London drag queen Misty Divine (aka Joe Brown) tries to track down a missing man in Stars’s breezy sequel to Murder in the Dressing Room. An out-of-place customer at Soho’s Lady Bar turns out to be a private eye with an urgent message for Misty. The PI gets stabbed on his way to deliver it, but he manages to croak out “find Jeremy” before dying. Though Misty’s boyfriend Miles and Lady Bar owner Mandy don’t want her to get in harm’s way, and though Misty is worried that the dead man’s message might be connected to drag queen Auntie Susan’s shady scheme to keep Lady Bar out of the hands of a corporate buyer, Misty feels obliged to investigate. She soon learns that Jeremy is an American photographer, and finding him puts her in the crosshairs of a frightening London megachurch. Stars’s drag queen characters are brash and bold, but they skirt caricature because the author never loses sight of the ways they wield their drag personas to boost their own self-confidence. Readers seeking a well-executed, queer-centered mystery will have fun with this one. Agent: Hayley Steed, Janklow & Nesbit U.K. (June)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Swiss novelist Incardona’s audacious but underwhelming English-language debut centers on Stella Thibodeaux, a 19-year-old American prostitute gifted with a supernatural ability to heal her clients. After Georgia family man Robert Smith explains to his priest, Father Brown, how his carnal relations with Stella cured his psoriasis, the Vatican decides that Stella is better off being a martyr than a living, breathing miracle worker, and sends a pair of assassins to kill her. A farcical cross-country chase ensues, with Stella fleeing both certain death and hordes of desperately ill Americans who flock to her after word of her powers spreads. Meanwhile, Savannah reporter Luis Molina tries to find and interview Stella himself. Incardona’s premise is as attention-grabbing as they come, but all the wacky action wears thin, with the chase plot losing steam and the quirky cast devolving into little more than a series of irritating tics. What begins as a promising picaresque about America’s absurdities turns into a wild goose chase. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

A woman reflects on the suspicious death of her boarding school classmate in Raphael’s riveting debut. In chapters titled “Before,” 15-year-old Lenny Winter describes her childhood on a houseboat in Port Angeles, Wash., with her mother and stepfather. After her mother’s untimely death, Lenny is accepted to the ritzy Blanchard School on scholarship, where she struggles to fit in with the offspring of the Pacific Northwest’s rich and privileged. To remedy that, she befriends members of Blanchard’s secretive Pascalianum Club, setting her on a course that ends with the violent death of one of the club’s members—and Lenny insisting she’s not responsible for it. Chapters titled “After” and set in the present feature an adult Lenny reflecting on her experiences at Blanchard, with Raphael doling out tantalizing clues about what happened all those decades ago, and why it might still be on a grown-up Lenny’s mind. The core mystery helps the author maintain steady suspense, but she delivers more than thrills, probing potent themes of grief, classism, and the slippery nature of memory. Readers will be eager to see what Raphael does next. Agent: Danya Kukafka, Trellis Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Jane Trevally, a supporting character in Jewell’s 2025 thriller, Don’t Let Him In, takes center stage in this chilling gothic suspense tale. At the outset, Jane is twice divorced and living in a ramshackle house in Dorset she can’t quite summon the courage to leave. Her life changes after she finds a lost dog that neighbors tell her was last seen with a now missing young woman named Rose White. Jane decides to return the dog to the London home registered on its ID chip. When she arrives, the house—situated in the Vale of Health near Hampstead—reminds her of a haunting incident from her past. Then Stuart Tucker, the man who answers the door, claims not to know Rose, and Jane grows increasingly suspicious. She digs into Rose’s background with the help of her youngest stepson, Dexter, and together, they unravel the dark history of the family who occupies the Vale of Health house, dredging up Jane’s own buried traumas in the process. With a shrewd command of the narrative, Jewell turns a chance encounter into a disturbing treatise on the past’s ability to assert itself in ways both unwelcome and unlikely. The author’s fans will relish this pitch-black spine-tingler. Agent: Jonny Geller, Curtis Brown U.K. (June)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller McFadden (Dear Debbie) proves marriage can be hell in this muddled tale of misplaced love. Naomi, a 42-year-old housewife, is happily married to hedge fund manager Jeremy and mom to four-year-old son Teddy. She’s secure in her belief that she’s cultivated true domestic bliss until she arrives home one afternoon to find the locks changed. The next day, Jeremy tells Naomi he wants a divorce, and she shuffles off to a small apartment, hoping to hide her marital failure from the nosy moms at Teddy’s school. Jeremy, meanwhile, hires a team of ruthless divorce lawyers, cleans out Naomi’s bank accounts, and starts dating beautiful 28-year-old Veronica. Naomi blames Veronica for her ordeal, but, in chapters that cycle between the trio’s perspectives, McFadden gradually reveals the toxic foundations of Jeremy and Naomi’s marriage. As the three leads become increasingly unhinged, their power struggle turns violent. By then, however, McFadden has weighed down the plot with too many far-fetched twists and undermotivated double-crosses. The result is a domestic battle royale that’s more exhausting than entertaining. Agent: Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Why is media scion Waylon Cartwright threatening to slit the throat of his father’s executive assistant in the middle of the jungle? This giddy adult thriller from YA author Moore (Us in Ruins) poses that question in a prologue, then flashes back to fill in the blanks. Waylon has been tasked with arranging the annual corporate retreat for top performers at his father Dyer’s magazine empire, on a private island off Madagascar. Despite her devoted labor, Dyer’s assistant, Fletcher, doesn’t initially receive an invitation and is appalled that Waylon, who hasn’t worked at Cartwright Media for years, has. Fletcher manages to worm her way onto the guest list, only to receive a shock when, after the group lands on Lydell Island, Dyer announces in a pair of videos that he’s been afflicted with a fatal heart condition. Then he tells the group that he’s sent all support staff away and cut off communication with the outside world, isolating the 14 guests so they can battle for control of Cartwright Media’s multibillion-dollar portfolio—help will come in five days, at which point only one person will be able to claim the company. The ensuing carnage is darkly funny, with plenty of smart surprises along the way. This is a sleek and entertaining ride. Agent: Claire Friedman, InkWell Management. (May)

Reviewed on 03/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

In Shakespeare’s shrewd fourth thriller featuring former British journalist John Dyer (after The Sandpit), the death of Dyer’s old friend has international implications. At the outset, Dyer is in Tasmania hoping to finish a manuscript. His dreams of tranquility are dashed when photographer Miguel Girondo de Belew, a friend from grad school, approaches him with bad news: their mutual acquaintance, Lia Bignardi, has been killed in a hit-and-run that her sister, Nova, thinks was intentional. Though Dyer hasn’t been in touch with Lia for decades (“He felt only a collection of overlapping memories, he could not assemble her face”), he’s moved to look into Nova’s suspicions. What he finds makes him suspect that Lia’s death is connected to a crime he witnessed decades earlier, committed by a man who has since gained powerful political allies across the world. By investigating, Dyer knows he is putting a target on his own back. Shakespeare doles out backstory gradually, but the slow burn pays off in the end, and vibrant prose (“The wind gnawing the clouds, the pulse beating in his head, the shivery coincidence”) is a plus. This is a winner. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (May)

Reviewed on 03/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Richard O’Rawe (the Ructions O’Hare novels) teams up with his daughter, Bernadette, for this sinuous police procedural, the first in a new series. London DS Grace O’Malley receives a call from a man who identifies himself as Matthew Hopkins, a real-life 17th-century religious zealot known as the Witchfinder General who killed more than 100 alleged witches across England. The caller threatens to “unleash his wrath” on the entire world, then tells Grace where to find her husband, assistant police commissioner Dominic Boswell. Grace rushes to the coordinates—an apartment in Mayfair—where she discovers Dominic cheating on her with a sex worker. Horrified, Grace is then called to the scene of an apparent Hopkins-inspired murder on the Thames, in which a woman was burned alive in a boat. Fearing that she may have a serial killer on her hands, Grace quickly shifts her search for the Hopkins copycat into high gear, but her inquiry gets complicated when forensic evidence suggests the killer might be a very powerful public figure. The O’Rawes know how to keep readers in suspense, serving up surprising twists and copious cliffhangers on the way to a satisfying solution. This bodes well for future series installments. Agent: Lisa Moylett, Coombs Moylett Maclean. (May)

Reviewed on 03/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Wilder’s lively fourth whodunit featuring PI Liz Adams (after A Christmas Conundrum) sees her tracking down her new husband’s missing friend. Liz has just married her former client Brad O’Connor. After she helped Brad identify who was hacking his identity-theft protection company, he and his business partner, Tim Knight, sold the business. Tim has moved to the island of Grand Cayman to try his hand at writing, planning to fold his research about the area’s history of money laundering into his first novel. Before he can complete his manuscript, however, he vanishes. When Liz and Brad, who are in Grand Cayman for their honeymoon, learn about Tim’s disappearance, they determine to find him. Their probe is made more complicated when it intersects with that of Liz’s old flame, JP, a French intelligence operative who’s been assigned to investigate money laundering in the Caymans. Wilder’s answer to the question of Tim’s whereabouts is both logical and surprising, and the tropical setting offers plenty of pleasures for armchair travelers. Fans of Carolyn Hart’s cozies will enjoy themselves. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 03/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Wayne (The Winner) delivers a sharp domestic thriller centered on former literary wunderkind Steven Hammer. After Steven’s sophomore novel flops, he sleepwalks through teaching undergraduate fiction workshops and struggles to make progress on his third book. Meanwhile, the corporate paycheck of his ambitious wife, Lucy, sustains the couple and their two children—an arrangement that only deepens Steven’s frustration and resentment. When the couple’s elderly live-in nanny dies suddenly, Lucy suggests they find a replacement. Steven chooses Astrid, a 24-year-old aspiring novelist from Norway who bonds easily with the children and quickly becomes a source of validation for Steven. Her presence unsettles Lucy, however, whose high-pressure job and fraying patience widen the rift at home. Steven and Astrid try to resist their mutual attraction, but once Steven discovers Lucy is having an affair, they give in to temptation. The dalliance reignites both Steven’s sexual desire and his creativity; with Astrid’s encouragement, he begins a more personal writing project. Then a tragic accident during a family vacation shatters the fragile equilibrium and casts doubt on the motives of both women. Wayne spins his familiar premise into an intricate look at the perils of seeking admiration. Readers will be hard-pressed to put this down. (June)

Reviewed on 03/13/2026 | Details & Permalink