A teenager stands accused of killing a Hurricane Katrina aid worker in former New Orleans public defender Perry’s promising debut. Ben Alder, a rabbinical seminary student turned defense attorney, is assigned the case of 16-year-old Robert Johnson, who has confessed to shooting 36-year-old restaurateur Lillie Scott in early 2008. Scott had become well-known for leading post-hurricane recovery efforts in the Seventh Ward, and her killing has shaken the city. As Ben learns more about Robert and his father, who’s serving life in prison for a series of minor offenses, he comes to believe that, though the teenager was discovered with the weapon that killed Scott, he may have been set up to take the fall. Determined to prove Robert innocent and enhance his own reputation, Ben plunges into the city’s underbelly, and faces a crisis of faith in the process. Perry’s focus is less on the murder mystery than on the rhythms of post-Katrina New Orleans and Ben’s shifting psychology, which he explores with often-breathtaking prose (“There’s a terror of seeing, the vacancy that isn’t and the emptiness that is,” Ben muses, comparing himself to the Seraphim, six-winged angels that shield their eyes from God). Crime fiction fans will be eager to see what Perry does next. Agent: Janet Oshiro, Robbins Office. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Retired CIA assassin Helen Warwick tracks down an old foe in Dees’s entertaining if far-fetched sequel to Second Shot. When a sniper nearly takes out her politician son at a campaign event, Helen recognizes the assassination attempt as the work of Scorpius, a Russian mole embedded in the CIA whom Helen thought she’d killed decades earlier. Her former bosses entice her to take over the agency’s “Scorpius-hunting team,” but warn her that Scorpius may have infiltrated the squad. Meanwhile, a string of young women across D.C. are being kidnapped, tortured, and murdered, and Helen tries to determine whether the crimes have anything to do with Scorpius. As in the previous installment, Dees keeps things brisk, with the middle-aged Helen ably stabbing, shooting, and outsmarting her foes at every turn. Certain plot developments strain credibility, but most readers will be having too much fun to care. This will hold special appeal for thriller fans of a certain age. Agent: Nicole Resciniti, Seymour Agency. (June)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

In the gonzo latest from Edgar winner Burke (Harbor Lights), detective Dave Robicheaux’s friend, P.I. Clete Purcel, gets caught up in the bizarre pursuit of a bioweapon in late-1990s Louisiana. Clete wakes one Sunday to find three men disassembling his Cadillac in search of contraband. During a brief confrontation, the men knock Clete unconscious, and from there, the story spins out in a dizzying array of directions. One of Clete’s assailants turns out to be a member of an occult neo-Nazi group; the men appeared to be on a mission that also involves slimy millionaire Lauren Bow and his actor wife, Clara. They’re all after a bioweapon called Leprechaun, which may or may not have been in the Cadillac. Clete gets help from Robicheaux, sheriff Helen Soileau, and Joan of Arc, who appears in prophetic visions to steer him from further harm. Readers will delight in Burke’s sterling prose (Louisiana is “an antediluvian place that could have been formed on the first day of Creation, then forgotten, feral and threatening”) and take heart amid the surreal proceedings in Robicheaux’s assertion that “mysteries exist. The denial of them is an absurdity.” This is a winner. Agent: Anne-Lise Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Former attorney Copeland stuns with this audacious debut thriller about the extremes to which some people will go to protect the ones they love. In 2019, Stella Parker is dissatisfied with the life she’s built for herself in the D.C. suburbs, having traded her law career for marriage and motherhood. Her ennui turns to terror after her neighbor, Gwen, drops her phone in Stella’s driveway while limping down the block one evening. When Stella picks it up, she sees messages suggesting Gwen may know one of her long-buried secrets. In a parallel story line set in 1987, high schooler Julie Waits hopes that making thecheerleading squad will provide a distraction from her mother’s string of abusive relationships and the chaos that ensues whenever she decides to end them. Gradually, Copeland teases out the connections between Stella and Julie and unveils the grisly truth about Julie’s mother. With expertly timed reveals and plenty of thorny insights into the causes and consequences of gender-based violence, this first-rate suspense novel thrills and provokes in equal measure. It’s a must-read. Agent: Christopher Schelling, Selectric Artists. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Shi’s underwhelming debut follows a Chinese American tech worker who gets entangled in corporate espionage. In the late 2010s, 26-year-old software engineer Michael Wang works on autonomous car technology at General Motors. On a “Reddit meets Stack Exchange” forum for coders, he encounters a mysterious woman named Vivian, who entices him to attend a business meeting in San Francisco with venture capitalist Bo Song. During the meeting, Song persuades Michael to join Beijing-based startup Naveon as vice president, but makes a $250,000 sign-on bonus contingent on Michael covertly transferring General Motors software to Naveon, which he does without hesitation. The theft ensnares Michael in a treacherous cloak-and-dagger battle that reverberates to the highest levels of government in China and the U.S., and raises questions about which country deserves his loyalty. Despite the intriguing setup, an absence of tension and a bland protagonist keep the narrative from taking flight. This misses the mark. Agent: Simon Toop, Clegg Agency. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Bestselling husband-and-wife duo Paul Vlitos and Collette Lyons, writing as Lloyd, follow up The Club with an overstuffed art world mystery. In the middle of giving a press conference about the lucrative sale of a long-lost painting by British surrealist Juliette Willoughby, Dubai gallery owner Patrick Lambert is arrested for murder. The action then flashes back to 1991, when Patrick met his wife, Caroline, at Cambridge, and the pair stumbled on the late Willoughby’s journal in an unsorted box of memorabilia on campus. The journal’s contents appear to shed new light on Willoughby’s 1938 death in a fire, insinuating that someone close to her may have killed her as part of a long-running vendetta. Other mysteries—including the disappearance of Patrick and Caroline’s classmate at Cambridge and a Willoughby servant who went missing in the ’30s—crowd the narrative. Though the various plot strands eventually tie back to the murder accusation that kicks things off, many readers will find that they’re no longer invested in finding out who Patrick may have killed, and why. A too-convenient payoff doesn’t help matters. This is a letdown. Agent: Hillary Jacobson, CAA. (June)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

