Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
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Flavia de Luce burst onto the cozy mystery scene in 2009, and now the precocious 12-year-old chemistry prodigy is back for the 11th time in bestselling author Alan Bradley’s What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust.

Once again, Bradley beckons readers into post-World War II England—specifically, Bishop’s Lacey, a hamlet in the countryside. Flavia roams the area on her bicycle, Gladys, searching for things to test in her home laboratory (ensconced in Buckshaw, the crumbling de Luce manor) and, lately, places to escape “pestilent little cousin” Undine, who’s come to Buckshaw after becoming an orphan.

Flavia, now an orphan as well, tends to the mansion with the help of two beloved adults: Dogger, handyman and helpmeet, and the estate’s housekeeper, Mrs. Mullet, who’s also been cooking for their neighbor Major Greyleigh, a former hangman who is found dead as the book opens. Alas, the police consider Mrs. Mullet the prime suspect because she accidentally served the major a dish of poisonous mushrooms directly before his demise.

Convinced of Mrs. Mullet’s innocence, Flavia resolves to solve the crime and clear the cook’s name. After all, she’s so important to her—and as a bonus, it’s yet another opportunity to test her sleuthing mettle: “I have to admit that I’d been praying . . . for a jolly good old-fashioned mushroom poisoning. Not that I wanted anyone to die, but why give a girl a gift . . . without giving her the opportunity to use it?”

As Flavia questions locals, sneaks into crime scenes and conducts experiments, she realizes the murder is just the tip of a very strange iceberg looming over Bishop’s Lacey. Is the usually chatty, now oddly reticent, Mrs. Mullet hiding something? And some of the American soldiers still stationed at nearby Leathcote air base seem especially interested in the goings-on. Might they be involved? 

Bradley’s intrepid amateur sleuth is witty and whip-smart as ever, and Bishop’s Lacey remains both a colorful backdrop and a microcosm of a nation in transition, paralleling Flavia’s own trepidation at entering adulthood. A layered plot rife with dastardly deeds and shocking revelations makes for an intriguing and entertaining read, and nicely tees up the (one hopes) next installment in the irresistible Flavia de Luce series.

In Alan Bradley’s 11th mystery starring preteen sleuth Flavia de Luce, the chemistry prodigy faces murder by mushroom and her own impending adulthood.
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“I didn’t know anything about Gustav Klimt except that he liked naked ladies,” notes Billy Boyle, the narrator of The Phantom Patrol, the 19th entry in James R. Benn’s series of action-packed World War II mysteries. Billy has become involved with efforts to return the priceless sketch, a study for Klimt’s painting Water Serpents II, to its rightful owner after it was appropriated from a Jewish family in Vienna. 

Billy, a former Boston cop, is a detective on the staff of his “Uncle Ike”—none other than the famed General Eisenhower. Billy’s “older cousin of some sort” makes a brief appearance, commenting, “even a fella from Abilene can appreciate fine artwork.” (Newcomers to the series can easily jump in; Benn succinctly fills readers in with relevant bits of backstory.) Billy’s also trying to track down a violent network of Nazi art smugglers, and it turns out even bigger trouble is brewing: It’s the winter of 1944 and France has been liberated, so these thugs have little to lose. Just a few pages in, the bullets start to fly and the bodies begin to fall in Paris’ Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Billy eventually finds himself in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge, traipsing through snow and cut off from communications. 

Benn excels at making history work in his favor. For instance, he includes J.D. Salinger and actor David Niven as fairly major characters—both of whom did indeed serve during WWII. Benn nimbly traverses between moments of absolute horror (the scene of a murdered family at their farmhouse, and the massacre of American GIs) to numerous lighthearted moments, understanding how desperately they were needed for those who endured war’s horrors. Niven, for instance, comments about a German posing as an American: “I should have known . . . The chap never asked for an autograph.” 

Fans of The Monuments Men and The Curse of Pietro Houdini will relish The Phantom Patrol, and newcomers to Billy Boyle’s investigations will be immediately intrigued and ready for more. The book’s art-related plot will appeal to a wide variety of readers, as will Benn’s snappy but detail-rich prose. History buffs, military enthusiasts, art lovers and thrill-seekers alike will all be enthralled with this enticing blend of high-stakes action and old-fashioned detective work.

