From the Booking Desk:

There is a wide variety of books being released today, including the list below that should have something for everyone.

Lisa Jewell – The Family Upstairs (Atria, Hardcover, $27.00, 11/05/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

The Family Upstairs is an example of suspense at its finest. Because of my trip to Crime Bake, I am unlikely to get a review of this one up until I return, but don’t let that stop you from ordering this extremely well-written tale immediately – you won’t be sorry.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

Be careful who you let in.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

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Catriona McPherson – A Step So Grave (Quercus, Hardcover, $26.00, 11/05/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

A Step So Grave is another delightful entry in the McPherson’s Dandy Gilver series. The mystery here is interesting enough, but the real strength of this series comes from the development of characters and the historical details that bring the world to life. Despite the murder, this wedding-focused tale is one of Dandy’s lighter outings, likely before readers head into darker days for this beloved heroine.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

Wedding bells are set to ring as Dandy Gilver, family in tow, arrives in windswept Wester Ross on Valentine’s Day. They’ve come to celebrate Lady Lavinia’s fiftieth birthday and to meet her daughter Mallory, a less-than-suitable bride-to-be for Dandy’s son Donald.

But soon love is the last thing on Dandy’s mind when the news breaks that Lady Lavinia has been found dead, brutally murdered in the middle of her famous knot garden. Strange superstitions and folklore abound among the Gaelic-speaking locals. But, Dandy suspects that the tangled boughs and branches around Applecross House hide something much more earthly at work . . .

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Paula Munier – Blind Search (Minotaur, Hardcover, $26.99, 11/05/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Animal lovers will once again find much to enjoy in Paula Munier’s second mystery featuring Mercy Carr and her feline partner, Elvis. While the idea of a witness to a crime being chased by the criminal isn’t necessarily that unusual, the natural elements of the Vermont winter and the missing boy’s developmental issues add tension to this search, which will have readers anxiously rushing towards the denouement. By the end, readers will be clamoring for the next release in this series.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

It’s October, hunting season in the Green Mountains—and the Vermont wilderness has never been more beautiful or more dangerous. Especially for nine-year-old Henry, who’s lost in the woods. Again. Only this time he sees something terrible. When a young woman is found shot through the heart with a fatal arrow, Mercy thinks that something is murder. But Henry, a math genius whose autism often silences him when he should speak up most, is not talking.

Now there’s a murderer hiding among the hunters in the forest—and Mercy and Elvis must team up with their crime-solving friends, game warden Troy Warner and search-and-rescue dog Susie Bear, to find the killer—before the killer finds Henry. When an early season blizzard hits the mountains, cutting them off from the rest of the world, the race is on to solve the crime, apprehend the murderer, and keep the boy safe until the snowplows get through.

Inspired by the true search-and-rescue case of an autistic boy who got lost in the Vermont wilderness, Paula Munier’s mystery is a compelling roller coaster ride through the worst of winter—and human nature.

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Nick Kolakowski – Maxine Unleashes Doomsday (Down & Out Books, Paperback, $16.95, 11/05/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Kolakowski blends his usual noir style with a dystopian future, but what makes this book stand apart from the pack is the humor – sometimes darker than melted tar; at other times as subtle as a gentle push off a cliff-side. Maxine is the perfect heroine to follow on this adventure, even if she’s not exactly the girl you want to bring home to mama. (Or maybe she is, no judgement here!)

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

The United States has collapsed. Bandits stalk the highways, preying on the weak and unaware.

In order to transport goods between heavily fortified cities, companies hire convoy escorts. Maxine is the best of these new road warriors: tough, smart, and unbelievably fast. But she also has a secret: She’s the niece of New York’s most notorious outlaw, a man hunted by what’s left of the nation’s law enforcement.

Maxine wants to live a normal, upstanding life. But a bad incident on the road leaves her mauled, penniless…and fired. If she wants to survive, she’s going to need to embrace her outlaw roots—and carry off the biggest heist that the post-apocalypse has ever seen. It’s a journey that will take her through obstacle after obstacle to the edge of death itself—and beyond.

Maxine Unleashes Doomsday smashes the gritty frenzy of Mad Max: Fury Road with the top-notch suspense of a crime saga like Heat. It’s a brutal thriller that offers a terrifying glimpse of our future.