent death of her mother, someone else is gunning for her as well. The cult of Chuck Varner lives on, and it’s up to Blanche to stop it before his crazed follower can strike again. Ripley pulls no punches here, creating a tense and atmospheric story of personal identity and survival, while asking whether you can ever escape your past.

Gone Too Long by Lori Roy
If you’re looking  for a mystery that’s almost too real

Lori Roy portrays the rise of white supremacy movements to chilling effect in Gone Too Long. Set in modern-­day Simmonsville, Georgia, the story follows Imogene Coulter, the daughter of a Ku Klux Klan member, as she buries the sins of her father but unearths an even darker mystery. While sorting through her father’s KKK hideout, Imogene discovers a young boy. Along with Beth, a child abducted 10 years ago who has been raising the boy during their captivity, Imogene begins to discern the truth about her father’s role in the ordeal. But with another Klan member determined to reassert control of the situation, Imogene’s own life and the lives of her family are in peril. This darkly addictive tale is ultimately an engrossing portrait of survival and perseverance. With richly detailed prose, Roy pulls readers close into Imogene’s and Beth’s perspectives, creating empathy for both characters as their trauma and the threats against them, past and present, unfold.

Murder in Bel-Air by Cara Black
If your dream vacation is stylishly stalking through the streets of Paris

Sydney Leduc had one job: pick up her granddaughter from her play group and bring her home. But when Sydney fails to show up, her daughter Aimée is thrust into a convoluted case of murder and international intrigue in her attempt to find Sydney. Author Cara Black swiftly builds up the tension in her riveting new Aimée Leduc mystery, Murder in Bel-Air, en route to an action-packed finale. While retrieving her daughter in Sydney’s place, Aimée witnesses police investigating the death of a homeless woman at a nearby convent’s soup kitchen. She quickly learns that the last person to speak with the victim was none other than her own mother, adding to the mystery of Sydney’s whereabouts. The discovery of a bundle of cash stashed away in the convent’s laundry further complicates matters. Before long, Aimée and her unique cast of teammates are caught up in an international conspiracy involving a potential coup, a downed airplane and a dirty bomb. Hounding her every move are agents of the DGSE (France’s external intelligence agency), the CIA and a mercenary known as the Crocodile. Rich in Parisian settings and vernacular, Murder in Bel-Air is easily accessible and enjoyable to new and longtime series readers alike. 

The Poison Thread by Laura Purcell
For fans of Fingersmith and Alias Grace

Laura Purcell captures the menace and gloom of Victorian-era England in The Poison Thread. Dorothea Truelove is rich, attractive and intelligent. As an act of philanthropy, she spends time with the women incarcerated at Oakgate Prison. Dorothea’s pet fascination is phrenology—using the shape of an individual’s skull as a gauge for temperament and disposition—and she believes the technique can reveal criminal inclinations. When she meets prisoner Ruth Butterham, Dorothea is keen to test her theory. Ruth, who has been charged with murdering the owner of the dress shop where she was employed, is resolute in her claim that she can kill through the power of her stitches. The tale is narrated in turns by the two women, and Purcell skillfully contrasts their voices and stories, spinning a fascinating mystery that’s rich in disquieting detail and atmosphere.

Wherever She Goes by Kelley Armstrong
If you’re looking for a mystery with a deeply emotional hook

Kelley Armstrong’s gripping thriller, Wherever She Goes, is narrated by librarian and troubled mother Aubrey Finch. Aubrey’s marriage to successful lawyer Paul is strained, but they’re still raising their 3-year-old daughter together. Haunted by memories of past mistakes and her parents’ deaths, Aubrey finds that the life she’s built with her family is slowly eroding away. At the park one day, Aubrey watches helplessly as a little boy is forced into an SUV. She contacts the police, but when no further information about the abduction surfaces, they question her claims—and her mental health. A practiced hacker, Aubrey begins hunting for the child via computer, putting her own safety and reputation on the line. Armstrong balances the mystery of the kidnapping and the tension of Aubrey’s inner conflicts with moving scenes of a fragile marriage as Aubrey and Paul work to save their relationship. The latest from the bestselling author of Watcher in the Woods makes for pulse-racing summer reading.

