In Coombs’s frothy sequel to Drop Dead Sisters, siblings Eliana, Maeve, and Remi Finch try to track down one of their husbands. The Finch sisters convene for a reunion in Seattle, where Eliana and Remi now live. Things quickly go awry when Eliana’s husband, Chad, vanishes the morning after arguing with Eliana about signing their divorce papers. His condo is trashed and spattered with blood, but there’s no body in sight. The sisters believe Chad must have been kidnapped, but police have other ideas, naming Eliana as their top suspect. Even the handsome Detective Trapp, who seems friendly at first, starts tailing the Finches after Remi accidentally lies about their alibis. With their credibility waning, the sisters launch their own investigation, soon finding that ne’er-do-well Chad had been mixing with some dangerous crowds before he disappeared. Eventually, eccentric Aunt Lindy shows up, followed by the women’s parents, taking the absurdity to new heights. With a fast-moving plot, plenty of humor, and a surprisingly sweet attunement to the ups and downs of sisterhood, this breezy mystery goes down smooth. Here’s hoping another installment is in the works. Agent: Melanie Figueroa, Root Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/15/2025 | Details & Permalink

Espionage and tensions among allies animate Benn’s outstanding latest Billy Boyle mystery (after The Phantom Patrol). On Christmas Day, 1944, U.S. Army investigator Boyle and his girlfriend, Capt. Diana Seaton of the British SOE, discover the bludgeoned body of U.S. Air Force Maj. Frederick Brockman on the White Cliffs of Dover. Classified papers in Brockman’s pockets allude to his involvement with a top-secret radio jamming operation. Officer Jean Conan Doyle, head of the RAF’s Y Service and daughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ropes Boyle and Diana into the ensuing investigation, revealing antisemitism as a potential motive after she describes a disturbing string of similar attacks against Jewish airmen. The case takes Boyle to war-torn Yugoslavia, where a rogue American killer and shifting allegiances among Allied forces complicate his mission to rescue a missing British radar specialist. Alongside the familiar faces of Kaz and Big Mike—plus a surprise cameo from George McGovern—Boyle faces fierce combat, betrayals from longtime friends, and the ever-present threat of German assault as he tries to crack the case. Benn seamlessly weaves real history with vividly imagined clandestine operations. Newcomers and dedicated series fans alike will relish this exceptional military adventure. Agent: Paula Munier, Talcott Notch Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 08/15/2025 | Details & Permalink

A young man’s visit to his cousin’s gothic mansion turns deadly in this solid Edwardian mystery from Charles (the Doomsday series). After losing his job, Zeb Wyckham agrees to visit his cousin, Wynn, at Lackaday House, his Dartmoor country estate. When Zeb arrives, he learns that his ex-lover, Gideon Grey, is Wynn’s secretary, and his cousins Hawley and Dash—plus his brother, Bram—have all recently taken up residence at Lackaday. Then Wynn announces he’s leaving the estate to his cousin Jessamine, and whichever male relative marries her will obtain the inheritance. Hawley makes a play for the girl, and Bram proposes to back Zeb as a marriage candidate and split the inheritance with him, since Bram is already married himself. Zeb, who still pines for Gideon, wants nothing to do with the scheme and attempts to flee Lackaday. On his way out, misty conditions on the moors trap him at the property, where he finds someone dead. As the tension ratchets up, Zeb tries to find an escape before he and Gideon become the next victims. Twisty, atmospheric, and more than a little indebted to Agatha Christie, this satisfying whodunit with a queer twist will keep readers up all night. Agent: Courtney Miller-Callihan, Handspun Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/15/2025 | Details & Permalink

And Then There Were None meets The Twilight Zone in Fram’s inventive latest (after No Road Home). The action opens with a handsome man named Hunter wandering into an auto body shop in the moribund town of Ellersby, Tex., and demanding a job from shop owner Ethan. Six weeks later, the pair are headed for California, leaving behind “a corpse sprawled on a couch in the spare room upstairs and a string of fires burning in the engine bays.” After a diner patron advises the men against driving on Dust Road, claiming it can get “hungry” and trap desperate travelers, they’re forced to take it anyway, only to run out of gas near the Brake Inn Motel, where 12 people vanished 50 years earlier. There, Hunter and Ethan gradually meet seven other guests, including two friends rushing to the Mexican border and a woman and her grandfather fleeing a motorcycle-driving stranger. When people start dying and the guests realize they can’t leave, their individual predicaments converge into a supernatural locked-room nightmare. Fram keeps even savvy readers guessing about where he’s headed next and manages to flesh out each member of the book’s large cast. The result is wickedly satisfying. Agent: Melissa Danaczko, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/08/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this immersive standalone from Freeman (The Bourne Vendetta), Florida PI Shannon Wells grapples with haunting visions while trying to make sense of a particularly confounding job. When Faith Selby hires Shannon to look into her own past, Shannon can’t find much. Then Faith is murdered, and her daughter, Kate, approaches Shannon with an enigmatic clue: a 26-year-old photograph of a young girl, taken by Faith in a motel parking lot. Shannon’s quest to figure out the photo’s origins takes her to Michigan, where she teams up with police detective Chuck Kimble and learns the photo may be linked to a cold case murder from 1999. All the while, Shannon is plagued by memories of a past sexual assault and nightmares of witnessing the murder of a woman named Jenny. Freeman’s plotting is intoxicatingly knotty, though a few of the answers he provides are far-fetched. Still, well-developed characters and the author’s sharp attention to detail make this work more often than not. Psychological thriller fans who are willing to suspend their disbelief should enjoy themselves. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/08/2025 | Details & Permalink

Fazzi (My MacArthur) launches a promising new series starring Filipino American bounty hunter Domingo Laban. Rather than taking the lucrative path of hunting down whichever illegal immigrants he can get his hands on, Domingo—an aspiring writer—only goes after people accused of serious crimes. In 1998, though, he compromises that policy when incoming CIA director Leonard Reed offers Domingo enough money to buy a home in the Philippines if he finds and detains a young woman named Monica, who claims she’s Reed’s daughter. Domingo tracks Monica to a Greyhound bus bound for New York City and collars her in Pittsburgh, but she escapes. Nearly 20 years later, Reed is dead, and his widow, Mary, hires Domingo to find Monica again, hoping to make amends for her late husband’s rejection. The job unsettles Domingo, reminding him of his career’s sole failure and awakening him to the particular struggles of undocumented immigrants under President Trump. Fazzi’s approach to the material is political but never preachy; she ensures plot takes precedent over rhetoric at every turn. With exciting action and a unique, memorable protagonist, this diverting thriller bodes well for future installments. Agent: Maria Napolitano, KT Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 08/08/2025 | Details & Permalink

Fawcett’s dour sophomore effort (after Beneath the Stairs) explores the reverberations of a kidnapping across three generations. In 1993, troubled young couple Ana and Ben head to a party with hopes of rousing Ana from her postpartum depression, only to be abducted by a truck driver. Ben manages to escape, but Ana disappears and is never seen again. Serial killer Eddie Ward is eventually caught and blamed for the incident, but Ana’s body is never found. Thirty years later, a dying, morphine-addled Eddie tells prison staffers that he didn’t kill Ana, prompting Ben and Ana’s daughter, Fiona Green—who’s struggling with her own postpartum depression—to return to the town where her mother disappeared. Then a woman named Angela Ramirez vanishes under circumstances eerily similar to Ana’s. Eddie’s adult son, Jason, emerges as a suspect in Angela’s disappearance, leading both Jason and Fiona to search for the truth about crimes past and present. Fawcett maintains little mystery about the real perpetrator’s identity, instead anchoring the novel in psychological portraits of Fiona and Jason. Unfortunately, neither character really comes to life, and the plot’s insistent joylessness eventually takes a toll. It’s a bummer. Agent: Victoria Marini, Irene Goodman Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/08/2025 | Details & Permalink

Willingham’s suffocating latest Southern thriller (after Only If You’re Lucky) thrusts disillusioned New York City journalist Claire Campbell back into the rural South Carolina environs she’d hoped to flee forever. When Claire’s father calls to tell her that her mother has been in an accident, she reluctantly returns to her hometown of Claxton, S.C., having just quit her job and tired of her latest friend-with-benefits. Still grieving her older sister Natalie’s disappearance 22 years earlier, Claire can’t bear to stay at home, so she takes lodging on a spooky nearby island and finds a job picking grapes for elderly local Mitchell and his spacey wife, Marcia. Finding Marcia’s teenage diary ignites Claire’s curiosity about her new employers, and soon, she’s mired in Dixie-fiction clichés, dealing with copperheads and cups of suspicious tea as she notices that Marcia’s youthful obsession with an older man mirrors the long-missing Natalie’s. Willingham tries to enliven the flat proceedings with gothic accouterments and long-festering family secrets, but none of it takes. The result is a pedestrian tale of angst and obsession that will leave overheated readers yearning for a blast of convincing realism. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 08/08/2025 | Details & Permalink

Characters collide, bombs explode, and lives shatter in Dutch art critic Bronwasser’s arresting and kaleidoscopic English debut, narrated by a middle-aged woman named Marie. At the heart of the novel is her intense relationship with charismatic photography professor Flo da Silva, whom Marie met as a 19-year-old college student in the Netherlands and fell out with after a catastrophic betrayal. Before diving into the details of what went wrong, Marie flashes forward to recall her time working as an au pair for Phillip Lambert, a largely unremarkable bourgeois Parisian patriarch—save for his strange psychic gifts—whom Marie meets after things end badly with Flo. Eventually, Bronwasser’s sinuous narratives converge in contemporary Paris, leading to a (literally) explosive denouement. When it comes to genre necessities like heightening suspense and converting unanswered questions into narrative momentum, Bronwasser delivers the goods, but her approach can feel roundabout, even leisurely, as she trains her eye on larger questions about power disparities, the ethics of contemporary art, and the nature of fate. Dubious readers, rest assured: everything comes together perfectly, like Paris’s 12 avenues intersecting at the Arc de Triomphe. Cannily constructed and gracefully written, this thought-provoking literary thriller offers a charcuterie board’s worth of rewards. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/08/2025 | Details & Permalink

A wealthy ghost, his beleaguered wife, and an internet detective narrate this sharp satirical mystery from Mackie (How to Kill Your Family). After hedge fund CEO Anthony Wistern is impaled by a spear-like decoration at his lavish 60th birthday party, he becomes trapped in a bureaucratic purgatory until he can recall the exact details of his death. Refusing to linger long in a place with low thread count sheets and monochromatic clothing, Anthony starts observing his family and friends for clues. At first, their indifference hurts; his wife, Olivia, can’t even be bothered to pretend she’s in mourning. Then it becomes a logistical problem: if everyone hated Anthony, anyone might have killed him, and he could be stuck in purgatory for eternity. All appears hopeless until an anonymous, true crime-obsessed internet sleuth in the Cotswolds takes up Anthony’s case, unconvinced by the official narrative that his death was an accident. Filled with bitter laughs and nasty characters, this stinging send-up of the ultra-wealthy might grate on some, but Mackie has obvious fun doling out her characters’ just deserts. The story’s whodunit plot, too, is sufficiently twisty and designed with care. It’s a strong sophomore effort that will please fans of Mackie’s debut. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/08/2025 | Details & Permalink