Investigating Mysteries: Future Books

Through her exquisite prose, sharp observation and deft plotting, Mariah Fredericks invites us into the heart of a changing New York in her remarkable debut adult novel, A Death of No Importance. New York City, 1910. Invisible until she's needed, Jane Prescott has perfected the art of serving as a ladies' maid to the city's upper echelons. When she takes up a position with the Benchley family, dismissed by the city's elite as "new money", Jane realizes that while she may not have financial privilege, she has a power they do not--she understands the rules of high society. The Benchleys cause further outrage when their daughter Charlotte becomes engaged to notorious playboy Norrie, the son of the eminent Newsome family. But when Norrie is found murdered at a party, Jane discovers she is uniquely positioned--she's a woman no one sees, but who witnesses everything; who possesses no social power, but that of fierce intellect--and therefore has the tools to solve his murder. There are many with grudges to bear: from the family Norrie was supposed to marry into, to the survivors of a tragic accident in a mine owned by the Newsomes, to the rising anarchists who are sick of those born into wealth getting away with anything they want. Jane also knows that in both high society and the city's underbelly, morals can become cheap in the wrong hands: scandal and violence simmer just beneath the surface--and can break out at any time.
September 26, 2024

1914, Fiji: 25-year-old Akal Singh would rather be anywhere but this tropical paradise-or, as he calls it, 'this godforsaken island.' After a promising start to his police career in his native India and Hong Kong, Akal has been sent to Fiji as punishment for a humiliating professional mistake. Lonely and grumpy, Akal plods through his work and dreams of getting back to Hong Kong. When an indentured Indian woman goes missing from a sugarcane plantation and Fiji's newspapers scream 'kidnapping,' the inspector-general reluctantly assigns Akal the case, giving him strict instructions to view this investigation as nothing more than cursory. Akal, eager to achieve redemption, agrees-but soon finds himself far more invested than he ever expected. Now not only is he investigating a disappearance, but also confronting the brutal realities of the indentured workers' existence and the racism of the British colonizers in Fiji-along with his own thorny notions of personhood and caste. And early interrogations of the white plantation owners, Indian indentured laborers, and native Fijians yield only one conclusion: there is far more to this case than meets the eye. Nilima Rao's debut is full of sparkling wit, vibrant characters, intriguing mystery-solving, and fascinating historical detail, both unflinching in its treatment of the atrocities of colonialism and hopeful for a better future.
September 23, 2024

A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year Belfast, Northern Ireland: A man left horrifically maimed by a car accident appears to have taken his own life. It should be an open-and-shut case, but something doesn't feel right to DCI Serena Flanagan. Flanagan ignores advice to close the case, call it a suicide, and be done with it. As she picks at the threads of the dead man's life, a disturbing picture emerges, and she realizes the man's widow, Roberta Garrick, is not what she seems . .
November 25, 2024.