★ Tell Me Everything by Cambria Brockman
For fans of The Secret History and Gone Girl 

Cambria Brockman’s riveting debut, Tell Me Everything, takes place on the campus of an exclusive New England college, where six friends form a destructive connection. Introvert Malin comes out of her shell at Hawthorne College, bonding with five other students: Ruby, Max, John, Khaled and Gemma. They’re a close-knit group, but as graduation approaches, their relationships begin to unravel. Gemma drinks too much, and John is increasingly cruel to Ruby, who is now his girlfriend. Malin, meanwhile, excels academically while concealing her very dark past. The anxieties of senior year peak at semester’s end as she struggles to uphold her self-assured facade. She isn’t the only one in the circle who’s hiding something, and when a murder occurs, the six friends’ lives change forever. Narrated by Malin, whose intelligence and cunning drive the story, Tell Me Everything is an edgy exploration of loyalty and human desire. Readers in search of a true page-turner will savor this electrifying novel.

★ The Other Mrs. Miller by Allison Dickson
If you’re looking for a thriller you absolutely cannot predict

Fans of Paula Hawkins will be thrilled by Allison Dickson’s The Other Mrs. Miller. Phoebe Miller is starting to believe her best years are behind her. Heiress to a fortune left by her philandering late father, she passes the days in a haze of alcohol. Arguments with her husband, Wyatt, add to her feelings of discontent. But her life takes an unexpected turn after the Napiers move in across the street. Ron, a doctor; Vicki, his wife; and Jake, their attractive and flirtatious teenage son, appear to be a model family. Vicki is eager to be friends, but Phoebe doesn’t quite trust her. She also suspects she’s being watched by the driver of a car that keeps returning to the neighborhood. When Phoebe receives a series of frightening notes that may have some connection to her father, she begins to fear for her life. With an impossible-to-predict plot and a very unexpected murder, Dickson’s book is required reading for suspense addicts. 

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson If your dream vacation is getting cozy in a tiny English village Jackson Brodie returns to bookshelves after a nine-year hiatus in Big Sky. Brodie is doing the typical PI work of spying on an unfaithful husband in the village of North Yorkshire when he encounters a man about to […]
Mystery

Dire straits

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

When you are born into a region or era where poverty, addiction and crime are the norm, is it possible to escape and start life fresh? Or are we destined to follow in the footsteps of the generations that came before us? These are the questions confronting the main characters in two gritty new mysteries from Laura Lippman and Laura McHugh.

In Lippman’s Lady in the Lake, Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz leaves her husband and a privileged lifestyle to start over in 1966 Baltimore. After essentially stumbling across the body of a missing child, Maddie uses her moment in the spotlight to worm her way into a job at the city’s newspaper, first as an assistant to a life columnist and later as a reporter. Maddie quickly learns that if she wants to get noticed, she must assert herself, and thus takes up the case of a missing black woman no one else seems to care about.

Lippman alternates chapters between Maddie’s POV and secondary characters she encounters along the way—including the ghost of the missing woman. Most of the secondary characters don’t add much in the way of plot development to the overall story, but what they do add is a unique perspective to the social, cultural and economic climate that engulfs the book.

Lippman, who is best known for her award-winning Tess Monaghan series, worked at The Baltimore Sun for 20 years, giving her a firsthand perspective on both the world of women in journalism as well as life in Baltimore. While she depicts a city in the throes of 1960s-era racism and crime, she was quick to defend the city in the wake of President Trump’s recent rant against Rep. Elijah Cummings in which he called Baltimore a “rat and rodent infested mess.” “Cities are resilient,” Lippman told NPR in response. “The fact that we survive or thrive at all in the light of terrible problems isn't to be criticized; it’s to be celebrated.”

In The Wolf Wants in, the third novel from McHugh, young Henley Pettit wants nothing more than to get out of Blackwater, Kansas, and start life over again, free of the restraints her impoverished rural surroundings have forced upon her. But when there is no money, when there is no clear escape and when family constantly pull at you from all directions, dreams can all too easily be dashed.

With crime and addiction common among Blackwater’s populace, it isn’t entirely shocking when the body of a missing 10-year-old girl is discovered in the woods outside of town. A second set of bones, believed to be those of the girl’s father, are also soon discovered.

Meanwhile, Sadie Keller, the other protagonist of the story, launches her own investigation into the death of her brother, Shane, and his connection to the recently discovered bodies. Sadie and Henley’s stories, along with those of their extended families, ultimately intertwine in a complex tale of deceit, secrets and questions perhaps best left unanswered.

Both mysteries are grim, realistic portraits of lifestyles and regions too often overlooked in today’s literary landscape. The writers weave stories that are gloomy, heart-rending and oftentimes depressing. But both writers also do what literary masters do so well: They offer a glimmer of hope.

When you are born into a region or era where poverty, addiction and crime are the norm, is it possible to escape and start life fresh? Or are we destined to follow in the footsteps of the generations who came before us? Those are the questions confronting the main characters in two gritty new mysteries from Laura Lippman and Laura McHugh.

Mystery

The game is afoot!

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Fans of both the great detective Sherlock Holmes and his older brother, Mycroft, will be more than pleased with these offerings from basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and author/screenwriter Nicholas Meyer.

Abdul-Jabbar, in his third venture with screenwriter Anna Waterhouse, presents another adventure from the Holmes brothers’ early years with Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage. The 19-year-old Sherlock deems his time at Downing College as “insufferable,” so he is happily distracted by the apparent randomness of a series of crimes across Great Britain dubbed the 411 killings. There are no discernible commonalities among the victims; only a note from the killer ties the crimes together. Meanwhile Mycroft, alongside his friend and confidant Cyrus Douglas, is embroiled in a quest to find the missing fiancé of the woman he loves.

As in their first adventure, Mycroft and Sherlock, the Holmes brothers spend much of this latest novel following the clues in their separate cases before coming together. Both storylines are equally fascinating as Abdul-Jabbar and Waterhouse capture the flavor of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian London and his characters to a tee. Readers may yearn for the brothers Holmes to be united even sooner so their brilliant minds can spar with one another, but it’s a satisfying adventure nonetheless.

Sadly, Mycroft only plays a minor (albeit important) role in Meyer’s The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols, but it’s enough to set Sherlock and his dutiful companion, Dr. John H. Watson, on a suspenseful cross-country race to debunk a global conspiracy. While Sherlock is still in his teens in The Empty Birdcage, the detective has just turned 50 as Meyer’s latest adventure starts.

In 1905, Mycroft encourages the intrepid duo to launch an investigation into the discovery of a manuscript (and actual historical hoax) known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The papers purportedly represent the minutes of a secret council advocating nothing less than complete world domination on behalf of Jews. 

Holmes’ mission: Determine who drafted the papers and expose them as a hoax. The quest takes Holmes and Watson from Baker Street to Paris, and then to Russia aboard the fabled Orient Express. The danger and mystery intensify with each turn of the page, as unsavory characters dog their every step. Even Holmes’ beloved Stradivarius violin isn’t safe. Though Holmes ultimately manages to identify the man who falsified the papers and coerces him to confess, the mere publication of the papers will fuel the conspiracy for decades to come.

Meyer may be best known for his screenwriting and directing duties on three Star Trek films, but he is no stranger to Holmes pastiches either, as he previously “discovered” unpublished Watson manuscripts in the form of his novels The West End Horror and The Canary Trainer. Meyer’s familiarity with Doyle’s characters clearly works to his advantage, as he packs an abundance of suspense, intrigue and Holmesian flavor into this latest tale.

