If any of the titles garnered starred reviews in the four library journals, that is indicated after the plot summary of the title. Amazon does a good job of coming up with these monthly lists and especially its year-end best list.
Best bets for good reads (in my opinion) are FIVE BAD DEEDS by Caz Frear, HERE IN THE DARK by Alexis Soloski (Ted Hertel put it on his Best of the Year list), FROZEN RIVER by Ariel Lawhon (2 starred reviews), THE MYSTERY GUEST by recent Barry Award Winner Nita Prose, MURDER CROSSED HER MIND by Stephen Spotswood, THE MAYORS OF NEW YORK by S. J. Rozan (2 starred reviews) THE FINAL CURTAIN by Keigo Higashino and DAUGHTER OF ASHES by Ilaria Tuti (2 starred reviews)
Amazon doesn’t usually self-publicize on this list, but there are three amazon published novels on the December list. Thankfully there is only one horror novel – WHERE THE DEAD WAIT.
Disclaimer: this is not intended to advertise amazon.com or encourage you to buy books from that site. It is for information purposes only.
Amazon Editor’s Picks: Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense – Standalones–December, 2023
FIVE BAD DEEDS, Caz Frear (Harper, $30.00). Teacher, mother, wife, and all-around good citizen Ellen is juggling nonstop commitments, from raising a teen and two toddlers to job-hunting to finally renovating her dream home, the Meadowhouse. Amidst the chaos, an ominous note arrives in the mail, declaring: People have to learn there are consequences, Ellen.
And I’m going to teach you that lesson. Right under your nose.
Why would someone send her this? Ellen has no clue. She’s no angel—a white lie here, an occasional sharp tongue there—but nothing to incur the wrath of an anonymous enemy. She’d never intentionally hurt anyone. But intention doesn’t matter to someone. Someone blames this supposed “good person” for all the bad they’ve experienced. And maybe they have reason to? Publishers Weekly Starred Review
THE CURSE OF PENRYTH HALL, Jess Armstrong (Minotaur, $28.00). After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and house mate in Exeter. She’s always avoided dwelling on the past, even before the war, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she’d never return. A more sensible soul would have delivered the package and left without rehashing old wounds. But no one has ever accused Ruby of being sensible. Thus begins her visit to Penryth Hall. Library Journal Starred Review
HERE IN THE DARK, Alexis Soloski (Flatiron Books, $27.99). Vivian Parry likes the dark. A former actress, she now works as the junior theater critic at a major Manhattan magazine. Her nights are spent beyond the lights, in a reserved seat, giving herself over to the shows she loves. By day, she savages them, with words sharper than a knife. Angling for a promotion, she reluctantly agrees to an interview, a conversation that reveals secrets she thought she had long since buried. Then her interviewer disappears and she learns?from his devastated fiancée?that she was the last person to have seen him alive. When the police refuse to investigate, Vivian does what she promised herself she would never do again: she plays a part. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she turns her critical gaze toward an unsanitary private eye, a sketchy internet startup, a threatening financier, fake blood, and one very real corpse.
PERFECT LITTLE LIVES, Amber and Danielle Brown (Graydon House, $17.99). Simone’s mother was murdered when she was thirteen. When her father was convicted, everything changed. Overnight, Simone went from living in a wealthy white neighborhood to scraping by.
Ten years later, Simone has given up on her dreams and lives a quiet life, writing book reviews and getting serious with her boyfriend. But with a true crime documentarian hounding her for a scoop and a surprise encounter with her childhood next-door neighbor, Hunter, the past seems set on haunting her. And after Hunter reveals that his father and her mother had a years-long affair, Simone is determined to find out who really killed her mother. Simone is convinced that all evidence points to Hunter’s father, a renowned judge who had everything to lose if his affair—and his nascent love child—came to light.
WHERE THE DEAD WAIT, Ally Wilkes (Atria/Emily Bestler Books, $27.99). William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace. Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day’s chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens–—the man who’s haunted his whole life—back home. But when the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, Day must face up to the things he’s done. Abandonment. Betrayal. Cannibalism.
Aboard ship, Day must also contend with unwanted passengers: a reporter obsessively digging up the truth about the first expedition, as well as Stevens’s wife, a spirit-medium whose séances both fascinate and frighten. Publishers Weekly Starred Review
KIDS RUN THE SHOW, Delphine de Vigan and Alison Anderson (Europa Editions, $26.00). The first time that Mélanie met Clara, she was stunned by Clara’s sense of authority, and for her part, Clara was struck by Mélanie’s pink, glittery nails, which shimmered in the dark. “She looks like a child,” thought the first. “She looks like a doll,” pondered the second. These two women, both of the same generation and exposed to the same forms of media throughout their lives, could not be more different in adulthood. Mélanie is a social media superstar, broadcasting her children’s daily lives on a family YouTube channel. Clara is a young police officer, assigned to the case after Mélanie’s daughter Kimmy is abducted. Kirkus Starred Review
FOR THE LAST TIME, Heidi Parks (Crooked Lane Books, $19.99). When Erin and Will walk into Maggie’s office for a marriage counseling session, Maggie believes they are an ordinary couple with ordinary problems: communication, intimacy, the usual. But as Maggie struggles to get the couple to open up about what brought them here, she begins to sense that not all is as it seems. When Erin mentions something connected to Maggie’s past that she couldn’t possibly know, Maggie is disturbed and confused. Why does Erin know anything about Maggie’s long-missing sister? Erin is connected to her somehow, and Maggie is no longer trying to fix the couple’s marriage–she’s trying to uncover her own truth. Maggie knows her code of ethics as a therapist should immediately stop her working with this couple, but she’s desperate for answers about her sister’s disappearance, and she can’t resist using her position to delve deeper into Erin’s memories and what she might know. Erin and Will might not be what they seem–but neither is Maggie.
PLEASE TELL ME, Mike Omer (Thomas & Mercer, $16.99). When eight-year-old Kathy Stone turns up on the side of the road a year after her abduction, the world awaits her harrowing story. But Kathy doesn’t say a word. Traumatized by her ordeal, she doesn’t speak at all, not even to her own parents. Child therapist Robin Hart is the only one who’s had success connecting with the girl. Robin has been using play therapy to help Kathy process her memories. But as their work continues, Kathy’s playtime takes a grim turn: a doll stabs another doll, a tiny figurine is chained to a plastic toy couch. All of these horrifying moments, enacted within a Victorian doll house. Every session, another toy dies. But the most disturbing detail? Kathy seems to be playacting real unsolved murders. Soon Robin wonders if Kathy not only holds the key to the murders of the past but if she knows something about the murders of the future. Can Robin unlock the secrets in Kathy’s brain and stop a serial killer before he strikes again? Or is Robin’s work with Kathy putting her in the killer’s sights? Kirkus Starred Review
SUNNY, Colin O’Sullivan (Mariner Books, $18.99). In near-future Japan, Susie Sakamoto is mourning the loss of her husband and son to a plane crash. Alone in her big modern house, which feels like more of a prison, Susie spends her days drinking heavily and taking her anger out at the only “sentient” thing left in her life: Sunny, the annoying home robot her husband designed. Susie despises Sunny, and sometimes even gets a sinking feeling that Sunny is out to hurt her.
To escape her paranoia and depression, Susie frequents the seedy, drug-fueled bars of the city, where she hears rumors of The Dark Manual, a set of guidelines that allow you to reprogram your robot for nefarious purposes. In the hopes of finding a way to turn off Sunny for good, Susie begins to search for the manual, only to learn it’s too late: the machines are becoming more sentient and dangerous. Thrust into the center of a dark, corporate war, Susie realizes there’s someone behind the code, pulling the strings. And they want her dead.
THE FROZEN RIVER, Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday, $28.00). Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.
Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie. Kirkus and Booklist Starred Reviews
Amazon Editor’s Picks: Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense – New and Continuing Series – December, 2023
THE MYSTERY GUEST, Nita Prose (Ballantine, $29.00). Molly Gray is not like anyone else. With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, she has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But just as her life reaches a pinnacle state of perfection, her world is turned upside down when J. D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead—very dead—on the hotel’s tearoom floor. When Detective Stark, Molly’s old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul. Suspects abound, and everyone wants to know: Who killed J. D. Grimthorpe? Was it Lily, the new Maid-in-Training? Or was it Serena, the author’s secretary? Could Mr. Preston, the hotel’s beloved doorman, be hiding something? And is Molly really as innocent as she seems? As the high-profile death threatens the hotel’s pristine reputation, Molly knows she alone holds the key to unlocking the killer’s identity. But that key is buried deep in her past, as long ago, she knew J. D. Grimthorpe.
LOST HOURS, Paige Shelton (Minotaur, $28.00). A year after arriving in Benedict, Beth Rivers is feeling very at home in Alaska, even as outsiders are starting to return to enjoy the brief summer perfection. Beth feels like she’s finally let go of most of her demons. She’s even found her father, Eddy Rivers?or, rather, he found her?and she’s trying to find the middle ground between anger and forgiveness. One sunny July day, Beth boards a tourist ship to see the glaciers, the main reason visitors venture to the area, and something Beth hasn’t attempted until now. But when the captain has to navigate to an island, a bloodied woman is found standing on the shore, waving for help. When she’s brought aboard, she claims she was kidnapped from her home in Juneau three days earlier, and that a bear on the island killed her captor. She, however, is unharmed. The woman, Sadie, finds a sympathetic ear in Beth. She tells her that she’s been in Juneau under witness protection, and that the Juneau police don’t like her. When another kidnapping occurs, Beth and police chief Gril can’t help but think the two cases are interwoven, though the clues to solving them will be harder to unravel.
NIGHT OWL, Andrew Mayne (Thomas & Mercer, $16.99). After three decades in counterintelligence, Brad Trasker is retired, disillusioned, and dealing with a tragic loss. Spy games are behind him until he attends the launch of a next-generation aircraft. When the project of innovative aerospace CEO Kylie Connor explodes on the tarmac – nearly killing her in the process – Trasker is pulled back into the line of fire. The mystery of the sabotage quickly deepens. All Kylie’s data has been wiped from the server. One of her engineers has disappeared. A seed investor has died in a suspicious car accident. And a cold-blooded murder raises the stakes even higher. To discover who’s pulling the strings behind a dangerous conspiracy, Trasker needs to find a motive. Corporate espionage, revenge, or something he can’t yet see? Targeted by assassins, he finds himself overmatched when he realizes he can’t trust anyone – including Kylie. Too long out of a game he no longer understands, Trasker must adapt or die.
MURDER CROSSED HER MIND, Stephen Spotswood (Doubleday, $27.00). 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.
UNNATURAL DEATH, Patricia Cornwell (Grand Central, $30.00). Chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds herself in a Northern Virginia wilderness examining the remains of two campers wanted by federal law enforcement. The victims have been savaged beyond recognition, and other evidence is terrifying and baffling, including a larger-than-life footprint. After one of the most frightening body retrievals of her career, Scarpetta must discover who would commit murders this savage, and why.
THE MAYORS OF NEW YORK, S. J. Rozan (Pegasus, $27.95). In January, New York City inaugurates its first female mayor. In April, her son disappears. Called in by the mayor’s chief aide—a former girlfriend of private investigator Bill Smith’s—to find the missing fifteen-year-old, Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, are told the boy has run away. Neither the press nor the NYPD know that he’s missing, and the mayor wants him back before a headstrong child turns into a political catastrophe. But as Bill and Lydia investigate, they turn up more questions than answers. Why did the boy leave? Who else is searching for him, and why? What is his twin sister hiding? Then a teen is found dead and another is hit by gunfire. Are these tragedies related to each other, and to the mayor’s missing son? In a desperate attempt to find the answer to the boy’s disappearance before it’s too late, Bill and Lydia turn to the only contacts they think will be able to help: the neighborhood leaders who are the real ‘mayors’ of New York. Booklist and Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews
THE FINAL CURTAIN, Keigo Higashino (Minotaur, $29.00). A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo – and neither her family nor friends have any idea why she would have gone there. Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo – the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the police search through Oshitani’s past for any clue that might shed some light, one of the detectives reaches out to Detective Kaga for advice. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga’s missing mother.
HIDDEN IN SHADOWS, Viveca Sten (Amazon Crossing, $16.99). In the Swedish ski resort of Åre, crime is rare. Certainly nothing so brutal as the murder of Johan Andersson, a former Olympic skier found bound and beaten to death in the forest. According to his distraught wife, he didn’t have any enemies in the world. To Detective Inspectors Hanna Ahlander and Daniel Lindskog, the crime proves otherwise. But what could have provoked such rage? And in whom?
As Hanna and Daniel search for answers, Rebecka Ekvall, a vulnerable pastor’s wife, is trapped in an abusive marriage. Isolated from her congregation, she’s afraid of her husband and even more fearful for her life. Because Rebecka carries a fateful secret. But she isn’t the only one in Åre with something to hide.
DEATH IN THE DARK WOODS, Annelise Ryan (Berkley, $27.00). Business has been booming since Morgan Carter solved the case of the monster living in Lake Michigan. The Odds and Ends bookstore is thriving, of course, but Morgan is most excited by the doors that were opened for her as a cryptid hunter. Recently, there have been numerous sightings of a Bigfoot-type creature in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest area of Bayfield County, Wisconsin. After a man is found dead from a vicious throat injury in the forest, the conservation warden asks Morgan to investigate. When Morgan and her dog, Newt, go there to investigate, they uncover a trail of lies, deception, and murder. It seems a mysterious creature is indeed living in the forest, and Morgan might be its next target.
DAUGHTER OF ASHES, Ilaria Tuti (Soho Crime, $27.95). Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, a trail-blazing criminal detective on the Italian police force, is on sick leave, recovering from her recent brush with death in pursuit of a killer. But none of her colleagues, not even her partner, know that her Alzheimer’s is getting worse, and that Teresa is unsure she will ever return to work. Teresa’s plans for retirement are shelved, however, when she is urgently summoned to meet with menacing serial killer Giacomo Mainardi. Refusing to speak with anyone but Teresa, whose investigative work twenty-seven years prior landed him in maximum security prison, Mainardi has disconcerting news: somebody is after him, and only Teresa holds the key to keeping everyone, including herself, safe. To solve the case, Teresa must come face to face with a history she thought she’d buried, back to when Giacomo first began to kill, and Teresa—newly pregnant and married to an abusive man—did everything she could to catch him. Kirkus & Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews