A gorgeously detailed and fast-paced historical mystery-plus-romance brings 18th-century Scotland to life, with a narrative twist that sent me back to the first page to solve the puzzle a second time.
Sarah
When struggling mystery writer Finlay Donovan is overheard discussing her new novel with her agent over lunch, she's mistaken for a contract killer and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet. When the target actually ends up dead (and not by Finlay's doing!) she discovers that real life crime is a lot more complicated than its fictional counterpart. This book is very funny and painfully relatable (and the audiobook is great!).
Rebecca
Anthony Horowitz, the bestselling author of the Alex Rider Series, as well as The House of Silk and Moriarty, has created a brilliantly constructed mystery within a mystery. Rich in detail with thought-provoking and unexpected plot twists, the novel is filled with a cast of characters that would make Agatha Christie proud.
Nathan
Both smart and clever, this rich and entertaining mystery is an unjustly overlooked classic. Set in Harlem in the 1920s, and inspired by Golden Age of Mystery authors like Dorothy Sayers & Agatha Christie, The Conjure-Man Dies plays with mistaken identity, the person you least expect, locked rooms, and other tropes of the mystery genre. A real tragedy we only got one Perry Dart & John Archer novel.
Josh
A great collection of crime stories that all start from the classic premise and explore the many ways strangers can change everything.
Sarah
In 1946 Sydney, Billie Walker reopens her father's detective agency. Tracking down cheating husbands is ordinary work, but it leads her to dead bodies and postwar corruption, and all sorts of danger.
Sarah
A missing diamond! Mystery across two continents (and several languages)! A tour around all of the neatest attractions of Paris, with plenty of shenanigans and sleuthing along the way. This story has tons of fun, plenty of fascinating tidbits, and my new favorite girl detective. Julieta immediately feels like a classic children's lit star!
Caleb
Willowjean Parker runs away from the circus and ends up as a detective's assistant in 1940s New York.
Sarah
This has all the fun of film noir, but instead of black and white, this one's full color. Our femme fatale is a man who performs in drag at a speakeasy and our detective is his best friend who's determined to prove him innocent. It's got grit and snark and a full picture of the non-white, non-straight, non-male corners of 1930, and both the struggles they faced and the places where they could cut loose. I don't usually get to see myself in this genre. This is a welcome exception.
Shana
The Crossing Places: When bones are found near her house, forensic archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway is called in to help the police. She becomes enmeshed in the search for two missing girls and continues to get entangled with police investigations throughout the series. This series has revitalized my reading life; I can't put them down.
April