Fans of both the great detective Sherlock Holmes and his older brother, Mycroft, will be more than pleased with these offerings from basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and author/screenwriter Nicholas Meyer. Abdul-Jabbar, in his third venture with screenwriter Anna Waterhouse, presents another adventure from the Holmes brothers’ early years with Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage. […]
Mystery

Two haunting small-town mysteries

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Small towns are supposed to be safe—nestled away from the dirty streets, the riffraff, the greed and the vice more common in big cities. They are places where you can leave your doors unlocked at night, where you can trust your neighbors. So when crime does come calling, it is even more shocking. Such is the case in two fantastic new novels: Before Familiar Woods by Ian Pisarcik and The Evil Men Do by John McMahon.

In Before Familiar Woods, North Falls, Vermont, is still reeling from the deaths of two young boys three years ago when the unexplained disappearance of the boys’ fathers sends fears skyrocketing. With the law unable—or unwilling—to help (it’s been less than 48 hours since the men disappeared), Ruth Fenn takes it upon herself to find her husband, who is one of the two missing. But as her late son, Mathew, was ultimately blamed for the previous deaths, few people in town are inclined to aid in her search.

When Milk Raymond, an Iraq war veteran, returns home to raise his son, Daniel, Ruth sees a kindred spirit in him. After Daniel is abducted by his mother, Ruth and Milk team up to get him back before tragedy can strike again. The two plots inevitably intersect resulting in an unexpected, violent finish.

In his debut novel, Pisarcik paints vivid passages that firmly establish the cold isolation of the town itself as well as Ruth’s role as town outcast. A sense of hopelessness and foreboding permeate the novel, which builds slowly but steadily towards its stunning conclusion.

The Evil Men Do, John McMahon's exhilarating follow-up to his Edgar Award-nominated debut novel The Good Detective, is a more traditional small-town whodunit. Detective P.T. Marsh and his partner Remy Morgan follow a series of leads surrounding the mysterious death of real estate mogul Ennis Fultz, found deceased in his home in Mason Falls, Georgia. But seemingly every clue prompts new questions, new suspects and even fewer answers.

Like Ruth in Pisarcik’s novel, Marsh is haunted by the death of his son under tragic circumstances, leading him to an excessive drinking habit and a less-than-positive reputation within the police department and community at large. When his father-in-law has a suspicious accident, it raises new complications and deeper secrets that threaten to upend his fragile police tenure even further.

McMahon delivers the story in straightforward, terse prose. The approach easily pulls the reader in as Marsh's case ramps up in complexity and scope, both personally and professionally. Fans of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series of novels will find much to like about this novel and its down-to-earth hero.

As Marsh puts it, “A murder scene is like the most exquisite painting you’ve ever seen. You notice the brushstrokes. The smudges. They all reveal something about the artist, some unconscious pattern.” Both Pisarcik and McMahon prove to be artists in their own right, each passage written with the care devoted to a brushstroke in a larger masterpiece.

Small town crimes have always held a special fascination for readers. Small towns are supposed to be safe—nestled away from the dirty streets, the riffraff, the greed and the vice more common in the big cities.

Noir leaves its traditional urban haunts in favor of wide-open spaces

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Economic and racial divides prove to be powerful motivators in these two gritty thrillers from masters of the genre.

In Edgar Award-winning author Joe R. Lansdale’s More Better Deals, the irresistible allure of easy money coupled with a conniving woman in distress drive main character Ed Edwards to take some unorthodox steps to secure his financial future.

When we first meet him in 1960s East Texas, Ed is a simple used-car salesman, barely eking out a living on commissions. He’s quick to jump at a chance to make a few extra bucks when his boss asks him to repossess a Cadillac from a client, Frank Craig, who has failed to uphold his end of a sales contract.

