Rich boarding school meets murder mystery in Jesse Q. Sutanto’s The
New Girl—except main character Lia Setiawan is anything but wealthy, and we
already know she’s the killer.
It was an accident, but that doesn’t stop her
from worrying about going to prison for her teacher’s murder as the detectives
circle the drain. I laughed out loud so many times while I flew through this
book, the question of whether she’d get caught ripping me to shreds in
anticipation.
There are no spoilers here, but I’ll tell you it’s worth the wild
ride.
Lia Setiawan has never really fit in. And when she wins a full ride to the prestigious Draycott Academy on a track scholarship, she's determined to make it work even though she's never felt more out of place. But on her first day there she witnesses a girl being forcefully carried away by campus security. Her new schoolmates and teachers seem unphased, but it leaves her unsure of what she's gotten herself into. And as she uncovers the secrets of Draycott, complete with a corrupt teacher, a golden boy who isn't what he seems, and a blackmailer determined to get…
Cozy mysteries are one of the most misunderstood subgenres in fiction, so I’ve been advocating for their promotion for nearly a decade. Even going to far as getting my M.F.A. in the subject and writing a book, How to Craft a Killer Cozy Mystery. These stories focus on the puzzle or whodunit aspect of mystery and present any deaths in a bloodless manner. The focus typically centers on an amateur sleuth and their community rather than law enforcement or villains. My picks are all by female authors of color and have heroines whose culinary inclinations not only help them solve the crime but also leave audiences hungry for another helping.
In the early entries of Vivien Chien’s beloved Noodle Shop Mysteries, the focus is on protagonist’s Lana Lee’s failed love life, her mother’s determination to find her a husband, the family restaurant, and murder, of course. But Hot and Sour Suspects focuses more on the dating trials and tribulations of Lana’s friend and local shop owner, Rina Su, who attends a speed dating contest at Lana’s Ho-Lee Noodle House. It isn’t long before Rina’s date is found murdered and Lana takes up the responsibility of uncovering the truth before the situation and subsequent deaths threaten to sour the reputations and businesses of her fellow restaurant owners.
Lana Lee returns for another delectable cozy set in a Chinese restaurant in Vivien Chien's Hot and Sour Suspects.
"Pair your noodles with this steaming mystery, and you have the perfect chilly night combination!”—PopSugar
At the Ho-Lee Noodle House, murder is on the menu.
When Lana Lee’s best friend, Megan Riley, asks her to help host a speed dating contest at Ho-Lee Noodle House, she doesn’t see the harm in lending a hand. The night goes better than anticipated, and both Lana and Megan are beyond thrilled with the results. But before they can break out the champagne, Rina Su,…
I’ve loved murder mysteries since childhood, and during the pandemic–when reading became a challenge–I returned to my first literary love, binging on one mystery series after another. Eventually, I decided to write one with my friend Elizabeth Renzetti. It’s been the most enjoyable writing experience either of us has had. I’ve written three other published novels, and I have a day job as a therapist (I like to think this helps with realistic characterization, but it also pays the bills). I write humor because I like to have fun at work, and I appreciate a good laugh when I’m reading.
I’ve studied mindfulness over the years, with varying degrees of success, so I loved spending time with Helen Thorpe, ex-Buddhist nun-turned-butler-turned amateur sleuth.
In this book, Helen is tasked with deciding which of her former employer’s distant relatives deserves to assume control of her retreat centre–a particular challenge since it appears that one of them may have murdered her.
Meet Helen Thorpe. She’s smart, preternaturally calm, deeply insightful and a freshly trained butler. On the day she is supposed to start her career as an unusually equanimous domestic professional serving one of the wealthiest families in the world, she is called back to a spiritual retreat where she used to work, the Yatra Institute, on one of British Columbia’s gulf islands. The owner of the lodge, Helen’s former employer Edna, has died while on a three-month silent self-retreat, leaving Helen instructions to settle her affairs.
