Hi everyone, here are our recommended reads for the week!
*More information on the three catalogs and available formats is found at the end of the list of recommended reads*
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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are published on Wednesday.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, January 3, 2024.
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We’re on week three of our light look at some of the best books published in 2023; so many, many good mysteries and never enough time to read them all!
Here is the reading schedule for the balance of December & the first reading week in January 2024:
December 13: A selection of the best fiction books of 2023, part 1 (12 titles)
December 20: A selection of the best fiction books of 2023, part 2 (12 titles)
December 22: Science Fiction & Fantasy Titles (12 titles)
December 27: A selection of the best mysteries of 2023 (12 titles)
January 3: A selection of the best non-fiction books of 2023 (12 titles)
And if you wish to do a deep dive into the best of 2023 reading lists – I’ve included reference links at the end of this post.
And without further ado, here is our list of a baker’s twelve mysteries; actually there are twenty titles; as selecting just a dozen was too hard – all of them are great mysteries and among the best mysteries of 2023!
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‘All The Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham
Isabelle Drake desperately hopes to mobilize the true-crime community’s armchair detectives to find her son, Mason, who was abducted from his bedroom a year earlier. Ignoring the protests of her estranged husband, Ben, and the case’s lead detective, Isabelle speaks at CrimeCon, confiding her horror at finding Mason’s crib empty the morning he disappeared. Online detectives label Isabelle as either pitiable or plain evil: How could someone have taken Mason from the house without the dog barking? Also, doesn’t Mason’s disappearance cast suspicion on the early deaths of Ben’s first wife and Isabelle’s younger sister? The doubters don’t know that Isabelle, formerly a deep sleepwalker, has suffered untreatable insomnia since Mason vanished or that she’s obsessively tending an evidence board on her dining-room wall. Podcast host Waylon Spencer, also a crime victim, offers to investigate Mason’s disappearance, and Isabelle exposes herself even further. But Waylon has hidden motives, and when she catches him lying, Isabelle realizes that she’s been in denial about Mason’s disappearance all along. True crime’s trending appeal and Willingham’s mastery of the domestic mystery (A Flicker in the Dark, 2022) promise popularity for this one: fans of Lisa Gardner’s Frankie Elkin series will be drawn to the risky amateur-detective elements, and those who crave resolution will appreciate that Willingham tucks the story’s ends in tight. – Starred Booklist Review
(Goodreads)
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All The Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby
Cosby follows Razorblade Tears (2021) with a tale that begins in tragedy in a Virginia town when a former student guns down a popular schoolteacher and then is shot to death by sheriff’s deputies. The sheriff, former FBI agent Titus Crown, faces a firestorm of publicity and a community demanding answers. It’s a racially charged situation. The victim was Black, the deputies are white, but Crown, the community’s first Black sheriff, does his damnedest to put race aside and concentrate on the central issue. Why did this young man kill his teacher? What he discovers in his search for the truth is downright chilling, and then there are his own secrets to deal with. Again Cosby’s literary skills are exceptional. His characters feel so real, his dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the story, which delves into the town’s grim past, a local church, and a far-right-wing group’s plan for celebrating the Confederacy, is of such moral complexity it wholly commands the reader’s close attention. This is a crime novel to savor and ponder.
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Cosby’s stature and audience grows exponentially with each book, and his latest is as topical as crime fiction gets. – Starred Booklist Review
(NPR & Time Magazine)
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Beware The Woman by Meghan Abbott
In this spine-tingling suspense yarn from Edgar Award winner Abbott (The Turnout), pregnant second grade teacher Jacy learns there’s plenty she still doesn’t know about her taciturn artist husband Jed or the family he rarely mentions—maybe a dangerous amount. The action unfolds during the couple’s summer road trip from New York City to visit Jed’s father, a retired physician, at his cottage on Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula. At first, Jacy feels transported by the surroundings and her father-in-law’s near-courtly solicitousness. (His brusque caretaker, Mrs. Brandt, is a different story.) But things shift when Jacy has a miscarriage scare and, in the aftermath, Jed aligns with his father’s alarmingly old-school notions about women and pregnancy. Rightly or wrongly, Jacy starts to feel like a prisoner. Manipulating the sense of menace like a virtuoso violinist, Abbott expertly foreshadows the wrenching family secrets that are exposed in a ferocious finale. Sinewy prose and note-perfect pacing make this a masterful and provocative deep dive into desire, love, and gender politics. Readers will be left breathless. – Publishers Weekly
(LitHub & NPR)
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Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
In this stunning serial killer thriller, bestseller Knoll (Luckiest Girl Alive) uses echoes of Ted Bundy’s real-life crimes to underline potent themes of misogyny and survivor’s guilt. In January 1978, Florida State University student Pamela Schumacher becomes the sole witness when a killer invades her sorority house, murdering two of her friends and disfiguring two others. The killings bring Pamela into contact with Tina Cannon, who’s convinced the same man murdered her friend Ruth Wachowsky four years earlier in Seattle. Together, Pamela and Tina spend decades digging up evidence that might link the crimes and find justice for their slain friends. Knoll seamlessly moves from the night of the murders and their immediate aftermath to 2021, when the man eventually dubbed the All-American Sex Killer faces his final trial. Without delving into prurient clichés, she excavates the emotional toll the murders take on Pamela and Tina, credibly tracing the ways such traumas can shape entire lives. By focusing on the women affected by her Ted Bundy stand-in instead of the nuances of his criminal psychology, Knoll movingly reframes an American obsession without stripping it of its intrigue. The results are masterful. – Starred Publishers Weekly
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Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lilly
In this excellent series launch from Lillie (For the Best), Cherokee archaeologist Syd Walker investigates the disappearances of several Native American women. Syd works for the Rhode Island branch of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency hoping to rehabilitate its image and establish trust with Indigenous communities despite its original mission to “exterminate Native people, culture, and ways of life.” When Syd’s old BIA ID badge from a college internship is found inside a skull on BIA-managed land near her Oklahoma hometown, dark memories resurface: 15 years earlier, two men wearing devil masks killed Syd’s best friend, Luna Myers, and Luna’s family. Syd narrowly escaped the tragedy. Guilt-ridden and haunted by Luna’s ghost, who regularly speaks to her, Syd hasn’t returned home since. The badge discovery draws her back, and upon her return, Syd learns that her sister Emma Lou, an opiate addict, has vanished, one of many Indigenous women to have recently disappeared from the area. Reassigned to the Oklahoma branch of the BIA by her boss, Syd begins to investigate the women’s disappearances, hoping her inquiry might finally bring her face-to-face with Luna’s killer. Lillie does an excellent job of balancing a riveting plot with a moving portrait of her troubled lead. Charles Todd fans will want to check this out. – Publishers Weekly Review
(Washington Post)
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Code of the Hills by Chris Offutt
Excellent Kentucky noir–Offutt’s third Mick Hardin novel is the best yet. Mick, a veteran Army investigator, has finally mustered out after 20 years of service, and he’s headed home to Rocksalt for a quick last look and goodbye before he retires (or exiles himself) to Corsica. Just as he arrives home, though, a body is discovered–a crusty old race-car mechanic has been killed, and Mick’s sister, Linda, the sheriff, begins investigating. Mick agrees to help her deputy, Johnny Boy, with a tricky eviction order–a father is trying to boot his son and the son’s wife from the deluxe chicken house in which they’ve been squatting–and before long the two lawmen have found not only a link to the mechanic’s murder, but a second corpse. Immediately thereafter, Linda gets into harm’s way…and with her out of action, Mick is sucked back into investigative work and given a field promotion to temporary deputy. What ensues involves cockfighting, rattlesnake-milking, a perilous trip to Detroit (and to “Ypsitucky” beyond it), and in the end Mick once again has to negotiate both the code of the hills (a reference in this case to the tradition of honor- or vengeance-killing) and the murky and tangled ethics that come into play when a law enforcer values justice above the letter of the law. Offutt once again beautifully captures both the roughness and the generosity of the inhabitants of Rocksalt, both the menace and the beauty of the eastern Kentucky landscape. The dialogue is a highlight, consistently sharp, quick, and funny; in that, Offutt is rapidly becoming a rural-noir rival to greats like Elmore Leonard. Another love letter to Appalachia with a high body count. Another bloody delight. – Stared Kirkus Review
(Kirkus Review)
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The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen
Pylväinen’s captivating latest (after We Sinners) follows the inhabitants of a tiny Swedish village in the Arctic Circle in 1852 as a pastor’s popularity begins to take off. Lars Laestadius’s church had been filling with Finns, Swedes, and native Sami who were drawn in by his wild sermons. Then, one day, Biettar Rasti, a former Sami shaman and prominent reindeer herder who’s now a drunk, interrupts a service with his own awakening on the church floor, which coincides with an earthquake. He leaves his herd to his son Ivvar and frequents the parsonage to learn scripture from Lars’s family, and Lars’s daughter Willa takes a shine to Ivvar. Ivvar, like his father, drinks and is indebted to the village storekeeper whose collection he avoids. Ivvar breaks things off with a Sami girl and begins spending time with Willa, and when Lars catches them kissing, she is shunned. Soon Willa sets off on sledges and takes refuge with the Sami, who along with Ivvar, are moving with their herds to the sea. By the end, a dean’s intervention into Lars’s temperance teachings and attempts to collect debts from the Sami culminate in tragic violence. With immersive details of Bible thumping and reindeer herding, the author evocatively captures two cultures and shows what happens when Christian mores collide with the customs of the remote Sami. This is transcendent.
(National Book Award Finalist & NPR)
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The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino
Tokyo police detective Kyoichiro Kaga discovers an unsettling personal connection to a tricky murder case in the brilliantly twisty fourth entry in Higashino’s series (after 2022’s A Death in Tokyo). Kaga’s cousin, Shuhei Matsumiya, a detective with a separate division of the Tokyo police, suspects that two strangulation murders may be linked, despite no evidence of a connection between the victims. In the first, an unidentified homeless man was believed to have perished in a fire until an autopsy revealed smoke-free lungs and strangulation marks on his neck. A few weeks later, cleaning contractor Michiko Oshitani’s decomposing remains are discovered in a spartan Tokyo apartment hundreds of miles from her home with apparent strangulation marks around her neck. Though the crimes are outside Kaga’s jurisdiction, Matsumiya seeks his cousin’s advice. Soon afterward, Matsumiya’s colleagues discover a calendar in the apartment where Oshitani died with phrases that hearken back to the death of Kaga’s mother more than a decade ago. She’d left Kaga’s father long before that to pursue another man, and among her effects was a note with the same phrases as the calendar, and in the same handwriting. Higashino metes out the plot’s surprises slowly, prioritizing Kaga’s emotional response to the investigation. This poignant fair-play whodunit is sure to thrill fans of golden age detective fiction. – Publishers Weekly Review
(NYT)
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Glory Be by Danielle Arceneaux
Arceneaux’s delightful debut cozy introduces Glory Broussard of Lafayette, La., a self-described “old, fat, black woman” whose weeks revolve around churchgoing and her gig as a small-time bookie. One Sunday, while she’s crunching numbers at her usual table in CC’s Coffeehouse, Glory strikes up a conversation with police officer Beau Landry, whom she used to babysit. Partway through their chat, he’s called to a crime scene at the home of Amity Gay, an activist nun and Glory’s best friend. Glory insists on coming along, and when they arrive, the pair finds Amity strangled by her habit—one end is knotted around her neck, the other tied to a doorknob. The police are quick to declare it a suicide, but Glory’s not convinced. Determined to find justice, she employs the help of her daughter, Delphine, a high-powered New York City lawyer, and launches an investigation that takes them through Lafayette’s elite circles in search of answers. Arceneaux successfully avoids a mountain of cozy clichés—no bookshops, baked goods, or love interest for Glory—and works potent critiques of Southern racism into her well-oiled plot. Readers will be eager to spend more time with Glory in future installments. – Publishers Weekly Review
(Washington Post)
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Invisible Son by Kim Johnson
In February 2020, after spending two months in a juvenile correction facility for a crime he didn’t commit, 17-year-old Andre Jackson is finally on his way home. His probation officer insists that Dre has been given a new lease on life, but Dre is worried about what his grandparents will think of him upon his return to the family’s rapidly gentrifying corner of Portland, Ore. Still, Dre is determined to clean up his reputation, which involves confronting his best friend Eric Whitaker, who allowed Dre to take the fall for Eric’s crime. He quickly learns that Eric is missing, and Eric’s sister Sierra—Dre’s first love—doesn’t understand why no one, not even their white adoptive parents, is looking for him. As Dre embarks on his own investigation, societal conflicts—including Covid and protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd—and Sierra’s parents’ increasingly suspect behavior, complicate matters. Smooth pacing and anticipatory tension imbue this hard-hitting mystery with a chilling atmosphere. Via Dre’s contemplative voice and a timely setting, Johnson (This Is My America) balances intrigue with socially conscious ruminations on systemic and environmental racism, and the power in reclaiming one’s narrative. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review
(NPR)
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A Line In The Sand by Kevin Powers
A taut thriller linking war crimes, politics, and police work. Powers returns to the subject of war and its collateral damage that he first studied in The Yellow Birds (2012), an acclaimed debut published after his own Army service in Iraq. A Shout in the Ruins (2018) followed fallout from the Civil War and slavery. In the new book, the pivotal character is Arman Bajalan, a refugee from Iraq living in the U.S., who worked as an interpreter for the American military in Mosul in 2004. He finds a dead man in a suit lying on a Norfolk, Virginia, beach. He carries no ID, and the labels are missing from his clothes. The police team is led by the oddly named Det. Catherine Wheel. A second narrative line concerns journalist Sally Ewell, whose brother was killed in Iraq and whose current reporting centers on Decision Tree, a private military contractor on the verge of a $2 billion government deal if it can get past a congressional investigation of its roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two narratives intersect through Bajalan, who filmed a massacre of unarmed Iraqi university students by Decision Tree operatives. A week later an assassination attempt killed Bajalan’s wife and child and had him seeking a U.S. immigrant visa. It soon becomes clear that he’s still a target. Powers has a strong female character in Det. Wheel–a cool professional mercifully free of the dire flaws with which thriller writers tend to baste their lead cops. A couple of older civilians familiar with guns come in handy when the mercenaries visit. Powers has a clearly negative message about military contractors and the business of war, starting with the epigraph (“War is a racket…”), but there’s a moral ambivalence to the novel’s resolution that should spark debate. Masterful in its structure and pacing; a great read. – Starred Kirkus Review
(Kirkus Review)
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The Lost Americans by Christopher Bollen
After Cate Castle’s brother, Eric, plunges from his hotel balcony, Cairo’s police cite the testimony of Eric’s erratic behavior given by his fellow weapons contractors to justify their suicide ruling. Unconvinced, and perhaps guilt-stricken by their strained relationship, Cate arranges a second autopsy in the U.S., which finds solid evidence of murder. Eric’s employer, Polestar, responds with a huge settlement that’s contingent on the Castles’ silence and backed by an unmistakable threat to destroy Eric’s reputation. Uncowed, Cate flies to Cairo to investigate Polestar’s culpability, drawing Omar, the nephew of an acquaintance, into her dangerous quest. For Omar, this may be the risk that breaks the camel’s back: he’s already hiding his sexual identity to avoid President Sisi’s brutal morality sweeps. A bold plot twist bolsters the story’s gritty realism, revealing that the villainy behind Eric’s death shields a lot of human complexity. Bollen, known for setting thrillers in alluring locales, skillfully captures Cairo’s beauty and palpable tension, and Cate and Omar’s courage in facing hard truths gives this memorable thriller extra frisson. – Booklist Review
(Kirkus Review)
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Murder Crossed Her Mind by Stephen Spotswood
The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • The latest action-packed installment in the Nero Award–winning Pentecost & Parker Mystery series follows Lillian and Will tracking the suspicious disappearance of a woman who might have known too much. From the author of Fortune Favors the Dead and Murder Under Her Skin.
Vera Bodine, an elderly shut-in with an exceptional memory, has gone missing and famed detective Lillian Pentecost and her crackerjack assistant Willowjean “Will” Parker have been hired to track her down. But the New York City of 1947 can be a dangerous place, and there’s no shortage of people who might like to get ahold of what’s in Bodine’s head.
Does her disappearance have to do with the high-profile law firm whose secrets she still keeps; the violent murder of a young woman, with which Bodine had lately become obsessed; or is it the work she did with the FBI hunting Nazi spies intent on wartime sabotage? Any and all are on the suspect list, including their client, Forest Whitsun, hotshot defense attorney and no friend to Pentecost and Parker.
The clock is ticking to get Bodine back alive, but circumstances conspire to pull both investigators away from the case. Will is hot on the trail of a stickup team who are using her name—and maybe her gun—for their own ends. While Lillian again finds herself up against murder-obsessed millionaire Jessup Quincannon, who has discovered a secret from her past—something he plans to use to either rein the great detective in . . . or destroy her.
To solve this mystery, and defeat their own personal demons, the pair will have to go nose-to-nose with murderous gangsters, make deals with conniving federal agents, confront Nazi spies, and bend their own ethical rules to the point of breaking. Before time runs out for everyone. – Publisher Description
(NYT)
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My Murder by Katie Williams
In the near-future of this speculative story, Louise is still acclimating to her new life. She is one of five women who were murdered by a serial killer and brought back to life as a clone. She is in a similar body, although less physically scarred, and has all the memories of her previous life except for the murder and a short time before it. Louise attends weekly support group sessions with the other murder victims and tries to be a good wife and mother to her baby. She’s also back at her job, offering virtual reality therapy. When she has the opportunity to meet with her murderer, however, she learns more than expected, and it sends her reeling and questioning the life she was starting to settle into. Williams’s (Tell the Machine Goodnight) writing is delightfully quirky, clever, and often breathtakingly observant as she chronicles Louise’s past and present through her clone, who has to try to fit into a life that she mostly remembers but didn’t physically live through.
VERDICT Combining elements of dystopian fiction, psychological suspense, and mystery, this is a wonderfully incisive and intriguing novel that defies genres and invites contemplation. Perfect for book groups. – Library Journal Review
(LitHub, NPR & NYPL)
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Night Will Find You by Julia Heaberlin
A psychic astrophysicist returns to her Texas hometown to heal old family wounds and help the police solve a cold case. When Vivian Bouchet returns home to Fort Worth to bury her mother, she gets pulled back into old relationships, agreeing to help her policeman friend Mike, with whom she was once in love, with some cold cases. In addition to having a Ph.D. in astrophysics and conducting research into extraterrestrial life based on a “glimpse of artificial light” from deep space, Vivvy has psychic visions, possibly inherited from her mother, who hung her shingle as a psychic for years and was infamous for discovering a dead body buried in the yard of their rental house when Vivvy was just a girl. Mike gives her the file on a famous missing person case, that of 3-year-old Lizzie Solomon, who disappeared nearly 11 years earlier. Lizzie’s mother is serving time for her daughter’s murder though the girl’s body was never found. Mike isn’t the only one who’s interested in the case and in what Vivvy might be able to glean from old photos or Lizzie’s hair clip; Jesse Sharp, a skeptical, magnetic detective, is soon following her all over town, maybe to intimidate her into “confessing” that she’s a con artist, maybe to protect her from the fallout when a local conspiracy theorist gets her in his sights. Vivvy’s not sure, but she can’t deny the attraction between them even as she knows Jesse has secrets related to another case. Heaberlin’s evocation of the dusty, insular Texas town is the perfect backdrop, and both Jesse and Vivvy are appealingly prickly characters with believable sexual tension. Vivvy’s role as a scientist sets her apart from many fictional psychics and makes her a formidable heroine–there are rational layers to this supernatural thriller. Mysterious, sexy, and smart. – Kirkus Review
(Kirkus Review)
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The River We Remember by William Kent Kreuger
In 1958, a small Minnesota town is rocked by a shocking murder, pouring fresh fuel on old grievances in this dazzling novel, an instant New York Times bestseller and “a work of art” (The Denver Post).
On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past.
Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn’s death threatens to expose.
Both a complex, spellbinding mystery and a masterful portrait of mid-century American life that is “a novel to cherish” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), The River We Remember offers an unflinching look at the wounds left by the wars we fight abroad and at home, a moving exploration of the ways in which we seek to heal, and a testament to the enduring power of the stories we tell about the places we call home.
(B&N)
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The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
Hailed as a twenty-first-century Le Carré, Herron is a master at portraying the dark, disturbing world of espionage. His latest thriller begins with a violent confrontation at the home of retired spy Max, who’s determined to find out who’s after him and why. His quest leads him deep into the past but also reveals a bleak future for British intelligence, dubbed “the Park.” A panel is convened by the government to uncover suspected corruption in the Park; but the panel is a sham, and the government has already decided the Park’s future. Then former spy, Alison North, steps forward, promising to reveal secrets with frightening implications for British espionage. In the 1990s, North was a newbie agent sent to Berlin to check that expense claims were being appropriately filed, but her real mission was to discover what Miles, a British agent who operated in East Berlin prereunification, was up to. Decades later, Alison is still suffering the aftereffects of her experience but also still working for the intelligence services and determined to uncover the shocking truth she only partly discovered in Berlin. Gripping, cryptic, tragic, and suspenseful, this must-read will keep readers riveted from first page to last. – Starred Booklist Review
(NPR)
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The Stolen Coast by Dwyer Murphy
Jack has an unusual job. He helps people who are on the run find safe havens. It’s not strictly a legal occupation, but it pays pretty well, and it’s interesting work. Jack didn’t think he was in need of an extra jolt of excitement in his life, but when an ex-girlfriend shows up after several years with a plan to steal a fortune in diamonds, he thinks, well, why not? Murphy’s second book, following his well-received debut, An Honest Living (2022), is a terrific heist novel. The author, editor-in-chief of the popular website CrimeReads, nails all aspects of the genre, from the intriguing characters to the complicated plan, the twists and turns and reversals, and a lean, mean writing style. Some caper novels feel by-the-numbers, as though the writer had a list of boxes to check but no real enthusiasm for the material. Murphy obviously loves what he’s writing about, which means we love reading him. For fans of heist and caper stories, this one’s a must-read. – Booklist Review
(LitHub & NPR)
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The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard
From award-winning, internationally bestselling crime writer Catherine Ryan Howard comes The Trap: an unsettling mystery inspired by a series of still-unsolved disappearances in Ireland in the nineties, wherein one young woman risks everything to catch a faceless killer.
One year ago, Lucy’s sister, Nicki, left to meet friends at a pub in Dublin and never came home. The third Irish woman to vanish inexplicably in as many years, the agony of not knowing what happened that night has turned Lucy’s life into a waking nightmare. So, she’s going to take matters into her own hands.
Angela works as a civilian paper-pusher in the Missing Persons Unit, but wants nothing more than to be a fully fledged member of An Garda Síochána, the Irish police force. With the official investigation into the missing women stalled, she begins pulling on a thread that could break the case wide open—and destroy her chances of ever joining the force.
A nameless man drives through the night, his latest victim in the back seat. He’s going to tell her everything, from the beginning. And soon, she’ll realize: what you don’t know can hurt you …
(NYPL)
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Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Death shouldn’t be funny or sweet or heartwarming, except maybe in a new cozy series starring Vera Wong, the widowed owner of San Francisco Chinatown’s rather decrepit Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse. That titular typo is actually intentional, meant to suggest “a very famous person, even white people know her name.” At 60, Vera’s settled into specific routines: up at 4:30 am (“late mornings are only for toddlers and Europeans”), wash, walk, text her silent son, home, cold shower, breakfast, open shop downstairs, wait for (her very few) customers. Disruption arrives one morning when she discovers a corpse on the floor. The police arrive, refuse her amazing tea, barely investigate, and leave. Vera knows she’s looking at foul play, no matter what the authorities insist. Of course, she’ll solve the case by gathering (and feeding) the most likely suspects–an alleged reporter, a supposed podcaster, the dead man’s wife, and his twin brother. Vera’s next deadly installment hasn’t yet been officially announced, but the success of Sutanto’s best-selling Aunties series certainly points to more tales of murder.
(NYPL)
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Have questions or want to request a book?
Feel free to call the library! Our telephone number is 607-936-3713.
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Information on the three library catalogs
Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, Downloadable Audiobooks, digital magazines and a handful of streaming videos. The catalog, which allows one to download content to a PC, also has a companion app, Libby, which you can download to your mobile device; so you can enjoy eBooks and Downloadable Audiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/
The Hoopla Catalog features instant checkouts of eBooks, Downloadable Audiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV series. Patron check out limit is 6 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla App is available for Android or Apple devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org
Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.
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Format Note: Under each book title you’ll find a list of all the different formats that specific title is available in; including: Print Books, Large Print Books, CD Audiobooks, eBooks & Downloadable Audiobooks from the Digital Catalog (Libby app) and Hoopla eBooks & Hoopla Downloadable Audiobooks (Hoopla app).
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Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
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Reference Links (for December 2023 & January 5, 2024; Best of 2023 recommended reads posts!)
The 10 Best Books of 2023 [Review of The 10 Best Books of 2023] (2023, November 28) . The New York Times; The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/books/review/best-books-2023.html
The 10 best mystery novels of 2023. (2023, November 14). Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/11/14/best-mystery-novels-osman/
The 38 Best Books We Read in 2023. (2023, December 5). Literary Hub. https://lithub.com/the-38-best-books-we-read-in-2023/
The 100 Must-Read Books of 2023. (n.d.). Time. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://time.com/collection/must-read-books-2023/
Athitakis, M., Kelly, H., & Patrick, B. (2023, December 5). The 13 best novels (and 2 best short story collections) of 2023. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2023-12-05/best-books-fiction-2023-novels
Barnes & Noble (n.d.). Barnes & Noble Best Books of 2023. Barnes & Noble. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/books/awards/best-books-of-the-year
Becker, A. (2023, December 5). The Best Historical Fiction of 2023 [Review of The Best Historical Fiction of 2023]. The New York Times; The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/books/review/best-historical-fiction-books-2023.html
The Best Books of 2023. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-best-books-of-2023-180983339/
The Booker Prize 2023 | The Booker Prizes. (n.d.). Thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2023
Books We Love (2023). (n.d.). NPR. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://apps.npr.org/best-books/?year=2023#view=list&year=2023
Discover Books. (n.d.). Kirkus Reviews. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-lists/best-mysteries-and-thrillers-2023/#the-lost-americans
In a year of book bans, Maureen Corrigan’s top 10 affirm the joy of reading widely. (2023, December 6). NPR. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/06/1217368011/best-books-2023-what-to-read
National Book Awards 2023. (n.d.). National Book Foundation. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2023/
The New York Public Library: Best Books of 2023 | The New York Public Library. (n.d.). Www.nypl.org. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://www.nypl.org/spotlight/best-books-2023
Patchett, A., Beard, M., Myrie, C., Levy, D., Kilroy, C., O’Connell, M., Frankopan, P., Nolan, M., Enright, A., Morrison, B., Paterson, D., Li, Y., Ford, R., Heisey, M., Branigan, T., Grant, C., Thrall, N., Adegoke, Y., & Penman, I. (2023, December 3). The best books to give as presents this Christmas. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/03/the-best-books-to-give-as-presents-this-christmas
Riveting Reads. (n.d.). Library Journal. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://www.libraryjournal.com/page/best-books-2023
Some of the Best Books of the Year Are on Sale Right Now. (2023, March 7). Good Housekeeping. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g42122275/best-books-2023/
These are Science News’ favorite books of 2023. (2023, December 5). https://www.sciencenews.org/article/science-news-favorite-top-books-2023
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Weinman, S. (2023, December 1). 9 Mysteries — Some New, Some Old — You Won’t Be Able to Put Down. The New York Times.https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/books/review/mystery-books.html
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