Enter Frank’s wife, Nancy, who is clearly distressed by her husband’s physically abusive behavior towards her. Before long, Ed and Nancy are entangled in a steamy affair and embarking on a plot to permanently separate Nancy and Frank—by offing Frank and, in the process, collecting on his life insurance policy.

In typical Lansdale fashion, the best plans go astray in hilarious ways. Before long, the pair is planning the kidnap and ransom of the daughter of Frank’s life insurance agent, with equally disastrous results.

Lansdale, who recently enjoyed some mainstream notoriety for his rough-and-­tumble “Hap and Leonard” TV series, handles the misadventures of Ed and Nancy with his characteristic flair for dark humor. He often throws his down-on-their-luck characters into oddball situations with less than ­favorable outcomes. Rather than learning from their mistakes and uninhibited ambitions, the characters always think they can do better the next time out—and inevitably fall even harder.

While Lansdale offers a dose of humor to temper harsh realities, author John Galligan goes into full-on dark mode in his new novel, Dead Man Dancing. Right off the bat, Galligan gives readers a taste of racial injustice as he depicts a man driving around with a Confederate flag on the back of his truck at the Syttende Mai Festival (Norway’s Constitution Day) in Farmstead, Wisconsin. The affront is especially egregious as the town is known for having harbored people who escaped slavery, smuggled in via the Underground Railroad during the Civil War.

Sheriff Heidi Kick, who made her debut in Galligan’s previous thriller, Bad Axe County, struggles to keep the peace, but finds the situation compounded by the murder of local author and retired history teacher Augustus Pfaff and the discovery of a young Hispanic man who has been beaten nearly to death in an underground fight club. Some of Pfaff’s last words are ultimately prophetic: “Anyone who wants to kill my story has to kill me too.”

Heidi’s investigation into both events ultimately uncovers a secret white nationalist movement operating in the town’s shadows. Even as she tries to root out the hate, her husband goes missing, further elevating the stakes.

Given current tensions and deep divisions in the United States, Dead Man Dancing takes on an electrifying relevance made all the more effective thanks to Galligan’s vivid descriptions and emotional portrayal of his characters.

Economic and racial divides prove to be powerful motivators in these two gritty thrillers from masters of the genre. In Edgar Award-winning author Joe R. Lansdale’s More Better Deals, the irresistible allure of easy money coupled with a conniving woman in distress drive main character Ed Edwards to take some unorthodox steps to secure his […]
Mystery

Chilling tales for colder nights

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Two historical mysteries steeped in autumnal gloom give new meaning to the phrase “curl up and die.”

Perhaps the best way to describe these two historical mysteries bound for bookshelves this October comes from Detective Inspector St. John Strafford, hero of Booker Prize winner John Banville’s new novel, Snow. Musing about finding patterns in crimes and trying to make the pieces fit, Strafford says, “The pieces don’t stay still. They tend to move around, making patterns of their own, or what seem to be pat- terns. Everything is deceptive.” Both novels are steeped in secrets and intrigue that will keep readers guessing right along with the detectives, perfect for the time of year when shadows grow longer and darker by the day.

In Snow, set in 1957 Ireland, Strafford responds to the death of Father Tom Lawless, whose body has been found in the library of Ballyglass House, the estate of wealthy aristocrat Colonel Osborne. Osborne is convinced the death is the result of a break-in gone awry, while the archbishop of Dublin wants to deem the death an accident, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. A Protestant in predominantly Catholic Ireland, Strafford isn’t convinced either way, and the pursuit of the killer is on. When one of Strafford’s deputies goes missing during their inquiry, the stakes ramp up exponentially.

Centuries earlier, in the chaotic 16th-century Paris of S.J. Parris’ vibrant new mystery, Conspiracy, philosopher Giordano Bruno becomes embroiled in the hunt for the murderer of Father Paul Lefèvre, whom he had hoped would help him get back into the church’s good graces.

