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An important write-up - book marked it. One question though: "Agents getting axed by grinders is equally meaningless.". I Googled "what is a grinder in book industry" and from that felt amused yet uninformed. Thank you. David

Now, more than ever, it’s crucial to read queer voices, and what better way than with a page-turning thriller, an ingenious mystery, an engrossing psychological suspense, or a charming quozy? Queer Crime Writers* has curated a winter-to-spring roundup, showcasing the genre’s vibrant diversity. From historical mysteries to sci-fi thrillers, these books span various subgenres and thrilling locations. In A Lethal Walk in Lakeland, Chase investigates a murder in England’s Lake District, while Waters of Destruction takes Val to stormy Hawaii for an investigation. Blood of Innocents follows NYPD detectives in a high-profile New York City murder case, and Buried Seeds delves into murder and corruption in Los Angeles. In Pride or Die, a high school LGBTQ+ club is framed for murder, while Academy of Unholy Boys explores toxic friendships at a summer camp. Small-town mysteries include Evil All Along, where Dash investigates a hometown murder, and A Long Time Gone, where Deputy Ben Packard reopens a cold case tied to his brother’s disappearance. Other highlights include The Lord’s Gambit, set in Victorian London, and Murder by Memory, which blends sci-fi and mystery aboard an interstellar ship. *Queer Crime Writers is an organization that advocates for LGBTQIA+ crime fiction authors and creates community for them. Winter Highlights A Lethal Walk in Lakeland, by Nicholas George, 1/21 Chase has two compelling reasons for returning to England: a group walk along the famed Coast to Coast trail in the picturesque Lake District, and a chance to deepen his relationship with Mike, the handso me Devonshire coroner he met on his last trip. But the journey turns rocky thanks to the Uptons—a wealthy family from Texas whose squabbling antics continually overshadow the scenic surroundings. Brock Upton, his pint-sized wife, three siblings, and a family friend each give a different reason for joining the tour, and Chase’s instincts tell him they’re all lying. When one of the Uptons is fatally poisoned, years of secrets and grudges emerge. In the second book of the A Walk Through England Mystery series, only Chase can uncover the killer in their midst before tragedy befalls the tour again. A Long Time Gone, by Joshua Moehling, 2/4 Decades after his brother disappeared into the cold Minnesota night, Deputy Ben Packard is pulled back into the mystery that has haunted him since childhood. On leave after a shooting and cut off from department resources, he follows a new lead that may finally reveal what happened all those years ago. But when a strange and unexplained death surfaces—one that may be connected to his brother’s disappearance—Packard is drawn even deeper. Set against the stark winter landscape of Sandy Lake, Where the Dead Sleep is the third novel in the Ben Packard series, featuring a complex, deeply human investigator who challenges expectations of both law enforcement and queer identity. Blood of the Innocents, by Catherine Maiorisi, 2/13 Catherine Maiorisi returns this year with the fifth installment of the Chiara Corelli mystery series. In this gripping police procedural, NYPD detectives Corelli and P.J. Parker investigate the high-profile murder of rising pop star Alessandra Moreau, found dead in the home of New York State Senator Leigh Drayman, a prominent trans woman activist. Moreau, however, harbors a closely guarded secret shared with only three people—the rising star was transgender—just like the senator. What begins as a focused investigation into three suspects expands when thirteen similar murders of trans women emerge, along with two cold cases from decades past. Corelli and Parker must unravel years of deception before another woman becomes the next victim. March The Lord’s Gambit, Neil Plakcy, 3/10 The fourth book in the Ormond Yard Romantic series—historical mystery novels that can each be read as a standalone—is set in Victorian London and follows penniless Jewish scholar Israel Kupersmit and gentleman Reed Lydney as they investigate the suspicious death of Reed’s brother-in-law. What appears to be a nobleman’s suicide linked to gambling debts soon reveals itself as part of a far-reaching conspiracy of international espionage. Israel’s gift for mathematics and Reed’s diplomatic connections reveal a web of blackmail and Russian spies at the heart of London society, drawing them into the shadows of the Great Game against Russia. Their shared love of poetry sparks a quiet romance as they peel back layers of deception and uncover treachery at the highest levels of power. Murder by Memory, by Olivia Waite 3/18 Near the top deck of the interstellar generation ship Fairweather, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as a murder is discovered. As one of the ship’s detectives, she’s used to untangling complex schemes, but this time, someone is not only killing bodies—they’re erasing minds from the Library. In this sci-fi cozy, Dorothy suspects her brilliant but chaotic nephew Ruthie may be involved, or perhaps the sultry yarn shop owner—ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy now inhabits—knows more than she lets on. With murder now a permanent possibility aboard the Fairweather, Dorothy must uncover the truth before the killer, who’s had 300 years to prepare, strikes again. April Academy of Unholy Boys, by David Fitzpatrick 4/1 In this debut novel, set in the affluent, idyllic shoreline town of Gently, quiet 16-year-old Jay Souther attends Football Summer Camp, where he’s quickly befriended by two seniors: the charismatic Foster Gold and Latino All-American Bear Santos. Drawn to their magnetic personalities and the promise of brotherhood, Jay becomes increasingly entangled in their hedonistic world—and cut off from his longtime friends, fellow sophomore Basil Sous and senior Tuck Reis. As Foster’s hold over Jay deepens, Basil and Tuck fear Jay may have bitten off more than he can chew, so they join forces to pull him back from the boy’s hypnotic, nearly cult-like sway before tragedy strikes. Waters of Destruction, by Leslie Karst 4/1 Retired caterer Valerie Corbin and her wife Kristen have settled permanently on the beautiful—but storm-prone—Big Island of Hawaii. As they enjoy island life with their new dog, Pua, they’ve made friends with local restaurant manager Sachiko and her partner Isaac, though they still feel a bit adrift. When Sachiko asks Val to fill in for a missing bartender, Val dusts off her cocktail shaker and happily agrees—it’s a chance to meet more locals and catch up on gossip. But things take a dark turn when the bartender, Hank, who vanished after a team-building retreat, is found dead at the bottom of a waterfall—and suspicion falls on Sachiko. In An Orchid Isle Mystery Book Two, Val plunges into the investigation to uncover the truth. Evil All Along, by Gregory Ashe 4/7 They say love makes fools of us all—and Dash Bannon is no exception. It’s his second Halloween in Hastings Rock, and he’s hoping for a low-key season filled with candy, friends, and quiet nights with a certain deputy. But when his friend Keme is arrested for murder, Dash is thrown into a chilling mystery. The evidence is damning, and the town is quick to turn on Keme, convinced he’s dangerous. Determined to clear his friend’s name, Dash sets out to uncover the truth. But the real killer may be watching. The Last Picks Series Book 8 brings murder, mistrust, and a Halloween no one will forget. No Time for Duplicity, by D.J. Ciccarello 4/8 This deeply disturbing psychological thriller is the third standalone novel by D.J. Ciccarello. It explores the line rarely crossed when humans commit murder. Parker Grant is a young therapist living in Atlanta. When a client from his couple’s therapy is killed in Parker’s condo, his life begins to crumble. Mysterious gifts begin to arrive at his office, which incriminate him in the murder of the client. Haunted by memories he can’t recall, manipulated by friends, Parker is thrown into a haze of mistrust and madness. Facing the realization that he may be the villain in this tale, he must protect his secrets at all costs. Pride or Die, by CL Montblanc 4/15 In Pride or Die, a satirical sapphic YA mystery, the LGBTQ+ club at a Texas high school is framed for attempting to murder the head cheerleader. Seventeen-year-old Eleanora Finkel, eager to finish her senior year and escape Texas, leads the group as they work to clear their names and find the real culprit. But Eleanora, riddled with anxiety and distracted by her growing attraction to the case’s cute victim, is far from a professional detective. Armed only with her trusty crochet hook, she and her unlikely sleuthing friends must face bullies, unwind the mystery, and ensure the survival of their club for future queer teens in their small town. Buried Seeds, by Verónica Gutiérrez 4/22 Verónica Gutiérrez returns with Buried Seeds, the second book in the Yolanda Ávila Mystery series. Former LAPD cop turned private investigator, Yolanda stumbles onto a bloody murder scene, thrusting her into a race to save two innocent men: Gamaliel Campamoche, an undocumented immigrant facing deportation, and his employer, Kinji Abe, a WWII American concentration camp survivor. The investigation pulls Yolanda and her diverse team into the dark corners of a changing city, where real estate sharks circle neighborhoods and activists harbor secrets of their own. As Yolanda peels back layers of deception, she uncovers how greed and desperation can turn neighbors into enemies—and enemies into killers. The protective spirits of Yolanda’s mother and uncle seem to be stirring again, sending warnings she can’t ignore. With the body count rising, Yolanda must separate truth from illusion before another life is claimed. View the full article

Stories about mothers and daughters are everywhere, but the endless nuances of this intense relationship are fertile ground for thriller writers. Many of my novels address different dynamics of this relationship, but in my new thriller When She Was Gone I look at the tricky role of the estranged mother. My protagonist Rose has been denied access to her child by the cruel actions of her ex-partner, however, she has taken up the cause for other women in similar scenarios and has worked as a police officer, a hostage negotiator and with domestic violence victims. So when Rose finds out that her grown-up daughter Louisa has vanished from a remote Australian beach with the two young children in her care, she knows it’s her moment to step up and push her way into the investigation, in the hopes of discovering what’s happened and recovering the missing trio. Researching this story made me think of other outstanding thrillers where different kinds of mothers have needed to fight for their daughters in order to keep them safe or to discover what has happened to them. Here are five of the best: What Happened to Nina by Dervla McTiernan In this ripper of a story, Nina’s hard-working mother Leanne is left desperate to discover what happened to her daughter when Nina suddenly goes missing after a weekend away with her boyfriend Simon. The problem is that Simon’s mother Jamie is just as determined to protect him, no matter what he did, and decides to employ a reputation management team to direct the attention back onto Nina’s parents. McTiernan cleverly plays with plot and reveals in this nail-biting story, which leaves Leanne struggling to keep her life together as she fights for answers, while trying to protect her younger daughter from the fallout too. The Push by Ashley Audrain In this brilliantly executed, chilling thriller, a struggling mother becomes increasingly convinced that her young daughter is displaying sociopathic behaviour. But is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband Fox seems to think so, ensuring Blythe begins to question her own judgement – and her abilities as a mother – more and more. As her life enters freefall, things take an even darker turn when Violet’s behaviour worsens – and Audrain delivers both chills and heartrending scenes with an equally unforgettable punch. The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave When Hannah Michael’s husband Owen suddenly disappears without warning, he leaves behind a cryptic message asking Hannah to protect her teenage stepdaughter Bailey. Although Bailey is initially wary and hostile to Hannah, it soon becomes clear that Owen isn’t who they’d thought he was, and the two women work together to uncover the reasons why the man they love has disappeared. The Crash by Freida McFadden Pregnancy is often used in thrillers to up the stakes around a character’s physical and mental vulnerability, but also because the fierce, primal urge a mother has to protect her child means she’ll fight back against every kind of danger. In The Crash, McFadden’s character Tegan is 8 months pregnant when she ends up having a car accident in a blizzard, which leaves her with a broken ankle. She’s rescued by a mysterious couple who take her to their cabin, and things only get worse from there. Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister Right outside her front window, Jen witnesses her son Todd murder a total stranger on Halloween, but when she wakes the next day she has gone back in time and the murder has yet to happen. As she continues to wake up at different points in their past, she realizes that somewhere in these revisitings lies the trigger for Todd’s crime – and it becomes her mission to find it and stop these this terrible event from happening. I love this premise, and McAllister delivers a clever and unique read. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng A young girl goes missing after a house fire, and the story travels back in time to flesh out the details of what happened. There are three centralized mother characters here, and more in the background, all fighting for their daughters in different ways – with their various states of prosperity playing a huge part in the choices available to them. This book is a beautifully fleshed out social commentary on status and wealth as well as an exceptional mystery. *** View the full article

I have high standards for vacation reads. I’ve never been one of those people who saw a trip to the beach as an excuse to read something that only required half my attention. Even if I’m reading on a plane or by the pool, I need a smart, well-written page-turner, and a couple of years ago, I realized that I could never go wrong with a novel by Alafair Burke. The New York Times-bestselling author of twenty novels, including two series and many standalones, she manages to combine characters I’m eager to learn more about with tightly-woven plots full of breathless twists. (Her latest, The Note, kept me up hours past my bedtime.) In this interview, she introduces me to another author I’ll be following from now on, Alison Gaylin. Why did you choose What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin? I love Alison Gaylin’s work, and this is one of my favorite books of hers. I love a two-timeline mystery, where things that you thought were going to stay in the past creep into the present. And it’s a very complex and layered plot, with lots and lots of twists, and I think she handles it really masterfully. The main character is Kelly Lund, whom we meet in both timelines. In the first, she’s a teenager rebelling against her parents; in the second, she’s a convicted murderer who has recently been released after many years in prison. Part of what’s interesting about Kelly is how unremarkable she is: unlike her twin sister Catherine (who dies before the novel begins), she doesn’t have much interest in being a movie star. What do you think makes Kelly a compelling character? We know about the murder from the beginning, so Kelly has this mystery about her from the opening pages. Then you see her in the present as an adult, after she’s released from prison. She’s trying to live a normal life with her husband, but then she gets pulled back into the orbit of these Hollywood figures that she’d tried to leave in the past. That was one of my favorite parts of this book, this atmosphere of the Hollywood elite and these details about how their world works that I don’t think most of us are privy to. In the later timeline, Kelly is married to Shane Marshall, the son of a famous actor and the brother of Kelly’s best friend/arch-nemesis, Bellamy Marshall. Why and how is the Marshall family important to Kelly’s story? We learn early on that Kelly’s mother is very anti-Hollywood. She worked as a makeup artist, and Kelly’s father, who’s out of the picture, was a stuntman, so they were very much on the periphery of that world. When Kelly becomes friendly with the Marshalls, and eventually marries one of them, that family represents everything that was aspirational but also repellent. There’s something obviously appealing about glitz and glamor and fame, but the distrust of it was also ingrained in Kelly by her mother. It’s scary to her, but also kind of irresistible. Kelly was convicted of killing the director John McFadden, the father of one of her best friends. John is described as an auteur who is completely absorbed by his work, but there seems to be some kind of commentary about being so obsessed with making art that you don’t have time to care about other people. In a way, it’s an uncomfortable idea for writers– that caring too much about your work might give you an excuse to be a bad person. Is that how you read McFadden’s character, and do you think this is a risk for artists in real life? I think that’s a character that many of us recognize, right? Their talent or their commitment to their artistry can sometimes provide a cover or an excuse for some pretty inexcusable things. Like everyone will say, “Oh, he’s so brilliant, you can’t expect decent behavior from him.” We all like to think we’re dedicated to our work, and absorbed in our work, but if it takes away from your moral sense, that becomes a problem. And if there are enough of those people, you have a world where the usual rules just don’t seem to apply. When the Weinstein story came out, and then the floodgates opened, it became very clear that there were people in this industry getting away with horrendous behavior. We know now that it was an open secret and nobody complained, because the mindset seemed to be, “Well, this is Hollywood, so different rules apply.” It’s such a fantastic setting for a mystery, because the potential witnesses and the potential complainants may also have slightly skewed views of right and wrong. So the consequences of speaking up might be very different than they would be if you set that story in Kansas. I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of novels set in L.A. lately, and of course there have always been so many great crime writers there, from Raymond Chandler on. Is there some specific quality to L.A. crime novels that is unique to that setting? I’ve been setting novels in East Hampton recently, and it seems to me like a smaller version of the same phenomenon. Even if you’ve never been to the Hamptons, or to L.A., you feel like you know it. The reader knows what it stands for, and you can take advantage of that as a fiction writer. To the reader, it’s fun to feel like you’re getting a little glimpse behind the scenes, like you get to see what the parties are really like. Then Alison is able to expose the seamy underside—the paparazzi everywhere, and the kids who have been corrupted by their access to resources and to fame. And then to take an insecure girl like Kelly and drop her into that makes for a really good story. There are multiple twists and reveals in this story, and without giving any spoilers, I thought Gaylin handled them so well. What did you think? Alison is one of my good friends, and we talk a lot about process. I think our books read similarly. I’m not sure exactly how to explain that, but there’s kind of a humorous tone to them. There’s a lot of pop culture in there, and we like a multi-layered reveal, with lots of plot twists. Constructing a plot like that is almost like a little brain teaser. You’ve got to work out how you’re going to time all of those reveals. I haven’t talked to her specifically about how she constructed this novel, but because we’ve talked a lot generally about craft, I know that she’s always asking herself, “How can I twist this one more time? How can I put in one more thing that the reader won’t see coming?” And I think it pays off so well in this book. That suggests to me that she’s trying to surprise herself as well as the reader, right? Is that something you’re trying to do in your own work as well? I’m in the process of beating out my various plot reveals for the next book now, and sometimes I have to wonder, “Have I thought about it too much? Like, is it one too many turns of the Rubik’s cube?” But in the end, it’s really about the motivation, and about the characterization behind those motives. If you just take a plot and strip it down to its bones, and you don’t explain the dynamics behind the characters’ decisions, it’s not that interesting. But when you understand the reasons why people are doing what they’re doing, and the way it’s all interrelated, that’s the beauty of it. I always think about that line how Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, and she did it backwards in high heels. Great crime writers do all the things that literary writers do, but with a plot that keeps readers turning pages. Yeah, things have to actually happen. People who don’t read a lot of mysteries might think that they all follow a standard linear plot line, where somebody finds a body and then a detective comes and starts interviewing people, but Alison is doing something much more complex than that. You’ll be reading a scene about Kelly in high school, and you’ll hear a stray detail that you won’t realize was significant until much later. I think the structure of this book is so clever. In some mysteries I read, there will be a this really clunky dump of exposition—like someone will be folding laundry, and then they’ll remember something for three pages. In this novel, the scenes unfold seamlessly, and yet they contain so much information. I’m so glad you suggested this title. I’ve always meant to read Gaylin’s The Collective, but now I want to go back and binge everything she’s written. The Collective is amazing. The title refers to this group of people who have had horrible things happen to them and their family and never got justice, and they find each other and start working together. I think she wrote that during a time when we were all becoming aware of the collective anger among women about people getting away with bad behavior and never facing consequences. Her most recent book, We Are Watching You, has kind of a similar set-up to What Remains of Me, where the main character has something happen to her as a child that affects her current life, and she ends up as a target of this group of online conspiracy theorists. It’s very scary and creepy because it shows the allure and the danger of these online groups. It’s very timely. Is there anything else you’ve learned from this novel that you might apply in your own work? Rereading this book reminded me that you really can’t detach character from plot, and also that experimentations with structure can pay off. It’s not just the switches of point of view—she includes chapters of a true-crime book written by one of the characters, and news articles. It reminds me that a reader will go along with you with those experiments if you do them well. It’s so intricate. I would love to see what her plot board looks like. Laura Lippman does that really well too, and I think she’s even posted pictures of, like, different-colored Post It notes in lines on the floor. I’m a whiteboard person and an index card person myself, but right now, my board is pretty empty. Are the early stages a fun part of the process for you? No, it’s horrible. I have a very hard time starting because I’m always convinced I don’t know enough. And I had to literally write a note to myself yesterday saying, You knew less than this when you started The Wife. I have to remind myself that sometimes it helps if you don’t know too much going in, because your characters don’t know too much either. Most of the writers I know say that it always feels the same way—like, “How did I ever do this?” But Harlan Coben always says it’s easier to fix it than it is to write it the first time. You can always make it better. View the full article

Season 2 of Poker Face is coming to Peacock on May 8th! And we have more good news: we now have a clip from one of the episodes… and not just an episode, but the episode in which Cynthia Erivo plays sextuplets (or quintuplets… I’m not yet clear). The episode is titled “The Game is a Foot” (love that), and Natasha Lyonne released a clip of it to her Instagram and X accounts. Rian Johnson also spoke with The Independent about how they filmed the multiple Cynthia Erivos onscreen together without the use of CGI. Here at CrimeReads, we love practical effects! Just one more month, and then we’re there! View the full article

Sharon Derrick drove an hour north on Interstate 45 through the Houston suburban sprawl and the piney woods of Sam Houston National Forest to a prison in a rural county north of Huntsville. On the way, she found herself tuning her audio system to a 1970s channel on Sirius XM. In 1972, the year when Mark Scott was abducted and murdered, Roberta Flack had climbed the charts with the love song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” America was singing about a trip through the desert on “A Horse with No Name,” and Neil Young was searching for a “Heart of Gold.” The forensic anthropologist rarely visited prisoners as part of her ID work. She had prepared for this interview by rereading 1973 statements Henley, Corll’s teenaged accomplice, had already given police and journalists. She’d even located cryptic notes made from a session when Henley had agreed to undergo hypnosis in the 1980s and record mumbled recollections into a microphone for Dr. Joe, Harris County’s legendary ME. Derrick had a mission. She wanted to know everything that Wayne Henley recalled about the Lost Boys, the remaining unidentified victims, no matter how small. “I wanted to see if we had other mistaken IDs,” she said. “And I wanted to know what else he had to tell me so I could try to track people.” Derrick parked her BMW in the lot outside the prison, leaving her cellphone inside her car as required. She went through the prison ID check and X-­ray machine, passed through two sets of autolocking electronic doors topped with razor wire, and then was greeted by an official who ushered her into a windowless office stripped of any adornment. She’d been allowed to bring in blank pieces of paper, a pen, and her files, but no tape recorder. She’d barely taken a seat at a swivel chair behind the desk when a guard brought in Henley. Once he was inside, the guard departed, leaving Derrick alone in a locked room with a convicted killer serving six life sentences. Henley attempted to break the ice with a joke. “When I first got here, other prisoners kept dumping boxes of cereal on my chair in the mess hall,” he said, grinning. “Since I was a serial killer.” Derrick smiled but didn’t laugh. In preparation for this meeting, she had donned the same kind of mental armor she used to stomach particularly troubling cases in an autopsy suite. This was Derrick’s third visit to a Texas prison on this case. She’d sparred with Corll’s other accomplice – David Brooks – in two prior interviews. But Henley spoke freely. Henley’s voice took on the folksy tone of a practiced Texas story-teller as he launched into the gory tale of how he’d murdered teens he’d known, including childhood playmates and junior high friends. Derrick struggled to keep up, scribbling facts in longhand on blank sheets of paper and tried to maintain eye contact. “I wanted to show him that I was interested in him, because that’s part of the game. He wants people to be interested in him,” she recalls. Derrick jotted down the notes on victims’ names, forms of homicidal violence, and burial sites. She would later compare his statements to autopsy reports and other records in her growing collections and look for inconsistencies that could be clues to unidentified persons or mistakes. Derrick’s take was that Henley had been nothing but a punk “with acne and a bad mustache” until Corll boosted his sense of self-importance. “He was part of something—­ part of something secret, and part of him embraced that,” she later observed. Henley admitted he knew Mark Scott , a boy he’d named as a murder vicitim in August 1973, better than most others. Mark was Henley’s neighbor and former schoolmate. And Mark had attended plenty of parties at Corll’s ever-changing addresses, Henley said. Corll ­really liked Mark, but he turned against him in April 1972 for reasons Henley did not explain. “Dean wanted him out of the way,” Henley told Derrick. For whatever reason, Corll thought Mark had been “talking too much,” Henley said. On command, Henley went to pick up Mark, who went willingly to a place Corll was renting that year. Derrick knew horrible things happened in the apartment on Schuler Street, Inside the apartment, Mark was quickly overpowered and hand-cuffed. Then Corll took Mark to a bedroom and bound his feet and wrists to the torture board. Corll kept the seventeen-­ year-­old captive for two nights and one long day, to torment and repeatedly rape him, Henley said. On Corll’s command, Henley and Brooks both got high and participated in the sessions. “Mark Scott was messed with. He was beaten and burned with cigarettes. All three of us did it. Dean hated him,” Henley said. Henley, knowing that Mark was particularly proud of his long blond hair, decided to shave his head, letting the locks slowly drift to the floor. Derrick thought she finally spotted a smidgeon of regret when Henley spoke about Mark Scott’s murder. “You could tell it ­really bothered him,” Derrick remembered. The story was “gut-­wrenching.” On the last night of his life, when the rest were sleeping, Mark Scott somehow managed to contort his long muscular frame, gradually loosen the ropes that bound him to the plywood, and free one hand. In this moment of mortal peril, he managed to reach the rotary phone to dial a friend, but he mumbled into the receiver, likely with a gag still in his mouth, and couldn’t make himself understood. Later, he pocketed a small knife that his captors had used to cut him. Mark hid the weapon and made one last desperate attempt at self-­defense when the rest returned. “I grabbed it and then he kind of gave up,” Henley said. After that, all three took turns shooting Scott with a pellet gun, and Corll raped Scott again. It may have seemed like a crazy dream to Wayne Henley, who’d been high on paint fumes and pot, until Corll decreed that Henley needed to “pop his cherry” and make the kill. At that point in their conversation, Wayne Henley fidgeted in his bench seat and looked pained as he provided vivid details of how he’d tried to strangle and then shot Mark, as his friend begged for his life. After that, Wayne came to like killing. “I killed them because Dean said to. I guess I enjoyed it or just didn’t care anymore or I was just trying to please Dean. It was not something I was forced to do.” Derrick had observed many horrible souvenirs of human suffering in autopsy suites and in graves, but the dead didn’t speak of their pain. Her rare encounters with killers typically involved only a fleeting glance at a defendant in a courtroom whenever she testified as an impartial expert witness. As Henley retold the intimate and horrifying story of Mark Scott’s murder, she felt flashes of terror, anger, and disgust. Then Wayne Henley repeated a different story Derrick had read about. Two days after killing Dean Corll, he spent hours searching for graves amid sand dunes with David Brooks, In 1973, Henley had insisted that officials called off the search too soon – before all the bodies were recovered. He told Derrick the same thing. Mark Scott’s body had never been found. “You don’t have him,” he said. ___________________________________ Excerpted from The Scientist and the Serial Killer by Lise Olsen Copyright © 2025 by Lise Olsen. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. View the full article

Twenty-one years ago, National Hockey League forward Todd Bertuzzi got into an on-ice altercation with an opponent named Steve Moore. The encounter grew exceptionally violent. Moore suffered injuries that ended his NHL career. Bertuzzi went through civil and criminal litigation hell, but eventually resumed what turned out to be a decent hockey career. As a hockey player myself, I found this outcome upsetting. Why, I thought, shouldn’t Bertuzzi be suspended from the game for as long as Moore was unable to play? It seemed only fair. Over time, I calmed down, realizing I knew little about what actually transpired between those competitors before and during their fight. But another, bigger question lingered: How do you cope with the knowledge that you may have ruined a life? My rumination inspired me to create the protagonist Jimmy Baker in my sixth novel, Bitterfrost. Thirteen years before the start of Bitterfrost, Jimmy almost killed an opponent in a hockey fight, then quit the game forever. Now he’s the Zamboni driver for an elite amateur team in his hometown of Bitterfrost in northern lower Michigan. His violent past rears up in the present when he’s accused of a brutal double murder. All but one of my novels borrow from occurrences in the so-called real world. But I don’t feel they’ve been “ripped from the headlines,” as goes that tired pejorative beloved by agents and editors. Really, what novel doesn’t build on stuff that actually happens: war and revolution, romance and rupture, murder and rape, triumph and tragedy, birth and death. Yet there is a difference between dramatizing current or past events as a biographer or historian might, and making them into something more, perhaps radically so, than their who, what, where, when, and how. It’s less about the replication of simple facts than the divining of universal truths. The saying goes that truth is stranger than fiction, but I would counter that fiction should strive to be richer than truth. At a book event years ago, I asked Dennis Lehane about the research he’d done on Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to prepare for writing the delicious prologue in his novel, The Given Day. He said he hadn’t done much. He felt he already knew enough about the Yankee legends from a lifetime following baseball to portray them accurately enough. “I really just wanted to get the emotional truth right,” he told me. Only after drafting the scene did he go back and do some fact-checking; he learned that Ruth at the time of the tale he invented wasn’t yet the beer-bellied slugger of Murderers Row, but a slim, handsome young man. Lehane’s phrase—the emotional truth—stuck with me. My third novel, The Skeleton Box, was inspired by the story of the 1907 murder of a nun. I first read about it in an anthology of decades-old Michigan murders I bought at a beer store for five bucks. After the nun was bludgeoned to death, the killer buried the remains beneath the church. Years later, two men were ordered to dig her up, and I felt a thrilling chill (or was it a chilling thrill?) at the idea of these guys with shovels and lanterns unearthing a shadowy box of bones. Man, I had to write about that. A few years passed before I tried. By then, Michigan author Mardi Link had published a superb non-fiction book, Isadore’s Secret, about the murder of Sister Mary Janina at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Cedar, Michigan. I bought the book and started it, while reminding myself of Lehane’s words. I decided that knowing too much about Sister Mary Janina and the sensational trial of her killer (covered by The New York Times) could chain me to facts and details that might not meld with the tale I wanted to tell. I coveted the spooky dread evoked by that skeleton box, but I didn’t want the historical tissue attached to it. In my novel, a nun named Cordelia is murdered but the circumstances, timing, and motives—essentially everything that matters—are different. I had to forget the real story to tell my real story. When I started Bitterfrost, I read a little about the 2004 Bertuzzi-Moore confrontation, but not much. There was plenty available; heck, I could have contacted Bertuzzi to ask a few questions, the kind of thing I did for forty-one years as a newspaper and magazine journalist. But I wanted Jimmy Baker to inhabit his own emotional reality. Jimmy doesn’t resume his career; he walks away from it. Along with his livelihood, he surrenders his marriage and becomes estranged from his daughter. He moves back to his hometown and takes a job that puts him close to hockey but not in it. Eventually, his past bears down on his present when he’s accused of beating to death two younger men he encountered in a Bitterfrost tavern. Throughout his travails, Jimmy embraces a mantra that, to me, hints at how a person can deal with his or her most fateful mistakes. “Every day,” Jimmy tells himself, “is a penance.” I have no idea what Todd Bertuzzi would think of that, but it doesn’t really matter. Jimmy is not Bertuzzi, and Bitterfrost tells an entirely different story—for what I hope is the best. *** View the full article

Power lies at the heart of all fantasy, written or imagined. To craft a novel of the genre is to visualize an expression of power and assign it to factions that will then weave and warp over the course of the story. Yet, our ability to conjure is naturally shackled by the limits of what we have seen, what we believe, and what we hope is possible. It is little wonder then, that fantasy gives us worlds that are altered, yet familiar—inversions, allegories, and warnings. With these carefully constructed societies come equally detailed punishment, for there can be no law without consequences for breaking it. And it is in this interplay between power, its exercise, and its fettering that the fantasy genre’s subversive nature shines. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is a more conservative example of this subversion. The books center in great part around a schism in magic along biological sex. All who channel magic draw it from the One Power, the driving force of all creation that’s split into male and female halves. The male half was corrupted by the Dark One in an ancient battle that has since resulted in male channelers being driven to madness over the course of using their power. It isn’t a taint of their causing, but one that makes them extremely dangerous. Naturally, it falls to female channelers of an authoritative magical organization, known as the Aes Sedai, to hunt and gentle men—essentially castrating them of magic to such severe degree that it often results in their suicide. It seems a little on the nose when stripped down to bare bones and certainly is conservative in its rigid adherence to a biological binary. Yet, the matriarchal Aes Sedai isn’t a giant middle finger aimed at men, but a cautionary tale to all social groups seeking power that maintaining it can require great evil. And while readers, especially women and those who have been societally designated as other, are encouraged to empathize with the plight of male channelers in this world, they are also shown the danger these men pose, in part because they have the literal power to threaten a millennia-old hierarchy as much as because of their tendency to destructive violence due to it. The Wheel of Time’s subversive beauty doesn’t lie in its inversion of the modern patriarchy, but the means it employs to examine two pertinent questions of every age—is the potential for destruction enough cause for punishment before crime? What happens when a faction is downtrodden for too long? In this world, it is the men who are seen as prone to mental and emotional collapse, for whom gaining power is a danger, and who are a threat to themselves and those around them and must be gentled for their own good. It matters little whether they’ve just come into their power or been using it without harm for years. The potential for damage and their inevitable future descent to madness convicts them the second they realize they can channel. The Aes Sedai have no need for trial. It’s a brutal fate in comparison to the modern justice system’s insistence on crime and proof of crime before punishment, but the Aes Sedai won’t stand by the alternative—waiting for death to come when it could have been prevented. Sarai, the protagonist of my debut novel, This Monster of Mine, ponders the same question. When does requiring crime and proof of crime cause more harm than good? One doesn’t have to cast far to think of cases where women being stalked went to the authorities for aid, only to be told that they would have to die or be grievously injured in order for action to be taken. It is this legal immovability that forces Sarai to consider a dangerous alternate course of action: allying herself with a man renowned as a mass murderer in order to enact justice. And perhaps this is the danger of legal power applied rigidly: a shift towards alternate sources of power or flat-out extremism. In the Wheel of Time’s world, the result is splinter factions such as corrupted Aes Sedai the invading Seanchan, an empire where female channelers are physically leashed as slaves to perform the Empress’s bidding. Or reactionary groups like the fanatical Children of the Light—an all-male religious military organization dedicated to the deaths of all magic-users, especially Aes Sedai. All routed towards a final battle between good and evil, and all espousing a theology where they win. Because what good is power and punishment without an underpinning of divinity? The Aes Sedai are often compared to the Bene Gesserit of Frank Herbert’s Dune series in the sense that they’re both all-female organizations with far too much influence over the workings of nations. All of which is to say that they’re an inverse of the Catholic Church, but face the often-patriarchal murmurings of a deeply distrusting public. “An Aes Sedai never lies, but the truth she speaks may not be the truth you think you hear,” says one character. A concept I found fascinating enough to incorporate into This Monster of Mine. The main male character, Kadra, is a politician and judge of great repute and a slaughterer of even greater repute, but refuses to lie—much to Sarai’s bewilderment. And rather than inspire distrust, my book examines how a male politician’s manipulation of the truth to his advantage earns him a cult of persona. I drew heavily from the Roman Tetrarchy when forming its legal basis—a system where the empire and its power were split into four and governed by two emperors (Augusti) and two understudies of a sort who’d be their designated successors (Caesars). This Monster of Mine features four equal heads of state that also serve as its Supreme Court. Judge, jury, and executioner in one. Of course, there’s another term when these branches of power are invested in one man: dictator. Or Empire as in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, where a dictator known as Cleon I makes the appalling realization that his reign is bounded by death. He consequently clones himself in several iterations to keep his glorious rule infinite. The result? Brother Dawn (Cleon at youth), Brother Day (Cleon in his prime), Brother Dusk (an aged Cleon who serves as an advisor to Day). Three heads of the same man rotating ad infinitum with memories uploaded and multiple clones at the same stage of aging prepared to take on another’s place should one be hurt or killed. Legally, such a system is a land’s worst nightmare. The law isn’t a set of written rules or strictures, but a person—Cleon—and his wants. Life under Empire is one of bitter acceptance or slavish adoration in Foundation. Both yield similar results. And yet, here too, fantasy doesn’t allow for complete despair. It isn’t long before that tricky thing, nurture versus nature, intervenes in the Cleons’ exercise of power and the cracks start to show. These cracks when subtly nudged by players who know that their part in the game is to move the needle a millimetre towards Empire’s annihilation is what changes everything. It allows us to imagine life through the reign of a powerful ruler who has suctioned up all power and wilfully desperately seeks to keep it going long past his time. Few readers can keep themselves from drawing modern-day parallels when presented with these worlds, and perhaps just as many may stop to consider what analogous place they might hold in ours. Because, sometimes, it is seeing our world mirrored and pushed towards frightening ends that allows us to think of ways to impede our own slow progression to the precipice. And as every powerful regime, fantasy and otherwise, has long noted, thought is a powerful thing. Only sleight of hand separates it from action. And it is this expanding of our vision that is fantasy’s most powerful, most subversive tool. To make us walk away from a reading or a viewing, a little more alert, a little more discomfited, hopeful, angry. Because it may be that the worlds humanity builds as battlegrounds between light and dark mirror the desperate fight for our own, and perhaps, we’re all looking for our role. My book is a drop in the bucket of this conversation. It asks us to imagine a deeply corrupt world not too dissimilar from our own and what justice looks like to people boxed in on all sides. Do they appeal to existing governmental structures and hope for aid? Do they petition lawmakers to include them in their careful categories of power and punishment and the groups allowed to exercise both? Or do they search for some other in the hopes that someday, once the dust has settled, everyone will say that this is as it should always have been? I can’t tell whether This Monster of Mine guides readers to that elusive, alternate route. But the collective of fantastical worlds humanity has built certainly will. May we all be able to see it. *** View the full article

Someone was inside his home. This has nothing to do with strange coincidences. Facts present themselves as evidence, which are then catalogued and filed away for the case file labeled: Henry Richmond Pendel. He has lived in this Greenwich Village apartment for seven of the 12 years he has worked as a literary agent. Like the industry he reigns over as one of its most reputable and well-known agents and tastemakers, he knows where everything is, and knows when a room thought to be safe might have been tampered with. It could be a book on a shelf slightly askew, a volume swapped or swiped, the scent of another body, yet even as he scans his countless bookshelves, and checks every corner, he can’t help but think about who has been here. Even if he hasn’t, it’s only a matter of time. Alexander Moyer, where are you? A name, thought to be an email containing a query and eventual author rejection, has become something more. Much more. Pendel has received a steady stream of emails, communications that started off as professional yet over the last week or so, have become odder than Pendel would like to admit. The fact that Moyer has mentioned personal details, particularly the casual namedrop of the building he lives in, has caused more than a little suspicion. This could be an omen, a warning of things to come. He has been in contact with his lawyer. The proof he has isn’t much, but it’s something. But there will need to be more. A restraining order was mentioned, and it only goes so far. This isn’t the first time he’s been under threat of a bitter author, one hurt by his rejection, yet something about this is different. Last night he fell asleep at his desk. When he woke up, the mug that had been next to him was moved. A tense overview of every room revealed its new location, casually “left” next to the bathroom sink. Pendel shrugs it off, maybe just too preoccupied to remember that he brought it with him into the bathroom. No big deal. It’s in the arrangement of his bookshelves that reveals something definite, proof of something amiss. He notices an entire six-volume set of sci-fi classics, a gift from one of his clients, missing, a gap where they had been sat alphabetized among other genre offerings. He looks for them everywhere, already late to the office, a meeting likely missed. When he checks his inbox, perhaps expecting that familiar name—Moyer—instead he sees no new emails. He should have new emails. Every time he hits refresh, there should be new queries. There might not be a lot that an agent can count on, but they can definitely count on another flurry of queries aiming to overwhelm an inbox. How odd, he thinks. Instead of checking the router and discovering that it has been unplugged, seeing yet another piece of evidence, clearly tampered with, he stares at the shelves. Maybe he’s already letting it get to him. This private invasion, one dealt with in a manner that is so manipulative it’s difficult to understand if it’s real or all in his head. “Not like Hendrix is answering my emails anyway,” he says. Excerpt continues below cover reveal. Could it be that there is something more to this person, perhaps more than a mere querying author, someone he had known, someone from his past? What are the chances that Pendel has mishandled some aspect of their interactions? The chances are high, part of Pendel’s ironclad reputation being his cutthroat nature, complete with a temper that intimidates and often limits people’s willingness to negotiate. It’s all circumstantial, he decides, and proceeds to move on with his day. Maybe some of the morning might still be salvageable. The facts, they always rise to the top. An agent finds reason in every conversation, even if it means not getting the best deal. In those inceptive steps—shower, shave, what to wear—Pendel finds temporary solace in fantasy, a vacation, wipe the slate clean. Just leave all this stress behind for a little while. Maybe this Moyer will move on to the next agent, the next person to personalize. Nobody talks about all the stalkers that orbit a public figure. Maybe he should take matters into his own hands. Forget the lawyer and seek the help of authorities. This is another writer who has let the worst of this industry warp their mind. It could be that Moyer thinks it’s he who is preventing him from becoming a published author. Pendel, the one with absolute power. Say the word and they become a household literary name. That’s something he couldn’t give any client. Sure, he can set a path, but it’s up to the author to prove that they have what it takes to be a bestseller. They got to be willing to play. To play, you have to give up something. When he’s finished showering and is about to head out, he has no time to wait for the train, so he’ll have to call a car. Never mind the ride apps; Pendel prefers this car service. A relic of a different city, you still have to call them up. They pick you up in a black luxury vehicle, complete with a driver in a suit. Pendel walks into the back room where he left his phone on a charger. That’s when he sees it: the router unplugged. Once it’s powered back up, a quick reset and in minutes, his apartment’s internet connection restored, his inbox comes to life. After calling the car service, he emails his assistant. A note-to-self that gets lost minutes after he makes it: Tell Marina what happened. Also, make sure to show your appreciation for all that she does. What would Pendel do without his tireless assistant? He’s got a voicemail. While waiting in the lobby for his driver, he goes through the messages. They’re nothing at first. White noise. And then white noise becomes breath. Breath becomes heavy breathing. The heavy breathing becomes a hint of something far more malicious. Or maybe he’s just expecting Moyer’s call. It’s him. Pendel’s imagination is so livid and overactive it might as well be fact. Jump forward to the act two climax, where he is being manipulated by a psychopathic would-be author, complete with a list of demands and a false sense of power. The messages blend together. Some are from friends and acquaintances he has no intention of ever reciprocating. Let every bond wither away to nothing. Working so much, it’s easy to do. Pendel may even prefer his aloneness. It starts to get a little difficult to know when each voicemail was left and when—except for the one. It’s the one that further confirms that it’s not all his imagination. It was Alexander Moyer. It could only be Alexander Moyer. The message in plain went something like this: “Why do you have three copies of Infinite Jest? You know you’ve never read it.” Beep. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to send a message. But then the car pulls up and he is Henry Richmond Pendel, renowned literary agent at Cooper Willis Endeavor, late and lately worried about his client list. You see, he’s not used to selling, wheeling and dealing the best possible deal for his author list. He’s not used to this dry spell, nearly a month of nothing, every editor deferring just enough to remain professional yet clear enough that nobody’s finished reading any submission, and nobody is keen to make any big moves anytime soon. It’s alarming, a possible sign of things to come. Last time something like this happened, the trade publishing industry suffered massive layoffs and restructuring. The whole system changed, seemingly overnight. But he’s Henry Richmond Pendel, and he has no reason to be concerned, given his reputation and position. Still, it’s enough of a bother to let all this concern about a vengeful author get pushed, yet again, to the corners of his consciousness. Nearly forgotten, at least for now, Pendel gets in the car and is already drafting an email response to Marina, explaining his tardiness, offering a little white lie in hopes that this meeting he’s over a half hour late for is not yet lost. And when he tells her to say that “I’m willing to talk about the possibility of also selling audio rights,” he knows it’ll buy him more time, calming the editor in wait down long enough for him to get to the office. And just in case, Pendel adds a little something extra: “You can tell him, no matter what, we’ll make it happen.” It’s the least he can do. The editor agreed to meet at the agency office. Besides, an agent is only as good as their word. __________________________________ Copyright © 2025 Michael J. Seidlinger. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved. View the full article

In Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age, four friends — and lethal assassins — need to outsmart the team now hunting them. Now, they’re back, out of retirement, in Kills Well with Others. This time, they’re tasked with rooting out a mole threatening to expose their identities. Here, Raybourn discusses her narrator and why we can’t get enough older sleuths. Elizabeth Held: What was it like to be to spend more time with these characters? Deanna Raybourn: It was a privilege, an absolute privilege. The characters are so much fun for me to spend time with. Because I’d already set them up in book one, Kills Well with Others gave me a chance to delve deeper into their relationships with each other and how they’re handling retirement. This book takes place two years into their retirement, and it gave me an opportunity to figure out what a new life looks like for them because they spent 40 years doing something that is not normal. They’re basically genteel psychopaths. What does normal look like when you’re not killing people for a living anymore? EH: I was surprised when I read it that they were able to retire, even a little bit. I wasn’t sure they’d really be able to give up their work. DR: I know, but the one thing I made clear in Killers of a Certain Age is they never killed for fun. They only ever kill when they are aimed in a particular direction. They were recruited as 20-year-olds with a lot of trauma by an organization that trained and focused them like little lasers. They have only ever gone after targets that were specifically vetted for them to go after. They don’t kill on the side. Billy, our main character, and our narrative voice, even says,“That’s tacky. You don’t kill for fun.” That’s what separates the pros from the amateurs. EH: Speaking of Billy, why did you choose her as the narrator? DR: I wanted to have an in with the quartet. I thought if we stayed on the outside, we wouldn’t have a close enough look at the interior landscape. I thought it would make it more immediate for me and more immediate for the readers. There’s an intimacy to that first-person viewpoint that I like, and Billy was the natural character for me to gravitate to. She does have a few things in common with me. She grew up in Texas. She is very much her own person. She’s not super sentimental. She does have a decent sense of self-awareness about her, but she also has blind spots where she doesn’t quite see herself for who she really is. I thought that would be such a fun thing to play with. EH: One of my favorite things about this series is the way the four lead characters use people’s expectations of older people against them. It’s similar to what we see in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club books and the new “Matlock” reboot. Why do you think that’s resonating with people right now? DR: It’s a couple of different reasons. First, we are changing our idea of aging and our relationship to gaining. I was an ‘80s teen, so when The Golden Girls first debuted, you look at that those women and you think, ‘They’re all in their 70s.’ But Bea Arthur was 55. I’m going to be 57 in a couple of months, and my hair is not that color. I don’t dress like that. I go to Pilates twice a week. We are very different in our aging now than we were even 20 years ago. 40 years ago, my grandmother was younger than I am now, yet she read so old when I was a kid. It’s because as our life expectancy has extended, we have extended middle age. All of the actresses who were super hot, super gorgeous when I was a teenager —Jamie Lee Curtis, Diane Lane, Angela Bassett — are hitting 60 and they’re still super hot. That is not necessarily what we think when we think 60 years old but that’s who they are. Because we’re reframing the picture of aging, this is an opportunity for us to put those people front and center. And, not just in the type of things we had when I was a kid, were if you had a 60-year-old woman as the lead in the movie, it was going to be about her battle with breast cancer. Or all her kids have left for college, and she’s alone and sad. Or her husband left her, and she’s alone and sad. Or she’s just put her parents in a home, and she’s alone and sad. She was always alone and sad. Now, you’ve got a woman who’s 60 and she’s just living her best life. We’re starting to fill haps. I love that. When I was coming around to the idea of Killers of a Certain Age, I watched Superman with Diane Lane and Spider-Man with Marisa Tomei. They’re playing supporting characters, these kind of more nurturing, maternal roles. I want them to have capes. View the full article

Every summer my family goes camping at Sandbanks Provincial Park on the sandy shores of Lake Ontario. There is nothing we look forward to more than those hot summer days spent swimming, playing beach volleyball, hiking wooded trails, and playing charades by the campfire. We disconnect from our devices, from the world, and we reconnect with each other and nature. We go barefoot by day and star watch by night. It’s idyllic. But for thriller writers, the idyllic is also fertile ground for inspiration. We can’t help ourselves. We like nothing more than to mess with the sweet things in life, to rattle the familiar, to make the comfortable uncomfortable. And there’s something about camping that feels vulnerable. Campers are at the mercy of the elements, and there are no locked doors or security systems to keep us safe. Someone could easily disappear, suddenly plucked from their tent never to be seen again. It’s a gold mine for a thriller writer. And it’s exactly what kicks off my latest novel, Buried Road. A woman’s boyfriend goes missing on their annual summer camping trip to Sandbanks Provincial Park—yes, that very same park. Three years later, the woman returns to the scene of the crime with her daughter in tow when the camper he was driving is suddenly found. A trail of clues leads them to uncover dark secrets hidden in the shadows of a thriving tourist town in the middle of summer’s high season. Thwarted at every turn, the mother-daughter duo is led ever closer to danger as they search for their missing loved one. Here are five haunting thrillers that kickstart when someone disappears on a camping trip, turning the happy into the horrifying faster than you can roast a marshmallow. One Step Too Far by Lisa Gardiner A bachelor party camping trip goes horribly wrong when the groom disappears. That’s the backdrop of Gardiner’s fast-paced thriller that brings back missing persons’ investigator, Frankie Elkin. Five years after Tim went missing, his family and friends gather for one last search of the woods. The story is full of unexpected twists and features a troop of complicated characters who gradually reveal more of themselves the deeper they hike. But the haunting wilderness setting isn’t the only scary thing they’ll encounter along the way. Something darker awaits. Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti Sedoti’s YA thriller adopts a distinctive, well-crafted style, using first-person police interview transcripts to tell the gripping story of five high school friends who went camping one weekend in the woods near Salvation Creek. One of their friends disappeared and chapter by chapter, question after question, the teens testimony paints a vivid picture of what really happened—or at least what they say really happened. The novel’s unreliable narrator vibes keep you guessing until the very end. Cold Fear by Rick Mofina The second novel in Mofina’s Tom Reed series sees the oft-troubled reporter sent to cover the story of a young girl gone missing while camping with her family in Glacier National Park. An extensive search is launched, the police and FBI investigate, complex relationships begin to unravel as secrets come under threat and menace lurks nearby. With time running out for the young girl, this heart-pounding thriller feels ripped from the headlines—which Mofina deftly plays upon in his explorations of the roles of both the press and police. The Wild Coast by Lin Andersen A young woman’s body is found in a shallow grave along Scotland’s rugged west coast and Forensic scientist, Rhona MacLeod is tasked with examining the scene. She soon discovers that another woman has gone missing at a campsite nearby. It seems someone with sinister motives has come to wreak havoc on this the idyllic coastal camping destination. Creepy stick figures, missing girls, and breathtaking scenery abound as Andersen skillfully intertwines two seemingly unrelated mysteries into one riveting thriller. Sleeping Bear by Connor Sullivan Cassie is an army vet and young widow. She’s decided to get away before she starts her new job. Cue camping trip in the Alaskan wilderness. Cue disappearance without a trace. That’s the set up for Sullivan’s nail-biting thriller. When Cassie doesn’t turn up for work, her father finds out people go missing in that area all the time. He heads to Alaska to see for himself and to help with the investigation. But when Cassie wakes up in a remote Russian prison, it turns out this isn’t some hiker-lost-in-the-woods story, but instead, it’s a chilling, break-neck-paced cold war saga that never lets up. *** View the full article