All the Beautiful Lies by Peter Swanson. For those who love mystery novels, Swanson is my favorite author and this newest of his books does not disappoint.  His characters are always unique. He often writes from the perspective of multiple characters and provides back story.  If you want a thriller this summer, this is it. I will write more, but I have read all of Swanson’s books. I am an avid reader of all genres.  To me, Swanson owns the mystery space. I’m tired of a character who is a 30 something year old British woman who has it all and happens upon a mystery… Swanson writes with interesting character, plots and prose.  If you enjoy it, please devour: “Her Every Fear;” “The Girl with a Clock for a Heart;” and “The Kind Worth Killing.”

The Beautiful Mystery: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novelby Louise Penny.  “I am a devotee to the Inspector Gamache series penned by Louise Penny and the newest offering does not disappoint. Gamache and Beauvoir find themselves in an isolated monastery in Canada, summoned to investigate the murder of the abbot. The murderer must be a monk – but who? As Beauvoir struggles with addiction, Gamache struggles with police department politics, making for a multi-layered and satisfying mystery.” This is one of several titles from contributor Michele Woodward, who has her own great booklist.

Blindness by Jose Saramago. A description from Amazon: "In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind….Within a day the man's wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness…So begins Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping story of humanity under siege…"

Bolero (A Nick Sayler Novel)by Joanie McDonald. Nick Sayler, a damaged PI, lives on a barge on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. He reluctantly gets involved in a whodunit when a doctor calls from Bellevue hospital to tell him a woman who was the victim of a brutal attack has amnesia.  She remembers nothing about the attack, or her life, but was carrying his business card.

Capitalby John Lanchester: “It’s 2008 and the markets are crashing. The residents of Pepys Road, London begin receiving anonymous postcards that say ‘We Want What You Have.’ Who are they from? An epic novel with intimate portrayals set a time of extraordinary tension.”

Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike Book 3) by Robert Galbraith. "Career of Evil is the third in the highly acclaimed series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott.  When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman's severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible--and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.With the police focusing on one of the suspects, Strike and Robin delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them..."

The City of Falling Angels By John Berendt. He’s the author ofMidnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. This book traces the events surrounding the fire which destroyed an opera house in Venice. Some have told me that this was not as gripping as “midnight,” but the Amazon reviews were pretty good.

Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams. An American nurse and a British soldier fall in love in France during WWI.  Upon their return to England, however, the charming soldier appears to be a master manipulator.  She flees to the States but remains trapped by his manipulations. What is real and whom can she trust? Many twists and turns make this a fun read to the end.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena. Although the story is about a couples missing child it is a mystery that keeps you turning the pages quickly!

The Day I Died by Lori Rader-Day.  "A propulsive psychological thriller about Anna Winger, a handwriting analyst who occasionally does work for the FBI.  Her ordinary professional detachment falters when she is is brought in to help analyze a ransom note left at a murder scene in her town. This particular case cuts very close, forcing single mother Anna to confont ghosts from her own past, and threatening the life she's tried to build with her 13-year-old son."

Dead Until Dark (and others in the series) by Charlaine Harris. "Love these books. My guilty pleasure. What's not to like about a Southern vampire mystery romance? The basis of the hit HBO series 'True Blood', these books have sex, humor, puzzles, mythology - the whole enchilada. Excellent beach reading."

Death in Holy Orders by PD James. "a beach read for fans of Adam Dalgliesh."

Defending Jacob by William Landay. “Very readable and fast paced.   A district attorney's son is accused of killing a classmate and his father is thrown into the case. The author's description of life and the people in the upper middle class town ring true and so do the feelings and conflicts of the accused's and victim's parents.” Another contributor writes, “This is a legal thriller in which a 14 year old boy is suspected of murdering a fellow student. As the case wears on the parents’ belief systems are sorely tested. The fictional father is an established assistant D.A. and supportive of his son. The book has been likened to Anna Quindlen’s ‘Every Last One’ in its connection with that tiny bit of uncertainty that parents may have about their children.  There are many twists in “Defending Jacob” which keep one reading right to the end.”

Faithful Place by Tana French. "How had I not heard of Tana French before last summer? In this, her third novel, an undercover Dublin cop is called back to his old neighborhood by his sister. He’s avoided the place since his girlfriend disappeared twenty-two years earlier, just before they were about to elope. Her suitcase has been found in an abandoned house, turning all his old assumptions upside down. He investigates (failing to mention to his higher-ups his personal involvement in the case). It’s a dark, compelling page-turner. French is a master of story and character and an exquisite writer. (NB: If you like Faithful Place, do not be tempted to think her earlier works must be even better. Unlike some writers who get lazy after one success, French’s work has only improved. It’s best to move on to the sequel, Broken Harbor)."

The Girl Who Fell from the Skyby Heidi Durrow. "This novel tells the story of a girl, daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who miraculously survives a tragedy that claims the rest of her family. She moves in with her African-American grandmother and struggles to fit in with her light skin and blue eyes."  Chosen by Barbara Kingsolver as the winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. This book made the list as a unprecedented "midsummer top pick addition" in 2012.  "I'm sure most of you have at least heard of it, if not read it. A gripping psychological thriller.  Very hard to put down."  One contributor commented, “A lot of HATE in that one!"

The Guest List by Lucy Foley.  One of Today Show's anticipated novels for this summer.  "Agatha Christy with a modern twist."  "A wedding weekend on an isolated Irish island provides the wonderfully ominous setting for this psychological thriller.  On the night of the wedding, someone is murdered, and the whodunit is unwound via the perspectives of six different characters. A storm, a bridezilla, a power outage, and loads of interpersonal tension ratchet up the tension. The novel takes place over two days, but it took me less time than that to read the entire thing." "I started this one night (during a power outage - not very strategic, given this novel's eeriness) and finished it less than twenty-four hours later.  Super propulsive, cool setting, heart thumpingly good read. Multiple POVs, but the only time I lost the thread was when I stopped reading in the middle of a chapter."

An Instance of the Fingerpostby Iain Pears. “If one gets into historical mysteries, this is an all-time winner.” From Amazon (quoting People):  "It is 1663, and England is wracked with intrigue and civil strife. When an Oxford don is murdered, it seems at first that the incident can have nothing to do with great matters of church and state....Yet, little is as it seems in this gripping novel, which dramatizes the ways in which witnesses can see the same events yet remember them falsely. Each of four narrators—a Venetian medical student, a young man intent on proving his late father innocent of treason, a cryptographer, and an archivist—fingers a different culprit...an erudite and entertaining tour de force."

The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl "A historical mystery, this is a lovely, exciting read. Charles Dickens has died during the writing of Edwin Drood, leaving the work unfinished. Or did he finish it? You'll see."

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens.  From Amazon: College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran--and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.  As Joe writes about Carl's life, especially Carl's valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory.  Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?

The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. From Amazon: “From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery.”

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear.  "This is a series of 15 cozy British mysteries written over the past 15-16 years.  Born into a lower-class service family, Maisie is taken under the wing of an aristocrat family, educated, and sent off to serve as a nurse in World War I.  Returning from war, she becomes a private investigator, and every book in the series shows how she evolves over time, how she finds and spurns love, how she connects to family, and how she solves murders, art theft, and other crimes.  I’m on my second read-through of the whole series, and am falling in love with it all over again.  Really recommend this as a year-long project if anyone wants/needs a new-to-them series to dig into."

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian. "I liked this BEFORE Oprah picked it, thank you very much.  It's a riveting courtroom drama about a midwife in Vermont and a birth that went wrong. It is narrated by the midwife's 14-year-old daughter." Skeletons at the Feast and The Double Bind (also reviewed) are also good page-turners.

Museum of Extraordinary Things From Amazon: "Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s 'museum,' alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.

“The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie... 

"With its colorful crowds of bootleggers, heiresses, thugs, and idealists, New York itself becomes a riveting character as Hoffman weaves her trademark magic, romance, and masterful storytelling to unite Coralie and Eddie in a sizzling, tender, and moving story of young love in tumultuous times. The Museum of Extraordinary Things is Alice Hoffman at her most spellbinding."

Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman and John Shiffman. John Shiffman is a Landon grad, so I can offer this testimony: If this book is as good as the parties he had in his basement circa 1983, it’s bound to be worth reading. One Amazon reviewer writes: "Priceless has just about everything you'd want in a book, with appeal to all sorts of readers. In light of the recent art heist in Paris, this is timely and fascinating. Wittman's exploits do indeed read like a crime thriller, keeping the pages turning in a breathless fashion."

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. This is a creepy tale set in early 1900s Wisconsin. A beautiful woman, having come across a newspaper ad from a wealthy businessman who needs a "reliable wife," and hatches a dastardly plan. A lot of you have been reading this. Two friends at a swim meet just told me that the "key is to stick with it."

S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst  is a brilliant and consuming read.  is supposed to be an early 20th century novel about a man with amnesia taken onto a mysterious pirate ship where time moves at a different pace than on the land.  The novel is written by an enigmatic author, V.M. Straka who was implicated in many political assassinations and whose true identity remains a mystery.  The novel is footnoted throughout, and the footnotes themselves are odd and often unrelated to the text.  Here comes the cool part: throughout the margins, the novel has comments in two different handwritings.  The original commenter, Eric, has been through the book at least once before the second person, Jenny, picks it up.  The two of them begin their own relationship in the margins of the book.  They try to figure out the true identity of the author and to solve the codes that are written into the footnotes.  The codes are real (and hard!), and you could spend hours decoding and working parallel to Jenny and Eric.  As they get closer to the truth behind VM Straka, they are pulled into his dangerous world of spies.  s notes appear in multiple colors throughout, representing their many passes through the book.  Tucked into the pages are notes and postcards to each other, newspaper clippings, and other bits of research.

"A story unlike any I’ve ever read.   Buy the old-fashioned paper version and have fun!  If you get lost there are webpages devoted to the book and the codes, and various opinions on the best way to read the book.”

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luis Zafon – “Set in Barcelona in the 1950s, this a wonderful, intricate (long) story full of interesting characters, mystery, romance, adventure and fantasy. Terrific story telling!”

The Smell of the Night By Andrea Camellieri is “a light and fun mystery written by an Italian and translated into English. Great read – light, but smart."

The Suspect (Karl Alberg Mysteries, No. 1) by L.R. Wright. "Winner of an Edgar Award, this book was written in the 80’s but I just found it. It is a murder mystery set on the coast of British Columbia and the entire story revolves around three characters whose lives become entwined. What makes this murder mystery a bit different is you learn who the killer is on page one. It is a quietly written book – no gory details, violence or sexual assaults – which was a nice departure. The author carefully describes bits and pieces of each character which are all pieces to the puzzle and eventually answer the question of why there was a murder. I was hooked from page one … It’s a perfect beach book!"

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie The first in a series by Alan Bradley. "I realized I could enjoy this book more if I pretended that the protagonist was NOT an 11 year old girl since there was no way an 11 year old would ever have this vocabulary, knowledge of poisons, or chutzpah. Once past Flavia's age (and name) I was able to relax and enjoy the mystery. I liked the setting - a small English village in the 1950's - and I liked the relationship that Flavia had with the old gardener, Dogger. Descriptions like ‘quaint’, ‘quirky’, and ‘cozy’ could be used to describe this book."

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith. "Another beach read for fans of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency."

The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Diane Setterfield. Synopsis from Amazon: Margaret Lea, a London bookseller's daughter, has written an obscure biography that suggests deep understanding of siblings. She is contacted by renowned aging author Vida Winter, who finally wishes to tell her own, long-hidden, life story. Margaret travels to Yorkshire, where she interviews the dying writer, walks the remains of her estate at Angelfield and tries to verify the old woman's tale of a governess, a ghost and more than one abandoned baby. Comments: "I LOVED this book." and "I wish I'd saved this wonderful, entertaining gothic novel for vacation. The author was artful in how she built to the revelations, much in the style of 19th century gothic novels mentioned throughout." "Very entertaining."

The Unlikely Spy and other titles by Dan Silva. “These are great beach reads if you like fast-paced, historical mysteries. My husband and I both read them – but honestly we’ve read them a few times and are always surprised (again) by the ending. They don’t stick, but they are good.”

The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin. “Great detective read in the Agatha Christie tradition.” There is one of a series, by the way.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. "It’s a little late to call this a "hot book," considering it was published in 1859. I initially read it because of Nora Ephron’s rhapsodic endorsement here. Ephron wrote, "Days pass as I savor every word. Each minute I spend away from the book pretending to be interested in everyday life is a misery. How could I have waited so long to read this book? When can I get back to it? Halfway through I return to New York to work, to mix a movie, and I sit in the mix studio unable to focus on anything but whether my favorite character in the book will survive. I will not be able to bear it if anything bad happens to my beloved Marian Halcombe." This is EXACTLY how I felt reading this book (except the bit about sitting in a studio mixing a movie, since I wasn’t doing anything a tenth as glamorous). I could not put this book down."