If you thought there were a lot of books in May, wait until you see the June titles. Do the publishers think we all go on vacation in June? I need more reading time! As I did in May, I’ll pick out the crime fiction and some other favorites, and then list all the others at the end of tomorrow’s list.
I’ll jump right into it with Ellie Alexander’s latest Bakeshop mystery, A Crime of Passion Fruit. Jules Capshaw takes Torte, her family bakeshop to a cruise ship. Her estranged husband pleas for her to dazzle everyone by bring her baked goods to his ship. With dreams of tropical drinks and an all-expense-paid trip, Jules agrees. But, she didn’t know that a dead body would be on the itinerary. (Release date is June 27.)
Fiona Barton’s latest novel of psychological suspense is The Child. When an old house is demolished in a gentrifying section of London, a workman finds a tiny skeleton, buried for years. Journalist Kate Waters is determined to find the story behind the burial, but her search disrupts the lives of three women. (Release date is June 27.)
How about a suspense thriller? Here and Gone is by Haylen Beck (pen name for Stuart Neville). Audra just wants to reach California safely with her kids as they try to escape her abusive husband. But an unsettling sheriff pulls her over in Arizona, and she ends up in custody. One minute her kids are here; the next they’re gone. But, halfway across the country Danny Lee hears the story about the missing children, a story that sounds similar to events in his own past. Now, he’s draw into the fight for their return. (Release date is June 20.)
Bestselling author Benjamin Black takes readers back to sixteenth-century Prague in a story of murder, magic, and the dark art of wielding extraordinary power, Wolf on a String. Christian Stern, an ambitious young scholar and alchemist hopes to make his fortune at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II. After he stumbles across the body of a young well-born woman, Rudolf asks him to solve the mystery. But, Christian has blundered into the midst of a power struggle. (Release date is June 6.)
Aimee Leduc helps a woman suffering from PTSD in Cara Black’s Murder in Saint-Germain. Suzanne Lesage is an agent on an elite counterterrorism team that just returned from Yugoslavia, where she was hunting war criminals. But, now she swears she’s seen a man she thought was dead, and begs Leduc to track him. Although she already has a big case, and her baby to take care of, Leduc owes a favor. (Release date is June 6.)
Treble at the Jam Fest is the latest in Leslie Budewitz’ Food Lovers’ Village mysteries. Erin Murphy, manager of Murphy’s Mercantile, has her hands full with her job and Jewel Bay’s annual Jazz Festival. But, the death of a guitarist isn’t an accident, and as Head of the Village Merchant’s Association, Erin’s expected to “do something.” (Release date is June 8.)
Jillian Cantor’s The Lost Letter is a historical novel of love and survival inspired by real resistance workers in World War II Austria, and the mysterious love letter that connects generations of Jewish families. It’s a story that goes from 1938 Austria to Los Angeles in 1989 when a woman comes across her father’s stamp collection, and finds an unusual Austrian stamp on an old love letter. (Release date is June 13.)
Once Upon a Spine is the latest Bibliophile Mystery by Kate Carlisle. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is Brooklyn Wainwright’s latest book obsession. While entertaining their future in-laws, the rare bookbinder and her fiancé, Derek Stone, are caught up in the investigations of crime in their neighborhood, everything from graffiti and vandalism to murder. (Release date is June 6.)
Maia Chance kicks off a new series with Bad Housekeeping, a mystery featuring Agnes Blythe and her Great Aunt Effie, as they team up to save a crumbling, condemned inn and crack a murder case. (Release date is June 13.)
Game warden Mike Bowditch is back in Paul Doiron’s Knife Creek. Four years ago, a young woman disappeared in the Maine wilderness. When Bowditch discovers a recently buried body on the edge of a swamp, links to her disappearance threaten to expose a horrific secret that could cost Bowditch his life. (Release date is June 13.)
Karin Slaughter praised Karen Dionne’s psychological thriller, The Marsh King’s Daughter. It’s the story of a woman who must risk everything to hunt down the dangerous man who shaped her past and now threatens to steal her future: her father. (Release date is June 13.)
Siobhan Fallon takes readers into the US expat community of the Middle East during the rise of the Arab Spring in The Confusion of Languages. Cassie Hugo and Margaret Brickshaw have nothing in common, other than they both followed their soldier husbands to the US embassy in Jordan. After two years, Cassie’s an expert on the rules, but the newly married Margaret sees only her chance to explore. After a fender bender, Margaret has to go to the local police station and Cassie reluctantly agrees to watch Margaret’s toddler son. But, hours pass; Margaret doesn’t answer her phone. And, Cassie begins to question not only Margaret’s whereabouts, but also her own role in the disappearance. (Release date is June 27.)
The Switch, Joseph Finder’s latest thriller, puts an innocent man in the crosshairs of sinister government secrets and ruthless political ambition. Michael Tanner accidentally picks up the wrong MacBook in airport security. It’s too late by the time he arrives, and then he discovers his laptop belongs to a U.S. senator, and it has top secret files. The senator needs it back because she broke the law by having those files on her laptop. Now, there’s a fixer and a security agency on Tanner’s trail. (Release date is June 13.)
Meg Gardiner’s Unsub is getting a lot of pre-publication buzz. It’s a psychological thriller inspired by the never-caught Zodiac killer. It’s about a young detective Caitlin Hendrix, who has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of her childhood nightmares reemerges, the Prophet. The FBI calls the killer an UNSUB, an unknown subject. He terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator in the case. Now, the ruthless madman is killing again, and he’s set his sights on Caitlin. (Release date is June 27.)
I seldom cover literary fiction, but I have two novels to mention here. Julia Glass’ is A House Among the Trees. It’s about the unusual bond between a world-famous children’s book author and his assistant. That relationship sets the stage for a richly plotted novel of friendship and love, artistic ambition, and the power of an unexpected legacy. (Release date is June 13.)
Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin tells of an eleven-year-old, Marcus, sent to live with his reclusive aunt Charlotte after his mother’s death. She’s a artist with a haunted past who paints an empty beach cottage called “Grief Cottage” because a boy and his parents disappeared from there fifty years earlier during a hurricane. As Marcus visits the cottage, and discovers the ghost of the boy, the story becomes a ghost story, an investigation of grief, remorse, and the memories that haunt us. (Release date is June 6.)
In Leonard Goldberg’s The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes, Holmes’ daughter and Dr. John Watson, Jr. team up to search for a clever killer who is getting away with murders that appear to be natural deaths. (Release date is June 6.)
Linda Greenlaw, author of The Hungry Ocean, takes readers to Acadia Island, Maine in the latest Jane Bunker mystery, Shiver Hitch. Bunker, an insurance investigator and sheriff’s deputy, investigates an accidental fire, but finds a body in the ashes. (Release date is June 6.)
Anthony Horowitz’ Magpie Murders is a hot title for June. “It’s a puzzle inside a puzzle, a loving and meticulous to Golden Age vintage crime fiction, and a brilliant novel about novel-writing.” Editor Susan Ryland reads Alan Conway’s latest novel, expecting just another mystery featuring his detective Atticus Pund, who solves mysteries in sleepy English villages. But, the more Susan reads, the more she suspects the latest story may involve real-life events. (Release date is June 6.)
Indigo is a collaboration by authors Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden, Kelley Armstrong, Jonathan Maberry, Kat Richardson, Seaman McGuire, Tim Lebbon, Cherie Priest, James Moore, and Mark Morris. Investigative reporter Nora Hesper is also an urban mother, Indigo, a brutal vigilante who can forge darkness into weapons and travel across the city by slipping from one path o shadow to another. Her parents were killed when she was nineteen. Her subsequent history sounds like the origins of several comic book characters. Her history begins to unravel as she realizes most of her story is made up of lies. (Release date is June 20.)
Enough for today? A little overwhelming, isn’t it? And, there’s a pile of books to talk about tomorrow as well. There are enough June releases to last us all summer. Do any of these books jump out at you?