Billy Boyle breaks up a Nazi art smuggling ring in James R. Benn’s enthralling The Phantom Patrol, which will delight history buffs, art lovers and thrill-seekers alike.
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At one point near the end of Caroline Woods’ lively historical thriller, The Mesmerist, a truly clueless, chauvinistic detective working a murder case announces, “I hardly need the advice of a couple of nosy old crones.” Unbeknownst to him, however, the women he has insulted have already solved the puzzle, and are busy meting out their own form of justice. Set in Minneapolis in 1894, the novel offers a Dickensian plot and cast of characters, prose rife with Victorian details and atmosphere, and even a ghost story, as it exposes the lack of autonomy many women dealt with during the era.

As in her previous novels, The Lunar Housewife (about CIA intervention in 1950s arts and letters) and Fraulein M. (set in 1930s Berlin), Woods transforms real-life aspects of history into an intricately plotted mystery. Her well-drawn, intriguing setting is the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers, which Woods notes in her author’s note was “surprisingly progressive for its time, respectful and relatively compassionate toward not only unwed mothers, but also madams and ‘sporting women.’ ” Several of these real women appear as characters alongside Woods’ fictitious young residents who live in the institution.

Among the fictional heroines is May, a 24-year-old who is trying to chisel a respectable life for herself while her child is being raised by her brother and sister-in-law in Chicago. May becomes roommates with a new arrival at Bethany House, a mysterious, seemingly mute, pregnant young woman who goes by the name of Faith. The other residents fear that Faith is a mesmerist— someone able to hypnotize others—an ability that was much discussed at the time given the en vogue spiritualism movement. 

Faith and May gradually form an alliance, only to discover a dangerous web of lies surrounding both Faith’s origins and, increasingly, Bethany House itself. As May delves deeper, this amateur detective finds herself in the midst of plenty of action, including stranglings, gunfire and dripping blood.

Woods nicely develops relationships among her characters while ably illustrating the plight of Bethany House’s inhabitants. The Mesmerist does an admirable job of transforming history into mystery, championing the rights of women and illustrating how many of these same battles continue to be fought today.

Caroline Woods exposes the plight of Victorian women and transforms history into an intricately plotted mystery in The Mesmerist.
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The Jig Is Up takes readers to the fictional Irish-themed town of Shamrock, Massachusetts, where residents are gearing up to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day—despite the recent murder of an Irish step dancer.

When single mom Kate Buckley receives a text from her younger sister, Colleen, asking for help, she packs up her two daughters and their cat to travel to Shamrock, her hometown. Colleen has a history of impetuous decision making, and Kate fears that this time, her sister is in over her head—or worse, that something’s happened to their aging parents or the bed-and-breakfast that they run. But when Kate and her daughters arrive, Colleen is tight-lipped about her problem. Hours later, Kate and Colleen discover the lifeless body of Deirdre, a champion Irish step dancer and Colleen’s best friend. Kate learns that her sister fought with Deirdre before her death, and Colleen is soon named a person of interest in the case. Believing in her sister’s innocence, Kate sets out to clear Colleen’s name and find the real killer in Shamrock—before they strike again.

The Jig Is Up is a well-crafted cozy mystery that deftly explores complicated family dynamics. Kate is the dependable oldest sibling: She’s an accountant by trade and never stops worrying about her younger siblings, her parents or the B&B. Colleen may prove to be a divisive character; she can be selfish and flighty, and often refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of her situation. Still, Kate and the other Buckleys love and support her, even when her lies threaten their livelihood. Complex relationships like this aren’t always depicted in cozy mysteries, and it’s refreshing to see. And as The Jig Is Up is the first novel in a planned series, there’s plenty of room for Kate, Colleen and the rest of the Buckley clan to grow.

