ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS
By Hank Phillippi Ryan
New York: Minotaur Books, 2025. $29.00
Hank Phillippi Ryan is an undisputed force in the world of crime writing, both factual and fictional. A longtime on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV—in a career that has earned her an astounding thirty-seven Emmy Awards—she has also published sixteen suspense novels since launching a parallel writing career with 2007’s Prime Time. Five Agatha Awards, four Anthonys, and a Mary Higgins Clark Award later, Ryan now makes her Minotaur Books debut with All This Could Be Yours, a standalone psychological thriller about the power of books to bring people together—and the dangers they can unleash.
From the outside looking in, Tessa Calloway appears to be on top of the world. After quitting her thankless job—while livestreaming, no less—she finally found the courage to pursue her dream of writing. And against all odds, her debut novel, All This Could Be Yours, has become an instant New York Times bestseller. Featuring a plucky heroine named Annabelle, known for wearing periwinkle, the book has struck a particular chord with women, who strongly identify with and are inspired by both the character and Tessa herself. Now on an extended book tour to keep the momentum going, Tessa finally feels like she has everything: a loving husband, two spirited children, and a new Rockport home (and the mortgage that comes with it). But Tessa also knows that when you have it all, you have it all to lose.
Despite having signed a morality clause giving her publisher the right to terminate her contract should her character or conduct be deemed damaging to the brand, Tessa has an incident—or two—in her past that she refers to as the “bad thing,” something she has done her best to bury. But her newfound notoriety has piqued people’s curiosity about her backstory. As she travels from bookstore to bookstore, a disturbing trend begins to emerge: audience members asking pointed questions about her childhood and, more specifically, where she grew up. Though Tessa does her best to be evasive, she knows it may only be a matter of time before somebody learns the truth. Her panic is compounded by the fact that someone appears to be following her across the country, brazenly accessing her hotel rooms and luggage simply to prove that they can. With the endgame unknown, Tessa has no choice but to carry on—even while wondering if the devil has come to collect.
Ryan does a masterful job of portraying the highs and lows of a writer’s life, which can be far more precarious than most would imagine. Indeed, while Tessa is buoyed by adoring audiences, fawning bookstore owners, and a formidable publishing team, this does not come without sacrifice. While she’s living out of a suitcase, rushing from plane to plane and Uber to Uber and hotel to hotel, her family is making their new house a home without her. Moreover, she suspects that the new neighbors—particularly the female ones—are hovering a little too close for comfort in her absence. But as exhausted, homesick, and wary as she is, she knows that pulling the plug on the remainder of her tour would be career suicide. Of course, she also knows that others have the power to pull the plug for her. Can Tessa find a way to maintain control of the narrative . . . or will somebody write her a premature ending?
Ryan has crafted a uniquely compelling and utterly calculated cautionary tale with All This Could Be Yours. Deliciously meta, the story is imbued with the uncomfortable essence of truth. While Ryan may not have experienced such extreme personal and professional stakes as her heroine, her demanding career has undoubtedly required trade-offs for triumph. And, like the very best of writers, she has taken those scraps of reality and twisted them into a taut, thought-provoking thriller about reckoning with the past to reclaim the future. After all, the happiest endings are often the hardest won.
—John B. Valeri
BEST BOY
By Deborah Goodrich Royce
New York: Post Hill Press, 2026. $28.00
Deborah Goodrich Royce knows the importance of developing story and character, a talent she possessed long before she began writing novels. In her younger years, Royce was an actress, appearing in popular TV shows (All My Children) and films (April Fool’s Day). Then came marriage, children, and a move to Paris, where she worked as a reader for Le Studio Canal+. Later, Royce became a story editor at Miramax in New York, helping to shape projects such as Emma, Chicago, and A Wrinkle in Time. Now an empty nester, she devotes her time to writing psychological suspense, drawing on the realities of her life to create realistic fiction. Royce’s newest, Best Boy, is her fourth standalone and follows 2023’s nationally bestselling Reef Road.
Viveca Stevenson has left the bright lights of Hollywood for the bucolic charms of Greenwich, Connecticut, where she lives in a charmingly tree-shrouded house with her husband, Henry, and their ten-year-old son, Theo. She finds joy in doting on her loved ones and working with other mothers (“the power women of Greenwich”) to fundraise for Theo’s school. But when a break-in at their home is followed by the delivery of a series of subtly threatening letters ostensibly penned by a “best boy” on one of her movies (whom she doesn’t remember), Viveca begins a descent into panic and paranoia. After all, there are things in her past she can’t bear to revisit, let alone have them become public fodder.
Before she assumed her stage name—and the new face and voice that came with it—Viveca was known as Ingrid Lind and grew up in a suburb of Detroit. Hers was not a happy childhood, but she found respite at the home of her best friend and next-door neighbor, Emilia, where the Shakespeare-quoting Waldrons welcomed her as one of their own. But that all changed the night an inebriated Ingrid was brutally attacked following a Halloween party that she and Emilia crashed. Initially unable to identify her assailant, she later bowed to pressure from authorities and public sentiment. The unforeseen consequences of her capitulation were tragic—and Ingrid would come to be viewed as both a villain and a victim. Eventually, her mother put her on a bus out of town, hoping she would find escape in anonymity.
The narrative unfurls at a methodical pace, with Royce doling out tantalizing bits of backstory as she contrasts Ingrid’s carefully guarded past with Viveca’s carefully constructed present. As a result, readers, much like Viveca’s intimates, don’t know the full extent of her youthful folly until she has no choice but to reveal it. This is further compounded by the fact that Viveca is a recovering alcoholic who suffers from migraines, memory loss, and blackouts, which sometimes render her unreliable. As the stress of the situation mounts in accordance with the demands of her stalker, she becomes increasingly erratic. On the brink of breakdown, Viveca is tormented by one question: whom can she trust if she can’t even trust herself?
Best Boy’s suspense is a slow burn, with gradually increasing tensions, revelations, and hard truths that act like individual sparks with the potential to become an inferno. A compelling character study of a woman looking to find herself amid the narratives she has constructed, it’s made up of scenes that are both dramatic and mundane, all of which reveal the makings of a life and a story. But such stories are inherently controlled by the tellers, and it’s only by letting go of the roles they’ve written themselves (or been written into) and embracing reality that they can find redemption.
—John B. Valeri
BLACK DAHLIA:
MURDER, MONSTERS, AND MADNESS IN MIDCENTURY HOLLYWOOD
By William J. Mann
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2026. $31.00
As the eightieth anniversary of the death of Elizabeth Short looms, there’s yet another chronicle for the shelves. But unlike previous titles that focused on proving specific theories—some of them wildly offbeat—this book takes a measured tone. With Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood, William J. Mann isn’t trying to solve the crime (“a rather hubristic mission after seven decades,” he points out) but, rather, he seeks to unravel the truth behind the life of the woman who became known as the Black Dahlia after her bisected body was found in a vacant Los Angeles lot on January 15, 1947.
Mann is well suited to the task. A celebrity biographer who won an Edgar for his examination of the murder of 1920s-era director William Desmond Taylor (Tinseltown, 2014), he brings both rigorous research instincts and a storyteller’s eye to the material. He is an adroit utilizer of newspaper archives, D.A. files, FBI reports, and interviews with family members of case participants, and he tracks Beth Short’s ill-fated final months in and around Southern California with novelistic precision.
What emerges is a portrait of a confounding, even infuriating protagonist. We first encounter Short in Long Beach in July 1946, cutting quite a figure at the Pike amusement area before making her way to Hollywood Boulevard, where she becomes a fixture—window shopping, taking in movies, and displaying a knack for scoring free meals and a few bucks from folks who take pity on her. She moves from place to place with her carefully packed suitcases, usually at others’ expense, and seems constitutionally averse to gainful employment. A night out at the Florentine Gardens nightclub leads to a connection that will prove fateful. She rebuffs romantic advances—citing, variously, her virginity or a vaginal malady—and makes fleeting remarks suggesting she fears she is being followed. Mann never entirely resolves what she is seeking, and in attempting to reveal the truth, he actually enhances the mystery of his mystery woman.
His coverage of the investigation is appropriately circumspect; “we don’t really know” and “we can’t be sure” are refrains he returns to often. But the book is uneven. Mann goes to considerable lengths to lecture on the societal issues of the day—violent veterans, shifting attitudes toward women, racial inequities in media coverage of crime—and parts of the book read like scholarly text as a result. There are also too many mini-biographies of investigators and city officials and verbatim transcriptions of their conversations that slow the narrative considerably. A lengthy detour devoted to the colorful and rather creepy J. Paul de River—the LAPD’s psychiatrist specializing in sexual “deviants”—is particularly unwieldy; just as he hijacked the original investigation, he temporarily hijacks the book.
When Mann is at his best, however, he is very good indeed, as in focused and compelling sections on the technology of fingerprinting and the autopsy of the skillfully bisected corpse—“There’s a fine piece of surgery,” the coroner told one of the detectives. And as he whittles away at the suspects, eliminating names one by one until he is down to a final few, the narrative regains its momentum.
We won’t name names. But Mann’s careful dismantling of the myths surrounding this case—and the suspects he ultimately zeroes in on—doubtless set the stage for Dahlia works still to come.
—Pat H. Broeske
THE FERTILITY OF EVIL
By Amara Lakhous
Translated by Alexander E. Elinson
New York: Other Press, 2026. $17.99
In Algeria, the tortured do not merely suffer; they go on to torture others. That is the bitter lesson at the heart of Amara Lakhous’s The Fertility of Evil, a novel that operates simultaneously as a political thriller and as a reckoning with the last seventy years of the country’s tumultuous history.
Lakhous, an Algerian-born novelist who writes in both Arabic and Italian, is best known in English for Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (2008), a prize-winning satire of immigrant life in Rome. The Fertility of Evil—originally published in Arabic in 2019 as Tā’ir al-layl and long-listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction—marks a sharp departure in both tone and ambition. The novel is set in Oran—Algeria’s second city and a major Mediterranean port whose colonial-era grandeur is now a landscape of dilapidated old quarters and garish new money with rot running through both.
The story opens on July 5, 2018, Algeria’s Independence Day. Colonel Karim Soltani of the Anti-Terrorism Unit is called in to investigate the murder of a former National Liberation Front fighter known as Hoopoe. Once a revolutionary, Hoopoe had long since reinvented himself as a political power broker; now he has been found with his throat slit and his face mutilated to dishonor him. Soltani is under pressure to close the case quickly, and the investigation leads him deep into the dead man’s past—back to the 1950s, when Hoopoe was part of a National Liberation Front cell alongside three others: Stork, who was similarly disfigured; Falcon, an idealistic lawyer; and Dolores, a semi-Westernized woman whom both Stork and Hoopoe wished to marry.
The novel is built on alternating timelines, moving between Soltani’s present-day investigation and the era of French colonialism, national liberation, and the reactionary betrayals that followed. Despite the constant cycling back and forth, the two narratives never become confused. Lakhous helpfully provides a cast of characters at the front of the book—a wise decision, given that the same people appear at vastly different stages of their lives. We first meet Badrou Bouzar, for instance, as Hoopoe’s distraught son-in-law; only much later in the book do we encounter him again, but he’s younger, a firebrand reactionary college student.
Through this dual structure, Lakhous charts Algeria’s trajectory from the anticolonial struggle and the promise of independence in 1962 through military dictatorship, the Islamist terror attacks of the 1990s, and the entrenched corruption of the ruling class. The political stakes are not abstract. When the “Family Law” was passed in 1984, imposing medieval restrictions on a modern country, Dolores rages: “Now I need my guardian’s—meaning my husband, father, or brother’s—permission to live my own life? Amazing! I didn’t have to ask for permission when I joined the fight for independence!” And Falcon, the idealist, suffers at the hands of both sides—tortured first by the French (whose torturer had himself been tortured by the Nazis) and later by the Algerian government. The cycle is unbroken.
Alexander E. Elinson’s translation, produced through an unusual collaborative process in which Lakhous worked simultaneously with his English, French, and Italian translators, favors directness over ornamentation. The prose has a deliberate spareness that serves the thriller framework well. Lakhous is interested not in lyrical flourishes but in the accumulation of detail, the steady tightening of the investigative net, and the slow revelation of how thoroughly corruption has devoured the revolutionary generation’s ideals. The result is a gripping and ultimately devastating novel.
—Nick Mamatas
THE HITCHHIKERS
By Chevy Stevens
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2025. $29.00
Vancouver Island’s Chevy Stevens shot to literary fame with her first novel, Still Missing (2010). Loosely inspired by her work as a real estate agent, the book—in which an agent is abducted during a house showing—became a New York Times bestseller and won the prestigious International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel. Stevens has since written seven standalone suspense titles, and her work has been published in more than thirty countries. Her newest, The Hitchhikers, strips away contemporary conveniences and places its characters in the more exposed world of the freewheeling 1970s.
In July 1976, married couple Alice and Tom set out on a road trip in their new RV, leaving Seattle in the rearview for the open, and often desolate, highways and campgrounds of Canada, where the Olympics will be held. It’s more than a summer adventure; it’s a chance for them to reconnect after the stillbirth of their baby following a series of failed pregnancies that has put a strain on their otherwise solid sixteen-year relationship. Alice, as a stay-at-home wife, has been isolated in her grief, and the physical proximity of life with Tom in a camper promises to reignite the intimacy they have been missing. Alice can practically feel herself reawakening—a welcome affirmation of life that is interrupted by the arrival of a young couple whose seeming innocence belies a dark and desperate truth.
Alice first encounters Jenny in a campground restroom. Drawn in by her youth and vulnerability—and the eventual knowledge that Jenny is pregnant—she invites Jenny back to the RV, where she has bandages for the girl’s blistered feet. Jenny only agrees after seeking her boyfriend Simon’s approval. Having initiated this chain of events, Alice nevertheless grows uncomfortable with Tom’s kindness toward the couple, as his offer of dinner soon becomes an invitation to join them on the road. This apprehension is borne out when Alice picks up a newspaper during a rest stop and discovers that Jenny and Simon are on the run and wanted for murder. Tom later becomes immobilized, and Alice is forced into compliance by an increasingly erratic Simon. As the trail of blood and bodies increases in their wake, survival becomes Alice’s only concern.
Stevens uses Alice and Jenny as alternating POV characters to drive the story forward and to explore the complex relationship that develops between them. While Alice is understandably enraged by Jenny’s complicity in Simon’s crimes (and her deference to him in general), she is also protective of the younger woman and her unborn baby; and Jenny, while fiercely loyal to Simon, develops an almost daughterly affection toward Alice, whose approval and nurturing she seeks. This dynamic is fraught with tension and further encumbered by each woman’s allegiance to the man in her life. As bits of backstory emerge, so does a greater understanding of what led Jenny and Simon to do what they did. The reader, like Alice, may sympathize (or perhaps even empathize) with them to some degree while still disavowing the violence. It’s a fine balancing act and one that the author pulls off admirably.
The Hitchhikers is an ambitious and achingly resonant addition to Stevens’s slowly but steadily growing body of work, which boasts all the twists and turns of the gnarliest North American roads. While grounded in its richly developed characters and their conflicted pursuit of love and stability, the story also revels in the harrowing simplicity of a bygone era when road-trippers relied on instinct and intelligence rather than cell phones and surveillance cameras for survival. The irony, of course, is that the book serves as a cautionary tale about who you dare to pick up—even as you can’t bring yourself to put it down.
—John B. Valeri
JUROR #2
Warner Bros., 2024. Streaming on Max; DVD $32.99
(Warning: Spoilers follow.)
Juror #2 might be the last film Clint Eastwood ever directs—but it is a good one. It never strives for pulse-pounding suspense; instead, it offers a quiet, introspective study of a man wrestling with his conscience, caught in an impossible position where every choice carries a moral price.
The narrative centers on a mild-mannered writer, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), who has no desire to serve on a jury, particularly with his very pregnant wife, Allison (Zoey Deutch), at home needing his attention. His attempts to be excused come to nothing, and as the trial unfolds, Justin realizes he may possess critical information about the very crime being tried before him. He wants to come forward, but doing so could destroy his family, so he says nothing, and the weight of that silence becomes the engine of the film.
Unlike the most celebrated entry in the jury-room subgenre, 1957’s 12 Angry Men, the deliberations here unfold over multiple days rather than a single session, allowing the increasingly heated discussions to be punctuated by scenes of Justin’s personal life, jurors conducting their own extracurricular investigations, and the mounting tension between legal and political pressures on both sides.
The film’s greatest pleasures lie in its characters. The prosecutor, Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette), initially presents as little more than a machine politician, but as the narrative reaches its final act, it becomes clear what truth and justice genuinely mean to her. Killebrew’s arc may be the most satisfying in the film, running perpendicular to Justin’s and arriving at its own quietly powerful destination. The central cast delivers incredibly nuanced performances, achieving remarkable depth through subtle looks and vocal intonation alone. This is a film that rewards attentive viewing.
The narrative is admirably streamlined, and one senses that Eastwood was deliberately resisting excess, yet this restraint occasionally works against the film. J. K. Simmons is so compelling as an inquisitive juror that his limited screen time feels like a missed opportunity, and the attorney played by Kiefer Sutherland, who shares a significant bond with Justin, deserves at least one additional scene for proper emotional payoff. The penultimate plot twist, in particular, feels rushed—as though the film is anxious to reach its denouement—and the resulting gap leaves the impression of something important left unresolved.
Many of the central questions surrounding the crime remain deliberately unanswered, and even the characters themselves cannot be entirely certain of what has transpired. The slightly open ending invites viewers to draw their own conclusions—a fitting choice for a film so thoroughly preoccupied with the ambiguity of conscience.
Juror #2 is a subtle, resonant film in which every character must make a moral choice, act on the dictates of their conscience, and live with the consequences. It eschews explosive outbursts in favor of repressed internal struggle, and though it is never flashy, it lingers.
—Chris Chan
THEY KILL PEOPLE:
BONNIE AND CLYDE, A HOLLYWOOD REVOLUTION, AND AMERICA’S OBSESSION WITH GUNS AND OUTLAWS
By Kirk Ellis
Albuquerque: High Road Books, 2026. $29.95
They Kill People: Bonnie and Clyde, a Hollywood Revolution, and America’s Obsession with Guns and Outlaws is a history of the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde, exploring how the portrayal of violence shattered Hollywood taboos and tying the film to broader trends in American culture.
I suggest you do not pick up this book until you have seen Bonnie and Clyde at least twice, and preferably while the film is still fresh in your mind. Familiarity with the movie will help you get the most out of the book.
The best part of Kirk Ellis’s book is the background information on the movie, as the author provides an in-depth look at the struggles and arduous misadventures that went into writing the screenplay, getting it produced, casting the characters, and overcoming all sorts of hurdles. Bonnie and Clyde was met with absolute disgust by the studio higher-ups, and, as Ellis explains, it’s miraculous that the film was ever released at all.
The book’s account of the film’s critical reception is fascinating—initial reactions were vociferously negative, but a few dissenting voices prompted some critics to reconsider. In an age of hot takes and knee-jerk social media responses, watching opinions evolve through genuine reflection is refreshing.
The weakest part of this study is its look at American gun culture and violence. It’s a complex and hotly debated historiographical subject, and Ellis needed to provide more of the contrasting perspectives, differing opinions, and alternative interpretations of how Americans view firearms and criminals. Too often, Ellis paints all Americans with the same brush and fails to think about how these trends may have been present in other countries, too.
Furthermore, at times, Ellis punctuates the book with his own critical opinions of Bonnie and Clyde and other films. There’s nothing wrong with that, but too often the perspective is simply stated flatly, and it would have helped to see some justification of Ellis’s opinions, explaining why he feels that one scene is Faye Dunaway’s best work or why another movie is flawed. Deeper critiques rather than assured pronouncements would have further enhanced the book.
They Kill People is recommended for fans of Bonnie and Clyde and cinephiles, as well as readers interested in the evolving culture of film in the late 1960s.
—Chris Chan
VERA WONG’S GUIDE TO SNOOPING
(ON A DEAD MAN)
By Jesse Q. Sutanto
New York: Berkley, 2025. $30.00
(Warning: This review contains spoilers for the first book in the series.)
Jesse Q. Sutanto’s follow-up to her Edgar-winning Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (2023) is best read after its predecessor, which it spoils in some significant respects.
In Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, Sutanto introduces Vera Wong, a sixty-year-old Chinese widow running a small specialty teahouse in California. As the novel opens, she is profoundly lonely: her son has grown distant, and her business has declined. All of that changes when a corpse turns up on her premises. Vera promptly launches her own investigation, assembling a cast of suspects who gradually become something like family, and in the process rebuilds her fractured relationship with her son.
At the start of Snooping (on a Dead Man), Vera’s life is largely as she wishes it—though she remains impatient for her son and his girlfriend to marry and produce grandchildren and equally impatient for another murder to solve. When a young man disappears, she seizes the opportunity to launch her own inquiries. The discovery of his body only accelerates her efforts: she expands her circle, takes several troubled young people under her wing, and inadvertently becomes a social-media phenomenon, blending true crime with Chinese cooking.
Vera is a brilliant comedic creation—frequently pushy, often oblivious to the nuances of contemporary American life, and utterly single-minded in pursuit of the truth. She holds her opinions with absolute conviction even when they rest on pseudoscience or cultural chauvinism, and Sutanto has captured the speech and attitudes of a certain generation of Chinese immigrant women with affection and, it must be said, exasperated accuracy. Vera both loves and smothers those around her, and her particular approach to life, investigation, and food remains the beating heart of the novel.
The book is enormously enjoyable, though not without its weaknesses. The return of nearly all the major characters from the first book is, on the whole, a welcome pleasure; some appear in cameo roles, others more substantially. Less satisfying is the treatment of one significant figure from the original cast, whose subplot ends abruptly and, frankly, rather unfairly, given the traumas the character has endured. A brief scene illuminating his state of mind would have gone some way toward resolving what is otherwise a sour note. The new suspects, meanwhile, are somewhat less vividly drawn than their predecessors, and one wonders whether Vera’s ever-expanding unofficial family will simply continue to accumulate with each successive novel.
These reservations notwithstanding, Snooping (on a Dead Man) closes with a premise for the third installment that is genuinely tantalizing, and one hopes the Vera Wong series has a long and lively future ahead of it.
—Chris Chan
WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT
By Nicci French
New York: William Morrow, 2026. $30.00
For nearly thirty years, Tyler Green survived prison and all its indignities. Newly released, the once-promising medical student, whose dreamboat good looks have given way to age and a scar that runs from ear to jaw, has one thing on his mind. Not the future but the past: Tyler Green is determined to find out which of his so-called friends really killed the man he was convicted of murdering.
With elements of locked-room mystery and police procedural, What Happened That Night, by the husband-and-wife team known as Nicci French, is first and foremost a riveting psychological thriller. English writers Nicci Gerrard and Sean French have turned out dozens of thrillers, including the series featuring London-based psychotherapist Frieda Klein. Adept at handling multicharacter tapestries, the couple is also skilled at amping up tension. Both features are prominent here.
The story takes place at a dinner party where Tyler has summoned eight former university classmates, all of whom were present during the drug-, alcohol-, and sex-fueled midsummer weekend that ended with the death of another classmate, who was found brutally stabbed after having engaged in an earlier confrontation with Tyler, in whose room the murder weapon was found.
The participants are now in their early fifties, and the authors render them with an unsentimental precision that is quietly devastating. These are people whose younger selves would not recognize what they have become. Most are graying, and some of the formerly svelte bodies have packed on pounds. As for the dreams they once harbored: a musician—long-haired in his youth, now bald—never achieved the fame he sought; a writer cannot complete his first novel; a couples counselor’s assured countenance conceals quiet desperation; and the “genius” nicknamed “Prof” has ended up as a caregiver in a home for people with dementia. Also, one of them is a murderer.
Before the anxiety-filled night is over, there will be another murder—and the not-unexpected arrival of Detective Inspector Maud O’Connor, third-time protagonist of the series that began with 2024’s Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? She seems at first to be a supporting player, not appearing until nearly a third of the way through, but O’Connor’s is a forceful presence, unruffled by the power players who materialize flexing their muscles.
Even when genre tropes surface, the delivery remains sly. We won’t give spoilers, but we’d love to see future French titles featuring more than one character from this work—in addition to further outings for D.I. O’Connor. Heck, we’d love for What Happened That Night to inspire a miniseries. Let’s see, Rupert Penry-Jones could play Tyler . . .
—Pat H. Broeske
THE BEST TRUE CRIME
STORIES OF THE YEAR 2025
Edited by Douglas Preston
New York: Crime Ink, 2025. $28.95
The Best True Crime Stories of the Year 2025 marks the launch of a new annual anthology series curated by editor Douglas Preston, reviving a once-popular tradition of showcasing exceptional narrative crime journalism in a single, highly readable volume.
Most of the dozen articles collected here are strong, a few are excellent, and a couple fall short. Some pieces drift toward advocacy journalism rather than clear-eyed analysis, but for the most part, the stories are compelling, well crafted, and memorable.
Perhaps the most striking title belongs to the briefest entry: Tomoki Chien’s “Nudists Fight Off Pirate Terrorist,” which delivers exactly what it promises. Two California activists hoping to normalize public nudity end up intercepting a crime in progress. “Not all superheroes wear capes” may be a cliché, but in this case, they don’t wear pants, either. One subject reportedly donned a courtesy sock for the photographer’s sake, though no images appear in the book.
Patricia Wen’s “The Heiress at Harvard Who Helped Revolutionize Murder Investigations—and the Case She Couldn’t Forget” is another standout. It chronicles the life of Frances Glessner Lee, a wealthy woman who, after her divorce, pursued her fascination with forensic science. She became a key figure in the advancement of crime scene investigation, funded research at Harvard, and was the first woman in the United States to serve as a police captain. Lee is best known for her “Nutshell Studies”—detailed miniature dioramas of real crime scenes still used in criminology training today. Wen recounts one of Lee’s most significant cases, how she approached it, and its eventual adaptation into a film—an adaptation Lee herself helped shape.
Luke Winkie’s “The BTK Killer’s Daughter, Gabby Petito’s Parents, JonBenét’s Dad” closes the volume with a quiet, affecting look at those tethered to infamous crimes—not perpetrators but family members left behind. They gather at true crime conventions seeking answers, community, and, at times, peace. While some may question the tastefulness of such gatherings, Winkie captures the dignity and emotional complexity of people too often reduced to tabloid footnotes.
Also not to be missed is Douglas Preston’s introduction, which offers a measured defense of true crime itself, arguing that this genre, so often maligned, can in fact be psychologically clarifying and socially useful.
This is a sharp, absorbing collection and a welcome return to form for the annual anthology tradition. The series is off to a promising start.
—Chris Chan
ELSBETH: SEASON ONE
CBS, 2024. DVD $25.84
Elsbeth is a spinoff of The Good Wife and The Good Fight, with Carrie Preston reprising her Emmy-winning role as Elsbeth Tascioni, a quirky attorney with a flair for offbeat fashion and a mind that may be neurodivergent. In this new series, Elsbeth has left behind both Chicago and her legal career to take a consulting position with the NYPD in New York City, ostensibly to monitor police conduct following numerous questionable arrests. But over the course of the first season, it becomes clear that her new role is more complicated than she initially lets on. Though officially instructed to observe, Elsbeth—true to form—can’t help but get involved in the investigations themselves.
The recent resurgence of interest in classic mystery series like Columbo has led to a wave of contemporary homages. Like Poker Face, Elsbeth wears its influences on its sleeve. Nearly every episode—except the season finale—follows the inverted mystery structure: a celebrity guest star commits a murder and constructs a convincing alibi or cover story. Elsbeth shows up, starts poking holes in the killer’s carefully crafted narrative, interacts with the murderer of the week, annoys the villain, and eventually cracks the case.
First, the good: Preston is consistently engaging in the title role, infusing Elsbeth with warmth, humor, and charm. What could easily become a caricature in the wrong hands instead becomes a superbly watchable performance. The supporting cast is strong as well, with Carra Patterson as Officer Kaya Blanke—who quickly becomes Elsbeth’s closest ally—and Wendell Pierce as the commanding and complicated Captain C. W. Wagner, who runs a growing charity with his wife, Claudia (Gloria Reuben). The show delivers clever murder plots, entertaining guest stars, and a roster of recurring characters. At its best, Elsbeth is consistently fun, stylish, and satisfying.
And yet . .. despite everything the show does well, Elsbeth never quite achieves the lasting gravitas of Columbo. A key reason lies in the episode length. Columbo installments typically ran 75 to 90 minutes—long enough to allow psychological depth and an evolving relationship between detective and suspect. Some critics argued those longer running times led to filler scenes (a view I only occasionally share), but many agree that 75 minutes was the sweet spot. Elsbeth, by contrast, is confined to a tight 40-minute structure, which is too short to leave enough room for the nuanced interactions and slow-burning tension that made Columbo so memorable. Each episode of Elsbeth tends to follow the same brisk rhythm: a quick murder, a rapid police response, an initial pleasant encounter between Elsbeth and the killer, a second meeting where the suspect grows irritated, and then a rapid-fire final reveal. There’s rarely time for Elsbeth to truly get under the suspect’s skin or gradually unravel their defenses.
This rushed pacing leaves the episodes feeling somewhat undercooked. What Columbo did best—subtly probing the psychology of the killer over time—is something Elsbeth could emulate more fully with longer episodes. While network television logistics may be a constraint, the show would benefit greatly from exploring two-part stories and airing them as paired episodes on the same night.
As of this writing, I have not seen seasons 2 or 3 of Elsbeth, so I cannot comment on whether these issues have since been addressed. But as it stands, Elsbeth is a pleasant, engaging series that would need deeper character interactions and more complex mysteries to cross the threshold into greatness.
—Chris Chan
A FIELD GUIDE TO LIBRARY GHOSTS
By Gabi Coatsworth
Austin: Atmosphere Press, 2025. $18.99
British-born and American-based, Gabi Coatsworth moves fluidly between fact and fiction. Her full-length debut, Love’s Journey Home (2022), won first place in the memoir category from the Connecticut Press Club. Her first novel, A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Over, received the same honor in adult fiction and also took the top prize for her region in the 2023 Indie Author Project. Coatsworth’s work has appeared in several anthologies. Her latest novel, A Field Guide to Library Ghosts, is a free-spirited story of second chances, laced with suspense and tinged with the supernatural.
In her forties, Fiona Gordon is in desperate need of a fresh start. Despite a successful career—she oversees a prominent art museum in Philadelphia—the emotional fallout of a failed marriage continues haunt her. The discovery that her ex-husband and his new wife are expecting a child—a painful reminder of Fiona’s own infertility—comes without warning, delivered by baby bump at the museum’s annual gala. So when she receives an unexpected offer to become the library director in Brentford, Connecticut (also the setting of A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Over), the timing feels fated. Trading the hustle of the big city for a slower small town life, Fiona is soon packed and ready to relocate, much to the consternation of her “housemate,” George Manchester.
Long dead (I’m talking more than a century here), George has been immortalized in a portrait that Fiona purchased after discovering that he and his wealthy father ran their clothing business out of her Philadelphia loft. Having gotten used to his “company,” she can’t bear the thought of leaving him behind—especially since coming to the shocking realization that they are able to communicate with each other, albeit haltingly. But George is apoplectic over the move, severed from the place that anchors his identity. He was killed in a riding accident following a bitter quarrel with his young bride, and he’s driven by a need to learn what became of her and their children—and to make amends. Fiona’s move threatens to extinguish his last hope for closure.
Fiona has more than George’s grievances to contend with. Upon stepping into her new role at the library, she learns that her predecessor was guilty of financial malfeasance—leaving her responsible not only for cleaning up the mess but also for meeting the institution’s annual fundraising goals. It’s a lot to balance, especially as she adjusts to a new town, new coworkers, and potential friends and suitors. When the library—steeped in the histories and mysteries of its founding family—launches a genealogy project, Fiona begins to suspect there may be a way to help George find what he’s been seeking. Told from both Fiona’s and George’s points of view—each fiercely independent yet vulnerable—the narrative straddles the line between compelling and comedic, balancing mystifying elements with the more mundane tasks of daily life and work.
A Field Guide to Library Ghosts may not follow the conventions of a traditional mystery, but it brims with questions and quandaries that demand resolution. Coatsworth infuses the novel with charm, quirkiness, and warmth, crafting an English-feeling yet distinctly modern American tale of starting over and putting the past to rest. With its rich atmosphere, business and literary insight, and otherworldly romantic intrigue, the book transcends typecasting, inviting readers to sit for a spell and find satisfaction in the feel-good vibes of its vibrant cast of characters and the community they inhabit.
—John B. Valeri
THE HALLMARKED MAN
By Robert Galbraith
New York: Mulholland Books, 2025. $40.00
The eagerly awaited eighth book in Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series, The Hallmarked Man, continues the evolution of this enduring crime fiction saga.
Galbraith has been going from strength to strength with each installment. The early books were well plotted, engaging, mainstream mysteries with a touch of the bizarre—distinguished by the slow-burn development of the relationship between Strike and his business partner, Robin.
However, the last two books in the series, The Ink Black Heart (2022) and The Running Grave (2023), were exceptional. They were innovative and gripping, offering chilling insights into the world of internet trolls, incels, and the psychological manipulation used by religious cults to indoctrinate their recruits.
The central driving force behind the series remains the relationship between Strike and Robin, which has developed into a “will they/won’t they” narrative that continues to draw readers in. Galbraith has handled this with admirable restraint: the progression is subtle, with readers perceiving the connection before the characters themselves do. Realistic obstacles have been carefully constructed—but ultimately, this emotional thread demands a resolution. Does this eighth book provide it?
The Hallmarked Man opens with the discovery of a mutilated body in the vault of a silver shop. The police quickly determine that the corpse belongs to a known criminal. However, a woman named Decima Mullins contacts the agency, convinced the body is actually her missing lover—the father of her newborn child—who vanished around the time of the murder.
This sets the stage for a densely layered crime narrative. There are multiple possible identities for the victim, several plausible suspects, and enough settings to delight even the most ardent Baedeker devotee. And of course, there is no shortage of misunderstandings to keep Strike and Robin emotionally out of sync.
The old favorites are all in place: the family of the beautiful Charlotte Campbell returns to wreak the same kind of mayhem for Strike that Charlotte herself has caused in previous books; the agency’s glamorous new recruit, Kim Cochran, steps into the role of antagonist—an archetype previously filled by other ill-fated hires. (Side note: The Ellacott & Strike Agency would be well advised to take a hard look at its recruitment policies.) Meanwhile, Robin’s boyfriend, Ryan Murphy, has begun to morph into something reminiscent of Robin’s ex-husband, thanks to his (admittedly somewhat justified) jealousy of Strike.
Alongside all this runs the development of the Strike-Robin relationship—and here lies the central problem of this oddly unsatisfying book. The relationship drives the narrative in a way it hasn’t in previous installments, and the characters themselves seem inconsistent with what Galbraith has so carefully built until now. Strike takes on an investigation that conveniently allows him to remain close to Robin, and he pursues certain strategies that seem more emotionally motivated than professionally sound. Meanwhile, Robin begins to believe sensationalized press stories about Strike: that he may have physically abused his late lover, Charlotte; that he has sexually exploited clients; and that he is romantically involved with the agency’s latest recruit.
These are not the characters we’ve come to know. For the first time, the obstacles between them feel contrived, and at times, it becomes difficult to like either of them.
“Will they/won’t they” narratives are currently in vogue, and it must be tempting for a writer to prolong the tension in order to keep a series alive. But there is a limit to how many obstacles can be believably placed between two characters. Once those obstacles begin to distort plot and compromise character integrity, it may be time to reassess. Strike and Robin need to get together—or part ways for good.
Compounding the shaky character dynamics is an investigation that feels bloated and overly elaborate. It involves porn stars, animal abuse, the SAS, Freemasonry, trafficking—and, quite possibly, Uncle Tom Cobley and all. The plot involves multiple characters, some more fleshed out than others. The cast directly tied to the crime and investigation numbers more than thirty—and that’s not including the familiar ensemble of agency staff, police, family, and friends.
Despite moments of genuine tension, flashes of humor, and several engaging threads, The Hallmarked Man would benefit from some serious editing. Readers should probably opt for the e-book edition, where it is at least relatively easy to flip back and check who’s who. Even so, by the end of the novel, it’s difficult to remember who the body in the vault actually was, who killed him, and why.
Galbraith has indicated there’s a limit to the number of books in the series. Depending on the source, it may extend to nine or ten volumes. If it concludes with nine, it would be a shame for the eighth book to have devoted itself to an increasingly convoluted plot whose raison d’être seems merely to keep the main protagonists out of each other’s bed—at the expense of a convincing narrative.
Galbraith is capable of much better than this.
—Danuta Reah
HAVEN’T KILLED IN YEARS
By Amy K. Green
New York: Berkley, 2025. $30.00
The first half of Haven’t Killed in Years by Amy K. Green reads like the crime genre’s darkest comedy of the decade—or at least a strong contender. The protagonist, let’s call her Gwen (born Marin Haggerty), is the daughter of a notorious serial killer. While still a preteen, Gwen and her mother served as witnesses and, at times, unwilling accomplices to Gwen’s father’s murders. After his arrest, Gwen was uprooted, given a new identity, and forced to incinerate her past in order to build something resembling a normal life. But when severed body parts begin appearing on her doorstep, each accompanied by a chilling note using her real name, her buried identity teeters on the edge of exposure. Suddenly, her father’s “old adages” about human nature—and his practical instruction in evidence disposal—prove very useful.
Gwen eventually gets pulled into the cult fandom that blossoms around serial killers. At one party with her new circle of true crime enthusiasts, she watches a drinking game involving a knife and muses, “This game was combining my favorite things: counting and watching someone cause bodily harm.” What begins as a grim, biting comedy deepens into something darker when the narrative shifts perspective, introducing a woman from Gwen’s past who harbors a fatal obsession with her. In a world where nearly every character exhibits some flavor of psychopathy—and has endless free time to chase clues (or dump bodies) along the eastern seaboard—Green delivers a steady stream of suspects and escalates the body count with each twist. The coincidences sometimes strain credulity, but it hardly matters. Gwen’s voice is irresistible, and the young, chaotic cast feels vividly alive—even when they’re bleeding out.
When you read this, remember: some of the most dangerous people know how to blend in perfectly.
—Nick Mamatas
RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON
By Max Allan Collins
London: Hard Case Crime, 2026. $27.99
Any discussion of Max Allan Collins’s Return of the Maltese Falcon must necessarily engage with its lineage: Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel, John Huston’s 1941 film starring Humphrey Bogart, and the extensive critical tradition surrounding both. Spoilers are unavoidable, although readers of The Strand Magazine will almost certainly be familiar with the source material, long considered a cornerstone of American hard-boiled fiction.
In 2009, Joe Gores’s prequel Spade & Archer offered readers a glimpse of Sam Spade’s life before The Maltese Falcon. Now, with Return of the Maltese Falcon, the ever-dependable Collins delivers a sharp, affectionate continuation of the story that begins where Hammett’s left off.
Return of the Maltese Falcon opens in December 1928, just two weeks after the events of Hammett’s novel. Effie Perine, Spade’s indispensable Girl Friday, ushers in a new client, a Miss Smith who quickly reveals herself to be Rhea Gutman, daughter of the late—and scarcely lamented—Casper “The Fat Man” Gutman. Claiming she wants to honor her father’s legacy, she hires Spade to find the real Maltese Falcon. Spade, skeptical but intrigued, takes the case—an opportunity to untangle the loose threads left by the hunt for the statuette and to confront his own unfinished business involving Miles Archer and Archer’s widow, Iva.
With the case reopened, Spade begins a second search for the elusive black bird. Collins retraces familiar ground: the bodies left in the wake of the original case (Archer, Floyd Thursby, Captain Jacobi, Gutman), the survivors behind bars (Joel Cairo and Brigid O’Shaughnessy), and the volatile figures still at large (Wilmer Cook). Lieutenant Dundy and Tom Polhaus return. Collins also brings to life characters Hammett only hinted at—Chicago gambler Dixie Monahan, the mysterious General Kemidov, and Brigid’s sister Corrine—enriching the tapestry without disrupting continuity. Spade asks his pointed questions, takes his share of knocks, and ultimately uncovers the answers readers have been waiting for.
Return of the Maltese Falcon is a worthy sequel—smart, atmospheric, and respectful of Hammett without ever lapsing into imitation. Collins moves comfortably within Hammett’s stylistic world, continuing the story in the third person—what he describes in his insightful afterword as a “Spade-centric omniscient narrator.” The result is an engaging, propulsive novel that honors the original while bearing Collins’s own confident imprint. It’s a testament to his success that readers encountering Spade for the first time through Return may well be driven to seek out Hammett’s originals.
Collins also ensures that Spade gets his share of quotable lines. One in particular stands out—worthy of Hammett’s prose and rivaling Bogart’s immortal closer, “The stuff that dreams are made of,” from the 1941 film. When Felice struggles to lift an object and says “It’s heavy,” Collins gives Spade this deadpan gem: “That’s the weight of too many dead men.”
It’s a line Hammett might have written himself.
—Hank Wagner
Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter
By Eli Frankel
New York: Citadel Press, 2025. $29.00
The unsolved slaying of Elizabeth Short—famously known as the Black Dahlia—has generated an avalanche of reporting (both digital and print), dozens of books, myriad television and online docudramas, and even several feature films. The onslaught continues with Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, the Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter, which differs from previous tomes by linking a still-unsolved 1941 Kansas City murder to the 1947 Los Angeles killing of Short.
The Dahlia universe is crowded with obsessives, some of whom have been chasing answers for decades. Sisters in Death author Eli Frankel, who has worked across multiple sectors of the television industry, caught the bug in the 1990s while editing programs for E! Entertainment Television. He went on to spend five years researching the case of Short, whose “Black Dahlia” nickname was inspired both by her jet-black hairstyle and by The Blue Dahlia, a popular film of the era.
In addition to calling up archival materials, visiting libraries and historical societies, and reviewing previously published accounts, Frankel managed to interview the woman (now deceased) who discovered Short’s body on the morning of January 15—nearly 80 years ago.
Frankel was struck by something the late Betty Bersinger told him, which seemed out of step with widely accepted accounts based on Los Angeles Police Department reports—specifically regarding the position of the body and its exact location in the vacant, weed-choked lot in Leimert Park, South Central Los Angeles. Could it be that the official version had long been misreported? That question led Frankel to revisit not just the crime scene details, but also long-standing ideas about the killer himself. Frankel argues: “The disposal of the body wasn’t the work of an evil genius. It was the work of an awkward but fiendish amateur.”
Frankel also conducted a deep dive into one of the names on the LAPD suspect list, an individual who also appeared in the case of Leila Adele Welsh, a twenty-four-year-old heiress brutally murdered as she slept in her bed, just months after the United States entered World War II. Flimsy evidence led to the arrest and trial of her brother, who was ultimately acquitted. Like the Dahlia case six years later, Welsh’s murder was never solved.
We won’t reveal the name of that individual here, but as Frankel compellingly details, the same man would later meet and date Short.
Over the years, investigators have concluded that whoever killed Welsh, whose body was nearly decapitated and deliberately drained of blood, and the twenty-two-year-old Short, who was found surgically bisected and similarly exsanguinated, must have been highly skilled with a blade. This led to the questioning of morticians and surgeons.
Frankel’s suspect, however, was neither. He was an avid hunter who, as a young man, worked in his family’s grocery store, cutting and processing meat from local slaughterhouses.
With sections devoted to each of the crimes and one to the man who may have committed them (as they say, the jury’s still out), the book vividly guides readers through the chaotic Kansas City crime scene of the early 1940s, an era marked by gambling, gangsters, corrupt cops, and a floundering police department. It also adroitly traces Short’s path from Medford, Massachusetts, to postwar Southern California.
Many works on the Black Dahlia case have offered up a dizzying array of theories. There’s even a “my daddy did it” subgenre, and suspects have included figures as improbable as Bugsy Siegel. Frankel sidesteps most of this conjecture, omitting many of the usual names on the suspect lists. Nor does he delve into the enduring, almost mythic pull of the Dahlia case, though he does acknowledge it as America’s most famous unsolved murder.
Instead, he remains focused on his chosen candidate for infamy.
Will readers buy it? Possibly. There are certainly intriguing takeaways, including a compelling psychological portrait of the odd, unsettling Midwesterner who, according to Frankel, crossed paths with both victims. It’s an argument ably made—though the first half of the book suffers from an overabundance of metaphors and similes.
Dahlia scholars will no doubt be tempted to take a magnifying glass to this entry, potentially shattering some of its claims. Still, there’s no denying that Frankel has followed a thread of clues leading to an intriguing possibility—and an inexhaustible trove of nightmares.
—Pat H. Broeske
THE WHITE MOUNTAIN
By Robert Goldsborough
New York: Mysterious Press/Open Road, 2025. $17.99
The great fictional detectives never stop—not even when their original creators are long gone. Robert Goldsborough has been continuing Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries since 1986, with an eighteen-year gap between his seventh and ninth entries. The White Mountain is the eighteenth installment in the series.
The White Mountain is a pleasant read and will certainly interest longtime Nero Wolfe fans, though the mystery itself is rather slight. While it’s always enjoyable to return to Wolfe’s brownstone, the main point of interest in this installment is that the action takes place in Europe. When Wolfe’s loyal and exceptionally skilled chef, Fritz Brenner, becomes concerned about a relative’s well-being, he returns to his native Switzerland—only to fall out of contact soon after. Wolfe, who famously hates to leave his house for any reason, realizes that Fritz must be in serious trouble. He and his ever-capable assistant, Archie Goodwin, set off for Geneva to find out what happened to their friend.
The descriptions of Geneva are immersive, though occasionally the dialogue feels as if it’s lifted from a travel guide or encyclopedia. Still, the shift in setting adds freshness to the series. The title nods to Stout’s The Black Mountain (1954), one of the original Wolfe novels also set in Europe, creating a neat thematic echo.
Amusingly, Archie initially believes he’s fully equipped to handle the overseas investigation on his own—until he’s reminded that, despite Wolfe’s discomfort with being away from home, Wolfe’s command of languages and customs makes his presence essential to solving the case.
One ambiguity in the novel involves its chronology. Wolfe and Archie have always been ageless, with Stout’s original novels unfolding in the eras in which they were written. Goldsborough initially followed that approach, placing Archie in the computer-using 1980s. Over time, however, the series drifted back toward a vaguely defined late-1970s setting—roughly after Stout’s A Family Affair (1975), with the exception of Goldsborough’s prequel Archie Meets Nero Wolfe (2012). The White Mountain, however, is harder to place. A reference to the emergence of hippies suggests the 1960s, while the absence of one recurring character indicates a post–Family Affair timeline. Also mildly jarring is Archie’s sudden shift in wardrobe: the famously dapper detective, usually seen in suits even when not undercover, now roams Geneva in blue jeans and a leather jacket.
The White Mountain is a slim volume, but it doesn’t feel rushed. The plot moves efficiently, never lingering unnecessarily. That said, longtime fans may miss stalwarts like Inspector Cramer and Purley Stebbins, whose absence makes the story feel slightly unmoored. Other familiar figures are referenced but do not appear.
This isn’t the best starting point for new readers of either Stout’s originals or Goldsborough’s continuations. But for those already steeped in the Wolfe universe—and especially for readers who have followed Goldsborough’s work—The White Mountain is a pleasant addition to the canon.
—Chris Chan
WHO KILLED THE RABBI’S WIFE?
(A FRANK WOLF MYSTERY)
By Saul Golubcow
Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2024. $14.99
With this second installment in the Frank Wolf series, Saul Golubcow offers a novel with a strong, distinctive voice. Who Killed the Rabbi’s Wife? reintroduces one of the most distinctive detectives in contemporary crime fiction. In a field crowded with formulaic plots and interchangeable heroes, Frank Wolf—a Holocaust survivor who becomes a private investigator at an age when most men are retiring—feels genuinely original. His investigations rely not only on sharp observation but on a rare understanding of human frailties, and they provide a unique perspective on the nature and purpose of detection.
This historical novel, set New York in the 1970s, vividly recreates its period and its setting and also the mindsets of those who lived in it. Wolf works within the Brooklyn Jewish community, a community protective of its privacy and wary of police scrutiny, so when the wife of a leading rabbi is brutally murdered, Wolf—along with his attorney grandson, Joel (the narrator), and Joel’s psychologist wife, Aliya—takes on the case.
The trio make an effective investigative team, and their sleuthing is balanced by warmly crafted scenes of family life. One of the novel’s greatest strengths is the pleasure of watching Wolf shift his approach from one interview to the next, then dissect each response for what is left unsaid as much as what is spoken. Wolf probes the suspects, and even Joel and Aliya themselves, gently but unmistakably challenging their assumptions and showing them where their theories fall short.
The book is a well-crafted blend of detective work and wry humor, with a strong emphasis on characterization. Throughout the novel, the characters don’t merely pursue the solution to the titular mystery; they also consider the deeper reasons behind people’s actions. It’s a deeply human story, and its poignancy is understated in a way that makes it both memorable and thought-provoking. Who Killed the Rabbi’s Wife? is a novel that will stay with you, not because of the mystery itself but because of the people who move through it.
—Chris Chan
CROOKS
By Lou Berney
New York: William Morrow, 2025. $30.00
Author Lou Berney, who’s racked up some serious awards with titles that include his 2015 debut novel The Long and Faraway Gone (which won an Edgar for best paperback original) and 2018’s JFK assassination-shaded November Road, takes us on a road trip spanning four decades, evocative settings, and the colorful exploits of a family adept at thinking outside the law. Now, these aren’t the Corleones or the Sopranos. These are folks who operate as associates of bigger/badder types.
“It’s in his blood.” With those opening words, Crooks makes it clear that Buddy Mercurio—the Las Vegas hustler and patriarch of the Mercurio family—is ethically challenged. Which is not a surprise: the family’s criminal roots run so deep that “a Mercurio probably sold counterfeit Michelangelos to gullible popes.”
Crooks begins in the 1960s with the Las Vegas saga of Buddy and Lillian Mercurio. Buddy is a low-level operator who works for a guy who works for Sam Giancana, while Lillian works at a hotel dress shop, where she supplements her income by quietly rifling through the handbags of customers in the fitting rooms. Together they make an ideal pair of small-time schemers.
Berney evokes a vivid neon-lit Las Vegas, weaving in real life landmarks and figures. The Mercurios move through lounges and showrooms like the Sands, the Dunes, and the Golden Steer, with cameos from singer Rosemary Clooney and mob associate Moe Dalitz adding period texture. As the years pass, Buddy and Lillian settle in the Beverly Green neighborhood and start a family, even agreeing to adopt a Choctaw baby as a favor to a local boss—a gesture that neatly signals the way mob ties permeate their lives.
Life initially seems promising for the Mercurios—Buddy is even running his own side jobs—until a single phone call forces the family to flee Las Vegas. They resettle in Oklahoma City, where Lillian has inherited a creaking family home and where she gives birth to a fifth child.
The Mercurios’ unconventional life soon includes a lively stint running a 1970s disco, where the four older children assist in small-time criminal schemes, from minor fraud to handing out drugs on the dance floor. The novel then shifts to chapters told from the perspectives of the now-grown siblings, each tracing a different path of questionable enterprise.
Berney excels at crafting distinct voices and layering a family history that spans decades, but Crooks ultimately proves to be a tricky dance. The Mercurios, for all their vividness, aren’t all that likable, and when the story brings them together for a climactic family reunion (predicated on what feels like a contrivance involving bit players from the family’s past), there’s little emotional resonance. The result is a novel that entertains with style and atmosphere yet leaves surprisingly little resonance once the journey is over. It’s a bit like coming back from a road trip and realizing you didn’t net a single souvenir.
—Pat H. Broeske
DEATH OF AN ASSASSIN: THE TRUE STORY OF THE GERMAN MURDERER WHO DIED
DEFENDING ROBERT E. LEE
By Ann Marie Ackermann
Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2017. $24.95
History is full of stories that nearly vanished into obscurity, and Ann Marie Ackermann’s Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee resurrects one of the most remarkable. This gripping true-crime history traces a German fugitive whose violent path spanned two continents and whose crime indirectly advanced the early practice of forensic science. In unraveling the transatlantic investigation, Ackermann also seeks to clear the name of an innocent man who lived under an undeserved cloud of suspicion for the rest of his life.
The narrative centers on a man who will remain unnamed here to preserve some of the book’s revelations. What can be said—without spoiling any deeper twists—is that the story begins in 1835, with the shocking murder of Johann Heinrich Rieber, the mayor of Bönnigheim, Germany. Suspicion soon falls on multiple men, including one who is entirely innocent. Both he and the true killer flee to America, seeking to escape the investigation, with the killer eventually enlisting in the U.S. military and fighting under Robert E. Lee during the Mexican-American War. He ultimately becomes the first casualty in a key battle, and Lee himself eulogizes him, unaware of the dead man’s past until unofficial investigations dig up the truth.
Much of the evidence in this case had rested in German archives for more than a century, and it took Ackermann’s fluency in the language and fastidious research to bring the story to light. Through her work, Death of an Assassin demonstrates how a single true crime case can illuminate the political, military, and scientific currents of its era.
The result is a fascinating narrative that moves across continents and disciplines, blending courtroom intrigue, early forensic innovation, and a transatlantic historical mystery into a single, compelling account.
—Chris Chan
DEXTER: ORIGINAL SIN
Paramount, 2025. DVD $19.95, Blu-ray $24.99
Streaming on Paramount+
Say what you will about the Dexter franchise, but it’s determined to keep on going until it gets it right. After four terrific early seasons (2006–2009) and four later seasons of mixed quality (2010–2013), the ending of the original series about a serial killer who targets other murderers was almost universally regarded as a disappointment. Several years later, in 2021, the follow-up miniseries, Dexter: New Blood, was an impressive return to form, though with an unfortunately rushed denouement that left fans polarized. Personally, I thought the New Blood ending worked and addressed the moral themes of the series that had been largely abandoned after season 4, but some dangling plot threads had remained which made the ending less than completely satisfying.
And so, a few years after actor Michael C. Hall supposedly put down his knife and plastic wrap for good, the creative powers that be decided to create not one but two new series in the Dexter universe, with the possibility of more in the future. The first to be released is Dexter: Original Sin, a prequel. When this was announced, I was skeptical, as a series that could be called Dexter: The Teenage Years would be a tricky project. After all, viewers already know what happens during this time period. Don’t they?
Surprisingly, the show works, and it actually adds to the franchise’s legacy rather than detracts from it. Original Sin shows Dexter as a new intern working in Miami Metro PD, developing his skills as both a blood-spatter analyst and a serial killer. The series takes some scenes and incidents that were shown in flashback in the original series and expands on them, sometimes adding context that gives them a radically different meaning. Unquestionably, the best aspect of Original Sin is Christian Slater’s performance as Dexter’s adoptive father, Harry Morgan, as we see more of his troubled past, questionable actions, and arguably poor decisions. Lingering questions from the original series are answered not only skillfully but surprisingly and with more emotional impact that expected. For years, I have wondered just what sort of a person and mother Dexter’s other adoptive parent, Doris, was, and though her screen time is brief, the show and the actress (Jasper Lewis) manage to provide a much-needed level of insight into her character.
It’s the casting that makes the series shine. The casting directors and makeup artists have done a great job with actors who not only resemble younger versions of the original performers but also convincingly capture the essence of the characters. Patrick Gibson is a revelation as the young Dexter Morgan. Rather than merely mimicking the many nuances Hall brought to the role, he delivers a compelling performance that shows the character evolving with each episode. While Molly Brown bears little physical resemblance to Jennifer Carpenter, she captures the personality and spirit of Debra Morgan with striking precision. Her portrayal of Dexter’s adoptive sister is both emotionally resonant and impressively performed. James Martinez, meanwhile, not only bears a remarkable resemblance to David Zayas’s Angel Batista but also conveys the warmth and integrity that defined the original character. Similar praise is due to Alex Shimizu, Christina Milian, and Sarah Kinsey, who bring Vince Masuka, Maria LaGuerta, and Camilla Figg to life with nuance and fidelity. And of course, Hall’s narration provides the perfect tonal anchor for each episode.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the season is one of the main antagonists. This complaint has nothing to do with the performance of the actor, but instead, it is centered on the fact that the character lacks the development and detail of Dexter’s great villains, and as a result, that character’s crimes and psychopathy come across as somehow underwhelming. As for the other, surprise antagonist, this twist villain is so well cast, presented, and revealed that this plotline becomes an emotional linchpin of the season and also recontextualizes the original series in a way that enhances and enriches the show’s glory days, instead of exploiting and piggybacking on them. Like many have observed, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s forensics expert Tanya Martin shines in every scene, but she needs a much richer storyline and a deeper role as Dexter’s work mentor.
(On the DVD set I viewed, the labeling on discs 1 and 3 was incorrect, so users who think they may have gotten a defective set should check all the discs.)
Dexter: Original Sin will return for a second season, and having seen the excellent first season, I now welcome new installments with genuine anticipation.
—Chris Chan
THE GHOSTWRITER
By Julie Clark
Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2025. $27.99
The newest standalone suspense novel from Julie Clark—author of The Ones We Choose (2018), The Last Flight (2020), and The Lies I Tell (2022)—is The Ghostwriter, a meta-mystery about a decades-old crime that traumatized a community and tore a family apart.
A once-celebrated ghostwriter for prominent individuals with inspiring stories to tell (if not the skill set to tell them), Oliva Dumont has taken a hit to her reputation in the wake of a multi-author event gone wrong. Since she publicly challenged a male peer about his lack of integrity and was hit with a costly lawsuit in return, her assignments have dried up, as have the corresponding paydays. Desperate and about to lose her home, she agrees to complete the latest manuscript by her estranged father, Vincent Taylor. But what she expects to be another Stephen King–esque horror novel turns out to be a memoir chronicling the unsolved murders of his siblings, Poppy and Danny—a crime for which he has remained under suspicion for fifty years.
Resolved to finally uncover the truth, Olivia says goodbye to her boyfriend and travels to Ojai, California—the rural community where tragedy struck during the freewheeling ’70s. When she arrives at her father’s home, she discovers that he is suffering from progressive Lewy body dementia, which has compromised both his physical and his mental faculties. Olivia subsequently finds that his memoir is not only incomplete but incoherent—a problem that’s exacerbated by his muddled memories and difficulty communicating. With more questions than answers (and over her father’s objections), she launches her own investigation into what happened that long-ago night, dredging up troubling incidents and secrets that lay bare a long-standing mystery.
The concept itself is both undeniably compelling and skillfully constructed (and there’s plenty of insider publishing chatter), but Clark also infuses an impressive level of conflict into her depiction of Olivia’s fraught relationship with her father, which is unraveled in layers. Adding to this tapestry of trauma is the rendering of tormented teens Poppy and Danny, who come alive by virtue of Vincent’s recollections, Olivia’s interviews with the family’s friends and acquaintances, and information from archives, diaries, and video footage. The horrors they suffered and the resulting wreckage create an oppressive, haunting gravity that makes this novel the author’s most emotionally impactful work to date.
The Ghostwriter is masterful on every level. From the chilling crime and its enduring legacy to the damaged characters and their potential for redemption (or, at the very least, revelation), Clark offers a poignant and often pulse-pounding novel of secrets and salvation. This is not only the author’s best work so far but one of the best books of the year. Superlative suspense!
—John B. Valeri
The Intruder
By Freida McFadden
Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press, 2025. $27.99
Freida McFadden makes readers doubt everything, and The Intruder proves once again why she sits atop the psychological thriller game.
After a life-shattering event forces her to leave her old life behind, Casey dreams of escape: a fresh start, a quiet cabin in the woods, and the promise of solitude. But that fantasy of unplugging and leaving the city behind quickly darkens, bringing to the forefront classic McFadden themes of identity, trauma, guilt, memory, and motherhood.
Secluded in a remote cabin by herself, Casey realizes one night during a terrible storm that she’s not alone. A late-night visitor—a young girl, bloodied and terrified—appears on her doorstep, and she must choose between letting the girl in or keeping herself safe. From that moment on, the novel grips like a vise. It unfolds across two timelines—“Now” and “Before”—forming a puzzle whose pieces only lock into place as the story progresses. Shifting perspectives and delayed reveals sustain the tension till the end.
Throughout the novel, McFadden takes a meticulous approach to clue-building. Details as small as eye color, a pen, a piece of clothing, or even a fleeting description of hair and teeth are rarely incidental. These visual cues operate as subtle hints, rewarding attentive readers and inviting post-publication discussion among fans. Equally effective is McFadden’s use of name play. Without veering into spoilers, names in this story carry weight; the way they are introduced, repeated, and mirrored becomes a quiet but meaningful part of the puzzle, reinforcing McFadden’s reputation for careful, layered construction.
There are occasional moments of repetition—certain lines and sensory details, such as the recurring scent of peaches in a closet, appear multiple times in ways that feel unintentional, briefly jolting the reader out of the story. Still, these are minor distractions in an otherwise tightly constructed thriller.
Readers should note that the novel contains some graphic scenes involving children, which may be difficult for sensitive readers.
At just 288 pages, The Intruder moves at a relentless pace while still delivering complexity, character depth, and a steady stream of misdirection. Fans of McFadden’s twist-driven psychological thrillers will find this latest entry both unsettling and addictive—a compact, clue-laden ride that satisfies—and unsettles—until the final page.
—Becca Hughes
THE MADNESS OF JOHN TERRELL:
REVENGE AND INSANITY
ON TRIAL IN THE HEARTLAND
By Stephen Terrell
Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2024. $24.95
Writers turn to true crime for many reasons, but one of the most compelling is the desire to confront a buried family legacy. In The Madness of John Terrell: Revenge and Insanity on Trial in the Heartland, Stephen Terrell explores a hidden chapter of his own ancestry—a story of cruelty, ego, vengeance, and self-destruction, culminating in a murder trial that left one man physically ruined and another, perhaps, mentally unmoored.
A retired attorney, Terrell had no idea that his family had once been at the center of a public scandal. The subject was long buried—something his relatives never spoke of—and it wasn’t until an outside source brought it to his attention that he uncovered this particularly grim episode in his family’s past. Like many recent works, the book began as a “pandemic project,” the result of time and curiosity converging during COVID-era lockdowns. With the world on pause, Terrell turned to genealogy as a diversion, only to find himself plunged into a far more personal story than he ever anticipated. What began as casual research quickly evolved into a full-scale investigation, as newspaper archives and court records unearthed the dramatic, long-silenced case of his great-uncle, a man both reviled and pitied in his own time.
Once an ordinary farmer in Wells County, Indiana, John Terrell saw his life forever changed in the 1890s, when a large quantity of oil was found underneath his land. He started pumping it, hired workers to help with the process, and swiftly became the richest man in town. But his new wealth came with a curse. It inspired envy, and his combative temperament—paired with his openly scornful view of religion in a devout community—left him with very few friends.
Similarly, the romantic lives of John Terrell’s children were often turbulent, but none more so than that of his youngest daughter, Lucy. After a brief liaison with laborer Melvin Wolfe, Lucy became pregnant. Wolfe’s open disdain for both her and the unborn child should have been a clear warning, but John Terrell, determined to avoid scandal, leveraged all his influence to force a marriage. Lucy moved into the Wolfe household, only to find life with her in-laws unbearable. Melvin’s behavior soon descended into cruelty—mistreating, betraying, and humiliating her in ways that would eventually spark tragedy.
Stephen Terrell’s book succeeds as both a historical inquiry and a true-crime narrative. Beneath the legal maneuvers lies a genuinely tragic story of family scandal, an act of violence, and the courtroom battle that followed—events that left the Terrell family shattered and the community transfixed. Terrell relates it all with the pacing of a legal thriller yet never loses sight of the human cost. The twists and turns are so striking they might be mistaken for fiction, and the ultimate fates of those involved carry an irony that lingers long after the last page. It is a thoroughly researched, vividly told story that will engage true-crime readers and history enthusiasts alike.
—Chris Chan
THE PENGUIN
HBO Home Video, 2025. DVD $29.98, Blu-ray $39.99
Streaming on HBO Max
When The Batman premiered in 2022, many fans were left wondering: why cast Colin Farrell as the man destined to become the Penguin? Sure, he was undeniably effective in what was essentially a bit part, but why encase a well-known actor in layers of prosthetics for only a few minutes of screen time?
In hindsight, the answer now seems obvious. The studio must have offered this miniseries as part of the bargain. Farrell’s performance in The Penguin is earning widespread acclaim—and rightly so. The series is not only a standout entry in the comic book genre but also a showcase for a number of highly talented actors delivering tour de force performances.
The show picks up shortly after the events of The Batman, with Gotham City still reeling and control of the city’s organized crime families up in the air. Enter Oswald “Oz” Cobb (Farrell), a low-level figure in the Falcone crime family who’s plotting his rise up the ladder. Oz is a skillful strategist, and his impulsiveness and volatility often threaten to undo his best-laid plans. When his flawed behavior creates an irreversible situation, Oz tries to turn a potential firestorm to his advantage.
It’s pretty obvious that the creative team didn’t just look at the original comics; they also rewatched all of the most celebrated crime dramas of the past twenty-five years and incorporated bits and pieces of various central character arcs into The Penguin. Tony Soprano’s influence on Oz, in terms of voice, mannerisms, and personality, is clear. The drug production storyline features direct nods to Breaking Bad, especially when the makers’ product riffs on that show’s blue crystals by producing their own drug that looks like bright red broken glass. Oz’s scheming his way to the top has parallels to House of Cards, the urban decay and political corruption of The Wire are present, and aspects of Oz’s psychology are taken straight from Dexter and Bates Motel. It doesn’t feel derivative unless you look very closely, but the inherently over-the-top world of Batman villainy gives the show its own unique atmosphere.
And indeed, the series comes into its own when it goes into the world of depravity and madness found only in Gotham City. In the two best episodes of the eight-episode series, we see how the fresh-out-of-the-asylum Sofia Falcone Gigante (Cristin Milioti) became the woman she is and also how Oz always was the person he is.
The acting is what makes the series so engrossing. Farrell’s Oz is both larger than life and vulnerably human, a violent criminal whose attempts at wearing a nice-guy mask only work for short stretches. Viewers will always want to know what he’ll do next, and his unpredictability makes him all the more compelling. Though Oz is by nature the most colorful and grotesque character in a production without a moral center, Milioti’s Sofia is a terrific example of how victims sometimes become the worst abusers. After being locked away in the Arkham asylum for being the serial killer known as the Hangman, Sofia is released, and she attempts to both bolster and reinvent her family’s organized crime legacy. Far quieter and more ordinary than any other character, Rhenzy Feliz plays Oz’s protégé Victor Aguilar with real heart and resonance. Deirdre O’Connell gives an emotional gut punch as Oz’s mother, Francis, who is sinking into dementia but still has enough of her mind and memories to devastate those around her. The other standout performance is Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni, a blend of vicious gangster and loving family man who stands toe-to-toe with Oz in terms of screen presence and menace.
Due to the overwhelming critical and popular success of The Penguin, the question is whether it will remain a one-and-done miniseries or get a second season. My guess is that a follow-up series is in secret development, but since the producers are pushing the existing series in the Limited Series category at the upcoming Emmys, they’re going to pull a Big Little Lies and wait until all the envelopes are opened and all the trophies are handed out before making the announcement. Multiple people connected to The Penguin should take home awards for their work, especially the cast. They deserve it.
—Chris Chan
REMOTE: THE SIX
By Eric Rickstad
Ashland, OR: Blackstone, 2025. $28.99
Eric Rickstad often bubbles just underneath the genre’s biggest names, inspiring great reverence in those who are familiar with his work while remaining shamefully unknown to others. His internationally bestselling novels include the three-book, Vermont-set Canaan Crime Novels (The Silent Girls in 2015, Lie in Wait in 2016, and The Names of Dead Girls in 2017) and the standalone titles Reap (2000), What Remains of Her (2018), I Am Not Who You Think I Am (a New York Times Best Thriller in 2021), and Lilith (2024, praised by NPR as “a brave, timely novel that goes straight to the damaged soul of this country”). Rickstad’s recent release Remote: The Six serves as the launching point for a new series that breathes new life into the serial killer genre.
FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark has spent a year and a half tracking a precise and prolific predator across the country with precious little to show for it. A series of baffling crimes—intricately staged scenes in which entire families have been brutally, if efficiently, executed—has led to an all-out manhunt to bring down the “Tableau Killer.” There is no apparent motive for his actions, nor is there any incriminating evidence left behind. Rather, the carnage canvases speak for themselves—though Stark lacks the ability to interpret their meaning. On the brink of burnout and embarrassed by the perceived lack of progress, he is assigned a new partner following the fifth attack in an escalating rampage.
Gilles Garnier is an outsider, which immediately raises Stark’s hackles. An MIT graduate with a degree in genetic engineering, Garnier has worked with both the CIA and the Army’s Intel and PSYOP divisions. His “unique skill set” includes the ability to “remote view” perpetrators without the benefit of technology, allowing for their identification and apprehension prior to (further) atrocities being committed; like a Polaroid picture, images appear over time before coming into sharper focus. Stark is prepared to dismiss him as some kind of psychic charlatan until he learns that Garnier’s appointment was made by the director of the FBI himself. Consequently, he has no choice but to bring Garnier up to speed and welcome his input, diversionary and useless as he expects it to be.
Rickstad excels at characterization, creating an Odd Couple with Stark the skeptic and Garnier the savant, whose dynamically opposed methods could be complementary if utilized correctly or compromise the case if not. But just as Stark begins to believe that there may be something to Garnier’s visions, Garnier begins to question his own abilities and is overtaken by debilitating fatigue and the inability to see. With no room for missteps or wasted time, Stark—whose single-minded determination comes at the cost of pretty much everything, and everyone, else—must learn the secrets of Garnier’s shrouded past so that he can begin to understand the formidable forces at play. But what can be used to their advantage can also be used to their detriment by an unsub whose own abilities rival Garnier’s but have been redirected for nefarious purposes.
With Remote: The Six, Rickstad proves once again that his creative ambitions are unbridled (perhaps even unparalleled), offering a fresh take on familiar tropes. A thriller through and through, the book is also steeped in history, drawing on real-life case studies of CIA-sanctioned remote viewing. A potent combination of character study and criminal investigation, it ranks among the author’s very best. And that’s saying a lot, considering how often, and how well, he has continued to revitalize the crime story. Or to put it more aptly, Rickstad, too, has uncommon vision.
—John B. Valeri
THE SERPENT UNDER
By Bonnie MacBird
London: Collins Crime Club 2025. $26.99
In this sixth entry in Bonnie MacBird’s series of Sherlock Holmes continuation novels, Holmes and Watson are called to investigate a mysterious death at the request of the queen. When a young woman is found dead and shockingly disfigured at Windsor Castle, the initial investigation points to suicide, but the detecting duo soon prove foul play. Thus begins a mystery filled with involuntary tattooing, women’s rights activists, social corruption, and snakes. Lots and lots of snakes, many of which are venomous.
As in many of MacBird’s mysteries, the plot is twisty and there are several well-crafted action scenes. The premise is an intriguing one, and the narrative unfolds at a steady clip. Holmes demonstrates some unexpected skills, such as the ability to hypnotize Watson in order to delve into his memory. The investigation moves through numerous distinct and vividly rendered settings, showcasing one of MacBird’s greatest strengths: her talent for crafting descriptions of such precise detail that they effortlessly conjure vivid imagery in the reader’s mind.
There are, however, a few minor aspects of the narrative that slightly diminish its overall effectiveness. As the body count rises, the killer’s actions seem increasingly impulsive rather than carefully calculated, prompting questions about how realistically the culprit expects to avoid detection. Additionally, certain elements of the killer’s plan may challenge believability; based on what readers come to know about one particular victim, it seems questionable that this individual would act precisely as the murderer anticipated. And on a few occasions, Holmes behaves in a manner that seems somewhat out of character. Nevertheless, these issues only slightly detract from what is otherwise a strong and engaging installment in the series.
MacBird’s works offer a plethora of historical details and references woven into the narratives. The reader is invited to visit MacBird’s website to find the extensive annotations (macbird.com), but as of this writing, the annotations are still “coming soon.” Little details, such as the descriptions of a zoo or an Italian restaurant, add to the depth and interest of the narrative, and I would like to learn more about how many of these details are drawn from real life.
MacBird’s work is likely to appeal both to devoted Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts seeking new adventures and to readers eager for an immersive journey into the Victorian era.
—Chris Chan
COFFIN ISLAND
By Kate Ellis
London: Little, Brown, 2024. $28.99
In her twenty-eighth installment of the Wesley Peterson series, Coffin Island, Kate Ellis once again demonstrates her ability to weave an intricate and atmospheric mystery that bridges past and present. Set on St. Rumon’s, a remote island off England’s south coast, the novel opens with the discovery of three bodies unearthed by a storm—two ancient, one recent. Someone has been murdered, but who was the victim, and who was the killer? As DI Wesley Peterson investigates, the narrative draws readers into a tightly plotted, multilayered case that tests both his skills and his instincts.
Ellis has maintained the integrity of her long-running series by continually investing in complex plotting and historical accuracy—and Coffin Island is no exception. The mystery unfolds with precision, marked by well-timed revelations and an intricate web of character connections, as Wesley’s inquiries focus on individuals who live both on and off the island. Her meticulous research lends authenticity to the historical subplot, centered on a sixteenth-century journal chronicling the ominous events surrounding an isolated priory, as told by Reverend Thomas Nescombe. As always, Ellis’s dual timelines are carefully interwoven, creating echoes between past and present that heighten the novel’s sense of unease.
What distinguishes Ellis’s work from more formulaic detective series is her sustained attention to detail—in character development, historical context, and plotting. Wesley remains a credible and grounded protagonist, his personal growth evident despite the series’ longevity. Ellis also avoids the common pitfalls of repetition, taking great care with her plotting—even mapping out story elements and connections within a large diagram. The puzzle in Coffin Island is characteristically intricate, with no shortage of plot twists involving both the killer and the slain. And in addition to the historical intrigue, she maintains a subtle, macabre sensibility that keeps the narrative engaging.
Coffin Island stands as further proof of Ellis’s skill in balancing the demands of a modern crime novel with the richness of historical fiction. Fans of the series will find this latest installment both satisfying and unsettling in equal measure.
—Martin Edwards
THE GREAT GATSBY MURDER CASE
By David Finkle
New York: Plum Bay Publishing, 2024. $17.99
David Finkle is a man of words, some meant to entertain and others to enlighten. He has written two novels (The Man with the Overcoat, 2015; Keys to an Empty House, 2022), two collections of short stories (People Tell Me Things, 2011; Great Dates with Some Late Greats, 2019), and the award-winning Humpty Trumpty Hit a Brick Wall (2018), an illustrated book of rhyme. A theater critic for New York Stage Review, he has also covered arts and politics for a variety of prestigious publications and can be heard on the podcast The Hour of Lateral Thinking. His new novel is The Great Gatsby Murder Case.
Writer Daniel Freund wants you to know that New York is still a city of readers. It’s just that cozy (i.e., cramped) quarters leave little room for residents to keep expansive book collections; rather, they often set books outside for others to enjoy and then similarly discard. It’s on a walk home that Daniel takes note of a small stack left on the bottom step of a nearby brownstone. And while the calculus tutorial and the cookbook hold no appeal, the third book is a rarity: a 1953 edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with cover art by Hal Siegel. Delighted by the discovery, Daniel—a collector of any and all American editions of the novel—brings the volume home and settles in with it. However, as he begins reading, he sees the words jumping off the page and rearranging themselves to spell out a very distinct message: there’s been a murder. And Daniel soon realizes he won’t get a moment’s peace until he solves it.
Concentrating his efforts on the townhouse where he first rescued the book, he begins questioning occupants about a possible homicide in the building. And while none of them is aware of a murder in the building, the (literal) resident busybody, Estelle Belfer, does recall a suicide from a few years before. Fulton Cutler, the book’s previous owner (and by all accounts a cantankerous presence), was found dead in his study, gun in hand, fingerprints all over it. A textbook open-and-shut case, they said. Locked room, windows sealed, case closed. Daniel, however, isn’t buying it and vows to get to the truth, if only to appease the book.
A multitude of subterfuges ensue. Under the guise of researching a book on unsolved murders, Daniel resumes his interrogation of the ever-watchful Ms. Belfer with questions about Cutler and the circumstances of his death. He gains entry to the late Mr. Cutler’s apartment by posing as a prospective buyer. A few careful observations and the discovery of an old scrapbook tucked away in Cutler’s desk only deepen his conviction that the so-called suicide was nothing of the sort. The police are unimpressed with Daniel’s findings. Laughed out of the precinct, he gets an unlikely audience with retired Detective Sergeant Izzy Abramovitz, who is as over-the-top as the investigation was (supposedly) open-and-shut. Izzy humors Daniel, first out of curiosity and then because he finds his theory unexpectedly compelling. The two go on to make an oddly amusing and surprisingly effective crime-solving team.
The Great Gatsby Murder Case is a locked-room mystery unlike any other. While the premise—an audaciously animate book that compels its new owner to undertake a murder inquiry (perhaps giving new interpretation to Stephen King’s assessment of books as “a uniquely portable magic”)—is unabashedly fanciful, it’s also a heck of a lot of fun. The payoff is worth the suspension of disbelief, as quirky, quippy characters steal your attention and affections, leading you through a familiar setup to a satisfying and crafty solution. The Gatsby lore is a welcome addition and should help to ensure the story’s appeal beyond genre lines.
—John B. Valeri
THE GREY WOLF
By Louise Penny
New York: Minotaur Books, 2024. $30
Louise Penny’s nineteenth Chief Inspector Gamache novel, The Grey Wolf, returns readers to Three Pines—a remote Quebec village whose idyllic charm has long masked the dark currents of crime and corruption. At the heart of the series is Armand Gamache, a principled investigator within the Sûreté du Québec, whose quiet resolve and moral clarity have anchored the books. Over the years, Penny has built a devoted readership by combining the intimacy of village life with the high stakes of institutional betrayal, always tethered to Gamache’s unwavering pursuit of justice.
The novel opens with a disturbing phone call that sets Gamache on a series of discoveries that involve a break-in at his house, the murder of a young man in front of him, and the return into his life of a woman who had entrapped his son into taking drugs but now is trying to alert him to an imminent crime. The plot is complex and involves eco-terrorism, monasteries, organized crime, the Vatican, the U.S. capital, and corruption in politics and in the Sûreté. Once again, Gamache must fight alone with the small team of people he can trust, because once again, the corruption in the Sûreté is so great that he cannot work with his colleagues.
Penny is a storyteller who weaves her books around the battles between good and evil, light and dark, via the gentle but adamant Gamache, against the background of the charming, if somewhat Shangri-La, village of Three Pines and its often eccentric inhabitants, and much of the strength of the series lies in the careful balancing of these elements.
The Grey Wolf, however, is both going over old ground and moving away from some of the strengths of the series. Penny is the master of getting her readers to suspend disbelief—a successful B&B that can always accommodate a visiting murder investigation team? No problem. A tiny village that houses a world-famous poet and a (briefly) world-famous painter? Fine. An Iraqi supergun or a huge battle between the troops of international drug lords in the woods? Bring it on!
But Gamache as the single person standing between Québec and its destruction is getting to be an old trope, one that becomes less and less believable. To get her complex plots to stand up, Penny is starting to create new stories from Gamache’s past, in some cases reinventing the character and turning him into a kind of superhero investigator, which takes away much of his original charm.
We see very little of the village and its inhabitants in this book, and what we do see seems bolted on rather than integral to the narrative. Clara has paint in her hair, Ruth steals books and her duck utters obscenities, the proprietors of the B&B provide exquisite food in their strangely busy restaurant (isolated village, remember?), but all of this could be stripped out without changing the narrative in any substantial way.
The book ends on a cliffhanger. The narrative will presumably conclude in the next book. The complexity of the plot suggests that most of the sequel will be taken up by the “what has gone before” section.
The Grey Wolf is, after all, written by Penny, so it offers a readable narrative, but this time, the narrative sags under its own weight. Penny has shown she can handle a Jeffery Deaver–style thriller in books like How the Light Gets In, but though The Grey Wolf tackles issues that are extremely germane to today’s world—corruption at the highest level of politics—Penny’s fictional world is not designed to carry this. The Grey Wolf seems to fall between the two stools of a fast-moving eco-thriller and a more serious, character-driven narrative set in the world of Armand Gamache.
—Danuta Reah
I DISAPPEARED THEM
By Preston L. Allen
New York: Akashic Books, 2024. $27.95
Preston L. Allen’s I Disappeared Them raises a number of interesting questions, chief among them exactly how to categorize it. Is it an attempt to “elevate” the serial-killer novel into the realm of literary fiction? Or is it a more traditional entry in the genre, one that focuses on psychology rather than grisly detail? Is it a reimagining of one of the most popular serial-killer narratives of recent years? Or an introspective homage, providing a more thoughtful take on the nature of violence and evil? Readers may come to different conclusions, but Allen’s exploration of what can turn an ordinary man into a multiple murderer offers an unsettling and provocative take on a familiar theme.
At the center of I Disappeared Them is the Periwinkle Killer, a Miami-based serial killer who targets those he sees as predators of women and children, leaving a distinctive calling card at each crime scene. His routine involves drugging his victims, transporting them elsewhere to kill them, and disposing of their bodies where they will never be found. Meanwhile, his partner and their young children remain unaware of his violent double life.
For many, this premise will sound familiar. Readers who know the Dexter novels or television series will immediately spot the similarities. Yet there are key differences in Allen’s interpretation. His Periwinkle Killer is not a respected forensics expert but a struggling pizza delivery driver. The woman in his life is not loyal or innocent but instead constantly betrays and belittles him. And the primary antagonist isn’t an equally brutal serial killer but rather the accumulation of forces—social, psychological, and emotional—that have shaped his damaged psyche.
As the novel unfolds, Allen reveals the dysfunction and deceptions that permeate the Periwinkle Killer’s life. Readers quickly discover that much of what they have assumed isn’t quite as it seems, as characters mislead each other (and the audience) for reasons that range from self-preservation to manipulation. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that the Periwinkle Killer is not as skilled at covering his tracks as he believes. The middle section of the novel offers a deep dive into his troubled childhood, detailing the traumas, betrayals, and failures that have warped him. While Dexter posited a single formative trauma as the root of its protagonist’s compulsion to kill, Allen suggests it is the cumulative weight of a lifetime’s cruelties, injustices, and unprocessed pain that creates a killer. The novel culminates in an inevitable and violent reckoning.
Allen is an undeniably talented prose stylist, and his writing is strong throughout the novel. While some plot elements and situations will feel familiar—in similarities to Dexter, most notably—he brings a quiet emotional weight to his characters, treating each with a level of care and complexity that elevates the material. Even when certain storylines echo well-worn genre tropes, Allen’s thoughtful approach and respect for his characters shine through. I Disappeared Them demonstrates Allen’s skill in blending literary ambition with the conventions of the serial-killer genre. While the novel might have benefited from fresher plot developments, it remains a compelling and introspective addition to the field, offering a nuanced meditation on the roots of violence.
—Chris Chan
THE MALACHI COVENANT
By Dee Kelly Jr.
Nashville: Forefront Books, 2024. $26
For most Westerners, the name Saint Nicholas evokes the image of a portly, rosy-cheeked figure with a fondness for chimneys and reindeer. But long before Santa Claus became a holiday fixture, Saint Nicholas was a real historical figure—a persecuted bishop who endured hardship in a land far from the North Pole. Now, after decades of fictionalized depictions, his true history takes center stage in The Malachi Covenant, an action-packed thriller from Dee Kelly Jr.
Malachi Popov, a former gangster who managed to escape his life of crime, is reluctantly pulled back in by his former Russian mobster boss. His new assignment? Steal the bones of Saint Nicholas. Meanwhile, archaeologist Maggie Shepherd, unexpectedly placed in charge of an expedition to exhume and study the saint’s remains after her superior is hospitalized, is struggling to keep the controversial project on track. When the bones disappear, neither Malachi nor Maggie knows where they’ve gone—or the extent of the power they may hold. Forced into an uneasy alliance, they must navigate a tangled web of shadowy figures, religious prophecies, and hidden agendas to recover the relics before it’s too late. With a historic summit between the pope and the patriarchs of the Eastern and Russian Orthodox Churches depending on the bones’ return, and with Vatican agents and Russian spies closing in, Malachi and Maggie must confront their pasts and grapple with a question as old as faith itself: are miracles real?
The novel’s action shifts between modern-day Italy and Russia, interwoven with fourth-century chapters detailing the life of Nicholas of Myra, the bishop who would later be canonized as Saint Nicholas. The historical intrigue is enriched by a unique take on the “Prophecy of the Popes” and connections to the biblical book of Malachi, adding layers of mystery to the unfolding drama. While the puzzles and treasure-hunt elements don’t go as deep as those in a Steve Berry or Dan Brown thriller, The Malachi Covenant remains an engaging, fast-paced adventure with high stakes and compelling historical threads.
The characters are well crafted, with Malachi and Maggie emerging as complex, flawed, but ultimately likable leads. The mob boss and his gangsters exude menace and mystery, while side characters—such as Maggie’s archaeologist mentor, Malachi’s aging mother, and the mob boss’s daughter, who only wants a safe future for her child—add depth to the story.
Though Kelly has written under a pseudonym before, The Malachi Covenant marks his first novel under his own name, and it’s a strong debut. With a gripping plot, a well-drawn cast, and rich historical detail, the book delivers both action and thoughtful exploration of life’s biggest questions, offering intriguing answers for readers drawn to history, mystery, and faith.
—Jeremy Burns
THE MAN WHO SWORE
HE’D NEVER GO HOME AGAIN
By David Handler
New York: The Mysterious Press, 2025. $17.95 (paperback)
Los Angeles native David Handler took the long road to crime fiction. He first penned two novels inspired by his formative years in Tinseltown before moving into television and film writing His literary work includes the international bestseller Gideon (written under the pseudonym Russell Andrews in 1999), along with multiple series—most notably the long-running Berger and Mitry Mysteries and the Edgar and American Mystery Award–winning Stewart Hoag Mysteries. The Man Who Swore He’d Never Go Home Again, the sixteenth installment in the latter, serves as a prequel to the earlier books.
As the story begins, Stewart Hoag—“Hoagy” to both friends and foes—is riding high on the success of his bestselling debut novel. He’s newly in love with rising actress Merilee Nash, sharing an apartment, a mackerel-loving basset hound puppy named Lulu, and talk of marriage. Then the phone rings. On the other end is his high school sweetheart, Maggie, with devastating news: her mother has been murdered. Despite having vowed never to return to Oakmont, Connecticut, Hoagy promises to pay his respects to the woman he credits with his literary success.
Mary McKenna wasn’t just the town’s long-serving librarian; she was Hoagy’s fiercest champion when his literary ambitions were little more than daydreams. But Oakmont, a struggling manufacturing town where Hoagy’s father once owned a brass mill before shuttering it and abandoning his workers, hasn’t forgotten the sins of the past. His homecoming is as painful as expected—if not worse. As Hoagy, Merilee, and Lulu navigate the ghosts of his past (and a few present-day threats), it becomes clear that running away didn’t erase his history. Confronting it, however, may prove even more dangerous.
Handler’s comedic chops perfectly complement Hoagy’s endearingly droll voice, but the humor does more than entertain—it offsets the novel’s darker undercurrents. Hoagy’s return forces him to reevaluate not only his character but also the consequences of his departure. Meanwhile, Oakmont itself is a portrait of lingering devastation, with residents plagued by poverty, addiction, and illness, many suffering from exposure to toxins from the closed brass mill. In a town steeped in despair, crime festers, and while Hoagy can’t fix its larger problems, he can seek justice for Mary McKenna—if the killer doesn’t find him first.
The Man Who Swore He’d Never Go Home Again is a crackerjack crime novel that revisits a younger, more idealistic Hoagy, before divorce and declining prospects made him a disenchanted PI and ghostwriter. Equal parts charm and cunning, this backstory-rich installment serves as both a palate cleanser for longtime fans and the perfect entry point for new readers.
—John B. Valeri
MURDER BY CHEESECAKE: A GOLDEN GIRLS COZY MYSTERY
By Rachel Ekstrom Courage
New York: Hyperion Avenue, 2025. $16.99 (paperback)
Spinning off from beloved TV shows into books is a tricky business—many adaptations of classic TV series feel like soulless cash grabs. Striking the right balance between nostalgia and originality is no easy feat, especially when the characters are as iconic as the Golden Girls. A successful adaptation needs to feel like a natural extension of the show, not just a gimmick in book form. But Murder by Cheesecake: A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery works because it comes across as a pure love letter to the show and the women who starred in it.
In this first installment of a new series, the four classic characters are caught up in the investigation of a violent death. Rose’s young relative is engaged, but when a wedding in St. Olaf proves impossible, the nuptials are moved to the groom’s family hotel in Miami. As hostess, Rose is determined to uphold every St. Olaf wedding tradition—absurd, nonsensical customs that make perfect sense to her but leave everyone else baffled. Meanwhile, Dorothy is struggling to find a date. Set in the 1980s, the story has her trying a video dating service, where hopeful singles introduce themselves via VHS tape. Only one suitor meets her standards, but after a disastrous date, she assumes she’ll never see him again—until he’s found dead in the hotel freezer, surrounded by Rose’s freshly baked cheesecakes. With Dorothy as the prime suspect, thanks in part to her ignoring Sophia’s advice not to speak to the police, the foursome must catch the real killer before she’s arrested.
Naturally, this leads to plenty of farcical moments—outlandish disguises, tracking suspects to unlikely locations, Blanche taking an interest in attractive men, Sophia spinning improbable shaggy-dog stories, and Rose’s increasingly frantic efforts to keep a crowd of Norwegian Americans happy. Zinger one-liners abound, but there are also heartfelt passages where the Golden Girls wrestle with aging, mortality, and Rose’s frustration at being constantly underestimated.
The mystery itself could use a bit more clueing. The Golden Girls do plenty of fun investigating, but a little more deduction rather than stumbling into the solution would have strengthened the story. Still, the dialogue feels as if it’s straight from an episode of the show—often laugh-out-loud funny, capturing the style and spirit without slipping into parody. Fans will likely hear the actresses’ voices as they read.
As an added bonus, a recipe for St. Olaf–style cheesecake is included at the end.
If you know a Golden Girls fan, this book will make the perfect gift—and you’ll be thanked for being a friend.
–Chris Chan
THE OLIGARCH’S DAUGHTER
By Joseph Finder
New York: Harper, 2025. $30
Bestselling author Joseph Finder’s latest novel, The Oligarch’s Daughter, is a tightly paced, highly absorbing thriller that delves into the shadowy intersections of wealth, political power, and institutional coercion. With a layered, dual-timeline narrative, the novel seizes the reader early with its cinematic structure and vividly rendered settings—particularly in Russia—and sustains momentum through a series of escalating revelations and mounting tension.
The novel opens with a man living under an assumed identity on a quiet coastal stretch of New England, eking out a modest living through nautical work. When an armed intruder boards his boat, the past he thought he had buried resurfaces, forcing him into flight. The narrative then shifts between the present day and events from six years earlier, tracing how Paul Brightman—a rising stockbroker with a survivalist father—fell for Tatyana, a glamorous photographer with an enigmatic air. Their relationship draws Paul into the orbit of Tatyana’s father, Arkady Galkin, a Russian oligarch whose immense wealth conceals a darker reality. Offered a chance at extraordinary fortune, Paul is slowly pulled into a world of opulence, secrecy, and danger. As a pattern of suspicious deaths emerges and Galkin’s operations grow more suspect, Paul must decide whether to remain complicit to preserve the life he’s built and the woman he loves—or risk everything to follow his conscience.
Finder’s control of pacing and structure is particularly effective in the first two-thirds of the book, where tension builds steadily and the story moves with confidence. As the novel progresses, some of that momentum gives way to more familiar thriller territory, with some plot elements echoing genre staples even if the narrative remains engaging throughout.
The novel’s emotional payoff is somewhat limited by its restraint in character development. Paul is a solid anchor, and Galkin brings an undeniable presence to the page. But other characters—most notably Tatyana—feel more symbolic than fully realized. The story gestures toward deeper questions of complicity, trust, and moral inheritance but doesn’t always explore them in depth. Even so, the stakes remain clear, and the suspense surrounding Paul’s choices holds the reader’s attention to the end.
With its brisk pacing, layered structure, and timely themes, The Oligarch’s Daughter delivers a satisfying blend of intrigue and momentum. While its emotional range and character development don’t always match the strength of its premise, Finder’s command of suspense ensures that the story remains compelling throughout. For readers drawn to thrillers that explore the blurred lines between power, loyalty, and survival, this novel offers a gripping—if not fully transcendent—ride.
—Chris Chan
STRIKE: THE INK BLACK HEART
Adapted for television from the novel by Robert Galbraith
BBC One / BBC iPlayer (UK), HBO / Max (U.S.), 2025
The Ink Black Heart (2022) is the sixth novel by Robert Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling) in the series about private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner, Robin Ellacott. The BBC has dramatized the series, and the TV adaptation of The Ink Black Heart premiered in the UK at the start of 2025. Across the series, the BBC has done well in establishing the ongoing effects of Strike’s relationship with his troubled ex-fiancée, Ellacott’s unsuccessful marriage, and the growing attraction between the two detectives, as well as maintaining a strong supporting cast of friends, family, and colleagues that moves smoothly from one installment to the next.
At the center of the narrative is an animated video created by Edie Ledwell and Josh Blay that has become a surprise hit. Huge money may be involved as the cartoon moves to Netflix, but an influential fan, known only as Anomie, is threatening to turn the entire fandom against the cartoon and against one of its creators, Ledwell. Anomie is the co-creator of an online multiplayer game, Drek’s Game, a key gathering place for fans of the cartoon and a space where Anomie wields great influence. Anomie uses this to fan the flames of hostility toward Ledwell, a persecution she has endured for years. When Ledwell is murdered and her co-creator, Blay, is seriously injured in a knife attack, Ellacott and Strike are called in to try to identify Anomie.
Despite this intriguing premise, the TV series is not nearly as successful as the book. It fails to capture the growing menace and sense of evil that permeates the novel, the frustration of not knowing where the danger is coming from, and the difficulty of breaking through the anonymity of online identities. A crucial question is whether the book is filmable at all. The novel relies heavily on the complexities of the virtual world and the multimedia texts through which it unfolds. The Ink Black Heart is the most complex of the Cormoran Strike novels and certainly the most innovative, as Rowling places significant parts of the action in the online world of social media, forums, blogs, and, of course, Drek’s Game itself. It is a world of disguises, anonymity, and multiple identities, where readers don’t know for a long time which real-world characters also exist within the digital landscape. It is as much a “who is it” as a whodunit, but the TV adaptation glosses over this, leaving a rather pedestrian and confusing mystery, where half the audience may well be thinking “Who?” when the villain is revealed.
The BBC series promised viewers glimpses of the cartoon itself and of Drek’s Game, and expectations were high. In the book’s narrative, Ledwell and Blay express admiration for real-life illustrator Jan Pienkowski, but the cartoon shown in the TV series is pedestrian and uninspiring—more Hallmark than Pienkowski. There is no sense of something truly original or creative, nothing that would inspire the levels of excitement, love, and hatred that the cartoon provokes in the book. Similarly, Drek’s Game is a disappointment. The game is a crucial setting where much of the story unfolds through a complex web of simultaneous chats, but the TV adaptation presents it in a clunky and uninspiring way. It fails to convince as an immersive online world, let alone one where Anomie can reign supreme and where a global company like Netflix would fear its influence.
Prose fiction can handle this level of complexity. TV drama cannot. Whole narrative threads are stripped out, and storylines that are crucial to the book’s carefully woven plot appear out of nowhere in the series, are told quickly and cursorily, and are then discarded. Previously unknown characters pop up and disappear. One storyline that delivers a crucial and unexpected twist in the book—key to solving the mystery of Anomie’s identity and Ledwell’s murder—is introduced and completed in the final episode. A new character is briefly given a context and then killed off, leaving viewers asking, “Who was that? What just happened?” and, more damningly, “Does it matter? Do I care?” Given that the story’s careful buildup has been removed, the answer has to be no. The rushed storytelling results in a finale where the killer is finally unmasked, but half the audience has likely forgotten they even existed. If viewers are left wondering who the revealed culprit is rather than reeling from the revelation, the show has a problem.
The expected tropes are all there. Ellacott and Strike yearn for each other but never actually address that yearning. Strike’s ex stirs up trouble between them and for Strike himself. Ellacott acts recklessly and achieves a few “with one bound, she was free” moments while Strike fumes impotently in the background. Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger as Strike and Ellacott perform the slow burn of unspoken romance well, but that alone is not enough to carry the series.
Could the BBC have done better? Trying to cram such a complex narrative into four episodes was certainly a mistake, but it is possible that The Ink Black Heart is simply unfilmable. When so much of the narrative—and, crucially, the way the mystery unfolds—is tied to the world of online multimedia texts, it may have been wiser to leave the book alone.
Film is a visual medium and tells some stories far better than prose ever could. But equally, prose can do far more than film in telling very many stories. Perhaps the ability to translate a book to the screen should not be seen as the ultimate measure of its success. More often than not, the book does it better.
—Danuta Reah
THE SUMMER GUESTS
By Tess Gerritsen
Seattle: Thomas & Mercer, 2025. $28.99
Tess Gerritsen thought she was done with deadlines. After decades of prolific output—romantic suspense, medical thrillers, the Rizzoli & Isles TV series that made her a household name, and even the occasional one-off—she resolved to write by choice, not by contract. But a few years (and a few books) later, a new idea took hold: an espionage novel inspired by her longtime hometown of Camden, Maine, which, as she discovered, has a curiously high number of retired spies.
The result was The Spy Coast (2023), a book meant to stand alone but destined to launch a series—The Martini Club—in which liquor-fueled senior spooks become local crime solvers. Its aptly titled follow-up, The Summer Guests, sees Purity, Maine, bracing for high season. Year-rounders must make peace with the influx of summer residents and tourists who flood their quiet hamlet, bringing more people, more traffic, and more (mostly petty) crime.
Maggie Bird—herself a recent transplant after years of globetrotting spy intrigue—is content to keep to herself, tending to her land and animals, paying little mind to the seasonal swarms who, in turn, ignore her. But when a teen girl vanishes under mysterious circumstances and suspicion falls on Maggie’s neighbor, she must rally her fellow Martini Club members to prevent a rush to judgment from becoming a grave mistake.
Fifteen-year-old Zoe is the daughter of Susan, who has just married into the powerful and wealthy Conover family, longtime summer residents whose imposing home overlooks Maiden Pond, named after a girl who once drowned there. While Susan’s husband, Ethan—a writing professor and struggling novelist—lacks the family’s commanding presence, the others, especially formidable matriarch Elizabeth, embody it fully. As acting police chief Jo Thibodeau investigates Zoe’s disappearance, she finds herself constrained by the Conovers’ influence and the unspoken expectation of deference. But Maggie and the Martini Club—who, in a delightfully meta twist, deconstruct spy novels during their monthly gatherings—owe no such allegiance, making them the perfect counterforce in a case where power threatens to dictate the truth.
Gerritsen weaves multiple viewpoints into a tautly tangled yarn, its roots buried in the past—specifically, an inexplicable massacre that many believe is best left forgotten. Each central character is bound by forces beyond their control, some restrictive, others liberating. Jo, limited by procedures and politics, must navigate her investigation carefully, while Maggie, unencumbered by such constraints, uses her age and gender as an advantage, subverting expectations to operate unnoticed. And then there’s Susan, drowning in despair amid the overpowering presence of the Conovers, who may or may not be complicit in . . . something. Can these unlikely allies work together to bring Zoe home, or will time run out?
The Summer Guests is a top-notch thriller, delivering Gerritsen’s signature suspense with a dose of spy craft for good measure. In her deft hand, history and the present collide in a tale where conspiracy and cover-ups ripple across decades and generations. Although this is the second book in the series, Gerritsen’s economical handling of backstory ensures that no reader is left behind. And fittingly, Maggie—like Gerritsen herself—is a force to be reckoned with, defying age and gender stereotypes through sheer competence and panache.
—John B. Valeri