Five top books featuring reporter sleuths who dig too deep

Olesya Lyuzna is a historical fiction writer with a passion for queer noir.

Her debut novel Glitter in the Dark was selected for a 2020 Pitch Wars mentorship by Layne Fargo and Halley Sutton.

She lives in Toronto and spends her free time hosting murder mystery parties and scouring the archives for unsolved crimes.

At CrimeReads Lyuzna tagged five works featuring favorite reporter sleuths, including:

Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman

Maddie Schwartz has spent the last two decades playing by the rules as a wife, a mother, a well-behaved woman who fit neatly into the expectations of 1960s Baltimore. But now, she wants something more. Something bigger. She wants a story.

It starts with a missing girl who vanished without a trace. When Maddie’s intuition leads her to the child’s body, she sees her opening. The discovery earns her a foothold at The Star, and she reinvents herself as a reporter, chasing leads, pushing past locked doors, refusing to take no for an answer.

But one story isn’t enough. Soon, she’s digging into the disappearance of Cleo Sherwood, a young Black woman whose murder barely made the papers. Maddie isn’t just looking for the truth—she’s trying to find her place in the world, rewriting the roles assigned to her by the life she left behind.

Lippman’s kaleidoscopic noir unfolds like a newspaper—a shifting patchwork of voices, from Cleo’s grieving friends and family to the men who crossed paths with her, to Cleo herself, watching from beyond the grave as Maddie exposes secrets best left buried.

This is a book about power. Who gets to ask the questions? Who deserves the answers? Whose story is Maddie really telling—and at what cost?

Lippman builds a deeply researched, atmospheric portrait of 1960s Baltimore, steeped in its racial and gender politics, layered with ambition, guilt, and the uneasy truth that journalism doesn’t just report on the world—it changes it. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes not.

Read about another entry on the list.

Lady in the Lake is among Andrea Park's 36 best mystery thriller books of all time, Alice Blanchard's five top mysteries set in still waters, Brittany Bunzey's ten books that take you inside their characters’ heads, Kimberly Belle's six novels that show lakes are a perfect setting for a murder mystery, and CrimeReads' ten best crime novels of 2019.

The Page 69 Test: Lady in the Lake.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Andrew S. Berish's "Hating Jazz"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hating Jazz: A History of Its Disparagement, Mockery, and Other Forms of Abuse by Andrew S. Berish.

About the book, from the publisher:

A deep dive into the meaning behind the hatred of jazz.

A rock guitarist plays four notes in front of one thousand people, while a jazz guitarist plays one thousand notes in front of four people. You might laugh or groan at this jazz joke, but what is it about jazz that makes people want to disparage it in the first place?

Andrew S. Berish’s Hating Jazz listens to the voices who have denounced, disparaged, and mocked the music. By focusing on the rejection of the music, Berish says, we see more holistically jazz’s complicated place in American cultural life. Jazz is a display of Black creativity and genius, an art form that is deeply embedded in African American life. Though the explicit racial tenor of jazz jokes has become muted over time, making fun of jazz, either in a lighthearted or aggressive way, is also an engagement with the place of Blackness in America. An individual’s taste in music may seem personal, but Berish’s analysis of jazz hatred demonstrates that musical preferences and trends are a social phenomenon. Criticism of jazz has become inextricable from the ways we understand race in America, past and present. In addition to this form of criticism, Berish also considers jazz hate as a form of taste discrimination and as a conflict over genre boundaries within different jazz cultures.

Both enlightening and original, Hating Jazz shows that our response to music can be a social act, unique to our historical moment and cultural context—we react to music in certain ways because of who we are, where we are, and when we are.

Visit Andrew S. Berish's website.

The Page 99 Test: Hating Jazz.

--Marshal Zeringue

Douglas Corleone's "Falls to Pieces," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Falls to Pieces by Douglas Corleone.

From the entry:

It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since I wrote my last piece for “My Book, the Movie.” Of all the prompts on all the sites I’ve written for, this is my favorite. Why? Because we authors only write novels in the hopes that they’ll be adapted into screenplays, cast with megastars, and made into award-winning films. I’m kidding, of course. But the allure of Hollywood is undeniable. My storytelling skills come chiefly from movies and, let’s face it, not all of our friends read. (Even when we dedicate the book to them!)

Getting down to casting Falls to Pieces: For my main characters, Kati and Zoe, I needed a mother-daughter team, yet my mind went straight to sisters Vera and Taissa Farmiga (ca. 2014 in keeping with the character’s ages).

Kati’s lawyer Noah Walker was always...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Douglas Corleone's website.

The Page 69 Test: Good as Gone.

My Book, The Movie: Payoff.

The Page 69 Test: Gone Cold.

My Book, The Movie: Gone Cold.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (August 2015).

The Page 69 Test: Falls to Pieces.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone.

My Book, The Movie: Falls to Pieces.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: KC Jones's "White Line Fever"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: White Line Fever by KC Jones.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Bram Stoker Award finalist KC Jones comes White Line Fever, a harrowing thrill ride about friendship, trauma, and learning how to take the wheel of your own life.

THEY'LL BREAK MORE THAN SPEED LIMITS ON THIS GIRLS' TRIP FROM HELL.

At a passing glance, County Road 951 is an entirely unremarkable stretch of blacktop, a two-lane scar across the Cascade foothills of Central Oregon.

But the road is known by another name, coined by locals who’ve had to clean up after all those scenic detours went horribly wrong: The Devil’s Driveway.

When Livia and her long-time friends take the Driveway as a shortcut to a much-needed weekend getaway, what begins as a morning joyride quickly becomes anything but. Soon, they’re driving for their lives, pursued by a horror beyond anything they ever imagined.

The Devil’s Driveway might be only 15 miles long, but with danger at every turn, it will take the four women to the very limits of their friendships and their sanity.

And there’s no telling what else lies in wait just beyond the bend.

Visit KC Jones's website.

The Page 69 Test: White Line Fever.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about women and food

Hannah Selinger is a James Beard Award-nominated lifestyle writer and mother of two based in Boxford, MA. Her print and digital work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and elsewhere. Her 2021 Bon Appétit essay, "In My Childhood Kitchen, I Learned Both Fear and Love," is anthologized in the 2022 Best American Food Writing collection.

Selinger's new book is Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven titles about women and food, including:

Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

New York Times-bestselling author Claire Lombardo opens her fresh novel, Same As It Ever Was, in a grocery store; there, protagonist Julia Ames runs into an old friend, Helen Russo, while shopping for the ingredients to make crab cakes for her husband’s birthday. Russo, an older woman who had been, for a time, a motherly figure to Ames, comes alive in later chapters, and through acts of cooking. Food, in fact, punctuates the book’s main events. Crab cakes: celebratory for a 60th birthday. Later, an apricot galette will set an affair in motion. Both Ames and Russo have entrenched domestic roles, and their work in the kitchen is at once ancillary and important. They are making something, feeding someone, memorializing something. For these characters, who exist in a world where limits are drawn and bound by the more powerful people around them, there is a certain freedom here, in a place where the rules are theirs and theirs alone.

Read about another book on Selinger's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Amanda M. Greenwell's "The Child Gaze"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Child Gaze: Narrating Resistance in American Literature by Amanda M. Greenwell.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Child Gaze: Narrating Resistance in American Literature theorizes the child gaze as a narrative strategy for social critique in twentieth- and twenty-first-century US literature for children and adults. Through a range of texts, including James Baldwin’s Little Man, Little Man, Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, and more, Amanda M. Greenwell focuses on children and their literal acts of looking. Detailing how these acts of looking direct the reader, she posits that the sightlines of children serve as signals to renegotiate hegemonic ideologies of race, ethnicity, creed, class, and gender. In her analysis, Greenwell shows how acts of looking constitute a flexible and effective narrative strategy, capable of operating across multiple points of view, focalizations, audiences, and forms.

Weaving together scholarship on the US child, visual culture studies, narrative theory, and other critical traditions, The Child Gaze explores the ways in which child acts of looking compel readers to look at and with a child character, whose gaze encourages critiques of privileged visions of national identity. Chapters investigate how child acts of looking allow texts to redraw circles of inclusion around the locus of the child gaze and mobilize childhood as a site of resistance. The powerful child gaze can thus disrupt dominant scripts of power, widening the lens through which belonging in the US can be understood.

Learn more about The Child Gaze at the University Press of Mississippi website.

The Page 99 Test: The Child Gaze.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lauren Stienstra's "The Beauty of the End"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Beauty of the End: A Novel by Lauren Stienstra.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this provocative work of speculative fiction, two sisters navigate the complex moral terrain of reproductive ethics, individual freedoms, and society’s duty to a future facing imminent extinction.

Charlie Tannehill and her twin sister, Maggie, are just eight years old when an unfortunate scientific discovery upends their world―and the world order. The revelation? Extinction, encoded in every creature’s DNA. The expiration date for humans? Only four generations away.

A decade later, unsure of what tomorrow holds, Charlie and Maggie enroll as counselors in a government-run human-husbandry program. By offering cash rewards for reproduction, they hope to forestall humanity’s decline and discover a genetic mutation that might defeat it. While Charlie struggles with the ethical implications of the work, Maggie makes unspeakable sacrifices to improve her odds of success―but such unchecked ambition could come at a greater cost than even she realizes.

Torn between her own morality, her love for her sister, and the pressures of a vanishing civilization, Charlie must search deep within to decide what she’s willing to sacrifice―for herself, for Maggie, and for society―to salvage hope for the whole of humankind.

Visit Lauren Stienstra's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Beauty of the End.

The Page 69 Test: The Beauty of the End.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Douglas Corleone reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Douglas Corleone, author of Falls to Pieces.

His entry begins:

Over the past few months, I’ve been digging back into the horror classics. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is one of my favorite books of all time. The themes of duality and the repression of desires have always fascinated me. I’ve also read a couple modern takes on the story.

Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin tells the tale from the point of view of a housemaid, who thinks the world of her master Henry Jekyll but fears his new assistant, Edward Hyde. Both men have taken more than a passing interest in her. The 1990 novel was made into the 1996 movie with Julia Roberts and...[read on]

About Falls to Pieces, from the publisher:

A mother and daughter in hiding are threatened by more than secrets and lies in a twisting novel of paranoia, revenge, and psychological suspense by bestselling author Douglas Corleone.

For two years, Kati Dawes and her teenage daughter, Zoe, have lived off the grid in Hawaii, hiding from a past Kati must forget as if her life depends on it. New names. Anonymous online presence. So far, safe. Until Kati’s fiancé, attorney Eddie Akana, disappears along a popular hiking trail in a Maui national park. Now all eyes are on Kati. Exposure can make a woman with so many secrets very paranoid.

Eddie’s law partner, Noah Walker, is doing everything he can to protect his new client from the press that’s hovering like a vulture and the authorities whose suspicions about Kati―and the disappearance―are rising. Then suddenly, Zoe goes missing as well. Kati will risk anything to find her. But the worst is still to come. Because Kati’s not the only one with secrets. And buried among them is a twist she never saw coming.

Learn more about the book and author at Douglas Corleone's website.

The Page 69 Test: Good as Gone.

My Book, The Movie: Payoff.

The Page 69 Test: Gone Cold.

My Book, The Movie: Gone Cold.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (August 2015).

The Page 69 Test: Falls to Pieces.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books set in the wilderness

In addition to being a writer, Alice Henderson is a dedicated wildlife researcher, geographic information systems specialist, and bioacoustician. She documents wildlife on specialized recording equipment, checks remote cameras, creates maps, and undertakes wildlife surveys to determine what species are present on preserves, while ensuring there are no signs of poaching. She’s surveyed for the presence of grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, jaguars, endangered bats, and more.

Henderson's new novel, The Vanishing Kind, is the fourth book in the Alex Carter series.

At The Strand Magazine the author tagged ten stirring reads set in the wilderness. One title on the list:

The Dark Place by Aaron Elkins

When a man is bizarrely murdered with an ancient weapon not used for the last ten thousand years, forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver, as well as a forest ranger and FBI agent, are called in to investigate in the rainforest of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. Amidst tales of mysterious Sasquatch sightings, the trio must venture into the wilderness of the rainforest to uncover the truth. Vivid descriptions of the backcountry bring this setting to life, and after you read this book, camping in this area will never feel the same again.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Aaron Elkins's "Gideon Oliver" novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Bryan Gruley

From my Q&A with Bryan Gruley, author of Bitterfrost (A Bitterfrost Thriller):

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story? 

Bitterfrost struck me as an arresting and descriptive word that would grab browsers’ attention. It’s the title of the book and the name of the fictional northern lower Michigan town where the story is set. I don’t recall precisely how I came up with it. I know I did some trolling through Finnish words (the river that runs through the middle of town is called Jako, which is Finnish for division). Somehow, I stumbled on Bitterfrost and immediately liked it, for the feeling of coldness it evokes, and the sharp three-syllable rhythm. I barely knew then what the book would be about, but I assumed it would be dark because my books are always dark, and Bitterfrost also evokes dark. The story is also about the town itself and how it divides against or for the protagonist, Zamboni driver and accused murderer Jimmy Baker, so Bitterfrost seemed...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

Q&A with Bryan Gruley.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Su Chang's "The Immortal Woman"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Su Chang's The Immortal Woman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A sweeping generational story of heartbreak, resilience, and yearning, revealing an insider’s view of the fractured lives of Chinese immigrants and those they leave behind.

Lemei, once a student Red Guard leader in 1960s Shanghai and a journalist at a state newspaper, was involved in a brutal act of violence during the Tiananmen Square protests and lost all hope for her country. Her daughter, Lin, is a student at an American university on a mission to become a true Westerner. She tirelessly erases her birth identity, abandons her Chinese suitor, and pursues a white lover, all the while haunted by the scars of her upbringing. Following China’s meteoric rise, Lemei is slowly dragged into a nationalistic perspective that stuns Lin. Their final confrontation results in tragic consequences, but ultimately, offers hope for a better future. By turns wry and lyrical, The Immortal Woman reminds us to hold tight to our humanity at any cost.

Learn more about the book and author at Su Chang's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Immortal Woman.

The Page 69 Test: The Immortal Woman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Katie Rose Hejtmanek's "The Cult of CrossFit"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon by Katie Rose Hejtmanek.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reveals the Christian foundations of CrossFit

CrossFit in the United States has become increasingly popular, around which a fascinating culture has developed which shapes everyday life for the people devoted to it. CrossFit claims to be many things: a business, a brand, a tremendously difficult fitness regimen, a community, a way to gain salvation, and a method to survive the apocalypse. In The Cult of CrossFit, Katie Rose Hejtmanek examines how this exercise program is shaped by American Christian values and practices, connecting American religious ideologies to secular institutions in contemporary American culture.

Drawing upon years of immersing herself in CrossFit gyms in the United States and across six continents, this book illustrates how US CrossFit operates using distinctly American codes, ranging from its intensity and patriarchal militarism to its emphasis on (white) salvation and the adoration of the hero and vigilante. Despite presenting itself as a secular space, Hejtmanek argues that CrossFit is both heavily influenced by and deeply intertwined with American Christian values. She makes the case that the Christianity that shapes CrossFit is the Christianity that shapes much of America, usually in ways we do not even notice. Offering a new cross-cultural perspective for understanding a popular workout, The Cult of CrossFit provides a window into a particularly American rendition of a Christian plotline, lived out one workout at a time.

Visit Katie Rose Hejtmanek's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Cult of CrossFit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about the complicated history of U.S. citizenship

Katie Moench is a librarian, runner, and lover of baked goods. A school librarian in the Upper Midwest, Moench lives with her husband and dog and spends her free time drinking coffee, trying new recipes, and adding to her TBR list.

At Book Riot she tagged eight books that show "the idea of citizenship was not something once defined in the early years of the U.S. as a country, but it is rather a nebulous concept that has been defined and redefined over and over since the nation’s beginnings." One title on the list:

Citizens of a Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History of the Nineteenth-Century United States by Stephen Kantrowitz

Kantrowitz looks at how the Reconstruction-era discussions of national birthright citizenship failed to consider or provide legal protections to the Indigenous people of the United States. Working from the perspective of a Wisconsin-based tribe of Ho-Chunk peoples, Kantrowitz offers a little-referenced perspective on the emergence of birthright citizenship.

Read about another title on the list.

The Page 99 Test: Citizens of a Stolen Land.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lauren Stienstra's "The Beauty of the End," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Beauty of the End: A Novel by Lauren Stienstra.

The entry begins:

Though it’s set against the backdrop of a species-ending catastrophe, at its core, The Beauty of the End is about the tension and contradiction between opposites: life and death, right and wrong, betrayal and justice, personal choice and collective duty—one cannot exist without the other.

The theme duality is also set up in the dynamic of the main characters, a set of genetically-identical-but-entirely-different twin sisters: Charlie and Maggie. Off the page, Charlie and Maggie are born to a Marshallese family and later adopted out to an unsuspecting white family in Pennsylvania via fraudulent proceedings. (This is based on a real life tragedy.) For the role, it would be important to me to cast someone with Pacific Island heritage, and Keisha Castle-Hughes quickly comes to mind. Not only does she have Māori heritage, she also has experience playing a twin—a major feature of her Oscar-winning film Whale Rider.

There is of course a bit of a love triangle in the story, with a male character named Nolan. One of Nolan’s most salient features is...[read on]

Visit Lauren Stienstra's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Beauty of the End.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Hayley Chewins's "I Am the Swarm"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: I Am the Swarm by Hayley Chewins.

About the book, from the publisher:

A propulsive YA novel in verse that blends the contemporary magic of Jandy Nelson with the simmering feminist rage of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Shout

As far back as anyone can remember, the women of the Strand family have been magical.

Their gifts manifest when they each turn fifteen, always in different ways. But Nell Strand knows that her family's magic is a curse. Her mother’s age changes every day; she's often too young to be the mother Nell needs. Her older sister bleeds music and will do anything to release the songs inside her. Nell sees the way magic rips her family apart again and again.

When Nell’s own magic arrives in the form of ladybugs alighting on the keys of her beloved piano, the first thing she feels is joy. The ladybugs are a piece of her, a harmless and delicate manifestation of her creativity. But soon enough, the rest come. Thick-shelled glossy beetles that creep along her collarbone when her piano teacher stares at her. Soft gray moths that appear and die alongside a rush of disappointment. Worst of all are the wasps. It doesn’t matter how deep she buries her rage, the wasps always come. Nell will have to decide just how much of herself she’s willing to lock away to stop them—or if she can find the strength to feel, no matter the consequences.

An intense, emotional read simmering with rage and magic, I Am the Swarm is a captivating YA novel in verse that beautifully speaks to the complicated nature of growing up as a girl.

Visit Hayley Chewins's website.

The Page 69 Test: I Am the Swarm.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top YA reads in stunning locations

Rachel Ekstrom Courage is the author of the Young Adult thriller Nothing Bad Happens Here and Murder By Cheesecake: A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery.

She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband (the children’s book author Nick Courage) and their dog, Chaely.

At The Nerd Daily Courage tagged six "young adult thrillers and romances [that] will transport you to beautiful and unique locales from the comfort of your favorite reading nook." One title on the list:

It’s not necessarily a vacation destination, but who wouldn’t want to visit a posh New England boarding school to soak up some dark academia vibes? In A Darker Mischief by Derek Milman, initiation rituals can be downright dangerous as a disadvantaged queer teen works to fit in… and stay alive. Come for the stained glass and manicured lawns of the lush campus setting, stay for the thrilling mystery.

Read about another title on the list.

The Page 69 Test: A Darker Mischief.

My Book, The Movie: A Darker Mischief.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Arie W. Kruglanski and Sophia Moskalenko's "The Psychology of the Extreme"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Psychology of the Extreme by Arie W. Kruglanski and Sophia Moskalenko.

About the book, from the publisher:

What does extremism mean? How does it show up in our daily lives? What drives people to extreme behaviors, and how can we learn to live and thrive in the age of overdrive?

The Psychology of the Extreme provides an accessible introduction to extremism as a force that can affect all aspects of culture and people’s choices in everyday settings. It explores the underlying psychology behind what makes people act in extreme ways, whether this is in destructive ways (such as gambling, terrorism and political violence) or in constructive ways (such as successful creators and scientists). The book features an array of case studies that show how extremism can be both pro-social and anti-social and includes interventions to reduce extremism or redirect them toward more positive and constructive tendencies. Offering a new understanding of the individual psychology of extremism, the book will appeal to all those interested in how extremism plays out in people’s and cultures' day-to-day lives.

Learn more about The Psychology of the Extreme at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Psychology of the Extreme.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Bryan Gruley's "Bitterfrost"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost (A Bitterfrost Thriller) by Bryan Gruley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first in a brand-new crime thriller series from Edgar nominee and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Bryan Gruley. Feisty defence attorney Devyn Payne faces off against veteran detective Garth Klimmek as they work to solve a vicious double homicide in their small, icy town of Bitterfrost.

Thirteen years ago, former ice hockey star Jimmy Baker quit the game after almost killing an opponent. Now, as the Zamboni driver for the amateur team in his hometown of Bitterfrost, Michigan, he’s living his penance. Until the morning he awakens to the smell of blood...

Jimmy soon finds himself arrested for a brutal double murder. The kicker? He has no memory of the night in question. And as the evidence racks up against him, Jimmy’s case is skating on thin ice. Could he have committed such a gruesome crime?

As his defence attorney Devyn Payne and prosecuting detective Garth Klimmek race to uncover the truth, time is running out for Jimmy. Because all he can really be sure of is that he is capable of taking a life. The question is, in his blacked-out state, did he take two?

This gritty drama is the first in the Bitterfrost series, perfect for fans of Dennis Lehane!

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Andrew Welsh-Huggins reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins, author of The Mailman.

His entry begins:

My recent reads reflect my attempt to read across genres as widely as possible while acknowledging that I spend most of my time devouring crime fiction.

The Left-Handed Twin, by Thomas Perry

Perry, a fellow Mysterious Press author, is a veteran writer of compulsive thrillers. Among his books is an ongoing series about Jane Whitefield, a woman who helps people in trouble disappear. In this outing, Whitefield takes the case of a young woman named Sara, whose charmed life as the girlfriend of a Hollywood fixer turns dark when her boyfriend kills a man Sara had a brief affair with. After Sara testifies against the boyfriend at trial, he vows to kill her and gains the ability when he’s found not guilty and released. Whitefield is a compelling character not least because, while she possesses above-average skills and talents, she comes across as an everyday person who uses...[read on]

About The Mailman, from the publisher:

In a new thriller from the author of The End of the Road, a former postal inspection agent tracks a violent crew through the Midwest to rescue a kidnapped woman.

Mercury Carter is a deliveryman and he takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address that threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage. That’s because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service, skills that make him particularly useful for delivering items in circumstances as dangerous as these.

After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals―but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment. With Rachel’s husband Glenn in tow, Carter takes off in pursuit of the kidnapper and his quarry, hunting them across Indiana, up to Chicago, and into small-town Illinois. Along the way, he slowly picks off members of the crew and uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy and a powerful crime syndicate, all in service of his main objective: to hand the package over to Rachel. Carter has never missed a delivery and isn’t about to start now.

Introducing a new lone-wolf protagonist to rival Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Steve Hamilton’s Nick Mason, and Gregg Hurwitz’s Evan Smoak, The Mailman is a pulse-pounding series opener with captivating action and enough thrills to leave readers anxiously awaiting the next installment.

Visit Andrew Welsh-Huggins's website.

My Book, The Movie: An Empty Grave.

Q&A with Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

The Page 69 Test: An Empty Grave.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (April 2023).

My Book, The Movie: The End of the Road.

The Page 69 Test: The End of the Road.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (November 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: The Mailman.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve books that center work and working-class lives

Dustin M. Hoffman writes stories about working people. His newest story collection is Such a Good Man. He’s also the author of the story collectionNo Good for Digging and the fiction chapbook Secrets of the Wild. His first book One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist won the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. He’s published more than one hundred stories in journals including Black Warrior Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, Masters Review, Witness, Wigleaf, The Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, and One Story. Before getting his MFA in fiction from Bowling Green State University and his PhD in creative writing from Western Michigan University, he spent ten years painting houses in Michigan. Now he lives in South Carolina and teaches creative writing at Winthrop University.

At Electric Lit Hoffman tagged "twelve books of poetry and prose that depict not just working-class people but that foreground work as the feature." One title on the list:

Temporary by Hilary Leichter

In Adam Petty’s astute essay “Dirty Life and Times: The Past, Present and Future of Working-Class Literature,” he asks a question: “We’ve had Kmart realism; why not Walmart realism?” Or what about Amazon realism? It’s certainly going to get surreal, globalized and computerized, guided by algorithm, surely even more alienating. Saunders led the way, and Hilary Leichter pushes the tradition forward with her highly stylized, experimental novel Temporary. Here the narrator weaves between temporary jobs, though each one seems to encompass an inescapable universe. This novel is full of humor, while also taking very seriously the cruelty of our modern world that makes every worker expendable, no matter how essential. The narrator searches for permanence in this picaresque plot of temporary jobs, but no such anchor is to be found in this magical labor-led universe that funhouse-mirrors our own. There’s so much gritty authenticity in the details of labor, as the jobs flit between realistic and absurd: pirate-deck swabber, door opener, assassin assistant, pamphlet distributor, replacement mother. Even the narrator’s lovers, a swarm of boyfriends she speaks to over the phone, are a writhing mass of slipping identities that require yet more labor.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Allison Gunn

From my Q&A with Allison Gunn, author of Nowhere: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Nowhere was the title from the start, and I never received any suggestions otherwise. Beyond all else, the book is about Nowhere both literally and metaphorically. Without giving too many spoilers, it is the place of no return for our characters—a living, breathing reality just on the other side of ours. Yet, it’s also a space many of us know well. The Kennans may literally reside in the middle of nowhere, however, their isolation via stigma places them even further into this lonely place in every human’s heart.

That being said...[read on]

Visit Allison Gunn's website.

Q&A with Allison Gunn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Douglas Corleone's "Falls to Pieces"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Falls to Pieces by Douglas Corleone.

About the book, from the publisher:

A mother and daughter in hiding are threatened by more than secrets and lies in a twisting novel of paranoia, revenge, and psychological suspense by bestselling author Douglas Corleone.

For two years, Kati Dawes and her teenage daughter, Zoe, have lived off the grid in Hawaii, hiding from a past Kati must forget as if her life depends on it. New names. Anonymous online presence. So far, safe. Until Kati’s fiancé, attorney Eddie Akana, disappears along a popular hiking trail in a Maui national park. Now all eyes are on Kati. Exposure can make a woman with so many secrets very paranoid.

Eddie’s law partner, Noah Walker, is doing everything he can to protect his new client from the press that’s hovering like a vulture and the authorities whose suspicions about Kati―and the disappearance―are rising. Then suddenly, Zoe goes missing as well. Kati will risk anything to find her. But the worst is still to come. Because Kati’s not the only one with secrets. And buried among them is a twist she never saw coming.

Learn more about the book and author at Douglas Corleone's website.

The Page 69 Test: Good as Gone.

My Book, The Movie: Payoff.

The Page 69 Test: Gone Cold.

My Book, The Movie: Gone Cold.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (August 2015).

The Page 69 Test: Falls to Pieces.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Tsering Wangmo Dhompa's "The Politics of Sorrow"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Politics of Sorrow: Unity and Allegiance Across Tibetan Exile by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959 after its occupation by China and established a government in exile in India. There, Tibetan leaders aimed to bring together displaced people from varied religious traditions and local loyalties under the banner of unity. To contest Chinese colonization and stand up for self-determination, Tibetan refugees were asked to shed regional allegiances and embrace a vision of a shared national identity.

The Politics of Sorrow tells the story of the Group of Thirteen, a collective of chieftains and lamas from the regions of Kham and Amdo, who sought to preserve Tibet’s cultural diversity in exile. They established settlements in India in the mid-1960s with the goal of protecting their regional and religious traditions, setting them apart from the majority of Tibetan refugees, who saw a common tradition as the basis for unifying the Tibetan people. Tsering Wangmo Dhompa traces these different visions for Tibetan governance and identity, juxtaposing the Tibetan government in exile’s external struggle for international recognition with its lesser-known internal struggle to command loyalty within the diaspora. She argues that although unity was necessary for democracy and independence, it also drew painful boundaries between those who belonged and those who didn’t. Drawing on insightful interviews with Tibetan elders and an exceptional archive of Tibetan exile texts, The Politics of Sorrow is a compelling narrative of a tumultuous time that reveals the complexities of Tibetan identities then and now.

Learn more about The Politics of Sorrow at the Columbia University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Politics of Sorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four mystery novels that explore legacy

Benjamin Bradley is a member of both Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. He's the author of the Shepard & Kelly Mystery series through Indies United Publishing House and his short fiction has appeared in literary magazines including Reckon Review and Flash Fiction Magazine. He works in public health and homelessness and lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, their cat Fox, and their dog Harper.

Bradley's new novel is What He Left Behind.

At CrimeReads he tagged four mystery titles that explore legacy. One entry on the list:

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The Van Laar family has been through the wringer and in this multiple timeline slow burn from Liz Moore; so many moments and interactions provoke questions about legacy and what we leave in our wake when we go. Family names play a big part in legacies; some are built by them and some are undone, but as the past meets the present here, almost every character in the novel faces some question about their legacy and life.

Read about another mystery on the list.

The God of the Woods is among Sandra Chwialkowska's five titles where bad things happen in beautiful places, Midge Raymond's eight books about women keeping secrets and Molly Odintz's eight thrillers & horror novels set at terrible summer camps.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ron Currie's "The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie.

About the book, from the publisher:

When crime matriarch Babs Dionne’s youngest daughter is found dead, she will stop at nothing to uncover the truth—or get her revenge.

Your ancestors breathe through you. Sometimes, they call for vengeance.

Babs Dionne, proud Franco-American, doting grandmother, and vicious crime matriarch, rules her small town of Waterville, Maine, with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into Little Canada with the help of her loyal lieutenants, girlfriends since they were teenagers, and her eldest daughter, Lori, a Marine vet struggling with addiction.

When a drug kingpin discovers that his numbers are down in the upper northeast, he sends a malevolent force, known only as The Man, to investigate. At the same time, Babs's youngest daughter, Sis, has gone missing, which doesn't seem at all like a coincidence. In twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will seek shelter from Babs’s wrath.

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne is a gripping, propulsive, darkly funny thriller, with a ferocious matriarch at its bruised, beating heart. Award-winning author Ron Currie delivers an unforgettable crime saga about love, duty, and vengeance.

Learn more about the book and author at Ron Currie's website.

The Page 69 Test: God Is Dead.

My Book, The Movie: God Is Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Everything Matters!.

The Page 69 Test: The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top horror books featuring monstrous women

Susie Dumond is a queer writer originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. She is the author of Queerly Beloved, Looking for a Sign, and Bed and Breakup, and she also talks about books as a senior contributor at Book Riot and a bookseller at her local indie bookstore. Dumond lives in Washington, D.C., with her spouse, Mickey, and her cat, Maple. When she’s not writing or reading, you can find her baking cupcakes or belting karaoke at the nearest gay bar.

At Book Riot Dumond tagged nine books featuring monstrous yet deeply complicated women and girls. One title on the list:

The Monstrous Misses Mai by Van Hoang

Vietnamese American fashion designer Cordelia is thrilled to find an affordable apartment in 1959 Los Angeles. The fact that her three roommates all share her middle name — Mai — seems like a sign she’s found the right place. When a friend of their landlord offers the four young women a way to make their dreams come true with a small sacrifice, they all agree to give it a shot. But their small successes give them a taste for more, and the personal costs get higher and higher. It’s a darkly magical tale about greed, power, and how they make us unrecognizable to ourselves.

Read about another title on the list.

The Monstrous Misses Mai is among Susie Dumond's eight top historical novels that add a little magic.

The Page 69 Test: The Monstrous Misses Mai.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Thomas Crosbie's "The Political Army"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Political Army: How the U.S. Military Learned to Manage the Media and Public Opinion by Thomas Crosbie.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since World War II, the U.S. military has taken a keen interest in shaping press coverage and, through it, public perception and democratic oversight of the armed forces. After misjudging the domestic political landscape during the Vietnam War, Army leaders embraced media management, recognizing that control over information had become central to how wars are fought. Even as the Army presented itself as a scrupulously apolitical organization, its leaders strove to reshape their political environment through public relations.

This book tells the story of the U.S. Army’s deepening involvement in media management over six decades and offers new ways to understand the military as a political actor. Thomas Crosbie examines how the Army gradually transformed its relationship with the civilian government and the public by engaging with the press. He traces Army media management from its origins as an ad hoc task to its professionalization and formalization, alongside the Army’s rise as a political force, its precipitous fall in the Vietnam War era, and its renewed ascent after learning key lessons from the experience of Vietnam. The Political Army draws on the records of Army leaders, archives of major public affairs figures and organizations, and extensive interviews with war correspondents, public affairs officers, and senior Army staff. Demonstrating how the U.S. Army gained, at great expense, potent political sway, this book provides a theoretically rich account of military politics and what it means for democracy.

Learn more about The Political Army at the Columbia University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Political Army.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rosanne Limoncelli's "The Four Queens of Crime," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Four Queens of Crime by Rosanne Limoncelli.

The entry begins:

The Four Queens of Crime takes place in 1938. The best selling authors of the decade, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, are hosting a gala to raise money for the Women’s Voluntary Service to help Britain prepare for war. Baronet Sir Henry Heathcote has loaned Hursley House for the event, and all the elites of London society are attending. The gala is a brilliant success, despite a few hiccups, and the four writers witness quite a bit of dramatic family dynamics and political intrigue that pervade the event. The next morning, Sir Henry is found dead in the library. Detective Chief Inspector Lilian Wyles, the first real life woman detective at Scotland Yard, and her partner DCI Richard Davidson are assigned the case and discover a cluster of potential suspects among the weekend guests, including an upset fiancée, a politically ambitious son, a reserved but protective brother, an irate son-in-law, a rebellious teenage daughter, and the deputy home secretary. Quietly recruiting the four queens of crime, DCI Wyles must sort through the messy aftermath of Sir Henry’s death to solve the mystery and identify the killer.

As I was writing the book, since I am also a filmmaker, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the story as a movie or TV series. There are so many wonderful English actors that could fill the roles, especially at the age of the these real people in 1938. Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh were in their late 40’s and Margery Allingham was 34. And the real life first woman DCI Lilian Wyles was 52. I wanted to keep these real ages in mind as I developed their characters. So often, in movies, women’s roles are given to actors much younger than the character’s physical age, it seems older women are just not always celebrated the way older men are. I would not want that to happen in the movie of my book. And why should it with so many great choices? Agatha could be played by Kate Winslet, and Cate Blanchett could play Ngaio since she is from down under. Dorothy L Sayers could be portrayed by...[read on]

Visit Rosanne Limoncelli's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Four Queens of Crime.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sandra Chwialkowska's "The Ends of Things"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Ends of Things: A Novel by Sandra Chwialkowska.

About the book, from the publisher:

A propulsive literary debut, The Ends of Things is both a thought-provoking suspense and a meditation on female friendship and agency—perfect for fans of The White Lotus and authors like Catherine Steadman and Rachel Hawkins.

She thought she had the perfect life … until she met a stranger in paradise.

Laura Phillips always wanted to travel the world but was too afraid to go it alone. So when her new boyfriend, Dave, invites her on a romantic getaway to the remote island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas, she jumps at the chance.

As soon as they arrive at the Pink Sands resort, Laura and Dave are handed cocktails garnished with umbrellas and led to a luxurious suite. It’s a lovers’ paradise. But when they head down to the pristine beach, Laura notices an oddity among the sunbathing couples: a woman vacationing alone. Intrigued, Laura befriends the woman, Diana, and as they spend time together, Laura finds herself telling Diana secrets she’s never shared with anyone.

But when Diana unexpectedly disappears, Laura suddenly realizes how little she knows about this mysterious woman.

The police suspect Diana may be in danger, and soon Laura herself becomes embroiled in the investigation. Her worries swiftly turn into obsession: Who is Diana? Where did she go? Is she dead? Murdered? As Laura races to find out what happened—and prove her own innocence—she quickly realizes that nothing in this sun-soaked paradise is what it seems, and it’s impossible to know who she can trust. What started out as a dream getaway is turning into a terrifying nightmare…

Visit Sandra Chwialkowska's website.

Q&A with Sandra Chwialkowska.

The Page 69 Test: The Ends of Things.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven terrifying horror novels set in small towns

Allison Gunn is a professional researcher, writer, and podcaster with a penchant for all things whimsical and strange. An alum of the University of Maryland, she has extensively studied marginalized communities as well as Appalachian folklore and the occult. She currently resides in the wonderfully weird land of West Virginia with her twin daughters, a precocious pup, and one seriously troubled tabby.

Nowhere is her first novel.

At Electric Lit Gunn tagged "seven terrifying horror novels set in small towns." One title on the list:

My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon

Set in an idyllic small-town ripped from a Hallmark movie, My Darling Girl follows the destruction of author Alison O’Conner’s wholesome life after her estranged, terminally ill mother moves in to live out her final days. A unique take on the well-trod possession trope, My Darling Girl leverages the deceptive beauty of sleepy hollows to slowly tighten the noose around both the main character and the reader, reminding us that darkness lurks in the shadows of Christmas lights and countryside charm.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Matt Plass

From my Q&A with Matt Plass, author of The Ten Worst People in New York: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The Ten Worst People in New York wasn’t my first choice of title, or even my second, but now I can’t imagine the book with any other lettering along the spine.

The novel began life in 2017 as The Murder Club, based on my 2015 Kindle Single of the same name (a B-side to the Lawrence Block short story "Gym Rat"). When Richard Osmond released The Thursday Murder Club to wide acclaim in 2020 (Damn you, Richard!) I had to think again. The Murder Club became The List, then The Reckoning, and finally—at the suggestion of my amazing editor, Sara J. Henry—The Ten Worst People in New York.

Who are the ten worst people in New York? Imagine a television talk show host launches a new nightly feature: a live list of public hate figures, updated by online and audience votes. On the list you might find a real estate mogul who’s really nothing more than a slumlord, a conspiracy junky who targets the victims of gun massacres, a climate-change denying scientist, a corrupt local politician, a wealthy financier who everyone suspects of being a sexual predator... Each night on the show, the audience enjoys sniggering and booing at the very worst people in the great city of New York, and it’s just a bit of fun.

Until people on the list start dying.

We spend most of the book either with FBI Special Agent Alex Bedford, or with young filmmaker Jacob Felle, as they investigate the murders from different angles. But we also get to step inside the minds of individuals on the list of the ten worst people in New York. Seeing...[read on]

Visit Matt Plass's website.

Q&A with Matt Plass.

--Marshal Zeringue