Mystery and Suspense Magazine

Book Reviews

Reviews of new and upcoming books in the mystery, thriller, horror, crime, and suspense genres. Our editorial staff and reviewers choose which titles to review. All reviews meet standards of notability.

56 Days

Lockdown provided the opportunity to commit the perfect crime

The Forest of Vanishing Stars

She uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees

Dance with Death

In 1893 Queen Victoria is arranging marriages for royals

The Watcher Girl

A woman’s suspicions about her ex-boyfriend become an obsession

Crooked In His Ways

He disappears just before Christmas in 1856, and reappears in several pieces

Dream Girl

He wakes up next to a dead body and realizes his nightmare is just beginning

Murder in an Orchard Cemetery

The Reverend Mother’s annual retreat is shattered by sudden, violent death

Everything We Didn’t Say

A mother must confront the dark summer that changed her life forever

Cajun Kiss of Death

Blood may be thicker than water, but this case is thicker than gumbo

House of Crows

A girl walked into the woods and vanished forever

Daughters of Sparta

The Siege of Troy, told through the perspectives of two women

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

Her predecessor mysteriously died

The Hollywood Spy

She trades bomb-ravaged London and Nazi-occupied Europe for LA

Striking Range

The killer has a cold-blooded plan that threatens K-9 and detective

The Lies We Tell

A mother is faced with a terrifying decision: to save her son or herself

The Babysitter

There was one thing she didn’t know: their babysitter was a serial killer

Searchers in Winter

A new French Empire is rising from the shadow of the Reign of Terror

Hell’s Jaw Pass

Train holdups, ranch wars, slaughter—this little boomtown’s got it all

The Whispering Dead

In the darkness, she can hear the unquiet dead whispering

The Therapist

A house that holds a shocking secret

The Grandmother Plot

Death isn’t unexpected in a nursing home, but murder is

The Burning

For a deputy coroner, a murder hits close to home

The Heron’s Cry

A detective is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists

The Witness For The Dead

His skills lead him into a morass of treachery, murder, and injustice

The Maid

An eccentric hotel maid discovers a guest murdered in his bed

The Third Grave

a crime writer and her detective husband are working a cold case

Shadow Target

Someone is assassinating CIA field officers and his name is next on the list

These Silent Woods

A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains

The Guide

Hired by an elite fishing lodge in Colorado, he uncovers a plot

Relentless

His enemies have turned him into a fearsome weapon

The Library of the Dead

A cynical teen explores the shadowy magical underside of Edinburgh

Dark Intercept

A Navy SEAL gets a call from a friend whose daughter has been kidnapped

Secret Enemy

He should be the last man she wants, but she can’t help herself

Our Kind of People

Among New York City’s Gilded Age elite, one family will defy convention

Loch Down Abbey

It’s the 1930s and a mysterious illness is spreading over Scotland

The Good Sister

Sisters who protect each other from a sociopathic mother

The Plot

A story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it

The Other Passenger

A daily boat trip commute upended when one of the regulars disappears

Falling

Thirty minutes before the flight, the pilot’s family was kidnapped

A Good Day for Chardonnay

A bar fight gone bad and a teenage daughter hunting a serial killer

We Were Never Here

An annual backpacking trip has deadly consequences

Painting the Light

A storm strikes, a ship sinks, and a husband and wife are presumed dead

The Perfect Family

A prank sets the perfect family down a path of suspense

The Heathens

A woman is found dead and three delinquent teens go on the run

Shutter

A young woman agrees to star in a filmmaker’s latest isolating project

Her Three Lives

A family must determine who the real enemy is after a brutal home invasion

Fatal Family Ties

A Texas genealogist deals with murders in both the past and present

The Serial Killer’s Wife

They’re saying he’s a monster, and that she knew

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