Category Archives: Mystery & Thriller

The Abstainer by Ian McGuire

Stephen Doyle, an Irish-American veteran of the Civil War, arrives in Manchester from New York with a thirst for blood. He has joined the Fenians, a secret society intent on ending British rule in Ireland by any means necessary. Head Constable James O’Connor has fled grief and drink in Dublin for a sober start in Manchester, and connections with his fellow Irishmen are proving to be particularly advantageous in spying on Fenian activity. When a long-lost nephew returns from America and arrives on O’Connor’s doorstep looking for work, O’Connor cannot foresee the way his… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Murder

Woman Down by Colleen Hoover

Madeleine d’Leon doesn’t know where Edward came from. He is simply a character in her next book. But as she writes, he becomes all she can think about. His charm, his dark hair, his pen scratching out his latest literary novel.. Edward McGinnity can’t get Madeleine out of his mind–softly smiling, infectiously enthusiastic, and perfectly damaged. She will be the ideal heroine for his next book. But who is the author and who is the creation? And as the lines start to blur, who is affected when a killer finally takes flesh?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity (protagonist)
  • Kidnapping

After She Wrote Him by Sulari Gentill

Madeleine d’Leon doesn’t know where Edward came from. He is simply a character in her next book. But as she writes, he becomes all she can think about. His charm, his dark hair, his pen scratching out his latest literary novel.. Edward McGinnity can’t get Madeleine out of his mind–softly smiling, infectiously enthusiastic, and perfectly damaged. She will be the ideal heroine for his next book. But who is the author and who is the creation? And as the lines start to blur, who is affected when a killer finally takes flesh?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Miscarriage
  • Involuntary hospitalisation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
  • Home invasion

Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill

Crime fiction author Joe Penvale has won the most brutal battle of his life. Now that he has finished his intense medical treatment, he and his twin sister, Meredith, are boarding the glorious Orient Express in Paris, hoping for some much-needed rest and rejuvenation. Meredith also hopes that the literary ghosts on the train will nudge Joe’s muse awake, and he’ll be inspired to write again. And he is; after their first evening spent getting to know some of their fellow travelers, Joe pulls out his laptop and opens a new document. Seems like this trip is just… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cancer
  • COVID-19 pandemic (theme)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Confinement & stalking

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquillity is shattered by a woman’s terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who’d happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & ableism, including mentions of police brutality
  • Physical child abuse by alcoholic parent(secondary character)
  • Dieting mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Parental infertility mentioned (secondary character)
  • Physical injury & mentions of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Death of a father from a heart attack mentioned (secondary character)
  • Death of a sister in a mountaineering accident recounted
  • Murder
  • Mugging with knife (secondary character)
  • Phyiscal assault
  • Incarceration for the murder of a stepfather in self-defence (secondary character)
  • Homelessness mentioned
  • Bushfires mentioned

The Wonderland Murders by Lanie Olson

Things are different when you’re a burden. I was dumped at Carroll’s Home for Troubled Youth by parents I can’t quite remember—or maybe I came here on my own. No … I was found guilty of a crime and that’s why I’m here. It all depends on who you ask or choose to believe, I guess. I spend my days with my best friend who’s done way more heinous things than I have. He wants me to remember—to tell him stories about being a stranger in a strange land, but I don’t want to talk about it because when you talk about things, that’s how they become real again. Because it… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Beastiality
  • Hallucinations
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Blood & gore depiction

Wonderland by Zoje Stage

The Bennett family – artist parents and two precocious children – are leaving their familiar urban surroundings for a new home in far upstate New York. They’re an hour from the nearest city, a mile from the nearest house, and everyone has their own room for the very first time. Shaw, the father, even gets his own painting studio, now that he and his wife Orla, a retired dancer, have agreed that it’s his turn to pursue his passion. But none of the Bennetts expect what lies waiting in the lovely woods, where secrets run dark and deep. Orla must finally find a way to communicate with – not just… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Starvation
  • Gun violence

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper – the wealthy mother of a famous actor – enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who’s as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Drugging
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Brain injury
  • Death of a child
  • Murder by strangulation
  • Car accident

Young World by Soman Chainani

This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Adult-minor relationship and sexual assault of a minor by a teacher (17-year-old protagonist kissed by their 27-year-old teacher)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking & drug dealing mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder by explosion and gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Animal attack (polar bear)

Worst Case Scenario by T.J. Newman

When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications. The International Nuclear Event Scale tracks nuclear disasters. It has seven levels. Level 7 is a Major Accident, with only two on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a Level 8. Until now.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent
  • Plane crash into a nuclear power facility, due to the pilot having a heart attack (theme)
  • Car accident