16 August Mystery, Thriller, True Crime Books To Read

Minerva Gutiérrez would very much like to quit her job at an ice cream store but her mom has a chronic illness, she’s been kicked out of school for fighting, and she needs money. When the store is robbed, with her and other employees there, she isn’t looking to be a hero. But afterwards there’s talk of hidden money where her job is located and, well, she needs money and she’s certain her boss is awful, so she teams up with a neighbor to find that money. What could go wrong?

Imagine your former best friend inviting you to their wedding. Then learning she’s marrying your ex-boyfriend. Could it get worse? You go to the wedding with the intention of stopping it and instead your friend disappears, presumed dead, and all eyes are on you as the culprit. They say weddings are stressful, this one may be killer! (Sorry not sorry.)

Starting college and moving into the dorms can be a lot. Anna Xu has added even more stress to that with a murder investigation: she’s determined to find out who murdered her childhood babysitter. Like doing well in school and solving a campus murder aren’t enough, life tosses her more obstacles: her childhood rival, whose family also owns her family’s rival business…

For cozy mystery fans! Maddy Montgomery was left at the alter so she definitely took the inheritance offer to get out of town and go run her late great aunt’s bakery and live in her Michigan home — with a 200lb dog! What could go wrong? It’s a cozy mystery so the mayor is murdered and Maddy’s prints are on the knife…

The author of #FashionVictim is back with a new novel billed as viciously funny, which is a big SOLD for me. Taken in by a wellness guru, Ronnie Khan moves from Queens to Arizona and goes full in for the new wellness lifestyle — juice cleanses, hiking, yoga. That is until gurus start being murdered… For audiobook fans, you get a multicast narration: Dilshad Vadsaria, Kimberly Woods, and Rhett Samuel Price.

For Regency-era historical mystery fans! Lady Abigail Worthing finds her neighbor Juliet Henderson dead on her property. She’s sure to be accused and while she has a strong alibi, she can’t offer up that she was at a a secret pro-abolition meeting. Surprisingly, Juliet’s husband wants to help Worthing and not only offers her an alibi, but would like to find out what really happened to his wife…

Next up is a genre blend for fans of crime thriller, forensic leads, and supernatural horror. Rita Todacheene works for the Albuquerque police as a forensic photographer and is keeping a secret: the crime victims’ ghosts help her uncover the clues needed to catching the perpetrators. But this isn’t a fun gift for Todacheene, especially when a recent victim places her on a path of revenge…

Translated crime novels in series many times don’t get translated in the order they published originally. And that’s the case here: this is the book that originally published prior to Bullet Train in Japan. It’s Suzuki’s story as a math teacher who leaves his life to join the gang that murdered his wife. But this is an unusual gang of assassins and it won’t be easy to take each one out.

For fans of revenge, thrillers, and past and present stories! Sarah Lai no longer works in Hollywood and instead is a college lecturer. She’s happy to keep the past where it is until a journalist shows up, wanting to know Lai’s experience working with film producer Hugo North. Is it time for her story to come out?

The conclusion to the crime saga Lady Joker! This is Kaoru Takamura’s reimagining of a real case that terrorized Japan for two years. Readers follow five men in 1995 Tokyo who are upset with the state of their lives and come together to kidnap Japan’s largest beer conglomerate’s CEO for money.

If you’re a fan of the Agatha Christie plot of “a group of people stuck together unable to leave as they are murdered one by one,” this is your book. What starts off as a family reunion — a family with a complicated past — turns to murder real quick when the host (the grandmother!) is found dead. They may start off arguing as to whether it could possibly have been murder, but a second body quickly answers that — especially with clues left behind of children’s rhymes and tapes for everyone to watch with incidents from the past. Who is killing off this family and will anyone be left to tell the tale?

For fans of twisty thrillers, story inside a story, and horror tropes. Adele Rafferty is living in L.A. after a bad experience on a film set in Ireland. She still hasn’t made it as an actress, so when she gets a call from back home about a film that wants her right now because the lead actress dropped out, she ignores all those “something is wrong” red flags and gets on a plane. But once she’s on the remote set out in the woods, filming a horror movie, weird things start to happen and maybe she’s the one in a horror…

For fans of missing persons cases and Australian crime novels. Set in a rural Australian town, a 12-year-old girl, Esther, has gone missing walking home from school. We watch the investigation, and get to know Esther, as we follow her best friend, mother, school companion, family friends, and Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels who is brought in to investigate. It’s a great read for fans of small communities and secrets and who enjoy a mix of child and adult points of view.

If you like page-turning procedurals, you can never go wrong with one of Schaffhausen’s series. This book spoils the plot of the first so if you want to start at the beginning, go pick up Gone For Good and don’t read below. If you’ve already ready it and are excited for the sequel, Annalisa Vega is back! Ostracized by her family and colleagues, she figures why not be the person to investigate a detective’s death?

For nonviolent true crime fans looking for a scam now taught in business schools. Eddie Antar, “Crazy Eddie,” was a bigger-than-life owner of a chain of electronic stores in the ’70s who had an iconic ad campaign — you can see it in the film Splash and SNL parodies. Here, journalist Gary Weiss tells Eddie Antar’s story from the workers who forever love him to the massive corruption of his businesses.

For fans of cozy historical mysteries and locked room mysteries. Lily Adler may want a break from London and a vacation in Hampshire, but with stories about a ghost and a woman smothered to death in her sleep — in a locked room — she’s going to be doing many things other than relaxing. Sleuthing, she’ll be sleuthing of course! If you’d like to start at the beginning of the series, pick up The Body In the Garden.