From The Booking Desk:

This is one of those jam-packed weeks where I can’t cover everything I want to. I do want to remind folks that a few books I have already reviewed are officially released today, so don’t forget to pick up these titles: Amy Impellizzeri’s Why We Lie and Peter Swanson’s Before She Knew Him. Here are a few more books you will also find on shelves this week.

Elly Griffiths – The Stranger Diaries (HMH, Hardcover, $25.00, 04/05/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

The BOLO Books Review of The Stranger Diaries posted with the release of the UK version of this novel, so this is the first time domestic readers can find the book on their local shelves. If you are a fan of psychological suspense, this is a not-to-be-missed read.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare’s colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R. M. Holland’s most famous story, “The Stranger,” left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the storylines of her favorite literature. 
 
To make matters worse, the police suspect the killer is someone Clare knows. Unsure whom to trust, she turns to her closest confidant, her diary, the only outlet she has for her darkest suspicions and fears about the case. Then one day she notices something odd. Writing that isn’t hers, left on the page of an old diary: 
 
Hallo Clare. You don’t know me. 
 
Clare becomes more certain than ever: “The Stranger” has come to terrifying life. But can the ending be rewritten in time?

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Greg Isles – Cemetery Road (William Morrow, Harcover, $28.99, 04/05/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

With Cemetery Road, Greg Isles gives readers another epic tale that is both timely and timeless. This is an author who knows how to balance a literary writing style with a gripping narrative. Iles writes a confounding mystery, but it is always his characters that readers come away remembering. This stand-alone contains many of Greg Isles recurring themes, yet still manages to cover new territory and provide fresh insight. Not to be missed.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

When Marshall McEwan left his Mississippi hometown at eighteen, he vowed never to return. The trauma that drove him away spurred him to become one of the most successful journalists in Washington, DC. But as the ascendancy of a chaotic administration lifts him from print fame to television stardom, Marshall discovers that his father is terminally ill, and he must return home to face the unfinished business of his past.

On arrival, he finds Bienville, Mississippi very much changed.  His family’s 150-year-old newspaper is failing; and Jet Turner, the love of his youth, has married into the family of Max Matheson, one of a dozen powerful patriarchs who rule the town through the exclusive Bienville Poker Club.  To Marshall’s surprise, the Poker Club has taken a town on the brink of extinction and offered it salvation, in the form of a billion-dollar Chinese paper mill.  But on the verge of the deal being consummated, two murders rock Bienville to its core, threatening far more than the city’s economic future.

An experienced journalist, Marshall has seen firsthand how the corrosive power of money and politics can sabotage investigations. Joining forces with his former lover—who through her husband has access to the secrets of the Poker Club—Marshall begins digging for the truth behind those murders.  But he and Jet soon discover that the soil of Mississippi is a minefield where explosive secrets can destroy far more than injustice.  The South is a land where everyone hides truths: of blood and children, of love and shame, of hate and murder—of damnation and redemption.  The Poker Club’s secret reaches all the way to Washington, D.C., and could shake the foundations of the U.S. Senate.  But by the time Marshall grasps the long-buried truth about his own history, he would give almost anything not to have to face it.

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Sara Blaedel – Her Father’s Secret (Grand Central, Hardcover, $26.00, 04/05/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Sara Blaedel continues to impress with her understanding of human nature. This is the second book in her most recent series and fans of The Undertaker’s Daughter will remember that there were still questions about Ilka’s father’s history at that end of that series debut. Here we learn more about his past, but it’s really what readers learn about Ilka that will leave them clamoring for Book Three.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

After suddenly inheriting a funeral home from her father–who she hadn’t heard from in decades–Ilka Jensen has impulsively abandoned her quiet life in Denmark to visit the small town in rural Wisconsin where her father lived. There, she’s devastated to discover her father’s second family: a stepmother and two half sisters she never knew existed. And who aren’t the least bit welcoming, despite Ilka’s efforts to reach out.

Then a local woman is killed, seemingly the unfortunate victim of a home invasion turned violent. But when Ilka learns that the woman knew her father, it becomes increasingly clear that she may not have been a completely random victim after all.

The more Ilka digs into her father’s past, the more deeply entangled she becomes in a family drama that has spanned decades and claimed more than one life–and she may be the next victim…

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E. A. Aymar – The Unrepentant (Down & Out, Paperback, $17.95, 04/01/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

This long-awaited novel from Ed Aymar does not disappoint. I’ll be running my review of this book soon, but in the meantime, you might as well pick up a copy – you are not going to regret it.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

They never expected her to fight back…

Eighteen-year old Charlotte Reyes ran away from an abusive home only to end up tricked, kidnapped, and taken across the country by criminals. Charlotte manages to escape with the help of a reluctant former soldier named Mace Peterson, but she can’t seem to shake the gang or the crooked cop paid to bring her back—alive or otherwise. With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, Charlotte realizes she only has one option. She has to fight.

Set in the Virginia, Maryland, D.C. triangle, The Unrepentant combines page-gripping action and black comedy, and provides a no-holds-barred, necessary examination of the dark corners of the human mind.

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Abir Mukherjee – Smoke and Ashes (Pegasus, Hardcover, $25.95, 04/05/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

There is no denying that I am an Abir Mukherjee fanatic. The BOLO Books reviews of A Rising Man and A Necessary Evil should have clued you in on that. I’ll be running a review of Smoke and Ashes soon, but trust me when I say: if you are a fan of historical crime fiction, you would be hard-pressed to find a better and more representational example of this popular sub-genre than Mukherjee’s series.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

India, 1921. Haunted by his memories of World War I, Captain Sam Wyndham is battling a serious addiction to opium that he must keep secret from his superiors in the Calcutta police force.

When Sam is summoned to investigate a grisly murder, he is stunned at the sight of the body: he’s seen this before. Last night, in a drug addled haze, he stumbled across a corpse with the same ritualistic injuries. It seems like there’s a deranged killer on the loose. Unfortunately for Sam, the corpse was in an opium den―and revealing his presence there could cost him his career.

With the aid of his quick-witted Indian Sergeant, Surrender-Not Banerjee, Sam must try to solve the two murders, all the while keeping his personal demons secret, before somebody else turns up dead.