This white-knuckle whodunit from Ring (Arizona Kiss) chronicles the search for a killer from the perspectives of the victim’s identical twin sister and the Black man wrongly accused of the crime. Five years ago, white Montana State University cheerleader Nikki Fontaine was strangled to death in her apartment. Her boyfriend, football star Dawson Koloko, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison after Nikki’s twin, Rose, discovered him unconscious next to Nikki’s body with scratches on his face. Now, Dawson’s attorney has successfully argued that police mishandled DNA evidence and Dawson’s conviction has been overturned. Determined to track down Nikki’s killer, he forms a wobbly alliance with Rose, who’s now married to the local sheriff, and the two uncover evidence that a white supremacist group may have been involved in Nikki’s murder. Ring steadily ratchets up the suspense while developing a surprisingly potent emotional dynamic between his well-drawn leads. John Sandford fans should take a look. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

Foley’s scintillating latest (after The Paris Apartment) centers on the grand opening of a resort in the English village of Tome. Francesca Meadows, who summered in Tome as a child, has teamed with her celebrity architect husband, Owen Dacre, to build an ultra-chic retreat called the Manor. Their plans have angered some locals, who believe the Manor will encroach on sacred woodlands populated, according to folklore, by supernatural creatures known as the Birds. Despite protests, the Manor opens its doors for a summer solstice celebration. Attendees include Francesca’s twin brothers, Hugo and Oscar, and Bella Springfield, a mysterious woman who seems to know Francesca from her childhood visits to the village. In the run-up to the opening celebration’s marquee event, a bacchanalian midnight feast, the guests’ past connections and secret motives come to light. The next morning, a dead body is discovered on the resort’s grounds, and a question hangs in the air: is there a killer in the Manor’s midst, or have the Birds taken their revenge? While keeping track of the book’s five different narrators can be challenging, the chilling folk horror atmosphere and sucker-punch surprises more than compensate for any temporary confusion. Readers are in for a grisly treat. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (June)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

A series of arson attacks lead to the discovery of a much deeper mystery in Auffarth’s jaw-dropping debut. In the small town of Riverside, Ga., police discover the scorched remains of a young woman at the latest in a string of deliberate blazes. After Dalia Wright identifies the body as her daughter, Thea, who’d struggled with severe depression since she was a teenager, investigators come to suspect that Thea set all the fires, then died by suicide. But Marley Henderson, her next-door neighbor and best friend since childhood, doesn’t buy it. When investigators find a positive pregnancy test in Thea’s home, the mystery deepens, and Marley reconnects with an old flame to ferret out the truth. Little is as it first appears in this wily thriller, which unfolds across multiple timelines and alternates between Thea’s and Marley’s first-person perspectives. Along the way, Auffarth lands some stirring insights about love and loss. This catches fire early and burns bright to the end. Agent: Jess Regel, Helm Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

Serafin (coauthor of Three Women Disappear) underwhelms in this bland thriller about an investment banker whose bone-headed decision lands him in hot water. Adam Macias is in Paris for a banking conference when he spots a “breathtakingly exotic aesthetic masterpiece” of a woman and grants her access to a rooftop party with his ID badge. After the stranger vanishes into the crowd before he can get her name, someone douses the CEO of Adam’s bank in oil and sets him on fire, leaving him in critical condition. Adam’s unusual badge activity makes him a suspect in the eyes of French authorities, so he sets out to find the stranger in hopes she can help clear his name. When he locates her, he stumbles into a sinister and sophisticated intelligence operation, and has to decide whether he can trust his beautiful new companion with his life. Serafin retreads familiar espionage tropes, and his characters never really come to life. North by Northwest this is not. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore & Co. (June)

Reviewed on 04/26/2024 | Details & Permalink