Mystery Thriller

In Mad Mabel, Sally Hepworth hands the microphone to Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: eighty-one, six feet tall, and once the youngest murderer in Australian history. When a nosy seven-year-old and a true-crime podcast drag her secrets into the open, the past she has buried for sixty-six years finally wants its turn to speak.

The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss is a fast, clever YA mystery thriller about a reality TV murder, four morally complicated contestants, and the escape rooms hiding the truth. Is it worth your time? We break it all down.

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker is a slow-burn horror novel blending samurai history and Japanese myth. A Gothic horror novel where a grieving present-day fugitive and a 19th-century samurai's daughter discover each other through a door that should not exist, with Kylie Lee Baker's dark prose and Japanese mythology holding the whole haunted house together.

The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer, the USA Today bestselling author of The Wishing Game. Rainy March is a Book Witch who hops into damaged novels to save them, but when her grandfather disappears and a priceless book is stolen, she must break every rule she has ever followed — including the one about falling in love with a fictional character. An honest look at what works, what strains, and who this book is really for.

The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke puts six midlist authors on a Scottish island, hands them a dead man's unfinished manuscript, and a two-million-dollar prize. This review breaks down what the debut mystery gets brilliantly right and where it stumbles — spoiler-free.