Harper Perennial
Published May 6, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Kausar Khan, an Indian-Canadian Muslim in her fifties, fled to the remote town of North Bay after her teenaged son was killed in an unsolved hit-and-run on the streets of their immigrant Toronto neighborhood. For many years she has refused to return to the city – until she receives a shocking phone call from her daughter, Sana. She needs her. There’s been a murder, and she is the prime suspect.
Severn House
May 6, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Sophy is leading a quiet life in the countryside, dreaming of being a writer and moving to London, when her stepmother abruptly abandons her father, leaving a letter after running away with the architect who has been designing a new house for them near Templewood, the family manor in Worcestershire. It’s just the latest upset in Sophy’s life; in 1935 the news is turbulent, with economic distress feeding fascism in Europe and at home. Sir Oswald Mosley is growing popular with many young men, including a fast set that Sophy’s sister Gizi finds attractive. She teases Sophy that she needs to lead a more exciting life. Things do get more exciting, but not in a good way, when Emilie’s body is discovered near the site of the new house.
Berkley
Published May 6, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
In Regency England, Lady Augusta Colebrook is on a mission. On two missions, actually. She needs to hide Lady Hester Belford from a vengeful brother who objects to her same-sex relationship and previously had her imprisoned in a horrific asylum. He’s determined to find her and return her to the asylum to preserve the family honor from her taint. Augusta is also determined to clear the name of Lord Evan Belford, Lady Hester’s discredited brother, framed for a crime that sent him to a penal colony in Australia. He’s back in England, a fugitive being hunted by a vicious “thieftaker” who will kill him if he can track him down. Lord Evan is not only a trusted collaborator in her rescue work, she has developed a romantic attraction to him. If she can find out who was responsible for the death that he is unjustly accused of, he might be able to regain his safety and freedom.
Continue reading “The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin by Alison Goodman”
Translated by Amy Bojang
Soho
Published May 6, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
The flock of sheep first encountered in Three Bags Full (2008) has a new mystery to solve. They have moved from Ireland, where they investigated the murder of their beloved shepherd, George, to a French chateau, tended by a new shepherd: George’s daughter Rebecca. They are beginning to get used to their new meadow as they overwinter beside a deep, dark forest and a herd of sarcastic goats, but they begin to realize something is wrong with this place. After one of the sheep disappears into the forest and men with dogs find slaughtered deer in the woods, they overhear a woman tell Rebecca they should leave the chateau immediately. A small black goat lets them in on some local lore: The woods are haunted by the Garou, a werewolf. And all of the sheep who lived in the meadow before them met a gristly end.
Soho
Published March 4, 2025
Reviewed by Mary-Jane Oltarzewski
Broken Fields is the latest of Marcie Rendon’s smart, atmospheric novels to feature Renée “Cash” Blackbear, a full-time farm laborer, part-time college student, intermittent pool shark, and occasional consultant to local law enforcement. Cash is brilliant, perceptive, and troubled; she has “the ability to sense things other people couldn’t [and has] out-of-body traveled in a near dream state at times, gathering information about crimes that weren’t evident to others.” Some people call these gifts, but “Cash wasn’t sure … They seemed to come with the price of knowing too much about other people’s trouble and hurts.” She achieves a lot, despite the fact that she drinks way too much and is haunted by the events of her childhood. The local sheriff, Dave Wheaton, has kept an eye out for her since rescuing her from a car crash that killed her mother and separated her from her siblings when she was five years old, and he sometimes asks for her informal help in solving murders and locating missing persons.
We launched Crime Fiction Review this month, sharing our responses to fifteen new mysteries as we do what we can to fill a gap left by our sad but inevitable farewell to Reviewing the Evidence, a long-running project to help readers discover new books they might enjoy. (Grace Jones, pictured above, is here to represent continuity – she looks very like Smokey, the mascot of Reviewing the Evidence.) While most of these books were published in April, a few came out earlier as we catch up on recent releases. We hope there might be something in this list that fits your reading tastes – or, perhaps, encourages adventurousness.
Kensington
Published April 29, 2025
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier
A Death on Corfu is award-winning romance writer Emily Sullivan’s first foray into mysteries, and, as you might expect, that means her mystery will include at least a dash of romantic intrigue.
Four years after the death of her husband, Minnie Harper is raising her children on the island of Corfu and leading a fairly quiet life, socializing a bit with the other English ex-pats on the island, taking the donkey cart into town from time to time, and fostering friendships with a few locals. Then, in the spring of 1898, mystery writer Stephen Dorian moves in next door, escaping from the wild rumors of his scandalous divorce in London so that he can finish his latest novel. He hires Minnie to transform his scribbled notebooks into a typed manuscript, and Minnie’s life suddenly changes on a number of levels. When Minnie discovers the body of a young maid who has been murdered, the action ramps up even further, especially when the police seem uninterested in investigating. Stephen and Minnie join forces to find the killer, putting their own lives in danger and—here’s where the potential love story comes in—navigating what could be a budding romance, if they’ll both just stop resisting the inevitable.
Harper
Published June 22, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
There’s a lot going on in Shiprock, New Mexico, where Navajo Nation police are getting ready for a possible visit by the Secretary of Energy, the details of which are frustratingly sketchy as the security situation is evaluated by the feds. Jim Chee is growing itchy in a job that has him spending too much time at his desk, a situation made more demanding as the Captain is sidelined by a medical emergency. Bernadette Manualito, Chee’s wife, is busy checking out an abandoned car, responding to a missing person report, and checking out a tip from an anonymous source. If the tipster is correct, the body of a murdered man might be lying inside an area that is off limits due to the presence of uranium waste.
Kensington
Published February 25, 2025
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier
The second book in Patrice McDonough’s Dr. Julia Lewis series explores the art world of Victorian London, particularly the challenges faced by the “lady painters” who are beginning to—at least on occasion—be taken seriously as artists. But not everyone is supportive of these women artists, and when one of their models turns up dead, Dr. Lewis finds herself in the midst of a Scotland Yard investigation that involves the disappearance of shop girls, break-ins at artists’ studios, threatening poison-pen letters, and, ultimately, a series of murders. Inspector Richard Tennant suspects that the events surrounding the artists may be connected to darker elements of London society. McDonough skillfully weaves together multiple plot lines while raising questions about human trafficking and human rights that are still with us today.
Penguin
Published April 15, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Ruth, an intelligent young woman who grew up in poverty, skilled as a shoplifter, now works for a network equipment company whose products are used by giant corporations. She has designed a chip with a purposeful flaw that, with a little coding help from her friend Thom, enables her to siphon money away from banks and into secret offshore accounts. She rationalizes the theft by saying it doesn’t involve real people, just banks, and who can resist money when it’s lying around, unprotected? Ruth is not strong on morality. But while she’s busy building up her illicit fortune, a transfer is flagged as fishy, an alert sounds, and she suddenly needs to run, fast as she can.