There is nothing better than curling up with a good book in autumn. As the leaves change, and the air gets cooler, it is the perfect season for a cozy murder mystery, a fantasy read, or just a really great novel set in September, October, or November. The rain of this past week helped set the mood for suspense and darkness. A plot full of dramatic description and snappy dialogue keeps a reader intensely focused on the foreshadowing. The calendar signals autumn this weekend. Sweater weather may not be here just yet but as Anne narrated in Anne of Green Gables, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
Thomas Maier’s latest novel, Montauk to Manhattan, is a story of murder, fame, sex, ambition, and the many political passions. Jack Denton is a down-on-his luck writer who is happy to see his novel about the 1880s stealing of Montauk tribal lands by a loud, greedy tycoon made into a TV series in the Hamptons. Denton is also covering the 2016 political rise of Donald Trump for a famous newspaper. As he shuttles back and forth between his Manhattan newsroom and the on-location TV set in Montauk, Denton becomes a suspect in the disappearance of a young actress who was part of the same TV show.
Till Death Do Us Part by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a twisty, taut tale of a widow whose husband returns from the dead. Beginning a new chapter in her life, June sees her first husband who drowned on their honeymoon. The body was never found. So, after ten years, she has met someone who is patient and supportive. As the owner of a wine bar in Brooklyn, she stumbles across a website for a winery in Napa. The owner looks identical to her first husband. June secretly flies to Napa for answers while her fiancé already has concerns about not leaving everything in the past. But she’s not prepared for all the secrets she’s about to unlock because everything she thought she knew about her first love is a lie.
Every year, Jess and Storey have made an annual pilgrimage to the most remote corners of the country, where they camp, hunt, and hike, leaving much from their long friendship unspoken. Although the state of Maine has convulsed all summer with secession mania, a mania that has simultaneously spread across other states, Jess and Storey figure it is a fight reserved for legislators or, worst-case scenario, folks in the capital. After weeks hunting off the grid, the men reach a small town and are shocked by what they find. Trying to make sense of the sudden destruction all around them, they set their sights on finding their way home even dodging armed men, secessionists or U.S. military, they cannot tell, as they seek a path to safety. Then, a startling discovery drastically alters their path and the stakes of their escape. Burn by Peter Heller is a novel about two men, friends since boyhood, who emerge from the woods of rural Maine to a dystopian country racked by bewildering violence.
A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel, All the Colors of the Dark, about what lurks in the shadows of obsession and the blinding light of hope. 1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges, Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will