What Lies Hidden

The buried past is as inescapable as a stalker in this summer’s selection of thrillers and mysteries. A gossip columnist spies in the golden age of pre-war Paris while the children of a convicted serial killer strive to clear their father’s name. An elite security force hunts for cold case clues and a mother turns over the details of her daughter’s last days alive to acquit a death row inmate. As secrets claw their way to the surface, these novels capture every blood spatter, stab wound, and final scream.

AUTUMN LEAVES, 1922

Tessa Lunney, Pegasus Crime (AUG 3) Hardcover $25.95 (352pp), 978-1-64313-712-4, HISTORICAL FICTION

Autumn Leaves, 1922 is a sumptuous spy romp with an irresistible heroine.

Glamorous gossip columnist Kiki is bereaved and beauty-starved when she returns to Paris from her mother’s deathbed in Australia. The jazz age is in full swing, and Kiki throws herself into the madcap bliss of the high life, from Chanel couture and champagne to heady arguments with Hemingway.

Although Paris is a balm for Kiki, her former life catches up with her, and her “days [are] shaped by secret meetings with shady men,” including Theo, a Russian prince who’s reduced to driving a cab post-revolution; Tom, a reporter who is wanted in Australia for military desertion and in Britain for treason; and Dr. Fox, a manipulative, silver-tongued spymaster who directs Kiki’s espionage efforts. Embedded in glamorous Paris, Kiki hunts down a blackmailer, a communist plot, and the men who are driven to bring the next war to a head. Meanwhile, she searches for clues about her mother’s murky past.

This sequel’s backstory is dispatched in an uncluttered, quick manner so that the book can maintain a brisker pace than Kiki’s satin shoes do. It sticks to its heroine: a modern, driven woman with an uncanny knack for sizing up anyone she meets. Kiki describes Paris, from its flower sellers to amusebouche, with luscious, piercing images that only a gossip columnist or a spy might notice. Her moxie and sense of style permeate the story, in which each character retains a trace of shabby glamour from their former lives. While individuals’ motives are not especially complex, Kiki’s investigations are suspenseful and sustain a frisson of tension.

Swoon through Autumn Leaves, 1922, whose mysteries are enriched with toothsome details of a bygone Paris in the glittering years before Hitler came to power.

THE BUCKET LIST

An Agent John Adderley Novel Peter Mohlin, Peter Nyström, The Overlook Press (JUL 6) Hardcover $27 (400pp), 978-1-4197-5218-6, THRILLER

Peter Mohlin and Peter Nyström’s The Bucket List is a classic Nordic noir thriller—tight, layered, and so chilly that it shivers.

In the picturesque Swedish hills, Emelie, the daughter of a family of billionaires, goes missing. Other than a cryptic photograph posted on her Facebook account and a tiny packet of cocaine, there are no clues that point to her killer. Ten years later, in 2019, the cold case is assigned to a team that includes former FBI agent John Adderley.

Half-nigerian, half-swedish, John is at home in the space between his cultures, countries, and families. His undercover work is focused on infiltrating a drug cartel in the United States; it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare. In comparison to mules, bullets, and bloodshed, “CEO protection” seems like a better career path. However, John isn’t prepared for the sickening, secretive world of the ultra rich. When he receives the file on Emelie, the heir to an international garment business, John enters the past—his own, Emelie’s, and the families’. The decade between Emelie’s disappearance and John’s assignment blurs; it soon becomes apparent that the past has a powerful hold on the present.

Subtle psychological elements make each scene rich. John’s co-agent Trevor, a new father, emanates positivity, while details, including of Emelie’s unusual tattoo and the car that John’s father drove, dot the well-crafted narrative. The novel suggests that clues are everywhere, if one knows where to look. As John tugs at the threads of Emelie’s case, the whole web begins to quiver, threatening to awaken the spider at its center.

The Bucket List is an ambitious crime thriller that crosses a decade of secrets, lies, and family stories.

TROUBLE DOWN MEXICO WAY

Nancy Nau Sullivan, Light Messages Publishing, (JUN 29) Softcover $14.99 (266pp), 978-1-61153-375-0, MYSTERY

The flavors, colors, and history of Mexico are a vibrant backdrop for Trouble Down Mexico Way, a funny, fish-out-of-water mystery novel.

Part-time journalist and amateur sleuth Blanche “Bang” Murninghan is an avid traveler of a certain age. She and her cousin Haasi Hakla are wandering through an exhibit of ancient Mayan ruins in Mexico City when they spot a clue that one of the mummies may be fresher than the museum suggests. A pink hair clip, smooth nails, and taut skin point to foul play, and soon Bang and Haasi are drawn into a conspiracy that takes them deeper into Mexican street life than any tourist guide would.

The lively supporting cast includes a pompous museum director, a wise chilanga, local law enforcement, and the mummy’s grieving mother. Bang does not weave her way through the mystery as much as bounce through it. Her effervescence is contagious, and although she and Haasi risk kidnapping, her self-assuredness makes her seem invincible.

Haasi, who’s confident and cool, is a foil for Blanche’s unremitting enthusiasm. They may be “strangers in a strange land,” but her attitude toward Mexican culture is respectful. The book avoids stereotypes and shares mouth-watering scents, spices, and sights instead. Food, drinks, and cultural details are woven through each scene, giving insight into the characters’ private lives. Over a tantalizing lunch of pozole (a soup of hominy and pork shoulder), “a table was set with an embroidered cloth and bowls of sliced avocado, chopped green onions, shredded cabbage, radishes, bits of fried tortillas, strips of pigskin, oregano, and chopped cilantro.” The novel enlivens the senses as the mystery winds through the city.

Mexico City and its mysteries are bright and beautiful in Trouble Down Mexico Way, a spry mystery led by adventurous investigator Blanche Murninghan.

THE NECKLACE

Matt Witten, Oceanview Publishing (SEP 7) Hardcover $26.95 (304pp) 978-1-60809-458-5, MYSTERY

When a convicted child murderer is up for lethal injection, the victim’s mother is driven to exonerate the killer in The Necklace, a punchy thriller about an eleventh-hour discovery in the gruesome murder of a seven-year-old girl.

Twenty years after her daughter’s murder, Susan believes that she will finally have justice. The convicted killer, Curt, is on death row in North Dakota, and Susan intends to watch him take his last breath.

A career waitress who’s short on both cash and time, Susan takes cash donations from her upstate New York community and heads north, only to meet with disaster after disaster. As she faces delays, accidents, and thefts, Susan realizes that the wrong man is sitting in prison. In fact, the real killer may be closer than she suspected. Only days before Curt is slated for lethal injection, Susan throws herself into acquitting “the monster.” With the help of Curt’s sister, a retired FBI agent, and a handful of friendly strangers, Susan tackles the disturbing memory of her daughter’s death and its implications. The chapters alternate between the present and clue-rich flashbacks; these merge as Susan closes in on the Hodge Hills prison.

The characters are described in thorough, if stereotypical, terms. They include a virtuous single mom who works as stripper, and a teenager whose boots and punk haircut hide that she is a survivor of incest. But Susan is a compelling heroine, both worldly and naïve. Though her ordinariness makes her mission seem daunting, each win leads her deeper into the heart of the murder, causing her to second guess what she thought she knew about her family.

Emmy nominee Matt Witten twists multiple story threads into The Necklace, a breathless thriller that dives headlong into a horrific cold case.

PARADISE, WV

Rob Rufus, Keylight Books (JUL 20) Hardcover $29.99 (320pp) 978-1-68442-670-6, THRILLER

In the layered thriller Paradise, WV, a rural town suffers from the “municipal leprosy” of the stigmatized opioid epidemic. A string of grisly murders links the misery of the town’s present to its gory past—and to a convicted serial killer, the Blind Spot Slasher. Paradise’s younger generation, including Henry and Jane, the killer’s children, unwind the mystery that links the Slasher to a decrepit cult.

This is a small town thriller with a little of everything, including spunky neighborhood kids, sinister faith healers, and condemned movie theaters. Its heady combination of chilling noir details includes the angle of a stab wound and the tattoos that creep over a pimp’s track-marked arm. Paradise is a grim place, and the devastation wreaked by opioids is just as present and threatening as the killer who lurks in the shadows. This skillful tale is bleak, but with occasional glimmers of hope in the form of shots at redemption. These opportunities to undo the damage of the past are a welcome reprieve from the town’s overwhelming darkness. Still, each character is drawn with care and respect; in spite of straitened circumstances, they are dignified. Jane, a budding soccer champion, withstands merciless teasing, while her brother takes refuge in his heavy metal cassette collection. Henry’s friend Otis is a brainiac who recognizes the parallels between his father’s addiction-related fall from grace and his friends’ losses. The children’s ally, police officer Elena Garcia, takes an outsider’s view on the town as she burrows into its history. The cast’s genuine exchanges are realistic in conveying how the small, forgotten community clings to the edge of survival.

Unsettling and unforgettable, Paradise, WV walks a line between pulp fiction and compassionate storytelling.