Add these six sizzling novels to your reading summer list
When I was a younger man, I spent my spare time browsing record store racks. I would always buy something. I bought records because I loved particular recording artists. I would buy others just because I liked the album covers.
Certain labels seemed to reliably release high quality records. I actually had a standing request at one shop; I told them that I would buy any new LP that a certain record label issued. I was never disappointed. This same thing can hold true for certain book publishers. The imprint Minotaur Books publishes crime novels; the are usually exceptional. Here are some upcoming titles:
‘Hatchet Island’ by Paul Doiron ( June 28, 320 pages, $27.99)
Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch returns in this long-running series. This time Mike has paddled his sea kayak to a remote island and arrives just in time to hear gunfire. He discovers two researchers are dead and another one is missing. What happened? Who did this?
‘The Hidden One’ by Linda Castillo ( July 5, 320 pages, $27.99)
The latest installment of Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder
series set in Pennsylvania Amish country. When skeletal remains are unearthed, chief of police Burkholder is approached by a group of Amish elders who believe this grisly discovery could be an Amish bishop who vanished many years ago.
‘Peril at the Exposition’ by Nev March ( July 12, 352 pages, $27.99)
Nev March is a new talent in the genre. This mystery revisits the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. A detective who is steeped in the deductive investigative style of Sherlock Holmes goes to Chicago to look into an unsolved murder. While doing that, he disappears. Then his wife goes there to try to locate her husband on the gritty streets of that windy city.
‘Things We Do in the Dark’ by Jennifer Hillier ( July 19, 397 pages, $27.99)
Minotaur has high expectations for their rising star Jennifer Hillier. They are printing 150,000 copies of this one. From the press release: “When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom — covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her — she knows she’ll be charged with murder.”
‘Do No Harm’ by Robert Pobi (Aug. 9, 432 pages, $27.99)
Robert Pobi’s Lucas Page novels feature an EX-FBI agent who has been severely injured in an explosion. He’s also a genius. In this one, he investigates a series of supposedly accidental deaths and suicides in the medical community which he believes were well disguised murders.
‘The Blame Game’ by Sandie Jones (Aug. 16, 246 pages, $27.99)
Sandie Jones is another ascendant writer. Her debut novel, “The Other Woman,” was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. Her latest effort is a psychological thriller. In this one, a psychologist who counsels victims of domestic abuse realizes she’s gotten way too involved in her cases, with frightening results.
‘American Demon’ by Daniel Stashower (Sept. 6, 340 pages, $29.99)
The true crime story about Cleveland being engulfed in terror when the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run committed a dozen murders. The new director of public safety, Eliot Ness, tried to solve those crimes.