In Goldberg’s lumbering latest (after Malibu Burning), a string of West Hollywood apartment fires prompt investigators Walter Sharpe and Andrew Walker to hunt for a serial arsonist. The pair initially pursues Toniel Novar, a grieving artist they believe is seeking revenge on property owners who painted over his dead lover’s street art. When fire-damaged freeways threaten an upcoming awards show, city officials call in George Petroni, a contractor specializing in emergency overpass repairs. Petroni’s involvement causes Sharpe and Walker’s suspicions to shift after they learn he’s rebuilt other cities’ infrastructures following similar disasters. To help with the increasingly complicated investigation, the pair consults homicide detective Eve Ronin, who anchors her own Goldberg series. Meanwhile, Sharpe strikes up communication with Danny Cole, a “retired” thief who’s eager to settle an old score with wealthy businessman Roland Slezak. Slezak made his fortune by acquiring pharmaceutical companies and dramatically increasing drug prices, and Sharpe’s son needs an expensive seizure medication—pushing the investigator to consider potentially drastic measures. While Goldberg devotees might enjoy the multiple series crossovers, the plot is clunkily assembled and heavy on exposition. This is far from Goldberg’s best. Agent: Amy Tannenbaum, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/21/2025 | Details & Permalink

An American expat in Portugal obsessively prepares for his wife’s arrival in this disquieting psychological suspense novel from Muñoz Molina (To Walk Alone in the Crowd). After being fired from his corporate job, the unnamed narrator packs up and sells the New York apartment he shares with his wife, neuroscientist Cecilia, and decamps to the couple’s property in Lisbon. Climate change is accelerating, he reasons, and there’s no better location from which to watch the world end. He hires a team to help transform their new residence into a replica of the old one and then settles in with his dog to wait for a cab to deliver Cecilia. The narrative unfolds in a woozy flow of first-person musings and reminiscences, making it difficult to gauge time’s passing, but the more books the narrator reads and the more calls he dodges, the more questions arise surrounding Cecilia’s continued absence. Anxiety and dread mount steadily, while elegiac prose and eccentric supporting characters amplify the story’s surrealism straight through to the sucker-punch ending. It’s a stunning blend of mystery and literary fever dream. Agent: Jeffrey Posternak, Wylie Agency. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/21/2025 | Details & Permalink

Perrin’s atmospheric if overstuffed sequel to How to Solve Your Own Murder finds heiress Annie Adams settling into her new life as owner of the Gravesdown Estate near the English village of Castle Knoll. The grounds, along with a vast 17-bedroom country house, were left to Annie by her great-aunt Frances, who spent her life cataloging the transgressions of her friends and neighbors in a series of personal diaries. Past and present collide when Peony Lane—a local fortune teller who, back in 1965, predicted Frances’s murder—suddenly arrives at the estate. She tells Annie that she needs to investigate the life and death of Olivia Gravesdown, a member of the family that once owned Annie’s estate who died under suspicious circumstances many years earlier. A few hours later, Penny is found dead in Annie’s solarium, an ornate knife protruding from her back. Chapters following Annie’s investigation and detailing her complicated love life alternate with excerpts from Frances’s 1967 diaries, which illuminate Frances’s own romantic entanglements and touch on a horrific car accident that claimed the lives of three members of the Gravesdown family. Perrin mixes gothic and cozy tropes with a steady hand, and Annie is a suitably plucky heroine, but a few too many red herrings muck up the plot. Still, it’s an entertaining ride. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/21/2025 | Details & Permalink

Spiro (Full) takes an unflinching look at postpartum depression in this uneven domestic thriller. Romance author and Martha’s Vineyard resident Brynn Nelson, overwhelmed with fatigue as her body recovers from her recent C-section, can barely keep her thoughts straight. When the body of local waiter Cecilia Buckley is discovered on nearby North Point Beach, Brynn is shocked; she saw Cecilia regularly at the golf club frequented by her husband, Ross, and his family. Brynn’s curiosity blossoms into desperation when Ross is charged with Cecilia’s murder and hauled off to jail. Ross’s cryptic parting words to Brynn—“I need you to find the orange sun”—sending her scrambling for exonerating evidence. As Brynn digs deeper into Cecilia’s death, the demands of new motherhood fray her nerves, launching a frightening spiral that leaves her questioning her loyalties and instincts. Spiro’s portrait of Brynn’s breakdown is evocative and affecting, but the mystery plot stalls out, taking a backseat for too long before the narrative arrives at an uninspired conclusion. It’s a letdown. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/14/2025 | Details & Permalink

Steinberg’s sprightly second outing for engaged ex-spies Evelyn Bishop and Nick Gallagher (after Under the Paper Moon) delivers on the promise of its predecessor. It’s 1948, and Evelyn has taken the reins of her family’s California aeronautics business, while gumshoe Nick pounds the mean streets of L.A. Evelyn gets a break from her new role when Gen. Henry Gibson, her wartime commander, gives her a call. Six years earlier, Evelyn and Nick extracted chemist Kurt Vogel from Berlin, though Vogel’s wife and daughter had to be left behind. Now, Vogel has received a postcard from Germany supposedly written by his wife, but Gibson suspects that it’s a fake, sent by the Soviets to lure Vogel back to Berlin so they can harness his scientific discoveries for their own gain. Evelyn travels to Germany to investigate, using her role as company president as cover. Meanwhile, Nick gets enmeshed in a murder case that threatens to put him on the wrong side of L.A. mob boss Mickey Cohen, and may implicate key figures on the LAPD. Steinberg irons out the first novel’s kinks, delivering a smoother blend of rom-com and thriller with many more narrative surprises. Fans of David Baldacci’s Aloysius Archer series should check this out. Agent: Kathryn Green, Kathryn Green Literary. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/14/2025 | Details & Permalink

Belle, Fargo, Holahan, and Lillie reunite for a spirited sequel to Young Rich Widows. It’s 1987 in Providence, R.I., two years after the plane crash that killed a law firm’s partners and left the operation of the business to their wives. The women are now scrambling to keep the firm afloat: mama bear Krystal is calling the shots, new mother Justine is studying law, and sexpot Camille has launched a service to entrap philandering husbands. Meanwhile, former dancer Meredith has broken away from the firm to take over the strip club where she used to work. When Providence mayor Tom Bradley drops dead at Meredith’s club after drinking a glass of champagne she offered him, Meredith is swiftly arrested, and the widows set about proving their friend’s innocence. Party-crashing and double-crossing ensue, with all signs eventually pointing to an elaborate frame job. Each author writes alternating chapters from the perspective of one of the main characters, injecting wit and personality into a breakneck plot that swerves from madcap to poignant. Along the way, they land gentle insights about social class and the value of sisterhood. Fans of the first novel will eat this up. Agent: Jamie Carr, Book Group. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/14/2025 | Details & Permalink

Edgar winner Sutanto’s quirky second adventure for the eponymous tea shop owner (after Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers) opens with Vera falling prey to a phone scam. After reporting the incident to Officer Selena Gray—who’s dating Vera’s son, Tilly—Vera notices a distressed young woman waiting outside the police station. Vera insists on taking the woman, Millie, to her shop, where the woman reveals that her friend Thomas went missing three nights earlier. Then, while feeding Selena and Tilly’s cat, Vera stumbles upon Selena’s briefcase, which includes a file outlining the apparent suicide of social media influencer Xander Lin. Using her well-honed sleuthing skills, Vera discovers that Xander and Thomas are the same person, and she then proceeds to ingratiate herself with a group of suspects including Xander’s girlfriend, talent manager, and grandfather to suss out the young man’s fate. Laugh-out-loud antics from the nosy, no-nonsense Vera keep the plot moving at a steady clip, but fans of the first book may be jarred by the somber final reveal. Still, Sutanto’s lively storytelling will keep readers on the hook for Vera’s next case. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/14/2025 | Details & Permalink

Whyte’s devilish debut revolves around a series of murders in a London flat complex. Every resident of 10 Marchfield Square agrees that Richard Glead was a terrible and violent man, so when he turns up dead on his kitchen floor, “the only mystery... was why no one had killed him before.” Each of Richard’s neighbors have alibis: most were gathered to watch fireworks, while reclusive crime writer Lewis McLennon was on a video call, and Richard’s wife, Linda, was volunteering at an animal shelter. Then, when Lewis ventures into the Gleads’ apartment late one night after hearing footsteps, he finds Linda dead with no visible injuries. The police conclude that her death was a suicide somehow brought on by the guilt of killing her husband, despite her alibi, but building owner Celeste van Duren isn’t willing to believe any of it. To investigate, Celeste asks Lewis to team up with her cleaner, Audrey Brooks, whose people skills complement his crime expertise. During their inquiry, a third person dies, making motives even murkier for suspects both within and outside of the building. Whyte gets everything just right, constructing memorable characters and landing several shocking plot twists. Readers will be just as hard-pressed to identify the culprit as Lewis and Audrey—and they’ll have a marvelous time trying. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/14/2025 | Details & Permalink

Zhang debuts with a witty and insightful thriller about the pitfalls of influencer culture. Julie Chan and her twin sister, Chloe, were four years old when their parents died in a car accident. Chloe was adopted by the Van Huusens—an affluent couple in New York City—while Julie was sent to live with her grouchy, penny-pinching aunt. Now, at 24, Chloe and her luxurious lifestyle have attracted over a million social media followers, lucrative brand partnerships, and frequent all-expenses-paid trips to exotic locales. Julie, meanwhile, spends her days scanning coupons behind a cash register at SuperFoods. After years without contact, Chloe calls Julie and delivers a brief, garbled “I’m sorry” before she’s cut off. A worried Julie heads for New York, where she finds her sister dead. When the police mistake Julie for Chloe, the temptation proves overpowering, and she decides to step into her twin’s designer shoes. Suddenly, Julie is welcomed into the upper echelon of the country’s influencers—but she soon discovers that the newfound attention brings with it the kind of danger that may have cost Chloe her life. Zhang offsets the novel’s fast and entertaining first two acts with a gonzo final third, displaying impressive audacity for a newbie. It’s a marvel. Agent: Samantha Haywood, Transatlantic Agency. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/14/2025 | Details & Permalink

The cold, rainy London summer of 1816 provides an atmospheric backdrop for Harris’s enjoyable latest mystery featuring aristocratic sleuth Sebastian St. Cyr (after What Cannot Be Said). At the outset, a young man named Jamie summons St. Cyr to a ruined chapel on Saville Street, where the murdered Lord Preston Farnsworth hangs upside down in the position of the Le Pendu tarot card. In life, Farnsworth was a mercurial character, described by some as profoundly moral and by others as embittered and licentious. He also happens to be the husband of Lady Tess, who left him seven years ago to live with St. Cyr’s friend, Hugh. When Hugh is accused of killing Farnsworth, an initially ambivalent St. Cyr decides to look into the case. As usual, his sleuthing takes him from the halls of power to London’s most dangerous alleys. The social commentary is a bit heavy-handed, with St. Cyr’s wife delivering impassioned critiques of public attitudes toward the poor, but the series’ trademarks—brisk pacing; well-wrought descriptions of Regency London; and a large, diverse cast—carry the day. Harris’s fans will be satisfied. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/14/2025 | Details & Permalink