The uninspired fourth installment in Smith’s Ash Cayne series (after The Unspoken) finds the Chicago PI unearthing a sex trafficking ring while he investigates the death of a billionaire real estate mogul. When 77-year-old Elliott Kantor is found dead in his loft, tied up and wearing women’s underwear, the consensus among medical authorities is heart failure, but Kantor’s son, Simon, smells foul play, and he hires Cayne to look into it. Simon’s suspicions appear justified when Chicago bishop Keegan Thompson is found dead in a similarly unflattering position a few days later. Working with his Chicago PD connections, Cayne burrows deep into the activities of Illinois’s elite, learning that both Kantor and Thompson had ties to a vast prostitution operation. When a young woman dies in an apparent suicide on Chicago’s Northerly Island, Cayne knows he’s found a smoking gun, but he struggles to fit the case’s pieces together. Unfortunately, Cayne has transformed from a rough-hewn former police detective with a social conscience into a Porsche-driving, fine wine–sipping hedonist, and the shift has bled the series of immediacy and stakes. Despite solid pacing, little about this stands out. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

The murder of an employee at a home for troubled youth triggers a search for a missing girl in bestseller Cleeves’s forceful 11th Vera Stanhope mystery (after The Rising Tide). When 14-year-old Rosebank Home resident Chloe Spence vanishes the same night that somebody kills Rosebank employee Josh Woodburn, Det. Insp. Stanhope and her Northumbria Police colleagues suspect a connection. The facility houses particularly troubled teens, so some of Stanhope’s colleagues believe Chloe attacked Josh and fled. However, Chloe’s diary indicates she adored Josh; it also mentions someone “pervy” loitering outside the facility, suggesting to police that Chloe was more likely a frightened witness to Josh’s killing. Vera and her team start digging, hoping to find a clue that will lead them to Chloe. Instead, they discover a second corpse in nearby Northumberland that raises even more questions. Cleeves portrays Rosebank’s kids and its staffers with compassion and respect, even as she spotlights the pitfalls of a for-profit approach to child welfare. Multiple narrators and a core cast of keenly rendered characters lend the tale dimension while furthering the series arc. Cleeves’s fans will be well satisfied. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

Henkle’s overstuffed latest (after Other People’s Clothes) centers on a scrapbook artist investigating the death of her client. Esther Ray returns home to North Carolina after a vacation and discovers that her girlfriend has left her. Now solely responsible for her mortgage payments, Esther takes a job with the wealthy Naomi Duncan, who asks her to bind documents and family photos into scrapbooks as a birthday gift for Naomi’s husband, Bryce. From the beginning, Naomi is dodgy about the job, forcing Esther to sign a five-page NDA and only communicate with her via a burner phone. As Esther trawls through the documents, she grows obsessed with Naomi and Bryce’s glamorous life, though she notices hints of darkness around its edges. After Naomi dies in an apparent skiing accident, Esther gradually comes to suspect that Bryce may have killed her. In one flashback after another, Henkle details Esther’s childhood traumas, her obsession with true crime podcasts, and the unhinged intensity that has gotten her fired from previous jobs. Under the weight of all this exposition, the novel wobbles on the way toward its outlandish conclusion. Despite an intriguing setup, this falls short. Agent: Eleanor Birne, PEW Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

A New England detective investigates a farmer’s death while concealing his own dark past in this slow-burning series launch from Stewart Taylor (the Maggie D’Arcy Mysteries). In the 1960s, Franklin Warren leaves Boston for sleepy Bethany, Vt., to take a job as a state detective. His first case is the death of Hugh Weber, an overbearing “back-to-the-lander” who came to Bethany from New York City 15 years earlier. Warren’s colleagues think Weber died by suicide, but the detective suspects it might be murder, owing to how unpopular he was in town. While interviewing Weber’s many enemies, Warren untangles the private, interconnected dramas of Bethany’s citizens, and broods on the tragedy that moved him to leave Boston. Meanwhile, widow Alice Bellows, a former spy, keeps her eye on Warren while investigating the theft of bullets from Bethany’s general store. Stewart Taylor nails the rural setting, and Warren is a promising lead, but some readers may grow frustrated as the narrative detours into the backstories of its large cast. Still, there’s enough intrigue here to keep patient mystery lovers on board for the sequel. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

Literary agent Gauntlett debuts with an un-put-downable thriller about a couple whose relationship unravels on their wedding night. University professor Annie Clark has put an uncommon amount of care into her wedding to surgeon Mark Lane, which goes off without a hitch until she spots an uninvited guest. From there, flashbacks reveal how Mark’s marriage to his first wife, Hope, fractured amid his drinking and their fertility issues, and how Hope disappeared without a trace after befriending a mysterious woman named Charlotte. Devastated, Mark joined a support group for trauma survivors, and met Annie outside the venue one evening. Meanwhile, the uninvited wedding guest turns out to be a PI hired by Mark’s father to investigate Hope’s disappearance, and his presence causes Mark to spiral. Soon, he’s casting suspicion on Annie, wondering whether their meeting was truly by chance and becoming increasingly curious about the deaths of her father and sister. Gauntlett moves fluidly between past and present, gradually revealing the secrets behind Hope’s disappearance without once allowing the pace to flag. By the time the explosive finale arrives, readers may find they’ve been up all night. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