But Edna’s will is more detailed than most, and getting things in order means…
From early childhood, I escaped into nature when times got tough—climbing trees, exploring the woods, and chatting with beach creatures. When I had to be indoors, books were my escape, and most of my favorites had rich nature settings that were so well-drawn that I could see them and feel like I was actually there. Following strong protagonists as they deal with life challenges by interacting with nature was an affirmation for me and still is. As a parent and former fifth-grade teacher, I’ve witnessed the power that books have to lessen loneliness and inspire hope and activism.
Artemis Sparke has had it with humans. She heads to the nearby salt marsh to hang out with the birds, plants, and mollusks who don't make a big deal of her stutter. The shoreline sanctuary is predictable, unlike her family and friends, and the data in her science journal proves it.
But one day that data goes haywire, and her bird friend RT confirms it: the salt marsh is dying. Artemis discovers that the historic hotel where she lives with her mom may be part of the problem, but speaking up would mean confronting the cranky hotel owner who happens…
"...Artemis Sparke is pure energy! ...Kenna's well-crafted debut is a timely gift." -Leslie Connor, National Book Award finalist and author of The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle and Anybody Here Seen Frenchie?
When Artemis Sparke has had it with humans, she heads to the nearby salt marsh to hang out with the birds, plants, and mollusks who don't make a big deal of her stutter. The shoreline sanctuary is predictable, unlike her family and friends, and the data in her science journal proves it. But one day that data goes haywire, and her bird friend RT confirms it: the…
I’ve always been besotted with crime fiction. As a journalist in Scotland, I got to experience real-life crime on a daily basis. And the world of cozy crime fiction became a very valuable, indispensable escape for me. So, when it came to coming up with my characters for The Bingo Hall Detectives, I knew that I had to create a cast, a setting, a mystery even, that would take me out of the relentlessness of the real world and into the confines of a bloody good read. And I’m so glad I did. The Bingo Hall Detectives series is very dear to me and I’m very lucky to be able to bring it to readers.
I love a great mystery and I adore fantastic characters.
That’s why A Spoonful of Murder is so high on my list. It’s cozy crime with attitude. Having a detective story that doesn’t feature any actual detectives is the challenge for all cozy crime writers.
And J.M. Hall does this with such verve, vigour, and lightness of touch that you find it impossible not to fall in love with Liz, Pat, and Thelma.
There’s a wonderful fraternity amongst us cozy crime writers and I’m very lucky to count Mr. Hall as a friend. He makes me want to be a better author, just to keep up with him!
Ben’s storytelling gets better and better. This is the ninth in the Rivers of London series continues the adventures of Peter Grant as the magical policeman of London.
As a Londoner myself, I know many of the places described and got the twitchy feeling between the shoulder blades that some of these places just could be fey. Brilliant entertaining story, but you probably need to read some of the earlier ones in the series to understand everything.
The ninth novel of the bestselling Rivers of London urban fantasy series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London.
There is a world hidden underneath this great city.
The London Silver Vaults-for well over a century, the largest collection of silver for sale in the world. It has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a paparazzi convention.
Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace-only that's what happened.
The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of…
I loved this book because the pacing was perfect, and I was never left bored as they moved through the case. Something was always going on that kept me interested, even during Noah and Bree's downtime. I won't reveal Bree's secret, as I think it's important for the reader to learn it at the same time Noah does, but his soft touch with her after he finds out is very sweet.
Resolute Aim is the second book in the Protectors of Boone County series by Leslie Marshman. It checks the boxes for a gripping story line, characters I can relate to and laugh with, and a soft and easy romance that carried me right along on the couple's romantic journey. Resolute Aim opens with a bang, quite literally, and kept me gripped until the final page.
Traumatised after killing in self-defence, Bree Delgado left the big city to join a smalltown police force. Her distractingly gorgeous new partner, Noah Reed, assures her that small towns have serious crime too-and Bree has a dangerous vulnerability. She may have to trust Noah with the truth, but that doesn't mean she has to give in to the attraction simmering between them...
Operation Witness Protection By Justine Davis
He saved her once, and he'd do it again
Case McMillan isn't an officer anymore, but instinct sends him running…
Steve Berry's book couldn’t have been timed any better as 2023 was the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.
The pages flew by and kept me up late into the night. I have a history addiction, dating back to my early childhood, and the assassination of JFK has troubled and baffled me as far back as I can remember. The misinformation campaign set forth by the American government has never sat well with anyone who’s done the research, and this book presents the reader with a fresh scenario of what really happened back in November 1963 and the extent of the American coverup.
I’m always delighted to consume an entire library’s worth of new facts and information every time I open a Steve Berry novel.
From New York Times bestselling author of the Cotton Malone series comes a thrilling, action-packed historical adventure that sends Luke Daniels on an international manhunt for the truth about the assassination of President John Kennedy.
Luke Daniels is in London, between assignments with the Magellan Billet, when he receives a frantic call from an old friend. Jillian Stein is in trouble. She made a mistake and now her life may be in danger. She needs Luke’s help. Immediately. Racing to Belgium Luke quickly finds that she was right. A shadow team of highly-trained operatives are there on the hunt. Intervening,…
After more than 30 years in daily journalism in Minnesota, I moved to a trout stream near Durango, Colo., to stage a second act. Editors at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where I worked for 26 years, gave me a freelance contract to write a Minnesota History column every Sunday. It’s morphed into a popular crowd-sourcing of history with readers feeding me delicious family stories. I’m the lucky one who gets to weave these stories—enriching my knowledge of what being Minnesotans is all about.
A master of nonfiction crime writing, William Swanson uses his W.A. Winter pen name for fictional works, including this 2022 book that clung to my thoughts weeks after the last page. Based loosely on a Minnesota crime spree in the 1950s, Winter takes readers into the mind of Joe Lavoie—the wheelchair-bound lone survivor of three brothers who engaged in a shootout with police in 1953. Set in 1991, 38 years after the crippling police gunshot, the taut writing takes you into Joe’s mind and explores his dysfunctional family on what turns out to be his last stand.
Minneapolis, 1953—A wild crime spree stuns the Upper Midwest, leaving a trail of blood and betrayal that terrifies a region and shatters the family at its core.
Thirty-eight years later, the tattered remnants of the notorious LaVoie crime family—sisters, brothers, and children too young to remember or understand—gather for an edgy reunion in a Minneapolis suburb. Among the guests is Joe LaVoie, sole survivor of the fraternal gang behind the ’50s bloodshed, a convicted cop-killer crippled by a police bullet during the final shootout. Now, an old man facing his own death, Joe is both desperate and terrified to learn…
I’ve been a fan of the Joe Gunther police procedural
mystery series since the beginning—this is book #33 (the novels can be read as
standalones).
They’re fast-paced books that portray the rural Vermont setting
and law enforcement acutely, and also have emotional depth because of the
characters. Fall Guy goes on my list of favorite installments. I recommend the
series to fans of Tana French.
In Archer Mayor's Fall Guy, a body found in the trunk of a stolen car leads Joe Gunther and his team to crucial evidence in an infamous unsolved case from years past.
A high-end stolen car is discovered in Vermont. A car filled with stolen items from a far-flung two state burglary spree. But it's what is in the trunk that brings Joe Gunther and his team from the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. In the trunk is the body of burglar in question - one Don Kalfus. Complicating matters, while the body was found in Vermont, it appears he was…
The Sweet Goodbye weaves a powerful story of duplicity and loss.
It gave me exactly what I want in a crime thriller, a triumvirate of psychological veracity, physical presence, and page-turning suspense. What’s a crime thriller without complex perpetrators and victims, powerful descriptive passages that pull me into the action, and subterfuge that keeps me guessing until the end?
A book I put down. No danger of that with The Sweet Goodbye. Corbett has been nominated for both the Edgar and Arthur Ellis awards. In this novel, he draws readers deep into the Maine timberlands and holds them there with a riveting plot.
In this thrilling new series from Edgar®-nominated author Ron Corbett, the most dangerous predator in the Maine wilderness walks on two feet—and it is Danny Barrett's job to bring him down.
Something is not right in the North Maine Woods.
A small family-run lumber company should not have more than two hundred million unaccountable dollars on their books. Money like that comes from moving something other than wood across the border.
The first agent the FBI sent undercover was their best man—sure to get the answers that were needed. He was dead within a month.
