June 2021 Most-Anticipated Crime Books

June 6, 2021

Summer is almost here, and it’s bringing with it some incredible new crime fiction releases for us to devour! The coming months are jam-packed with amazing crime books, some of which I’ve been lucky enough to read already and others that are still on my personal TBR list. To help you plan your own reading lists, over the next few months I’ll be sharing monthly lists of my personal most-anticipated new crime fiction releases for that respective month. I can’t wait to share these books with you, and I hope they will catch your eye as much as they’ve caught mine! June 2021 kicks off the summer with new releases from bestselling and beloved crime writers Riley Sager and Alex Michaelides, and it also delivers chilling debuts, gripping psychological thrillers, and lots more—everything you need to build a perfect start-of-summer reading list. Read on for my picks for most-anticipated June 2021 crime fiction!

Book Review: I FOUND YOU by Lisa Jewell

June 5, 2021

No one writes page-turners quite like Lisa Jewell. One of my personal 2021 reading goals is to read my way through Jewell’s backlist suspense novels, and last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of devouring her 2018 thriller I FOUND YOU while on my first real vacation in over a year. If ever there were books built for vacation reading, Jewell’s thrillers are it. In I FOUND YOU, Lisa Jewell weaves an irresistible and immersive story of a group of seemingly unrelated individuals whose lives intersect in tragic and destructive ways. Centering around a quiet seaside town in England, where a woman has just found a man on the beach who has no idea who he is or how he got there, I FOUND YOU tells a hypnotic and atmospheric tale that will keep you glued to the pages from first to last. A cast of compelling characters and years’ worth of long-buried secrets just waiting to be uncovered make I FOUND YOU one of my new favorite Lisa Jewell reads. (Though, let’s be honest, any book by Lisa Jewell is pretty much guaranteed to be a must-read for fans of psychological suspense.)

Book Review: THE HUNTING WIVES by May Cobb

May 18, 2021

Summer reading just got a whole lot spicier. May Cobb’s deliciously juicy and wickedly entertaining THE HUNTING WIVES might just be the most gossip-worthy suspense novel of Summer 2021. Centering around an elite clique of wealthy housewives with secrets as big as their home state of Texas, THE HUNTING WIVES invites readers into an exclusive and glamorous world with a dark side. When Sophie relocates her family from Chicago to a small East Texas town, she hopes to give them the kind of peaceful, stable upbringing that was missing from her own childhood. But Sophie’s world is turned upside down when she meets charismatic and mysterious Margot, the ringleader of a group of local affluent housewives who call themselves “The Hunting Wives.” As Sophie falls under Margot’s spell, she is drawn into a dark and dangerous world of parties and hookups. And when someone close to the group turns up dead, and suspicion falls on Sophie, her world threatens to be destroyed forever. THE HUNTING WIVES is dripping with glamour and excess, a razor-sharp thriller about the complexity of female relationships wrapped up in an irresistible, reality-TV-worthy package. Fans of Desperate Housewives and Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies will relish this irresistible story of wealthy women behaving very badly, and the (maybe not-so-) innocent woman caught in their crosshairs.

Book Review: THE GIRL WHO DIED by Ragnar Jonasson

May 2, 2021

Icelandic crime writer Ragnar Jonasson has been a staple of Crime by the Book ever since I started this blog, and this coming week, Ragnar’s first-ever standalone novel will be published here in the US. THE GIRL WHO DIED is a significant departure for an author who has built an international brand on his classic-crime-inspired detective novels; now, in his newest release, Ragnar sets his sights on a story of psychological suspense that dabbles in the possibly-supernatural. In THE GIRL WHO DIED, readers follow a young woman who accepts a teaching position in a very remote Icelandic village, only to discover that she has unwittingly moved into a community that is even more insular and sinister than she could ever have imagined. Fans of Ragnar’s previous releases will recognize in his newest novel his elegant and subtle writing, and his masterful ability to paint a vivid picture of Iceland’s landscape and atmosphere; readers of Ragnar’s work both new and old will fall under the hypnotic spell of his most chilling story yet in THE GIRL WHO DIED. Though not a traditional Nordic Noir novel, THE GIRL WHO DIED nevertheless holds significant appeal for fans of the Scandinavian crime tradition, and will also appeal to readers who love suspense tinged with the supernatural, and crime stories set in small towns. Pick up THE GIRL WHO DIED for a brooding, slow-burning, haunting tale of suspense.

Book Review: HER THREE LIVES by Cate Holahan

April 18, 2021

Cate Holahan is one of my personal must-read, hidden gem suspense writers—an author I can always count on to deliver unique, cleverly-plotted, deliciously entertaining suspense stories. Whether exploring the world of a writer whose new novel begins to blur the lines between fact and fiction in Lies She Told, or taking readers on a luxurious vacation to a summer house where a murder is about to occur in One Little Secret, the books of Cate Holahan’s that I have read have delivered wholly unique and highly entertaining reading experiences. The same can also be said of Cate Holahan’s newest psychological thriller HER THREE LIVES, which will be published this coming Tuesday. In HER THREE LIVES, Holahan weaves a domestic suspense tale of distrust and manipulation. When Jade and Greg’s home is subject to a home invasion, their house isn’t the only thing shattered. Trust between the couple quickly erodes, as both Jade and Greg begin to suspect that their partner may have had something to do with this violent attack. Whose suspicions are correct, and who is to blame? HER THREE LIVES tells a paranoia-inducing tale that will keep readers on their toes until the book’s final pages. Pick this one up for an engrossing vacation (or staycation!) read this spring.

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