Bruno is soon swept into plots and counterplots wrought by King Henry III’s rivals, the Queen Mother Catherine de Medici and the king’s archnemesis, the Duke of Guise. Bruno stumbles onto one murder after another and is on the verge of being blamed for the entire trail of death when help comes from an unanticipated source: Charles Paget, an English Catholic and enemy of Queen Elizabeth I.

Snow follows a more traditional approach to its mystery, with Strafford reflecting that the case seems straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. Conspiracy, meanwhile, is a much denser, historically rich novel complete with palace intrigue and a vividly rendered setting. Both books offer intricate puzzles, a paucity of clues and an array of potential suspects, all of whom have motive to do the deed. Further complicating things is pressure from outside forces to cover up the crimes from the public.

Ultimately, as Strafford points out, the culprits’ undoing lies in their very plans. “A plan always has something wrong with it,” he reflects. “There’s always a flaw.”

Two historical mysteries steeped in autumnal gloom give new meaning to the phrase “curl up and die.” Perhaps the best way to describe these two historical mysteries bound for bookshelves this October comes from Detective Inspector St. John Strafford, hero of Booker Prize winner John Banville’s new novel, Snow. Musing about finding patterns in crimes […]
Mystery

Two haunting small-town mysteries

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

The lead characters in Tessa Wegert’s The Dead Season and Paige Shelton’s Cold Wind are haunted by past traumas—men who forcibly held them against their will and mercilessly tormented them before their escape—and are facing new mysteries that require their unique set of skills. These suspense-filled novels may have uncannily similar concepts, but they are uniquely thrilling in their executions.

In The Dead Season, Shana “Shay” Merchant’s role as sheriff’s investigator is on temporary hold as she deals with the psychological ramifications of her previous ordeal, chronicled in the first book of the series, Death in the Family. But with a psych evaluation only days away and a pair of new mysteries begging to be solved, Shay is determined to prove she is still capable of doing the job.

She has the added fortune of her own personal mentor—affectionately nicknamed “Sensei Sam”—helping with her self-defense skills and getting her mind right. But while his lessons are helpful (and entertaining for the reader), Shay believes that staying busy with new cases will be more than enough to work through her trauma.

One of Shay’s cases involves the discovery of her long-lost uncle’s body in a remote forest near her hometown of Scranton, Vermont. Missing for 20 years, the remains show evidence of blunt force trauma to the back of the head, meaning he was likely murdered. But while Shay interviews possible suspects for clues, including estranged family members, a young boy goes missing in her new home in New York’s Thousand Islands. A cryptic note on the boy’s bloody hat seems to link both cases together and point to Shay’s cousin, Abe, as being the same man who kidnapped her a year ago, whom she knew as Blake Bram. Even as she relives her childhood memories with her cousin, Shay insists she’s not hunting or obsessing over Bram: “Bram is hunting me.” A confrontation between the two builds toward a thrilling crescendo.

Cold Wind, meanwhile, takes readers to the remote Alaskan wilderness where novelist Elizabeth Fairchild has started a new life as Beth Rivers, safe from the reaches of the obsessed fan who kidnapped her in St. Louis. Or so she thinks.

The sequel to last year’s Thin Ice, Cold Wind picks up shortly after its predecessor with Beth acclimating to life in Benedict, Alaska, where she serves as the town’s only journalist. When a pair of young girls are found, followed by the discovery of a frozen body at a remote cabin after a mudslide, Beth becomes obsessed with finding out the truth of what happened. Thanks to a highly cooperative police department, she’s able to quickly insert herself into the investigations.

While the interactions between the quirky characters of the community provides some lighthearted moments, Shelton, who is best known for her cozy mystery series, proves she is more than capable of crafting a darker, more mature tone.

The Dead Season and Cold Wind are both the sophomore efforts in their series. Reading the predecessors would be helpful but isn’t necessary, as both Wegert and Shelton ably weave backstory in where needed, while letting the chills and thrills flow freely.

These suspense-filled novels may have uncannily similar concepts, but they are uniquely thrilling in their executions.

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