Six titles featuring killers with a code

Heather Chavez is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley’s English literature program and has worked as a newspaper reporter, editor, contributor to mystery and television blogs, and in communications for a major health care organization. She lives with her family and two cat overlords in Santa Rosa, California.

Chavez's new novel is Before She Finds Me.

At CrimeReads she tagged six books that feature killers with a code, including:

THE INNOCENT, David Baldacci

This novel introduces Will Robie, the guy the U.S. government calls on to eliminate the worst of the worst—enemies of the state, monsters who prey on the weak, and men with more money than morals. Robie is the type to sleep soundly after killing five men, but who turns off his scope when a female target of his surveillance begins to undress. He’s also the type of hitman who has second thoughts when his latest target turns out to be a young mom. After he refuses to pull the trigger, a fleeing Robie crosses paths with a teen runaway. Against all his training, he can’t walk away—especially after learning her parents were killed, and her life, too, is in danger.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about life under occupation in WWII

Bryn Turnbull is the internationally bestselling author of The Woman Before Wallis and The Last Grand Duchess. With a master of letters in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews, a master of professional communication from Toronto Metropolitan University and a bachelor's degree in English literature from McGill University, Turnbull focuses on finding stories of women lost within the cracks of the historical record.

Her new novel is The Paris Deception.

[My Book, The Movie: The Paris Deception; The Page 69 Test: The Paris Deception; Q&A with Bryn Turnbull]

At Lit Hub Turnbull tagged seven books that explore the stories of ordinary people living through the extraordinary time of the Second Word War. One title on the list:

Jennifer Robson, Our Darkest Night (Italy)

In Our Darkest Night, Jennifer Robson explores the fate of a young Jewish woman—Nina—as she strives to live in fascist Italy. Posing as the Christian wife to a young Italian farmer, Nina endures the day to day struggle to survive undetected by local Nazi authorities.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about questionable geniuses & false saviors

Marta Balcewicz spent her early childhood in Pomerania and Madrid, and now lives in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Catapult, Tin House online, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Washington Square Review, The Rumpus, and Passages North among other publications. Her fiction was anthologized in Tiny Crimes (Catapult, 2018). She received a fellowship from Tin House Workshops in 2022.

Big Shadow is her first novel.

At Electric Lit Balcewicz tagged seven novels featuring "questionable geniuses, part saviors, part villains, all due for exposure. The common thread is that they keep the wool over someone else’s eyes, and the smoke and mirrors of their genius-status has the power to greatly affect others." One title on the list:

My Heart Hemmed In by Marie NDiaye

My Heart Hemmed In is a mystery—not the genre of mystery, but a story seemingly oblivious to the need to explain anything to its reader. The idea that this can’t go on is propulsive, and conducive to paranoia. The unknowns become suffocating in the most pleasant of ways, and we read on for the hope of release, some air to be let in. The novel follows a woman living in Bordeaux who attempts to understand why others have suddenly come to despise her and her husband. The antagonism is so severe that the couple is effectively ostracized. In the opening page, the husband has been stabbed; he may be dying. One of the many unexplained phenomena is the presence of a neighbor, Richard Noget, who unilaterally moves into the couple’s apartment to act as a nurse. His aggressive presence, marked by absurd actions, adds another level of oppression for the narrator: she cannot understand it. And what truly fuels her (and so, our) flame is that while she’s convinced Noget is sinister, he is a famous and revered figure in France. Noget’s status as beloved is a repeating, painful blow, as the narrator’s whole consciousness has turned to the question of why she is despised and unloved. While Noget is only one of the few terrifying elements that challenge the notion of realism in this novel, he is a central symbol that haunts the narrator until the very final scenes.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five thrillers where the setting becomes a pivotal character

Catherine McKenzie was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. A graduate of McGill in History and Law, Catherine practiced law for twenty years before leaving the practice to write full time. An avid runner, skier and tennis player, she’s the author of numerous bestsellers including Hidden, Fractured, The Good Liar and I’ll Never Tell. Her works have been translated into multiple languages and Please Join Us and I’ll Never Tell have all been optioned for development into television series.

[My Book, The Movie: You Can't Catch Me; The Page 69 Test: You Can't Catch Me; The Page 69 Test: Hidden; My Book, The Movie: Hidden; The Page 69 Test: Spin ; My Book, The Movie: Spin]

McKenzie's new novel is Have You Seen Her.

At CrimeReads she tagged five thrillers where the setting becomes a pivotal character, including:

The Guest List by Lucy Foley and Her Dark Lies by JT Ellison

Setting: An island off the coast of somewhere

Did Agatha Christie do this first in And Then There Were None? I’m not a book historian, but certainly, ever since that book, the idea of a group gathered on an island with a potential killer among them has had a constant appeal. Two recent, and great, entries into this field are The Guest List and Her Dark Lies. Both novels use their setting to great effect—the boat ride to the island, the dark nooks and crannies that islands have, the isolation.

Because how long does it take for you to get cut off from the mainland? And how easy is it for the thin veneer of civilization to be stripped away?

Both books also use a wedding as a device. In Her Dark Lies, it’s the protagonist’s impending wedding that’s threatened, by the island itself, it seems. Or is it by her almost-to-be-husband’s family?

And in The Guest List, it’s the guests that are under threat, as a body is found during the reception, and the guests discover just how alone they are.

I read these two novels back-to-back and they’re great companion pieces to one another.

So next time you read a book—one of mine or someone else’s—ask yourself whether the setting is a character and whether it should be. It will take you great places.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Her Dark Lies is among Anna Snoekstra's eight top taut thrillers set over three days or fewer and Amanda Jayatissa's seven best thrillers set at weddings.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 summer love stories

David M. Barnett's novels include Calling Major Tom and The Handover (US title: Same Time, Same Place).

His new novel is There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. "Though a slow-burner set over 10 years," he writes, "the pivotal action takes place during the summer months."

At the Guardian Barnett tagged ten favorite sizzling summer love stories, including:

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2015)

I wanted to include Daisy Jones & the Six here, because the artfully veiled story about Fleetwood Mac feels drenched in faded Polaroid 1970s Californian sunshine. But Reid’s earlier novel is far more appropriately summery. After drifting through life, Hannah Martin is faced with an apparently simple choice in a bar one night: go home with her best friend and flatmate or take a ride with her high school boyfriend, back on the scene. She does both, in alternating chapters that show how split-second decisions can have huge repercussions.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Maybe in Another Life is among Phoebe Fox's seven books to help you cope with heartbreak.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about gripping family secrets

Thao Thai is a writer living in Ohio with her husband and daughter. Her work engages with tangled family relationships and the intersections of motherhood and identity. She’s been published in Cup of Jo, Eater, Catapult, Sunday Long Read, and more. A recipient of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, she has also been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes and earned fellowships in creative writing. She received her MFA from The Ohio State University and her MA from The University of Chicago.

Thai's debut novel is Banyan Moon.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven books "that explore the dark spaces between families—all that’s unsaid." One title on the list:

Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown

Four generations of Montrose women all have one thing in common: the mysterious curse that dooms the people they fall in love with to die sudden deaths. Little is known about this curse, except that it originated in New Orleans nearly half a century ago, in a world of powerful hoodoo. In present-day California, Willow and Victoria live in peace with Victoria’s daughter Nickie, until the day Nickie brings a young man home for dinner. This unleashes a series of events that shakes the core of the family, scattering all three women across the country, toward their destinies. Their only hope of reunification is to break the curse, but that means unlocking their silent matriarch Augusta’s past—a near impossible task.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top Prohibition-era books

Katharine Schellman is a former actor and one-time political consultant. When not writing about mystery, history, and other improbable things, she can be found in her garden or finding new ways to skip steps while baking.

Schellman currently lives and writes in the mountains of Virginia in the company of her family and the many houseplants she keeps accidentally murdering. Her books include Last Call at the Nightingale and The Last Drop of Hemlock.

At The Strand Magazine Schellman tagged ten Prohibition-era books, including:

The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum

During Prohibition, the Tammany Hall political machine ran New York through a system of bribes, favors, and outright corruption. Their control extended to the coroner’s office—until their appointee became so embroiled in scandal that even they couldn’t keep him in power. His replacement was Charles Norris, one of the pioneers of forensic medicine.

Blum’s account of Norris and his colleagues is set against the proliferation of easily accessible poisons in the Jazz Age, from arsenic to chloroform. It reads like science fiction, examining both poisoning crimes and the many bizarre ways that scientists solved them—including, sometimes, dosing themselves with the poisons they were learning to detect. With its litany of famous, infamous, and often baffling murders, it touches on the life and experience of nearly every social, ethnic, and racial group that lived (or sometimes, didn’t live) through New York City’s Jazz Age.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five thrillers unfolding in wooded isolation

Kate Robards holds a degree in journalism and works in communications at a nonprofit organization. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and children.

Her new novel is The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard.

[My Book, The Movie: The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard]

At CrimeReads Stannard tagged "five thrillers that use a secluded, wooded setting to lead you into dark tales," including:

Final Girls by Riley Sager

Quincy Carpenter is the sole survivor of a mass murder at a remote cabin in the woods. Branded a “final girl” by the press, she buries her trauma. But when another final girl, a survivor of a sorority house massacre, dies by apparent suicide, Quincy is forced to confront her spotty memories of that fateful night.

The flashbacks to Pine Cottage are reminiscent of scenes from classic horror movies: a secluded cabin in the Poconos, a gaggle of college-age kids, an attacker, and a bloody run through the woods. Final Girls plays off the slasher-in-the-woods trope, and it delivers a twisty, gripping story of surviving an attack while isolated in the woods.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Final Girls is among Aurora Lydia Dominguez's eight top serial killer thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve titles for fans of HBO’s "Succession"

At Vulture.com Gina Chen tagged twelve books for fans of HBO’s Succession, including:

There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere, by Kara Swisher

When AT&T announced the suspicious offloading of HBO parent company WarnerMedia to a surprise merger with Discovery, Inc., was it witty or inevitable that nearly all news outlets included an image from Succession to accompany their coverage of the media mayhem? Was the introduction of GoJo and the “merger of equals” a direct reference to the infamous union of plucky digital technology and old-media behemoth? Step back into the time machine of meta-narratives and mergers with Pivot co-host (and official Succession podcast host) Kara Swisher’s definite saga on the 2000 AOL–Time Warner merger implosion for a look at how dramatic and devastating the effects of faulty strategy, poor execution, and petty men can be.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see: twenty-one books for fans of HBO’s Succession.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven obsessive love affairs in literature

Bronwyn Fischer is a graduate of the University of Guelph’s MFA program in creative writing. She also holds a BA from the University of Toronto. She now lives in Toronto with her wife, Emma.

Fischer's debut novel is The Adult.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven books that

encase the intensity of obsessive love. They are at times, devotions to a beloved, they are relics of love’s overwhelm, they are attempts by lovers to stop loving, to remember a different answer to the always-there question— how should life be?

One title on the list:

Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux, translated by Tanya Leslie

“I had no future other than the telephone call fixing our next appointment. I would try to leave the house as little as possible—forever fearing that he might call during my absence.”

Told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, Simple Passion is an incisive reflection on a two-year affair with a married man named “A.” Ernaux describes how life transforms itself to accommodate and sustain the affair with “A”, composing an intimate revelation of obsession and passion. Though Ernaux’s novella revolves around “A”, there is a great sense in which her work is not about “A” as an object of love, but rather about the current of feelings experienced by the one who loves. Ernaux gives attention to obsession and love not only as feelings to describe but as ideas to think about. This is a brief and forceful look at a person consumed.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six thrillers about modern rebels

Wendy Heard is the author of the acclaimed YA novels Dead End Girls and She's Too Pretty to Burn, which Kirkus Reviews praised as “a wild and satisfying romp” in a starred review, as well as the adult thrillers The Kill Club and Hunting Annabelle. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America, and is a contributor at Crimereads.com and Writer's Digest. Heard lives in Los Angeles, California.

Her new novel is We'll Never Tell.

At CrimeReads Heard tagged six "favorite stories about adventurers, bohemians, nomads, runaways, and other modern rebels." One title on the list:

Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda

Set in my hometown and embodied with a trademark Los Angeles grittiness I don’t often see executed so successfully, Wonder Valley begins with a man running along the congested rush hour freeway, completely nude. One of the witnesses, a man on his way to white-collar drudgery, finds himself inspired and takes off running after the naked jogger. The book follows a handful of such oddballs, those living in unusual circumstances, and we find ourselves connecting with folks from Skid Row to the desert. I found the passages about homelessness especially interesting, as well as the storyline of Tony, our would-be runner. As much about connection and shared humanity as it is about its setting, this book felt adventurous by nature.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Wonder Valley is among Johnny Shaw’s ten California crime novels not set in Los Angeles or San Francisco.

The Page 69 Test: Wonder Valley.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 adventure stories for girls

Kim Sherwood is an author and creative writing lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, where she lives in the city. Her first novel, Testament (2018), won the Bath Novel Award and Harper’s Bazaar Big Book Award. It was longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize and shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Pick. In 2019, she was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Her second book, Double or Nothing (2022), is the first in a trilogy commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to expand the world of James Bond. Her latest novel, A Wild & True Relation (2023), was described by Dame Hilary Mantel as “a rarity – a novel as remarkable for the vigour of the storytelling as for its literary ambition. Kim Sherwood is a writer of capacity, potency and sophistication.”

At the Guardian Sherwood tagged ten favorite adventure stories for girls, including:

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (2018)

While much adventure fiction begins with a privileged white man escaping boredom (see John Buchan’s 39 Steps), the genre is at its most powerful when the protagonist is reaching for adventure as the opposite of tyranny. That’s the case in this blistering novel following George Washington Black, born into enslavement on a Barbados plantation run by the English Wilde brothers. Beginning with a hot-air balloon escape, the novel is globe-hopping in the vein of Jules Verne, and shares DNA with Robert Louis Stevenson in its fraught coming-of-age dynamic between a boy and a father-figure. But overlaying these is the terror and brutality of slavery. Edugyan asks what freedom means in a mind and body haunted by trauma.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Washington Black is among Kai Thomas's seven novels about Black characters in the 19th century and Annie Lampman's ten women-authored novels set in remote and forgotten places.

--Marshal Zeringue