Every month, we’re profiling new-ish releases that are getting critical and commercial buzz. For March, we’re looking at a fiendishly difficult book puzzle, two Westerns based on real-life events, a spy novel, a memoir about being a death investigator for Manhattan’s Medical Examiner office, and a literary thriller audiobook.
If you love puzzles:
Edward Powys Mathers’s Cain’s Jawbone (1934, 2021 reprint)
Ninety years ago, the Observer’s crossword compiler, Edward Powys Mathers, released a slim murder mystery called Cain’s Jawbone. You can read it like a book, but the pages are out of order. Once you piece together the pages, you will discover six different murder victims and their killers. However, don’t let its unassuming size (100 pages) fool you. It is so fiendishly difficult that only three people have ever solved it. Are you going to be number four?
Recommended for hardcore puzzle enthusiasts who love a challenge.
If you prefer Westerns:
Patrick Dearen’s Grizzly Moon (2023)
Grizzlies don’t live in Texas–that’s the conventional wisdom anyway–but this novel is inspired by real-life events in 1889 when the only documented grizzly in the state was found. The novel focuses on Wash Baker, who is drawn into the hunt after people find verifiable grizzly bear tracks. He’s also haunted by a tragedy that occurred years earlier when false rumors of a bear circulated. His fear he’ll make another mistake intersects with a desire for revenge against the man who stoked the original rumors.
Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Jack Schaeffer.
Kathleen Grissom’s Crow Mary (2023)
Crow teenager Goes First has her name changed when she marries a white fur trapper. She then becomes Crow Mary. Though she eventually falls in love with her husband, tension erupts after she resolves to save a group of kidnapped Nakoda women who survived a brutal massacre. Her husband Abe doesn’t want to get involved, so Mary takes action on her own. Like Grizzly Moon, this novel is also based on a real story.
Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Susanna Moore.
If you want an espionage thriller:
Katherine Reay’s A Shadow in Moscow (2023)*
Ingrid and Anya both became spies for different reasons at different times for different agencies. A Soviet war bride, Ingrid is married to an embassy worker and has passed USSR secrets to MI6 for years. Anya, meanwhile, is a Soviet military researcher who starts spying for the CIA after she becomes disillusioned with her homeland. After an act of betrayal threatens all of the West’s Soviet spies, both women must race to save themselves.
*Ebook and audiobook also available in Libby.
Recommended for those who enjoy the work of Sarah Sundin and Irene Hannon.
If you enjoy nonfiction:
Barbara Butcher’s What the Dead Know (2022)
When Barbara Butcher was hired by Manhattan’s Medical Examiner as a death investigator, she was only the second woman ever tapped for the job. She also was the first to last at it longer than three months. In this gripping but no-holds-barred memoir, she recounts what ended up being a 20-year-career in which she ultimately investigated thousands of death scenes, including hundreds of homicides. She also relates her experiences working 9/11.
Recommended for those who enjoyed Paul Holes’s Unmasked.
If you need an audiobook:
Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me (2021)**
Hannah is madly in love with her husband Owen and struggling to be a good stepmother to his teenaged daughter Bailey, only to find out that Owen has disappeared and is not who he claims to be. Is he involved in malfeasance at his recently disgraced company or does he have other motivations for fleeing? Why did he abandon his daughter and lie to Hannah? Is he the good man she always thought him to be or is her whole life and marriage a fraud? Hannah sets out with Bailey to investigate. Complications ensue.
**Physical copy also available in the collection, as well as ebook and audiobook in Libby.
Recommended for those who enjoy the work of J.T. Ellison.
What’s your favorite new-ish books? What books are you buzzing about these days? Have you read any of these books? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of these items or to place them on hold.
Berryville Book Buzz 