Mysteries, arguably the most popular genre, take many different forms. From the detective novel to the romantic thriller, suspense-filled mysteries keep readers anxiously turning pages to solve the puzzle. This month I am recommending three wildly different thrillers encompassed by this genre. Firekeeper's Daughter, a debut novel by Angeline Boulley, is a Native American crime thriller focusing on an FBI investigation into meth overdoses in an Anishinaabe community. The Project by Courtney Summers (Sadie) is a psychological thriller, in which Lo, a young woman who works for an investigative magazine, examines a cult that her sister disappeared into after their parents' deaths in a devastating car accident. Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price is a reimagining of the Jane Austen favorite as a murder mystery.
Firekeepers' Daughter introduces Daunis Fontaine, an 18-year-old native American hockey player, who struggles to reconcile her Anishinaabe father's culture with her white mother's relatives' prejudice. Although she loves her tribal community, she is denied official citizenship in the Sault tribe due to her mixed parentage. Her plans to head off to college to pursue a medical degree are put on hold when her uncle overdoses on meth and her grandmother has a stroke. As meth related deaths continue to mount, Daunis is recruited by the FBI to work undercover to investigate a deadly new form of meth being distributed in the community. Using her knowledge of chemistry and traditional plants, she partners with Jamie, an agent posing as a hockey player new to her brother Levi's team, to source the drug and discover its dealers. The author, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, shares key teachings from her culture, including Ojibwe language and a look at the corruption that has led to the meth plague on reservations across the country. This compelling look at Native American culture woven into a complex criminal investigation is not to be missed!
In The Project Lo Denham is involved in a car accident that killed her parents and leaves her near death. Her sister Bea prays for a miracle and when Lev Warren, the supposedly divine leader of a cult known as The Unity Project intervenes with a "healing," Lo survives. Bea, overwhelmingly grateful, joins the cult and disappears from Lo's life. While working for an investigative magazine, Lo witnesses the suicide of one of the cult's members. She begins investigating the cult, hoping to discredit it and reconnect with her sister. However, Lo, who is granted an exclusive interview with Lev Warren, finds her sister is no longer a member, and she is slowly lured into joining the cult herself. The story moves back and forth in time with Lo narrating the present and Bea flashbacks from her past. Suspense builds as subtle clues about what really happened are revealed, until the horrifying truth is unveiled. This gripping psychological thriller focuses on what happens when downtrodden and vulnerable people, who are searching for identity and belonging, are preyed upon by opportunistic groups offering healing and salvation.
Pride and Premeditation, the first book in a trilogy which reworks Jane Austen novels as murder mysteries, finds Lizzy Bennet aspiring to a position in her father's law firm. When the head of a local shipping firm, Charles Bingley, is accused of murdering his brother-in-law, Lizzy attempts to prove him innocent to prove herself to her father. Although his best friend Fitzwilliam Darcy is Bingley's lawyer, Lizzy searches London for clues and they end up working together to free Bingley and find the real killer. This Regency era mystery will especially delight Jane Austen fans. The extensive cast of original characters appear in differing roles but still retain their personalities. For instance, Collins is set to inherit the law firm, but is woefully inept as a lawyer, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh is a powerful woman but has devious ties to the shipping world. In an author's note Price discusses being inspired by Austen and Agatha Christie and acknowledge the liberties she has taken with class and gender roles. This imaginative suspenseful adaptation will appeal to both murder mystery and Austen fans alike. It comes out April 6, 2021.
