At the start of Afia's underwhelming third mystery starring Black lesbian detective Louise Lloyd (after Harlem Sunset), it's the spring of 1928 and Louise has decamped from Harlem to Paris, where she spends her days clerking in a parfumerie and her nights drinking and dancing. Things take a turn after up-and-coming artist Iris Wright disappears and her mother approaches Louise with a letter of recommendation from a friend back in Harlem and begs her to come out of retirement. Reluctantly, Louise agrees, plunging into the shadowy world of La Mort de Artistes, a secret society of women artists to which Iris belonged. As Louise infiltrates their ranks, she grows frightened of Iris's ruthless milieu, and leans on her circle of glamorous writers and musicians—and her two love interests—for help solving the case. Afia conjures a suitably intoxicating atmosphere, but her plotting drags, and the final reveal is a letdown. In letters to Louise, her friends praise her as “brave,” “brilliant,” and “formidable,” but little on the page bears out such qualities of her character. This disappoints. Agent: Travis Pennington, Knight Agency. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Kurtz’s entertaining second whodunit featuring Atlanta PIs Nick Montaigne and Vern Wister (after Black Jackknife) finds the sleuths trying to connect a recent murder-suicide to a long-unsolved double homicide. Engineer Bertram Ramsey, 68, approaches Chinese businessman Xi Lao Bing at the offices of Bing’s tech company and shoots him in the head, then turns the gun on himself. Journalists speculate that the crime is part of an increase in Covid-related anti-Asian attacks, but a witness account claiming Ramsey said the words “maraschino cherry” before pulling the trigger catches Vern’s eye. From a source on the Atlanta PD, he learns that Ramsey’s twin sister, Irene, and her husband were gunned down in their Ohio home several decades earlier. Local police never cracked the case, so Vern loops Nick in, and they convince Ramsey’s daughter to hire them to see whether the two cases are linked. In Ohio, Nick and Vern dig through the Ramsey family’s past and join forces with a journalist who’s been following the story for years. Kurtz sticks the landing, delivering a surprising-yet-inevitable resolution that will leave readers hungry for the next installment. Harry Dolan fans should check this out. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

A grieving psychiatrist falls for a potentially dangerous patient in the shocking debut thriller from romance novelist Keeland (The Spark). Meredith McCall’s life was upended when her husband, professional hockey player Connor Fitzgerald, started abusing drugs and alcohol after a career-ending injury, then died in a drunk driving accident. In the aftermath, Meredith has grown obsessed with Gabriel Wright, whose wife and daughter were killed in the crash. She’s surprised when Gabriel walks into her office one afternoon, and even more stunned when she agrees to take him as a patient, fearing she’d give away her identity—and the fact that she’s been following him—if she declined. Soon, their relationship crosses the line from professional to romantic, and Keeland unveils, in alternating timelines, the circumstances that led Gabriel to select Meredith as his therapist. Is he playing a long game for revenge? Might Meredith’s memories of Connor’s accident be less than reliable? The tone is a little soapy, but Keeland keeps the twists coming hard and fast, and few readers will be able to predict them. This satisfies. Agent: Kimberly Brower, Brower Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Gigl returns with an underheated fourth legal thriller featuring transgender New Jersey attorney Erin McCabe (after Remain Silent). Erin and her law partner Duane Swisher have recently taken on the case of white state trooper Jon Mazer, who’s been accused of murdering Black journalist Russell Marshall. Before his death, Marshall was reporting on a story about widespread sexual harassment and racial discrimination within the ranks of New Jersey’s state police. The governor, state attorney general, and police superintendent have all labeled Mazer “a bad apple in an otherwise stellar law enforcement agency,” but Mazer, who was outed as gay shortly before Marshall’s death, insists he was helping the reporter and is being framed. Gigl supplements Erin and Duane’s investigation, which uncovers evidence of government corruption, with updates on Erin’s personal life: she marries her boyfriend, Mark, despite pushback from his bigoted parents, and they attempt to start a family. Gigl—a transgender attorney herself—writes with authority about courtroom procedure, but her trial scenes lack spark, and the pacing is jerky throughout. This one’s strictly for committed series fans. Agent: Carrie Pestritto, Laura Dail Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this promising series launch, Pitts (the Ross Agency Mysteries) introduces PI Vandy Myrick, the self-described “toughest bitch” in Queenstown, N.J. After her daughter died of an overdose at a college party, Vandy quit the Philadelphia police department and returned home to Queenstown. Her detective agency is a downgrade from her police work—most of her cases involve collecting evidence against philandering spouses—but it pays well and keeps her busy. Things go south, however, after she’s hired by Leo Hannah, the nephew of Queenstown’s mayor, to gather information about his wife, Ivy. When Vandy arrives at the Hannahs’ home to deliver her report, she finds a bloody crime scene. Leo says he found a man—taxi driver Hector Ramírez—attacking Ivy with a hammer and shot him, but not before Ivy was killed. Vandy isn’t convinced the answer is so straightforward and sets out to investigate. In the process, she reconnects with her high school flame, who’s now Queenstown’s chief of police, and learns discomfiting truths about the racial tensions rippling through her hometown. With an indelible lead and a richly rendered setting, Pitts sets this series up for success. Readers will clamor for the next installment. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller McCreight (Friends Like This) explores thorny parent-child bonds in her captivating latest. After much badgering, rebellious NYU undergrad Cleo McHugh agrees to have dinner with her estranged mother, Kat, at her parents’ house in Brooklyn. When she arrives late to find dinner burning and Kat MIA, she panics, then notices a blood-smeared shoe under the couch. Cleo frantically calls her father, Aidan, who’s away on business, and then the police, who warn her against investigating Kat’s disappearance on her own. From there, the narrative splits into parallel tracks following Kat and Cleo, and McCreight serves up shrewdly timed bits of backstory: Kat and Aidan have recently started divorce proceedings; Kat has been working as a fixer for her law firm; Cleo and her drug-dealing ex-boyfriend have just rekindled their flame. Clever red herrings add to the suspense, and McCreight weaves in moving insights about intergenerational trauma as she orchestrates the plot to its satisfying conclusion. The results are sturdy enough to withstand a few too-soapy twists. This should please McCreight’s existing fans and win her new ones. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Robotham’s stirring fourth mystery featuring forensic psychologist Haven (after Lying Beside You) is the best yet. Four years earlier, Haven was called in to interview teenager Evie Cormac, whom Nottinghamshire police had found hiding in a house with the corpse of a murdered man. After Haven learned that Evie was trafficked into the U.K. from Albania, he informally adopted her, and now occasionally leans on her skills as a human lie detector to help him crack cases. During a visit to the beach one afternoon, Haven and Evie witness the bodies of 17 migrants wash ashore. Most are dead, but the lone survivor suggests that their boat was deliberately rammed. The incident sends Evie into shock, rendering her unable to speak or move, and Haven wonders if the tragedy might somehow be connected to her past. Seeking answers, Haven learns of a master criminal called “the Ferryman,” a trafficker one of his National Crime Agency contacts calls “a Keyser Söze or a Lex Luthor or a Moriarty.” Soon, Haven discovers that the Ferryman is even more powerful than the rumors suggest. Robotham adds moving new dimensions to the dynamic between his well-developed leads, and shrewdly connects the central mystery to Evie’s backstory. This series continues to impress. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

The rousing fifth entry in Freeman’s reboot of the Jason Bourne series (after The Bourne Defiance) revisits the amnesiac hero’s first assignment for black ops agency Treadstone. Ten years ago, David Webb was working as a teacher in Zurich when he was recruited into Treadstone and sent to infiltrate Le Renouveau, “the most poisonous neo-Nazi cell in Europe.” When, as a final test of his loyalty, his handlers instructed him to kill his fiancée, Monika Roth, the mission went awry, and his memory of it was wiped by a traumatic brain injury. Now, he’s living as Jason Bourne in Paris, and a contentious presidential campaign pitting a right-wing extremist against an establishment candidate is in full flame. Le Renouveau has reemerged to foment protest in the extremist’s favor, and some of its members target Bourne for reasons he can’t decipher. While dining at a café, he’s approached by Monika’s sister, Johanna, who recognizes him as David Webb. Together, the pair crisscross Europe in search of Monika, digging up answers about what exactly went wrong for Bourne a decade ago along the way. Freeman keeps things brisk and punchy, generating a surprising amount of heat by finding a fresh way to revisit Bourne’s amnesia. Fans of Ludlum’s original trilogy or the film adaptations will be riveted. Agent: Deborah Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

A Taylor Swift–esque pop star is blindsided by the discovery of her high school best friend’s corpse in this powerhouse sophomore effort from Layden (All Girls). Dylan Read is a chart-topping, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter famous for her diaristic lyrics. The only major life event she hasn’t written about is the disappearance of her friend Kelsey Copestenke, who taught Dylan songwriting and seemed destined for greatness. Kelsey was known to be somewhat reckless, so when she vanished during the girls’ junior year of high school in Upstate New York, the search was perfunctory; many people assumed she’d simply decamped to Nashville. Fifteen years later, tourists discover Kelsey’s remains in a lake near her hometown. When she hears the news, Dylan thinks she knows when and why Kelsey died, and blames herself—but after she attends the memorial service, she starts to suspect there’s more to the story. Leyden skillfully intercuts Dylan’s search for answers with sections chronicling her friendship with Kelsey and the evolution of her career. Authentic characters and Dylan’s lyrical first-person narration bestow the proceedings with dimension, drama, and drive. Megan Abbott fans will devour this. Agent: Lisa Grubka, Fletcher & Co. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Penzler follows up 2023’s Golden Age Bibliomysteries with another stellar anthology that places stories from the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Stephen Vincent Bénet beside works from the biggest names in 1920s and ’30s detective fiction. Bénet impresses with “The Amateur of Crime,” an ingenious closed-circle puzzle about a college student who uses his obsession with crime stories to help solve a murder. Impossible crime master Clayton Rawson makes a major impression in just four pages with “The Clue of the Tattooed Man,” in which the Great Merlini solves one of his trickiest cases. “The Dance”—one of only two mystery stories Fitzgerald wrote—is another highlight, blending his gift for social satire (the protagonist fears small towns because “there was a whole series of secret implications, significances and terrors, just below the surface, of which I knew nothing”) with a frisky crime plot. Other entries, from genre fiction maestros including Fredric Brown and Ellery Queen, are up to par; there’s not a weak link in the bunch. For classic mystery fans, this is a must. (July)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink