Former crime reporter Somers (Beet Fields) delivers a solid series launch that draws on her professsional experience and her advocacy for wild horses. Three years ago, Eleanor Wooley ended her turbulent marriage, moved to the small town of Gold Strike, Calif., and took a job as a crime reporter. Things have been fairly quiet ever since, but that changes when Eleanor’s best friend, Rette Kenny—who helped Eleanor purchase her first horse—vanishes without a trace. Concerned, Eleanor starts to report on Rette’s disappearance, only to have her boss remove her from the story out of concern that the women���s friendship constitutes a conflict of interest. Eleanor persists anyway, and soon unearths a potential connection between Rette’s fate, the theft of 11 horses from the corral outside a rustic mountain lodge, and the murder of a small-time Gold Strike thief. Somers effortlessly evokes the rhythms of life in a small town, infusing Eleanor’s twist-filled investigation with welcome authenticity. With a memorable lead and immersive atmosphere, this promises good things for the series to come. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

Child (the Jack Reacher series) compiles 20 previously published short stories in this brooding collection. Featuring mobsters, con men, assassins, and corrupt cops, Child’s self-described “very, very, very short novels” mostly focus on the worst of humanity. In “The .50 Solution,” a hit man is hired to kill a racehorse; in “My First Drug Trial,” an addict gets high before their moment of judgment; in “Me and Mr. Rafferty,” a serial killer leaves behind grisly clues in hopes of forging a connection with a detective. Throughout, Child gleefully toys with readers’ expectations, mirroring his duplicitous characters as he performs a series of satisfying bait-and-switches, most memorably in “Ten Keys,” which initially appears to center on two men in a bar waiting for an assassin. His dialogue, too, has the grit and punch of top-shelf crime fiction, though it’s easy to spot that many of Child’s characters sound alike when reading the stories back-to-back. These stories prove that Child has more to offer than the head-splitting exploits of his most popular action hero. Agent: Rebekah Finch, Darley Anderson Agency. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

An American woman learns to navigate Hong Kong’s wealthy expat culture in this busy debut from literary agent Pérez. After moving to Hong Kong for her husband’s finance job, Martina Torres struggles to adjust, with little to do but attend luncheons with the ruthless wives of executives. Longing for more meaningful connections, she’s thrilled when she meets the sophisticated Veronica Hawkins, heiress to a British mercantile dynasty. The two become fast friends, with Veronica teaching Martina to love Hong Kong and empowering her to return to work. Then Veronica drowns during a ball at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club—though no one saw her fall into the water. Just before she died, Veronica named Martina the director of a foundation that supports up-and-coming artists. When financial discrepancies pop up after Veronica’s death, Martina is accused of embezzlement. Determined to clear her name and find out what happened to her friend, Martina launches an investigation that unearths inconsistencies in Veronica’s biography. Pérez provides fascinating tidbits about Hong Kong’s colonial history, but they’re not enough to compensate for an overstuffed plot that resolves with a too-predictable twist. It’s a case of squandered potential. Agent: Joelle Hobeika, Alloy Entertainment. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

Poet Kelson (Flexible Bones, as Maria Melendez) delivers a stirring debut novel about a woman fighting to exonerate her adopted son. In a small town on California’s Humboldt Bay, Boots Marez runs a K–8 school that caters predominantly to undocumented families. Six years ago, she adopted 12-year-old Jaral after seeing his picture in a display at the local library, and—barring some standard adolescent outbursts—she has succeeded in raising him on her own. When Jaral cuts class a few weeks before high school graduation, Boots agrees to delay grounding him so he can “handle” an unspecified “something” that night. The next morning, Jaral calls Boots in a panic to report that his friend, Nando Peregrino, is bleeding out at home. Nando is dead by the time Boots arrives, and Jaral becomes the prime suspect in his murder. Convinced by Jaral’s insistence that he found Nando after he’d been wounded, Boots launches an investigation in hopes of clearing her son’s name; meanwhile, she fends off hostile parents trying to oust her from the school she helped create. Kelson loads the plot with satisfying twists, and the aching, memorably sketched relationship between Boots and Jaral heightens the drama. This bodes well for Kelson’s future in fiction. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

Former flight attendant Newman (Drowning) parlays her professional experience into another nail-biter centered on a commercial airline accident. Nearly 300 people die when the pilot of a plane en route from Minneapolis to Seattle suffers a heart attack and crashes into a nuclear power plant shortly after taking off. The resulting leak at the Waketa, Minn., energy facility raises twin concerns: first, that 900 locals will be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation; second, that the breach could ignite an impossible to extinguish fire that would spread radioactive material across the entire Midwest. Waketa fire chief Steve Tostig spearheads an effort, with support from Nuclear Emergency Support specialist Joss Vance, to contain the radiation and save the country. Like Michael Crichton and other disaster novelists before her, Newman loops several ordinary people into her sprawling narrative, including Waketa schoolteachers and employees at the power plant, but she sets herself apart by giving notable weight and color to the human-scale dramas. She doesn’t skimp when it comes to action, either, resulting in a rip-roaring adventure that’s anchored in palpable emotion. This should satisfy the author’s fans and win her new ones. Agent: Shane Salerno, Story Factory. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 07/26/2024 | Details & Permalink

A rock star turned PI and his doting assistant investigate the murder of their client in this lifeless neo-noir from Cudmore (The Big Rewind). In the 1980s, Martin Wade found fame with his band the French Letters, but addiction and interpersonal discord led the group to split up. Now, with nearly 20 years of sobriety under his belt, Martin has established a small-town detective agency in Upstate New York, where he tackles cases with the help of music journalist (and French Letters superfan) Valerie. The past comes calling when Janie Carlock, the daughter of French Letters guitarist Ron Carlock, hires Martin to help protect her from her father. A longtime addict, Ron abandoned Janie years ago and is now seeking to reconnect, but Janie fears he has ulterior motives. When she’s found dead in a river, the police label it an accident, but her closest friends think it’s foul play—forcing Martin and Valerie to consider the possibility that Ron killed her. Punk and new wave fans may enjoy the music trivia and playlists on offer, but mystery readers are likely to object to the stale plotting and predictable denouement. This fails to strike a chord. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges returns to cook for his friends and keep the French town of St. Denis safe in Walker’s leisurely latest outing for the food-loving police chief (after A Château Under Siege). Back at home after convalescing from a gunshot wound sustained on his previous case, Bruno learns that human remains—two German women and an Italian man—have just been unearthed on the grounds of an abandoned hotel. Forensic analysis dates the bodies to WWII, and Bruno enlists the help of Abby Howard, a recently divorced American archaeologist visiting St. Denis, to find out more. Complicating matters is Abby’s ex-husband, computer whiz Gary Barone, who’s harassing her for her settlement money and attempting to hack the police department’s computer system, potentially as part of an international blockchain conspiracy. Meanwhile, climate change–induced floods threaten St. Denis’s infrastructure, pulling Bruno’s focus away from his and Abby’s inquiry. As usual, Walker peppers the action with long, chatty dinner scenes and detailed digressions about European history. Series fans will get just what they came for. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Susanna Lea Assoc. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

A young woman investigates her older sibling’s disappearance in this rote outing from DeCarolis (The Guilty Husband). As encouraged by their recently deceased mother, Vivienne, adult sisters Alex and Maddie Walker have maintained a strong bond. After Vivienne’s funeral, Maddie leaves Alex at their Pennsylvania family home to summer in the Hamptons, but promises to return for Alex’s birthday. When that day arrives, however, Maddie fails to show up or return any phone calls, so Alex heads to the Hamptons to track her down. After she arrives, she learns that Maddie has been staying at the home of real estate developer James Blackwell and his family, who were the last people to see her before she disappeared. The Blackwells invite Alex to take her sister’s place in their pool house while she launches an investigation. She accepts the offer, and gradually unearths secrets about the Blackwell clan that make her suspect they know more about Maddie’s whereabouts than they’re letting on. DeCarolis smothers the plot with too many narrators (Alex, Maddie, all four Blackwells, and an anonymous local), and though the action is diverting, little of it is memorable. The result is a beach read without much bite. Agent: Melissa Edwards, Stonesong. (July)

Reviewed on 07/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

Author and sleuth Marcus Goldman returns (after The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair) to help his friend, Sgt. Perry Gahalowood, rectify a decade-old miscarriage of justice in Dicker’s overstuffed latest. In April 1999, a young woman named Alaska Sanders was found dead on the edge of a New Hampshire lake. Soon afterward, a suspect named Walter Carrey was brought in for questioning. He confessed to killing Alaska with his friend, Eric Donovan, and then grabbed a police officer’s gun, shooting both the officer and himself. Gahalowood, who was leading the Sanders investigation at the time, gets a shock when, in 2010, Goldman finds an anonymous note among the possessions of Gahalowood’s late wife insisting that Carrey and Donovan weren’t Alaska’s killers. The discovery launches Goldman and Gahalowood into a new investigation, which dredges up questions about Gahalowood’s deceased spouse and Alaska’s true identity. In addition to juggling timelines and locations—plus a dizzying barrage of red herrings—Dicker spends an inordinate amount of time on Goldman’s inconsequential romantic life, which does little to usher the already-busy story along. By the time Dicker brings this lumbering mystery to a close, readers will be more exhausted than satisfied. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

Two friends stage an ironic bachelorette party for their friend who’s obsessed with exonerating a convicted killer in this implausible outing from Block (Girl Overboard). After conducting a prison interview with Eric Myers, who’s serving time for the decade-old “666 Killings,” budding journalist Alex Conley has come to believe he’s innocent. Days before Alex’s wedding, her friends—actor Melody and pro basketball player Lainey—surprise her with a trip to the abandoned Catskills cabin where the killings took place. The friends settle in for a night of drinking and smoking weed, and then Alex passes out; hours later, she awakens to find Melody and Lainey missing, with blood smeared on their sleeping bags and her hands. Cut off from the outside world thanks to a malfunctioning car and a lack of cell service, Alex searches for answers on her own. From there, Block intercuts Alex’s current investigation with flashbacks chronicling her crusade to free Myers. Unfortunately, Myers is the only character drawn with any nuance—everyone else, especially Alex’s too-good-to-be-true fiancé, are mere ciphers—and the contrived plot hits the skids well before its far-fetched denouement. This misses the mark. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/19/2024 | Details & Permalink