Dark histories overlap within two California communities in this underheated slow-burn from Kusel (The Widow on Dwyer Court). Working-class Prosperity is separated from affluent Gold Hills by the Osbourne River Bridge, a “demarcation line between the have-nots and the haves.” Deni Rydell lives in a modest house in Prosperity with her father and waitresses at a small café. When Gold Hills resident Cal Cooper, heir to a natural resource fortune, proposes to Deni, she’s thrilled, though Cal’s parents are openly disgusted by the news. Deni starts to grow wary, however, when Cal’s older brother Grant returns home from an expensive stint in a Southern California rehab facility with a sexy new girlfriend, and everyone in the family starts acting strangely. Then Cal and his parents die in a private plane crash, and soon afterward, Deni’s former high school friend, Luna, is brutally murdered. As Gold Hills police detective Robyn Torres looks into Luna’s death, she digs up dirt on the Coopers that could ruin Deni’s life. Two-dimensional characters, protracted pacing, and a predictable plot keep this small-town thriller from taking flight. It’s a misfire. Agent: Stacey Donaghy, Donaghy Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/01/2025 | Details & Permalink

Virginia medical examiner Kay Scarpetta returns (after Identity Unknown) for a brisk, kaleidoscopic thriller from bestseller Cornwell. On Christmas eve, Kay is performing an autopsy on Rowdy O’Leary, whose body has just been pulled from the Potomac River. In his parka, she finds an expensive emerald ring in a presentation box, and grows curious as to why he’d bring such an item along on a nighttime fishing expedition. Meanwhile, the body of an unidentified woman is found in a graveyard on Mercy Island, site of a former mental hospital. Both cases make law enforcement nervous due to their ongoing search for the Phantom Slasher, a D.C.-area serial killer whose attacks have coincided with major holidays. Kay teams up with her brother-in-law, former police detective Pete Marino, to launch their own investigation, and soon gets an unusual clue when three strange primates escape from a laboratory near Kay’s home. With a robotic dog, holograms galore, and mysterious red orbs circling the Virginia skies, the series continues its recent flirtation with science fiction, to occasionally eye-rolling effect. The pace is fleet enough, however, to keep Scarpetta fans flipping pages. Agent: Esther Newberg, CAA. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/01/2025 | Details & Permalink

In Lillie’s potent sequel to Blood Sisters, Cherokee archaeologist Syd Walker probes a constellation of cases rooted in centuries-old tensions between Native Americans and European colonizers. After her boss retires and she’s promoted within the Rhode Island Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd receives a startling voicemail on her predecessor’s phone: “We found the remains at the back of the camp.” The caller, it turns out, works at Camp Quahog, a summer camp run by the Founders Society, whose members trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower. Syd heads to the camp and identifies the remains as those of a female baby who died 300 years earlier. Then the remains vanish, and Syd learns that it’s just the latest in a series of similar disappearances. Meanwhile, a young Native woman—and former BIA intern—named Naomi is reported missing. As Syd investigates the thefts and tries to track down Naomi, she uncovers dark secrets about the Founders Society that suggest foul play. Lillie goes even deeper and darker than she did in the previous installment, folding powerful questions about who gets to write history into a crackling mystery plot. This series has legs. Agent: Jamie Carr, Book Group. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/01/2025 | Details & Permalink

A young woman with a dangerous secret flees political execution in this taut standalone from O’Brien (The Enemy at Home). In 1943 Washington, D.C., 27-year-old war widow Virginia Abrams makes a near-fatal mistake by telling senator Ronald Callahan that his son date-raped and impregnated her. Callahan responds by vowing to kill Virginia and anyone who might know her secret with the help of a homicidal henchman. Virginia and her unborn child escape to Seattle, where she finds employment under an assumed name as a secretary for a reclusive mystery author. She stumbles into new danger when her neighbor, Evelyn McNally, dies in a fall that her bright 15-year-old son, Tim, believes was murder. The suspense mounts steadily as Virginia helps Tim investigate, unearthing a deadly conspiracy tied to Seattle’s wartime defense plants. Soon, though, Virginia starts to worry that her efforts might catch the attention of Senator Callahan and his lackeys. The supporting characters are so vividly drawn that they sometimes overshadow the more passive, opaque Virginia, but O’Brien orchestrates his disparate plotlines like a pro, bringing everything together for a heart-stopping finale. It’s well worth the ride. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 08/01/2025 | Details & Permalink

At the outset of this deeply felt feminist thriller from Freitas (The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano), gorgeous real estate agent Lucy Mendoza vanishes from a Rhode Island supermarket parking lot, her nine-month-old daughter left wailing in a shopping cart. A few days into a massive statewide search, Lucy’s most shameful secret comes out: she’s fantasized about faking her own kidnapping to escape the motherhood she never wanted. Social media erupts, pundits excoriate her, and those who actually know her—including her husband Sam and her best friend Michelle—fear the revelation might undermine the full-court press to find her. A similar worry galvanizes retired detective Diana Gonzalez, for whom Lucy’s disappearance recalls two cases of missing mothers that bookended her time on the force. Meanwhile, Lucy’s plight resonates with artist Julia Gallo, who feels marooned at home with her nine-month-old son, her creative career seemingly torpedoed while her professor husband chases tenure. Freitas nimbly juggles chapters narrated by Michelle, Diana, Julia, and occasionally Lucy, maximizing suspense at every turn. Occasionally, the characters’ venting about motherhood feels didactic, but for the most part, this rivets. Agent: Miriam Altshuler, DeFiore and Co. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/01/2025 | Details & Permalink

Penny’s exemplary 20th mystery featuring Chief Insp. Armand Gamache of the Québec Sûreté (after The Grey Wolf) picks up where its predecessor left off, with Gamache and his cohort reeling from the revelation that a conspiracy to poison Montréal’s drinking water was just the beginning of a far-reaching international espionage plot. At the outset, Gamache, along with his deputies Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste, wrack their brains to decipher clues in a notebook left behind by biologist Charles Langlois, who was murdered in front of Gamache before he could reveal the extent of the scheme. Gamache’s determination to avert disaster, and his knowledge that high-ranking government officials might be compromised, leads him to reluctantly seek information from Marcus Lauzon, Canada’s former deputy prime minister, who masterminded the water plot. Lauzon’s scheme involved ceding control of primary industries to Americans, and the more Gamache uncovers, the more he realizes the Americans might hold the key to the case. Penny’s talent for nail-biting suspense and quiet character moments fuse with surprisingly topical subject matter to deliver an unputdownable installment of an ever reliable series. Readers will cheer. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/01/2025 | Details & Permalink

Todd’s latest whodunit featuring Scotland Yarder Ian Rutledge (after A Game of Fear) finds the long-running series in top form. In 1921, WWI veteran Rutledge is still plagued by shell shock and haunted by the voice of Cpl. Hamish MacLeod, whom he executed for refusing to follow an order that both knew would result in senseless bloodshed. Rutledge’s plans to spend Christmas with his sister are disrupted when his boss, Chief Superintendent Markum, directs him to Kent, where well-connected ex-colonel Lord Braxton claims an unidentified horseman tried to run him down, badly battering him before escaping. Braxton is sure it was a targeted attack and fears the assailant will strike again, so Rutledge puts aside his Christmas plans to investigate. Though he’s determined to tackle the inquiry with his typical diligence (and help from the voice in his head), Rutledge struggles with moral ambivalence about aiding a former military man. Todd keeps readers off-balance throughout and poignantly explores his lead’s emotional struggles as he interviews the people of Kent and comes to suspect that Braxton isn’t telling the whole story. Inspector Rutledge shows no sign he’s running out of steam. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore & Co. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/01/2025 | Details & Permalink

In his energetic latest Swagger family novel (after Targeted), Pulitzer winner Hunter traces the sharpshooting dynasty back to 1897. Elderly Jack Swagger, his face “a net of fissures and gullies,” arrives at Callahan Ranch in Arizona territory looking for work as a hired gun. He puts on an impressive enough display that Colonel Callahan offers him a job protecting grain and flour deliveries to a corrupt official in Mexico. First, though, the colonel relays a cautionary tale about a previous employee known as Teacher, whose noble refusal to let horses suffer during a shoot-out led to his death. From the outset, Hunter makes it clear that Jack’s job search belies his ulterior motives, but author and character both keep their cards close to the vest. Meanwhile, Jack displays superb marksmanship while facing down foes including smuggler Joe Pye, Mexican army major Arau, and violent Frenchman Etienne d’Auclair. Hunter tends to favor ornate dialogue (“The ranch is America,” the colonel says at one point. “It is large, splendid, and provides for the many. Indeed, some sins have been committed to keep it on keel. That is always so of large entities”), but he keeps tension high throughout, and readers with a thirst for bullets will be satiated. This is a solid yarn. Agent: Esther Newberg, CAA. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/01/2025 | Details & Permalink

Detective Jimmy Perez returns (after Wildfire) in bestseller Cleeves’s crafty latest whodunit. It’s the Christmas season, and Jimmy, who has settled in Scotland’s Orkney islands, learns that his best friend Archie Stout has disappeared. Jimmy catches a ferry to the island of Westray and finds Archie dead, his head battered by a sacred Neolithic story stone stolen from the local heritage center. While visiting Archie’s widow, Jimmy learns that his friend never returned from the nearby Pierowall Hotel bar the night before. Suspects include popular teacher George Riley; Archie’s friend, Rosalie Greeman, with whom he might have been having an affair; and a pair of secretive archaeologists doing work on Orkney. When Jimmy finds George murdered in an ancient burial chamber beside another story stone, he broadens his inquiry, adding George’s brusque lover to the list of suspects. Tension builds until someone else turns up dead, and Jimmy discovers a pattern underpinning the killings. The intensely personal nature of the case infuses it with welcome emotional depth, and Cleeves keeps readers guessing until she delivers a gutting climactic reveal that few will see coming. This proves Detective Perez still has the goods. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

Sci-fi author Gerrib (One of Our Spaceships Is Missing) delivers a solid suspense debut. In 1986, high school senior Pat Kowalski is working on an oral history of Eastville, Ill., for his final project. He spends his birthday at his great-grandmother Barb’s nursing home in hopes that she might offer up useful stories, but he’s unsure how seriously to take her claims that, in 1896, a stranger with gold coins and a gun in his pockets dropped dead outside her Eastville home. Barb tells Pat she found the stranger’s bag nearby, which was overflowing with gold, and kept it for decades as a rainy day fund. She says $12,000 remains, but grows confused when Pat asks her where it is. With his father dying and his mother facing foreclosure on the family home, Pat sets aside his history project to track down the treasure with only Barb’s foggy testimony as his guide. His search catches the attention of his classmate, Vincent “Three Sticks” Bisceglie, who also needs cash, and who proves he’ll go to surprising lengths to get it. Gerrib wrings a lot of tense fun out of the treasure hunt, and Pat is an appealingly sensitive teenage lead. This grown-up Goonies riff is a treat. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 07/25/2025 | Details & Permalink