Ironwood

 

Ironwood by Michael Connelly is the second book in his Catalina Island series featuring Sergeant Stilwell, a mainland cop exiled to a tiny island sheriff's post who has no interest in leaving. When a drug sting at the Catalina airport goes sideways, the story takes off and rarely slows down. 

Stillwell is a tenacious investigator. He'll sidestep orders from his boss to find answers. His curiosity and instincts lead him from an item sitting in the station's lost-and-found to a serial killer. 

My favorite part was the crossover. Renée Ballard arrives to investigate a cold case connected to bones discovered on the island, bringing one of Connelly's other series into the mix. It's the kind of crossover that makes his entire universe feel connected.

Will Damron's narration is excellent and made this one incredibly easy to binge.

Can you read it as a standalone? Absolutely. Should you start with Nightshade first? Probably.

Am I a Connelly fangirl? Also yes. But I’d be giving this ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ either way. Ironwood is out now. 

This is perfect for fans of police procedurals, crime fiction, and anyone already living somewhere in the Connelly universe.

If you liked this review, you might be interested in Wild Instinct, another police procedural set in California.

About the Author

Michael Connelly is the author of thirty-eight previous novels, including #1 New York Times bestsellers Desert Star, The Dark Hours, and The Law of Innocence. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series, the Lincoln Lawyer series, and the Renée Ballard series, have sold more than eighty million copies worldwide. Connelly is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He is the executive producer of three television series: Bosch, Bosch: Legacy, and The Lincoln Lawyer. He spends his time in California and Florida.

IG Live | a conversation with Amin Ahmad

 

IG Live with author Amin Ahmad

Some books just make for great conversation. This was one of them.

I had there great pleasure of talking with author Amin Ahmad this morning. We talked about A Killer in the Family, his ultra-wealthy immigrant family at the center of the story, the Succession-meets-Crazy Rich Asians vibe, and his inspiration for Abbas Kahn the head the of family, his writing process, and joy he gets from teaching creative writing at the college level.

Amin was such a genuinely warm and thoughtful guest. One of those conversations where an hour flies by.

If you haven't picked this one up yet, you should.It's a twisty thriller wrapped around a really sharp look at power, family secrets, and the American dream. The kind of book that keeps you second-guessing everyone. A Killer in the Family is out now.

You can watch the replay of our conversation here. And if you missed my review of A Killer in the Family, you can find it here.

About the Author

Amin Ahmad was raised in India and came to the United States at the age of seventeen. He worked as an architect for many years before turning to writing. He teaches creative writing at Duke University and lives in Durham, North Carolina with his family and a very mischievous cat.

Follow Amin on Instagram. For news and information on Amin and his books, visit his website.

The Tuxedo Society

 

Be gay. Do espionage. Save the world.

A down-on-his-luck actor thinks he’s going to a fancy dinner. He’s actually being recruited into America’s most fabulous covert operation.

The Tuxedo Society by Paul Rudnick is the most fun I’ve had with an audiobook in a long time, and I need everyone to know about it.

Andrew, a struggling actor and candle shop employee, is invited by his best friend Brock to what he assumes is just a really nice dinner with a group of very gay, very stylish guys. What it actually is? An introduction to the Tuxedo Society: a secret government intelligence network made up entirely of LGBTQ+ members. Licensed to kill. Impeccably dressed.

From the White House to the Vatican to the Summer Olympic Games, Andrew ends up tackling spies, thwarting assassinations, and facing off against oligarchs, crooked senators, and a smarmy televangelist with sinister plans for world domination.  Oh, and at one point he has to pose as a US Olympic diver and actually dive in competition. It’s exactly as chaotic and hilarious as it sounds.

This book is completely over the top, and it knows it. That’s the whole point. The characters are all wildly likable: Andrew, Brock, Reggie the Navy SEAL with a black-tie obsession, and a First Lady who also happens to be a world-leading archaeologist. The pace never lets up. The wit is sharp. The social commentary sneaks up on you in the middle of all the absurdity.

Narrator Daniel Henning is pitch-perfect. There are a lot of characters to track and I never lost a single one. That’s not easy to pull off.

If you’ve been looking for a summer read that’s pure, unapologetic fun, this is it. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Simon Audio for the gifted early listen. The Tuxedo Society is out today!

For more laughs with an LGBTQ+ lead, check out my review of I Might Be in Trouble.

About the Author

Paul Rudnick is the author of What Is Wrong With You? and Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style. His plays have been produced on and off Broadway and include Jeffrey, I Hate Hamlet, Regrets Only, and The New Century. He is the author of eight books, and he’s a frequent contributor to The New Yorker; his writing has also appeared in Vogue, Esquire, Vanity Fair, and more. His screenplays include Addams Family Values, Coastal Elites, In & Out, Sister Act, and the film adaptation of Jeffrey. Find more information about Paul and his work at his website.

Somebody Worth Killing

 

Mommy tracked.

By her assassin agency.

An assassin who only kills bad guys AND is a devoted mom? I was sold on page one. In Somebody Worth Killing by Jessica Payne, Nadia Davis is a devoted mom, loving wife, and a hired assassin who only takes out certified bad guys.  She’s got a code, a handler, and a school pickup schedule to juggle.

When Nadia discovers she’s been sidelined for bigger jobs because she’s a mom, she pushes back and demands a real assignment. What she gets is a mark she never saw coming. It's her own husband. 

The premise alone had me in. It delivered. Nadia is a genuinely great character. She's a devoted, loving mom who also happens to be a psychopath, and she knows it. The humor is woven in naturally, and the pacing builds steadily without feeling rushed.

My one complaint: the early chapters repeat Nadia’s backstory a few too many times. Once the plot really kicks in, though, I was hooked and didn’t want to put it down.

This is the perfect popcorn thriller. It's light on the darkness, heavy on the fun. Think Finlay Donovan vibes with a dash of Dexter. If you want something entertaining without needing a true crime recovery period after, this is your book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for the gifted ARC! Somebody Worth Killing publishes June 16th.

If you enjoyed this review, you may be interested in A Sociopath's Guide to Murder.

About the Author

Jessica Payne lives in Washington State with her daughter and husband and an internet search history that would raise eyebrows. A firm believer in strong coffee and stronger women, she writes about mothers who know how to handle a sniper rifle and a carpool schedule with equal precision. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her trail running through the forests of the Pacific Northwest as she plots her next fictional murder. She is the creator of the Substack community One Tired Mother.

The Last Time We Saw Her

 

This one had everything I usually love, but it fizzled out.

A cold case disappearance, a locked-room setup, and an island I'll never get to visit in real life.

Let me start by saying this is going to work for a lot of you, and I want to be upfront about that. It just didn't fully click for me, and after 20 years of handing books to readers I've learned that "not for me" and "not good" aren't the same thing.

Here's the setup. Ten years ago a teenage summer camper named Sydney vanished on São Miguel, a remote island in the Azores, while chasing a rumored treasure. Now her family and friends are back on the island for a memorial weekend marking the anniversary, and a documentary crew is poking at the case. Everyone's together again, and all the secrets and lies they've been sitting on for a decade start surfacing.

What pulled me in: the location. The Azores are completely exotic to me and I loved being dropped somewhere I'll probably never go. The setting is genuinely atmospheric, and I'm a sucker for a cold case plus a locked-room vibe. The multiple POVs and the timeline shifts back to Sydney's disappearance kept things moving structurally.

Where it lost me: the pace. It's a slow burn, which is fine, but I needed more tension to fill that space and it just wasn't there for me. The bigger issue was the characters. They felt bland and broadly drawn, and I never connected with anyone enough to care who was hiding what. That's a shame, because the bones of a much sharper, twistier thriller are right there. And the ending? One thing in particular had me shaking my head going "there's no way that's possible." No spoilers, but you'll know it when you hit it.

If you love a slow-burn thriller heavy on family and friend drama, multiple POVs, and a strong sense of place, this could absolutely be your kind of book. I really wanted to love it more than I did, and I have zero doubt it'll land just right for plenty of readers.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the digital ARC. Out June 16.

If you enjoyed this, you might also be interested in The Safari.

About the Author

Jaclyn Goldis is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and NYU School of Law. She practiced estate planning law at a large Chicago firm for seven years before leaving her job to travel the world and write novels. After culling her possessions into only what would fit in a backpack, she traveled for over a year until settling near the beach, where she can often be found writing from cafés. She is the author of The Chateau, The Main Character, The Safari, and The Last Time We Saw Her.

For more information on Jaclyn and her books, visit her website.

Heather

 

Two missing girls. One cold case. Thirty years of silence.

Heather by Caitlin Mullen pulled me in from the first chapter and never let go, which is saying something for a book this patient.

Two timelines. In the present, Callie Hauser comes back to her small New Jersey hometown to take over as chief of police and she's walking into a buzzsaw. The officers she outranks her resent her, the town hasn't decided what to make of her, and she's trying to prove she belongs. A routine DUI arrest sets off a chain of events she never sees coming, and it pulls her toward a decades-old cold case: an infant found dead in the Pine Barrens, around the same time two teenage sisters disappeared.

The other timeline belongs to Annabelle, one of those twins, and it broke my heart. She and her sister Sabrina are basically raising themselves. Their mother is gone, their father checked out. They couldn't be more different. Sabrina is bold and reckless with a reputation; Annabelle is the rule-follower with her eyes on college and a way out. Then Sabrina starts seeing an older man and goes quiet, and Annabelle just wants her sister back.

This is character-driven crime fiction. Callie is tenacious to the point of stubbornness. She'll throw herself at a brick wall a hundred times, but she can also be weirdly blind to what's right in front of her. That contradiction made her feel like a real person, not a detective archetype.

The audio is excellent. The three narrators Christine Lakin, Bailey Carr, and Mia Wurgaft each bring a distinctive voice and emotional weight. I never once lost the thread of who I was with or which timeline I was in. That's not easy to pull off in a dual-timeline book.

Yes, it's a slow burn. But it's the kind where the patience is the point. I was so wrapped up in these women I never wanted it to go faster. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hand this to anyone who loved Liz Moore's The God of the Woods or Long Bright River, or Chris Whittaker's We Begin at the End and All the Colors of the Dark.

⚠️A real heads-up on this one: there are several heavy trigger warnings. Go in aware.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the gifted early listen. Heather is out June 9.

if you enjoyed this review, you might be interested in Missing.

About the Author

Caitlin Mullen is the author of Please See Us, which won the 2021 Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was named a New York Times best crime novel in 2020. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and children.

For more news and information about Caitlin and her books, visit her website.

The Dorians

 

What if Dorian Gray and Frankenstein had a baby? Nick Cutter wrote it.

Five dying seniors. One teenage genius doctor. A hidden lab in the Canadian wilderness. What could go wrong?

 

Five terminally ill seniors are about to end their suffering through MAID when they get a wild offer instead. Go to a remote island, take part in an experimental procedure, and reverse aging itself. The lead scientist? A 19-year-old super genius named Dr. Astrid Marsh.  The catch? You can't leave. Ever.

Three of these five are deeply unlikable people who've done some genuinely terrible things. Two of them I actually cared about. Frank was my favorite, the voice of reason in a situation that has none. Teddy was the funniest of the bunch but also the most annoying because the man DOES NOT stop talking. And Astrid? She's a whole trip. There's also Ingrid, Astrid's best friend and fellow teen prodigy, lying in a coma after a lab accident.

The Dorians is a horror/thriller hybrid that Nick Cutter has perfected. The setting is atmospheric, the writing is sharp, the characters are drawn quickly and clearly. It's creepy. It's occasionally pretty gross. And it asks some genuinely interesting questions about what we'd give up to chase eternal youth.

⚠️ Reader warning: when you reverse aging, hormones come back online too. There are some spicy scenes. They are NOT sexy. Do with that what you will.

Corey Brill's narration is propulsive and tension-filled. There are distinct voices for every character. I never lost track of anyone. Just a really great listen all around. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

Thank you Simon & Schuster Audio for the gifted audiobook! Out today. 

If you enjoyed this, you might be interested in Nick's previous book The Queen.

About the Author

Nick Cutter is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Troop (which is currently being developed for film with producer James Wan), The Deep, Little Heaven, The Queen, and The Handyman Method, cowritten with Andrew F. Sullivan. Nick Cutter is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and, most recently, the short story collection Cascade. His story “Medium Tough” was selected by author Jennifer Egan for The Best American Short Stories 2014. He lives in Toronto, Canada. For more news information about the author and his books, visit his website.