It's now my favorite time of the year: Summer with a capital S. Summer, when I get things done so I can take a tall, cold drink and a stack of books with me so I can sit in the pool in the shade and gorge on the printed page. It's true that the area wildlife usually keeps me entertained as well, but my focus is on books, books, books. Hopefully I can do what I did last year and clear a lot of spaces on my to-be-read shelves.
Here are my picks for new mysteries being released in June. They are sorted by release dates and contain all the information you'll need to find them at all your favorite book procurement sites. Book synopses are courtesy of Amazon.
Happy Reading!
=== June 1 ===
Title: Dragon's Triangle
#2 in a series featuring Riley, a female former Marine who's single-handedly sailing her 40-foot sailboat to places around the world
ISBN: 9781477823132
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Paperback, 494 pages
Synopsis: "
Maggie Riley has settled into her new life in
Thailand, working aboard her sailboat and doing her best to leave the
past behind. When she receives a letter from a World War II vet claiming
to have served with her grandfather who went missing in action, Riley
is once again pulled into the intrigue that tore her family apart and
led to the disappearance of her former search partner—and the love of
her life.
Armed with the secret code her grandfather left behind,
Riley must head to the Philippines to hunt for a mysterious shipwreck,
uncover the truth of Yamashita’s gold, and find the answers to old
questions about her own family."
=== June 2 ===
Title: Want You Dead
#10 in the Roy Grace police procedural series set in England
ISBN: 9781250030207
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 416 pages
Synopsis: "Single girl, 33, redhead and smouldering, love life that’s crashed and
burned. Seeks new flame to rekindle her fire. Fun, friendship and—who
knows—more maybe?
When thirty-year old Red Cameron met handsome,
charming and rich thirty-five year old Bryce Laurent through an online
dating agency, it was instant attraction at first sight. But as their
love blossomed, the truth about his past began to emerge, and with it
his dark side. Everything he has told Red about himself turns out to be a
tissue of lies, and her infatuation with him gradually turns to terror.
Within
a year, and under police protection, she evicts him from her flat and
her life. But far from being over, her nightmare is only just beginning.
For Bryce is obsessed and besotted with her. He intends to destroy, by
fire, everything and everyone she has ever known and loved—and then her,
too. It's up to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace to stop him before
it's too late..."
=== June 3 ===
Title: Night of the Living Thread
#4 in the Threadville cozy series set in Pennsylvania
ISBN: 9780425267998
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
Synopsis: "It’s early October, and hordes of visitors have descended on the tiny,
celebrated village of Threadville, Pennsylvania, to attend a Halloween
crafts fair, a zombie retreat, and the wedding of Edna Battersby—dear
friend to Willow Vanderling, owner of the chic machine embroidery
boutique, In Stitches.
As a friendly prank for Edna’s wedding,
Willow and the rest of the Threadville gang have fashioned an overly
extravagant hoopskirt, complete with lights and music. But in a bizarre
turn of events, the garish gown is implicated in a mysterious lakeside
murder.
Now Willow must follow a trail of glow-in-the-dark
thread, delve into ancient Egyptian curses, and creep through a haunted
graveyard to unearth a killer—before she becomes the next fashion
victim…"
Title: Present Darkness
Author: Malla Nunn
#4 in the Emmanuel Cooper police procedural series set in 1950s South Africa
ISBN: 9781451616965
Publisher: Atria Books
Paperback, 352 pages
Synopsis: "Five days before Christmas, Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper sits at
his desk at the Johannesburg major crimes squad, ready for his holiday
in Mozambique. A call comes in: a respectable white couple has been
assaulted and left for dead in their bedroom. The couple’s teenage
daughter identifies the attacker as Aaron Shabalala— the youngest son of
Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala—Cooper’s best friend and a
man to whom he owes his life.
The Detective Branch isn’t
interested in evidence that might contradict their star witness’s story,
especially so close to the holidays. Determined to ensure justice for
Aaron, Cooper, Shabalala, and their trusted friend Dr. Daniel Zweigman
hunt for the truth. Their investigation uncovers a violent world of
Sophiatown gangs, thieves, and corrupt government officials who will do
anything to keep their dark world intact."
Title: Tempest in a Teapot
Author: Amanda Cooper
#1 in the Teapot Collector cozy series set in New York State
ISBN: 9780425265239
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages
Synopsis: "When her fashionable Manhattan restaurant goes under, Sophie Taylor
retreats to her grandmother’s cozy shop, Auntie Rose’s Victorian
Teahouse, where serenity is steeped to perfection in one of her many
antique teapots. The last thing Sophie expects is a bustling calendar of
teahouse events, like her old friend Cissy Peterson’s upcoming bridal
shower.
