This slow-moving cozy from West (a pseudonym for Good Will author Tiffany Killoren) finds bride-to-be Cora stumbling on a decades-old mystery when she moves to the Midwest with her fiancé. With her future mother-in-law commandeering the wedding plans , Cora has plenty of free time to explore Hickory Falls, her new hometown. At an estate sale, she comes across a jar filled with colorful baubles and, on impulse, buys it. Amid the old marbles and buttons, Cora discovers a wedding ring, and in her quest to find out whose it was, she stirs up tensions among Hickory Falls’ longtime residents. The ring may have belonged to Clarity Shaw, whose story unfolds in alternating chapters: in the early 1950s, Clarity disappeared from Hickory Falls, sparking rumors that she was a witch, and that she left her husband for a much richer man. Cora, unconvinced by the urban legends, grows obsessed with finding out what really happened to Clarity. Unfortunately, the baggy narrative doesn’t reflect the intensity of Cora’s obsession, burning too many pages on wedding planning and overly detailed exposition. Flat characters don’t help matters. This misses the mark. Agent: Stephanie Hansen, Metamorphosis Literary. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Parks (Say Nothing) fashions a propulsive page-turner out of familiar parts in this topical academic thriller. For the last 11 years, Charles Bliss has taught creative writing at an elite Connecticut boarding school. He’s shocked when the headmaster calls him into the administrative office one morning and tells him that pretty, blonde student Hayley Goodloe—whose mother is a longtime member of the Connecticut State Legislature and the school’s board of trustees—has accused him of carrying on a romantic relationship with her. Charles vehemently denies the accusations, and then Hayley disappears; the evidence that eventually emerges points strongly toward Charles’s involvement in her abduction. Pilloried on the internet, shunned by most of his colleagues, and named a person of interest by the police, Charles scrambles to clear his name. Parks excels at shaping his characters’ voices, with chapters alternating between a desperate Charles and increasingly anxious excerpts from Hayley’s journal. Crackling dialogue, vigorous pacing, and a surprisingly fresh angle on well-trod subject matter bolster things further. Readers won’t be able to put this down. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Queens, N.Y., attorney Ted Molloy gets entangled in another case of murder and real estate in Sears’s arresting sequel to Tower of Babel. Ted and his business partner, Lester McKinley, have begun using their legal expertise to invest in foreclosed properties and broker dubious loans with local mobsters. They’re also advising Ted’s girlfriend, activist Kenzie Zielinski, as she tries to stop a development project aimed at gentrifying Corona, Queens, and pricing out its largely immigrant community. As Kenzie’s opposition efforts heat up, she asks Ted and Lester to help her friend and frequent cab driver, Mohammed, who’s being exploited by his immigration lawyer. When Kenzie pays that lawyer an unexpected visit, she finds him dead and winds up a suspect in his murder. As Ted works to clear Kenzie’s name and uncover the real killer, Kenzie becomes the target of a sophisticated smear campaign orchestrated by the man behind the development project—who may have been framing Kenzie from the beginning. Everything that worked in Tower of Babel works just as well here, with sharp characters and noirish atmosphere to spare. This series deserves a long run. Agent: Judith Weber, Sobel Weber Assoc. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Oyebanji (A Quiet Teacher) serves up a fun if far-fetched second thriller featuring spy–turned–math teacher Greg Abimbola. After helping solve a murder at the elite Pittsburgh school where he works, Greg wants to lay low and avoid detection by the Russian intelligence agency from which he’s defected. When a man is found dead in the Allegheny River, however, Pittsburgh PD Sgt. Rachel Lev begs for Greg’s help solving the crime, and he acquiesces—in part because he knows more about the killing than he’s letting on. Then a board member at Greg’s school falls from his apartment balcony to his death, and the former secret agent starts to worry Russian spies are hot on his trail. Greg remains a unique and appealing protagonist—a Black Russian with a keen eye for detail and conflicted feelings about his homosexuality—and Oyebanji utilizes him well, especially when Greg explains his deductions like a 21st-century Miss Marple. The plot’s locked-room mystery and espionage thriller elements make uneasy bedfellows, however, and Oyebanji fails to make Greg’s superspy background believable. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Brady McReynolds, Jabberwocky Literary. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Molly Gray, head maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, returns in Edgar winner Prose’s charmingly low-key sequel to The Mystery Guest. As a child, Molly and her grandmother had little money, but Gran made every Christmas special by creating an annual Advent calendar filled with “upcycled” trinkets. Now Molly and her boyfriend, pastry chef Juan Manuel, follow the same thrifty pattern. The couple are deep in the honeymoon phase, doting on each other, turning their bathtub into a makeshift spa, and admiring their “misfit” Charlie Brown tree with its macaroni star topper. But Molly starts to doubt Juan’s faithfulness when he begins withholding details about his whereabouts and grows evasive about the hotel staff’s annual Secret Santa exchange. Eschewing violence altogether, Prose focuses instead on the mysteries of romantic relationships, which brings the stakes way down from the previous Maid novels. Still, breezy prose, appealing characters, and sitcomesque storytelling propel the entertaining plot to its sweet, albeit predictable, conclusion. This is sure to put readers in the holiday spirit. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Boyd’s latest (after The Romantic) is an electric espionage thriller that calls to mind the best of John le Carré and Len Deighton. As a child, Gabriel Dax was caught in a house fire that killed his mother, and insomnia-inducing nightmares of the tragedy have followed him into adulthood. By 1960, Gabriel has become a travel writer who, through a stroke of good luck, is assigned to interview Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister of the newly independent Republic of the Congo. Shortly after their conversation, Lumumba is overthrown by a Congolese colonel, and though Gabriel’s editor tells him the tapes are “yesterday’s news,” unknown parties are bent on acquiring them. First, a mysterious woman bumps into Gabriel at a pub and inquires about the tapes before introducing herself as MI6 agent Faith Green. Then she asks him to deliver a drawing to someone in Spain as a “small favour” for the agency. Though Gabriel is reluctant to court trouble, he’s smitten with Faith, so he eventually agrees. Soon, he’s taking on ever-more-intricate missions for Faith, unaware he’s been tapped to work for MI6 full-time—in part because of his valuable interview with Lumumba, and in part because of slow-to-emerge secrets from his family’s past. Boyd’s prose is crisp, his dialogue zings, and the heaps of dramatic irony he places on Gabriel’s stumble into spyhood buoys the narrative rather than weighing it down. Readers will hope to hear more from Gabriel soon. Agent: Gráinne Fox, UTA. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 09/20/2024 | Details & Permalink

Millett’s gripping 10th historical featuring saloon owner/PI Sadwell Rafferty (after Rafferty’s Last Case) binds three novellas into a single volume that ranks among the series’ best. In “Death in the News,” a newspaper publisher asks Rafferty to identify the vandal responsible for defacing the front of his building. The stakes are raised to dangerous heights when the publisher is murdered. “The Birdman of Summit Avenue” finds Rafferty investigating millionaire Ambrose Harriman, who houses a menagerie of birds in his estate and stands accused of slaughtering a spate of local cats, including the pet of a powerful railroad baron. The final entry, “The Gold King,” finds Rafferty convening with a mysterious man who arrives at a hotel in search of ancient treasure, though his true motives are murky at best. Each novella effortlessly balances fair-play deduction and page-turning action—there’s not a weak link in the bunch. After a bumpy previous installment, this gets the series back on track. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/20/2024 | Details & Permalink

Childs (the Bane Island novels) launches a new series with this tense and atmospheric whodunit. The Gold family’s funeral home in Gold Creek, Mich., has remained prosperous despite an urban legend that its cemetery is haunted by a gravedigger’s ghost. Just before dying, Gregory Gold, 85, comes face-to-face with that legend; after being paralyzed by poison, which he suspects was administered by a family member, he sees a light in the graveyard and hears the sounds of digging. Gregory’s death leads his daughter, River, to break her vow never to return to Gold Creek after running away as a teen. After River arrives, she gets caught up in an inquiry into her father’s death led by newly elected sheriff Luke Sebastian, who won the position despite having no investigative experience. Scenes from the unnamed killer’s perspective ratchet up the suspense. Despite the large cast, many of whom have complicated backstories, Childs never takes her foot off the gas, ushering the mystery toward a genuinely thrilling conclusion. Readers will be hungry for the sequel. Agent: Michelle Grajkowski, Three Seas Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/20/2024 | Details & Permalink

A former Army Ranger scrambles to locate his missing wife and daughter in this forgettable standalone from Freeman (the Jonathan Stride series). Tommy Miller has been living under an alias to obscure his complicated past as a soldier and member of the Outsiders, an organization of high-ranking American officials prepared to take over the country should the government collapse. He fears his past may have come back to haunt him when his wife, Teresa, and infant daughter, Rosalita, are abducted from their home in Florida. The case is assigned to Lindy Jax, a Black police detective derided by her colleagues as a diversity hire, who’s determined to prove herself by finding the kidnappers. What neither Tommy nor Lindy know is that Teresa has a secret past of her own, in which she was tangled up in the murder of a British Royal involved in sex trafficking. Freeman consistently prioritizes action over character, resulting in a cardboard redux of Taken-style suspense thrillers. It’s a letdown.” Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/20/2024 | Details & Permalink

Malliet’s disappointing sixth whodunit featuring Arthur St. Just (after Death in Print) finds the Cambridgeshire DI investigating a fatal stabbing at Cambridge University. Sir Flyte Rascallian, master of Cambridge’s Hardwick College, inherits several valuable paintings after his aunt’s death. One of the artworks bears Rembrandt’s signature, though Rascallian suspects it’s a copy. Museum curator Ambrose Nussnacker isn’t so sure, and suggests he use AI to ascertain whether the portrait is genuine. The two argue, and soon afterward, the painting disappears. Then Rascallian is murdered in his lodge, which shows no sign of forced entry, suggesting he knew his killer. St. Just is assigned to investigate, and he quickly lines up suspects including an obnoxious American grad student and the porter on duty at the time Rascallian was killed. While the early stages of St. Just’s investigation come across like a serviceable golden age pastiche, the author squanders the setup with a contrived climax that’s likely to elicit more yawns than gasps. Malliet has done better. Agent: Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media Group. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/20/2024 | Details & Permalink