Ten books about history’s infinite, unsung legacies

Diana Arterian is the author of the recent poetry collection Agrippina the Younger and has twice been a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her first collection, Playing Monster :: Seiche, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Arterian's writing has appeared in BOMB, The Harvard Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. A poetry editor for Noemi Press, Arterian writes "The Annotated Nightstand" column at Lit Hub. She lives in Los Angeles.

At Electric Lit the author tagged ten books that "attend to the lacunae in the archive, reorienting the way we perceive the historical, and ultimately reconstructing the way we understand ourselves today." One title on the list:

A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

This memoir is an extended meditation on Ní Ghríofa’s relationship with a keen poem from the late 1700s written in Irish alongside her modern experiences of love and motherhood. The keen is by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill in response to the heinous murder of her beloved husband, whom she realizes is dead when his horse walks to their home with his “heart’s blood smeared from cheek to saddle.” The horse carries her to her husband’s corpse. “In anguish and in grief,” writes Ní Ghríofa, “she fell upon him, keening and drinking mouthfuls of his blood.” Ní Chonaill’s husband was shot at the order of a magistrate, illustrative of the oppression of the Catholic majority in Ireland. Though Ní Chonaill’s voice burns through the centuries, we know little else of her life beyond her entrancing descriptions of love and abject grief. In A Ghost in the Throat, Ní Ghríofa’s life whizzes around us as she raises four small children, her ratty copy of Ní Chonaill’s keen in her hands during late-night breastfeeds. Through the book, Ní Ghríofa never stops probing—the archive, the poem’s lines.

Read about the other entries on Arterian's list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five essential titles about Florida

Grace Flahive was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She studied English literature at McGill University in Montreal before moving to London, UK, in 2014, where she’s lived ever since.

Palm Meridian is her debut novel.

At Lit Hub she tagged five essential books about Florida (if you’re a Canadian writing a novel about Orlando). One title on the list:

Emily St. John Mandel, The Lola Quartet

I’m grateful to be following in the tradition of Canadian authors writing about Florida (though this book packs more crime story punch than my own!) Published in 2012, two years before Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel’s The Lola Quartet is the type of book you devour in one sitting. Following a group of four friends one decade after high school, it’s both at crime thriller with literary flair and a masterful character study, exploring four very different but intertwined lives and the ways that small decisions can create ripple effects across decades. In this book, Florida’s nature is a haunting, hunting thing—heat that suffocates, greenery that hides danger, and snakes that lie in wait in the water.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five titles that dive into the drug-fueled darkness of the club scene

Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. Her new novel is Ecstasy.

[The Page 69 Test: The Art of Disappearing; The Page 69 Test: Wonder Valley; The Page 69 Test: These Women]

Pochoda won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, and has been a finalist for the the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, she has led a creative writing workshop in Skid Row, Los Angeles where she helped found Skid Row Zine. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.

At CrimeReads Pochoda tagged "five books that mix nightlife with noir, where the dance floor becomes a crime scene and the come-up always ends in a comedown." One title on the list:

Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance by Irvine Welsh (1996)
Rave culture, revenge, and pharmaceutical love stories

Welsh’s triptych of stories isn’t just about popping pills in neon-drenched clubs—it’s about what happens to your soul when the high fades. In classic Welsh fashion, the stories are raw, aggressive, and shot through with political venom. From a twisted revenge plot to a love story between damaged outsiders, Ecstasy captures the late-90s dance scene as both a cultural revolution and a minefield. The writing is visceral, the dialogue cracked with street poetry, and the characters burn bright before inevitably burning out.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles about the quiet power of libraries & museums

Marian Womack is a bilingual Hispano-British writer of Weird fiction, speculative and hybrid fiction, and fiction of the Anthropocene. Her novels include The Swimmers (one of the best ten SF books of 2021, The Sunday Times) and in the Walton & Waltraud uncanny mystery series The Golden Key (2020) and On the Nature of Magic (2023). Her short fiction has been collected in Lost Objects and Out of the Window, Into the Dark, nominated to two British Fantasy Awards and one British Science Fiction Association Award, and selected for Year’s Bests. She lives in Cambridge (UK).

At Electric Lit Womack tagged eight books about the quiet power of libraries and museums, including:

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

One of the reasons jokes work is said to be that they offer us sidelong ways into things that, if contemplated seriously, would drive us mad…or to tears. I put Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog very firmly into this category—it’s one of the funniest novels one could ever read, yet the air of melancholy, of climate grief, that stands behind its best scenes gets me every time. We begin in the ashes of Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a bombing raid in November 1940, with a group of time-travellers sent back to find various McGuffins that their patron, the impossible Lady Schrapnell, needs to fulfil her unnecessary plan to rebuild the cathedral as it was before the Blitz. But what sets the novel’s plot in motion is a sharp dig at the perpetual state of academia—the projects that can only get underway because of external support (for Schrapnell read Sackler), and the way in which use-value is prioritized above everything else when money is concerned. The main body of the novel, a reworking of Jerome K. Jerome’s perfect comedy, Three Men in a Boat, takes place with this disastrous future always lapping at its edges: a bittersweet reading experience.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

To Say Nothing of the Dog is among Sarah Gailey's ten sci-fi & fantasy books that will remind you what joy feels like.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten fantasy novels

Kate Elliott has been publishing science fiction and fantasy for over thirty years with a particular focus in immersive world building and epic stories of adventure & transformative cultural change. She’s written fantasy, science fiction, space opera based on the life of Alexander the Great (Unconquerable Sun), Young Adult fantasy, the seven volume (complete!) Crown of Stars epic fantasy series set in a landscape reminiscent of early medieval Europe, and the Afro-Celtic post-Roman alternate-history fantasy with lawyer dinosaurs, Cold Magic, as well as two novellas set in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Norton, and Locus Awards.

Elliott's new novel is The Witch Roads.

At The Strand Magazine she tagged her top ten fantasy novels, including:

The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee

What if a crime family in an East Asian inspired fantasy island city had access to magical martial arts powers and were engaged in a long-standing turf war with a rival crime syndicate? Lee’s Jade City and its two sequels ask and answer this question. Lee brilliantly sets her story in an equivalent of the second half of our 20th century (although it is not our world). This allows her to follow the characters across decades of societal, cultural, diaspora, political, and technological change both in terms of their personal lives and in terms of how subsequent generations adapt to and make decisions about the family business they’ve been born into. Great stuff.

Read about the other entries on Elliott's list.

Jade City is among Roseanne A. Brown's five SFF books where magic has a steep cost, Chloe Gong's five top SFF books about warring families, Mike Chen's five recent titles featuring superpowered characters, David R. Slayton's ten favorite urban fantasies that break new ground, Emily Temple's top six epic fantasy series for fans of Game of Thrones and R.F. Kuang's five top East Asian SFF novels by East Asian authors.

The Page 69 Test: Jade City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books exploring romantic obsession

Olivia Worley is an author born and raised in New Orleans. A graduate of Northwestern University, she now lives in New York City, where she spends her time writing thrillers, over-analyzing episodes of The Bachelor, and hoping someone will romanticize her for reading on the subway. She is the author of the young adult novels People to Follow and The Debutantes. Her newly released adult debut is So Happy Together.

At CrimeReads Worley tagged six "books about romantic obsession that either inspired So Happy Together or that I’d be honored to see it shelved beside. ... [T]hese books all have one thing in common: they’re sure to get your heart pounding." One title on the list:

You by Caroline Kepnes

One of my all-time favorite series, You is like the mother of modern-day stalker stories. The first book, like the first season of the Netflix show it inspired, follows the infamously relatable Joe Goldberg as he falls in love with aspiring writer Guinevere Beck…and will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep her by his side.

Read about the other entries on the list.

You is among Sara Flannery Murphy's top ten stories of obsession and Peter Swanson's ten top books about voyeurs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight epic BIPOC crime novels

Elisa Shoenberger is a freelance writer and journalist. At Book Riot she tagged eight of "the best BIPOC crime novels you can read right now." One title on the list:

House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias

This book really takes the idea that violence begets violence to heart. Taking place in Puerto Rico, five teenage boys have been friends since childhood and have literally weathered the constant threat of death. But this time, death has come too close: the mother of one of five friends, Maria, has been gunned down, just as a hurricane is about to hit the island. Bimbo, the dead woman’s son, demands revenge, and his four friends are all going to help him. But the murderer may be connected to a powerful cartel on the island. Can Bimbo finish his quest, or will he and his friends die trying? Or will the hurricane sweep them away first?

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six high school novels for adult readers

Miriam Gershow is the author of Closer, Survival Tips: Stories and The Local News. Her writing is featured in The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review, among other journals. She is the recipient of a Fiction Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Oregon Literary Fellowship, and is a two-time finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She is the organizer of “100 Notable Small Press Books,” a curated list of the year’s recommended books from independent publishers.

[The Page 69 Test: The Local News]

At Lit Hub Gershow tagged "a half dozen books worth the trip back into the classrooms and corridors of high school." One title on the list:

Sara Nović, True Biz

I came to True Biz because it has everything I love in a high school novel: a cloistered school environment, in this case the residential River Valley School for the Deaf; aching students straining to grow up, with fitful rebellions and first loves; and a nearby adult, the personally and professionally beleaguered headmistress, whose story is braided through the students’ and the school’s. I stayed for the intimately drawn world of Deaf culture. Nović takes us inside the unique strains and joys of deaf characters, one coming to ASL for the first time as a teen, another contending with a hearing sibling. The plot is a page-turner, to be sure. But one of the unexpected beauties of this novel is how Nović renders oral speaking, signing, and sign language itself, including chapter headings. Nović makes a home for Deafness on the page that is as powerful as the story itself.

Read about the other books on the list at Lit Hub.

True Biz is among Olivia Wolfgang-Smith's ten novels about the drama of working for the family business and Alexandra Robbins's seven books with positive portrayals of educators.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about marital murder

Peter Swanson's novels include The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger; Her Every Fear, an NPR book of the year; Before She Knew Him, and Eight Perfect Murders.

[My Book, The Movie: The Kind Worth Killing; The Page 69 Test: The Kind Worth Killing; Writers Read: Peter Swanson (February 2015)]

His new novel is Kill Your Darlings.

At CrimeReads Swanson tagged "seven books and one play on the theme of marital homicide," including:

A Suspension of Mercy (1965) by Patricia Highsmith

Speaking of Highsmith, there’s no shortage of ugly marriages in her body of work, some of which culminate in murder. In this rather odd and clever story, the main protagonist Sydney Bartleby is an aspiring crime writer, who acts out scenes from his books and screenplays, including one in which he pretends to carry his wife’s body out of his English country cottage in a rolled carpet. When his wife actually does go missing, he naturally becomes the prime suspect.

Read about the other books on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best modern vampire novels

V. E. Schwab was born in California, raised in Tennessee, and currently splits her time between Denver, Colorado and Edinburgh, Scotland. She got her undergraduate degree in book design at Washington University in St. Louis, and her masters in depictions of monstrosity in medieval art at the University of Edinburgh.

Schwab's new novel is Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.

At the Waterstones blog the author tagged "five modern vampire novels with real bite." One title on the list:

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

Genre collides with the literary landscape in Kohda’s Woman, Eating, a cerebral and surreal work following Lydia, a young, struggling artist and gallery intern who longs to consume the food from her youth, while only being able to digest blood. What follows is at once eccentric and compelling, an examination of race, misogyny, body image and one not-entirely-human woman’s relationship with her own hunger—what she craves, compared with what she needs.

Read about the other novels on the list.

Woman, Eating is among Brittany K. Allen's ten books for fans of Sinners and Isabelle McConville's eleven greatest recent bloodsucking books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five titles featuring disastrous party scenes

Jonathan Parks-Ramage is a Los Angeles based novelist, playwright, screenwriter and journalist. His critically acclaimed debut novel Yes, Daddy was named one of the best queer books of 2021 by Entertainment Weekly, NBC News, The Advocate, Lambda Literary, Bustle, Goodreads and more. Yes, Daddy was also optioned for television by Amazon Studios.

Parks-Ramage's new novel is It's Not the End of the World.

At Lit Hub the author tagged five "novels which feature some of the worst (but most entertaining) parties-gone-wrong." One title on the list:

Raven Leilani, Luster

There are few things sadder than a sparsely attended birthday party. And when that birthday party happens to be for a child, it is particularly heartbreaking. Raven Leilani’s brilliant debut novel Luster features one such scene—a roller rink celebration with a mere two guests and a disco ball disaster which I will not spoil here, other than to say it perfectly encapsulates the feeling of a very bad birthday.

Adding to the particularly impactful nature of this scene, is the fact that it perfectly encapsulates the complicated dynamic between the four main characters of the book. Luster follows the thorny misadventures of Edie, a disaffected publishing employee who enters a somewhat kinky affair with Eric, a digital archivist living in New Jersey.

Surprisingly, Eric’s wife doesn’t banish Edie from their home upon finding out about her husband’s dalliances. In fact, she invites Edie deeper into their family’s life. Soon, Edie becomes a significant role model to Akila, Eric’s adopted daughter, and it becomes clear that Edie may be the only Black person in Akila’s life, adding an intense complication to an already complex dynamic.

Luster brims with dark humor, poignant human insight, and sentences that shine with stylistic verve.

Read about the other books on the list at Lit Hub.

Luster is among Emily Everett's five top novels about coming of age later in life, C. Michelle Lindley’s five best novels about art, Alana B. Lytle's eight top novels about destructive women, and Forsyth Harmon's five top obsessive female relationships in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five great robot sci-fi books

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five great sci-fi books about robots, AI, and cyborgs, including:

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Annie Bot is a companion robot, designed to be the perfect girlfriend for her owner, Doug. Annie’s days are filled with chores, like cleaning and cooking, and she also fulfills Doug’s physical requests. But as Annie goes about her responsibilities, she is learning, too, becoming more sentient and responsive to Doug’s reactions to her. As their relationship moves forward, it turns more human, with complications and misunderstandings. Will Annie always stay with Doug, or will her growing free thought lead her away?

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels about the end of democracy

Otho Eskin burst onto the thriller scene in 2020 with The Reflecting Pool, to great reviews and much book club interest. The novel introduces readers to Marko Zorn, a Washington, DC homicide detective with a strong moral compass who isn’t afraid to bend the rules to get results. The second thriller, Head Shot, was released in 2021 and the third book, Firetrap, was released in 2024. The Reflecting Pool, Head Shot, and Firetrap were all named Amazon Editors Picks for Best Mystery, Thriller or Suspense. The fourth book in the Marko Zorn series, Black Sun Rising, is now available, and has received enthusiastic advance praise: “Another Otho Eskin thriller that delivers double the trouble, twice the action, and quadruple the enjoyment.” —Steve Berry, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author.

At CrimeReads Eskin tagged five "novels that depict the end (or near-end) of democracy." One title on the list:

Stacey Abrams’ While Justice Sleeps (2021)

Abrams does not only fight authoritarianism in her work as a community organizer and voting rights activist, she takes the cause of democracy to the page. Her latest legal thriller, While Justice Sleeps, follows Avery Keene, an up-and-coming law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Howard Wynn. When the enigmatic justice falls into a coma, leaving Keene as his legal guardian and power of attorney, she must continue his investigation of a biotech firm and genetics company whose merger will empower the government to use a biological weapon against specific ethnic groups. This book is a vivid reminder of the longstanding alliance between medico-scientific research and fascist government—something that I explore in Black Sun Rising.

Read about the other novels on the list at CrimeReads.

While Justice Sleeps is among Brittany Bunzey's eight best legal thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books to scratch that "Pride and Prejudice" itch

Brittany K. Allen is a writer and actor living in Brooklyn.

At Lit Hub she tagged seven novels "if you’re craving an Austen-y fix." One title on the list:

Mariam Rahmani, Liquid: A Love Story

With its emphasis on the ruthless economic factors that affect one’s choice of mate, this debut novel scales the rom-com to late capitalist proportions. Here’s a truth universally experienced: a young scholar sets out to marry the richest man she can find. But sensibility gets in the way of good sense.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five notable unusual detectives

Jo Callaghan works full-time as a senior strategist, carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce.

Her series featuring DCS Kat Frank and AIDE, the world's first AI detective, includes In the Blink of an Eye, Leave No Trace, and (not yet in the US) Human Remains.

A lot of reviewers have focussed on the fact that AIDE Lock is unusual because he is an AI detective," Callaghan writes at the Waterstones blog, "but Lock just provides a different way into exploring the age-old debate of logic vs instinct."

One of the author's five favorite unusual detectives:

Precious Ramotswe in The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

But perhaps the most unusual detective is Precious Ramotswe. This wonderful character is not scarred by tragedies or tormented by demons. ‘Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence,’ explains the author in the first novel. ‘Both of which Mme Ramotswe had in abundance…she was a good detective and a good woman.’ Precious loves all the people that God made and is not driven by the pursuit of criminals or justice, but a belief that it is her duty to help ordinary people solve the mysteries in their lives. She doesn’t rely upon science or forensic evidence, ‘because everything you wanted to know about a person was written in their face.’ Perhaps because Precious is helping people with their everyday problems rather than catching those who disrupt the social order, she doesn’t need to be an outsider. And maybe this too is why these lovely books are so hugely popular and life affirming.

Read about the other detectives on Callaghan's list at the Waterstones blog.

Precious Ramotswe appears among Esther Inglis-Arkell's twelve greatest fictional detectives (who aren't Sherlock Holmes), Ellen Wehle's top eight fresh fictional female detectives, Ian Holding's top ten books that teach us something about southern Africa, and Adrian McKinty's ten best lady detectives.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four crime novels featuring characters' struggles

The son of two librarians, Mark Stevens was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and has worked as a reporter, as a national television news producer, and in public relations. The Fireballer (2023) was named Best Baseball Novel by Twin Bill literary magazine and named a Best Baseball Book of the Year by Spitball Magazine. His novel Antler Dust was a Denver Post bestseller in 2007 and 2009. Buried by the Roan, Trapline, and Lake of Fire were all finalists for the Colorado Book Award (2012, 2015, and 2016, respectively), which Trapline won. Trapline also won the Colorado Authors League Award for Best Genre Fiction.

Stevens’s short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, and Denver Noir. In both 2016 and 2023, Stevens was named Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Writer of the Year. He hosts a regular podcast for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and has served as president of the Rocky Mountain chapter for Mystery Writers of America.

His new novel is No Lie Lasts Forever.

[The Page 69 Test: The Fireballer; Q&A with Mark Stevens; My Book, The Movie: The Fireballer; Writers Read: Mark Stevens (June 2025)]

At CrimeReads Stevens tagged four top crime novels featuring characters' struggles. One title on the list:

Blood on the Tracks by Barbara Nickless

Blood on the Tracks starts out as a thriller, morphs into a mystery, and turns back again into a movie-ready action-packed finish. But “movie” sounds like this story follows the normal arcs. It doesn’t – because it’s a film. It’s no redemption story. It’s more complicated than that. It’s untidy and chaotic–in a good way. It’s ambitious and sprawling. The story swoops from big picture (hey, stop that train!) to intimate. It’s both violent and raw. Blood on the Tracks is about the ghosts of war, racism, class, rank, a harrowing search for identity and, of course, truth and justice. It rolls all those topics, and more, into a multi-faceted manhunt, at first, and clue-finding mystery. Railroad Police Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell is a complex and interesting character. She’s haunted for many reasons, including the fact that she worked in corpse retrieval during the war in Iraq and she was also involved in a situation covering up certain atrocities over there. Sydney Rose is so relatable because her demons feel real. (This was Nickless’ debut, the first of many outstanding books.)

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four sports books that aren’t really about sports

S.L. Price, a Senior Writer at Sports Illustrated from 1994-2019, has written five books—including the newly released The American Game: History and Hope in the Country of Lacrosse, a wide-ranging examination of the continent’s oldest and most representative sport.

At Lit Hub the author tagged four top "sports books that aren’t really about sports." One title on the list:

A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley

Diner may be my favorite film, not least because the sports-centric screenplay—Barry Levinson originally had it culminating at the 1959 NFL championship with its Baltimore Colts-obsessed protagonists hanging victoriously from the goal posts—got completely hijacked by the subtext of desperate male friendship. Exley’s 1968 novel was one of the first to blow up the sports book, make the faceless mass in the stands the story; his main character’s stalking of his own white whale, Giants running back Frank Gifford, is actually a picaresque and merciless meditation on ambition, booze, fading youth, male ego, and the gut-dropping moment when fandom becomes fate. It’s painful how beautiful it is, and vice-versa.

(See also: Among the Thugs by Bill Buford and Jimmy Connors Saved My Life by Joel Drucker)

Read about the other entries on the list.

A Fan's Notes is among Bruce DeSilva's six favorite books about sports, Laura Kipnis's six favorite books about wounded masculinity, and Dan Barden's six top stories of addiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven thrillers about murder in paradise

Katy Hays is the New York Times bestselling author of The Cloisters. She is an art history adjunct professor and holds an MA in art history from Williams College and pursued her PhD at UC Berkeley. Having previously worked at major art institutions, including the Clark Art Institute and SFMOMA, she now lives with her husband and their dog in Olympic Valley, California.

Hays's new novel is Saltwater.

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven thrillers about murder in holiday settings. One title on the list:

Morocco:
Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

If you haven’t read Who is Maud Dixon? stop everything, grab a copy, and thank me later. The story of a young woman who takes a job as an assistant to a critically acclaimed and commercially successful writer—Maud Dixon—and discovers the pseudonymous author is not who she seems, Who is Maud Dixon? takes a dark turn when the two women travel to a Moroccan riad so that Maud can finish her next (overdue) novel. But Maud has bigger plans than writing and research. Luckily, so, too, does her assistant. Come for the publishing inside baseball, stay for the coasts of Morocco.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five notable novels set in hotels

Lucy Foley studied English literature at Durham University and University College London and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry.

Her novels include The Paris Apartment, The Guest List, and The Midnight Feast. She lives in London.

All hotels are worlds unto themselves, [Foley writes at the Waterstones blog] tiny universes that follow their own rules and logic. In a murder mystery setting, practically speaking, a hotel ringfences the characters and provides a stage upon which the drama can play out, slightly elevated and separate from the ordinary world. Hotels also provide a modern formulation of the upstairs/ downstairs dynamic so beloved of the whodunnit, a forum in which class tensions can be put under the microscope. And yet they’re also, in another sense, oddly democratic: anyone can stay in a hotel (so long as they can afford the price of a stay!) and become a different or improved version of themselves, freed from the baggage of ordinary life.

One of Foley's five top novels set in a hotel:

The Maid by Nita Prose

Apparently Florence Pugh will soon be bringing Molly the maid to our screens, but I’d definitely recommend reading the wonderful book first. It’s set in the fictional Regency Grand Hotel, peopled by a colourful cast of characters of which many (guests and staff alike) are keeping secrets. The action starts with the discovery that a wealthy guest has been murdered in one of the most luxurious suites, and the neurodivergent Molly becomes both lead suspect and detective in this absorbing mystery. The sequel, The Mystery Guest, is top of my TBR pile.

Read about the other entries at the Waterstones blog.

The Maid is among S.K. Golden's six top mystery novels set in hotels and Amanda Craig's top ten books about cleaners.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the most realistic thrillers ever written

Ryan Pote is a twelve-year veteran Navy helicopter pilot who was part of a joint interagency special operations task force, deployed throughout Central and South America conducting counter narcotics. Before the Navy, he was a scuba diving instructor in Hawaii and a lab tech conducting algae-biofuels research. He holds a Masters degree in History from Ashland University. He lives with his wife and children in New England.

Pote's new novel is Blood and Treasure.

At The Strand Magazine the author tagged "five of the most realistic thrillers ever written..., each earning its stripes through authenticity, technical precision, and unflinching humanity." One title on the list:

American Assassin by Vince Flynn

Vince Flynn’s origin story for CIA operative Mitch Rapp is a visceral dive into the world of counterterrorism. The novel’s depiction of Rapp’s grueling selection process—physical endurance, psychological stress, and moral dilemmas—rings true to the real-world gauntlet faced by elite operatives. Flynn’s attention to tradecraft, from surveillance to “wet work,”, is spot-on, and his portrayal of the bureaucratic tensions within the intelligence community feels ripped from my own debriefs. A high-ranking CIA official reportedly once told staff to read Flynn’s books to think about how to more effectively wage the war on terror, suggesting they were valued for their strategic insights or mindset rather than as formal training manuals. What elevates American Assassin is its focus on the toll of violence: Rapp’s rage and loss mirror the hidden scars many operators carry. This is a thriller that respects the cost of the fight.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles that feature wine

Rochelle Dowden-Lord is a writer from south London.

Lush is her first novel.

At Lit Hub the author tagged eight "books that I read for the purpose of writing Lush, and others are simply favorites with wine as a theme or delight within the pages." One title on Dowden-Lord's list:

Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork

This was one of the first books that I read when writing Lush. If you know nothing about sommeliers, this book is the perfect place to start. Bianca Bosker is a wine newbie who throws herself palate-first into the wine industry. We learn about wine with her as she comes to comprehend tasting notes, wine etiquette and the strange and booze-soaked brains of the titular “cork dorks”—oenophiles who are obsessed with not only the taste of wine, but the ceremony of it.

It’s funny and fast-paced, sexy in the way that bottles and bottles of wine facilitate, but also shows snippets of the wine industries dark underbelly, the casual or not-so casual harassment, the danger of a group of people (no matter how wealthy or well-put together) indulging in what is essentially and literally, a drug.

Read about the other entries on the list at Lit Hub.

Also see Jay McInerney's eight top novels for the literate oenophile, John Mullan's ten best wines in literature, and Jamie Ivey's top 10 books about wine.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels narrated by sociopaths

Paula Bomer is the author of the new novel The Stalker, which received a starred Publishers Weekly review, calling it “dark and twisted fun.” She is also the author of Tante Eva and Nine Months, the story collections Inside Madeleine and Baby and other Stories, and the essay collection, Mystery and Mortality. Her work has appeared in Bomb Magazine, The Mississippi Review, Fiction Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Green Mountain Review, The Cut, Volume 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere. Her novels have been translated in Germany, Argentina and Hungary. She grew up in South Bend, Indiana and has lived for over 30 years in Brooklyn.