Kate’s daughters, Maeve and Bliz, feature prominently in the story, too. They are authentic, relatable characters who are integral to the plot, especially as their involvement in the local Irish dance show provides Kate with several opportunities to further investigate the murder. Kate’s love for her daughters is palpable, and it underscores the message of the novel: Family is everything.

At times, the mystery of Deidre’s murder does take a back seat to exploring Kate’s relationships with her family, friends and Shamrock itself. However, future installments of the series may very well benefit from the thoughtful world building Mathews has done in this first Irish Bed & Breakfast mystery.

The Jig Is Up is a well-crafted cozy mystery that deftly explores complicated family dynamics while also transporting readers to an adorable Irish-themed town.
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The finale of Attica Locke’s beloved Highway 59 series starts with a shocker: Darren Mathews, the deeply moral, and deeply complicated, Black Texas Ranger hell-bent on destroying the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, turns in his badge. 

Darren is worn down. A wily district attorney has relentlessly pursued his prosecution for a lie Darren told to protect an elderly Black man. Worse, the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president has left Darren in a state of utter despair, with his alcoholism “shaking him from the inside out.” Even with a stable girlfriend (whose presence will make fans of the series cheer), Darren is hurtling toward a breakdown when an unexpected source tells him about a Black teenage girl who has gone missing from a bizarre, dystopian community called Thornhill. 

Darren Mathews wants out of his genre.

Both 2017’s Edgar Award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird and its follow-up, 2019’s Heaven, My Home, force Darren up against society’s worst humans. But his most needling nemesis is not the Aryan Brotherhood, corrupt lawmen or plain old everyday racists. It’s his manipulative mother, Bell, who abandoned him to his uncles in his infancy. Guide Me Home changes the story by making Bell the Dr. Watson to Darren’s Holmes. It’s an uneasy truce, and readers will sympathize with both characters in equal measure as they unravel the Thornhill mystery.

Many mystery fans are willing to overlook hackneyed turns of phrase and oft-used literary tropes for a walloping plot. But with Locke, there’s no need. Her language is precise, refreshing and often beautiful. The close third-person point of view immerses readers in Darren’s pain and confusion as the ghosts of his family emerge, including that of the father who died before Darren was born. 

Guide Me Home isn’t a standalone novel; readers new to the Ranger will want to start with Bluebird, Bluebird and proceed chronologically to appreciate the literary triumph that is the Highway 59 series.

Attica Locke’s language is precise, refreshing and often beautiful in Guide Me Home, the final installment in the literary triumph that is her Highway 59 mystery series.

Fans of Kate Atkinson’s policeman-turned-private eye Jackson Brodie, who debuted in 2004’s Case Histories, will be thrilled to learn he’s back for a sixth outing in Death at the Sign of the Rook.

Jackson last appeared in 2019’s Big Sky, where he contended with crime in an English seaside village. In Death at the Sign of the Rook, a small Yorkshire town serves as a wintry backdrop for art theft and a chaotic murder-mystery party that blurs the lines between dramatic artifice and harsh reality.

We begin with Ian and Hazel Padgett, who have just hired Jackson. Their mother has recently died, an oil painting is missing from her home, and the Padgetts suspect their mother’s caregiver, Melanie, has stolen it. As Detective Constable Reggie Chase joins Jackson in tracking down Melanie, they learn that a painting went missing from nearby estate Burton Makepeace two years ago, and it’s suspected that it was taken by the housekeeper. At one point, Reggie thinks irritably about how Jackson always says “a coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen.” Is there a connection between the women, the paintings and the thefts? 

In and among the sleuths’ investigatory advances, Atkinson immerses the reader in the inner lives of her emotionally complex cast: the officious Lady Milton; Simon Cate, a vicar who doesn’t believe in God; and Ben Jennings, an injured former army major. Every character’s inner monologue is detailed and eccentric, rife with existential contemplation and dry wit. Their personalities gradually and tantalizingly unfurl, as do their connections to one another (and, perhaps, the mysterious crimes).

Death at the Sign of the Rook kicks into high gear when the cast converges at Burton Makepeace for a murder-mystery weekend. A major snowstorm traps everyone overnight, cell phone service has gone out, and an escaped prisoner—dubbed “Two-Cop Killer Carl Carter” by the media—might be roaming the area, too. While the detectives struggle to discern fact from fiction, murder most foul and hectic hilarity collide as dark secrets are finally revealed. It’s a twisty treat of a read that will totally absorb fans of Atkinson, Agatha Christie and, of course, the inimitable Jackson Brodie.

A murder-mystery party blurs the lines between dramatic artifice and harsh reality in Kate Atkinson’s sixth Jackson Brodie mystery.

India Mullen’s taut performance highlights the devastating, long-term effects of traumatic events in the audiobook of When We Were Silent, Fiona McPhillips’ debut novel.

Despite her traumatic past, Louise (Lou) Manson is living a relatively normal life. That changes when Ronan, the brother of her former close school friend, Shauna, shows up. Ronan, now a lawyer, persuades Lou to testify in a lawsuit against Highfield Manor, jeopardizing her newfound stability by unearthing secrets and lies that have been buried for decades. Mullen brings out the complex emotions that surface when Lou is forced to relive the incidents that occurred when she attended the prestigious Dublin private school for girls. With her full-bodied voice and unhurried pace, Mullen conveys an unsettled atmosphere and the intricate dynamics between all the players—villains and victims—as their paths reconverge and the truth of what happened to the girls, including Lou, is revealed.

Fans of Megan Miranda’s The Perfect Stranger and Lisa Jewell’s The Night She Disappeared will enjoy this suspenseful and haunting listening experience.

Read our starred review of the print version of When We Were Silent.

In When We Were Silent, India Mullen’s skillful narration brings out the complex emotions that surface when Lou Manson is convinced to testify against the prestigious Dublin private school she attended decades prior.
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Death on the Tiber

In 2013, Lindsey Davis, the author of the Marcus Didius Falco mysteries set in ancient Rome, embarked on a new series featuring Falco’s daughter, Flavia Albia, who learned the sleuthing craft at her father’s knee. In the 11 years since, Davis released the same number of well-crafted puzzlers, but her 12th installment, Death on the Tiber, represents a series high mark. As the story opens, the body of a woman is discovered floating in the Tiber River, setting off a gang war the likes of which Rome has not seen in quite some time. The victim was a British woman named Claudia Deiana, who had traveled to Rome in search of the man she believed to be her husband, Gaius Florius Oppicus, a previously exiled Roman mobster who has ostensibly returned to the fold, eager to resume his nefarious activities. Flavia is intrigued by Claudia and the manner of her death, and worms her way into the official inquiry—albeit quite unofficially. There is no dearth of suspects: the anonymous but exceptionally effective assassin from a rival gang; Florius Oppicus’ actual wife in Rome, or someone doing her bidding; and any number of opportunists looking to sow some chaos in the underworld. This is easily the most entertaining of the series to date. Flavia Albia is smart, independent, snarky and brutally funny, while the supporting characters are eminently relatable. Pro Tip: Davis begins the book with a list of characters, major and minor. Don’t gloss over it. It is very helpful for keeping the many characters straight; it’s also absolutely hilarious.

The Lost Coast

Clan Kellerman, I gotta say wow, just wow: I cannot recall another family of novelists quite so prolific and uniformly excellent. The Lost Coast, the fourth collaboration between pere et fils Jonathan and Jesse, finds PI Clay Edison conducting a routine investigation into the assets of the recently deceased Marisol Salvador. It does not stay that way long, as each newly unearthed discovery leads Clay deeper into the rabbit hole as he uncovers a series of cons that date back decades and continue, unabated, to the present day. His client bails upon seeing the complexity of the situation—and realizing the unlikelihood of a satisfactory resolution to the case—but Clay is intrigued and carries on pro bono. He journeys north to a mysterious California seaside community called Swann’s Flat, which is anything but flat: It’s borderline inaccessible even by four-wheel-drive. The residents are an odd lot; there are only 13 of them, and all but three or four are trouble waiting to happen. Problem is, neither Clay nor the reader can readily identify who falls into which camp. Clay eventually enlists the aid of Regina Klein, a PI who had once been involved in a peripheral part of the case, and who shares his curiosity. (An aside: I hope we see her again; she is potential series-star material.) Of all the Clay Edison books, this one is easily the most suspenseful—don’t miss it.

Murder at the White Palace

One of the more unusual professions for a mystery protagonist has to be running a lonely hearts club, but that is basically the job held by Gwen Bainbridge and Iris Sparks, the amateur but very talented sleuths of Allison Montclair’s Murder at the White Palace. The milieu is postwar London, circa 1947, and the holiday season is coming up. The pair decide to throw a New Year’s Eve party, but the venue situation is grim: All the large halls that survived the Blitz are booked solid. Iris, however, has connections; Her gangster boyfriend, Archie Spelling, owns a nightclub that, with any luck, will be renovated in time for their New Year’s bash. But repairs on a war-damaged wall unearth (or rather, “unbrick”) a dead body. Turns out the dead man was one of a group of suspects in a major crime against the mob, and although it happened before the war, there are those who would still like some answers as to where the swag from that crime ended up.  And others would equally like to keep that answer buried deep in the past. Which faction will outmaneuver the other, and how many people will die in the process? This is a terrific series, one that rockets to the top of my reading list whenever a new installment arrives, and Murder at the White Palace continues that tradition in fine fettle.

The In Crowd

Floating bodies seem to be a running theme this month, first in the Tiber, and now in the Thames in Charlotte Vassell’s police procedural thriller The In Crowd. This body, discovered by a rowing team out for their weekend exercise, is that of Lynne Rodgers, a suspect in an unsolved £10,000,000 embezzlement case. Fastidious DI Caius Beauchamp (pronounced the French way, “Bo-shom,” never “Beecham”) gets tapped by a prominent politician to take point on the investigation, although it is unclear what the politician’s motivation may be. Meanwhile, across town, an attractive young milliner named Callie is helping out with preparations for her friend’s high-society wedding. That she will meet Caius will come as no surprise to anyone who ever reads mysteries, but the interplay between the two moves the narrative forward in unexpected ways. Vassell skewers the ruling class and their pretensions exceptionally well, and you will cheer every time one of them receives their comeuppance. There is comedy, there is suspense and the dialogue is witty and incisive. And I didn’t guess the ending, always a plus for me.

Plus, standout new titles from Lindsey Davis, Allison Montclair and Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman in this month's Whodunit column.
Review by

“Too bad I never went to detective school,” Francesca Loftfield muses near the end of The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia. On a mission for an international aid group, the 27-year-old arrives in the titular Italian town in 1960, charged with starting a nursery school in the isolated mountain village. Life here couldn’t be more different than her native Philadelphia: There’s abundant poverty, minimal electricity and no roads, doctor or police force. The big surprise, however, is a skeleton that’s just turned up; it’s been buried under the post office for years but resurfaced during a flood. Several women beg Francesca to investigate, each sure the bones belong to a missing relative. Francesca’s volatile, opinionated landlord, Cicca, claims that “Fate has brought us together,” and before long, they are calling themselves Watson and Holmes as they investigate the mystery.

Fans of Juliet Grames’ debut, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, will welcome more of the author’s immersive descriptions of Calabrian culture and scenery. Francesca is charged with interviewing families to determine who should be enrolled in the nursery school, which gives her the perfect excuse to snoop around. A likable, intelligent narrator, she begins to piece together many of the village’s secrets, while observing its economy, customs, victimization of women, patriarchal and religious domination, politics, emigration and more. The author has called herself “a lifelong student of the Italian-American immigrant experience,” and her expertise, eye for detail and verisimilitude shine on every page. There are lovely moments of human connection, humor and a romance with a handsome man named Ugo, who even Francesca declares to be “a cliché of a romantic hero.” Grames makes excellent use of the area’s dramatic landscape: As the suspense heats up, Francesca finds herself in increasingly dangerous situations.

Just like a big Italian family, the novel contains a multitude of characters and plot threads, many of which require careful attention, causing confusion for Francesca and perhaps readers as well. There’s a big, abrupt twist at the very end, which makes one wonder if a sequel might be in store. With The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia, Grames has created a village teeming with life, and, as it turns out, danger and death.

Juliet Grames’ expertise in Calabrian culture and eye for detail shine on every page of The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia, a historical mystery set in 1960 Italy.

Wait for the next dark and stormy night to dive into John Fram’s No Road Home. This twisty murder mystery, rife with cleverly employed elements of horror and the supernatural, comes to a head during a mighty deluge.

As in his debut novel, The Bright Lands, a BookPage Best Book of 2020, the Texas-born Fram sets this darkly dramatic, gothic tale in the Lone Star State. He draws readers into Ramorah, an expansive compound home to the uber-wealthy Wright family, presided over by patriarch Jerome Jeremiah Wright, a fire-and-brimstone televangelist.

Things are off-kilter at the estate these days: Jerome has been making increasingly fatalistic prophecies, and the Wrights are worried about the future of their family business. It doesn’t help that threatening messages in blood-red paint have begun appearing on the mansion’s bedroom doors.

Toby Tucker has no inkling of the danger that awaits him when he sets out to visit Ramorah with his son, Luca, and brand-new wife, Alyssa, Jerome’s granddaughter. Luca is a sweet child, who “wore his hair long and dressed in lots of pink and mauve and called himself a boy, which was fine with Toby.” This combination is not, Toby soon realizes, fine with the Wrights, who stare at and mutter derogatory comments about Luca despite Alyssa’s assertion that “[her] family’s too rich to be bigoted.”

Toby’s already-present desire to flee Ramorah multiplies a thousandfold when Jerome is found murdered, but floodwaters make that impossible. As the storm rages outside and the Wright clan whispers that their newest visitor may to be blame for Jerome’s death, Toby resolves to solve the murder, clear his name and get himself and Luca the hell out of there—especially since Luca claims to have seen a ghost, and Toby believes him. 

Fram expertly ratchets up the tension as Toby and Luca desperately search for allies and answers as the devious Wrights circle around them. Fans of everyone’s-a-suspect stories will be riveted as long-held secrets float to the surface, twisted motivations are revealed and revelations of generational trauma and abuse prompt them to consider whether the most outwardly pious might just be the biggest sinners of all.

Set at a televangelist’s compound as floodwaters rise, John Fram’s No Road Home is a darkly dramatic murder mystery-thriller hybrid.
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A spooky celebration conjures real frights in Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop, a new cozy mystery series set in a small town with a big reputation for Halloween.

Bailey Briggs loves all things Halloween—which is good, because she lives in the year-round Halloween-themed town of Elyan Hollow, Oregon. This fall, in addition to managing Lazy Bones Books, which she just took over from her grandfather, Bailey is also running the inaugural Spooky Season Literary Festival. She’s secured help from other local shop owners; brought in several authors, including a hometown hero; and even planned extra events like a murder mystery game and an arts and crafts session. What Bailey didn’t plan on, though, was the disrespectful crew of Gone Ghouls, a ghost-hunting TV show that’s filming around Elyan Hollow. After Bailey gets into an altercation with the crew, things go from bad to worse when she discovers a body in the middle of the town’s hay bale maze. To clear her name and save her festival, Bailey decides to investigate the murder. She uncovers decades-old grievances, family secrets and rivalries that are a lot scarier—and deadlier—than some of the stories in her bookshop.

Author Emmeline Duncan previously wrote the Ground Rules cozy series, which similarly overflowed with Pacific Northwestern charm. The town of Elyan Hollow feels like its own character—quirky, warm and inviting (despite the murders). It’s easy to root for Bailey, who loves her home and friends and is hoping that her literary festival is the start of something special for Elyan Hollow. While Bailey is working around the clock to make the festival a success, she’s also navigating several challenges in her personal life, like an absent mother, an overbearing uncle and the mystery of her birth father. Like real life, not all of these issues are resolved, but Bailey learns more about herself and where she came from, and grows more confident in her professional life, too.

At times, the mystery takes a back seat as Duncan explores Bailey’s personal struggles and establishes the residents and businesses of Elyan Hollow. However, as this is the first book in a planned series, future installments may not have this impediment. Fans looking for a lighthearted cozy to get them in the Halloween spirit won’t be disappointed with Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop.

Emmeline Duncan’s cozy mystery Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop is set in a Halloween-themed small town that overflows with seasonal charm.
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Joseph Nightingale, nicknamed Fearless after a moment of heroism during the Bosnian conflict, is a British war photographer who was in Nairobi during the August 1998 attack on the U.S. Embassy. While he was away, his pregnant girlfriend, an award-winning investigative journalist, was killed in an automobile accident. As Praveen Herat’s gripping debut political thriller, Between This World and the Next, opens, Fearless has accepted his old friend, Alyosha Federenko’s invitation to Cambodia, arriving overwhelmed by grief and guilt.

Federenko stashes Fearless at the Naga, a gathering place for the gangs and soldiers of fortune set loose upon the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. One of the chilling pleasures of this book is Herat’s vivid, knowledgeable portrait of this threatening netherworld, from outposts like the Naga to breakaway states like Transnistria, where money is exchanged for advanced weaponry and private armies are assembled to rule in feudal power.

Federenko himself resides at a luxury hotel while he wheels and deals in an attempt to gather money and power to work himself back into the upper echelons of the new Russian elite. Fearless at first forgives the acquisitiveness of a man he knows was born in chaos and poverty. But as events unfold, and people get hurt and killed, Fearless’s worldview of engaged empathy collides with Federenko’s selfish, transactional view of human interactions.

Also at the Naga is Song, a young Cambodian woman enslaved as a cleaner. As children, she and her twin sister were sold into prostitution. Song’s face has since been ravaged by an acid attack, and her soul is deflated by loss of contact with her sister. She cares for the young children who are brought to the Naga by adult predators and whose gruesome abuse is recorded on video. The existence of one of these videos, handed off to Fearless, sets the elaborate plot rolling with increasing velocity.

The final chapters of Between This World and the Next are breathtaking in their descriptive power and imaginative reach, and the novel’s ending is very satisfying. But some threads still dangle and not all questions are answered—which makes one hope for a sequel.

Praveen Herat’s prizewinning debut thriller, Between This World and the Next, paints a vivid, knowledgeable portrait of a threatening political netherworld, including breakaway states like Transnistria.
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A fatal accident, a cosmic visitor and a mysterious stranger all come together in a small Australian town in Ruby Todd’s dazzling debut, Bright Objects.

Young widow Sylvia Knight is recovering from the car accident that killed her husband and left her with serious injuries, both physical and psychological. Profoundly lonely, Sylvia works at the local mortuary, keeps her husband’s grave tidy and puts on a cheerful face for her mother-in-law, Sandy, whom she visits weekly. But she is haunted by sketchy memories of the night of the accident. Although another car was involved, nobody was arrested, but Sylvia believes she knows who was responsible. When word comes through her friend Vince that the police are closing the case, she falls into a deep depression and plans to take her own life. However, the appearance of a rare comet proves a distraction. When the comet’s discoverer, American astronomer Theo St. John, walks into the mortuary one day, Sylvia’s life takes a turn. Sylvia and Theo begin to find connection through shared meals and trips to the observatory to view the comet.

As the comet’s path draws closer to Earth, the mood in town shifts from celebratory to ominous. Joseph Evans, local meditation teacher and the heir of a wealthy family, sees the comet as a divine messenger and begins a series of mystical lectures that attract a cultlike following. He is eager to involve both Sylvia and Sandy, and Sylvia is distressed to see her mother-in-law drawn in by his promises. Conflicted in her feelings towards Theo and still wrestling with suicidal ideation, Sylvia finds her obsession with uncovering her husband’s killer pushing her to the edges of her sanity.

Bright Objects is a riveting literary thriller of obsession, vengeance and astronomy, but its most poignant gift may be its depiction of trying to make sense of life after tragedy.

Ruby Todd’s dazzling debut, Bright Objects, is a riveting literary thriller of obsession, vengeance and astronomy, but its most poignant gift may be its depiction of trying to make sense of life after tragedy.

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