Jasmine Aimaq
The Opium Prince (Soho Crime 2020) begins when Afghan-born American diplomat Daniel Abdullah Sajadi and his American wife Rebecca are driving near Kabul, Afghanistan in the late 1970s. A young Kochi girl named Telaya runs in front of their car and dies in Daniel’s arms. They take the body of the child to the small gathering of goatskin tents near the road. The villagers call upon Taj Maleki, a well-dressed man carrying a revolver, who takes them to the police. Since Telaya is part of a nomad tribe not recognized by the law, Daniel is given a minimal fine, but placed in the debt of the powerful opium khan. Daniel, the son of an Afghan war hero and an American mother, has been posted to Kabul to head the American opium poppy eradication efforts. Taj’s fields are slated to be sprayed with Agent Ruby, a new herbicide promoted as not as harmful as Agent Orange, and replanted with corn and wheat. Taj attempts to blackmail Daniel into switching the destruction to a neighboring poppy field. Interspersed chapters reveal Taj’s backstory from his early childhood with a single mother, life on the streets after she dies, and work in the poppy fields along with the nomadic tribe and the poorest of the poor. Daniel is haunted by visions of Telaya and Rebecca sinks back into the depression following a miscarriage the year before. Daniel’s childhood friend Laila, a pro-communist doctor, helps care for Rebecca. Meanwhile, the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan is growing in power and preparing for the coup d’état that will become known as the Saur Revolution. This intense debut thriller explores the complex relationship between politics and criminals through the eyes of two tormented men trying to make sense of their place in the world.

Deepa Anappara
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (Random House 2020) is narrated by nine-year-old Jai, who lives with his parents and older sister in the Mumbai slum area known as the Bhoot Bazaar, at the very end of the Purple metro line next to the rubbish dump. Jai is a fan of reality police shows, so when his classmate Bahadur goes missing and the police don’t seem to be taking his disappearance seriously despite the gift of Bahadur’s mother’s only gold chain, he decides to start his own investigation. Fearing the police will demolish their settlement of tin-roofed shacks as troublemakers if Bahadur’s mother keeps visiting the police station, Jai enlists his friend Pari, who gets the best grades in their class, and his Muslim friend Faiz to help him create lists of people to interview and places to visit. Modeling himself on Byomkesh Bakshi and Sherlock Holmes, Jai imagines himself the leader though Pari’s wide reading gives her a perspective he lacks and Faiz’s job at the bazaar is perfect for gathering useful gossip. When the second boy goes missing, they decide to widen their search. Faiz believes the stories about soul-snatching djinns, and refuses to accompany Jai and Pari to the city on the Purple Line to investigate the possibility that Bahadur really did run away from home. At the Mumbai station they are offered candy by a woman, but rescued by the leader of a gang of street children who explains the sweets will put them to sleep so her boss can kidnap them. The street children don’t recognize the picture of Bahadur but tell them about the spirit of a man who protects them, advising them to look for a similar spirit in their own neighborhood who might help protect them from whoever is snatching children fron the Bhoot Bazaar. Interspersed chapters from the perspectives of the disappearing children juxtapose the cheerful optimism of Jai and his friends, which wavers as the disappearances continue and the Hindu majority begins to suspect that the someone from the Muslim minority may be the culprit. This moving fiction debut by an Indian journalist, based on real disappearances of poor children from metropolitan India, gives a voice to the victims rather than the perpetrators.

Megan Angelo
Followers (Graydon House 2020) is set in two timelines. In 2015 Orla Cadden writes for the Lady-ish blog, cranking out click-bait teasers about movie stars and fashion trends while dreaming of finishing the novel she has been writing ever since moving to New York City. Orla rents part of her small apartment to Floss Natuzzi, a wannabe movie star. Orla realizes that Floss doesn’t have the talent to succeed as an actress, but does have the potential to be a celebrity and takes over managing her online presence, posing pictures of her food, makeup, and clothing on Instagram and Twitter to maximize followers. Floss becomes a mega star until the technology collapse of 2016. In 2051 Marlow Clipp lives in Constellation, California, a closed-community of government-managed celebrities that live nearly 24 hours a day on camera, competing for the most followers. After the dangers of gazing for hours at a glowing smartphone screen were discovered, permanent wrist devices became the norm, connected directly to the brain. Marlow is sponsored by Hysteryl, an anti-anxiety medication she has been taking for years, and is married to Ellis, who works for Antidote, the company that produces Hysteryl. Antidote has just acquired Liberty Family Planning, the company that manages Constellation’s births. Their marriage has slipped in the ratings, and Ellis suggests that it is time Marlow has a baby, a guaranteed follower boost. Like all other Constellation girls, Marlow’s eggs were siphoned out and frozen when she turned 18. Before the implanting, Marlow has to stop taking Hysteryl. As she is tapered off Marlow notices that she feels differently about just about everything — colors are brighter and life seems more interesting. While she and Ellis are choosing the genetic makeup of their child, Marlow learns that she has no genes from the man she thought was her father. Leaving her device behind, she escapes Constellation and heads for New York to try and discover the truth about her past. Narrated by both Orla and Marlow, this thought-provoking debut thriller explores the dark side of social media.

Daisy Bateman
Murder Goes to Market (Seventh Street Books 2020) introduces Claudia Simcoe, a computer programmer who has left San Francisco to open a farm-to-table market in the small Northern California coastal town of San Elmo Bay. Almost all of the stalls in the market feature local food items (Dancing Cow Cheese Company, Pak Family Pickles) but Claudia rented the final stall to artisan Lori Roth. An anonymous printout from a wholesale importer’s website reveals that Lori’s Hand Made Creations are really made in overseas factories. Waiting until the other vendors have left for the day, Claudia notifies Lori that she has violated the terms of her lease, and gives her three days to pack up and vacate her space. The next morning Claudia discovers Lori strangled with a cheese wire in the marketplace, a gigantic jar of kosher dills smashed in the aisle. Police Chief Bill Lennox, who has no experience with homicides and little tolerance for outsiders, quickly decides Claudia is his prime suspect and closes the marketplace indefinitely. Officer Derek Chambers, a handsome young transplant from the Northeast, is sympathetic to Claudia’s predicament — the marketplace hasn’t been open long and both Claudia and the vendors have taken a financial risk. Evidence found under the body further implicates Claudia and she begins her own investigation, sure that Chief Lennox’s experience with traffic stops and beach parking break-ins hasn’t prepared him to catch a killer. Claudia searches through Lori’s boxes before turning them over to the police, discovering a mysterious list with women’s names and incomprehensible notes like “young 5k cousin cancer Philly.” Uniquely prepared by her background in the tech industry, Claudia begins researching Lori’s past, searching for a motive that has nothing to do with Claudia or the marketplace. This very funny debut and series opener is a finalist for the 2021 Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery.

Heather Chavez
No Bad Deed (William Morrow 2020) begins when veterinarian Cassie Larkin is driving home in the rain late one night in Santa Rosa, California, and spots a man and woman fighting on the side of the road. She calls 911 but doesn’t follow the directions to stay in her car, heading over the embankment to protect the woman. The man standing over the woman’s unconscious body tells Cassie that if she lets the woman die he will let her live, but she throws rocks at him until he scrambles up the bank, stealing her car with her purse containing her address and the names of her husband Sam and children Leo and Audrey. Detective Ray Rico shows her some pictures, and Cassie is able to identify Carver Sweet, though she doesn’t understand when he asks if the number 3 means anything to her. The next day Cassie works late again and Sam takes six-year-old Audrey trick-or-treating. When they don’t return on time, Cassie walks through the neighborhood, finding Audrey with two women she doesn’t know, who tell her Sam asked them to watch Audrey for a few minutes and never returned. The next day Sam’s car disappears from their driveway, and Cassie gets a text saying he is sorry. On the nightstand by their bed she finds an origami dog and unfolds it do discover the numeral 2. After checking the hospitals and talking to Sam’s friends Cassie receives more texts from Sam’s phone, but she isn’t sure they are really from her husband. The texts report that he has been injured, and admit an affair. Cassie reports Sam missing to Officer Marisol Torres, but the texts indicate Sam left voluntarily. Cassie suspects he has been kidnapped by Carver Sweet because she saved the young woman’s life. Footage from a neighbor’s security camera reveals a large man who resembles Sweet driving Sam’s car away in the middle of the night. Cassie takes a copy to Detective Rico, who tells her they found a rock in Carver’s car painted with the numeral 3. More threats to her family cause Cassie to ignore Rico’s advice to leave the investigation to the professionals, putting her own life in danger as she tries to protect her family. This debut psychological thriller is frightening.

Megan Giddings
Lakewood (Amistad 2020) is the story of Lena Johnson, a Black college student whose grandmother is dying of cancer. Lena’s mother has been ill her whole life with a mysterious ailment that defies diagnosis, so her grandmother took over much of Lena’s upbringing. After her grandmother’s funeral, Lena discovers a mound of unpaid bills and begins interviewing for jobs to pay for her mother’s home health care. An unsolicited letter arrives in the mail with an invitation from the Lakewood Project to participate in a series of research studies about mind, memory, personality, and perception. Lena applies and is offered a five-day pre-screening by a representative of the Great Lakes Shipping Company. She is searched, obligated to surrender her phone, required to sign a nondisclosure agreement with a $50,000 violation penalty, asked a series of strange questions about morality and race, presented with a group of random phrases to memorize, and given a series of injections and pills that make her sick. But the check for $3,000 on the final day is more that she could make working all summer. Offered a contract for employment, Lena hesitates when reading the new nondisclosure agreement threatening potential jail time and up to a million dollars in damages and the insurance policy listing payout amounts for sustained brain damage and neurocognitive issues, but the generous salary and complete health insurance for her mother and herself make the offer irresistible. There is a security gate outside the Great Lakes Shipping Company building in rural Michigan, where the Lakewood Project is housed, and Lena is provided with a cover story as a company employee along with the other five research subjects. Each day Lena is given a sheet with talking points for communicating with her mother and friends (your headset pinches, you are receiving training in Microsoft Excel). Each day the research subjects, all but one non-white, are given a new set of random phrases to memorize and undergo a new series of questions and pills or shots while being constantly watched by a group of observers, who are all white. The subjects have no idea what the experiments are about. Some are startling, like eyedrops that change Lena’s eye color to blue, and many are painful. This debut thriller explores the physical and emotional toll on research subjects and the lengths people will go to provide necessities like health insurance for those they love.

Ruth Gilligan
The Butchers’ Blessing (Tin House Books 2020) begins in 2018 when photographer Ronan Monks is preparing for a retrospective show and decides it is finally time to display The Butcher: a photograph he took 22 years earlier in rural Ireland of the body of a man hanging from a meat hook through his feet. Back in January 1996, 12-year-old Úna and her beautiful emerald-eyed mother Grá are preparing a farewell feast for her father Cúch, who travels around Ireland for 11 months of the year with seven other men: the Butchers. According to ancient Irish custom, the eight Butchers must be present at every traditional cattle slaughter, preventing a fatal curse by laying hands on the beast as it passes from this life to the next. The Butchers live in pairs around the countryside so that their wives can support each other during the eleven months alone, but Grá tells her husband she is not sure she can bear the loneliness another year. Rumors of mad cow disease are circulating, adding to Grá’s feelings of uncertainty. This year Úna’s parents decided to stop homeschooling and sent her to secondary school, and Úna was unprepared for the bullying. Raised to believe the Butchers played an integral role in Irish history, she is hurt and angry to be mocked as the Butcher’s daughter. She secretly begins trapping mice, determined to learn the skills of the Butchers in order to join her father’s band when the oldest man retires. During the summer young photographer Ronan Monks sees Grá bathing in the lake, and enlists her help finding spots to capture for his project on the borderlands. Grá’s older sister Lena ran away to marry a non-believer when Grá was 16, and the two sisters haven’t seen each other since. On a dairy farm in the next county Lena is recuperating from chemotherapy to halt the progress of her brain tumor while her husband Fionn McCready begins cattle smuggling on the borderlands to raise money for more treatment. She reminisces about the importance of the Butchers in her early life, and Fionn arranges for the Butchers to visit and slaughter a cow, changing their lives and the life of their son, Davey, a misfit hoping to do well on his exams and escape to university in Dublin. Narrated from the perspectives of Grá, Úna, Fionn, and Davey, this atmospheric debut thriller explores the importance of tradition, the weight of family expectations, and how far people are willing to go to achieve their personal desires.

Seraphina Nova Glass
Someone’s Listening (Graydon House 2020) is the story of Dr. Faith Finley, who wakes up in the hospital after a car accident to discover that her husband Liam has vanished. Liam had too much to drink at the book launch for her second book, so Faith was driving the car when they had a head on collision with a truck. Detective John Sterling tells Faith there was no evidence of anyone else in the car. As Faith is recovering from her injuries she learns that Liam withdrew $6,000 the day before the book launch and that the police believe he left of his own will. Liam’s passport is missing, and his credit card was used near O’Hare International Airport the day following the accident. Despite some recent problems, the couple had a happy marriage. Liam was a popular food critic, traveling around the world to review restaurants. A successful clinical psychologist specializing in domestic abuse, Faith wrote a bestseller — Starting Over: Life After Abuse — and hosted a weekly advice spot on talk radio called Someone’s Listening. Seven months after the accident Faith is still unable to cope with her grief and devastating feelings of betrayal. She usually has the willpower to wait until noon to begin drinking, but not to stop once she has started. One morning she decides she can no longer live surrounded by the memories in their house in the suburbs and returns to live in their Chicago condo. There she discovers something that changes everything — Liam’s missing passport with a note reading “Renew before Santiago,” the destination of their next trip. Energized by the hope that Liam didn’t desert her, Faith renews her attempts to crack his computer password, searching for clues on the laptop she never told the police about. Annonymous notes left in her mailbox and under her door consisting of quotes from her own books about escaping abusers cause Faith to suspect she is being stalked herself, but she refuses to succumb to panic and fights to hold on to her sanity. This character-driven debut psychological thriller is well-plotted and compelling.

Romy Hausmann
Dear Child (Flatiron Books 2020, Germany 2019) begins when 13-year-old Hannah travels with her mother in the ambulance after Mama was struck by a car. At the hospital Hannah answers most questions with word-for-word quotations from the “thick book that knows all the answers.” She says her mother’s name is Lena but doesn’t know her last name, says her Papa has no telephone, and when asked her address whispers “Nobody must find us.” Hannah defines “hit and run” but says the man driving the car was nice, gave Hannah his coat, and arranged for the ambulance. She explains that it wasn’t his fault, that “My Mama sometimes does silly things by accident. She wanted to kill Papa by accident.” Fourteen years ago a 23-year-old student named Lena Beck disappeared in Munich. Lena’s father Matthias Beck comes to the hospital hoping the woman is his missing daughter, but though she is also blond and has the same distinctive scar, the woman in a coma is not Lena. When she wakes up, the woman gives her name as Jasmin Grass, missing for four months. The police locate the remote windowless cabin in the woods near the German-Czech border, finding Hannah’s 11-year-old brother Jonathan, the chains that constrained Jasmin, and the body of a man. Neither Hannah nor Jonathan have ever been out of the cabin, though Hannah whispers stories of traveling with Mama to Paris and other exotic locales, and find the stimulation of normal life overwhelming. Released from the hospital, Jasmin cowers in her small apartment, too frightened leave. Chapters from the perspectives of Hannah, Jasmin, and Matthias gradually fill in the truth about what happened in the isolated cabin in the woods in this chilling debut thriller.

Chris Hauty
Deep State (Atria 2020) introduces Hayley Chill, a 25-year-old Army veteran working as an intern in the West Wing, in Washington, DC. Hayley is older than the other interns, who look down on her for not having a college degree or expensive clothes. But Hayley’s work ethic far surpasses the other interns, and she is noticed by White House Chief of Staff Peter Hall, who is intrigued by her West Virginia accent and military background. Trained as a boxer in the service, Hayley is also a sharpshooter with an eidetic memory. Hall warns Hayley to beware of the “Deep State,” a powerful group composed of people from government, industry, and finance who effectively govern the country behind the scenes and are willing to preserve what they believe is rightfully theirs through any means, including assassination. Though she rarely leaves the Chief of Staff Interns office in the former janitor’s closet in the basement, Hayley is eventually given the job of dispersing the binders for a cabinet meeting. Becca Bryan, self-appointed intern leader, sabotages Hayley by “forgetting” to include an updated transcript of Chinese President Yii’s speech to the ire of recently elected President Richard Monroe, but Hayley quickly saves Hall from embarrassment by pointing out another document summarizing the speech and explaining the Chinese linguistic idiosyncrasies. Later that evening Secret Service Agent Scott Billings is flirting with Hayley as she leaves the building, when they notice two intruders who have jumped the fence. While Scott chases one, Hayley subdues the other, earning Monroe’s gratitude and respect. Very early the next morning, a group of six men with Rat Pack code names lead by “Sinatra,” invade Hall’s home, killing him with an injection that mimics a fatal heart attack. Arriving 15 minutes later to deliver the daily briefing, Hayley is surprised when Hall isn’t waiting impatiently at the door. Moving carefully around the house she spots Hall’s body through the kitchen window, and then a footprint in the snow outside that shouldn’t be there. She snaps a photo of the footprint before calling 911. The autopsy reveals a trace of GHB, the “date rape” drug, and the FBI begins investigating Hall’s death as a murder. Not knowing who to trust, Hayley keeps the footprint to herself, and quietly begins searching for Hall’s killer. Hauty’s screenwriter background is evident in this intense debut thriller, a finalist for 2021 Barry Award for Best First Novel.

M.L. Huie
Spitfire (Crooked Lane Books 2020) begins on V-E Day in 1946 London, as former spy Olivia "Livy" Nash is finishing her third drink before noon. Livy tried to attend the ceremony at Buckingham Palace in honor of Lieutenant Commander Peter Scobee, her superior, comrade, and lover in France during the war, but was turned away to protect Peter’s wife. Livy hasn’t recovered from the shock of seeing Peter shot before her eyes after they were betrayed to the Germans in 1944 by Luc, a French national. At the bar Livy is approached by Ian Fleming, Foreign Manager for the Kemsley News Group, who offers her a chance to help break up a network of German agents run by Mephisto, a traveling magician whose real name is Edward Valentine, known to Livy as Luc. Fleming tells Livy that a woman contacted their Paris division, offering to sell the list of Mephisto agents to the girl called Spitfire, the nickname Livy earned during the war because of her daring exploits. Livy has just been fired from her job at the London Evening Press and Journal, editing “The Ladies’ Front” column with helpful hints for making the best of rationing — the chance to get revenge on the man responsible for Peter’s death is irresistible. Heading back to Paris undercover as a journalist as part of Fleming’s espionage unit to fight “the next war,” Livy soon realizes that the city is even more complicated, with danger on every corner from the shifting alliances between the spies from England, Russia, Germany, and America. This rousing debut spy thriller is the first in a series.

Kim Johnson
This is My America (Random House 2020) is the story of 17-year-old Tracy Beaumont and her family. Seven years earlier Tracy’s father James was convicted of the murders of Mark and Cathy Davidson, a white couple working with Black business partners James Beaumont and Jackson Ridges to build a new housing development in Houston. When the police came to arrest Jackson, he resisted and was killed, his son Quincy hit by a stray bullet. Mrs. and Mrs. Evans hired Tracy’s mother as bookkeeper and online sales manager for their antique store after the conviction, and Tracy became friends with their son Dean, though his mother makes it clear with every look that she disapproves of her son’s friendship with a Black girl. Faithfully every week for seven years, Tracy writes a letter to Innocence X, a legal firm representing wrongfully convicted people on death row, begging them to take on the case of her father, now only 275 days away from execution. Tracy has collected boxes of evidence about the case, including statements from witnesses who swear her father was somewhere else at the time of the murders. Tracy’s older brother Jamal is a senior, a star on the track team. Her younger sister Corinne wasn’t born when their father was convicted, and knows him only from their weekly prison visits. Tracy organizes monthly "Know Your Rights" workshops and writes a weekly column for her school newsletter highlighting racial injustice, sure she will become editor next year and hopefully qualify for an early college internship. Current editor Angela Herron, a popular blonde, tells Tracy she has an exposé idea for her next column and arranges a meeting for early the next morning. That night Angela is murdered and Jamal’s letterman jacket is found next to her body. Jamal runs before the police arrive to arrest him, sure that he will be framed for the murder just as his father was. The backlash is immediate: Tracy is removed from the school paper and once again an outcast at school, losing all her white friends except Dean. Reluctantly shifting her focus from her father to Jamal, Tracy begins her own investigation, searching for the exposé Angela was working on that may be a motive for her murder. This debut young adult thriller is a powerful exploration of systemic racism and police brutality.

Ani Katz
A Good Man (Penguin Books 2020) is the story of Thomas Martin, a successful Manhattan advertising executive who lives in an elegant Long Island home with his wife Miriam and sixth-grade daughter Ava. Thomas’s childhood wasn’t too happy: his father was a violent alcoholic who dominated his fragile mother and killed himself driving drunk when Thomas was 17, his older sister Evie was 21, and his younger twin sisters were almost eight. The family should have been fine after his death, but Evie jumped to her death a few months later, and the twins, spoiled and coddled by their mother, never completely grew up, becoming strange and secretive as they abandoned school and continued living with their mother in the family house. Now 42, Thomas seems to have the perfect life with his beautiful wife, popular daughter at an exclusive private school, hard at work designing a new ad campaign he knows will be wildly successful. Thomas believes himself a good man, providing for both his own family as well as his mother and sisters, protecting all the "girls" in his life from brutish reality. But his narration reveals cracks in the facade of his life and onslaughts on his fragile ego: his wife isn’t happy in their marriage, his perfect daughter is in trouble at school, his mother is terminally ill, his unworldly younger sisters are unable to fend for themselves though they are now in their 30s, and his matchless ad campaign is a flop. Though usually perceiving himself as the hero in his life story, Thomas is concerned he may have transformed into some sort of monster, and reexamines his life to try and figure out where things began to go drastically wrong. This dark debut psychological thriller is a terrifying examination of toxic masculinity and the seductive lure of self-deception.

