I was born and raised in a small town in Texas, where I worked on offshore oil rigs as a bartender, a landscaper at a trailer park, and a social worker before attending medical school. I’ve worked as a trauma and burn surgeon for nineteen years. Living an exciting life has made me a better writer (like Hemingway said, “To write about life, first you must live it”), but it has little to do with my passion for mystery/suspense. I read this genre for the best reason, presumably the same as yours: I’m just a huge fan. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I did!
I loved this story because it had the rarest combinations: a great twist ending I didn’t see coming when I read the novel and a different but effective vehicle for the big reveal when HBO made it into a limited series. As I approached the end of the series, I was a little jaded, assuming they’d hew to the source material in a way that wouldn’t surprise me given my familiarity with the plot, so when they caught me off guard with their new ending, it was like I got to enjoy it twice!
Further, Gillian Flynn did a great job bringing her main character to life. It’s easy to overdo it with a character who’s this messed up (don’t ask me how I know that, LOL), and it’s even more difficult to keep you rooting for them. Flynn’s protagonist kept me turning the pages because I genuinely cared what happened to her.
NOW AN HBO® LIMITED SERIES STARRING AMY ADAMS, NOMINATED FOR EIGHT EMMY AWARDS, INCLUDING OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES
FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GONE GIRL
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds…
I’m not only a mystery/suspense writer but also a fan of the genre, as I read or listen to about forty whodunnits a year, just under one a week. I tend to read these books with one eye toward the superficial story, yes, but I also study them from a technical standpoint, saying to myself, “Oh, I see what the author did there,” “Man, that was a nice way to frame that conflict,” or, “What the hell? I think the author wrote that chapter by getting drunk and taping crayons to their feet.” The point I’m trying to make is that the plot devices and metaphors tend to blur together after a while.
But this book? Man, it stood out. I mean, Kat Rosenfield had me hook, line, and sinkers with the book’s opening line, “My name is Lizzie Ouellette, and if you’re reading this, I’m already dead.” It's a great opening line and one that gives you an inkling of where the story might be going, right? Wrong, trust me; the twists just kept getting better from there in a way that was truly original.
"Blade-sharp, whip-smart, and genuinely original - a thriller to refresh your faith in the genre, your belief that a story can still outpace and outsmart you."- A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in The Window
"Clever and surprising...The superb character-driven plot delivers an astonishing, believable jolt."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Deserves two big thumbs up. Readers will be gripped by this astonishing story in which one gasp-inducing twist follows on the heels of another. A unique page-turner that just begs to be turned into a movie." -Booklist (starred review)
I have a hard time understanding why this book didn’t do better than it did commercially because it was a well-executed technical endeavor. Even more, than the really well-done twist ending, the biggest thing I really liked about Alex Pavesi’s book was that the story was told through the eyes of an editor as she reads a series of short stories.
I experienced the stories in real-time with her, but at the end of each, she critiqued them, with the result being an ongoing series of, well, let’s call them easter eggs for me. Again and again, throughout the whole book, she kept pointing out details I’d missed in each story that had a deeper meaning. It’d be easy for this format to get old, but it never did, at least for me. Then, should we take these stories and piece them together as bricks in the wall for the overall story? Well, I was just really impressed.
Also, it probably didn’t hurt for my enjoyment that I pictured Danny Devito as Grant McCallister. I love that guy.
"One of the most innovative mysteries in recent memory." - The Wall Street Journal
"Dizzying, dazzling… When did you last read a genuinely original thriller? The wait is over." ―A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
There are rules for murder mysteries. There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective.
Grant McAllister, an author of crime fiction and professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out publishing seven perfect detective stories to demonstrate the rules of murder. But that was…
First, I love the ol’ book-within-a-book mystery trope, and this is probably the finest example I’ve encountered. Again, an editor reads her dead author’s book for clues, and I got to experience that in real-time with her. Second, the central clue around which the story revolves—the dead author’s note explaining why he ostensibly committed suicide—and its role in resolving the mystery was one of the most original formulations I can remember in recent years. It was nicely done. Finally, the story within the story hearkens back to the Golden Age of detective fiction, an era for which I have a soft spot (as a glance at the amount of Agatha Christie on my bookshelves will attest).
Since finishing it, I’ve recommended this book to a half-dozen people and have yet to have somebody tell me later that they weren’t happy with the selection.
'Want to read a great whodunnit? Anthony Horowitz has one for you: MAGPIE MURDERS. It's as good as an Agatha Christie. Better, in some ways. Cleverer.' Stephen King
'The finest crime novel of the year' Daily Mail
*****
Seven for a mystery that needs to be solved . . . Editor Susan Ryland has worked with bestselling crime writer Alan Conway for years. Readers love his detective, Atticus Pund, a celebrated solver of crimes in the sleepy English villages of the 1950s. But Conway's latest tale of murder at Pye Hall is not quite what it seems. Yes, there are…
As the rest of this list hints, mystery stories involving unhappily married couples aren’t my usual go-to when picking something to read, nor is it something I particularly enjoy writing about. Maybe that’s a good thing, given the standard advice of “Write what you know,” but generally, the formula (and trust me, it is a formula) bores me.
But at the time I came across this book, I was dabbling with the idea of writing an alternating-first-person-POV book in the way this novel does (as an aside, check out Lucy Foley’s books for other great examples of that device if you’re a fan of it too). I saw the acclaim the book had received and figured, hey, Geneva Rose must have done something right; maybe there’s something there for me to learn here. So, I started the book planning to listen to it mostly as a lesson in this technique.
I have to say, though, that this was really enjoyable. There were lots of twists and turns, and while Rose plays a little unfairly with the reader, withholding some key information until the denouement, overall, it worked. And there was just a really great twist ending. It was nicely done.
One million sold: "A tantalizing premise . . . twists at every turn . . . [A] masterful debut about betrayal and justice" by a New York Times-bestselling author (Samantha M. Bailey, #1 national bestselling author of Watch Out for Her).
Optioned by Picture Perfect Federation for development as a film or TV series
Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. As a named partner at her firm, life is going exactly how she planned. The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He's a struggling writer who has had little success in his…
An unconscious drug mule in the lawless desert. A decaying marriage where love is a phantom limb. The savage murder of a possible witness. Rivalry. Betrayal. It’s a new day along the border, where the clandestine has moved out of the shadows and asserted itself with muscles that announce to the world: the rules are different now.
My book is an atmospheric mystery set on the Texas-Mexico border, where a small town grapples with its bloody loss of innocence. Paced like a lit fuse, this riveting whodunnit will keep you guessing until its shocking conclusion.
The 19th century women's rights movement and the rise of public education intertwine with one woman's story of struggle, perseverance, and love.
Alice Harris is pressed to marry a Civil War veteran twice her age when her family’s inn fails in 1882 in western North Carolina. She remakes herself by learning to farm tobacco, campaigning for the city’s first public schools, and immersing herself in the large and divisive Carter family. But marriage offers a tenuous promise of security. When tragedy strikes, Alice turns to the courts to fight for her independence and discovers an unexpected love.
The 19th century women's rights movement and the rise of public education intertwine with one woman's story of struggle, perseverance, and love.
When her father dies and the family inn falls to ruin in 1882, western North Carolina, thirty-year-old Alice Harris is compelled to marry Jasper Carter, a Civil War veteran twice her age. Far from home and a stranger in a new family, Alice remakes herself. She learns to farm tobacco, mothers her stepson, and comes to love her husband.
However, Alice uncovers pending trouble with the family's land holdings, which threatens their livelihood on the farm. The growth…