Historical mystery novelist Thomas (the Lady Sherlock series) tries her hand at a contemporary whodunit in this fun if far-fetched ensemble piece centered on the staff of a library in Austin, Tex. Hazel Lee, who has spent most of her life in Singapore, has just returned to the U.S. and started her new gig as a library clerk. Among her colleagues are Sophie, the branch administrator; Jonathan, a high school football player turned program director; and Astrid, a fanciful librarian with a romantic streak. Everyone is friendly but guarded, because they’re all harboring secrets—some deadlier than others. On Halloween night, Jonathan spearheads the library’s first annual murder mystery game night, which ends with two attendees dead. After the police arrive, the staff realize they’re better equipped to handle the investigation than law enforcement, with each of their secrets intersecting to help explain the tragedy. Thomas’s pacing is wonky: the narrative starts extremely slowly before it takes a sudden turn into high-octane territory and the once timid characters become gun-toting action heroes. Still, there’s an undeniable thrill to watching librarians morph into kick-ass crime solvers. This doesn’t totally hang together, but it’s still a good time. Agent: Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

This atmospheric standalone from Blackwell (The Paris Showroom) offers supernatural mystery fans a hearty helping of murder, ghosts, and doomed love at a long-abandoned hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Southern California’s gothic Hotel Seabrink was built by the fabulously wealthy T. Jefferson Goffin during Hollywood’s golden age as a destination for such screen legends as Clark Gable and Judy Garland. Now, it’s a rundown landmark on the brink of renovation. Photographer and architect Aubrey Spencer takes a trip to immortalize the building before it’s updated and is surprised to run into well-known YouTuber Dimitri Petroff, who’s there to do research for his upcoming Netflix series about abandoned buildings. There’s instant chemistry between the two—until Dimitri turns up dead the next morning. Aubrey then notices a ghostly presence in one of her photographs and calls in her friend, Nikki, to help determine if something paranormal is at play. Soon, the pair learns that Dimitri’s death parallels a still unsolved murder at the hotel involving Goffin. After a captivating setup, Blackwell weighs things down with a few too many subplots, but she pulls it all together in the end. It’s an agreeably spooky ride. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (July)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

Shepherd-Robinson’s bewitching latest historical (after The Square of Sevens) artfully folds real-life figures into its plot. In 1749 London, confectioner Hannah Cole flouts convention by running her shop, Punchbowl and Pineapple, instead of continuing to mourn her murdered husband, Jonas. With her inheritance delayed due to bizarre discrepancies in Jonas’s accounting, she must earn a living somehow. None other than famed novelist and magistrate Henry Fielding is investigating Jonas’s murder, and upon learning that the dead man was an unsavory rogue and a cruel husband, he starts to suspect that Hannah killed him. Hannah’s only ally is the new-to-town William Devereaux, who vows to help her and gives her the exotic idea to serve an Italian delicacy called ice cream. While Hannah tests recipes and delights patrons in Piccadilly with this new treat, William negotiates with Fielding on her behalf. Gradually, though, Hannah begins to question William’s motives. Shepherd-Robinson’s prose is superb, bursting with poetic description and immersive period detail, and she sustains suspense without resorting to cheap tricks. Readers will race through this. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this striking thriller, Carson (Lost Man’s Lane)—a pseudonym for crime novelist Michael Koryta—nimbly entwines a contemporary coming-of-age story with a tale of Cold War paranoia. Charlie Goodwin, 17 and half-orphaned, has relocated from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Ash Point, Maine, so her father can chase his dream of opening a brewery. There’s not much to the town, save for the long-abandoned naval air station and the wreckage of the B-52 bomber Charlie’s grandfather crashed into the side of a mountain in 1962. One morning, from the cockpit of that wreck, Charlie hears her dead mother’s voice over the radio, warning her not to fly that day, though she had no plans to do so. Across the country, hundreds of pilots receive similar messages from their own mothers, living and dead. The calls come from an AI program designed to clear the skies, triggered when a satellite detects the reappearance of a B-52 that mysteriously vanished mid-flight on a mission to drop a hydrogen bomb on Cuba to bring an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Charlie’s story unfolds over a single tense afternoon, flashbacks chronicle Dr. Martin “Marty” Hazleton’s efforts to find a method to shield airplanes from nuclear fallout. With copious cliffhangers, an original premise, and a resonant emotional center, this builds on Carson’s previous success. It’s a winner. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

Thorogood’s delightful fourth cozy featuring 79-year-old crossword puzzle creator and amateur sleuth Judith Potts (after The Queen of Poisons) sees her investigating the murder of a local actor. When Verity Beresford’s husband, Oliver, fails to return home after attending an exclusive boat party for the board members of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, Verity marches over to Judith’s home to ask for her help. Judith speaks with other party guests, none of whom saw Oliver leave the boat. A few days later, Oliver’s body is found on a riverbank with two bullet holes in his torso. With suicide and accident off the table, Judith swings into action with the help of her exuberant DJ friend, Suzie Harris, and the local vicar’s wife, Becks Starling. Together, the group finds that, though Oliver had plenty of petty rivals within Marlow’s dramatic society, this case might stretch decades into the past. Thorogood serves up everything cozy fans want: colorful characters, snappy dialogue, and a fair-play mystery with genuinely surprising plot twists. This will thrill series fans and new readers alike. Agent: Ginger Clark, Ginger Clark Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

Richter follows The Divide with a razor-edged thriller set amid the rarefied world of opera performers. Kit Margolis has been cast as space adventurer Barbarella in a new production by experimental Manhattan opera company Brio. From the moment Kit meets her understudy, Yolanda Archambeau, she senses trouble. Brio’s director obviously prefers Yolanda’s electric-if-sloppy performance over Kit’s sealed-off, note-perfect take on the cult-film heroine, and Yolanda, having slept and blackmailed her way into the understudy position, makes no secret of her intention to supplant Kit before the show opens. As the pair’s All About Eve antics heat up, they settle into an unsteady frenemy dynamic, until Yolanda is murdered while Kit is asleep in the same room, possibly under the influence of sedatives administered by Yolanda herself. A frightened Kit digs into Yolanda’s past, and soon learns that she was living under an assumed name and has plenty of enemies who may want her dead—and who might come after Kit next. The plot starts slowly, but once things kick into gear, Richter delivers soapy backstage dynamics and gasp-worthy twists. It’s a satisfying nail-biter. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

At the outset of Morey’s slow-burn debut, former chef Laelia Wylde leaves the U.K. with her children and boyfriend, Aidrian “Aid” Lynch, to visit her retired botanist father, Ellis, in Belize. On Ellis’s birthday, Laelia introduces him to Aid, and senses immediate tension between the two men. After the gathering, Ellis whispers something to her, but her tinnitus prevents her from understanding it. The same night, Ellis suffers a stroke and falls into a coma, prompting Laelia to move her family into his jungle home while he’s hospitalized. As Laelia and her children grow enchanted by life in the jungle, Aid becomes increasingly jealous and volatile. Things take a dark turn when Laelia, who worries that her tinnitus is distorting her grasp on reality, thinks she hears gunshots in the middle. Along the way, Morey weaves in chapters exploring Ellis’s past, tracing his journey to Belize and his uncovering of dangerous scientific secrets. Though the pace can drag, Morey’s descriptions of the jungle are lush and immersive, and she delivers a chillingly effective payoff. This shows real promise. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

Former Wall Street analyst Gowani parlays his financial experience into a solid debut thriller. After Pakistani hedge fund manager Ali “Al” Jafar loses $300 million for Prism Capital in one day, his boss gives him a new fund with $300 million in it and challenges him to double it in three months—or become the fall guy for the government’s ongoing insider trading investigation. With his boss’s obnoxiously racist son doing everything he can to interfere, Al calls a phone number that an old lawyer friend claims will help him reach a man who facilitates connections for the desperate. The resulting introductions propel Al to incredible success, but also draw him into a complex world of blackmail and misplaced trust from which escape may be impossible. Though Gowani’s rendering of the racist, sexist world of finance occasionally feels like it’s perpetuating the stereotypes he attempts to skewer, the plot is tense without straining plausibility too far, and Al comes off as an intelligent antihero whom the reader will (somewhat reluctantly) want to see triumph over those manipulating him. It’s an encouraging first outing. Agent: Christopher Schelling, Selectric Artists. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

Fierce FBI rookie Rae Johnson explores the criminal underbelly of college football in this captivating thriller from Edgar winner and former collegiate quarterback Cranor (Broiler). Set during the 2013–2014 season, the novel finds Rae, daughter of University of Arkansas coach Chuck Johnson, heading onto familiar turf for her first case. She arrives in Compson, Miss., to join burned-out agent Frank Ranchino on a stalled undercover probe of potential fraud in the University of Central Mississippi’s football program. Then star quarterback Matt Talley plunges to his death from the roof of a bar, and the game changes—at least in Rae’s mind. Disobeying her pension-minded partner’s orders to stay in her lane, Rae goes rogue and poses as a sports journalist to pursue her own, increasingly high stakes investigation into the quarterback’s death. Though Cranor calls perhaps a few too many audibles as the plot twists escalate in the novel’s final third, his quirky characters, playful humor, and insider’s view of the college football landscape ensure that this makes it all way to the end zone. Readers will hope to hear more from Rae soon. Agent: Josh Getzler, HG Literary. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

The overstuffed debut thriller from Jang nods to the work of Patricia Highsmith. A woman named Jae-Young boards a train bound for Seoul to escape her troubles—chiefly the dead body of her abusive boyfriend, Hyun-Wook, which is lying on the floor of her apartment. Soon after the train departs, a young woman named Hyojin rushes into Jae-Young’s compartment with a baby in her arms. The two converse, and Hyojin confides that she is taking her son for their first visit to the home of his wealthy grandfather, Hyojin’s father-in-law. Jae-Young then steps away for a few minutes; when she returns, Hyojin is gone, but her baby remains, along with a note asking Jae-Young to deliver the child to his grandfather. When Jae-Young arrives at the old man’s mansion, everyone assumes she’s Hyojin, and she seizes the opportunity to slip into a new identity. Soon, however, she finds that her escape was too good to be true, with Hyojin’s secrets tied more closely to Jae-Young’s than she could’ve imagined. Jang smothers her rich (if familiar) premise under an avalanche of far-fetched twists and cardboard characters. Readers will be baffled. Agent: Barbara J. Zitwer, Barbara J. Zitwer Agency. (July)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink