Maggie Auffarth
Burn It All (Crooked Lane Books 2024) is set in the small town of Riverside, Georgia, where Marley Henderson and Thea Wright have been friends since birth. From the age of two they lived together with Thea’s mother, Marley’s mother unable to care for her in a haze of drugs. They were five when Marley’s mother returned, only a vague memory to both girls. But at least they were only separated by a driveway, since their small houses were right next door. Thea’s mother remarried when they were ten, bringing step-brother Austen into their lives, and the duo became a trio through childhood. In high school Thea and Marley begin visiting thrift stores for vintage clothing and set up an Instagram account with tall blond Marley modeling Thea’s eclectic styling. Marley lands a job at the trendy Southern Moon clothing shop, and the two grow apart, Marley spending time with the wealthy popular girls and Thea dreaming of leaving for New York City and a job in fashion. Thea’s stepfather leaves the family after her mother becomes pregnant, and Thea postpones her departure to help take care of the twin boys, working two jobs to help pay the bills. During a summer heat wave a series of arson attacks on abandoned buildings puts everyone on edge, and then the worst happens — a body is discovered at the latest fire and identified as Thea’s. The police believe Thea was responsible for both the fires and her own death, but Marley can’t accept that Thea killed herself despite her frequent bouts of severe depression. Narrated from both Marley’s and Thea’s points of view in dual timelines, this intricate debut thriller explores the intensity of friendship and the misery of being an outsider.

Kat Ailes
The Expectant Detectives (Minotaur Books 2024; UK 2023) begins when pregnant Alice and her boyfriend Joe move from London to the small market town of Penton in the Cotswolds. Joe is a freelance graphic designer with only sporadic work and Alice is a copywriter for an ad agency with steady but low-paying work. Wanting something better than a converted garage for the baby due in two weeks, the posh-hippie vibe of the country sounded perfect. Their “cozy” rented house is much smaller than expected, but the view is amazing and their beautiful but dim dog Helen is in ecstasy with all the new smells to be smelled. Desirous of making new friends, Alice has signed them up for a prenatal “crash course” beginning the following day, held at Nature’s Way, an herbal remedies shop run by elderly Mr. Oliver, who tries to convince Alice that slippery elm bark is much more effective than antacids. Upstairs they meet their over-enthusiastic prenatal coach Dot with her knitted display uterus and three other very prenant women: Hen wearing designer maternity clothing with her suit-wearing husband Antoni; Poppy with her wife Lin, and angry-looking Ailsa with dreadlocks and no partner. By the end of the session Alice is exhausted and panicked by how little prepared they are to welcome a small human into the world. As class begins the next day, Hen’s water breaks and the group helps deliver the baby. When the paramedics finally arrive they discover Mr. Oliver’s dead body downstairs, peaceful except for a cup of spilled tea. The police arrive in the form of Ailsa’s critical older sister Hazel, who treats them all as suspects. Except for Hen who was giving birth and Poppy acting as midwife, everyone else went downstairs for one reason or another. It turns out the tea was poisoned and Poppy’s wife Lin, an estranged relative of Mr. Oliver, becomes the main suspect. The three pregnant women plus new mother Hen decide to investigate Mr. Oliver in search of another suspect and discover his connection to a commune in the woods where more than one young woman has vanished over the years. Narrated by klutzy Alice accompanied by her goofy dog, this very funny debut cozy is the first in a series.

L.M. Chilton
Swiped (Gallery/Scout Press 2024) begins when 20-something Gwen Turner hides in the bathroom at her best friend Sarah’s Bride to Be party, miserable about breaking up with her own boyfriend Noah. Her phone beeps with a notification she has been matched with Parker on the dating app Connector. Gwen responds hoping to escape the hen party from hell, and Parker answers with a link to a local news story about the body of a man just discovered by joggers: Robert Hamilton, the man she had been on a date with just one week earlier. Sarah asks why Gwen is so upset and she tells her the full details of the awful date where Rob drank far too much wine, spent most of the date talking about his ex-girlfriend, and then tried to grope her. The next morning two police officers arrive at Gwen’s door: Detective Chief Inspector Forrester and Detective Lyons. The police found the Connector messages between Rob and Gwen on his phone, and tell her his flatmates report he came home nearly in tears after she left him to walk home in the rain on his own. Gwen explains what really happened and wonders why their date even matters since it was over a week ago. Rob’s body was just discovered, but he died the night following their date. Gwen consults her phone and is relieved to discover she has an alibi: a dinner date with Freddie Scott, another Connector match who is sure to confirm her story. Forrester turns a page in his notebook and tells her another body was just discovered: Freddie Scott. Gwen relates the story of that awful date with a man who was far older and balder that his Connector picture and counted down from three before unexpectedly kissing her, explaining that was his way of warning her so she couldn’t complain, and then texting her insistently though Gwen declined a second date. As they are leaving Detective Lyons admits he sort of knows her since she was friends with his younger sister, and Gwen recognizes him as Dandy Lyons, the leader of the terrible band that played at their prom. When Gwen’s third bad date is also found murdered, Gwen realizes it’s up to her to track down the serial killer before she is arrested and Lyons reluctantly assists her. This funny thriller exploring the deception, vulnerability, and dangers of online dating is the fiction debut of a British journalist and self-confessed dateoholic.

Ash Clifton
Twice the Trouble (Crooked Lane Books 2024) introduces Noland Twice, a former University of Florida football star turned police officer after an injury ended his football career. Noland was good at his job with an excellent arrest record until a drug dealer framed him for possession with the help of some dirty cops. Noland served two years in prison before he was exonerated, enabling him to open Ultima Fortuna Investigations, working as a private investigator with a reputation for using both legal and not-so-legal options for solving cases. Attorney Faith Carlton hires Noland to find Arthur Valkenberg, a partner in Selberis Constructors, a huge construction firm. Valkenberg has stolen 14 million from Selberis’s offshore account, and Faith explains they can’t go to the police. Noland knows he should say no to the shady job, but his mother’s hip replacement wasn’t covered by her insurance and he is two months behind on his mortgage payment. Breaking into Valkenberg’s apartment, he finds the body of a man shot through the head. Noland recognizes the man as Frank Bisby, CEO of Selberis, and calls Faith demanding a meeting of the remaining Selberis partners: William Redding, Shawn Difore, and Karen Voss. Though Karen is the youngest of the trio, with the least impressive title, it’s soon clear to Noland that she is the smartest of the bunch, explaining that there is one more partner: Victor Irinas, a Brazilian gangster, who will not be happy about the missing funds. Noland renegotiates his contract up to 100,000 plus 10% of whatever money he recovers in exchange for taking care of the body in Valkenberg’s apartment. Selberis agrees, giving Noland one week. Noland visits his old friend Kiril, a Russian former loan shark enforcer who learned the copy shop business while in prison and now runs his own with his wheelchair-bound younger brother Freddy. Together they take care of the body and Noland starts working against the clock to find Valkenberg and the money. Noland is clever and used to working on both sides of the law, but things quickly get confusing and dangerous in this high-energy debut thriller.

Emma Cook
You Can’t Hurt Me (Hanover Square Press 2024) begins when journalist Anna Tate is hired to ghostwrite Dr. Nate Reid’s memoir exploring his grief after the death of his wife Eva two years earlier. A renowned neuroscientist specializing in pain, Nate was researching the brain’s pain center when Eva was referred to him after an arm fracture because of her inability to feel any pain. Nate determined Eva suffered from CIP (congenital insensitivity to pain), an extremely rare disorder. Most people with CIP die young since their body doesn’t warn them of burns or cuts or other injuries. Eva found the diagnosis reassuring since it explained why she was so different, but she began to wonder if her inability to feel physical or emotional pain might be preventing her from true artistic creativity, like her hero Frida Kahlo whose art was inspired by chronic pain. Anna visits Nate at his beautiful home in London, where he discovered Eva’s body in her garden studio two years earlier, dead from a drug induced heart attack. At first assumed an accident caused by Eva’s inability to feel the extreme pain of the heart seizure, the inquest jury’s verdict was open; they were unable to draw any strong conclusion due to lack of evidence. Due to many unanswered questions about the bruises on her arms, the vandalized sculptures surrounding her body, her missing cell phone and glass cutting tool; Eva’s older sister Kath never accepted that Eva’s death was accidental, instead accusing Nate and calling for a new inquest. Kath believes Nate took advantage of Eva, using her condition to advance his own career, and is furious that she is not being used as a resource for his memoir. As Anna and Nate work together to transform his clinical prose into an appealing memoir, she is both attracted to Nate and increasingly concerned about his version of Eva, their marriage, and her death. Interspersed sections from Eva’s journal written during the months before her death, which Anna discovers, present an entirely different view of their marriage and Eva’s inner life. Anna herself has an uneasy relationship with her controlling brother Tony, who warns her repeatedly not to get to close to Nate. This excellent debut thriller explores the nature of trust and the secrets we prefer to keep hidden.

Johanna Copeland
Our Kind of Game (Harper 2024) opens in 2019, with Stella Parker, who gave up her law career to raise her two children, living in a wealthy suburb of Washington DC with her successful husband Tom. One hot summer night Stella is enjoying some rare time alone on her front porch when her neighbor Gwen Thompson pulls into her driveway. Gwen is limping and one side of her face is bruised. Stella drives her the short distance home, only noticing her Lilly Pulitzer bag when she walks back home. She sends Gwen a text and then discovers Gwen’s phone is in the bag. A strange text from SJIUYVP appears on Gwen’s phone and then vanishes. Additional texts cause Stella to fear Gwen may have discovered a dangerous secret about her unsavory past. Stella hides the bag and phone and goes back to her normal busy life catering to her husband, supporting her two teenage children, and working on the upcoming school silent auction. Interspersed sections from spring 1987 feature 13-year-old Julie Waits who lives with her single mother and dreams of making the high school cheer squad and finally being accepted. Her rival is popular Ginny Schaeffer who mocks Julie for her poverty and unconventional mother, who lives with a series of sketchy boyfriends. Kevin is the current boyfriend: moody and abusive with her mother who charms him with sweet words and even sweeter desserts featuring home-canned fruit. Kevin has started to pay too much attention to Julie, and she hopes her mother will soon convince him it is time to move on. This excellent debut thriller explores the power of those considered inconsequential and the lengths we are willing to go to protect the ones we love.

Elisabeth Eaves
The Outlier (Random House 2024) is the story of Cate Winter, a 34-year old neuroscientist who has discovered a cure for Alzheimer’s. Cate and her partner Jia are about to sell their biotech company, and Cate is worried her secret past may be revealed in the vetting process. As a child, after her parents and brothers died in a house fire, Cate was admitted to the Cleckley Institute, a boarding school treatment center for children with certain brain patterns which indicate psychopathic tendencies. Most have a history of trauma and violence, and all had been diagnosed with little or no empathy. Because she was only seven when she arrived, Cate received special attention from Dr. Archibald Montrose and his wife Eden, learning to simulate emotions and respond to social cues. Cate visits Dr. M to confirm her records won’t be shared and convinces him to let her see the anonymous data he collected about Cleckley graduates, most ending up in prison. Cate is thrilled to discover she is not the only outlier, there is one other Cleckley graduate who has made a success of his life. Dr. M refuses to reveal the name of Patient Number 98, but Cate manages to match him with Hunter Brant, a charismatic older boy she remembers from Cleckley. Hunter had been working on nuclear fusion, but his startup failed to get extended funding and he disappeared two years earlier, the same time Patient Number 98 stopped participating in Dr. M’s extended monitoring project. Cate tracks him to Baja, living in under the name Hunter Araya and about to open a huge resort powered by a new energy source he is developing. Cate decides to take a vacation to celebrate the sale of her company, hoping that she can connect with Hunter, and can finally be fully herself without the need to mimic proper social responses to others. Then a reporter investigating negative ecological impacts of Hunter’s resort dies in what might be an accident. Cate wonders if Hunter ever did learn to control his violent tendencies, and if she may also be in jeopardy. This intense debut thriller explores the isolation of those who don’t fit the norm, and the exciting thrill of danger.

Jenny Hollander
Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead (Minotaur Books 2024) begins when Charlotte “Charlie” Colbert, a successful editor-in-chief for a New York magazine, learns that a former classmate is planning to make a film about “Scarlett Christmas,” the bloody incident at her elite British graduate school nine years earlier that resulted in multiple deaths and sent her into a spiral of depression. What no one else knows is that Charlie’s memory of that awful Christmas Eve at Carroll University School of Journalism is fragmented. The story she told the police is what she hoped was the truth, but she doesn’t know for sure. In fact, she fears she herself may have had a part in the violence. When another classmate wrote a book two years after the incident, Charlie had already moved away, starting her new life in America. At that time it was easier to ignore the requests for her comments. The film intended to debut on the 10-year-anniversary will be harder since Charlie has been informed that everyone else involved has agreed to be interviewed. Dr. Noor Nazari, Charlie’s therapist, has been urging her for years to work through her suppressed memories, but Charlie begins to panic whenever she tries to remember the details. She has learned to avoid things that trigger the panic attacks, like elevators, but fears she won’t be able to keep the press from targeting her family again. As the pressure builds, Charlie decides her only way through is to finally face her fears of what might have happened and try to remember everything. For the first time in nearly a decade Charlie intentionally looks back at her graduate school years, remembering the close friendships, the romance, the envy, and the animosity. This debut psychological thriller slowly unravels the past as Charlie struggles to remember the truth that will either destroy her completely or finally set her free.

Abbott Kahler
Where You End (Henry Holt and Co. 2024) is the story of 22-year-old identical twins Katherine (Kat) and Judith (Jude) Bird. While driving home together around midnight in the spring of 1983, Kat swerved to miss a deer and crashed their car into a tree. Jude suffered minor cuts and bruises, but Kat was thrown through the windshield and then hit the ground, ending up in neuroscience intensive care with a severe head wound. When she wakes up from a six-week coma, Kat recognizes Jude’s face, but has no other memories. Her past is a total blank, and because of the traumatic brain injury she may never remember anything. Jude brings Kat home to their shabby Philadelphia apartment, leaving her to rest while she heads off for her house cleaning job each day. The only thing of interest in the apartment is a display cabinet filled with a jumble of trinkets. Each evening Jude takes a few from the cabinet and relates a memory from their idyllic childhood. There are just two framed pictures: one of the twins at age 10 at a traveling circus, one of their parents. Jude tells Kat that their parents are both gone. Their father had mental issues and disappeared when they were 11; their mother died in a car accident when they were 17. Kat asks why there are no other pictures of themselves and Jude explains that since they are mirror twins photographs always made them uncomfortable, their differences flipped in the photos. As Kat slowly recovers her strength she begins to leave the apartment during the day, meeting Sabatino Ramos and bonding over their shared dead mothers. Jude is uneasy about Kat going out on her own and meeting new people, which Kat accepts until she discovers Jude has been telling lies about just about everything. Interspersed chapters beginning when the twins were 10 gradually reveal the truth of their dysfunctional and not at all idyllic childhood growing up in an isolated community where they played savage games dressed in animal costumes. This creepy thriller is the first fiction by the non-fiction author formerly known as Karen Abbott.

Jahmal Mayfield
Smoke Kings (Melville House 2024) begins in February 2017 when Joshua and his cousin Nate visit the New Jersey morgue to identify the body of Joshua’s younger brother Darius, who has been beaten to death by a white gang. Two years later activist Nate has formed a vigilante group consisting of Joshua; Rachel, a close friend who knew Darius from birth; and Isiah, Rachel’s Korean boyfriend who works in IT. Angered by the justice system that exonerated the gang that killed Darius, the four are consumed by grief and rage. Nate’s plan is to kidnap the descendants of those who committed hate crimes and force them to pay reparations, depositing the funds into a community fund to help those in need. Isiah does the research on descendants of hate crime perpetrators, choosing one that has committed present offenses. Their current kidnap victim is Scott York, whose company botched the repair of a sewage system that now spills over every time it rains, contaminating the water supply. Nate takes the intimidation a bit too far, nearly strangling York. When released, York contacts Mason Farmer, a private investigator retired from the Birmingham Police Department, asking him to track down his four blackmailers. Isiah and Nate argue over their next target: Isiah insisting it’s time to branch out to hate crimes against non-Blacks, and Nate immediately naming their group the Smoke Kings, after a line from a W.E.B. Du Bois poem: I am the Smoke King, I am black. Their next target is Duane “Chipper” Kelly, who recently defaced the monument to Mingo Black, a Black man falsely accused of rape who was beaten and hanged in 1886 by a mob of white men that included one of Chipper’s ancestors. Unfortunately Chipper’s older step-brother Samuel is the leader of the Righteous Boys, a violent white supremacist group, whose need for revenge is even greater than the Smoke Kings. This powerful debut thriller presents the four Smoke Kings as flawed yet sympathetic characters struggling with complex issues of identity, racial justice, and disillusion with a society that allows hate crimes to continue.

Fiona McPhillips
When We Were Silent (Flatiron Books 2024) is the story of Lou (Louise) Manson, a married professor with a teenage daughter and a secret past. Thirty years earlier Lou was thrilled when her working class single mother managed to get her a scholarship to Highfield Manor, an exclusive private Catholic school in Dublin. Lou doesn’t fit in with her wealthy classmates until she shows a talent for field hockey and is befriended by Shauna Power, Highfield’s best swimmer and Olympic hopeful. Maurice McQueen is the school’s star: the sports teacher who runs the prestigious Highfield swimming club and sent two swimmers to the LA Olympics two years earlier. McQueen encourages Lou to join the hockey team and tries to convince her to join the swim team as well. But Lou hasn’t been able to get into a pool since her best friend Tina, a member of the Highfield swim team, committed suicide the previous year. Learning from Tina’s older brother that the autopsy revealed Tina was pregnant, Lou is convinced that McQueen abused her. Intent on gathering proof that he preys on his students, Lou accepts his invitation to drive her to the hockey games since her mother doesn’t have a car, tolerating his hand creeping up her leg to gain his trust. But no one believes Lou when she tries to expose him, and her year at Highfield ends in disaster. Lou thought she had put all that behind her until Shauna’s younger brother Ronan tracks her down with the news that abuse is happening again at Highfield. His young client is also not believed, and Ronan hopes that if Lou and Shauna testify he can prove a culture of abuse that has been going on for decades. But Lou hasn’t told her husband about her Highfield experience, and worries the publicity will destroy her marriage and her fragile relationship with her troubled daughter. Told from Lou’s perspective in the past as well as the present, this intense debut thriller explores the deadly effects of a school culture of silence about abuse.

Olivia Muenter
Such a Bad Influence (Quirk Books 2024) begins when 18-year-old lifestyle influencer Evie Davis is recording a TikTok Live for her thousands of viewers. Just after saying “Just thought I’d hop on here…” a blurred face appears in the corner of the screen and Evie ends the session. Six days later Evie’s older sister Hazel learns Evie hasn’t been seen since that TikTok, that she wasn’t in Los Angeles on a work trip, and that she must be missing. Hazel was 10 when Evie was born, the long wished for second child adored by both parents and older sister. Their mother Erin made Evie the focus of her family blog, and Hazel was glad to retreat to the background. When Evie was five, their mother filmed her practicing for a dance recital with their father, giggling as they rehearsed the steps together. Realizing he had forgotten to buy flowers their father dashed out to the drugstore and was killed in a car accident. The next day their mother Erin posted the video, capitalizing on the sweetness of the shared moment overshadowed by the sorrow of his death, launching Evie into the world of social media with a current following of four million. Erin manages Evie’s influencer contracts, the freebies and money increasing every year until Hazel is glad to leave home for college to study journalism. But Hazel’s hope for a successful New York career don’t materialize, and she now lives in a dingy studio apartment in Las Vegas, waitressing to make ends meet. Hazel returns to the luxurious Phoenix mansion bought with Evie’s earnings, and is horrified to learn that their mother is even more avaricious and manipulative than ever, far more concerned about lost revenue than her missing daughter. The police don’t seem to take Evie’s disappearance seriously so Hazel begins her own investigation into Evie’s YouTube sensation boyfriend and her influencer frenemies. This engaging debut thriller highlights the “love to hate” nature of social media.

K.T. Nguyen
You Know What You Did (Dutton 2024) is the story of Anh Le “Annie” Shaw, who appears to have the perfect life as a successful painter with a beautiful home, supportive husband Duncan, and 14-year old daughter Tabby. But there are cracks beneath the surface. Annie’s mother, who lived in their detached carriage house apartment, has just died. Annie’s relationship with her mother was complicated. A Vietnam war refugee, her single mother struggled to feed and house her daughter, often spent her limited salary on “treasures” from the flea market, and was continually critical of anything Annie did, especially any attempts to assimilate into America society. Annie is deeply ashamed of the condition of the carriage house, packed full with her mother’s hoarding, and her own obsessive compulsive disorder, kept at bay for years with therapy and medication, reemerges with a vengeance. When Annie discovers her daughter is sexting with a boyfriend she didn’t even know existed, Annie spirals out of control. She nearly slaps Tabby, and is immediately overcome with remorse. Is she turning into her controlling mother? The only bright spot is Annie’s new commission, a large mural in the home of her elderly patron Byrdie Fenton, and she spends hours sketching in the woods to capture Byrdie’s favorite spot. But when Annie visits Byrdie to talk a1bout the mural, Byrdie’s eyes are glazed and she has no memory of the commission. The next day Byrdie’s gardener tells Annie the old woman is missing, and Annie reports her disappearance to the police. When Byrdie’s body is discovered not far from Annie’s sketching spot, Annie becomes the prime suspect. Duncan is away on a work trip, Tabby isn’t speaking to her, and Annie spirals out of control, haunted by visions of her mother’s vengeful ghost. This intense debut thriller explores mental illness and the long-reaching trauma of war.

Alejandro Nodarse
Blood in the Cut (Flatiron Books 2024) begins when Ignacio Guerra is released from prison after serving three years for stealing and selling drugs from his mother’s pharmacy. A week before his release, Ignacio’s beloved mother Caridad was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Returning home, Ignacio learns that his grief-stricken father Armando is deeply in debt and about to lose La Carnicería Guerra, the butcher shop in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood that has been owned by the family for generations. The only good news is that Ignacio’s younger brother Carlos has kept Azúcar Prieta, Ignacio’s beloved 1969 Camero ZL1, in perfect shape. Its the car that caused all the family money problems since Ignacio fenced the pills to buy parts. To pay off the debt Armando has become involved in an illegal meat trade involving horses and native game out of season. At first temped to leave all the trouble behind, Ignacio decides he can’t desert his family and his heritage, taking over the shifts Carlos has been working so his brother can study, and immersing himself in saving the family butcher shop. The pharmacy was sold to pay Ignacio’s legal fees and torn down, with a new restaurant and in-house butcher shop called The Chop Shop constructed in its place by Conner G. Harrison, a wealthy redhead who dresses in expensive yet repulsive burgundy suits. Harrison insults the meat at La Carnicería Guerra, the family wearing guayaberas embroidered with the shop logo, and their Cuban heritage, referring to them as Cubes before the Guerras throw him out. The shop is covered with crude swastikas and “FUCK CUBES” the next night. Ignacio is sure Harrison is responsible and comes up with a plan for free publicity and revenge before calling the police. When the news crews arrive, he invites everyone to a party to celebrate La Carnicería Guerra’s long history in the neighborhood, promising music and meat specials. This intense debut thriller is permeated with Cuban-American culture and the natural allure and peril of the Everglades.

Amy Pease
Northwoods (Atria 2024) is the story of Eli North, a talented U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigator before a tour in Afghanistan that destroyed his emotional health. Constant drinking has ended his marriage and career, and Eli is barely holding on to a job with the Sherman County sheriff’s department in the small town of Shaky Lakes, Wisconsin. The only reason he’s still employed is that his mother is the sheriff, overwhelmed by the town’s shrinking budget, dwindling department, and growing opioid epidemic. A report of loud music coming from an unoccupied vacation cottage at Beran’s Resort brings Eli to the body of a teenage boy in a boat in the lake, where he suffers yet another panic attack, falling and hitting his head, and losing hours before reporting the body. Sheriff Marge North mistakes Eli’s sluggish expression for drunkenness rather than concussion, and is tempted to fire him, but knows despite his problems he is still her best detective. Marge recognizes the dead boy as Ben Sharpe, the son of addict Rachel, the neglected wife of a wealthy husband. Rachel is too drugged to be coherent, and Marge sends her off in an ambulance for treatment. Then Beth Wallace calls to report her 16-year-old daughter Caitlin missing, who left their cabin at Beran’s Resort early in the morning to go boating with Ben Sharpe and didn’t return home. The Wallaces have vacationed at Shaky Lake for several summers and Ben and Caitlin usually spend much of their time on the water. This year Calvin Wallace hasn’t arrived yet, delayed in their Chicago suburb because of the pressures of the impending release of a new drug by Orion Pharmaceuticals. FBI Agent Alyssa Mason arrives to assist with the missing child investigation for Caitlin Wallace, and forms an uneasy partnership with Eli, neither sure about trusting the other. Following a possible drug trail leads to wealthy members of the country club and a dangerous local gang. This emotionally powerful debut thriller explores the repercussions of the opioid crisis in a beautiful rural area.

Kristen Perrin
How To Solve Your Own Murder (Dutton 2024) begins in 1965 at the Castle Knoll Country Fair, when teenage Frances Adams and her two best friends Emily and Rose visit a fortune teller who predicts Frances will be murdered with a series of warnings including dry bones, a queen in her palm, betrayal by a bird, and daughters as the key to justice. Emily and Rose laugh off the fortune, but Frances can’t get it out of her head, especially after Emily goes missing almost exactly a year later. In the present, Annabelle (Annie) Adams, a 25-year old aspiring mystery novelist, receives a letter from the soliciters office of Gordon, Owens, and Martlock, requesting her presence in Castle Knoll to discuss her Great Aunt Frances’s will. Annie has never met her Frances, but takes the train from London to the small village of Castle Knoll, where Mr. Gordon explains the meeting will be held at Gravesdown Hall, Frances’s estate outside town, along with his grandson Oliver, Frances’s husband’s nephew Saxon Gravesdown, and Saxon’s wife Elva. At Gravesdown Hall they discover Frances’s dead body, deep punctures on both hands from the white long-stemmed roses she was arranging in a vase. Waiting for the police to arrive, Annie enters a small room off the library and discovers Great Aunt Frances’s obsession: a murder board stretching from floor to ceiling with colored string connecting photos, post-its, and newspaper clippings. On another wall is a smaller murder board with “Emily Sparrow, last seen August 21, 1966” in the center. Frances’s will leaves her entire estate to either Annie or Saxon, whoever solves her murder within the time limit of one week, the solution verified by Detective Rowan Crane. Annie and Saxon are to stay in Gravesdown Hall with access to Frances’s files collected over the years as she attempted to solve her own murder in advance. Interspersed sections from the journal Frances began in September 1966 fill in details from the past while Annie’s first person narration covers the present. This excellent series opener paying homage to Agatha Christie and Midsomer Murders, is the adult debut by a British children’s author.

Adam Plantinga
The Ascent (Grand Central Publishing 2024) begins when Detroit cop Kurt Argento is encouraged to retire when he can’t control his anger after the death of his wife from cancer. Deciding he needs to see the Pacific Ocean before he dies, Argento heads west with his dog Hudson. He stops at a 4th of July festival in a small town in Missouri to stretch his legs and get something to eat, noticing a chubby middle school girl enticed into the woods by a thin man. Argento prevents a sexual assault and the man pulls a knife. Two Rocker County deputies arrive with the ambulance, recognizing the bleeding man as Donny Rokus. Argento explains what happened and the older deputy listens and then tells Argento to get out of town as quickly as possible. Concerned they don’t want to take an official statement, Argento leaves but is soon pulled over by Sheriff Rokus who arrests him for attacking his little brother. He shoves Argento into his deputy, adding assaulting an officer to the charge, and then the two beat him senseless with their nightsticks. Checking his prints, Sheriff Rokus discovers Argento is a decorated police officer and panics. Claiming the jail is full, he has Argento transferred to Whitehall Correctional Institute, a private maximum security prison, and calls in a favor to ensure Argento doesn’t live through the holiday weekend. Julie Wakefield, the governor’s daughter, has arranged a tour of Whitehall for a paper she is writing for her graduate school criminology class. Her father insists she take two Missouri State Troopers with her, and Julie reluctantly agrees. Inside the prison the bruised and battered Argento is being checked by prison nurse Rachel when three prisoners break into the infirmary, killing the guard with a thin metal shank and pushing Argento out of the room, intending to rape the nurse. Arming himself with the dead guard’s collapsible baton, Argento disables the prisoners. Two guards arrive and Rachel quickly explains Argento saved her. The guards have no idea why their radios aren’t working or how random prison doors have been opened by their new keyless lock system. Assistant Warden Pillaire is escorting Julie and her Troopers when they get to a door that won’t open. They meet Rachel, Argento, and the two guards and compare notes, realizing they are trapped inside the prison with no way to communicate with the outside. Rachel tells them there is cell service only on the roof, and their only escape route is traveling across the prison and then up the stairways. The prison is organized with more fearsome prisoners each level up, an inversion of Dante’s Inferno. The main computer terminal indicates that there will be a system purge in two hours, potentially opening all cell doors instead of just the current random ones. Things quickly go from bad to worse to horrendous in this frightening debut thriller as the small group desperately struggles to escape.

Stella Sands
Wordhunter (Harper 2024) introduces 21-year-old Maggie Moore, who grew up in poverty in Cypress Havens, Florida, with a neglectful mother and her series of dubious boyfriends. Maggie’s only support was her best friend Lucy, who disappeared from her trailer when they were 14, leaving behind a room full of broken glass, heel marks trailing across the floor. Determined to save other girls from Lucy’s fate, Maggie earns a college scholarship and then a grant to Rosedale University to study forensic linguistics in graduate school, where she is the top student. Her favorite class is The Language of Film, taught by Professor Ditmire, who offers her a job as his research assistant. Police Chief Josiah Murray contacts the college after seeing a show about how word analysis brought down the Unabomber, asking for help with a cyber stalker who has been targeting a young woman in the nearby town of Olemeda. Ditmire is too busy to help and recommends Maggie, who is very familiar with the Unabomber research. Maggie is a surprise to the police department: young, pierced, tattooed, chain-smoking, and roaring into the parking lot on her Kawasaki Vulcan 900. Maggie examines the four brief texts and then requests emails from any suspects for comparison, learning the first text was sent six weeks earlier. Before the comparison emails arrive, the woman is attacked and raped. Working with Detective Silas Jackson, Maggie’s word analysis helps catch the rapist, and the Chief calls her back in when Heidi Hemphill, the 14-year old daughter of the Mayor of a nearby county, is kidnapped, a note left with her abandoned bicycle. The meeting in the conference room gives Maggie flashbacks to Lucy’s disappearance, a group of cops uninterested in anything she said and unwilling to help. But there are no other clues to the kidnapper other than the note, so Maggie dives into the analysis of syntax, sentence structure, and word choice. She is disturbed by similarities between Heidi’s disappearance and Lucy’s seven years earlier, calming herself by diagramming lines from her favorite books. This thriller debut from a true crime author is hopefully the first in a series starring the talented and troubled Maggie Moore.

Amy Tintera
Listen for the Lie (Celadon Books 2024) is the story of Lucy Chase, who can’t remember the worst day of her life. Five years earlier Lucy and her best friend Savvy were at a wedding with Lucy’s husband Matt and Savvy’s boyfriend Colin in their small hometown of Plumpton, Texas. Later that night Savvy was found murdered and Lucy was discovered wandering alone in the woods covered in Savvy’s blood. Lucy’s husband Matt asked her to leave their home when she returned from being questioned by the police, and that lack of trust helped turn the whole town, including Lucy’s own parents, against her, everyone convinced she killed Savvy and is faking amnesia though she was never charged for lack of evidence. Lucy is now living in Los Angeles with a well-paying investment job and a secret life writing romance novels under a pen name. Then charismatic podcaster Ben Owens decides that Savvy’s cold case will be the next he investigates for his podcast Listen for the Lie. The podcast is incredibly successful, and Lucy is soon fired by her conservative employer and her boyfriend Nathan is horrified by the past she never shared. Lucy’s grandmother Beverly convinces Lucy to come back to Plumpton to help celebrate her 80th birthday, and Lucy finds herself back in her childhood bedroom, which has been completely refurbished, in a town where everyone seems to hate her. Lucy begins listening to the podcast she has been trying to ignore for months, shocked by the comments from people she used to know but realizing Ben may finally uncover the truth about Savvy’s death. Lucy longs for closure, but fears that she herself is the killer, unable to remember how or why. Her grandmother sends her to the diner to pick up dinner, and Lucy recognizes Ben Owens and reluctantly says hello, panicking when she learns that Ben knows she is the author of the Eva Knightly books. He reassures her he won’t reveal her secret, but Lucy knows if his private investigator figured it out, it’s not long until everyone knows, destroying her career as a novelist. Interspersed podcast transcriptions fill in the details of the past, and Lucy learns new information about what others saw and heard that night, revealing some surprising possibilities for Savvy’s killer. She agrees to be interviewed by Ben, and their visits to places around town finally reawaken memories from that traumatic night. This haunting thriller is the adult debut by the YA author.

Ruby Todd
Bright Objects (Simon & Schuster 2024) is set in the small town of Jericho, New South Wales, near the Black Mountain Observatory. In January 1995 Sylvia Knight is driving home late one night with her husband Christopher along a winding section of Horseshoe Road. Sylvia steers around a rusted old Mitsubishi Sigma and is hit by a speeding sedan heading the other direction. Danny Ward, the driver of the Sigma, calls for help, but the dark sedan doesn’t stop. Christopher is killed instantly, and Sylvia is transported to the hospital with a severe spinal injury. Two years later, Sylvia is still in mourning, and still angry that the hit-and-run driver has not been brought to justice. She suspects the sedan was Sergeant Angus Blair’s patrol car, which collided with a tree later that same night. Blair said he became dizzy because of high blood pressure medication and Senior Sergeant Douglas claims to have breathalyzed Blair at the scene with a negative result. Douglas and Blair are old friends, and Sylvia believes Blair called him to take the report and hide the evidence of an earlier crash. Danny Ward claims to have no memory of the driver or the other car, but is now driving a shiny new Subaru he clearly can’t afford with his minimum-wage job. Sylvia meets Theo St. John, an astronomer who discovered a rare comet that will be visible to the naked eye in a few months, reappearing after four thousand years. For the first time since Christopher’s death Sylvia finds herself interested in something other than the accident, first the comet and then the astronomer himself. Joseph Evans, a local mystic who believes the comet is a divine message, gathers a following including Sylvia’s mother-in-law Sandy, who has never recovered from her son’s sudden death. Theo attends some of Joseph’s public events, speaking about the science of comets, but Joseph’s pronouncements of destruction to come catch the imagination of the public. Some are happy to buy souvenirs and comet biscuits, but Sylvia worries that Sandy and others have been drawn into a doomsday cult. This beautifully written debut thriller explores the debilitating effects of grief and the powerful attraction of the unusual.

Henry Wise
Holy City (Atlantic Monthly Press 2024) is the story of Will Seems, who returns from Richmond (the “Holy City”) to his impoverished hometown in rural Virginia a decade after the death of his mother, which had precipitated his departure. Will takes a job as deputy for the Euphoria County Sheriff’s Department, working for Sheriff Mills, a man he doesn’t like and doesn’t trust. Will is called to the scene of a fire and risks his life to pull Tom Janders from the flames by his boot heels. When the sheriff arrives they discover Tom is dead, knifed in the back. The sheriff notices movement behind the house and sends Will to arrest the man: Zeke Hathom, the father of Will’s old friend Sam who was badly beaten by a racist gang when they were children. Will has always blamed himself for Sam’s permanent injuries since he didn’t come to his rescue. Sam is now a drug addict hiding out from a warrant at Will’s house. Will is certain Zeke isn’t guilty of murdering Tom Janders, but Sheriff Mills, currently campaigning for re-election, jumps at the opportunity to close the case quickly and isn’t interested in Will’s objections to the lack of evidence. When Will insists on what he believes is right, he is suspended. With the support of the Black community, Zeke’s wife Floressa hires Richmond private investigator Bennico Watts to help prove Zeke’s innocence, hoping she will partner with Will. A former police officer, Bennico has experience investigating and Will has a long familiarity with the local population so the partnership looks good in theory, but both Will and Bennico prefer independence, rubbing each other the wrong way from the start. Flashbacks fill in Will’s past, his flight from Euphoria County to the Holy City, and the bone-deep shame that brought him back in this excellent debut thriller.

Maud Woolf
Thirteen Ways To Kill Lulabelle Rock (Angry Robot 2024) begins when our narrator is talking to film star Lulabelle Rock on the balcony at her mansion overlooking her immaculate topiary hedges and azure swimming pool. Lulabelle is complaining about her latest movie, soon to be released, which she is sure will be a flop generating bad press. To change the narrative, Lulabelle has come up with a plan: our narrator, the thirteenth exact clone of Lulabelle created in her basement vat, will murder the other 12 Portraits. Lulabelle believes that killing (decommissioning) 12 Portraits in the week before her movie releases will generate an exciting story of a serial killer with only one target, transforming the movie from a flop into a cult hit. Since Portraits aren’t human and can be legally decommissioned by their owner, there will be no consequences for Lulabelle. Our narrator, who is only 20 minutes old, struggles to merge her new memories with those imported from Lulabelle as she is hustled off to a dressing room, viewing an exact copy of Lulabelle in the mirror, except for her completely smooth palms, the lack of lines an easy way to identify a Portrait. Our narrator is unhappy to be dressed in a polo shirt, khakis, and trainers rather than designer wear, but accepts the need for a disguise along with a hat and wraparound sunglasses. The fully automated car is already programmed for the first destination in Bubble City. Inside the glove compartment is a binder with information about the 12 portraits she is to kill, the targets identified by registration code, any deviations from the standard Lulabelle, and location. Along the way our narrator picks up a hitchhiker, a young goth kid who offers to read her palm in exchange for a ride. Realizing she is a Portrait he offers a Tarot Card reading instead, and our narrator becomes fascinated by the cards, and decides to call herself Death. After dropping off the hitchhiker, Death locates the first target at a bus stop. Lulabelle created this Portrait as a stand in for a brunch and then forgot to send a car to pick her up. The Portrait has been at the bus stop for days, now looking very dusty and signing scrap of paper and articles of clothing for an endless queue of fans. One shot through the window and she is dead. Reading the notes on the other Portraits on her list, Death finds them wandering the streets of the fashion district fulfilling Lulabelle’s advertising commitments, partying every night, a married homemaker — each embodying a different aspect of Lulabelle’s personality. The first killing was easy, but each subsequent murder is harder than the last. When her clothing becomes soiled, she visits a shop and the shop assistant declares she needs an suit fit for an assassin, and Death begins to feel her own embryonic identity emerging from the Lulabelle overlay. This ingenious debut near-future noir thriller is not to be missed.