The second entry in Berry and Blackwood’s Luke Daniels series (after The 9th Man) is a paint-by-numbers disappointment. Daniels, fresh off a secret mission for the justice department, is approached by the CIA with intriguing news: John Vince, Daniels’s missing-and-feared-dead partner from a prior operation in Ukraine, is thought to be alive. Meanwhile, former Russian president Aleksei Delov fears that current Russian dictator Konstantin Franko has plans to reconquer the former Soviet republics. Aleksei, who’s dying of brain cancer, intends to resurrect Red Star, a dormant Cold War–era satellite-based nuclear weapon, to destroy the Kremlin from space. Daniels sets off to rescue Vince from a secret island gulag, then to locate one of the Red Star program’s designers, who points him toward a manuscript from the lost library of Ivan the Terrible that contains codes to deactivate the device. The historical details feel tacked-on, the gunfights are perfunctory, most of the protagonist’s obstacles are easily overcome with a phone call, and there’s precious little comeuppance for the bad guys. Fans will hope the authors’ next collaboration is a return to form. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (June)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

A bored New Yorker gets her dream job—and a potential stalker—in Maxwell’s entertaining if uneven follow-up to The Golden Spoon. Alex Marks spends dull days working as a pharmaceutical copywriter and reading the New York Herald’s Dear Constance advice column. She’s shaken when she learns Francis Keen, the longtime author of Dear Constance, has been murdered. One night, after a few too many glasses of wine, Alex decides to apply to be Francis’s replacement. To her astonishment, she gets the job, allowing her to confirm what she’s always suspected: that she’s a great writer and a better advice dispenser. Soon, however, Alex picks up on a sinister undercurrent at the Herald involving bad blood between the editor and the owner, and starts receiving threatening letters that question her fitness for the job. Worried she might become the next target for Francis’s killer, she enlists a former cop and a canny waitress at the diner she frequents to help her investigate. Meanwhile, a writer who goes by Lost Girl sends increasingly distressing letters to Dear Constance. Maxwell maintains scintillating tension throughout, but the overheated finale arrives a little too abruptly. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

Edgar winner Sutanto (I’m Not Done with You Yet) triumphs with this twisty suspense tale set in the cutthroat world of influencers. With more than five million followers on Instagram and TikTok, Aspen Palmer has become a full-blown social media celebrity. Her best friend, influencer Meredith Lee, credits herself with boosting Aspen’s visibility by teaching her the tricks of the trade—which makes it all the more painful when Aspen dumps Meredith in the wake of her newfound fame. In the aftermath of their falling-out, Meredith grows obsessed, stalking Aspen’s every move and waiting outside the school her twin daughters attend. When one of Aspen’s daughters leaves behind an unlocked iPad, Meredith snatches it, and is delighted to find she has access to Aspen’s schedule. She reschedules meetings, sends unflattering emails from Aspen’s address, and floods Aspen’s social media accounts with trollish comments, putting her brand in jeopardy. Then Meredith vanishes, bringing her conflict with Aspen to a head and the police into the mix. Did Aspen have something to do with Meredith’s disappearance? Or is she an innocent bystander? Either way, how will she handle the fallout online? Sutanto has devilish fun with her premise, lacquering the story’s well-executed twists with a satirical sheen that pokes wicked fun at internet celebrity. The result is a near-perfect beach read. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

Mysteries buried on a lost continent animate Rollins’s action-packed 18th adventure for SIGMA Force (after Tides of Fire). When the agency’s secret headquarters under the Smithsonian Institution are bombed, commander Gray Pierce and his girlfriend, assassin Seichan, suspect their nemesis, Russian agent Valya Mikhailov. Their suspicions deepen when a Vatican archivist is murdered after delivering a message to his superiors about the Golden Library, a priceless trove of books hidden away by Ivan the Terrible. The volumes are said to contain secrets that could restore Russia to its former glory. While a dormant rivalry between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican flares up after the archivist’s murder, Gray and his team search for the supposedly lost island of Hyperborea in the East Siberian Sea, the rumored home of the Golden Library. Rollins stuffs the narrative with globe-spanning combat, pulse-pounding suspense, and some satisfying puzzles to solve. Once readers catch their breath, they’ll be eager to dive into the next installment. Agent: Russ Galen, Scovil Galen Gosh Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

In Barton’s artful sequel to Local Gone Missing, Det. Insp. Elise King competes with journalist Kiki Nunn to solve the murder of a Sussex hairdresser. King has just returned to duty after breast cancer treatment when she’s called to Knapton Wood, where Karen Simmons’s strangled corpse has been discovered. Before her death, Simmons ran a singles group called the Free Spirits, and King immediately sets her sights on the men Simmons was dating. Meanwhile, newspaper reporter Nunn catches wind of the murder, and her interest is piqued—she’d interviewed Simmons for an article about the Free Spirits the week before. Sensing the story might earn her a promotion, Nunn doggedly chases down leads, stepping on King’s toes in the process. Also in the mix is Annie Curtis, one of Simmons’s clients, whose eight-year-old son was killed years ago in the same place as Simmons, prompting Annie to wonder if the murders might be connected. Barton effortlessly toggles between each woman’s viewpoint, maintaining suspense as she builds to the plot’s devastating resolution. Fans of Mark Billingham’s Tom Thorne novels will devour this. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Agency. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink