THE 13-MINUTE MURDER by James Patterson (Thriller)
Audiobook available; read by MacLeod Andrews, Kevin T. Collins, Becky Ann Baker and Christopher Ryan Grant
Psychiatrist Randall Beck specializes in PTSD cases --- and his time is limited. Especially when he uncovers a plot to kill a presidential candidate. Molly Rourke's son has been murdered --- and she knows who's responsible. Now she's taking the law into her own hands. He can kill anybody in just minutes --- from the first approach to the clean escape. His skills have served him well, and he has a grand plan: to get out alive and spend his earnings with his beloved wife, Maria. An anonymous client offers Ryan a rich payout to assassinate a target in Harvard Yard. The precision strike starts perfectly, then somehow explodes into a horrifying spectacle. Ryan has to run and Maria goes missing. Now the world's fastest hit man sets out for one last score: Revenge. And every minute counts. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE 18th ABDUCTION by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by January LaVoy
For a trio of colleagues, an innocent night out after class ends in a deadly torture session. They vanish without a clue --- until a body turns up. As the chief of police and the press clamor for an arrest in the "school night" case, Detective Lindsay Boxer turns to her best friend, investigative journalist Cindy Thomas. Lindsay and Cindy take a new approach to the case, and unexpected facts about the victims leave them stunned. While Lindsay is engrossed in her investigation, her husband, Joe Molinari, meets an Eastern European woman who claims to have seen a notorious war criminal --- long presumed dead --- from her home country. Before Lindsay can verify the woman's statement, Joe's mystery informant joins the ranks of the missing women. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
AFTERNOON OF A FAUN by James Lasdun (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Simon Vance
When an old flame accuses him of sexual assault in her memoir, expat English journalist Marco Rosedale is brought rapidly and inexorably to the brink of ruin. His reputation and livelihood at stake, Marco confides in a close friend, who finds himself caught between the obligations of friendship and an increasingly urgent desire to uncover the truth. This unnamed friend is drawn, magnetized, into the orbit of the woman at the center of the accusation --- and finds his position as the safely detached narrator turning into something more dangerous. Soon, the question of his own complicity becomes impossible to avoid. Reviewed by Rachel McConnell.
THE ASH FAMILY by Molly Dektar (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Emily Woo Zeller
At 19, Berie encounters a seductive and mysterious man at a bus station near her home in North Carolina. Shut off from the people around her, she finds herself compelled by his promise of a new life. He ferries her into a place of order and chaos: the Ash Family farm. There, she joins an intentional community living off the fertile land of the mountains, bound together by high ideals and through relationships she can’t untangle. Berie --- now renamed Harmony --- renounces her old life and settles into her new one on the farm. She begins to make friends. And then they start to disappear. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
BEFORE SHE WAS FOUND by Heather Gudenkauf (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Brittany Pressley
For 12-year-old Cora Landry and her friends Violet and Jordyn, it was supposed to be an ordinary sleepover --- movies and Ouija and talking about boys. But when they decide to sneak out to go to the abandoned rail yard on the outskirts of town, little do they know that their innocent games will have dangerous consequences. Later that night, Cora is discovered on the tracks, bloody and clinging to life, her friends nowhere to be found. Soon their small rural town is thrust into a maelstrom. Who would want to hurt a young girl like Cora --- and why? In an investigation that leaves no stone unturned, everyone is a suspect and no one can be trusted --- not even those closest to Cora. Reviewed by Megan Elliott.
THE BETTER SISTER by Alafair Burke (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available; read by Sophie Amoss, Samantha Desz and Mike Chamberlain
Though Chloe was the younger of the two Taylor sisters, she always seemed to be the one in charge. She was the honor roll student with big dreams and an even bigger work ethic. Nicky --- always restless and more than a little reckless --- was the opposite of her ambitious little sister. For a while, it seemed that both sisters had found happiness. But now, more than 15 years later, their lives are drastically different. When Chloe’s husband, Adam (who used to be married to Nicky), is murdered by an intruder, Chloe reluctantly allows her teenage stepson’s biological mother, Nicky, back into her life. But when the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect in his father’s death, the two sisters are forced to confront the truth behind family secrets they have tried to bury in the past. Reviewed by Roz Shea.
THE BINDING by Bridget Collins (Historical Fantasy/Magical Realism)
Audiobook available, read by Carl Prekopp
Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder --- a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice amongst their small community. Bookbinding is a sacred calling, Seredith informs her new apprentice, and he is a binder born. Under the old woman’s watchful eye, Emmett learns to hand-craft the elegant leather-bound volumes. Within each one, they will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. But just as Emmett begins to settle into his new circumstances, he makes an astonishing discovery: one of the books has his name on it. Soon, everything he thought he understood about his life will be dramatically rewritten. Reviewed by Maya Gittelman.
A BOY AND HIS DOG AT THE END OF THE WORLD by C. A. Fletcher (Dystopian Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by C. A. Fletcher
My name's Griz. My childhood wasn't like yours. I've never had friends, and in my whole life I've not met enough people to play a game of football. My parents told me how crowded the world used to be, but we were never lonely on our remote island. We had each other, and our dogs. Then the thief came. There may be no law left except what you make of it. But if you steal my dog, you can at least expect me to come after you. Because if we aren't loyal to the things we love, what's the point? Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
THE DEPARTMENT OF SENSITIVE CRIMES: A Detective Varg Novel by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery/Humor)
Audiobook available, read by David Rintoul
In the Swedish criminal justice system, certain cases are considered especially strange and difficult. In Malmö, the dedicated detectives who investigate these crimes are members of an elite squad known as the Sensitive Crimes Division. These are their stories. The first case: the small matter of a man stabbed in the back of the knee. Who would perpetrate such a crime and why? Next: a young woman's imaginary boyfriend goes missing. But how on earth do you search for someone who doesn't exist? And in the final investigation: eerie secrets that are revealed under a full moon may not seem so supernatural in the light of day. Reviewed by Roz Shea.
THE EIGHTH SISTER by Robert Dugoni (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Edoardo Ballerini
Former CIA case officer Charles Jenkins is a man at a crossroads: in his early 60s, he has a family, a new baby on the way, and a security consulting business on the brink of bankruptcy. Then his former bureau chief shows up at his house with a risky new assignment: travel undercover to Moscow and locate a Russian agent believed to be killing members of a clandestine US spy cell known as the seven sisters. Desperate for money, Jenkins agrees to the mission and heads to the Russian capital. But when he finds the mastermind agent behind the assassinations --- the so-called eighth sister --- she is not who or what he was led to believe. Then again, neither is anyone else in this deadly game of cat and mouse. Reviewed by Rebecca Munro.
HENRY, HIMSELF by Stewart O'Nan (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Richmond Hoxie
Soldier, son, lover, husband, breadwinner and churchgoer, Henry Maxwell has spent his whole life trying to live with honor. A native Pittsburgher and engineer, he's always believed in logic, sacrifice and hard work. Now, 75 and retired, he feels the world has passed him by. It's 1998, the American century is ending, and nothing is simple anymore. His children are distant, their unhappiness a mystery. Only his wife Emily and dog Rufus stand by him. Once so confident, as Henry's strength and memory desert him, he weighs his dreams against his regrets and is left with questions he can't answer: Is he a good man? Has he done right by the people he loves? And with time running out, what, realistically, can he hope for? Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg.
I KNOW WHO YOU ARE by Alice Feeney (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Stephanie Racine
Meet Aimee Sinclair, the actress everyone thinks they know but can’t remember where from. Except one person. Someone knows Aimee very well. They know who she is and what she did. When Aimee comes home and discovers her husband is missing, she doesn’t seem to know what to do or how to act. The police think she’s hiding something, and they’re right, she is --- but perhaps not what they thought. Aimee has a secret she’s never shared, and yet she suspects that someone knows. As she struggles to keep her career and sanity intact, her past comes back to haunt her in ways more dangerous than she ever could have imagined. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
THE INVITED by Jennifer McMahon (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Amanda Carlin and Justine Eyre
Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on 44 acres of rural land where they will build the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house --- objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously. As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
THE LAST by Hanna Jameson (Dystopian Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Anthony Starke
Jon thought he had all the time in the world to respond to his wife’s text message: I miss you so much. I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of his hotel in Switzerland, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, followed by New York, London and finally Berlin. Now, two months later, there are 20 survivors holed up at the hotel. When the body of a young girl is discovered, Jon becomes obsessed with investigating her death as a way to cling to his own humanity. Yet the real question remains: Can he afford to lose his mind in this hotel, or should he take his chances in the outside world? Reviewed by Abby Jackson.
