This week's new Fiction book releases include titles from Riley Sager, James Patterson & David Ellis, Ashley Weaver, and more.
THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE
by Riley Sager
Named a most anticipated summer book by People, E! News, PureWow, CNN.com, CrimeReads, POPSUGAR, The Nerd Daily, BookTrib, Mystery Writers of America, Bookish, and Distractify
The New York Times bestselling author of Final Girls and Survive the Night is back with his “best plot twist yet.” (People, “Best Summer Books”)
Be careful what you watch for . . .
Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of bourbon, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple living in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is powerful; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.
One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage isn’t as perfect as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey immediately suspects Tom of foul play. What she doesn’t realize is that there’s more to the story than meets the eye—and that shocking secrets can lurk beneath the most placid of surfaces.
Packed with sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy plot twists, Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake is the ultimate escapist read . . . no lake house required.
ESCAPE
by James Patterson & David Ellis
#1 New York Times bestselling detective Billy Harney of The Black Book is chasing down a billionaire crime boss and a prison escape artist while a young girl’s life hangs in the balance.
As Chicago PD’s special-ops leader, Detective Billy Harney knows well that money is not the only valuable currency. The filthy rich man he’s investigating is down to his last twenty million. He’s also being held in jail.
For now.
Billy’s unit is called in when an escape plan results in officers down and inmates vanished.
In an empty lot, Billy spots two Kevlar vests. Two helmets. Two assault rifles. And a handwritten note:
Hi, Billy
Are you having fun yet?
THE KEY TO DECEIT
by Ashley Weaver
The second in the Electra McDonnell series from Edgar-nominated author Ashley Weaver, The Key to Deceit, is a delightful World War II mystery filled with spies, murder, romance, and wit.
London, 1940. After years of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor―well, to themselves, anyway―Ellie McDonnell and her family have turned over a new leaf as they help the government’s war effort. It’s true that the straight-laced Major Ramsey didn’t give them much choice, but still, Ellie must admit she doesn’t miss breaking and entering as much as she might have thought. What she does miss is the challenge of unlocking an impossible code and the adrenaline rush that comes from being somewhere she shouldn’t.
So when Major Ramsey turns up unannounced with another job, she can’t say no. A woman’s body has been found floating in the Thames, with a bracelet locked onto her wrist, and a cameo locket attached to it. It’s clear this woman was involved in espionage, but whose side was she on? Who was she reporting to? And who wanted her dead?
THE DROWNING SEA
by Sarah Stewart Taylor
In The Drowning Sea, Sarah Stewart Taylor returns to the critically acclaimed world of Maggie D’arcy with another atmospheric mystery so vivid readers will smell the salt in the air and hear the wind on the cliffs.
For the first time in her adult life, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is unemployed. No cases to focus on, no leads to investigate, just a whole summer on a remote West Cork peninsula with her teenage daughter Lilly and her boyfriend, Conor and his son. The plan is to prepare Lilly for a move to Ireland. But their calm vacation takes a dangerous turn when human remains wash up below the steep cliffs of Ross Head.
When construction worker Lukas Adamik disappeared months ago, everyone assumed he had gone home to Poland. Now that his body has been found, the guards, including Maggie’s friends Roly Byrne and Katya Grzeskiewicz, seem to think he threw himself from the cliffs. But as Maggie gets to know the residents of the nearby village and learns about the history of the peninsula and its abandoned Anglo Irish manor house, once home to a famous Irish painter who died under mysterious circumstances, she starts to think there’s something else going on. Something deadly. And when Lilly starts dating one of the dead man’s friends, Maggie grows worried about her daughter being so close to another investigation and about what the investigation will uncover.
Old secrets, hidden relationships, crime, and village politics are woven throughout this small seaside community, and as the summer progresses, Maggie is pulled deeper into the web of lies, further from those she loves, and closer to the truth.
CHINA HAND
by Scott Spacek
“A gut punch of a thriller. This riveting debut is an intoxicating story of espionage, adventure, love, and betrayal in Beijing.” —David McCloskey, former CIA officer and author of widely acclaimed Damascus Station
INSPIRED BY ACTUAL EVENTS: When a high-ranking Chinese general wants to defect to the US, the CIA tries to recruit a recent Harvard grad teaching at a Beijing university to exfiltrate the man’s daughter—a treacherous operation that could shape the balance of power for decades.
The whole debacle was classified and buried. Until now.
It’s 1998, and China’s political and military leaders are torn by ideological divisions. Amid these seething rivalries, Andrew Callahan arrives in Beijing fresh out of Harvard, planning to spend an adventurous year studying Mandarin and teaching at the renowned International Affairs University. The IAU is known as a training ground for diplomats and spies. But Andrew has no idea that his budding relationship with the attractive and self-assured dean’s assistant, Lily Jiang, will also entangle him in a conspiratorial web of worldwide proportions.
A CIA officer approaches Andrew and informs him that Lily’s father is a top Chinese general caught in a power struggle. The general wants to defect but won’t do so without his wife and daughter. Even more shocking is that the Agency needs Andrew’s assistance for Lily to evade round-the-clock surveillance and escape to the US.
If Andrew agrees, he’ll face lethal odds against China’s ruthless security services to help pull off one of the greatest intelligence coups in American history. If he refuses, it could cost Lily and her family their lives.
Set against the backdrop of a beautiful culture at a turbulent time, China Hand is the story of a reluctant spy and a mission whose deadly consequences continue to reverberate today.
THE SELF-MADE WIDOW
by Fabian Nicieza
From the cocreator of Deadpool and author of Suburban Dicks comes a diabolically funny murder mystery that features two unlikely sleuths investigating a murder that reveals the dark underbelly of suburban marriage.
After mother of five and former FBI profiler Andie Stern solved a murder—and unraveled a decades-old conspiracy—in her New Jersey town, both her husband and the West Windsor police hoped that she would set aside crime-fighting and go back to carpools, changing diapers, and lunches with her group of mom-friends, who she secretly calls The Cellulitists. Even so, Andie can’t help but get involved when the husband of Queen Bee Molly Goode is found dead. Though all signs point to natural causes, Andie begins to dig into the case and soon risks more than just the clique’s wrath, because what she discovers might hit shockingly close to home.
Meanwhile, journalist Kenny Lee is enjoying a rehabilitated image after his success as Andie’s sidekick. But when an anonymous phone call tips him off that Molly Goode killed her husband, he’s soon drawn back into the thicket of suburban scandals, uncovering secrets, affairs, and a huge sum of money. Hellbent on justice and hoping not to kill each other in the process, Andie and Kenny dust off their suburban sleuthing caps once again.
EVEN THE DARKEST NIGHT
by Javier Cercas
INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER • WINNER OF SPAIN’S BIGGEST LITERARY PRIZE • The first book in the acclaimed series: Barcelona detective Melchor Marín is sent to the countryside to investigate a horrific double murder. Before long, it becomes clear that nothing about the case is quite as it seems.
Melchor, the son of a prostitute, went to prison as a teenager, convicted of working for a Colombian drug cartel. Behind bars, he read a book that changed his life: Les Misérables. Then his mother was murdered. He decided to become a cop.
This new case, in Terra Alta, a remote region of rural Catalonia—the murder of a wealthy local man and his wife—will turn Melchor’s life upside down yet again.
Even the Darkest Night is a thought-provoking, elegantly constructed thriller about justice, revenge, and, above all, the struggles of a righteous man trying to find his place in a corrupt world.
MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE
by Loren D. Estleman
From the master of the hard-boiled detective novel and recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award comes Loren D. Estleman’s next enthralling Amos Walker mystery, Monkey in the Middle
“Loren D. Estleman is my hero.” ―Harlan Coben
The monkey in the middle is the one who “hears no evil.”
Private eye Amos Walker doesn’t have that luxury. Hearing the truth, on the other hand, is a lot less common, even from people who need his help.
It’s summer in Detroit and Walker’s just received word that his ex-wife has passed away. He can use a distraction, which arrives in the form of a young, would-be investigative journalist who has gotten in way over his head. He needs Walker’s protection, but is suspiciously vague about why and from whom. And he’s not the only one playing their cards way too close to their chest, including:
– A bestselling author who claims to be retired, but who knows a good story when he hears one.
– A fugitive whistleblower who skipped out on a $100,000 bond.
– A headline-hungry defense attorney who spends as much time before the TV cameras as in court.
– A career assassin with whom Walker has a long, ugly history.
Not to mention any number of covert government agencies pursuing their own agendas, possibly in opposition to each other.
Walker just wants answers, but what he finds is a dead body―and enough trouble to put him on ice for good, unless he can discover what everyone’s not telling him.
Still Hot in Mysteries & Thrillers
DREAM TOWN
by David Baldacci
Private investigator and World War II veteran Aloysius Archer heads to Los Angeles, the city where dreams are made and shattered, and is ensnared in a lethal case in this latest thriller in #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci’s Nero Award-winning series.
It’s the eve of 1953, and Aloysius Archer is in Los Angeles to ring in the New Year with an old friend, aspiring actress Liberty Callahan, when their evening is interrupted by an acquaintance of Callahan’s: Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter in dire straits.
After a series of increasingly chilling events—mysterious phone calls, the same blue car loitering outside her house, and a bloody knife left in her sink—Eleanor fears that her life is in danger, and she wants to hire Archer to look into the matter. Archer suspects that Eleanor knows more than she’s saying, but before he can officially take on her case, a dead body turns up inside of Eleanor’s home . . . and Eleanor herself disappears.
Missing client or not, Archer is dead set on finding both the murderer and Eleanor. With the help of Callahan and his partner Willie Dash, he launches an investigation that will take him from mob-ridden Las Vegas to the glamorous world of Hollywood to the darkest corners of Los Angeles—a city in which beautiful faces are attached to cutthroat schemers, where the cops can be more corrupt than the criminals . . . and where the powerful people responsible for his client’s disappearance will kill without a moment’s hesitation if they catch Archer on their trail.
RUN ROSE RUN
by Dolly Parton & James Patterson
From America’s most beloved superstar and its greatest storyteller—a thriller about a young singer-songwriter on the rise and on the run, and determined to do whatever it takes to survive.
Every song tells a story.
She’s a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her.
She’s also on the run. Find a future, lose a past.
Nashville is where she’s come to claim her destiny. It’s also where the darkness she’s fled might find her. And destroy her.
Run, Rose, Run is a novel glittering with danger and desire—a story that only America’s #1 beloved entertainer and its #1 bestselling author could have created.
THE PARIS APARTMENT
by Lucy Foley
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“As you patiently await season two of Only Murders in the Building, cozy up with Lucy Foley’s latest whodunnit.” — Parade
“Exceedingly clever.” — Booklist
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List comes a new locked room mystery, set in a Paris apartment building in which every resident has something to hide…
Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.
The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.
The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge
Everyone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.