Mysteries & Thrillers We’re Reading This April
April is here and with it brings new, propulsive thrillers. We’ve lined up twelve of our most anticipated books to be published this month, including titles from some of our favorite crime authors to page-turning psychological suspense and a bit or horror.
A Black woman alone in a new city, Bree is stranded and out of her depth—especially when it becomes clear the dead woman is none other than Janelle Beckett, the missing woman the entire Internet has become obsessed with. There’s only one person Bree can turn to: her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past. As the police and a social media mob close in, all looking for #JusticeForJanelle, Bree realizes that the only way she can help Ty—or herself—is to figure out what really happened that last night.
But when people only see what they want to see, can she uncover the truth hiding in plain sight?
Desiree DuBose is a Black lawyer from Chicago who has devoted her life to furthering the causes of justice and equality for everyone. She comes to Freeman County and enters a fractious and unwieldy partnership with Lee in a legal battle against the best prosecutor in the Commonwealth. Yet DuBose is also aware that powerful outside forces are at work to blunt the victories achieved by the Civil Rights era.
Lee and DuBose could not be more dissimilar. On their own, neither one can stop the prosecution’s deliberate march towards a guilty verdict and the electric chair. But together, the pair fight for what once seemed impossible: a chance for a fair trial and true justice.
San Francisco is home to more than 200 privately owned streets. Most are alleyways, but a select few look torn straight from the pages of a magazine. Lined with mansions and elaborate gardens, the properties are luxurious and perfectly maintained; security guards patrol the grounds to keep the curious at bay. Few know of these exclusive enclaves, but those who do prowl for availability, ready to make a grab for the precious real estate if opportunity strikes.
When several such streets are targeted in a series of so-called pranks, Sharon is hired by a coalition of concerned owners to investigate. But as things escalate—an attempt on Sharon’s life, an explosion at a meth lab, and a shocking murder—Sharon realizes far more is at play than a few misdemeanors gone wrong.
The case takes a sudden turn when one of McCone & Ripinsky’s most trusted employees is implicated, and Sharon will have to dig deep to save her agency—and her life.
When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin’s fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was Caitlin actually pushed and if so, by whom and why?
Meghan lets herself get close to Caitlin until she’s deeply entangled in Caitlin’s and her family’s lives. Only when it’s too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims…
But fitting in takes work. The pampered locals distrust outsiders, snubbing Linda, Russell, and their teen twins. And the residents fervently adhere to a group of customs and beliefs called Hollow…but what exactly is Hollow?
It’s Linda who brokers acceptance, by volunteering her medical skills to the most influential people in town through their pet charity, ActHollow. In the months afterward, everything seems fine. Sure, Russell starts hyperventilating through a paper bag in the middle of the night, and the kids have become secretive, but living in Plymouth Valley is worth sacrificing their family’s closeness, isn’t it? At least they’ll survive. The trouble is, the locals never say what they think. They seem scared. And Hollow’s ominous culminating event, the Plymouth Valley Winter Festival, is coming.
Linda is warned by her husband and her powerful new friends to stop asking questions. But the more she learns, the more frightened she becomes. Should the Farmer-Bowens be fighting to stay, or fighting to get out?
Detective Barbara Atkins, a specialist in vampyr killings, is called in to officially determine if this is a Colony killing–and authorize a cull. Old suspicions die hard in a town like Deadhart, but Barbara isn’t so sure. Determined to find the truth, she enlists the help of a former Deadhart sheriff, Jenson Tucker, whose investigation into the previous murder almost cost him his life. Since then, Tucker has become a recluse. But he knows the Colony better than almost anyone.
As the pair delve into the town’s history, they uncover secrets darker than they could have imagined. And then another body is found. While the snow thickens and the nights grow longer, a killer stalks Deadhart, and two disparate communities circle each other for blood. Time is running out for Atkins and Tucker to find the truth: Are they hunting a bloodthirsty monster . . . or a twisted psychopath? And which is more dangerous?
Reporter Lee Ellerin’s investigation into a young woman’s unsolved murder gained national attention—only for her to lose everything due to a tragic mistake. After being publicly ridiculed for causing a suspect’s death, Lee is forced to leave her career behind.Five years later, pregnant college student Amanda Hartley lies in a coma. The police say she attempted suicide, but the details don’t add up. Where is the father? Who was paying for Amanda’s Manhattan penthouse? Why did Amanda have a note with Lee’s name in her backpack? There’s also one alarming coincidence: Amanda was last seen on Dune Road in the Hamptons–where the murder victim in Lee’s previous investigation disappeared.As she’s pulled back into the still-unsolved case that destroyed her career, Lee sees the chance to amend the mistakes of her past. But finding a killer and unearthing Amanda’s secrets sends her down a darker path than she has ever walked before.
A prominent art patron disappears, and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. Spiraling with self-doubt, she distances herself from her family and friends, only to wake up in a hotel room—naked, next to a lifeless body. The police have more questions, but with her mind increasingly fractured, Annie doesn’t have answers. All she knows is this: She will do anything to protect her daughter—even if it means losing herself.
In the ashes of the empire, she was reborn as Malinalli, an immortal vampire. And she has become an avenger of conquered peoples, traveling the world to reclaim their stolen artifacts and return them to their homelands.
But she has also been in search of something more, for this ancient vampire still has deeply human longings for pleasure and for love.
When she arrives in Dublin in search of a pair of Aztec skulls—artifacts intimately connected to her own dark history—she finds something else: two men who satisfy her cravings in very different ways.
For the first time she meets a mortal man—a horror novelist—who is not repelled by her strange condition but attracted by it. But there is also another man, an immortal like herself, who shares the darkness in her heart.
Now Malinalli is on the most perilous adventure of all: a journey into her own desires.
All that bestselling author Eleanor Dash wants is to get through her book tour in Italy and kill off her main character, Connor Smith, in the next in her Vacation Mysteries series—is that too much to ask?
Clearly, because when an attempt is made on the real Connor’s life—the handsome but infuriating con man she got mixed up with ten years ago and now can’t get out of her life—Eleanor’s enlisted to help solve the case.
Contending with literary competitors, rabid fans, a stalker—and even her ex, Oliver, who turns up unexpectedly—theories are bandied about, and rivalries, rifts, and broken hearts are revealed. But who’s really trying to get away with murder?
After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before.
While going through their parents’ belongings, the siblings stumble upon a collection of home videos and decide to revisit those happier memories. However, the nostalgia is cut short when one of the VHS tapes reveals a night back in 1999 that none of them have any recollection of. On screen, their father appears covered in blood. What follows is a dead body and a pact between their parents to get rid of it, before the video abruptly ends.Beth, Nicole, and Michael must now decide whether to leave the past in the past or uncover the dark secret their mother took to her grave.
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