LITTLE DARLINGS by Melanie Golding (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Stephanie Racine
Everyone says Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest. And they’re right; with newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. But she knows what she saw: that night, in her hospital room, a woman tried to take her babies and replace them with her own...creatures. Yet when the police arrived, they saw no one. A month passes. And one bright summer morning, the babies disappear from Lauren’s side in a park. But when they’re found, something is different about them. The infants look like Morgan and Riley --- to everyone else. But to Lauren, something is off. As everyone around her celebrates their return, Lauren begins to scream, These are not my babies. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
LITTLE LOVELY THINGS by Maureen Joyce Connolly (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Elisabeth Rodgers
It is the wrong time to get sick. Speeding down the highway on the way to work, her two little girls sleeping in the back seat, medical resident Claire Rawlings doesn't have time for the nausea overtaking her. But as the world tilts sideways, she pulls into a gas station, runs to the bathroom and passes out. When she wakes up minutes later, her car --- and her daughters --- are gone. The police have no leads, and the weight of guilt presses down on Claire as each hour passes with no trace of her girls. All she has to hold on to are her strained marriage, a potentially unreliable witness who emerges days later, and the desperate but unquenchable belief that her daughters are out there somewhere. Reviewed by Leah DeCesare (www.leahdecesare.com).
MACHINES LIKE ME by Ian McEwan (Speculative Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Steven Crossley
MACHINES LIKE ME takes place in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first synthetic humans and --- with Miranda's help --- designs Adam's personality. The near-perfect human that emerges is beautiful, strong and clever. It isn't long before a love triangle soon forms, and these three beings confront a profound moral dilemma. Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman.
MIRACLE CREEK by Angie Kim (Legal Thriller/Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Jennifer Lim
In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine --- a pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic “dives” with the hopes of curing issues like autism or infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two people, a dramatic murder trial upends the Yoos’ small community. Who or what caused the explosion? The ensuing trial uncovers unimaginable secrets from that night --- trysts in the woods, mysterious notes, child-abuse charges --- as well as tense rivalries and alliances among a group of people driven to extraordinary degrees of desperation and sacrifice. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
THE MISSING YEARS by Lexie Elliott (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Elizabeth Knowelden
Ailsa Calder has inherited half of a house. The other half belongs to a man who disappeared without a trace 27 years ago --- her father. Leaving London behind to settle the inheritance from her mother's estate, Ailsa returns to her childhood home, nestled amongst the craggy peaks of the Scottish Highlands, joined by the half-sister who's almost a stranger to her. Ailsa can't escape the claustrophobic feeling that the house itself is watching her --- as if her past hungers to consume her. She also can't ignore how the neighborhood animals refuse to set one foot within the gates of the garden. When the first nighttime intruder shows up, Ailsa fears that the manor's careless rugged beauty could cost her everything. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
THE MOTHER-IN-LAW by Sally Hepworth (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Barrie Kreinik
From the moment Lucy met her husband’s mother, she knew she wasn’t the wife Diana had envisioned for her perfect son. Exquisitely polite, friendly and always generous, Diana nonetheless kept Lucy at arm’s length despite her desperate attempts to win her over. That was five years ago. Now, Diana is dead, a suicide note found near her body claiming that she longer wanted to live because of the cancer wreaking havoc inside her body. But the autopsy finds no cancer. It does find traces of poison, and evidence of suffocation. Who could possibly want Diana dead? Why was her will changed at the 11th hour to disinherit both of her children and their spouses? And what does it mean that Lucy isn’t exactly sad she’s gone? Reviewed by Amie Taylor.
NEON PREY: A Lucas Davenport Novel by John Sandford (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Richard Ferrone
Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don't much care about a low-level guy --- it's his boss they want --- but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation. Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese's rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves. Lucas Davenport is now on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and --- as Davenport will come to find --- full of surprises. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Aoife McMahon
At school, Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He is popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers --- one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world, while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. As she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
ODD PARTNERS: An Anthology edited by Anne Perry (Mystery/Short Stories)
Audiobook available, read by a full cast
Throughout the annals of fiction, there have been many celebrated detective teams: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Nick and Nora Charles. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings. Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. That last pair is the creation of beloved mystery writer Anne Perry, who, as the editor of ODD PARTNERS and in conjunction with Mystery Writers of America, has enlisted some of today’s best mystery writers to craft all-new stories about unlikely duos who join forces --- sometimes unwillingly --- to solve beguiling whodunits. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
REDEMPTION by David Baldacci (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Kyf Brewer and Orlagh Cassidy
Amos Decker and his FBI partner Alex Jamison are visiting his hometown of Burlington, Ohio, when he's approached by an unfamiliar man. But he instantly recognizes the man's name: Meryl Hawkins. He's the first person Decker ever arrested for murder back when he was a young detective. Though a dozen years in prison have left Hawkins unrecognizably aged and terminally ill, one thing hasn't changed: He maintains he never committed the murders. Could it be possible that Decker made a mistake all those years ago? As he starts digging into the old case, Decker finds a startling connection to a new crime that he may be able to prevent, if only he can put the pieces together quickly enough. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
ROAR by Cecelia Ahern (Fiction/Short Stories)
Audiobook available; read by Aisling Bea, Adjoa Andoh and Lara Sawalha
In ROAR, Cecelia Ahern explores the endless ways in which women blaze through adversity with wit, resourcefulness and compassion. She takes the familiar aspects of women's lives --- the routines, the embarrassments, the desires --- and elevates these moments to the outlandish and hilarious with her astute blend of magical realism and social insight. One woman is tortured by sinister bite marks that appear on her skin; another is swallowed up by the floor during a mortifying presentation; yet another resolves to return and exchange her boring husband at the store where she originally acquired him. The women at the center of this curious universe learn that their reality is shaped not only by how others perceive them, but also by how they perceive the power within themselves. Reviewed by Rachel McConnell.
SAVE ME THE PLUMS: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl (Memoir)
Audiobook available, read by Ruth Reichl
When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America’s oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone’s boss. But Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no? This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat. Reviewed by Rebecca Kilberg.
SPRING by Ali Smith (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Juliette Burton
What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times? Spring. The great connective. With an eye to the migrancy of story over time and riffing on "Pericles," one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tells the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown, Smith opens the door. The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story? Hope springs eternal. Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg.
STAY UP WITH HUGO BEST by Erin Somers (Fiction/Humor)
Audiobook available, read by Sarah Steele
June Bloom is a broke, cynical 29-year-old writers’ assistant on the late-night comedy show, “Stay Up with Hugo Best.” Hugo Best is in his 60s, a beloved icon of TV and humor, and a notorious womanizer. After he unexpectedly retires and a party is held for his now-unemployed staff, Hugo asks June to come to his mansion in Greenwich for the long Memorial Day weekend. The exact terms of the visit are never spelled out, but June is realistic and clear-eyed enough to guess. Even so, as the weekend unfolds and the enigmatic Hugo gradually reveals himself, their dynamic proves to be much more complicated and less predictable than she expected. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
STRONG AS STEEL by Jon Land (Thriller)
1994: Texas Ranger Jim Strong investigates a mass murder on a dusty freight train linked to a mysterious, missing cargo for which no record exists. The Present: His daughter, fifth generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, finds herself on the trail of that same cargo when skeletal remains are found near an excavation site in the Texas desert. She’s also dealing with the aftermath of a massacre that claimed the lives of all the workers at a private intelligence company on her watch. These two cases are connected by a long-buried secret, one that men have killed and died to protect. Caitlin and her outlaw lover, Cort Wesley Masters, must prove themselves to be as strong as steel to overcome a bloody tide that has been rising for centuries. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
THEY ALL FALL DOWN by Rachel Howzell Hall (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Janina Edwards
Delighted by a surprise invitation, Miriam Macy sails off to a luxurious private island off the coast of Mexico with six other strangers. Surrounded by miles of open water in the gloriously green Sea of Cortez, Miriam is soon shocked to discover that she and the rest of her companions have been brought to the remote island under false pretenses --- and all seven strangers harbor a secret. Danger lurks in the lush forest and in the halls and bedrooms of the lonely mansion. Sporadic cell-phone coverage and miles of ocean keep the group trapped in paradise. And strange accidents stir suspicions, as one by one, they all fall down. Reviewed by Pamela Kramer.
THE WAR WITHIN: The Great God's War by Stephen R. Donaldson (Fantasy)
Audiobook available, read by Scott Brick
It has been 20 years since Prince Bifalt of Belleger discovered the Last Repository and the sorcerous knowledge hidden there. At the behest of the repository's magisters, and in return for the restoration of sorcery to both kingdoms, the realms of Belleger and Amika ceased generations of war. Their alliance was sealed with the marriage of Bifalt to Estie, the crown princess of Amika. But the peace --- and their marriage --- has been uneasy. An ancient enemy has discovered the location of the Last Repository, and a mighty horde of dark forces is massing to attack the library and take the magical knowledge it guards. That horde will slaughter every man, woman and child in its path, destroying both Belleger and Amika along the way. Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard.