And how long would you keep helping that stranger, if the act of assistance puts you in danger as well? Carly senses something isn’t right at the Sun Down, but by the time she starts to figure out what she’s enmeshed in the same mysteries that possessed her aunt.—LL, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Untamed Shore (Agora), Upstart imprint Agora is killing it with their list so far, and we can’t wait to dive into Untamed Shore, a Baja-set noir, featuring a young protagonist stuck in a fishing village who dreams of making her way to Hollywood. Trained to mimic the other woman’s every detail, she begins to doubt the nature of identity, and reality itself.—MO, Kevin Doherty, The Leonardo Gulag (Oceanview). Winslow has proven he can handle labyrinthine plots and juggle many characters in his expansive, complex Border Trilogy. In the late 19th century, a man and his daughter leave their failed utopian community and set off to found a school for girls that will embrace rational methods of modern education. He and his partners, Max the Memory and Beniamino Rossini, are blackmailed and framed as they begin to investigate what is afoot—and they don’t have long to untangle the many knots fettering them before they are ensnared for good.—OR, Clare Beams, The Illness Lesson (Doubleday), Clare Beams’ glorious new gothic mystery is a must-read for all fans of historicals and suspense. Their scam devolves as quickly as one would expect, as one falls prey to the allures of Venice, and the other finds himself obsessing over long-ago traumas. After reading this tale about a stranger arriving on the doorstep of a family’s home, you’ll never be able to go home again. So many communities were moved during the nation’s great dam-building era, and so many rivers stunted and drained, that it’s high time some angry spirits emerged from beneath the waters to take their vengeance. It’s up to the Commissario to investigate, especially as he’s never been able to let an unsolved mystery go.—OR, There’s a lot of jobs out that qualify you to write crime fiction, including occupations on both sides of the law or any job worked between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM, but K. Ferrari’s backstory takes the cake. Leonid’s new task is irresistible: he’s to inform a prominent white family of their many black relatives, upon the request of an elderly Mississippi bluesman.—MO, Sarah Pinborough, Dead to Her (William Morrow), Pinborough is a dazzling magician of a novelist, a sleight-of-hand artist who gets better with every book.
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Defense attorney Samantha Brinkman has a dangerous new lover, who also happens to be one of her clients—and he’s hell-bent on getting revenge. We can’t wait to dive into this brutal and beautiful noir.—MO.