Black Humor: 6 Mystery & Thriller Where Satire Meets Comedy
From a book about an explosive new drug to old coworker obsessions to infiltrating a U.S. paranormal research project, these six novels will keep your pages turning, your mind racing, and have you laughing louder.
Arvy Keening is just trying to get through the week. Tantalizingly close to leaving her college years at Westheimer University behind, all she has to do is pass her finals, pack up her life, and ship off to San Francisco for a prestigious Big Pharma internship. The problem? Arvy just found 200 hits of Molly in her dead mother’s closet. And when two drug dealers come to collect what they are owed, they reveal that the pills are not Molly, but Mona–a rare pharmaceutical that induces intense orgasms. The dealers give Arvy an ultimatum: Sell 200 Monas in 48 hours or die.
To aid in her seemingly impossible quest, Arvy recruits Wolf, Westheimer’s resident drug dealer who also happens to be infuriatingly charming and distractingly sexy. In a race against the clock, Arvy and Wolf barrel through their college town, leaving a series of erotic shenanigans in their wake; appealing to horny co-eds, lonely barflies, and a mysterious sorority whose sisters have their own ideas for Mona’s potential uses. But if Mona has a knack for unleashing visceral reactions in the body, what will it unlock in Arvy, who has been repressing grief over her mother’s death for weeks?
Unashamedly brash, bold, and blistering, 200 Monas is a truly one-of-a-kind read, a playful and honest examination of sexuality and grief, and a sharp, searing love letter on how to release all that’s inside you.
If Ophelia Cohen learned one thing from her parents, it’s that getting married is a bad idea. But if she’s learning anything from her widowed mother’s dementia, it’s that dying alone is worse. So when she meets Luke–the man of her mother’s dreams–marriage suddenly doesn’t seem so crazy.
But none of Ophelia’s obsessive scrolling on wedding forums can prepare her for the nightmare of planning her own. Why is her mother-in-law going crazy over every detail? Why is Luke’s family so eager to host the wedding in their vineyard’s ancient chapel? And what exactly will Ophelia have to sacrifice if she and her mother both hope to survive her special day?
Shot through with wicked humor, pitch-black horror, and unexpected romance, Until Death is a deliciously dark and funny send-up of the wedding industrial complex–and a mother-daughter story unlike any you’ve read before.
“Recognizes the Gothic horror inherent to planning a wedding and creates from it a painfully incisive and genuinely haunting fever dream.” –Kay Chronister, author of The Bog Wife
“Completely unique, deeply unnerving, and deviously funny.” –Samantha Allen, author of Patricia Wants to Cuddle
“Grabbed me like a creeping vine and wouldn’t let go.” –Kerry Cullen, author of House of Beth
“Glistens with humor and horror. An electrifying and affecting debut.” –Samantha Hunt, author of The Seas
A young couple’s toxic Instagram crush spins out of control and unleashes a sinister creature in this twisted, viciously funny story.
“Um, holy shit … This novel will be the most fun you’ll have this summer.” –Emily Temple, Literary Hub
Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia’s entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart.
Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beachside paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, we find ourselves tumbling with Remy and Alicia into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?
Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.
“Bananas good.” –Carmen Maria Machado
A few years ago, David Alvarez had it all: a six-figure book deal, a loving boyfriend, and an exciting writing career. His debut novel was a resounding success, which made the publication of his second book–a total flop–all the more devastating. Now, David is single, lonely, and desperately trying to come up with the next great idea for his third manuscript, one that will redeem him in the eyes of readers, reviewers, the entire publishing world…and maybe even his ex-boyfriend.
But good ideas are hard to come by, and the mounting pressure of a near-empty bank account isn’t helping. When David connects with a sexy stranger on a dating app, he figures a wild night out in New York City may be just what he needs to find inspiration.
But after one of the best nights of his life, David wakes up hungover but giddy–only to find prince charming dead next to him in bed. Suddenly faced with the implausible idea that he may have actually killed his date, David calls the only person he can trust in a moment of crisis: his literary agent, Stacey.
Together, David and Stacey must untangle the events of the previous night, cover their tracks, and spin the entire misadventure into David’s career-defining novel–if only they can figure out what to do with the body first.
AN INDIE NEXT PICK AND A LIBRARYREADS SELECTION
A BuzzFeed Best Book of 2020
On November 9, 1989, Bernd Zeiger, a Stasi officer in the twilight of his career, is deteriorating from a mysterious illness. Alarmed by the disappearance of Lara, a young waitress at his regular café with whom he is obsessed, he chases a series of clues throughout Berlin. The details of Lara’s vanishing trigger flashbacks to his entanglement with Johannes Held, a physicist who, twenty-five years earlier, infiltrated an American research institute dedicated to weaponizing the paranormal.
Now, on the day the Berlin Wall falls and Zeiger’s mind begins to crumble, his past transgressions have come back to haunt him. Who is the real Lara, what happened to her, and what is her connection to these events? As the surveiller becomes the surveilled, the mystery is both solved and deepened, with unexpected consequences.
Set in the final, turbulent days of the Cold War, The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures blends the high-wire espionage of John le Carré with the brilliant absurdist humor of Milan Kundera to evoke the dehumanizing forces that turned neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend. Jennifer Hofmann’s debut is an affecting, layered investigation of conscience and country.
In this twisty, uproarious debut, a pop culture obsessive uses her reality TV expertise to investigate a suspicious disappearance aboard a yacht … while falling for a hot deckhand and avoiding confronting her best friend’s untimely passing–perfect for fans of The Wedding People and Traitors.
This is a story about a definitely dead girl, a possibly dead girl and a living dead girl. All aboard.
There are a lot of things that pop culture aficionado Melanie Hoffman is great at: rattling off storylines from The Real Housewives, reciting the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen filmography from memory, and quoting Gossip Girl like it’s The Godfather, to name a few. And then there are the things she’s not good at: maintaining a healthy work-life balance, sleeping (in general), and being a functioning adult who isn’t completely destroyed by the death of her best friend, Ari. Mel has accepted that nothing will ever fill the crater-sized hole that Ari’s absence has left behind, and the cork on her grief is stopped tight. But then her company requires Mel to take a mandatory vacation. Cue the explosion.
Desperate to avoid two weeks alone with her thoughts, Mel joins her friend Vish on a yacht trip in Greece chartered by his tech company. It’s the Below Deck fantasy of Mel’s dreams, with built-in quasi-celebrities to fixate on in the form of the posh co-founders of Vish’s company. Mel has done enough social media stalking to immediately typecast the fabulous yet fragile Freya, her arrogant boyfriend Seb, and the hardworking and humble Ollie. A luxurious yacht chockful of hot, rich Brits? Mel couldn’t dream up a better distraction from her sorrow.
But Mel’s dream quickly plunges into nightmarish waters when a sinister conversation overheard in the dead of night convinces Mel that Freya is in danger. And when Freya turns up missing the next morning, Mel immediately clocks what happened with the skill of a rabid true crime fan: Freya was murdered, and Seb is the prime suspect.
But Freya’s disappearance doesn’t rock the boat in the way Mel is expecting. In fact, no one else onboard seems to think anything’s fishy. Mel’s concern for Freya grows into obsession, and she becomes dead set on saving Freya’s life like she couldn’t save Ari’s.
With her time left on the yacht quickly dwindling, Mel must uncover what happened to Freya before going under herself.