Nancy Jooyoun Kim
The Last Story of Mina Lee (Park Row 2020) begins in 2014 when 26-year-old Margot Lee arrives at her mother’s apartment in Koreatown, Los Angeles, to find her mother Mina dead. Raised by her single mother in the tiny apartment, Margot never knew anything about her father or her mother’s life before she came to America illegally. By the time Margot was in high school the two often argued. Margot was ashamed of her mother, who never completely mastered English and worked seven-day weeks in her small clothing store until it was destroyed in the riots, then renting a swap meet space. Margot considered herself completely American, never became fluent in Korean, and resented spending after-school hours and weekends working in her mother’s shop. Margot hoped to be an artist, but ended up in an administrative role in Seattle, missing the constant Los Angeles sun and growing further apart from her mother. Mina’s landlord tells Margot he occasionally saw a boyfriend earlier in the year, and overheard arguing the last night he saw Mina, but retracts his statement when the police question him, worried about too much attention to the run-down apartment building. Interspersed sections from Mina’s perspective in 1987 tell the story of her first year in America, barely surviving by stocking shelves in a Korean grocery store. The illegal Mexican immigrants she works with are kind to her, as is Mr. Kim, who manages the front of the store for owner Mr. Park, whose close scrutiny makes Mina uncomfortable. Mina bonds with another Korean woman in the boarding house she lives in that first year, sharing the Korean food they cook in the shared kitchen and stories of their pasts. Mina was a Korean war orphan whose husband and young daughter were killed in an automobile accident in Seoul. While cleaning her mother’s apartment, Margot discovers a photo of her mother’s first family she knew nothing about, and tries to locate Mr. Kim, who she suspects might be her father, the mysterious boyfriend the landlord mentioned, and perhaps her mother’s killer. This evocative debut novel explores personal identity, the things that bind families together and tear them apart, and the overwhelming need to belong.

Nev March
Murder in Old Bombay (Minotaur Books 2020) begins in February 1892 Bombay, while Captain Jim Agnihotri is at the nearby Poona military hospital, recuperating from severe wounds received on the northern frontier at Karachi, staving off boredom by rereading the tales of Sherlock Holmes and every word in the daily papers. The story he can’t put out of his mind is that of two young women who fell from the university clock tower in broad daylight the previous October. Adi Framji, husband of Bacha (19) and brother to Pilloo (16), writes a letter in protest to an editorial reporting the women committed suicide. Haunted by his time in service, Jim ponders his future. The son of an Indian woman who died shortly after giving birth, Jim knows nothing about his white father or anything about his mother except her name. Invalided out of the service in March, Jim approaches the editor of The Chronicle of India, securing a job as a reporter, and visits Adi, the lawyer son of a Parsee land-owner, discovering that the whole extended family lives in the Framji Mansion: Mr. and Mrs. Framji, Adi and Bacha, and younger daughter Pilloo, older daughter Diana currently away at school in England. Adi and his father agree to hire “Captain Jim,” convincing him to take a six-month sabbatical from the newspaper and devote all his attention to the family. Maneck Fitter, a Parsee who was observed arguing with Bacha, was charged along with two Mohammedan accomplices: Saapir Behg and Seth Akbar. Behg stood trial but Akbar was never found. Manek and Behg were released after the verdict of suicide. Jim finds the delay between Bacha’s fall and Pilloo’s an indication against suicide: wouldn’t the two women have jumped together? When Diana returns she is eager to act as Watson to Captain Jim’s Holmes, and proves an excellent interviewer for those too frightened to talk to Jim. Their questions cause dangerous ripples in a city beset by political and religious unrest, putting the Framji family and Jim in danger. This character driven debut historical mystery is a finalist for the 2021 Anthony, Barry, Edgar, and Macavity Awards for Best First Mystery Novel.

S.L. McInnis
Framed (Grand Central Publishing 2020) is the story of Beth Montgomery who lives with her husband Jay in a beautiful bungalow in the Los Angeles hills. Beth studied classical piano at school, but her stage fright and lack of drive made a performance career impossible. So she gives lessions at the Steinberg Academy and shops frugally while Jay lives beyond their means, to him a necessity to establish himself as a Hollywood producer. Throughout their three-year marriage Jay has been a flirt, but it never bothered Beth much until the recent miscarriage that destroyed her hopes of starting a family. The news of a drug deal that went bad, resulting in a quadruple homicide including an undercover LAPD officer, doesn’t attract the notice of Beth and Jay who are busy arguing. An unexpected call from Beth’s freshman roommate Cassie Ogilvy startles her into agreeing to meet for a drink. The two mismatched roommates at the New England Institute of Music in Boston became friends despite their differences — wild flamboyant Cassie and serious shy Beth — occasionally appearing together at clubs when jazz singer Cassie’s regular accompanist flaked out. They haven’t seen each other for 12 years, but Cassie has been searching for Beth occasionally online, finally tracking her down through the Steinberg Academy website. When they meet for drinks Cassie fakes a phone call to a friend who was going to give her a ride to the Monterey Jazz Festival, conning Beth into inviting her, and her heavy suitcase full of drug money, to stay for a few days. Jay has never met any of Beth’s friends, or family since her parents died in a car accident before they met, and is both distrustful of and attracted to sexy Cassie who drinks in the mornings and offers him marijuana. Interspersed chapters over a five-day span from the perspectives of Beth, Cassie, Detective Goode, and barely surviving drug dealer Rick Squires reveal a tangle of lies and deceptions in this twisty and tense debut suspense thriller.

Jessica Moor
The Keeper (Penguin Books 2020) begins when Katie Straw’s body is found washed up on the bank downstream from the old bridge in Widringham, England, a popular suicide spot. Katie’s boyfriend Noah has an alibi — in Glasgow for a weekend stag party — but Detective Sergeant Daniel Whitworth and Detective Constable Brookes aren’t happy that he didn’t report her missing when he didn’t hear from her for several days. The pathologist doesn’t find any signs of sexual assault or a struggle, but points out old scar tissue on the arms and thighs, probably self-inflicted. In her bathroom cabinet they find an arsenal of antidepressants, and suicide seems likely. Katie worked at a battered women’s refuge, and the chief executive Valerie Redwood is reluctant to allow the two policemen inside to question the women. Several weeks ago Val submitted a file to the police: emails and copies of posts from Facebook and Twitter attacking her for only protecting women, not men, and threatening violence. Val also reported strange cars parked across the street and the side gate found open at night. Whitworth brushes off her complaint: citing understaffing, suggesting she is over-reacting, and handing off her file of "evidence" to Brookes. The women at the refuge, terrified that the men they are hiding from will find their location and punish them for leaving, are reluctant to talk to the police, but Katie was kind to them and understood their fear. Interspersed sections from "Then" document Katie’s relationship with Jamie, who doesn’t pressure her to have sex, but gradually isolates her from her friends and family, eventually controlling every minute of her life. Whitworth, close to retirement, hopes to close the case quickly but a routine background check reveals that Katie Straw didn’t exist: no records at national health, the electoral roll, the university on her resume, no birth certificate or passport. No records at all before she appeared in Widringham two years earlier. This intense debut thriller exposing the political and social structures that allow violence against women to continue is a finalist for the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Paperback.

Caitlin Mullen
Please See Us (Gallery Books 2020) takes place in a hot Atlantic City summer. The tourists are few and far between, and 16-year-old Clara Voyant is barely scraping by as a tarot-reading psychic. Clara lives with her irresponsible aunt Desmina, who works as a stripper and thinks Clara is old enough to be set up with “dates” in order to help pay the rent. Lily Louten, fleeing her cheating artist boyfriend, has left her dream job in a Soho art gallery to return home and work at a nearly-empty casino spa. The two meet when Clara and Des try to pick up customers at the spa, Clara still reeling from disturbing visions after a reading for a man searching for his runaway high school niece Julie. Clara senses that Lily might listen to her fears and steals her bracelet, hoping that Lily will track her down to get it back. Luis, the deaf and nearly mute custodian at the spa, sees Clara’s theft, but doesn’t tell anyone. Luis has been bullied all his life, and since the death of his protective grandmother he endures regular beatings from locals who enjoy tomenting him while the police do nothing. On the marsh behind the Sunset Motel outside town two Jane Does are carefully arranged. Lily and Clara become tentative allies after Clara describes her visions, which intensify as more women disappear — prostitutes and homeless women who aren’t missed. Chapters from the perspectives of Lily, Clara, and Luis describe the events of the summer in the deteriorating city as they become more concerned about the disappearances which no one else seems to notice. Chapters from the perspectives of women with names before they go missing, and then from the point of view of the Janes, begging for someone to “please see us,” reveal the plight of the “invisible” women valued only for their use to others. This intense and haunting debut thriller focuses on the victims of a serial killer rather than the killer himself.

Erica Ruth Neubauer
Murder at the Mena House (Kensington 2020) introduces Jane Wunderly, an American widow in her early 30s, staying with her wealthy Aunt Millie in 1926 at the Mena House in Cairo. At the hotel bar Jane meets some British hotel guests: Colonel Justice Stainton traveling with his beautiful flirtatious daughter Anna, handsome Mr. Redvers who looks far too dangerous to be a banker, and young golf fanatic Lillian Hughes traveling with her friend Marie Collins who serves as caddy. While Jane is talking with Redvers, Anna Stainton deliberately spills a drink on Jane’s blouse, forcing her to return to her room to change. The following night Anna appears in a scandalous gauze dress before vanishing into the garden with a young man in a pinstripe suit. In the morning Jane meets the Colonel and a hotel staff member hurrying up the corridor. The Colonel explains that Anna didn’t come down to breakfast and he hasn’t been able to locate her. Worried that she may be in a compromising position, he asks Jane to use the staff key to enter her bedroom and check to see if she is there. The room is quite dark until Jane opens the bedroom curtains to discover Anna’s dead body splayed across the bed, still wearing the scarlet gown from the night before, the silver beading matted with blood. While searching Anna’s room the police discover Jane’s scarab brooch, which went missing the first night. After hearing about the spilled drink, the unpleasant Inspector Hamadi suspects that Jane killed Anna in a fit of jealous rage. While not golfing with Lillian or drinking far too much, Aunt Millie tries matchmaking and encourages Jane to spend time with Redvers. Amon Khanum Samara also pays Jane attention, but she doesn’t trust the smarmy womanizer. American newlyweds Deanna and Charlie Parks are much more agreeable companions, though Jane wonders how the vaudeville performers can afford to stay in the exclusive Mena House. With the help of Redvers, Jane sets out to discover the truth about Anna’s murder. This enjoyable romantic traditional mystery starring the intrepid young widow with a troubled past is a finalist for the 2021 Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery.

Richard Osman
The Thursday Murder Club (Pamela Dorman Books 2020) takes place in Coopers Chase Retirement Village, an upscale retirement community in Kent, England, built ten years earlier on the land surrounding the old convent of the Sisters of the Holy Church. The Thursday Murder Club meets weekly in the Jigsaw Room to investigate cold cases. Elizabeth, who doesn’t talk about her former top-secret job, formed the club with Penny Gray, a former inspector with the Kent Police, who provided files of unsolved cases. Ibrahim Arif, a psychiatrist, and Ron Ritchie, former trade union leader and rabble rouser, joined the weekly meetings that hosted experts of all kinds to help them analyze the cold cases. After Penny’s health necessitated a move to the attached nursing home, Elizabeth asked Joyce, a former nurse, some questions about how long it would take to die from stab wounds. Pleased with her response, Joyce was invited to the next meeting, along with Police Constable Donna De Freitas, there to present “Practical Tips for Home Security,” which the murder aficionados have no interest in, instead peppering her with questions about her job. The following day Coopers Chase owner Ian Venthan, hosts a community meeting to talk about the expanded development he is planning, which will require removal of trees and relocating the convent graveyard, not a popular idea with the residents or Father Matthew Mackie. After the meeting Ian severs his relationship with his builder Tony Curran, a former drug boss, who immediately plans to kill Ian. Instead, Curran is bludgeoned to death in his own kitchen, giving the Thursday Murder Club their first real-life case to investigate. Detective Chief Inspector Chris Hudson brushes off the septuagenarian sleuths, but Donna is eager for her first murder investigation, and goes along when they manage to get her added to his team. This clever and funny debut mystery is a finalist for the 2021 Barry, Edgar, Lefty, and Thriller Awards.

Alex Pavesi
The Eighth Detective (Henry Holt 2020) is set on a remote island in the Mediterranean where mathematician Grant McAllister has retired. Nearly 30 years earlier Grant applied the laws of mathematics to mystery fiction and wrote seven short stories to illustrate the necessary elements of detective fiction. The seven archtypical detective stories were published in the early 1940s as The White Murders in a small private edition. Editor Julia Hart has been sent to edit the stories for republication and write an introduction summarizing his 1937 research paper “The Permutations of Detective Fiction,” which identified the four necessary ingredients of a murder mystery and the conditions applying to each one. After producing that single volume with seven stories, Grant never published another word, and lives a life of near seclusion. Julia presses him to tell her more about his life, but Grant explains that he was unable to go back to a normal life after serving in North Africa and volunteers very little about his past. Julia asks if the title was a reference to what was known in the press as the White Murder, when Elizabeth White was found strangled on Hamstead Heath in 1940, her murderer never discovered. Grant doesn’t remember reading about Elizabeth White’s murder at the time and believes the title was a coincidence, but has no objection to changing the title. Explaining that his eyesight has deteriorated, Grant asks Julia to read each of the stories aloud on separate days. After each story is read, Grant explains the necessary ingredient he was exploring and they discuss possible edits. Julie points out something that doesn’t make sense in each story — a discrepancy like describing a black cat with its fur darkened by ash — asking if the errors were planted deliberately, perhaps connecting into a puzzle over the arc of the seven stories. Citing the passage of time, Grant has no answers for her questions and seems to have only a hazy recollection of the plots, but mentions the wicked sense of humor he had in those days. This debut mystery is ingeniously plotted, honoring classic murder mysteries.

James Queally
Line of Sight (Polis Books 2020) introduces Russell Avery, a former crime reporter for the Newark Signal-Intelligencer working as a private detective. Capitalizing on his connections with both the police and street sources, most of Avery’s cases are negotiations between light-fingered cops and the drug dealers they steal from, reluctantly saving bent cops from Internal Affairs investigations. Every so often he takes a referral from Social justice activist Keyonna Jackson, whose latest project is the shooting in Woodland Cemetery of Kevin Mathis, a black teenage small-time drug dealer. The police believe Kevin was killed by a rival drug gang, but his father is sure there was another motive. On the phone Kevin left in his room is a video of another young unarmed black man being fatally shot by the police. Fearing the incendiary video will ignite riots, Avery takes the case, discovering that the gang killing motive isn’t likely since Kevin had permission from the local gang to sell Oxy on the street. Avery’s questions put him in conflict with the police department, threatening first his livelihood and then his life. Frank Russomano, a retired detective who had been his best source in Major Crimes, reluctantly agrees to help with the investigation to prevent Kevin’s father from releasing the video. Avery’s ex-girlfriend Dina Colby, a crime reporter determined to expose corruption within the Newark Police Department, and Key, who knows the black community rarely gets an even break, are less sure that suppressing the video until all the facts are in is the right thing to do. This intense debut crime thriller by an award-winning crime reporter is the first in a planned series.

Khurrum Rahman
East of Hounslow (HQ 2020, UK 2017) introduces Javid (Jay) Qasim, a British-born Muslim living in the Hounslow area of London. Jay is a low-level dope dealer doing well for himself and thrilled with his recent purchase of a slightly used BMW. Jay’s father died in a motorcycle accident before he was born. Now close to 30, Jay still lives with his mother and attends prayers just once a week on Fridays. Leaving the mosque, Jay checks to make sure the bag with the money and dope is still in the boot before heading to a diner where his old friend Parvez has been convinced to fight for Muslim rights at a local car park. Hoping to keep Parvez out of trouble, Jay tags along. During the skirmish, his BMW is stolen, along with £7,000 owed to Silas Drakos, his scary supplier who gives him a week to come up with the money. Kingsley Parker of MI5 has been watching Jay for months, looking for a hook to bring down Silas and also convince Jay to go undercover for Counter Terrorism Operations and infiltrate the terrorist group they are sure is operating out of Jay’s mosque. Jay is soon going to prayers every day, and once accepted as a soldier of Muslim is sent along with Parvez far east of Hounslow to Pakistan for training by a mysterious man known as The Teacher, founder and leader of the Ghurfat-al-Mudarris terrorist group. Jay is profoundly unprepared for the blazing heat, but the rigors of the Training Camp are nearly his undoing. He is the only one who can’t load and fire a gun, and can barely drag himself out of bed before dawn each morning to fail yet again on the unbeatable obstacle course. Often laugh-out-loud-funny, this debut thriller explores the seductive lure of belonging to a group of like-minded people with a plausible mission.

Stephanie Scott
What’s Left of Me Is Yours (Doubleday 2020) begins when Sumiko Sarashima, a 27-year-old newly licensed attorney in Tokyo, discovers that her mother Rina Satō did not die in a car accident 20 years ago: she was murdered by Kaitarō Nakamura, a wakaresaseya (marriage breakup) agent hired by her father Osamu Satō. Trying to understand why her grandfather Yoshitake Sarashima has lied to her most of her life, Sumiko begins researching her family’s past to discover the truth about her mother’s life and death. Interspersed chapters from Kaitarō’s perspective reveal his hiring by Osamu, who asked Kaitarō to seduce his wife and bring him the photographic evidence so he could divorce Rina without giving up his share of her family money. Kaitarō didn’t expect to fall in love with his new target, but is entranced by the photograph of Osamu gives him of Rina, realizing it is a self-portrait taken by a fellow photographer. Rina’s father Yoshitake hoped she would join his law practice, but she became interested in photography, wrote a few articles, and was offered a place in an exhibition. Pressured by the knowledge she could not support herself as an artist, Rina married, had a daughter, and gradually gave up her identity as a photographer, feeling herself becoming less of a person, nearly invisible. Kaitarō sees the remnants of Rina’s former artistic self hidden behind the facade of a boring wife, and gifts her a camera. They begin a passionate affair, gradually including young Sumiko in their outings and dreaming of starting a new life together. As Sumiko tries to understand the events surrounding her mother’s murder, memories of idyllic visits to the beach in Shimoda and eating her beloved red bean treats resurface, filling in details of a time she had nearly forgotten. Based on a true crime, this atmospheric debut thriller is unforgettable.

Max Seeck
The Witch Hunter (Berkley 2020, Finland 2019) begins when Helsinki homicide detective Jessica Niemi is called to an elegant home in an affluent suburb where the body of a dark-haired woman in a black evening gown has been discovered, her face contorted in an unnatural grin. John Lennon’s “Imagine” is playing on the record player. As the 45 ends, Jessica realizes the killer must have lowered the needle just before the police entered the house in response to the emergency call placed by a man. A person in full CSI masks and gear exits the house just as the tech van arrives, and Jessica realizes she has just greeted the killer, who escapes without a trace. The woman is identified as Maria Koponen, wife of the famous thriller writer Roger Koponen, away giving a book talk in Savonlinna. Jessica finds a bookshelf of Koponen’s books in various languages, and is horrified to discover that the picture on one of the German editions mirrors Maria’s frozen monstrous grin. When the police break the news of Maria’s death to Koponen, he asks if she was wearing a black gown, confirming he described a victim in exactly the same way in the first volume of his Witch Hunt trilogy. He asks if they have investigated the shore next to his property, explaining two witches were killed in the book, the second buried under the ice. The second victim is eerily similar to Maria: a beautiful young woman with long black hair dressed in an elegant black evening gown. Both victims are frighteningly similar to Jessica, another beautiful young woman with long black hair. Jessica and the homicide team begin listing all the deaths in the three books, fearing that a crazed fan is duplicating the murders described in the trilogy about a serial killer stalking presumed witches. Jessica, who is haunted by her own violent past, becomes consumed by the investigation, doubting her own sanity as the bodies mount up. This chilling debut thriller with occult overtones builds tension to the very end.

Francesca Serritella
Ghosts of Harvard (Random House 2020) begins when Cady Archer arrives at Harvard for her freshman year, what would have been her beloved brother Eric’s senior year if he hadn’t committed suicide. Cady’s father helps her move into her dorm, but her mother stays home, furious that Cady chose to attend the university she feels is responsible for her son’s death. But Cady is determined to figure out what drove her brilliant and loving brother to suicide, sure that there is more to the story than his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Cady visits physics Professor Mikaela Prokop, Eric’s advisor who recommended he apply for the prestigious Bauer Award. Eric was also Professor Prokop’s research assistant, helping with her top-secret research, and Cady hopes she has insight into her brother’s final weeks. Professor Prokop tells her that Eric became unreliable and unpredictable, especially after he dropped out of the competition for the Bauer Award. Cady knows that Eric often didn’t take his medication, which worked to control his paranoia but dulled his mental acuity, making physics work nearly impossible. Cady begins hearing voices — Bilhad, a slave owned by Harvard President Edward Holyoke in the mid-1700s; Robert, a star physics student in the mid-1920s with a passion for poetry; and Whit, a Harvard student in the early-1930s who dreamed of being a dirigible aircraft pilot — and fears she may be experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia. Cady checks out all the books she can find from the library, discovering there is a genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia that can be triggered by emotionally traumatic experiences (the suicide of an idolized brother?) or toxic environments (the university that drove him to kill himself?). She neglects her classes to try and decipher a notebook sent home after Eric’s death. Labeled “Lab Notes,” the early pages are neat and orderly, becoming chaotic and full of gibberish, which Cady eventually realizes might be a code — like the ones he created for her when they were growing up — to disguise his fear that his life was in danger. This intricate debut is a finalist for the 2021 Thriller Award for Best First Novel.

Sara Sligar
Take Me Apart (MDC 2020) begins when Kate Aitken is hired by Theo Brand to archive his mother’s personal effects. Miranda Brand was a renowned photographer who shot herself at the height of her fame, 24 years earlier when Theo was eleven. Kate worked as a journalist in New York until a career-ending collapse, and is grateful for the job across the country in the tiny beach town of Callinas in Northern California, where everyone is still speculating about what really happened the day Miranda died. Many believe that Theo, though only a child, had a hand in his mother’s death. Arriving at the beach house on a hill, Kate meets Theo and his young children Jemima and Oscar. On the phone Theo has warned Kate that his mother was a pack rat and her papers were “kind of a mess,” but she is horrified to find Theo has moved everything he found in the house into one room. Huge piles of negative files, prints, cardboard boxes, notebooks, letters, piles of paper, random receipts, and rubbish cover the entire floor. Theo hasn’t been in the house for 24 years, when he and his father moved out after Miranda’s death, and he has no interest in his mothers effects, only in a catalog of the contents so he can sell the collection. She spends most of every day sorting through the disorder, seeing little of the distant Theo but becoming friends with his children. Fascinated by the brilliant and larger-than-life Miranda, Kate defies Theo’s orders to stay out of the rest of the house, and begins exploring the upstairs rooms and the attic whenever he leaves with the children. She discovers Miranda’s diary, learning she was hospitalized for postpartum psychosis after Theo’s birth. Miranda was subjected to electroshock therapy authorized by her husband Jake, and emerged from the hospital with a regimin of medications that inhibited her creativity, transforming the once vibrant artist into a mere husk of herself. As the days pass, Kate finds herself becoming closer to Theo than may be sensible considering her own fragile state of mind. The interspersed sections with letters, news clippings, and the diary bring Miranda to life, and Kate begins interviewing people who corresponded with Miranda, trying to determine if the suicide was really a murder. This intense debut novel of psychological suspense explores the the effects of marriage and motherhood on the artistic personality.

Stephen Spotswood
Fortune Favors the Dead (Doubleday 2020) begins in 1942, when 20-year-old Willowjean “Will” Parker is working night security for McCloskey at a building site in New York City. Will ran away from her abusive father at the age of 15, and has been working with Hart and Halloway’s Traveling Circus and Sideshow for the last five years — cleaning the lion cages, assisting Mysterioso the magician, and learning knife-throwing skills from Valentin Kalishenko, Dancer of Blades and Final Heir of Rasputin. Barely five-feet tall, Will was given a length of lead pipe by McCloskey to subdue intruders and is creeping up on a dark figure when she realizes it is a middle-aged woman. Moving slowly with the aid of a cane, the woman asks Will to call McCloskey, who pulls a gun and is about to shoot Lillian Pentecost when Will fells him with a knife throw. Ms. Pentecost springs Will from jail, and offers her a job. Will’s circus friends convince her to take a chance and she accepts, soon finding herself in a three-story brownstone. Thrilled with her own bedroom and her first-ever shower, Will heads downstairs to a large office filled with bookshelves, a semi-circle of armchairs arranged before a massive desk. Ms. Pentecost admits that she has multiple sclerosis, fortunately progressing slowly, and is finding the physical tasks of the life of a private investigator taxing. She offers Will the job of assistant at a salary that makes Will gasp, and provides training in stenography, bookkeeping, law, target shooting, auto mechanics, and chauffeuring. Three years later they have settled into a routine, attending lectures on just about everything when not investigating cases. Will cuts newspaper clippings on a variety of subjects and keeps an eye on Ms. Pentecost’s health. Siblings Rebecca and Randolph Collins, along with Harrison Wallace, their lawyer and acting CEO of Collins Steelworks, hire Ms. Pentecost to investigate the murder of their mother Abigail, whose murdered body was found inside a locked room during a masked Halloween party. A year ago their father Alistair Collins committed suicide at the desk in that same study. Will, a fan of Black Mask magazine stories, is fascinated by the locked-room mystery, but Ms. Pentecost is dubious about working for the heirs to a multi-million dollar steel company until Will shows her guest list including one of the names she is responsible for clipping: spiritual advisor Ariel Belestrade. Will’s attraction to beautiful wild Rebecca complicates the investigation in this clever debut series-opener introducing a female homage to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
[Note: The term Ms. originated in the 17th century and was revived into mainstream usage in the 20th century.]

Elisabeth Thomas
Catherine House (Custom House 2020) begins when Ines Murillo arrives at Catherine House, a crumbling castle behind a formidable iron gate in rural Pennsylvania. Catherine House isn’t exactly a college, instead a selective postsecondary school featuring experimental liberal arts study and a controversial research and development institute for plasm, the radical new materials science. Students must pass a rigorous interview process, and then commit to three full years without leaving the school, taking classes during the summer semesters as well. Room, board, clothing, and school supplies are provided, but students must leave all personal possessions behind. Ines, who was an excellent student until a traumatic experience in her senior year, is grateful for the opportunity, but finds it difficult to transform herself from a party girl dependent on pills and alcohol back into a dedicated student. Her roommate Baby Pearce is the complete opposite: nose down in a book at all times and terrified of breaking the rules. Not having anything to leave behind, Ines isn’t bothered by the isolation, Catherine House is the closest to a home she has ever had. Ines discovers that many of the other students also have families and pasts they aren’t eager to return to for a variety of reasons. By the end of the first year Ines and her friends are required to chose a major. Baby knew from the first day that she wanted to concentrate on New Materials Plasm Studies, but Ines is still finding it hard to focus on classes, eventually choosing History of Art and writing over 50 pages describing an off-white canvas by Agnes Martin. Ines notices that the New Materials students form their own group in the dining hall, all three years sitting together rather than grouping by years like the rest of the students. She becomes obsessed by the New Materials wing, especially the locked lab in a hallway wallpapered with umbrellas. She asks questions about plasm study, but no one is able to explain exactly what the mysterious substance is or what it can do. Threatened with expulsion if she doesn’t pass her courses, Ines reluctantly begins to study, continuing to explore the vast buildings. She watches the New Materials students, suspecting their course of study is far different than hers, and remembering news stories featuring parents claiming Catherine House had kidnapped their children, who did not return home after the stipulated three years. This intense debut thriller exploring depression and the longing to belong is a finalist for the 2020 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Russ Thomas
Firewatching (G.P. Putnam’s Sons 2020) introduces Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler, a lone wolf exiled as the sole representative of the South Yorkshire Cold Case Review Unit in Sheffield after hitting a superior officer. One of Tyler’s cases is Gerald Cartwright, a financier who went missing six years earlier after one of his wild parties, assumedly on the run from his creditors. Shortly after Cartwright disappeared, his mansion in the village of Castledene burned, leaving a crumbling hulk. Now 21 and home from university, Cartwright’s son Oscar is having some work done in anticipation of finally being able to sell the dilapidated mansion known as the Old Vicarage. Behind a bricked-in section of the basement a body is discovered with blunt trauma to the head and badly damaged fingernails, presumably from trying to claw himself out of captivity. Tyler uses his familiarity with the cold case to convince DCI Diane Jordan to add him to the murder investigation team led by Detective Inspector Jim Doggett, bringing along Constable Amina Rabbani, a ambitious young Muslim. Unfortunately the prime suspect is Oscar, who picked up Tyler in a bar the previous evening while he was doing some strongly encouraged socializing with the South Yorkshire Police Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transsexual Support Network led by his one semi-friend in the department, Sally-Ann from IT. Two elderly spinsters live in the cottage next to the Old Vicarage: Edna Burnside, who is dying of cancer, and Lily Bainbridge, who suffers from dementia. The two met while serving as volunteer firewatchers during the Blitz, and have lived together for most of their lives. They befriended Oscar’s mother Cynthia, who was abused by her husband, and helped her care for the baby she didn’t seem to want. After Cynthia deserted her husband and 10-year-old son, Lily and Edna raised Oscar until he was sent off to boarding school. Tyler suspects that Lily and Edna know something about Gerald’s disappearance, but is unable to break through Edna’s headmistress resolve and Lily’s tenuous grasp on reality. Interspersed blog posts from The Firewatcher describe famous historical fires and bits of information about a string of local fires that fire officer Paul Enfield believes are the work of a serial arsonist. This excellent debut police procedural starring the prickly young detective is highly recommended.

Tiffany Tsao
The Majesties (Atria Books 2020; Australia 2018) begins when Gwendolyn Wirono wakes up in the hospital. Gwendolyn is in a coma, but hears the nurses sharing the news that her sister Estella has wiped out the entire Sulinado clan, around 300 members of their extended Chinese-Indonesian family, by adding poison to the shark’s fin soup at her grandfather’s birthday dinner. Gwendolyn is the only survivor. Gwendolyn and Estella were very close, almost like twins in their devotion and dependence on each other. As daughters of an extremely wealthy family, they were both indulged and controlled from birth. Because of their grandmother’s death, Estella put off college for a year, and they traveled to together to attend the University of California at Berkeley. Gwendolyn and Estella became fascinated by insects as children when their father brought home an ant farm from an overseas trip. Though discouraged by their mother and grandmother, the two girls never lost their passion for insects, and they both sign up for an entomology course. A trip to Monterey to see the overwintering monarchs increases Gwendolyn’s passion for beautiful insects. Then Estella meets Leonard Angosono, the spoiled son of an even wealthier Chinese-Indonesian family. Leonard pursued Estella aggressively, and both families promoted the marriage as an excellent business decision. Leonard discouraged Estella’s studies and his parents insisted that she give up college so they could marry and return to Jakarta immediately after Leonard’s graduation. After graduation Gwendolyn starts her own business — Bagatelle — rather than running a section of the Sulinado empire, the family reluctantly agreeing it would be good experience. The debut of Bagatelle’s signature line called Majesty during Paris Fashion Week was a huge success, especially the cape of living butterflies that flutter with a shrug of the shoulders. Gwendolyn tries to convince Estella to join her in the business, but the Angosono family doesn’t allow their women to work. As time goes on Estella becomes increasingly dominated by Leonard and his family, slowly disconnecting from her own family and Gwendolyn. This disturbing debut thriller explores the destructive power of extreme wealth and the dark secrets that can destroy a family from within.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden
Winter Counts (Ecco 2020) introduces Virgil Wounded Horse, the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Federal investigators have jurisdiction over felony crimes on reservations, yet often decline to prosecute. When tribal members feel that justice has been denied by the American legal system or the tribal council, they turn to Virgil. After administering a beating to the gym teacher at the local school who molested his students, Virgil returns home to learn that tribal councilman Ben Short Bear is eager to talk with him. Ben explains that the recent death of a high school senior was the result of an overdose of heroin supplied by Rick Crow. Virgil knows Rick is a liar, thief, and sells weed, but is surprised that he has moved into hard drugs. Ben is frustrated since even if convicted by the tribal court the most they can sentence Rick to is one year, and the feds aren’t interested in anything short of murder. Virgil is reluctant, but the offer of five thousand dollars to stop Rick from smuggling heroin onto the reservation is more than he makes in a year, money he would love to save for his 14-year old nephew Nathan’s college fund. The next day Nathan nearly dies from his first shot of heroin, a dangerous free sample mixed with fentanyl. While waiting for Nathan to wake up in the hospital, Virgil talks to his ex-girlfriend Marie Short Bear, Ben’s daughter who also dated Rick Crow briefly. Marie believes the only way to stop drugs and gangs on the reservation is to teach children the values and traditions of the Lakota way, but offers to help Virgil track Rick down in Denver to deal with the immediate problem. Since breaking up with Marie, Virgil has given up drinking, and the two tentatively begin a new relationship. Virgil is even willing to try Marie’s new food enthusiasm inspired by casino guest chef Lack Strombow, leader of the new indigi-cultural food movement to fight diabetes by eliminating flour, dairy, and sugar with the motto “Put down your frybread.” The trip to Denver exposes Virgil and Marie to a scary drug cartel, which intensifies their determination to protect their people from heroin. This powerful debut thriller, a finalist for the 2020 Lefty and Edgar Awards for Best Debut Mystery, leaves open the possibility of a sequel featuring the complex Virgil Wounded Horse.

Kate Weinberg
The Truants (G.P. Putnam’s Sons 2020, UK 2019) begins when 19-year-old Jess Walker arrives at college in East Anglia to study under Dr. Lorna Clay, author of The Truants, a book of essays with the premise that a hedonistic life is necessary for artistic brilliance. Jess is crushed to discover that she has been waitlisted for the course she set her heart on, and then thrilled to find she has been moved into Lorna’s other course on Agatha Christie along with her friend Georgie, a lush aristocrat who always has pills and alcohol to share. At the first seminar Jess is mesmerized by Lorna. Searching desperately for something clever to attract her notice, Jess brings up the time Agatha went missing after learning her husband was having an affair, leaving behind her crashed Morris Cowley, headlights still burning, fur coat in the back seat. When she reappeared eleven days later, Agatha claimed to have no memory of the missing days, and that time remained a mystery. Jess remembers running away as a child, speculating that Agatha just wanted her husband’s attention. All the boys are attracted to Georgie, but she falls for visiting-fellow Alec, a South African journalist on campus while writing a book. Though she knows Alec is off limits as Georgie’s boyfriend, Jess is attracted to him as well, despite her own growing friendship with Nick, a second-year geology student. The four spend all their free time together until Alex decides it might be time to return to Johannesburg to pick up his coverage the story of a massacre of miners. As the semester continues, all the students compete for the honor of becoming Lorna’s favorite student, which is Georgie at first, but then Lorna starts to favor Jess, both inside and outside of class. Several people warn Jess not to trust Lorna, but she is increasingly dependent on her attention, especially when betrayals and jealousies shatter the relationships between the four students. A death that seems accidental sparks Jess’s suspicions, and she examines the circumstances through the lens of her studies of Agatha Christie. This character-driven debut thriller examines the power of infatuation and the despair of betrayal.

Stephanie Wrobel
Darling Rose Gold (Berkley 2020) is the story of Rose Gold Watts and her mother Patty, who live in the small town of Deadwick, Illinois. Until she was in high school, Rose Gold believed she was chronically ill. She was allergic to just about everything, had a feeding tube implanted, and used a wheel chair. She was embarrassed by her appearance — her teeth decayed because of the constant vomiting and her mother kept her head shaved after her hair started falling out in clumps. Patty homeschooled Rose Gold after a bullying incident in first grade, and kept her isolated from others her age. Patty reluctantly allowed Rose Gold to use a computer with Internet access for her high school online classes, but only with close supervision. Rose Gold manages to find an online chat room and at the age of 16 makes her first friend: Phil. When Rose tells Phil that broccoli and turkey taste sickly sweet, he begins asking about her eating habits, learning that the meals her mother makes leave a bitter taste on her tongue, and that she never gets sick while eating hospital food during her many hospital stays. Rose Gold finds a bottle of Ipecac Syrup hidden in her mother’s sock drawer, and realizes her mother has been responsible for all of her maladies, not a mysterious chromosomal defect. Convicted of child abuse just as Rose Gold turns 18, Patty is sentenced to five years in prison. The neighbors who believed Patty was an excellent mother who dedicated her life to her sick daughter feel betrayed. When Patty is released, they are shocked that Rose Gold is willing to pick her mother up at the prison gates and welcome her into her home. Patty insists she has forgiven Rose Gold for testifying against her, and Rose Gold seems willing to put the past behind her. Alternating sections from the perspectives of Patty and Rose Gold reveal a woman obsessed with her role as a caring mother and a teenager grappling with the realization that the mother she adored ruined her childhood and maybe her life. Rose Gold now has a baby of her own, causing the neighbors to fear that that child’s health may be threatened. This disturbing debut psychological thriller is a finalist for the 2021 Barry and Edgar Awards for Best First Novel.