Against the Currant transports readers to the Little Caribbean neighborhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, where Lyndsay Murray is ready to open her own bakery. She just needs to clear her name first.

Lyndsay and her family have worked hard on Spice Isle Bakery. But on opening day, another local business owner, Claudio Fabrizi, visits the bakery and threatens Lindsay. He wants her store shut down before it can eat into his profits. Shaken but ready to fight for her business and family, Lyndsay kicks Claudio out. When he is found murdered the next day, police believe Lyndsay may be involved. To clear her name and ensure Spice Isle Bakery can stay open for business, Lyndsay begins investigating Claudio’s murder.

Readers will enjoy following Lyndsay as she navigates an increasingly dangerous situation. She’s smart, funny and hardworking, but it’s her dedication to her family and bakery that make her truly shine. The Murray family opened Spice Isle Bakery to celebrate their life and success in America, while also honoring their Grenadian heritage. Lyndsay knows all too well how her family poured everything they have—time, resources and money—into Spice Isle Bakery. She’s committed to clearing her name so that her parents, grandmother and brother won’t suffer. Lyndsay’s grandmother is a particularly memorable character: Fashionable Granny is equal parts wise and witty, and unconditionally supportive of her granddaughter’s dreams.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Against the Currant is how author Olivia Matthews brings Brooklyn’s Little Caribbean to life, immersing readers in the tightknit, bustling community. Matthews is a pen name for romance author Patricia Sargeant, who grew up in Little Caribbean herself and whose family history inspired Spice Isle Bakery. 

Cozy mystery fans will devour the fast-paced and exciting Against the Currant.

“The Great British Baking Show” meets Knives Out in The Golden Spoon, Jessa Maxwell’s delicious, atmospheric debut.

Celebrated baker Betsy Martin has hosted her popular show “Bake Week” from the grounds of Grafton, her Vermont family estate, for the past decade. This year, change is in the air: The network has foisted a new co-host on her, and Betsy had less input than ever before when selecting which six contestants would compete for the show’s coveted Golden Spoon award. Still, “America’s Grandmother,” as Betsy’s known among her fans, chooses to push ahead with the new season. When the competition gets underway, things start to go haywire. The contestants believe someone is sabotaging their bakes—and when a dead body is discovered, everyone in the baking tent becomes a murder suspect.

The Golden Spoon is impossible to put down, especially for fans of shows like “The Great British Baking Show.” Maxwell expertly unspools her mystery, switching among the perspectives of all six contestants, plus Betsy. The bakers’ voices and observations are a high point of the novel: Each character is distinct and well drawn, with their own motivations for joining the show and secrets to hide. There’s Stella, a former journalist and the most inexperienced baker; Hannah, the youngest contestant, who hails from a small town; Gerald, a rigid teacher who compares recipes to mathematical formulas; Pradyumna, a tech millionaire with nothing to prove; Lottie, a retired nurse with a special connection to Grafton; and Peter, who specializes in the reconstruction of historic buildings.

The novel begins with an eerie prologue from Betsy’s perspective before jumping back in time to when “Bake Week” first started filming. Readers know from the prologue that a gruesome discovery awaits, but most of the book—80%!—is devoted to following the characters through “Bake Week” and getting to know their motivations for competing. It’s not until the last fifth of the book that Betsy’s initial discovery is revealed, and from there, the plot quickly unfolds. Mystery genre fans may find many of the twists easy to spot, but Maxwell’s expert characterization and lyrical prose make The Golden Spoon a delight to devour.

Tempest Raj, author Gigi Pandian’s magician/sleuth, has an intriguing new locked-room mystery to solve in The Raven Thief.

Tempest is still getting used to working for her family’s business, Secret Staircase Construction, when she’s invited to a client’s home for a mock seance. Lavinia Kingsley hired the company to redo her home and erase all traces of her cheating ex-husband, mystery writer Corbin Colt. To celebrate the work’s completion and her new life as a single woman, Lavinia has a seance to purge Corbin from her life. Tempest, her grandfather Ashok “Ash” Raj and her magician friend Sanjay Rai are among the eight guests when disaster strikes. With everyone seated around a table and holding hands, Corbin’s body literally crashes the party, seemingly falling from the ceiling onto the table below.

The police deduce that Corbin was alive only moments earlier, so the only suspects are the seance attendees. When it comes to light that Grandpa Ash had a history with Corbin, Tempest’s beloved grandfather becomes the prime suspect. She and her friends quickly get to work to clear his name and find the real killer.

The Raven Thief is a worthy sequel to Under Lock & Skeleton Key, with all the magic, misdirection and intrigue that fans are hoping for. Tempest is an exciting, engaging lead whose knowledge of stagecraft, magic and classic whodunits, combined with her devotion to her family and friends, allow her to solve a seemingly impossible crime. Genre fans will appreciate Pandian’s many nods to golden age mysteries and their writers, and there are even some delectable recipes at the book’s end.

Charlotte Illes’ detective days are behind her. At least, that’s what she keeps telling herself—and anyone who will listen. When she was younger, Charlotte gained fame as Lottie Illes, world-class kid detective. She solved mysteries big and small, nabbing an elementary school crayon thief and helping the British Museum recover a stolen artifact. But Charlotte stopped answering her official detective landline in high school and, at the ripe old age of 25, considers herself officially retired from the mystery-solving business. But then Charlotte’s older brother convinces her to look into some threatening notes his girlfriend received, and Charlotte ends up in the middle of a union-busting scheme, a missing persons case and a murder investigation. 

Katie Siegel’s Charlotte Illes Is Not a Detective has a wonderful, engaging premise: What happens when a precocious child detective grows up? How do they figure out who they are when the world only knows them as a wunderkind? Relatable, imperfect, funny and brave, Charlotte is a high point of the novel. She’s witty and eager to improvise but more than a little lost in her personal and professional lives. She’s still grappling with the fame she earned before her high school diploma, and more than anything, she doesn’t want to let anyone down.

Siegel surrounds her titular sleuth with memorable secondary characters, especially Charlotte’s hilarious friends Gabe and Lucy. Siegel’s dialogue is fresh, funny and authentic to her Gen Z characters as the trio takes on the case while also navigating relatable topics such as dating, queerness, job fulfillment, gender identity and the struggle to find reliable roommates. Longtime genre fans may anticipate some of the twists, but the mystery is still thoroughly entertaining. Charlotte Illes is definitely a detective, and a pretty good one, too.