Archives de catégorie : Mystery

OBSERVER de Nicholas Russell

A mystical and mercury-ladened mystery involving trees that walk, desert illusions, and a 100-year-old diary.

OBSERVER
by Nicholas Russell
Ecco, Fall 2026
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

For fans of Brian Evenson, K-Ming Chang, and Jeff VanderMeer, OBSERVER is the story of the American desert, government cover-ups, family devotion, and how curiosity for the truth or a version of it sends even the most sane into the deepest depths.

Renata’s mother left her in the care of her aunt and took a job at an observatory when she was young, never to return. Now in her early twenties, Renata receives a truck load of her mother’s papers and possessions one day; the family assumes her dead. Renata, curious and undeterred, packs up her camera and her mothers’ notebooks and drives to the Observatory, asking questions the locals would prefer not to answer and reminding them of what they’ve been denying for years. Renata might be able to complete the research her mother was undergoing, but she might also reach for a truth much stranger than any of the tall tales the desert weaves through her dreams.

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas. His work has appeared in The Believer, McSweeney’s, The Atlantic, Conjunctions, The Baffler, The Drift, and Defector. He is a bookseller at The Writer’s Block, Managing Editor of Still Alive magazine, and a contributor to Defector.

ABSENCE de Andrew Dana Hudson

Pitched as The City & The City meets The Leftovers, ABSENCE is a propulsive mystery, combining the best elements of speculative fiction and detective noir, one which explores a world confronted with the new reality of Spontaneous Human Absence, or the sudden disappearance of people into thin air, never to return.

ABSENCE
by Andrew Dana Hudson
Soho Press, Spring 2026
(via Vertical Ink)

With millions around the world having already “popped” out of existence, and the numbers increasing daily, humanity’s long-term survival is now in doubt. Now, Bureau of Depopulation Affairs agents Harvey Ellis and Shonda Erins must unravel a mystery that could answer the impenetrable question of where the absent go, as one day a disheveled woman with no identification appears at the sheriff’s office in the small town of Dawnville, Kansas, claiming to have returned from Absence and providing a highly-detailed description of the “life after” and a mysterious post-Absence city called Strangertown.

Is she just another charlatan styling herself as a prophet, or is she really Gabby Reyes, a Dawnville teenager who popped a decade before under notorious circumstances? If true, her story holds the key to understanding humanity’s future and would give hope to the millions of people mourning the unfathomable disappearance of their loved ones – a group that also includes agent Ellis.

As the agents navigate a hostile town awash in conspiracy theories with its own secrets to hide, they get closer to the answer, and agent Ellis finds himself caught between his professional skepticism and his own personal desire for the possibility of hope in a hopeless world.

But as Absence begins to ravage Dawnville, the townspeople focus their ire on Gabby and the agents, and in a world where no one knows how long they have left, agents Ellis and Erins must unravel the mystery of Gabby Reyes before Dawnville explodes into violence, and before they themselves disappear.

Andrew Dana Hudson is a speculative fiction writer, sustainability researcher, and futurist. He is the author of Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures, as well as over twenty-five short stories appearing in Slate Future Tense, Lightspeed Magazine, Escape Pod, Vice Terraform, MIT Technology Review, Grist, and many more. His nonfiction has appeared in Slate, Jacobin, and others. His fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, longlisted for the BSFA, and translated into Italian. Andrew has a master’s degree in sustainability from Arizona State University, where he is now pursuing an MFA in creative writing (fiction). He is also an Imaginary College Fellow at the ASU Center for Science and the Imagination. His research, partnering with institutions like Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, uses speculative fiction to explore the entwined social and technical dynamics of future scenarios, particularly the challenges and opportunities of decarbonization and climate repair. He has previously worked in journalism, political consulting, and healthcare innovation. He also teaches yoga. Follow his work via solarshades.club.

ALL AT SEA de Jonathan Whitelaw

A destination murder-mystery – think Below Deck meets Knives Out. Perfect for all fans of Only Murders In the Building.

ALL AT SEA
by Jonathan Whitelaw
HarperNorth, publication date TBC
(via Northbank Talent Management)

Howie Temple is down on his luck and desperate for cash. A once promising action movie star, he now lives off a crumbling reputation. On his way to film a new reality TV show, which casts a team of c-list celebrities as crew aboard a luxury yacht, he meets fellow contestant, influencer-of-the-moment Cassandra Troy. The duo take an immediate dislike to each other.

After a hectic first day of filming, the pair are shocked discover that the captain of the ship has been murdered – locked in his control room, slumped over the wheel, a knife in his back. Convinced by the show’s ever-opportunistic director to keep the cameras rolling, the pair team-up to hunt the murderer.

Will the show make Howie and Cassandra bigger stars than they could ever dream of? And can they crack the case before the killer strikes again, or will they go down with this sinking ship?

Jonathan Whitelaw is a Scottish writer and journalist based in Canada, and he’s also a regular host at book events and panels, as well as a regular arts reviewer on BBC Radio Scotland’s Afternoon Show. Jonathan is a leading author in the cosy crime market. His latest series, Bingo Hall Detectives, is published by HarperNorth. There are currently two books in the series, The Bingo Hall Detectives (2022) and The Village Hall Vendetta (2023), the first of which awarded the Gilpin Hotel Prize for Fiction at this year’s Lakeland Book Awards.

CONTEMPLATION OF A CRIME de Susan Juby

Buddhist butler and reluctant investigator Helen Thorpe bands together with her fellow butler school graduates to rescue her very wealthy employer and his son.

CONTEMPLATION OF A CRIME
by Susan Juby
HarperCollins Canada, June 2025

Butler Helen Thorpe is not one to judge, but the participants in Close Encounters for Global Healing are astonishingly unpleasant.

The five-day program brings together people from across the political spectrum with the goal of helping them bridge their ideological and personal differences. The motley assortment of participants includes a burned-out environmental activist, an internet troll, a clued-out consumerist, an alleged white nationalist, and a man who was arrested at the Freedom Convoy. No one seems interested in a civil conversation, much less global healing, and each person has shown up with their own secret agenda.

No rapprochement between the warring or at least endlessly bickering parties seem possible. But when something deadly happens, they must learn to work together. First, they must figure out who among them can be trusted.

Susan Juby is the award-winning, bestselling author of many novels, including Mindful of Murder and A Meditation on Murder, the first two books featuring Helen Thorpe.

IT’S HARD TO BE AN ANIMAL de Robert Isaacs

A hilarious and clever upmarket love story and cozy mystery with a strong thread of magical realism, for readers of Carl Hiaasen’s Squeeze Me looking for a bit more tenderness, or of Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures.

IT’S HARD TO BE AN ANIMAL
by Robert Isaacs
Grand Central, Spring 2026
(via Frances Goldin Literary Agency)

Henry Parsons is walking through Central Park on a date with Molly Bent, the quirky, sweet, and endlessly interesting woman that his colleague set him up with. After a long spell of loneliness, he is feeling hopeful for the first time in years when a sweet little warbler tells him to f*** off.

A gentle soul already troubled by the rancor and insensitivity of humans in the city, Henry tries to brush it off as a hallucination. But suddenly he can hear the voices everywhere: dogs mocking their owners, sparrows fat-shaming each other, snakes pontificating about misogyny and gender politics, police horses profiling attendees of a street fair: the man who never speaks up for himself is suddenly surrounded by animals who do.

It’s all fun and games until he overhears three rats discussing a corpse in the New York subway. Unsure what to do, he lets it slip to Molly. She’s keen to investigate, and Henry is desperate for another date. Together they descend into an abandoned tunnel under the West Fourth Street station where they find a body… and the murderers find them.

For the first time in Henry’s careful life there’s no way to duck confrontation: he’s being hunted, and must find the courage to face the Scottish gangsters stalking him across the city. Of course, that same assertiveness might transform his chances with Molly too. Inspiration arrives, unexpectedly, from his roommate’s pair of feuding beta fish on an enemies-to-lovers arc, and the neighbor’s yapping Pomeranian whose wisdom changes Henry forever.

Robert Isaacs’ writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Salon.com, Hindsight and The First Line. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University with a dual thesis in fiction and nonfiction. In his checkered past he’s also worked as a musician (Grammy nominated singer, conducted at Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, etc.) and street-performer (juggling, unicycling, plate-spinning, and so on.)

Robert Isaacs’ writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Salon.com, Hindsight and The First Line. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University with a dual thesis in fiction and nonfiction. In his checkered past he’s also worked as a musician (Grammy nominated singer, conducted at Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, etc.) and street-performer (juggling, unicycling, plate-spinning, and so on.).