Not everyone is pleased with the bride-to-be’s
choice of venue—like Cissy’s grandmother, who owns a competing
establishment, La Belle Epoque, and has held a long-simmering grudge
against Rose for stealing her beau sixty years ago. Tensions reach a
boiling point when Cissy’s fiancé’s mother dies while sampling scones at
La Belle Epoque. Now, to help her friend, Sophie will have to bag a
killer before more of the guest list becomes a hit list…"
Title: Hell With the Lid Blown Off
#7 in the Alafair Tucker historical mystery series set in rural Oklahoma circa 1916
ISBN: 9781464202988
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 250 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books
Synopsis: "In the summer of 1916, a big twister brings destruction to the land
around Boynton OK. Alafair Tucker’s family and neighbors are not spared
the ruin and grief spread by the storm. But no one is going to mourn
for Jubal Beldon, who made it his business to know the ugly secrets of
everyone in town. It doesn’t matter if Jubal’s insinuations are true or
not. In a small town like Boynton, rumor is as damaging as fact.
But
as Mr. Lee the undertaker does his grim duty for the storm victims, he
discovers that even in death Jubal isn’t going to leave his neighbors in
peace. He was already dead when the tornado carried his body to the
middle of a fallow field. Had he died in an accident or had he been
murdered by someone whose secret he had threatened to expose? There are
dozens of people who would have been happy to do the deed, including
members of Jubal’s own family.
As Sheriff Scott Tucker and his
deputy Trenton Calder look into the circumstances surrounding Jubal’s
demise, it begins to look like the prime suspect may be someone very
dear to the widow Beckie MacKenzie, the beloved music teacher and mentor
of Alafair’s daughter Ruth. Ruth fears that the secrets exposed by the
investigation are going to cause more damage to her friend’s life than
the tornado. Alafair has her own suspicions about how Jubal Beldon came
to die, and the reason may hit very close to home."
Title: The Farm
Standalone
ISBN: 9780446550734
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Hardcover, 368 pages
Synopsis: "Daniel believed that his parents were enjoying a peaceful retirement on a
remote farm in Sweden. But with a single phone call, everything
changes.
Your mother...she's not well, his father tells him. She's been imagining things - terrible, terrible things. She's had a psychotic breakdown, and been committed to a mental hospital.
Before Daniel can board a plane to Sweden, his mother calls: Everything that man has told you is a lie. I'm not mad... I need the police... Meet me at Heathrow.
Caught
between his parents, and unsure of who to believe or trust, Daniel
becomes his mother's unwilling judge and jury as she tells him an urgent
tale of secrets, of lies, of a crime and a conspiracy that implicates
his own father."
Title: A Dark and Twisted Tide
#4 in the Lacey Flint police procedural series set in London, England
ISBN: 9781250028587
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 448 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books
Synopsis: "Lacey Flint, Sharon Bolton’s enigmatic protagonist, has been living in a
houseboat on the River Thames, and she’s becoming a part of London’s
weird and wonderful riverboat community. Against her friends’ better
judgment, she’s taken up swimming in the Thames, and she feels closer
than ever to Detective Mark Joesbury, despite his involvement in a
complicated undercover case. For the first time in her life, as she
recovers from the trauma of the last few months, Lacey begins to feel
almost happy.
Then, at dawn one hot summer morning while swimming
down the river, Lacey finds the body of a shrouded young woman in the
water. She assumes it was chance—after all, she's recently joined the
marine policing unit, and she knows how many dead bodies are pulled out
of the river every year, most the result of tragic accidents. But
further investigation leads her policing team to suspect the woman’s
body was deliberately left for Lacey to find. Lacey’s no longer a
homicide detective, but as she begins to notice someone keeping a
strangely close eye on her, she’s inexorably drawn into the
investigation.
Award-winning author Sharon Bolton has once again
crafted a tightly plotted, utterly unpredictable thriller around one of
the most compelling characters in crime fiction today, intensely private
London police officer Lacey Flint, whose penchant for keeping secrets
is only matched by her determination to uncover those of others."
Title: That Summer
Standalone romantic suspense
ISBN: 9781250014504
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Hardcover, 352 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books
Synopsis: "2009: When Julia Conley hears that she has inherited a house outside
London from an unknown great-aunt, she assumes it’s a joke. She hasn't
been back to England since the car crash that killed her mother when she
was six, an event she remembers only in her nightmares. But when she
arrives at Herne Hill to sort through the house—with the help of her
cousin Natasha and sexy antiques dealer Nicholas—bits of memory start
coming back. And then she discovers a pre-Raphaelite painting, hidden
behind the false back of an old wardrobe, and a window onto the house's
shrouded history begins to open...
1849: Imogen Grantham has spent
nearly a decade trapped in a loveless marriage to a much older man,
Arthur. The one bright spot in her life is her step-daughter, Evie, a
high-spirited sixteen year old who is the closest thing to a child
Imogen hopes to have. But everything changes when three young painters
come to see Arthur's collection of medieval artifacts, including Gavin
Thorne, a quiet man with the unsettling ability to read Imogen better
than anyone ever has. When Arthur hires Gavin to paint her portrait,
none of them can guess what the hands of fate have set in motion.
From modern-day England to the early days of the Preraphaelite movement, Lauren Willig's That Summer takes
readers on an un-put-downable journey through a mysterious old house, a
hidden love affair, and one woman’s search for the truth about her
past—and herself."
Title: Circles in the Snow
#6 in the Sheriff Bo Tully humorous police procedural series set in Idaho
ISBN: 9781629141701
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Hardcover, 240 pages
Synopsis: "Bo Tully, sheriff of Blight County, Idaho, has dealt with small-town
crime throughout his long, storied career. Now, contemplating retirement
after years on the job, Tully is faced with perhaps his most perplexing
case yet. When area bald eagles start getting picked off by a
ghost-like killer, and when a prominent local rancher is murdered by an
arrow with eagle fletching, things gets complicated fast. In this
fast-paced whodunit, Tully has a vast array of suspects to chose
from—including the rancher’s gorgeous, bird-loving wife who mysteriously
leaves for a ranch in Mexico the day of the murder; the beautiful chef
at the local house of ill repute, who is well-known as a budding
ornithologist; and the ranch foreman, who is rumored to be having an
affair with his boss’s widow.
Will Tully put the pieces of the puzzle
together, yet again? Will sending his dad, the former sheriff of Blight
County, along with his number two man, down to Mexico help solve the
mystery? And what about the mysterious large circles in the snow that
Tully finds around the ranch—with no footprints leading in or out of the
area?
It all adds up to another engrossing series of twists and
turns. And in the end, Tully gets his man . . . or woman . . . or does
he?"
=== June 19 ===
Title: The Silkworm
#2 in the Cormoran Strike private detective series set in London, England
ISBN: 9780316206877
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Hardcover, 464 pages
Synopsis: "When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife
calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just
thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days-as he has done
before-and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.
But
as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's
disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a
manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he
knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives-meaning
that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced.
When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it
becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless
killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before... A
compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, THE
SILKWORM is the second in the highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran
Strike and his determined young assistant, Robin Ellacott."
=== June 24 ===
Title: Angelica's Smile
#17 in the Inspector Montalbano police procedural series set in Sicily
ISBN: 9780143123767
Publisher: Penguin Books
Paperback, 304 pages
Synopsis: "A rash of burglaries has got Inspector Salvo Montalbano stumped. The
criminals are so brazen that their leader, the anonymous Mr. Z, starts
sending the Sicilian inspector menacing letters. Among those burgled is
the young and beautiful Angelica Cosulich, who reminds the inspector of
the love-interest in Ludovico Ariosto’s chivalric romance, Orlando Furioso.
Besotted by Angelica’s charms, Montalbano imagines himself back in the
medieval world of jousts and battles. But when one of the burglars turns
up dead, Montalbano must snap out of his fantasy and unmask his
challenger."
=== June 26 ===
Title: Identity
#2 in the Fina Ludlow private investigator series set in Boston, Massachusetts
ISBN: 9780399162138
Publisher: Putnam
Hardcover, 464 pages
Synopsis: "It’s been a couple months since Fina’s last big case—the one that
exposed dark family secrets and called Fina’s family loyalty into
question—but there’s no rest for the weary, especially when your boss is
Carl Ludlow.
Renata Sanchez, a single mother by choice,
wants to learn the identity of her daughter Rosie’s sperm donor. A
confidentiality agreement and Rosie’s reticence might deter other
mothers, but not Renata, nor Carl, who’s convinced that lawsuits
involving cryobanks and sperm donors will be “the next big thing.” Fina
uncovers the donor’s identity, but the solution to that mystery is just
the beginning: within hours of the case going public, Rosie’s donor
turns up dead.
Fina didn’t sign on for a murder
investigation, but she can’t walk away from a death she may have set in
motion. She digs deeper and discovers that DNA doesn’t tell the whole
story and sometimes, cracking that code can have deadly consequences."
June has a little something for everyone, doesn't it? Cozies, police procedurals, thrillers, private investigators, historicals... set in various places around the world. I've already read some of my picks for June, so I have to say that Tom Rob Smith's The Farm is really intriguing me. How about you? Did you add any of these books to your own wish list? Which ones? Inquiring minds would love to know!
