Archives de catégorie : Mystery

SHE DID IT d’Emily Lloyd-Jones

A dual-timeline mystery-thriller in the vein of The Inheritance Games and Truly Devious about a small-town competition taken too far, a slightly unhinged anti-heroine, and the lengths we go to for revenge.

SHE DID IT
by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Balzer + Bray/Macmillan, Summer 2027
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

When 17-year-old Madison Mercer hears the local sheriff investigated a tip about a body in a trunk, she’s not sure what’s more horrifying—that someone found the abandoned car in the woods or that it was empty. Because Maddy knows there’s a body in the trunk. That’s where she stashed it.

The previous summer, Maddy participates in the Lark: a wholly illegal scavenger hunt that takes teenagers through the woods thick with illegal weed, down abandoned train tunnels, and into locked houses. Mourning the death of her mother and the loss of her best friend who has recently moved away, Maddy decides to win the Lark at any cost. In the final trial of the Lark, a boy ends up dead. And Madison is found standing over the body. Luckily, her friends and new boyfriend all agree to help her stash the body in an abandoned car trunk.

When the body goes missing and the sheriff gets an anonymous tip, Maddy knows she needs to find the real killer… or risk being implicated. Because she didn’t do it.

Right?

As Maddy tries to unravel what really happened, she realizes that the game never truly ended. Because in the Lark, there’s only one rule: Trust no one in the dark.

Emily Lloyd-Jones grew up on a vineyard in rural Oregon, where she played in ever-green forests and learned to fear sheep. She currently resides in Northern California, where she enjoys wandering in redwood forests. Her other novels include Illusive, Deceptive, The Hearts We Sold, The Bone Houses, The Drowned Woods, The Wild Huntress, and most recently, Augusta Pine Does Not Exist.

TICKET TO DIE d’Amanda Sellet

Virginia, Felix, and their grandparents are back as a spring break excursion on a murder mystery dinner train goes Gone Girl in this new cozy mystery-romance.

TICKET TO DIE
by Amanda Sellet
Wednesday Books/St. Martin’s, March 2027

High school junior Virginia Tillis isn’t jetting off to Florida for spring break, so she figures the highlight of her week will be sleeping in…until her eccentric Grandma Lainey shows up at her house and invites her merry band of retired actor neighbors to crash the party—along with Felix, Virginia’s new long-distance boyfriend.

When the entire group takes a ride on a murder mystery dinner train run by her grandmother’s old friend Teddy, they expect to solve a fictional crime in theatrical style—until the leading lady vanishes at intermission, and Teddy becomes the chief suspect in her disappearance.

While the media goes wild, Virginia, Felix, and their geriatric crew have to figure out what happened to the missing actress, clear Teddy’s name, and decide if dating someone in a different state is worth the aggravation…before they reach the end of the line and spring break is dead in its tracks.

Amanda Sellet writes lighthearted fiction for teens and adults. She is fond of old-fashioned things, including but not limited to the donuts. It is her great good fortune to live in a Midwestern college town with a wonderful bookstore and superlative bakeries.



WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM de Randee Dawn

Welcome to Seaview Haven. A delightful village of charming humans, quaint homes – and cozy mysteries! Fortunately, there’s silver-haired author-turned-sleuth Winnie Arrowmaker on hand to solve them all.

WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM
by Randee Dawn
Solaris Nova, March 2026
(via JABberwocky)

But things aren’t exactly as they seem. Seaview Haven is one of the Seelie Court Network’s many invented TROPE towns, and the “mysteries” are scripted and streamed for the entertainment of enchanted creatures across the Veil. Or, rather, they were…

Winnie has a wicked case of writer’s block, moviemaking across the Veil has ground to a halt, and the town is crumbling.

Enter Finch, an SCN intern who might be the worst Unseelie ever. With aid from his reluctant brownie assistant, Finch is assigned to figure out what’s gone wrong in Seaview Haven… so he can dismantle it forever. But after landing in town, Finch soon learns that real lives – and real friends – aren’t so easily canceled.

To keep “The End” from being stamped on Seaview Haven, Winnie and Finch are going to have to tell a Truly Great Tale. Because as they realize, real power lies not in the stories we watch, but in the stories we tell ourselves.

Tropes List:
👵 older woman solving mysteries
🍄 mixed-up Unseelie gardener
🍞 shortbread magic
❓ disappearing TROPE town residents
💔 fae-human romance on the rocks
👦👩🏿 intrepid young sleuths
👸 goddess gal-cation gone wrong?
🖨️ write a great story… or else!

Randee Dawn is the bestselling author of the pop culture fantasy novel Tune in Tomorrow and its Tune-iverse follow-up WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM. She’s also the author of the dark Celtic musical fantasies The Only Song Worth Singing and Leave No Trace. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, including most recently Dark Spores: Stories We Tell After Midnight. She is the co-author of The Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion.

THE SWEET CHEAT de Martha Grimes

The New York Times bestselling and award-winning author returns with a beguiling mystery starring the brilliant, idiosyncratic young sleuth Emma Graham as she attempts to solve a murder, free a wrongfully convicted man—and write her own novel along the way.

THE SWEET CHEAT
by Martha Grimes
Grove Atlantic, December 2026

Twelve-year-old Emma Graham can’t seem to stay out of trouble in the small town of Spirit Lake. But how can she when her small town is besieged by murder, a disappearance, and savage attacks? But nothing will stop her from asking questions and relentlessly pursuing the truth—even if the sheriff is less than enthused.

When two men are accused of murder, Emma dives headfirst into the case, convinced there is a third suspect, a missing piece of the puzzle. Along the way, Emma begins writing her own mystery, inspired by the case and populated by the colorful cast of local waitresses, lawyers, drifters, and kooky customers she encounters during her investigation.

In this original and lively novel, Martha Grimes weaves a propulsive mystery against the backdrop of a vibrant town. Strikingly intuitive, quirky and always curious, Emma Graham is the perfect young sleuth who always sees the best in people—while still uncovering their secrets along the way.

Martha Grimes is the bestselling author of more than thirty books, twenty-six of them featuring Richard Jury, and has sold more than 10 million copies in the US alone. The recipient of the 2012 Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, Grimes lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

THE SEER de Samantha Jayne Allen

A suspense novel set in a small, high desert town in southern California, for fans of Liz Moore’s Long Bright River and Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places.

THE SEER
by Samantha Jayne Allen
St. Martin’s Minotaur, March 2027
(via Dystel Goderich & Bourret)

Told in alternating timelines, THE SEER is about a TV psychic who disappears after leading a search for a missing teacher, and the psychic’s daughter, who is now called upon by investigators for help reexamining her mother’s role in the decades-old cold case.

THE SEER is both a gripping mystery and a heart-wrenching story about the push and pull between family and the self, between cold truth and tantalizing fiction.

“Riveting and atmospheric, Samantha Jayne Allen’s THE SEER is a taut and brilliantly plotted mystery that gripped me from the start and held me captive through every twist and turn. Rich in character and full of heart, this is a book I won’t soon forget.” –Kimi Cunningham Grant, USA Today bestselling author of These Silent Woods & The Nature of Disappearing

“Like its titular character, THE SEER drew me in with just a crook of a finger, letting me go only when it had scoured my soul. Samantha Jayne Allen has written a rare breed of thriller: one with a mystery so compelling you want to race through to the ending to discover the truth, but written with magnetic, sensitive prose, enough to slow you down to taste the desert air of Tehachapi on your tongue. You won’t be able to put this down.” —Melissa Larsen, USA Today bestselling author of The Lost House

Samantha Jayne Allen is the author of the Annie McIntyre Mysteries. Her debut novel, Pay Dirt Road, won the Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing, and the Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Set in the Southwest. She has an MFA in fiction from Texas State University, and her writing has been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Common, and Electric Literature.