The suspenseful second installment in Lewis’s series featuring spy Caitrin Colline (after A Jewel in the Crown) opens on New Year’s Eve 1940 during the London Blitz. Caitrin, a former Welsh policewoman, meets her friend Florence Simmonds at the Blind Stag pub, managed by Caitrin’s flirtatious but thuggish friend Teddy Baer. Unbeknownst to her friends, Caitrin is an operative for 512, an all-female counterespionage group led by war widow Bethany Goodman. As Churchill threatens to shut 512 down due to budgetary constraints, German bombers target British cathedrals, hospitals, and aristocratic houses with uncanny accuracy. Caitrin has learned that Florence and Teddy may be involved in the placement of homing devices that lead the Nazi bombers to their targets, and she infiltrates Teddy’s inner circle to thwart the scheme. While some of Caitrin’s motives are strained—notably, her fierce determination to recover her mother’s ring from petty thieves rather than fight the Nazis who killed her fiancé—the action moves at a swift pace, the dialogue is sharp, and the well-placed historical details evoke the harrowing realities of English life during WWII. With a fierce heroine and nail-biting plot, this will delight fans of Jacqueline Winspear and Susan Elia MacNeal. (June)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bestseller Brennan (the Quinn & Costa series) delivers a breezy standalone about a book-loving accountant who gets ensnared in a murder investigation. After years of dedication to her job at a New York City accounting firm, 29-year-old Mia Crawford is offered a partnership. To sweeten the deal, her employers insist she take a two-week, all-expenses-paid vacation to a private island in the Caribbean. All modest Mia wants is to curl up with a book and, at most, carry on a quick and casual fling. In the resort’s gift shop, she spots an intriguing, water-damaged paperback on a table of books left behind by previous guests. After scooping it up, she notices messages scribbled in the margins that allude to some sort of criminal activity. When a guest’s body washes up on the beach, Mia fears she’s stumbled into something dangerous. As she investigates with the aid of her mysterious notes, she strikes up a romance with resort bartender Jason, and Brennan weaves in the personal dramas of other guests and employees. Some of the reveals are predictable, but Brennan smooths things over with plenty of beachy atmosphere and steamy sex. It’s solid summertime fare. Agent: Daniel Conaway, Writers House. (June)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink

In the backstory to this defiantly feminist reimagining of Euripides’ The Bacchae from Pochoda (Sing Her Down), broke 20-somethings Lena and Hedy were partying their way around the world when Lena met ruthless hotel developer Stavros. Seduced by his wealth, Lena “stumbled into a hasty marriage” that produced “asshole” son Drew and trapped her in a suffocating life of cloistered luxury. Lena assumes she’s finally free when, 35 years later, Stavros dies on the dunes near Agape Villas, his under-construction resort on Naxos, Greece, but Drew takes over as CEO and family despot. Hedy has remained a firecracker, so a fun-starved Lena brings her along to the soft launch of Agape Villas. On Naxos, the duo is drawn to an encampment on the beach near the resort where women dance and drum with “ecstatic abandon.” Disgusted and irate, Drew vows to evict the “feral” group, but unbeknownst to him, something ancient is at play. Pochoda’s sun-drenched, blood-soaked literary fever dream pits hubris against hedonism, likens religion to rave culture, and explores the transformative power of female rage. Incandescent prose, present-tense narration, and frequent perspective shifts impart urgency, rendering the characters’ passions palpable. It’s a gleefully transgressive tour de force. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (June)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink

Connolly’s bewitching latest whodunit featuring Maine PI Charlie Parker (after The Instruments of Darkness) combines hard-boiled tropes with supernatural elements. Parker is hired by eccentric artist Zetta Nadeau after her boyfriend, Wyatt Riggins, receives a text message that reads “Run,” then vanishes. Parker’s attempt to track down Riggins coincides with a series of gruesome murders, committed by a killer who removes their victims’ still-beating hearts. Initially, Parker’s investigation points him in the direction of Riggins’s work at a marijuana dispensary owned by mobster Devin Vaughn, who conspired to kidnap the children of Mexican drug kingpin Blas Urrea. Meanwhile, Connolly weaves in a subplot about Parker’s dead daughter, Jennifer, who’s stuck in an unidentified spiritual limbo, where she’s targeted by sinister angels who try to persuade her to enter a realm where she’ll lose her memories. Connolly once again flexes his gifts for vivid characterization and striking prose (“The shirts matched the brilliance of his dentition”). This long-running series shows no signs of slowing down. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink

Clark (The Lies I Tell) effortlessly delivers on her clever, metatextual premise in this devilish thriller. Olivia Dumont had a successful career ghostwriting celebrity memoirs until her public rebuke of John Calder, a bestselling but misogynistic author, tarnished her reputation in the industry. Desperate for money, Dumont accepts a lucrative assignment to ghostwrite a book by horror superstar Vincent Taylor, despite her utter lack of experience writing fiction. The other problem? Taylor is Olivia’s estranged father. Fifty years ago, he became the prime suspect in the 1975 double murder of his siblings, Danny and Poppy, in their Ojai, Calif., home. Though rumors about the killings persist, they remain unsolved, and Taylor still lives in Ojai, where he’s been churning out bestsellers for decades. In recent years, his cognitive abilities have declined, but Olivia remains wary of him—especially when she realizes his new book is a supposed tell-all about the murders. Clark keeps readers guessing about Taylor’s motives and guilt, all while playing scrupulously fair with the reader. It adds up to a deeply satisfying shocker in the vein of Riley Sager’s The Only One Left. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA. (June)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink

Burglar-turned-spy Electra McDonnell plunges deep into her complicated past in the satisfying fifth and final series entry from Weaver (after Locked in Pursuit). Before Electra was born, her life was already convoluted: her father was murdered, and her pregnant mother was convicted of killing him. Electra was subsequently raised by criminals before the British military recruited her to run intelligence during WWII. It’s in that capacity that Electra has learned that her father was a German spy, which may have been the reason he was killed. Furthermore, her cousin Toby, who’d been captured by the Germans early in the war, is still alive and headed for Lisbon. Electra is sent to Portugal to track Toby down under the supervision of a new handler, since her former one, Major Ramsey—for whom Electra is nursing romantic feelings—dismissed her from his team for fumbling a case. Weaver manages to tie up the series’ loose ends without shortchanging the core chase plot. Readers will miss Electra and her cohort, but Weaver has given them a worthy send-off. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

Gray’s clever fourth Jane Austen homage (after The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh) keeps her winning streak alive. In 1823, Jonathan Darcy (son of Pride and Prejudice’s Fitzwilliam Darcy) and his sleuthing colleague, Juliet Tilney (daughter of Northanger Abbey’s Catherine Morland), are in London to participate in the social season and possibly find a mate—an unwelcome prospect, since each harbors romantic feelings for the other. When Jonathan’s family must return to Pemberley, he’s forced to board with his father’s friend, Sir Thomas Bertram. Jonathan and Juliet get a respite from their mandated socializing after Maria Rushworth, Bertram’s black-sheep sister, arrives at the family home, and then someone close to her is strangled to death with a length of rope. As a result, the amateur sleuths eagerly exit the London rat race and tap into their deductive acumen. Gray continues to effortlessly capture the language and tone of Austen’s novels, this time heating up the series’ sparkling romance plot while delivering her most intricate puzzle to date. It’s a delight. Agent: Laura Rennert, Andrea Brown Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

Harvey (Jamesy Harper’s Big Break) imagines the chilling aftermath of political and climate upheaval in this powerful postapocalyptic thriller. Years of right-wing assaults on government have transformed Canada into a hellhole for minorities: after passing legislation that outlawed contraception and made women second-class citizens, reactionaries overthrew the government and began hunting down queer people and people of color. Iris, a therapist, has no hope of finding justice after being gang-raped in her home. Privileged Ainsley is left at a similar loss after a mob breaches her security system and murders her husband. With a new, deadly virus spreading across the country and global warming leading to parts of Canada’s west coast being submerged, Iris and Ainsley—along with 10 other characters, including a construction worker and a nonbinary teen activist—start their individual journeys toward possible haven on Vancouver Island. Harvey closely follows their odysseys, bringing her grim vision of the future to life through an array of sometimes conflicting perspectives. This unsettling adventure will appeal to fans of Claire Vaye Watkins’s Gold Fame Citrus. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

Samuel “Sami” Kierce, the troubled protagonist of Edgar winner Coben’s disappointing sequel to Fool Me Once, has spent decades running from his past. His life changed irrevocably during a backpacking trip through southern Spain when he awoke one morning in Costa del Sol covered in blood, next to the lifeless body of his girlfriend, Anna. Terrified, he fled the scene and returned to the United States, too afraid to confront the situation. Fast forward 22 years: Sami, now an ex-NYPD homicide detective fired for incompetence, has become a private investigator and a new father, struggling with debt while teaching aspiring sleuths at a night school in New York City. When he unexpectedly spots a familiar face in his class, he realizes with a shock that it’s Anna. He panics as she flees, igniting a desperate quest for answers that culminates in devastating violence. Coben cleverly interweaves seemingly unconnected side plots involving a famous kidnapping case from 25 years earlier and the release of a convicted murderer, but his characters are flat and his plot twists flatter. This is far from the author’s best. Agent: Lisa Vance, Aaron M. Priest Literary. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

Marais (The Witches of Moonshyne Manor) serves up an entertaining interactive whodunit peppered with riddles and choose-your-own-outcome elements. Socially awkward 21-year-old Destiny Whip has long taken solace in solving puzzles and mysteries alongside her fellow members of the Council of Enigmatologists. One day, she’s contacted by mysterious Mordecai Scruffmore, who invites her to Scruffmore Castle on Eerie Island to compete as one of two finalists for a coveted position as his family’s historian. Destiny is surprised, considering she never applied for the role, but she eagerly accepts, harboring suspicions that Mordecai might be her long-lost biological father. After she arrives, she’s haunted by visions that someone in the family will die, and she sets out to solve that mystery while digging into her own past. Readers affect which clues they get by choosing which chapter to read next, and are tasked with solving a series of brainteasers (answers can be found at the back of the book, for the less puzzle-inclined). There’s some subpar prose (“ ‘No, my lord,’ his butler rasps, his voice branded with agony as the stench of sulfur seasons the denial”), but for the most part, Marais’s execution matches her ambition. This is pure catnip for armchair sleuths. Agent: Cecilia Lyra, P.S. Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink