Bookshelf Rave: The Best New Suspense & Mystery Books Of August 2022
Trade your beach read for the rush and thrill of this month’s best new suspense and mystery books.
Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor
When twelve-year-old Esther disappears on the way home from school in a small town in rural Australia, the community is thrown into a maelstrom of suspicion and grief. As Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels arrives in town during the hottest spring in decades and begins her investigation, Esther’s tenacious best friend, Ronnie, is determined to find Esther and bring her home.
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico.
Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull.
But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.
The Fishermen and the Dragon by Kirk Wallace Johnson
By the late 1970s, the fishermen of the Texas Gulf Coast were struggling. The bays that had sustained generations of shrimpers and crabbers before them were being poisoned by nearby petrochemical plants, oil spills, pesticides, and concrete. But as their nets came up light, the white shrimpers could only see one culprit: the small but growing number of newly resettled Vietnamese refugees who had recently started fishing.
The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell
Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago. In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller, The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell proves she is writing at the height of her powers with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.
Girls Without Tears by T. L. Finlay
A missing child, a distraught mother, and a killer on the loose set the stage for a brutal bloodbath in the Florida Everglades in this thrilling read, perfect for fans of Wendy Walker and Megan Goldin. When six-year-old Skye disappears from Everglades City, Noa is hesitant to return to her hometown to help with the search effort. Skye is the daughter of Noa’s ex, Zack, and Taylor, the girl he dumped her for. Going home also means facing the townspeople who have always misunderstood Noa’s medical condition, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, and dealing with more of their ignorant comments.
The Deal Goes Down by Larry Beinhart
Ex-private eye Tony Casella lives in the Catskill mountains, a lonely old tough guy whose body can no longer do what it once did. His wife and son are dead; his daughter barely talks to him; his bank is in the process of foreclosing on his home.But a chance encounter with a rich young woman on a train changes everything. He is hired to take care of her superrich, sexual predator husband. That job leads to others and he joins a small start-up whose mission is to save women from abusive marriages. Provided their spouses are in the top 0.01%. It’s a luxury service destined to make great profits.
Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
Daisy Darker was born with a broken heart. Now after years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in her crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. When the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. But at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…