[Writers Read: Paula Bomer (October 2012); The Page 69 Test: The Stalker]

At Electric Lit Bomer tagged seven "novels that inspired The Stalker and some new titles that are narrated from the point of view of a psychopath." One title on the list:

Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith

I worship Patricia Highsmith’s novels and short stories, her diaries and notebooks. I saw Loving Highsmith, a series of interviews with her lovers, at Film Forum. I can’t get enough of her. Ripley’s Game, focuses on Tom Ripley at a time in his life when he should be content. He is wealthy, married to a woman he adores, and yet when he overhears someone referring to him as having “no taste”, calling him a “philistine” at a party, it sets off his uncanny ability to create a massive storm of terror. The demonization of homosexuality formed Highsmith and informs the character of Ripley. But class is no less salient an issue in the novels by the young woman from Texas who came to New York and garnered great success worldwide. Does a person ever get respect from those in power, if they are not born from it? Will Ripley’s violence ever lead to satisfaction or peace? There are no clear answers, but I love the excruciating pain of reading her novels.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven historical novels that explore the underbelly of the art world

Laura Leffler is a writer and art historian who builds stories within the gorgeous, strange, and sometimes terrifying art world. After receiving a master’s degree in post-war and contemporary art, she spent more than a decade working in commercial galleries, doing everything from art fair sales to condition reporting and logistics. Along the way, she witnessed more of that glittering world’s dark underbelly than she thought possible. Leffler currently lives in Colorado with her family.

Tell Them You Lied is her first novel.

At CrimeReads Leffler tagged seven standout art historical crime novels, including:

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis

As in all of Davis’s novels, The Magnolia Palace centers on a New York City landmark—this time it is the Frick Museum—and alternates between two timelines. In 1919, artists’ model Lillian Carter, a woman once lauded as the most beautiful in the world, is at an impasse. She is only 21, but her body has changed, ending her career. Her mother is dead and Lillian is alone and without means. She takes a job as a secretary to young Miss Frick, but soon gets accused of murder. Meanwhile, fifty years later, fashion model Veronica agrees to do a photo shoot at the museum, but a winter storm disrupts everything, leaving her stranded and following a trail of clues that will eventually solve the old murder.

Read about the other novels on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five notable books about cults

As a forensic scientist at the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Black analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, and blood as well as other forms of trace evidence. Now she is a Certified Crime Scene Analyst and Certified Latent Print Examiner and for the Cape Coral Police Department in Florida. Black is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, and the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts. She has testified in court as an expert witness and served as a consultant for CourtTV.

She is the author of the Locard Institute series and of the highly acclaimed Gardiner & Renner series, for which she was nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award. Her books have been translated into six languages.

Black's latest title in the Locard Institute series is Not Who We Expected.

[The Page 69 Test: That Darkness; My Book, The Movie: Unpunished; The Page 69 Test: Unpunished; My Book, The Movie: Perish; The Page 69 Test: Perish; The Page 69 Test: Suffer the Children; Writers Read: Lisa Black (July 2020); The Page 69 Test: Every Kind of Wicked; Q&A with Lisa Black; My Book, The Movie: What Harms You; The Page 69 Test: What Harms You; My Book, The Movie: The Deepest Kill; My Book, The Movie: Not Who We Expected; The Page 69 Test: Not Who We Expected]

At The Strand Magazine Black tagged five books that made her want to write about a cult, including:

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs by Elissa Wall

This is also a story of someone raised from birth in a situation which gradually got worse as Warren Jeffs turned a religious outpost into his personal biosphere. Forced to marry a hated cousin at the age of fourteen, Elissa finally escaped four years later. The day to day details of life in Jeffs’ world are horridly fascinating and sometimes unexpected.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Kate Robards's five essential books about cults, Janice Hallett's five top books on cults, Melanie Abrams's seven novels about crimes in communes, cults, & other alternative communities, Joanna Hershon's seven darkly fascinating books about cults, Claire McGlasson's top ten books about cults, and Sam Jordison's top ten books on cults and religious extremists.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about girls doing crime

Darrow Farr is a Salvadoran American writer. She was a Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University from 2017 to 2019 and received an MFA in creative writing from the Michener Center at the University of Texas. She was born and raised outside Philadelphia, where she now lives with her husband and son.

The Bombshell is her debut novel.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven novels in which women "don’t resign themselves to injustice, desperation, inattention, or boredom—they change their circumstances. So what if their methods are technically illegal?" One title on the list:

A Prayer for Travelers by Ruchika Tomar

The plot seems simple enough: Two friends, Penny and Cale. Penny goes missing, Cale looks for her. But this novel is a labyrinth, and as you wend your way through the out of order chapters, bumping into hangman’s puzzles and images of tarot cards and serpents, the book itself begins to feel like an occult object. The crimes committed are far from the most unsettling thing about this story; a sense of disquiet pervades even the most anodyne interactions, and you realize there is nothing simple about these girls’ friendship, their desert town, and the reasons someone might disappear from there.

As quiet, bookish Cale searches for Penny, she encounters the dark sides of the people in town, including Penny herself. However, coming into contact with that darkness doesn’t merely destabilize Cale—in a twisted complication of the coming-of-age narrative, it empowers her.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five titles that grapple with visions of apocalypse

Martha Park is a writer and illustrator from Memphis, Tennessee. She received an MFA from the Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins University, and was the Spring 2016 Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University’s Stadler Center for Poetry. She has received fellowships and grants from the Religion & Environment Story Project, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Her collaborative illustrated journalism has been recognized with an EPPY Award for Best use of Data/Infographics and was a finalist for the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Insight Award for Visual Journalism.

Park’s work has appeared in Orion, Oxford American, The Guardian, Grist, Guernica, The Bitter Southerner, ProPublica, and elsewhere.

Her new book is World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After.

At Lit Hub Park tagged five "books that grapple with—and seek to undermine, complicate, and create new meanings from—visions of apocalypse." One title on the list:

The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet

The least optimistic book in the list, but the most clear-eyed and clarifying excavation of the Far Right and its spiritual deprivations, from the vacuity of “hipster Christendom” to the red-pilled, “great phallic oversoul” of the manosphere; the conspiratorial gnosticism of Trump devotees and the perverse prosperity gospel of Trump’s rallies where, Sharlet writes, it is as if “loss itself, the very concept of grief, had been disappeared.”

I read The Undertow a couple years ago and there are specific images I have never been able to shake: an emaciated moose covered in glistening ticks, a family cat lying amid a massive pile of guns, a three-year-old child lying on his belly, shooting an automatic rifle. The heaviness is punctuated by Sharlet’s photography, his hysterically funny observations, as well as painfully beautiful meditations on the prophetic imagination of Harry Belafonte and Occupy Wall Street protestors—who Sharlet describes as fools “in the holy tradition, the one that speaks not truth to power but imagination to things as they are.”

Sharlet writes from “the aftermath,” peering into the deepest darkest reaches of a world wrought by the entangled forces of white Christian nationalism, fascism, and authoritarianism. Still, Sharlet draws us forward: “We will need new songs if we are to make it through what is to come—what is already here. I am not the one to write them. My hope is less than that: only that this book may reveal fault lines within our fears, in which others will find better words our children may one day sing.”

Read about the other books on Park's list at Lit Hub.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six mysteries set in international destinations

Jaclyn Goldis is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and NYU School of Law. She practiced estate planning law at a large Chicago firm for seven years before leaving her job to travel the world and write novels. After culling her possessions into only what would fit in a backpack, she traveled for over a year until settling in Tel Aviv, where she can often be found writing from cafés near the beach.

Goldis is the author of The Chateau, The Main Character, and The Safari.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six destination thrillers, including:

Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie.

No roundup of international destination mysteries would be complete without at least one of the several epic, eligible Christies. Appointment with Death is one of the Queen of Mystery’s most atmospheric and exotic forays, set in both the Old City of Jerusalem and Petra, Jordan. Inspired by Christie’s real-life Middle Eastern expeditions with her archaeologist husband, the featured locales—with their historic and religious backdrops, awe-inspiring, red-rock ruins, warm hospitality, and remote desert landscapes—are infrequently portrayed in modern mysteries and thus all the more intriguing. Here, our favorite Belgian detective must solve the murder of the most detestable woman he’d ever met. Petra’s harsh beauty and remoteness heightens the claustrophobia and serves to exacerbate the characters’ emotional unraveling. Of course, twists and turns abound, while the murderer remains cleverly concealed until Poirot’s little gray cells perform their ingenious analysis of psychological motivations and catalyze a most astonishing unveiling.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue