Five dark books for long, cheery summer days

Sara Ochs is an author, law professor, and avid traveler. Born and raised in Upstate New York, Ochs and her husband now split their time between the United States and Sweden.

When she’s not turning one of the many places she’s visited into the setting of her next thriller, she can usually be found trip planning.

Ochs’s debut novel, a thriller set on a remote Thai island, was published as The Dive in the UK and territories and as The Resort in the US.

[Q&A with Sara Ochs]

Her new novel is This Stays Between Us.

At CrimeReads Ochs tagged five "dark books that are perfect to balance out the cheeriness of summer." One title on the list:

THIS BOOK WILL BURY ME by Ashley Winstead

Following her father’s sudden death, Jane Sharpe gravitates to the world of online true-crime sleuthing, settling in with a group that quickly begins to feel like a new family. When a brutal triple murder shakes a small Idaho college town, Sharpe and her fellow armchair detectives leave their lives behind to investigate in-person. What entails is a dark cat-and-mouse game that not everyone will survive. With a plot pulled in part from national headlines and a jaw-dropping twist, This Book Will Bury Me left me with a chilly feeling long after I finished, despite the 90-degree heat outside.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue