Here’s what you need to know about the listing of August Treasures in My Closet. I had two nights to get this written, and I was also be packing one of those evenings since I was heading out to visit a friend for a couple days. So, if you find a typing error or two, I’m apologizing upfront.  Even so, you’ll get the chance to check out some of the titles that are coming out in August.

Meg Langslow is back in Donna Andrews’ Toucan Keep a Secret. While Meg checks in on a toucan being fostered by her friend at Trinity Episcopal, she finds an elderly parishioner dead in the crypt. Now, the toucan might be able to play a role in finding a killer. (Release date is Aug. 7.)

In D.A. Bartley’s fascinating debut mystery, Blessed Be the Wicked, Detective Abish Taylor returns home to Utah after her husband’s death. Because she left the Mormon Church, she’s not easily accepted in the community or even within her family. And, no one is very helpful when one of the leaders of the local church is found dead. Even the police chief wants to call it suicide, and keep it hidden. When a second person is found dead, the police force can no longer hide what Abish already knows. As the only detective on the force, she’s looking for a killer. (Release date is Aug. 7.)

The fifth book in Judy Clemens’ Grim Reaper series, Beyond the Grave, takes Casey Maldonado and her companion, Death, or the Grim Reaper, to Idaho, and straight into trouble. She finds a group of three troublemakers in one town, and after beating them, heads to another town. But, Armstrong is a town torn by gossip and brutality. And, Casey and Death will have to find the truth behind a mysterious Halloween party before they can move on. (Release date is Aug. 7.)

The Butterfly Conspiracy is Vivian Conroy’s debut historical mystery. In Victorian London, a mysterious death unites Miss Merula Merriweather and Lord Raven Royston. Merula spends her time in a conservatory hatching butterflies, but, because the Royal Zoological Society won’t accept a woman’s accomplishments, she has her uncle Rupert take credit. But, at a lecture, when the guest of honor dies after contact with one of Merula’s butterflies, her uncle is arrested for murder. Royston feels partially responsible for the death, so the two team up to find the killer. (Release date is Aug. 7.)

Jennifer Graeser Dornbush brings her knowledge as the daughter of a medical examiner to her debut novel, The Coroner. Surgical resident Emily Hartford rushes home to Michigan when her father has a heart attack. She’s been estranged from him for a dozen years, but she steps in when her former boyfriend, the town’s sheriff, needs a medical examiner. A senator’s daughter has just been found dead, and Emily discovers she was murdered. Now, she’s home to help the town find a killer. (Release date is Aug. 7.)

Hollywood Ending is Kellye Garrett’s second mystery featuring actress turned PI Dayna Anderson. Award season is in full swing, and Dayna’s boyfriend is a nominee, so they’re spending a lot of time in promotion. When a celebrity publicist is killed, the festive mood abruptly ends. Dayna hopes to promote her own career by finding a killer. She learns a lot about gossip blogging and Hollywood celebrities before she bumbles across the killer. (Release date is Aug. 8.)

In the tenth Stewart Hoag mystery, David Handler’s The Man Who Couldn’t Miss, Hoagy tries to find a killer who disrupts an important play performance. Hoagy’s ex-wife Merilee is directing a one-night performance to raise money to save a historic theater. Everyone shows up, from Katherine Hepburn to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. But, they only see the first act before one of the actors, one of Merilee’s college classmates, is murdered. (Release date is Aug. 14.)

Kristan Higgins’ Good Luck with That is the story of two women, survivors after the death of their friend. The three have been friends since they met as teens. When Emerson dies, she leaves one final wish for her best friends: to conquer the fears they still carry as adults. As the two women grow stronger, the realize the real meaning of Emerson’s dying wish. She wants her friends to love themselves. (Release date is Aug. 7.)

Bell Elkins’ life in Ackers Gap, West Virginia, has taken some strange turns. In Julia Keller’s Bone on Bone, Bell is back, hoping to help the community find its way through the opioid crisis. When a prominent man in town confronts a drug dealer, and is then killed in his driveway, the new prosecutor asks Bell and a former deputy to help in the investigation. It’s another powerful story in the series. (Release date is Aug. 21.)

John Larison’s debut, Whiskey When We’re Dry, is called “A gritty and lyrical American epic about a young woman who disguises herself as a boy and heads west to find her brother”. In 1885, seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned on the family homestead. She heads out to find her outlaw brother, Noah. Jessilyn, a sharpshooter herself, ends up working for the violent governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah, dead or alive. (Release date is Aug. 21.)

Lori Rader-Day is the Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Little Pretty Things. Her latest standalone, Under a Dark Sky, is about a widow, Eden Wallace, whose existence has narrowed down to her home, and she can’t even sleep in the dark. When she finds paperwork saying her husband reserved a week at a dark sky park, she goes, hoping to return to the living. But, she finds she’s not alone in her getaway. She plans to leave the next day, until a fellow guest is killed, and everyone, including Eden is a suspect. Rader-Day puts a new spin on a locked-room mystery. (Release date is Aug. 7.)

I’ve already read David Myles Robinson’s Son of Saigon, and loved the characters. Hank and Norm are two wealthy seniors living in a retirement community, what Hank refers to as “the death farm”. When the Vietnamese woman he loved forty years earlier shows up, asking him to find the son he never knew he had, the two witty men set out on a road trip to find Hank’s unknown son.  This is a fun, sometimes violent, story. (Release date is Aug. 1.)

In Lisa Scottoline’s Feared, the law firm of Rosato & DiNunzio are being sued for reverse sex discrimination by three plaintiffs who claim they weren’t hired because they were men. Their lawyer once lost a case to Mary DiNunzio, and now he wants a rematch. The two women soon figure out the lawyer manufactured the entire story. But, events turn deadly when a murder strikes close to home. (Release date is Aug. 14.)

Here’s the list of books I didn’t have time to summarize.

Bennett, Robert Jackson – Foundryside (Aug. 21)
Brooks, Kim – Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear (Aug. 21)
Candlish, Louise – Our House (Aug. 7)
Dalcher, Christina – Vox (Aug. 21)
Di Spigna, Christian – Founding Martyr (Aug. 14)
Dey, Claudia – Heartbreaker (Aug. 21)
Greengrass, Jessie – Sight (Aug. 21)
Greenwood, T. – Rust & Stardust (Aug. 7)
Hua, Vanessa – A River of Stars (Aug. 14)
Owens, Delia – Where the Crawdads Sing (Aug. 14)
Peebles, Frances De Pontes – The Air You Breathe (Aug. 21)
Powers, Tim – Alternate Routes (Aug. 7)
Schumacher, Julie – The Shakespeare Requirement (Aug. 14)
Steinhauer, Olen – The Middleman (Aug. 7)
Taneja, Preti – We That Are Young (Aug. 28)
Walker, Nico – Cherry (Aug. 14)