Iandoli (God Save the Queens) stumbles with this limp saga of a mafia heir’s quest for revenge. Jimmy Martello lacks grit, but his math skills have made him a “human calculator” for the New York City crime family run by his father, Italo Martello Jr. For Jimmy’s 25th birthday, Italo and his cohorts throw an extravagant party, complete with Jimmy’s induction into “the business.” When the festivities are in full swing, hit men infiltrate the party, killing Jimmy’s father and grandfather. Jimmy manages to wound one of the attackers before fleeing to safety. Suddenly, he’s top dog, and he soon learns that his uncle, Salvatore, has been released from prison with hopes of taking over New York City’s drug trade. Coming to believe Salvatore ordered the hit, Jimmy swears revenge, and attempts to make allegiances with other crime bosses who can teach him to become a killer. Though the novel is set in the present, Iandoli’s depiction of the mafia is dated and unconvincing, rarely rising above cliché. Mario Puzo this is not. (May)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink

A throbbing disco beat powers screenwriter Croft’s stunning sophomore effort (after Stone Cold Fox), which centers on a pair of vampires ensnared in a toxic partnership. In 1979, wily vampire Nicola Claughton spots 23-year-old Amber Wells on a London dance floor. Instant attraction moves Nicola to “turn” (read: bite) Amber and bring her back to her ancestral manse in Hampstead. Fast-forward 50 years and Amber has begun to feel stifled, so she plots an escape, hoping to spend her eternal youth elsewhere. Nicola can feel Amber pulling away, and makes an alluring proposition: they’ll open their own nightclub and recapture their glory days. Amber agrees, but both women are keeping their cards close to their vests—Nicola has never taken kindly to attempted abandonment, and Amber plans to use the club’s opening to make a grand gesture and end their relationship. Concealed family histories, betrayals, and carefully parceled flashbacks usher the narrative toward an incendiary climax, and Croft’s devilish plotting pays heed to classic vampire tropes without succumbing to them. Readers should rush to sink their teeth into this. Agent: Hillary Jacobson, CAA. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink

An actor turned psychic stumbles into the center of an LAPD murder investigation in Richter’s winningly offbeat debut. Twenty-five years ago, Jenny St. John starred in The Divide, a never-released movie directed by first-timer Serge Grumet. Despite the film’s failure, Serge went on to become a major Hollywood player. In the meantime, Jenny’s star faded, and she rebranded as an “intuitive counselor” who uses her talent for reading people to provide life advice. When Serge turns up dead, the prime suspect is his ex-wife, painter Genevieve Santos, who flees Los Angeles. The problem? Genevieve and Jenny look exactly alike, and authorities come to believe they’re the same person. To clear her name, Jenny interviews friends, family, and associates of Serge and Genevieve, applying tricks she’s learned in the psychic trade to ferret out the truth, only to unwittingly make herself a target for Serge’s killer. Though the case of mistaken identity that jump-starts the plot feels far-fetched, Richter comes through with sparkling prose, a consistently surprising mystery, and an engrossing portrait of contemporary Los Angeles. Fans of Hollywood neo-noir will relish this fresh update on an old formula. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink

Film editor Brown sets her sights on the lily-white world of Ivy League secret societies in her underheated debut. Naomi, the younger sister of New York City art dealer Maya, who is half-Asian, half-Black, is preparing to follow in Maya’s footsteps and graduate from Princeton University. Naomi’s commencement ceremony lines up with Maya’s 10-year reunion, so Maya prepares to reconnect with old classmates as she heads to New Jersey for the weekend. Not long after she arrives, authorities pull Naomi’s body from a river near campus. Though her death is ruled an accident, Maya fears her sister was murdered. From there, the perspectives and timelines split: Naomi recounts the months leading up to her death, while Maya conducts an investigation and reflects on her own time at Princeton. When Maya learns that Naomi ignored her advice and joined the same secret society Maya belonged to—one mostly populated by the white children of well-connected families—she revisits a decade-old campus death and worries she neglected to sufficiently warn her sister about the nasty games played by Princeton’s elite. Brown has a knack for atmosphere, but her pacing drags, and it’s difficult to differentiate between the voices of her protagonists. This struggles to stand out from the pack of campus thrillers. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink

A honeymoon turns into a grisly locked-room mystery in Slaughter’s harrowing 12th outing for Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent (following After That Night). Will and his bride, medical examiner Sara Linton, plan to celebrate at McAlpine Lodge in northwest Georgia, but on the night they arrive, hotel manager Mercy McAlpine is murdered in one of the property’s cabins. Will and Sara jump into action, first turning their suspicion toward Mercy’s abusive ex-husband, whom Will knows from the time they spent together in an Atlanta boy’s home. As Will and Sarah continue to poke around, however, other suspects come into focus, including Mercy’s hot-tempered father and ice-cold mother, who hope to force a sale of the lodge, and a guest who has intimate knowledge of Mercy’s criminal past. After Will’s Bureau of Investigation colleagues show up, the body count rises, and Will unearths some unspeakable secrets within the McAlpine clan. The subject matter gets almost operatically bleak, but Slaughter saves the day with her gifts for suspense and characterization—Mercy, in particular, makes an impression. This long-running series still has gas in the tank. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink

For the nerve-shredding sequel to To Catch a Storm, Mejia shifts her focus from psychic PI Jonah Kendrick to his college friend, Iowa City cop Max Summerlin, and Kara Johnson, the lover of Kendrick’s late niece, Celina. Summerlin is eager to get back in the field after recovering from gunshot wounds he sustained while breaking up an opioid ring run by Sam Olson. The officer gets his chance when he’s tapped to join a task force looking for a hit man who’s been killing people connected to Olson’s operation. Summerlin is deflated, however, when he learns he’s been recruited as a liaison for Johnson, who ran drugs for Olson before becoming an informant. Johnson, who was born with a condition that makes her unable to feel physical pain, is grieving the loss of Celina, whom Olson killed after she took the fall for Johnson’s informing. Neither Johnson nor Summerlin is thrilled about their partnership, but each learns from the other as they make a run at Olson and the hit man targeting him. Mejia maintains breathless suspense as she fleshes out the combative dynamic between her captivating leads. For crime fiction fans, it’s a must-read. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Susan Lea Assoc. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink

Brazier (Girls and Their Horses) elevates a familiar Mr. and Mrs. Smith–style premise to frenzied heights in this entertaining spy romance. Contract assassins Eva and Jonathan meet in the sleeper car of a train headed from Florence to Paris, and in no time, they’re having sex in the luggage compartment. Though both feel far more than a physical connection, they repress the romantic spark and go their separate ways. Six months later, they run into each other in Versailles, only to realize that each has been hired to kill the other. After much conversation (and a lot more sex), they set out to find their respective handlers and shake them down for answers, traveling from Versailles to the Cotswolds to an abandoned mansion in Bordeaux, all while battling hit men who’ve been sent to carry out the jobs they’ve refused to execute. Who wants them dead? Can they really trust each other? Alternating between the often-unreliable viewpoints of Eva and Jonathan, Brazier delivers exhilarating action, steamy romance, and enough twists to keep the pages flying. It’s a blast. Agent: Sarah Bedingfield, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

In the opening pages of this tedious outing from Boldizar (The Ugly), Preble Jefferson, the New York state champion in “chessboxing” (alternating rounds of chess and boxing), gets into a fight with a cop who accuses him of “seat hoggery” for placing his chess bag on a subway seat. Preble can see five seconds into the future, and after he dodges a bullet meant for him and it takes out the cop’s partner, he flees the scene. He worries that the authorities will come after him—to say nothing of the guilt he feels for letting another man die in his place. After discussing the situation with his lawyer friend, Preble decides to disclose his gift of foresight to the NYPD and offer them his services. Word gets out, sparking a global manhunt as international agencies scramble to find and exploit Preble, a goose chase Boldizar unsuccessfully tries to mine for insights on fate and free will. Unfortunately, the novel’s mishmash of surreal comedy and earnest moralizing never coheres. Even adventurous readers are likely to find this exhausting. (May)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

In Johnson’s gripping fifth mystery featuring Alexa Glock (after The Bone Riddle), the dental forensics expert juggles two cold cases and a recent kidnapping. Though American expat Alexa has long delighted in assisting New Zealand law enforcement, her relationship with Auckland Det. Insp. Bruce Horne is on shaky ground. While Alexa chews on the idea of leaving New Zealand for a new professional opportunity, archaeologist Ana Luckenbaugh asks her for a consultation: Ana has exhumed the century-old body of Chinese gold miner Wing Lun, and Lun’s great-granddaughter has asked her to repatriate the remains to China. While confirming the bones belong to Lun, Alexa notices a hole in the skull that calls his cause of death into question. Then authorities unearth a second skeleton with similar wounds nearby, and the principal of the local school goes missing, shortly after killer Earl Hammer is released from prison. Can Alexa find a link between the cases? Johnson seamlessly ties the past mystery to the present one, and her rich shading of even minor characters sets this apart from similar procedurals. This series continues to impress. Agent: Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink

Multigenerational mysteries haunt a Hudson Valley mansion in this moody if convoluted gothic thriller from Mary Higgins Clark Award winner Goodman (The Bones of the Story). Agnes Corey is nearing the end of her probationary period as an editorial assistant at Gatehouse Books in New York City. For many years, Gatehouse has been kept afloat by Veronica St. Clair’s The Secret of Wyldcliffe Heights, a neogothic 1990s blockbuster; despite decades of silence from its reclusive author, the book’s cult following continues to clamor for a sequel. As Gatehouse’s financial footing slips and executives consider selling the publisher to a larger firm, Agnes decides to write to Veronica and beg for a sequel. Surprisingly, Veronica writes back and invites Agnes to the real-life Wyldcliffe Heights—a sprawling asylum turned mansion a few hours outside the city—to work as her assistant. When Agnes arrives, she learns that Veronica has gone blind. As she takes dictation for Veronica’s new book, Agnes learns about the real-life events that inspired The Secret of Wyldcliffe Heights. Eventually, she discovers that her own history intersects with that of Wyldcliffe. Goodman nails the gothic atmosphere, but by the end, her plot has grown too tangled to achieve maximum impact. This doesn’t rank with the author’s best. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House. (July)

Reviewed on 05/24/2024 | Details & Permalink