A Killer in the Family

A Killer in the Family by Amin Ahmad, 320 pages

Ali is the second son of an established Mumbai family, happily letting his older brother stress over the family business while he partied his way through life. However, when his mom decides that he needs to grow up, well, he doesn't have much choice in the matter. Thankfully, she's picked Maryam, the daughter of New York real estate tycoon Abbas Khan, to be his wife, a relationship he happily supplements with an affair with Maryam's divorced sister, Farhan. As Ali gets more and more ensconced in the Khan family business, he begins to realize that there are some dark secrets in the family and chooses to launch his own investigation, completely unsure of where it will lead.

It's hard to read a book about the ultra-rich and feel any sympathy for them these days, but thankfully, no sympathy is required with this cast of characters. Generally speaking, they're all horrible in one way or another (some in multiple ways), and the plot keeps you guessing. I also appreciated seeing a non-white family at the center of one of these family thrillers, and the elements of Indian traditions and food were wonderful additions. Sure, there were some twists that were a bit obvious, but really, that's par for the course with these books. Definitely worth a read.

This book will be published April 7, 2026.

A Better Man

A Better Man by Louise Penny (2019), 437 pgs. 

A flood is a curious thing; at times it may wash away sins of the past, or it may just deposit them right back to the shore. In the midst of a flood which threatens the smallest Quebecois townships, including beloved Three Pines, Chief Inspector Gamache returns to work, sharing the role of head of homicide with his right-hand man, Chief Inspector Beauvoir. As the two Chief Inspectors navigate their new power dynamic, they receive a plea from a distressed father whose daughter has gone missing. It is a race against time and nature to find out what happened to this woman, and old sins and feelings are bubbling up. The flood will leave nothing untouched.

This fifteenth novel in Louise Penny's Three Pines series is a bit different in a few ways. The investigative team that we know and love takes a more personal approach to this case (maybe too personal). A few different ideas are weaved together using social media, some of which are better fleshed out than others. Secondary story lines with old characters aren't introduced as smoothly as they have been. These differences from previous books in the series result in a Three Pines story that does not feel like Three Pines at all. Everyone we have come to know as smart and capable does something completely out of character--especially many of the women in this book, who are particularly misrepresented. Not my favorite book in the series so far

 

Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister, 336 pages

On literary agent Camilla's first day back to the office after maternity leave, she's hoping for a calm re-entry into the working world. Instead, she gets a visit from the police who tell her that her husband, Luke, is involved in a hostage situation at a factory — and worse yet, he's the one holding the gun. Through the tense situation and Luke's eventual disappearance, Camilla has no clue what's going on and even years later, has no answers. But, seven years later, when she begins the process of having him declared legally dead, a new novel and some suspicious men in Camilla's life brings the traumatic experience back to the forefront.

This was a twisty page-turner that kept me guessing the whole time. There were several things that Camilla did throughout the book that made me wonder what the heck she was thinking (but that's par for the course with thrillers) and I felt like an inordinate amount of ink was spent on Camilla's sister's infertility journey (still have no idea what that had to do with the rest of the book), but really, those are minor quibbles in an otherwise excellent thriller.

The Long Way Home

 

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (2014), 373 pgs.

Former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is supposed to be retired. Too soon, though, he is pulled back into the world of investigation when longtime friend to the Gamaches, Clara Morrow, asks for help. Clara's husband, Peter, has gone missing, and her Three Pines community rallies to her aide. As the search begins, the Three Pines crew wonders what they will find along the way, and if--in fact--they are doing more harm than good in moving forward. 

As a follow-up to the nail-biting action of How the Light Gets In, this story feels a bit slower, but it is always nice to be back in a Three Pines mystery. In this one, we get to know more about Clara and Peter's college life, and we get to see Armand's wife, Rene-Marie, start to have a bit more of a role. Art lovers and Clara-and-Peter fans will enjoy this one.

Leaving Time

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult (2014) 405 pages

Jenna Metcalf, 13, has lived with her grandmother since she was three, when her mother disappeared from the elephant sanctuary that her parents ran after a dead body was found. Her father had a breakdown and has been living in a mental facility all these years. Jenna has never fit in anywhere, and spends her life reading her mother's journals, while keeping her eye on missing persons reports online, hoping that her mother is still alive and will be found someday.

After earning enough money babysitting, she reaches out to a detective (Vic Stanhope) whose name strongly resembles the name of the police investigator who came to the elephant sanctuary the night of the murder/disappearance. He spends most of his time drinking now. Not one to hedge her bets, Jenna also finds the name of a psychic (Serenity Jones) who used to be famous for finding missing people until she provided dramatically bad information for a senator and his wife, whose baby had been kidnapped. Serenity now makes a living giving ten-dollar readings. The three of them begin to work together, after several fits and starts. The pieces begin to come together in chapters delineated by the various characters' points of view. The results were not at all what I was expecting. Tremendously good read. And fascinating facts about elephants provide a superb framework for the story.

The Good Asian: 1936

The Good Asian: 1936 by Pornsak Pichetshote with art by Alexandre Tefenkgi (2023) 304 pages

Hoopla has this graphic novel split into two volumes. The bonus historical material about the Chinese Exclusion Act provides important
background. The synopsis on Goodreads sums it up well. "THE GOOD ASIAN follows Edison Hark – a haunted, self-loathing Chinese-American detective on the trail of a killer in 1936 San Francisco – in a noir mystery exploring the first generation of Americans to come of age under an immigration ban: the Chinese, as they’re besieged by rampant murders, abusive police, and a world that seemingly never changes." This has all the essential parts of a detective noir. I like a lot of the artwork. The mystery is complex with many twists and turns as Edison Hark and the other central figures remember their distant past, their recent past, changing identities, and questionable loyalties. Searching for a missing woman and turning up the trail of a killer reveals many secrets.

Rabbit Hole

Rabbit Hole by Kate Brody, 374 pages

Ten years ago, Teddy's older sister Angie went missing. After a decade of obsessive searching for her, Teddy's dad has given up, committing suicide by driving his car off a bridge. Now Teddy and her mother are trying to deal with the compounded grief and the mess Teddy's dad left behind. But as she starts to go through his things, Teddy gets sucked into the search for Angie, particularly the online cold-case communities and a young woman who had helped Teddy's dad with the search.

While there is a mystery in this book, the main theme is Teddy's grief, and the ways in which she is poorly attempting to manage it. It's not a cheerful story by any means, and SPOILER ALERT doesn't have the happiest ending, but it is a very gritty and realistic look at grief and dealing with the trauma of the past. I'd recommend it for fans of Long Bright River by Liz Moore, and for those who are intrigued by unlikeable protagonists.

The Cricket on the Hearth

 

The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home by Charles Dickens 106 pp.

After listening to this brief audiobook I realized I had never read this story but had seen at least one filmed version. The story of the amusingly named Peerybingle family and their nanny, Tilly Slowboy is a tale of jealousy, greed, and mistaken identity that ultimately resolves into a happy ending because the cricket living on the Peerybingle's hearth has brought good fortune to them all.

Mrs. Pargeter's Patio

Mrs. Pargeter's Patio by Simon Brett (2023) 184 pages

Mrs. Pargeter, a widow who is blissfully unaware that her husband  may have dabbled in some illegal activities during his life, finds a skull with a bullet hole in it when a paving slab from her mansion's patio cracks in two as she walks across it. A resourceful woman, Mrs. Pargeter consults with some of the numerous aides who had been deeply trusted by her husband. All of them would do anything to help her. The characters are rather caricatured, with nicknames that are memorable. For example, Fixin' Nixon could get appointments or tickets on short notice or even if sold out, Tina the Transformer could temporarily change someone's appearance to hide their identity, Keyhole Crabbe could get into any building or safe, etc.

Mrs. Pargeter is also using her husband's contacts to locate the father of Kirstie, her gardener, who hasn't seen her father since he disappeared on her ninth birthday. As that investigation deepens, Kirstie's father seems to figure into the patio investigation. The police investigation is taking forever, but Mrs. Pargeter and her crew independently discover whose body was deposited under her patio as it was being built, why he was murdered, and the scope of a whole related web of the underworld. Mrs. Pargeter is hoping against hope that Kirstie's father is still alive and that he wasn't the murderer.

This story is light, quick, and humorous in its droll way.

Devil's Food

Devil's Food by Kerry Greenwood (2006) 238 pages

Corinna Chapman is a former accountant turned baker. Her weekday life revolves around waking up at 4 am to make bread for restaurants and for her shop. She employs Jason, a former drug addict, as her very capable baking assistant, as well as Kylie and Goss, two wanna-be actresses who man the register in the bakery shop. Everything goes south when both Kylie and Goss get quite sick, and then Corinna's flower-child mother shows up, demanding Corinna help her find Corinna's father, who left the commune they lived in. Corinna would love to find her father, if it will mean that her mother will go away!

It's all hands on deck as several of the very eccentric residents of the apartment building, as well as Corinna's lover Daniel, work to help stabilize the girls' health and to figure out where Corinna's father went. They go into some scary neighborhoods and always seem to be a step behind. When some creepy monastic dudes show up at the bakery, demanding Corinna make an unpalatable bread, using their own recipe, that just adds to the weirdness.

Turtles All the Way Down

 Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, 286 pages.

This book centers on Aza Holmes, a teenager struggling with OCD and anxiety. Aza's life gets more exciting when local Indianapolis billionaire Russel Pickett disappears in an attempt to evade arrest and a huge reward is offered for information that would lead to his arrest. So Aza and best-friend Daisy Ramirez go seeking the reward, which leads them to Davis, the missing billionaire's son and Aza's old friend from "sad camp" a summer camp for kid's with dead parents. Despite that plot, this book is really less a mystery and more an exploration of Aza's relationships with her friends and herself.  

I find it a little hard to rate this book. I thought it was good and interesting, but I had a hard time finishing it. We spend a whole lot of time in Aza's head, and it is not a very comfortable place to be. That being said, I found this book extremely honest and it is very obvious that Green is writing about problems that he personally deals with. All-in-all I would call this a worthwhile read, but be prepared for something heavy.

The Library at Mount Char

 

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins  390 pp.

Years ago a mysterious catastrophe destroys a town and it's people with the exception of twelve children. Those twelve are "adopted" by a man they refer to as father, who seems to be an all-powerful god-like being. The children are raised in what they call "The Library" where each is assigned and restricted to a "catalogue" of knowledge to learn. It is possible Father did this to ensure that no single one of them would gain the power to overthrow him. Or was it to make them an unstoppable force when they work together. When he disappears the children band together to find him, or find out what happened to him. However, some of them have their own agendas and are working to gain more power for themselves. Carolyn, who has learned to speak and understand all languages has the most useful intellectual power. Her "brother" David is also powerful because his catalogue was violence and he is ruthless and unremorseful in how he uses it. The rest of the twelve have healing, mathematical, animal communication, and other skills. The plot is intriguing and different, if violent. (I lost count of the dead bodies early on.) In spite of the bloody parts I enjoyed the story.

The Sun Down Motel

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James, 327 pages

In 1982, Viv Delaney went missing after a few months working the night shift at a seedy motel in Fell, New York. Thirty-five years later, her niece Carly drops out of college and travels to Fell to see if she can figure out what became of the aunt she never met. Soon, Carly is living in Viv's old apartment, working the same shift at the same seedy hotel, and scouring the newspaper archives at the Fell library, hoping that something will reveal itself to her that investigators never uncovered. But as empty as the motel is, its ghostly residents may be the key to Viv's disappearance.

I'll admit that as I read this book I kept waiting for it to go either full Shining or full Scooby Doo. Thankfully, it did neither. It was a creepy, ghost-tinged thriller with an unexpected ending.

The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (2014) 373 pages

In this tenth book in the Inspector Gamache series, Armand Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, have retired and moved to Three Pines, a small village in Canada, an hour or two outside Montreal. Gamache is still fighting the demons that led to his retirement, both physical and mental.

A year prior to the events in this story, Clara, an artist who was finally recognized for her work at age 50, sent away her husband, Peter. It was apparent that Peter was jealous of his wife's newfound success. They had agreed that he would return in exactly one year and they would meet and decide if they still had a future together. However, it's now a year later and he has not shown up. Clara finally asks Gamache to help her find Peter. Gamache and his former second-in-commend, Beauvoir, work together to find the pieces of Peter's journey over the past year, and with Clara making the decisions, they set out to find him, traveling up the St. Lawrence River via car, airplane and boat. Clara does not know if her relationship with Peter can be saved, but she feels that she will know when she sees him. As they close in on finding him, they begin to realize that there has been a crime and the journey takes on urgency.

As always, Penny develops her characters fully; I feel as if I know these people. The dialogue is true, and the meshing of the people–and sometimes the annoyances they have with each other–are real.

The Missing Madonna

The Missing Madonna by Sister Carol Anne O'Marie (1988) 258 pages

In this installment of the Sister Mary Helen mystery series, Sister Mary Helen and her dear sidekick, Sister Eileen, neglect their college duties somewhat as they search for a missing friend, Erma. Erma, a member of their OWL group (Older Women's League) has disappeared shortly after returning from a trip to New York. Her friends know she had been having some financial trouble. Erma hasn't spoken to anyone directly except her landlord/employer, Al Finn, a guy who is adept at zigzagging his few remaining hairs across his head. Finn says Erma traveled to St Louis to get away from her adult children and to visit a relative, but that relative hasn't heard from Erma. Several members of the OWLs gather, searching for clues along with Erma's rather depressed, dependent daughter. Erma's sons aren't very helpful in the search; the older son, a leather-clad motorcyclist, is most likely to pick fights with the others. The younger son is an artist who seems to be using a lot of pot.

Sister Mary Helen really wants to get her friend, homicide detective Kate Murphy involved in the case, but Kate redirects her to the Ron Honore, a Kojak-like officer in the missing persons department.

The books in this series provide a fast read if you like getting a touch of Catholicism along with your mystery.