by Matt Lubbers-Moore
Hard to believe fall is almost upon us. Here in Michigan, the sun is going down earlier, the temperature is manageable again, and kids are back in school. I work for an academic library, and this time of year is so exciting for me. I love to see all of the fresh and eager faces making their way around campus and in the library. I am glad to know that the school has taken a hard line regarding vaccinations and testing and hoping that the worst of the Delta variant is soon to be behind us so that we can finally look forward to visiting with family and friends for all of the fall and winter holidays. Of course, the best part of the fall is snuggling up with an amazing mystery that keeps you guessing! So on with the books!!
Investigating Helen by Benna Bos
Out: Oct. 1, 2021
Dr. Helen Nims is hauled into the police station when her new girlfriend is found murdered. Terrified and confused, she finds comfort from a stranger. But, when that stranger turns out to be a crime reporter, Helen has to decide if she can be trusted or if confiding in the stunning podcaster will pull Helen deeper into suspicion. Agnes Coates loves reporting on true crime. But, it hits a little close to home when her first crush from high school is found dead in a bathtub. A gorgeous surgeon is tangled up in the police dragnet as they search for the killer, and Agnes must navigate her own feelings as she digs into the mystery and seeks out the truth.
Reprieve by James Hans Mattson
Out: Oct. 5, 2021
On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize—a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But, before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants. Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view: Kendra Brown, a teenager who’s been uprooted from her childhood home after the sudden loss of her father; Leonard Grandton, a desperate and impressionable hotel manager caught in a series of toxic entanglements; and Jaidee Charoensuk, a gay international student who came to the United States in a besotted search for his former English teacher. As each character’s journey unfurls and overlaps, deceit and misunderstandings fueled by obsession and prejudice are revealed, forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a horrifying catastrophe.
The Savage Kind by John Copenhaver
Out: Oct. 5, 2021
Philippa Watson, a good-natured yet troubled seventeen-year-old, has just moved to Washington, D.C. She’s lonely until she meets Judy Peabody, a brilliant and tempestuous classmate. The girls become unlikely friends and fashion themselves as intellectuals, drawing the notice of Christine Martins, their dazzling English teacher, who enthralls them with her passion for literature and her love of noir-ish detective fiction. When Philippa returns a novel Miss Martins has lent her, she interrupts a man grappling with her in the shadows. Frightened, Philippa flees, unsure who the man is or what she’s seen. Days later, her teacher returns to school altered: a dark shell of herself. On the heels of her teacher’s transformation, a classmate is found dead in the Anacostia River—murdered—the body stripped and defiled with a mysterious inscription. As the girls follow the clues and wrestle with newfound feelings toward each other, they suspect that the killer is closer to their circle than they imagined, and that the greatest threat they face may not be lurking in the halls at school, or in the city streets, but creeping out from a murderous impulse of their own.
I Hope You’re Listening by Tom Ryan
Out: Oct. 6, 2021
In her small town, seventeen-year-old Delia “Dee” Skinner is known as the girl who wasn’t taken. Ten years ago, she witnessed the abduction of her best friend, Sibby. And, though she told the police everything she remembered, it wasn’t enough. Sibby was never seen again. At night, Dee deals with her guilt by becoming someone else: The Seeker, the voice behind the popular true crime podcast Radio Silent, which features missing persons cases and works with online sleuths to solve them. Nobody knows Dee’s the Seeker, and she plans to keep it that way. When another little girl goes missing, and the case is linked to Sibby’s disappearance, Dee has a chance to get answers, with the help of her virtual detectives and the intriguing new girl at school. But how much is she willing to reveal about herself in order to uncover the truth? Dee’s about to find out what’s really at stake in unraveling the mystery of the little girls who vanished.
Bad Boys, Happy Home by Shoowa; illustrated by Hiromasa Okujima
Out: Oct. 12, 2021 Manga
Sometimes all it takes is a good fistfight to find true love! Akamatsu has problems at home, while Seven doesn’t even have a home. When these two strangers meet, fighting soothes their troubled souls, opening up room for something more. High school bad boy Akamatsu allows Seven, a homeless guy living in a nearby park, to crash at his place for a few months. But one day Seven kisses him! Things get awkward after that, until the night their relationship takes an unexpected turn.
Bury Me in Shadows by Greg Herren
Out: Oct. 12, 2021
After landing in the hospital after a bad breakup and an ensuing drug-and-alcohol binge, college student Jake Chapman is given two options: rehab or spend the summer at his dying grandmother’s decaying home in rural Alabama. The choice is obvious. His grandmother’s land has been in Jake’s family since the early nineteenth century; the ruins of the old plantation house are a short walk through the woods behind her home. An archaeological team is excavating the ruins, looking for evidence to prove an old family legend, and there’s a meth lab just over the ridge. Once Jake is there, he begins having strange experiences?flashes of memory, inexplicable emotions?that he can’t explain, and he keeps seeing something strange out in the woods. As he explores his family history, he uncovers some dark secrets someone, or something, is willing to kill to keep hidden.
Party and Prey by Steve Orlando and Steve Foxe; illustrated by Alex Sanchez
Out: Oct. 19, 2021 An Original Graphic Novel
Alan is an older gay man on the prowl for a young, thirty-ish hookup. He finds the perfect match in Scott, but when they go back to Alan’s sprawling estate, “Scott” suddenly turns on his older date. Turns out, Alan isn’t the picture-perfect sugar daddy, but a sociopath responsible for the disappearance of numerous young gay men. “Scott” isn’t really looking for a boyfriend, but revenge for a fallen friend…unfortunately for Scott, he may have underestimated Alan and when he finds one of Alan’s victims still alive, his mission swerves from one of revenge to a rescue.
The Last Blue Plate Special by Abigail Padgett
Out Oct. 19, 2021 Book Two of the Blue McCarron Mystery Series
When two prominent female politicians die in San Diego of cerebral hemorrhages within days of each other, social psychologist Blue McCarron knows that their deaths are a statistical impossibility?they simply cannot be from natural causes. Within hours, a female evangelist almost dies, and threats from a religious fanatic, illustrated with blue willow plates, tie the three victims together. Blue and her lover, Roxanne, a criminal psychiatrist, are hired by the police as consultants and trace the three women to a posh plastic surgery clinic. As Blue and Rox investigate the clinic, the killer turns his attention on Blue, a strong, nontraditional woman who offends his ultraconservative religious beliefs. When Blue finds a blue willow plate on the doorstep of her isolated desert home, she knows the hunt has become a deadly game and that the unknown killer has every advantage.
What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? by Candas Jane Dorsey
Out: Oct. 19, 2021 Book Two of the Epitome Apartments Mystery Series
A wise-cracking, grammar-obsessed, pansexual amateur sleuth is thrust into the world of the uber-rich when her enigmatic, now-famous childhood friend breezes back into her life begging for help with a dangerous stalker. Our nameless postmodern amateur sleuth is still recovering from her first dangerous foray into detective work when her old friend Priscilla Jane Gill breezes back into her life and begs for help. Pris, now a famous travel writer, fears she’s being stalked again after a nearly fatal attack by a deranged fan a year earlier. In Pris’s dizzying world of wealth and privilege, nameless meets dreamy but sinister tech billionaire Nathan and his equally unnerving sidekick Chiles. Pris’s stalker is murdered outside her book launch, and the shadow of obsession continues to stalk Pris. With no one she can totally trust, nameless knows she’s not going to like the answer, but she delves into her old friend’s past, seeking the mastermind behind Pris’s troubles before it’s too late. Bunnywit does his level best to warn them, but no one else speaks Cat, so background peril transforms into foreground betrayal and murder.
ReQueered Tales is also announcing its very first original novel by Felice Picano. Betrothal of Usk is out October 26, 2021!
With the end of the Galactic Matriarchy, Vir’ism has risen, centered on Hesperia, the City on a Star. But one leader, Mart Kell, is out of power, while another, the Great Father, Ay’r, is quietly retired. On a small resort planet with a rainbow of rings, Ay’r Eise’nstein-Kell, a sixteen-year-old boy, air skates across the sands, dreaming of escape to the famed City on a Star. When the rulers of the galaxy-wide republic and their glamorous entourages arrive on Usk to celebrate a great betrothal, Ay’r finds himself thrust into their midst but even deeper into dynastic schemes and power manipulations he cannot understand. Except when they are revealed to be perilous to his freedom and to his life. Abused and alone, he flees with few resources but knowledge into the unique dangers of The Great Salt Ocean of Usk. There, he will find all the adventure a boy could want. He’ll also discover the plight of the oppressed worker-species, the pamps, who have long awaited their Messiah, and he will discover who he really is: could Ay’r be The One? Meanwhile, Kri’nni, heiress to the defeated Bella-Arth empire, escapes her long bondage and plots her return. Holt, the youngest son of the Great Father, a playboy known as “The Cadet,” flees the media circus of his life for a mission into the heart of the galaxy in search of a new source of the Beryllium ore that makes galaxy-wide communication and travel possible. What else will he find to reinvigorate the new Ib’r society?
Editor’s note: This one isn’t a mystery but we couldn’t resist sharing it too!
Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Be sure to check out our new mystery podcast too with mystery short stories, and first chapters read by local actors. A new episode went up this week.
Click on this link to take you to Mysterious Galaxy’s website where you can purchase many of these books & a portion will go to help support KRL:
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