Kelley Armstrong. The Deepest of Secrets. Deep in the Yukon, off-the-grid Rockton exists to keep the secrets of its residents. Now someone is spilling them all, and Det. Casey Duncan (with her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton) must find out who is responsible, or the town will tear itself to ribbons. With a 50,000-copy first printing.
M.C. Beaton. Death of a Green-Eyed Monster. Sgt. Hamish Macbeth falls in love with Dorothy McIver, the constable he has just hired, and she accepts his proposal of marriage. But of course, murder gets in the way of the wedding plans. When Beaton passed away in 2019, she was working with Scottish writer Rod Green on both this book and an Agatha Raisin mystery that was published to strong reviews, and he will be taking over both series.
Alys Clare. Magic in the Weave. In October 1604, Gabriel Taverner, a ship's surgeon turned country physician and, unexpectedly, sleuth, must attend to an actor in Shakespeare’s theater troupe who collapses after performing a particularly gruesome play. (Maybe it was Titus Andronicus?) Now Gabriel is worried. Has the man died of plague? Or is something evil afoot? From veteran historical fiction author Clare.
Douglas Preston, Douglas & Lincoln Child. Diablo Mesa. The indefatigable Preston/Child team brings back archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson in a timely tale featuring the slightly off-the-wall billionaire founder of Icarus Space Systems, who hopes to bring his project publicity by persuading the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute to excavate the 1947 Roswell Incident site. As Nora’s turn of spade uncovers two murder victims, she needs to call on Corrie for help. With a 250,000-copy first printing.
J.D. Robb. Abandoned in Death. In homicide detective Eve Dallas’s futuristic New York City, a young woman lies dead on a playground bench. She has neatly brushed hair, nice clothing decades out of date, fresh but incongruous tattoos and piercings, and a note in childish script proclaiming “Bad Mommy.” Now Eve must track down a killer who she suspects is sixtyish and haunted by a traumatic childhood, even as the disappearances of other young women come to light.
Brendan Slocumb. The Violin Conspiracy. Asserting himself in a profession that has not proved accepting, Black classical violinist Ray McMillian is thrilled to learn that the instrument he plays—once his great-grandfather’s—is actually an invaluable Stradivarius. He’s devastated when it’s stolen before the all-important Tchaikovsky Competition and further learns that descendants of the family that had enslaved his great-grandfather claim it’s theirs.
Charles Todd. A Game of Fear. It’s 1921, and Scotland Yard again hands Inspector Ian Rutledge bizarrely challenging cases, but nothing quite like his latest: the woman presiding over a stately manor called Benton Abbey in sea salt–drenched Essex claims to have seen a brutal murder committed by Captain Nelson. There is no body, Nelson supposedly died during the Great War, yet Lady Benton seems perfectly calm and reasonable when interviewed. What’s going on? With a 100,000-copy first printing.
Toni Morrison. Recitatif: A Story. The only short story Nobel laureate Morrison ever wrote, “Recitatif” concerns Twyla and Roberta, friends in childhood, who lost touch as adults but keep encountering each other at places like a grocery store, a diner, and a protest march. One is white, one is black, but readers don’t know which is which, Morrison having aimed to craft “an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.”
Charmaine Wilkerson. Black Cake. In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two estranged children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history.
Check our curated February list here.