Erin E. Adams
Jackal (Bantam 2022) begins in June 2017 when Liz Rocher reluctantly travels from New York City to her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, for her best friend Mel Parker’s wedding. The daughter of a prominent white family, Mel has been living for many years with her Black boyfriend Garrett Washington. Their mixed-race nine-year-old daughter Caroline is one of Liz’s favorite people in the world. Liz knows what it’s like to grow up as one of the few Blacks in town, and happily agreed to be Caroline’s godmother when she was born, seeing her frequently in New York. At the wedding party Caroline is playing a game with some friends, tossing little battery candles into the woods. She doesn’t return after going into the woods to collect them. When Liz realizes Caroline is gone, the celebration stops and the wedding party begins searching the nearby woods. Liz’s mother, a Haitian-American doctor, still lives and works in Johnstown, but the two have a fractured relationship that grew worse after a high school party in the woods. Flashbacks to June 2002 tell the story of that party where Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in their high school, is talking with Liz when the cops appear and everyone scatters. The two girls flee deeper into the woods, and a large dark shadow catches hold of Keisha, while Liz escapes with a deep wound in her forearm that still pains her 15 years later. Keisha’s body was found a week later, her body mutilated, and the police rule an accidental death with animal disturbance of the body. After Caroline’s disappearance Liz is questioned by brusque police officer Sydney Oswald and fingerprinted by Doug Nowak, a tech who is much more approachable. As the days pass with no sign of Caroline, Liz begins pressuring the police to call in the FBI. She convinces Doug to get her a copy of Keisha’s autopsy report, learning that Keisha’s chest cavity was cleanly cut and her heart removed, definitely not the work of an animal. The report was signed by Sydney Oswald. Keisha’s mother Denise haunts the town handing out “Justice for Keisha Woodson” flyers, and Liz learns Keisha is just one in a series of young Black girls and women who disappeared at the time of the Summer Solstice with very little police investigation, often labeled runaways. But as Liz talks to some of the relatives she learns that missing girls were like Keisha and Caroline: talented in academics or dance or art, all with bright futures ahead. Not sure who to trust, Liz delves back into the past while continuing to search for Caroline in the terrifying woods she has always been warned to avoid. This emotionally intense thriller is a nominee for the 2023 Best Debut Lefty and Edgar Awards.

Samantha Jayne Allen
Pay Dirt Road (Minotaur Books 2022) is set in the hardscrabble town of Garnett, Texas. Annie McIntyre has just graduated from college and is back home working as a waitress, unsure what to do with her life, her LSAT books languishing under her bed. Annie’s granddad Leroy, the former county sheriff, and Mary-Pat Zimmerman, his former partner, run McIntyre Investigations, and offer Annie a part-time job typing and filing. Annie’s cousin Nikki stops by the café, pressuring Annie to attend a bonfire party that night. At the bonfire Annie connects with some people she knew in high school, avoiding Justin Schneider, who invited her to one college party and then ghosted her. Annie is surprised to see fellow waitress Victoria Merritt at the bonfire, extremely drunk. She is flirting with a group of older men, probably oil workers. When a fight breaks out, Annie looks for Victoria to offer her a ride home, but can’t find her. Victoria doesn’t show up for her next work shift or pick up her baby daughter from her estranged husband and his new girlfriend, and there is no sign of her at the trailer she inherited from her grandmother, where a noxious smell from the oil storage tanks permeates the air. Three days later Victoria’s body is found, strangled and buried in a shallow grave. Annie learns that Artemis Oil was pressuring Victoria to lease her land for their proposed oil pipeline, threatening eminent domain if she refused. Fernando Garza, the cook at the café Annie has known since childhood is arrested for Victoria’s murder, and his grandmother asks McIntyre Investigations to clear his name. Annie decides that her job has now expanded to a private investigator’s apprentice and begins questioning Victoria’s sketchy husband, customers at the honky-tonks Victoria loved, and the neighbors who are also dubious about the oil pipeline. This atmospheric debut thriller won the Tony Hillerman Prize for best debut unpublished crime fiction set in the Southwest.

Emma Bamford
Deep Water (Gallery/Scout Press 2022) begins when Royal Malaysian Navy Captain Danial Tengku responds to a distress signal, discovering a severely wounded man and a traumatized woman suffering from dehydration. British newlyweds Jake Selkirk and Virginie Durand invested their life savings on a 36-foot yacht harbored in Malaysia. Virginie spent her childhood sailing a yacht her father co-owed, and Jake worked in a boat yard, so they felt confident in their ability to live on the yacht they renamed Wayfinder. During the month they spent repairing and refurbishing they met another yachter who told them about Amarante, a remote island paradise in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Though they had decided to head to Thailand for their first voyage, Jake and Virginie change their plans and sail to Port Brown to stock enough provisions for several months. In a restaurant they meet two other tourists, a beautiful black woman and an older white man sailing a huge catamaran. Vitor buys them a bottle of wine and talks about business in Rio de Janeiro and New York City in an unplaceable accent. Teresa says little except that she is from Mozambique, seeming distracted and maybe a bit frightened. Vitor laughs at their description of Amarante, wondering why anyone would want to go to a place with no bars, restaurants, nightlife. Jake and Virginie enjoy the two-week sail to Amarante, reveling in the freedom to live in bathing suits and bare feet. Virginie loves to swim, but Jake is terrified of the deep water — he is comfortable on the ocean, but not in it. When they finally spot the island, Jake has difficulty starting the engine, but they make it into the bay where two other boats are anchored. Canadians Stella and Pete are Amarante regulars, spending the permitted two months every year. The other boat belongs to Roly, an Australian who sails with his dog Gus. While exploring the island Jake and Virginie are surprised to find the remains of a brick wall, houses, and a small graveyard, which they learn was a former prison camp. Jake and Virginie settle into island life, learning the rules of communal living, sharing fish and coconuts. Then Vitor and Teresa arrive, changing the social dynamics. This excellent debut thriller explores the dangers of a closed society, even in paradise.

Zac Bissonnette
A Killing in Costumes (Crooked Lane Books 2022) introduces Cindy Cooper and Jay Allan, who bonded in middle school over their shared passion for singing and performing. They later married and were soap opera stars in the 1990s until Cindy told Jay she thought she was gay, and he surprised her by saying he was too. The scandal around their divorce destroyed their TV careers, but they remained best friends. After the death of Cindy’s wife Esther twenty years later, they opened Hooray for Hollywood, a movie memorabilia store in Palm Springs, California. Jay didn’t have much savings from his career as a Las Vegas lounge singer, but Cindy’s career in financial management provided the funds to bankroll the initial investment in Hooray for Hollywood. Cindy hasn’t told Jay yet that they’ve reached the end of her savings when they are approached by Ben Sinclair, the financial advisor for Yana Tosh, a 90-year-old former star of the silver screen with an incredible collection of costumes and props, who is looking for someone to sell her collection. Cypress Auctions, a huge national company, is also being considered as the seller, but Cindy and Jay make a good first impression, stressing that as a small local shop they can give Yana and her collection the individual attention required. Yana’s son Warren Limon opposes the sale of the collection, hoping that his mother will instead establish a museum to house the collection with himself as the well-paid museum manager. Dylan Redmond, a vice president for Cypress Auctions, invites Cindy and Jay to his hotel suite with an offer: if they tell Yana to go with Cypress he will send some smaller business their way. They refuse and leave. When Dylan’s body is discovered by his assistant Eydie Jackson, she tells the police she heard Dylan arguing with Cindy and Jay through the adjoining wall. Detective Simon Fletcher discovers their shop is in financial difficulty, making Cindy and Jay the prime suspects. A local television news report identifies them as likely suspects, causing immediate cancellations of upcoming appointments with clients. Desperate to clear their names and save their store, Cindy and Jay search for other suspects, discovering that Ben Sinclair’s license as a financial advisor was revoked after misconduct and that Yana has made it clear she will leave her son little if anything in her will. Bissonnette has fun with movie trivia (Jay wears vintage movie bowties and Cindy drives the original Jurassic Park SUV) as well as cozy mystery tropes (Detective Fletcher is the first openly-gay Palm Springs detective and attracted to Jay) in this clever and light-hearted debut mystery.

Eli Cranor
Don’t Know Tough (Soho Crime 2022) is the story of Billy Lowe, the star running back of the Denton, Arkansas, high school football team. Billy lives with his alcoholic mother and her abusive boyfriend Travis Rodney, who torments Billy, his Momma, and toddler Little Brother. Unable to protect his family at home, Billy expresses his anger on the football field, often losing control. Coming to practice with cigarette burns on his neck, Billy hits a teammate from a rich family too hard in practice. High school football is king in Denton, and when Billy is suspended the town fears the Denton Pirates won’t make the playoffs. His coach Trent Powers has just relocated to Arkansas from Anaheim, California, with his wife Marley, and teenage daughter Lorna who attends school with Billy. Trent worked with Marley’s father in California, and Marley hopes their banishment to Arkansas after Trent’s failure to coach his team to a winning season will be short-lived. Trent, a former foster child who endured a series of deplorable placements before being taken in by Marley’s father, feels compelled to give Billy the same level of mentorship. When Billy leaves home after a fight with his step-father, he invites Billy into their home despite Marley’s protests. A born-again Christian, Trent believes he can save Billy in the same way Marley’s father saved him, but Marley fears having two teenagers in the same house will lead to the same attraction that caused their own early marriage. When Travis Rodney’s body is discovered in the Lowe trailer house, Billy is the prime suspect, though his Momma and Trent both have trouble explaining exactly what they were each doing that fateful night. This evocative debut thriller exploring the debilitating effect of abuse, poverty, and the helpless feeling of being trapped in a life without a future is a finalist for the 2023 Lefty, Edgar, and Barry Awards for Best Debut Mystery.

Ramona Emerson
Shutter (Soho Crime 2022) is the story of Rita Todacheene, a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque, New Mexico, police force. Ever since she can remember, Rita has been plagued by the ability to see and talk to ghosts, which alienates her from her relatives and friends in the Navajo community. Rita became intrigued by photography at the age of five, when her grandmother built a pinhole camera from a box while they were out gathering piñon nuts. As Grandma took her picture, Rita noticed a shadowy man who stood beside her. When they later look at the picture together, there is a haze of light next to Rita. Grandma shows her a picture of her grandpa, and Rita recognizes the man who caused the light in the picture, horrifying her Grandma. The latest crime scene Rita photographs is the horrible death of Erma Singleton, whose body is spread in pieces over the highway after a fall from the bridge above, scattered by a semi truck and other vehicles. Detective Martin Garcia is quick to rule the death a suicide, but Rita sees a vision of men pulling Erma out of a car and tossing her over the edge. Over the years Rita has become more skilled at not engaging with ghosts, but Erma is desperate for help proving she did not kill herself so her baby will know the truth. Rita has been working too many hours in a row without sleep, and can’t fight Erma off, causing her boss to suspect she has lost touch with reality. Interspersed sections reveal Rita’s past traumas: the mother who left her with her grandmother at the age of three, her beloved cousin who was unable to resist the call of alcohol and drugs, the ghosts who haunted her life. Each chapter is framed with the name of the camera Rita used at that point in her life, helping her interpret the world. This impressive debut thriller featuring a unique protagonist is the first in a planned trilogy.

W.H. Flint
Hot Time (Arcade Crimewise 2022) is set in August 1896 during a hot wave in New York City. Dead horses litter the street and the poor suffer and die in record numbers. It’s a presidential election year, the gulf between the wealthy and the destitute has widened, and anti-immigrant prejudice has flared. Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt is struggling to reform the corrupt police department. His assistant Otto “Rafe” Raphael from the Lower East Side, is one of the first Jewish officers in the heavily Irish force, and Minnie Kelly has just been hired as the department’s first female stenographer. William d’Alton Mann, publisher of Town Topics, featuring gossip and innuendos about the Four Hundred, the city’s social elite, is known to dabble in blackmail in exchange for suppressing a particularly damaging story. When his body is found at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, Detective Sergeant Gallagher decides it’s a robbery gone bad, but Rafe suspects it’s murder by one of his blackmail victims. Dutch, a homeless newsboy, witnessed the murder. He fled when spotted, but lost both his cap identified by his initials and the embroidered handkerchief that is his only memento of his mother. Roosevelt is uncharacteristically uninterested in Rafe’s thoughts about Mann’s death, eventually ordering him to stop investigating. Gallagher is part of the anti-terror squad, and tells Roosevelt that the anarchists have enlisted the “Hebrew element” as spies at Police Headquarters. As evidence he gives Roosevelt a note in Yiddish about a meeting to fight capitalism. Gallagher convinces Roosevelt that there will be an assassination attempt during William Jennings Bryan’s upcoming rally at Madison Square Garden, but Rafe suspects that Gallagher is orchestrating the plot in order to shift Roosevelt’s attention from his investigation of police corruption. This fascinating historical thriller is the fiction debut of historian Gerard Helferich.

Janice Hallett
The Appeal (Atria Books 2022, UK 2021) begins in the spring of 2018 when The Fairway Players, an amateur theatre group, begins auditioning for their next play: All My Sons by Arthur Miller. Isabel Beck, a St. Ann’s Hospital Elderly Care nurse in her early 30s, invites her new colleague Samantha Greenwood and Sam’s husband Kel to try out for the play. Sam and Kel are recently returned from eight years in Africa working as volunteers for Médecins Sans Frontières and Issy convinces them that joining Fairway Players is the perfect way to meet people in their new community. Martin Haywood directs as usual, and the starring role is given to his wife Helen, a talented actress, while their son James serves as co-director. Their daughter Paige Reswick always gets a part as well, while Issy hopes for a minor role. Unfortunately she isn’t cast this time, but both Sam and Kel are given parts. Unusually, there is no communication for weeks between Martin and the Players, who are nervous about arranging work shifts and child care to fit the rehearsal schedule. Finally Martin announces that Poppy, the two-year-old daughter of Paige and her husband Glen, has been diagnosed with a rare type of brain cancer. The family considered cancelling the production, but decided to continue with the play to keep some normality in their lives as Poppy begins treatment. Paige withdraws, and Issy is given her part. Martin explains that Poppy has Medulloblastoma, and her only chance of survival is an American drug therapy not yet available in the UK. Consultant Oncologist Dr. Tish Bhatoa has started Poppy on conventional chemotherapy while the Haywards raise the necessary funds: $350,000. Fairway Players member Sarah-Jane MacDonald, who worked in fund-raising before starting a family, starts a crowdfunding appeal — A Cure for Poppy — and begins planning the first event: a black tie party with dancing and an auction. Emails and texts from the Fairway Players reveal support for Poppy and her family as well as creeping doubts about the mysterious American treatment and concern about how much money has actually been raised and what it is being used for. Roderick Tanner, QC, provides Olefemi Hassan and Charlotte Holyroyd nearly two years of fragmentary digital records, asking them to give him an objective analysis of the individuals involved in the events leading up to murder as he works on an appeal for someone he believes has been wrongfully convicted. This remarkably clever debut novel won the 2022 New Blood Dagger Award.

Virginia Hartman
The Marsh Queen (Gallery Books 2022) begins when Loni Murrow gets a call from her brother Philip telling her their mother had a fall and needs help while her wrist heals. Loni agrees to take a few days off from her job as a Smithsonian bird artist, but Philip explains their mother’s memory has been failing as well and Loni should plan on an extended stay. Loni doesn’t want to return to the Florida pan handle small town she fled years earlier, but applies for eight-weeks of family leave, fully intending to return after a week. Loni’s father Boyd, a Fish & Game officer, died when Loni was twelve and Philip only a baby. Boyd went fishing and never returned home, drowned with his pockets full of rocks. After the funeral, their mother Ruth never spoke his name again, and Loni could do nothing to bring her loving mother back. Arriving in Florida, Loni visits Ruth at the St. Agnes nursing home where she is receiving physical and occupational therapy, and is shocked by her mother’s decline. At the house she finds that Phil’s wife Tammy has already started packing up the contents,setting aside the good furniture and anything else of value to go to their own house. Though she can’t stand the manipulative Tammy, Loni is a big fan of her niece Heather and nephew Bobby, offering to babysit anytime their parents need a city date night. Phil tells her he has listed the house for lease; their mother can no longer live alone and the money is needed to pay the fees at St. Agnes. The garden surrounding the house is their mother’s pride and joy, especially the herb garden, and Loni finds her mother’s garden journal, describing her plants and what was going on in her life. She also discovers a note signed “Henrietta” saying “There are some things I have to tell you about Boyd’s death.” Phil tells Loni that the State of Florida owes them money. Since their father was on duty when he died their mother should have received a $300,000 lump sum and an additional 25% on the Workman’s Comp payments. But Loni clearly remembers that their father was just going fishing, in fact inviting his daughter — The Marsh Queen — to go with him and sketch birds as he fished. Loni begins searching for the mysterious Henrietta as her mother begins gradually slipping away. Since she is not being paid while on leave, Loni gets a commission to complete some bird portraits for the Tallahassee science museum, renting a canoe to go in search for the elusive purple gallinule, and forming a tentative friendship with Adlai Binkert, the bearded canoe rental proprietor. Worried he will scorn her as an outsider if she admits living in Washington DC, Loni pretends her car is a rental and is soon buried under a pile of lies. The questions she asks about her father’s death stir up trouble: threatening notes, vandalism, and then a hole in the back fence just big enough for an alligator that nearly attacks Bobby. This excellent debut is a deft mix of ornithology, mystery, and the quest to find one’s place in the world.

Craig Henderson
Welcome to the Game (Atlantic Monthly Press 2022) features Spencer Burnham, a former British rally driver now running a foreign car dealership in Detroit. Spencer’s beloved American wife Marielle has died, leaving him and his seven-year-old daughter Abby grieving. Spencer uses drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, disconnecting from his daughter and often forgetting to pick her up from school. Struggling financially as well, Spencer and Abby are living with their friend Chris Wilcox, who has taken over much of Abby’s care, but not soon enough to prevent Child Protective Services from getting involved. Charismatic gangster Dominic McGrath comes into the car dealership, and asks Spencer to take him on a test drive in a Lotus. McGrath’s former driver has just been executed after possibly betraying McGrath’s organization to the police, and he is looking for a street-smart driver who is fast but also able to move unnoticed. When the creditors seize the car dealership, Spencer goes to work for McGrath, knowing the business is illegal, but willing to moving drug money around the city from street corner to money laundering in order to provide for his daughter. Spencer is unprepared for the violence dealt out by McGrath’s lieutenants Johnny Boy and the Yo-Yo, and tries to extricate himself from his new job, only to discover McGrath is not willing to let him go. McGrath has one final big job to do, one that will let him retire from the business, and Spencer’s intuitive high speed driving is a vital part of his plan. McGrath threatens Abby and Chris, causing Spencer to finally try to get sober and straight in order to try and outwit the vicious gangster. The deeply flawed Spencer grows more sympathetic as he tries to outwit both McGrath and the police in this high intensity debut thriller.

Grace D. Li
Portrait of a Thief (Tiny Reparations Books 2022) begins when Harvard senior Will Chen is working in the Sackler museum, researching an essay for his art history class. Three thieves wearing ski masks and black clothing shatter the glass cases, steal 23 pieces of Chinese art, and vanish, leaving a business card in Will’s coat pocket. The glossy black card has CHINA POLY and an international phone number on the front, and “nice lift” scribbled in Chinese on the back, referring to the jade tiger Will pocketed during the confusion. The police look carefully at Will because of a recent article he wrote for the Harvard Crimson discussing art looted from China displayed in numerous American museums, including the Sackler. Will calls the number and listens to the dial tone, receiving a text a few moments later with five first-class tickets to Beijing. Will recruits his friend Alex Huang, who left MIT after her junior year to accept a position at Google in order to support her parents; his sister Irene, a public policy major at Duke who can charm anyone; Irene’s roommate Lily Wu an engineering major and street racer; and Daniel Liang, a premed student whose father is an FBI agent investigating thefts of Chinese art around the world. Wang Yuling, China’s youngest billionaire and the CEO of China Poly, tells them about the Old Summer Palace, which featured a fountain made of bronze sculptures of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. British and French forces burned the lush gardens to the ground in 1860, looted the imperial art collection, and destroyed the palace. Seven of the zodiac sculptures are still in China, but five are in museums in Europe and America. China has requested their return numerous times, only to be told they no longer belong to China. Yuling offers Will and his crew fifty million dollars to retrieve the five missing sculptures and return them to their rightful place. Having no idea how to pull off a museum theft, the five watch heist movies and read everything they can about art theft. Each member of the crew brings their own strengths as well as individual struggles with the expectations of their parents and their own identities as Chinese Americans. Will chooses Drottningholm Palace in Sweden for the first theft, where the Old Summer Palace bronze snake head sculpture is the prize exhibit in their Chinese Pavilion. This character-driven debut thriller examines the continuing effects of colonialism and the precarious balance between family obligations and the need to make one’s own way in the world.

Tracey Lien
All That’s Left Unsaid (William Morrow 2022) begins at the funeral of 17-year-old Denny Tran, who was beaten to death in Lucky 8, a restaurant in Cabramatta, a suburb of Sydney. His older sister Ky returns home from Melbourne for the funeral, consumed with guilt that she told her parents to allow her star student brother to celebrate his high school graduation with friends. Ky’s parents fled Vietnam for a refugee camp in Malaysian with baby Ky before eventually settling in Cambratta, where they all struggled to learn English and adapt to the new culture. Denny was born in Australia, and Ky was always a bit resentful of how easy everything was for him. Ky’s parents still struggle with English, so she visits the police station to ask for the police report and is told homicide reports are not released to the family. When she begs for information about the death of her straight-A student brother who never got in trouble, Constable Edwards says her parents don’t want to know the truth about their son, that they refused permission for an autopsy. It’s 1996, and Cabramatta is in the middle of the worst heroin crisis in Australian history, so the police assume the death has something to do with drugs. The dozen or so customers dining in Lucky 8 claim not to have seen or heard anything, and the staff says they were all in the kitchen and equally ignorant of what happened. Ky offers to use her skills as a reporter to interview the potential witnesses, hoping they will talk to her as a fellow member of the Vietnamese community. Constable Edwards reluctantly shares his list of witnesses and Ky begins to try and pry information out of the witnesses. Alternating sections from the perspectives of the witnesses reveal their personal struggles as they share bits of the fatal evening with Ky, who relives her childhood and close friendship with Minnie, her best friend since Kindergarten until an argument tore them apart in high school. This emotionally intense debut explores the bonds of friends and family in a refugee community struggling to balance racism with their own suspicions of outsiders.

Tom Mead
Death and the Conjuror (Mysterious Press 2022) begins in 1936 when celebrated London psychiatrist Dr. Anselm Rees is found dead in his locked study, his head half severed by a single stroke. That evening housekeeper Olive Turner was instructed to admit a late visitor, who arrives at 11:15 PM just as the rain begins. The mysterious visitor lets himself out about a half hour later. Through the closed study door Olive asks if Rees would like a nightcap, but the doctor refuses just before he receives a telephone call. About five minutes later Della Cookson pounds at the door, demanding to see Dr. Rees. Olive taps at the study door, but there is no response. Worried, she pushes the key from the lock on the inside and slides it under the door on a sheet of paper. The two women enter the study and discover the bloody corpse. They check the windows, which are securely locked from the inside, and the one possible hiding place in the room: a large wooden trunk which is completely empty. Scotland Yard Inspector George Flint arrives just as the rain is tapering off and a search confirms there is no weapon in the room. As the search is concluded the doctor’s daughter Lidia returns from dinner at the Savoy followed by dancing at a club in Soho with her fiance Marcus Bowman. The next morning Flint visits Joseph Spector, a retired stage magician who assists the police with “impossible” crimes. Spector and Flint talk through the details: the locked room, the missing weapon, the short time period between Dr. Rees speaking on the phone and Della’s arrival. Though two sets of footprints were found in the rear garden, neither set goes anywhere near the house. Dr. Rees and his daughter moved from Vienna to London about five month earlier. Lidia tells Spector and Flint that her father has never recovered from his one failure, a patient called the Snakeman who slit his own throat with a razor. In London he has taken only three patients: actress Della Cookson, who went straight to an opening night party after the premiere of her new play Miss Death; violinist Floyd Stenhouse, who claims to have spoken to Dr. Rees on the phone at 11:30 the previous night when he returned home after performing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; and author Claude Weaver, who had dinner with his publisher before spending the rest of the night at home with his wife. Flint begin confirming the alibis while Spector considers motives, researches the Snakeman, and examines every inch of the study. This debut locked room mystery features a fair-play puzzle and a vivid cast of period characters.

Harini Nagendra
The Bangalore Detectives Club (Pegasus Crime 2022) introduces 19-year-old Kaveri, who moves to Bangalore in 1921 to marry Dr. Ramu Murthy. Kaveri feels lucky to have been matched with the handsome young doctor, but misses the freedom she had at the Maharani Girls’ School back in Mysore. Kaveri makes friends with her widowed neighbor Uma, who gives her cooking lessons, and secretly studies mathematics in their storehouse while her strict mother-in-law is napping, hoping to pass the entrance exam to university. The Congress, a political party fighting for India’s independence from the British Empire, calls for a mass strike of workers the following week. Their milkman Manju, who also works at the hospital, is late the next day, his younger brother Venu leading their cow instead. Venu looks half-starved, and Kaveri offers him a plate of left-over rice, learning that Manju has not been bringing money home lately, and never returned after going out the night before. Ramu and Kaveri attend a dinner for the Bowring Hospital doctors at the Century Club, newly opened with the mission of allowing the “natives” and the English to mingle socially. Kaveri is introduced to Dr. Charles Roberts, the Chief Medical Superintendent of Bangalore, and his effervescent wife Daphne, dressed in a shimmering purple beaded dress that barely skims her knees. Kaveri spots Manju and his wife Muniamma among the waitstaff hired for the dinner, and then sees Manju arguing with a beautiful woman next to a tree in the garden while a dangerous looking man lurks in the shadows. Just as the dinner ends a body is discovered by the tree, the same frightening man Kaveri saw earlier. Deputy Inspector Ismail interviews the doctors and their wives, and Kaveri tells him what she observed. The next day she visits the Century Club garden with the pretext of getting cuttings for her own garden, and discovers a knife hidden in the tree. Inspector Ismail is both impressed and amused when Kaveri asks him to check for fingerprints, promising to compare them against those of both Manju and Muniamma. Ramu cautions Kaveri to leave the investigation to the police, but she decides to visit Muniamma, who she noticed was pregnant and extremely thin. Muniamma confesses that the beautiful woman is a prostitute named Mala controlled by the dead man, and Manju was infatuated with her. With Uma’s help, Kaveri sets out to prove Muniamma is innocent, discovering that her talent for observation and logic make her a great detective. This engaging series launch is the fiction debut of a university professor in Bangalore.

Ashton Noone
Vicious Creatures (Scarlet 2022) begins when Ava Montgomery returns to her small hometown of Reachwood, Oregon, with her 14-year-old daughter Marjorie, fleeing her abusive husband. Ava left Reachwood 15 years earlier after the discovery of fellow senior Adam Albright’s body in a grove in the middle of Reachwood Forest. Adam was part of an exclusive group that included Ava, her best friend Victoria Gallager, and Cyril Hart. The Albright, Gallager, and Hart families are Reachwood royalty: rich, successful, and co-owners of the forest and its gold mine. The forest is rumored to be both extremely dangerous and to have the power to grant wishes if the right offering is made to the clearing, fascinating the young and terrifying their parents. Marjorie insists in attending the Reachwood Festival, the one night of the year when entering the forest is encouraged as long as everyone stays on the paths and carries lanterns, but Ava is nervous after seeing a flyer about a girl just gone missing. Ava hopes that her old friends won’t realize she is back in town, but Victoria invites her to a party. Victoria, Ava’s secret love in high school, is now a goldsmith unhappily married to Cyril, who runs the Reachwood Mining Company, with twins Catherine and Virgil close to Marjorie’s age. Ava learns that Adam’s younger brother Ambrose wants to build a memorial to Adam in the forest, but the Harts and Gallagers are opposed to anything built in the forest, especially since Adam’s grave is continually vandalized. Ava learns that the autopsy revealed that Adam’s heart was missing, a fact that was kept secret at the time. Cyril is upset that Ava and Victoria rekindle their friendship, his long-ago jealousy resurfacing. Ava is recuperating from a beating that left her with a painful fractured wrist, and begins to panic when she realizes she is almost out of pain medication, making some bad decisions to get more pills. Items from the past left on her doorstep cause deeply buried memories of the past to resurface, forcing her to face the truth of the fatal night when Adam died 15 years earlier. This debut novel of gothic suspense explores the volatile emotions of teenagers struggling to find their place in the world.

Rob Osler
Devil’s Chew Toy (Crooked Lane Books 2022) begins when 25-year-old Hayden McCall is accidentally kicked in the face by Camilo Rodriguez, a handsome go-go dancer at a Seattle gay bar. Camilo apologizes and invites Hayden home, where he meets Camilo’s dog Commander and enjoys a night of snuggling. Waking up early the next morning, Hayden discovers that Camilo has vanished as two police officers knock insistently at the front door. Camilo’s pickup truck was found abandoned in an empty parking lot, the door open and engine running. Hayden admits he only met Camilo the night before and has no idea where he could be. The police are suspicious of his story, especially since his black eye has become very colorful overnight. Hayden leaves a note for Camilo and locks the dog inside the house. When he doesn’t hear from Camilo by noon, Hayden returns to the rental house, discovering that the entire house is in disarray, Camilo’s laptop missing, and Commander cowering under the bed. Unwilling to leave Commander alone in the house or abandon him at a shelter, Hayden smuggles the dog into his small studio apartment though his lease prohibits pets. Returning to the bar, Hayden tries to learn more about Camilo, meeting Hollister, a tall curvy Black woman with a six-inch mohawk, and then Burley, a gigantic force of nature. Hayden learns that Camilo is a “Dreamer” whose Venezuelan parents were deported along with his sister. Fearing the police aren’t taking Camilo’s disappearance seriously, the two begin tracking Camilo’s recent activities, discovering he recently tried to buy a gun. Hayden is five foot four if he rounds up, just under 125 pounds, and has bright red-orange hair and freckles, so Hollister and Hayden form quite a distinctive team, but neither is willing to take on the sidekick role. Though they have absolutely no experience investigating — Hollister is a furniture-maker and Hayden an eighth grade social studies teacher and part-time blogger — they are both curious, tenacious, and determined to find their missing friend. They follow the trail to Barkingham Palace, a pet store where Camilo took a part time job. Owner Della Rupert claims she doesn’t know a Camilo, but her luxurious mansion suggests something illegal is going on at the pet shop. This debut traditional mystery with a diverse cast of characters is hopefully the first in a series.

Jane Pek
The Verifiers (Vintage Books 2022) is the story of Claudia Lin, who works for Veracity, a discreet agency that verifies the truth of online dating profiles. Claudia hasn’t told her dysfunctional family about her new job at Veracity, which she considers the love child of Jane Austen and Sherlock Holmes. Her controlling mother, overachieving Harvard-grad older brother Charles, and beautiful older sister Coraline believe she is still working as a copy editor for Aurum Financial. Her mother hopes Claudia will soon marry a nice Chinese boy, unaware that her daughter prefers girls. Claudia is a passionate fan of classic murder mysteries who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austin, and achieved a high score in a new online game — Murder Most Foul — a diagnostic test designed by Veracity owner Komla Atsina to identify individuals with traits well suited to verifying. Most customers want Veracity to verify that the people they meet online are truthful, but they don’t usually come in until they have met their online match in person. Iris Lettriste has been flirting with Charretter on Soulmate Messenger for 16 days but grew concerned when he evaded her overtures to meet in real life, disappearing when she said there was no point continuing their online relationship if there was no plan to meet in person. She suspects he may even have a dangerous agenda. Komla and his assistant Becks Rittle are reluctant to take the case, but Iris insists. They discover that Charretter always searches with the same parameters: woman between the ages of 24 and 36 who live in Manhattan. When Claudia analyzes the chat stream, she notices Charretter deflected personal questions back to questions about Iris, rarely sharing anything about himself. They are surprised when Iris requests a second verification of Jude Kalman, a man she met online and then dated briefly before he stopped responding. Claudia is delighted when she is assigned the task of following Kalman, imagining herself a character in one of the Inspector Yuan novels she’s loved since childhood, featuring impossible crimes and ingenious solutions. Ten days later the woman they knew as Iris is dead, presumably a suicide from an overdose of her migraine medicine. Claudia is sure she was really murdered, and takes on the task of solving the impossible crime. This clever debut mystery explores the influence of technology on the search for the perfect mate in the digital age.

Nita Prose
The Maid (Ballantine Books 2022) is the story of Molly Gray, a 25-year-old maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. Molly loves her job: the strict routine of cleaning while observing proper hotel staff etiquette provides the structure she needs to feel safe. But she misses her Gran, who died a few months ago. Gran raised Molly and helped her navigate the baffling world of social skills. Each evening Molly would describe events that puzzled her, and Gran would interpret the social cues Molly missed or misinterpreted. Gran saved up a nice nest egg over the years, calling it the Fabergé and planning for Molly to go to community college and learn about hotel management. Unfortunately Molly was duped by a man she met at college orientation who took her out for walks before stealing Gran’s PIN code and emptying their account. Molly was too embarrassed to tell Gran before she fell sick, and then it was too late. Molly takes on extra hours to pay the rent, and some of the longtime repeat guests tip well, especially Giselle Black, who is kind to Molly and helps her interpret her wealthy husband’s sarcasm. When Molly enters the Black’s penthouse suite on Monday, she discovers Mr. Black asleep on the bed, an open bottle of Giselle’s pills spilling from the bedside table. Realizing he is dead, Molly calls the Front Desk and then faints. Detective Stark is puzzled by Molly, who curtsies when she arrives and displays no emotion about Mrs. Black’s death, instead obsessing about being unable to complete her shift and “return the suite to a state of perfection.” Molly has few friends at the hotel, but is fond of doorman Mr. Preston who greets her each day, busboy Juan Manuel who always has a glass of ice water ready for her breaks, and especially handsome bartender Rodney Stiles. Molly is unaware of the undercurrents at the hotel, and the unusual code of behavior she has memorized makes her the prime suspect when it is discovered that Mr. Black was murdered. This heart-warming debut traditional mystery narrated by the unique Molly is very satisfying.

Sascha Rothchild
Blood Sugar (G.P. Putnam’s Sons 2022) is the story of Ruby Simon, who committed her first murder at the age of five. Ruby’s beloved seven-year-old sister Ellie was being bullied by classmate Duncan Reese, who who made life miserable for Ellie and others, excused by teachers and other adults as just the behavior of a rambunctious boy. Ruby’s parents are the opposite of helicopter parents, instead submarine parents expecting their children to fight their own battles. So Ruby does. While swimming in the ocean, she pulls Duncan underwater, only releasing his ankles when he goes limp, surfacing herself a good distance away. Though she’s committed two other murders and feels no guilt, Ruby doesn’t consider herself a sociopath, she only kills those who deserve it and only when necessary. After earning her undergraduate degree at Yale, Ruby returns home to Miami Beach to earn her doctorate degree at the University of Miami. Ruby has long-lasting friendships and a thriving practice as a psychologist, helping others deal with their fears and insecurities. She rescues a cat from a dumpster and is content in her small apartment. She meets Jason in a lamp repair shop and they are soon in love. Jason is cautious about food and drink because he has type 1 diabetes and Ruby is a total neat freak Type A personality but they learn to accept each other’s idiosyncrasies and marry. Jason’s mother, who abandoned him as a toddler and despises all his girlfriends, hates Ruby with a passion. When Jason dies after his blood sugar drops dangerously low, Ruby is devastated. A few weeks later Detective Keith Jackson brings Ruby in for questioning, accusing her of murdering Jason, and displaying the photographs of the three other people who died when she was near. He can’t prove Ruby was responsible for any of the three earlier murders any more than she can prove she was not responsible for Jason’s death. This excellent debut thriller featuring the unique Ruby is riveting.

Marie Rutkoski
Real Easy (Henry Holt and Co. 2022) is set in 1999, featuring the dancers in the Lovely Lady Strip Club in a suburb near Chicago, desperate women who find it difficult to make enough in tips to cover the house fees, struggling to support themselves and their children. Samantha (club name Ruby) is the star dancer, beautiful and graceful. She lives with her boyfriend Nick and his young daughter Rosie, the child she always wanted but could never have. Kim (Lady Jade) is the new girl, inexperienced and awkward. Samantha gives Kim advice and offers to drive her home the night she takes Ecstasy, either on purpose or because someone slipped it into her drink. Neither make it home that night. Kim’s body is discovered near the spot their car was run off the road, but there is no sign of Samantha. When searching the car, Detective Victor Amador spots two rolls of cash in the foot wells. Both are missing after his supervisor Sergeant Rabideaux conducts a follow-up search, and Victor finds the smaller roll pushed under the brake pedal of his car. His partner Detective Holly Meylin had the day off, the anniversary of the hot day her young son died after her husband forgot he was sleeping in the back of his car. Holly and Victor fear the crown carved into sole of Kim’s foot indicates a serial killer, and interview everyone at the club: the dancers, bouncers, and owner Dale Gately. The dancers don’t know much about each other, often not even their real names, and can’t or won’t tell the police much. Holly notices that Georgia (Gigi), a mixed-race dancer, notices details and convinces her to become a confidential informer, calling Holly whenever she notices something a bit off at the club. Shifting perspective between the police, dancers and their children, club patrons, and the killer adds a dream-like veneer this character-driven thriller, the adult debut of a YA author.

Hayley Scrivenor
Dirt Creek (Flatiron Books 2022) is set in the small town of Durton in rural Australia, It’s late November 2001, the hottest spring in decades, when 12-year-old Esther Bianchi disappears on her way home from school. Esther’s best friend Ronnie is working on her homework when her mother Evelyn gets a call from Esther’s mother Constance asking about their walk home. Ronnie explains they walked together to the church after the early 2:30 PM Friday dismissal, and then split up as usual heading for their own homes. Officer "Mack" Macintyre questions Ronnie and then sets up a search, which is unsuccessful. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels and Detective Constable Wayne “Smithy” Smith arrive from Sydney to take charge of the investigation, beginning with Esther’s parents Constance and Stephen. Constance explains that Esther was not home when she got home after work at 3:00, earlier than expected. Stephen was working crew all afternoon on a nearby road. Neither has a firm alibi for the time between 2:30 and 3:00, and no idea where their daughter might have gone. Constance’s friend Shelly Thompson comes over as soon as she hears the news, leaving her husband Peter in charge of their children so she can be with Constance. Sarah organizes a search of Durton Creek, called Dirt Creek by the locals, figuring the water might have sounded attractive to Esther on a hot afternoon. The search dogs follow her scent toward the creek, and then lose it. Ronnie is devastated, and determined to find Esther at all costs. The two girls had only one other friend, more Esther’s friend than Ronnie’s: Lewis Kennard, a bullied child just beginning to accept that he is attracted to boys. Lewis and Campbell Rutherford stopped by the creek after school the day Esther disappeared, sharing a tentative kiss and witnessing Esther helping a strange man search for his dog. Thrilled and terrified by the kiss, Lewis can’t bring himself to tell the police but eventually tells Ronnie, who immediately decides the van Lewis saw must belong to Roland Mathers, owned of the Horse and Cane Motel who is cruel to his dog and therefore capable of anything. Sarah has just broken up with her girlfriend Amira after a fight that escalated, and suspects Lewis is hiding a similar secret, but his abusive father Clint terminates the interview. Esther’s shoe is found in her father’s car, and Stephen is arrested. But he doesn’t feel right for the crime, and when the divers searching the dam find a cache of drugs Sarah and Smithy wonder if perhaps Esther saw something that made her a threat. This powerful debut is a deft blend of police procedural and psychological thriller.

Gustaf Skördeman
Geiger (Grand Central Publishing 2022, Sweden 2020) begins just after Agneta (69) and Stellan (85) Broman have said good-bye to their visiting daughters (Malin and Lotta) and grandchildren. The landline rings, and Agneta hears one word: Geiger. She finds her old pistol hidden away in the house, shoots her husband in the head, and flees on her bicycle, hoping it will be some time before anyone discovers his body. But one of the grandchildren has forgotten a stuffed toy, and Malin discovers the murder scene. Sara Nowak, a police officer in the prostitution unit, is called to the scene by a homicide colleague who knows she grew up with the Broman daughters and knew nationally beloved television presenter "Uncle Stellan" well. Malin is shaken and disoriented, unable to process her father’s murder and her mother’s disappearance, grateful for the comfort of Sara’s familiar face. The police assume it is a break-in gone wrong and Agneta was frightened into hiding. Meanwhile, Agneta arrives at the barn where she stored a Volvo many years earlier, relieved to see the car is still operable once the battery charges, ready to resume the mission she accepted many decades ago, to become again the person she had been drilled from childhood to be. Sara doesn’t believe Stellan was killed by the local gang of burglars, who rarely used violence and then only a knife. Searching for clues in Stellan’s past, she finds a link to an article about a Cold War book written by retired Swedish history professor Eva Hedin, naming Swedes who worked for the Stasi, the East German security service, in the 1980s. Stellan Broman was mentioned in the article. He denied being a Stasi spy though he did admire East German (DDR) ideology and worked to get the DDR recognized as an independent state. Hedin tells Sara that Stellan, code-named Geiger, was an "informal collaborator," promoting a positive image of the DDR and facilitating contact between East Germany and key Swedes. Hedin suspects someone may have read her latest book and realized Stellan Broman was Geiger, responsible for reporting East Germans trying to flee the DDR. When asked about Agneta, Hedin reports there is nothing about Stellan’s wife in the archives; her disappearance is a mystery. After years in the prostitution unit, Sara is frustrated with the Swedish government’s refusal to defend prostitutes from exploitation, allowing arrested men off with a fine mailed to their work address so their wives don’t know they visit and abuse prostitutes. Struggling with anger-management, she neglects her family and lashes out the men at the slightest excuse. Unable to interest the homicide team in the East German connection, Sara becomes obsessed with searching for the truth about the man she admired so much in her youth, putting her job at risk. This intense thriller is the debut of the Swedish screenwriter and director.

Brendan Slocumb
The Violin Conspiracy (Anchor 2022) begins with the theft of Rayquan "Ray" McMillian’s violin from a New York hotel room, a few weeks before his entry in the prestigious world-wide Tchaikovsky Competition. Ray doesn’t discover the theft until he is back home in Charlotte, opening the case to find only a Converse Chuck Taylor shoe and a ransom note for $5 million in Bitcoin. Flashbacks fill in the story of the last six years. Ray McMillian was a poor Black high school student in rural North Carolina whose mother pressured him to drop out of school and get a job at Popeyes so he can pay rent. But music class is part of school, and Ray loves playing the battered school violin, planning to audition for a regional competition. When they visit his grandmother at Thanksgiving, she encourages him to play for her, and tells him her grandfather played the fiddle, given to him along with his freedom by the slave owner who was probably also his father. Grandma Nora tells Ray the old fiddle is still in the attic somewhere since her PopPop couldn’t convince any of his children or grand-children to play. When the family returns for Christmas, Grandma Nora presents Ray with a hand-made alligator skin case, gray with mildew. Inside is PopPop’s fiddle, coated with built-up rosin, the tailpiece cracked and the bridge warped. But the body is sound, and Ray is thrilled to have his own instrument. He pays far too much to get the violin repaired by a music shop in the mall by a man who accuses him of stealing the instrument, and then auditions for the North Carolina Regional Orchestra. Ray is one of three Black musicians out of 392, and the only Black violinist. Dr. Janice Stevens, the one Black judge, is impressed by Ray, especially after learning he only began playing in high school and never had private lessons. She offers him a scholarship to Markham University where she is the professor of violin, giving Ray hope of making music his life’s work. Everything changes again when Dr. Stevens takes him to Jacob Fischer’s violin showroom to look into getting a better violin. Ray asks if maybe his PopPop’s violin can be fixed instead, and Fischer discovers it is a Stradivarius worth 10 million dollars. Immediately most of Ray’s family begins pressuring him to sell the violin and split the money, and the Marks family, descendants of the slave owners, file suit insisting the violin is theirs. This intense debut explores the difficulties and racism faced by poor Black musicians in the classical music world, and the power of music to break down barriers.