Category Archives: Mystery & Thriller

Daughter of Deep Silence by Carrie Ryan

I’m the daughter of murdered parents. I’m the friend of a dead girl. I’m the lover of my enemy. And I will have my revenge. In the wake of the devastating destruction of the luxury yacht Persephone, just three souls remain to tell its story—and two of them are lying. Only Frances Mace knows the terrifying truth, and she’ll stop at nothing to avenge the murders of everyone she held dear. Even if it means taking down the boy she loves and possibly losing herself in the process.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death by starvation & dehydration mentioned
  • Murder of both parents
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Poisoning
  • Near-drowning

A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales

Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township–she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters– beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbours a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper. If anyone in her etiquette-obsessed community found out, she’d be deemed a morbid creep and banished from respectable society… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Pregnancy mentioned (secondary character)
  • Murder & attempted murder

Liar’s Beach by Katie Cotugno

Michael Linden—or just Linden to his preppy boarding school pals—doesn’t belong in wealthy, storied Martha’s Vineyard. But when his roommate Jasper invites him to spend the end of summer at his massive beachfront home, August House, Linden tries his best to fit in. Linden wouldn’t call it lying, exactly. Though it turns out August House is full of liars. Then someone is found unconscious in Jasper’s pool, and everyone has something to hide—Jasper, his beautiful sister Eliza, their older brother Wells, and their friends. The accident is written off as just that—an accident—but Linden begins to wonder. Holiday Proctor. Linden.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood, gore and injury depiction
  • Hospitalisation
  • Murder
  • Animal death

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotional child abuse discussed (on-page)
  • Hallucinations (protagonist)
  • Physical injury & illness (on-page)
  • Emesis
  • Death of a father from suicide by drowning after terminal cancer discussed (off-page)
  • Graphic animal death & injury (theme) including the protagonist being swallowed alive by a sperm whale

*Context : The protagonist’s father uses dive weights to drown after his terminal cancer diagnosis. A general warning for content sensitive for readers with claustrophobia.

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings, he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. “There is a balm in Gilead,” his neighbour Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, “to make the wounded whole.” While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Car accident

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

Christmas is approaching, and in Québec it’s a time of dazzling snowfalls, bright lights, and gatherings with friends in front of blazing hearths. But shadows are falling on the usually festive season for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Most of his best agents have left the Homicide Department, his old friend and lieutenant Jean-Guy Beauvoir hasn’t spoken to him in months, and hostile forces are lining up against him. When Gamache receives a message from Myrna Landers that a longtime friend has failed to arrive for Christmas in the village of Three Pines, he welcomes the chance to get away from the city. Mystified by Myrna’s reluctance… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Drug abuse
  • Infertility
  • Physical injury
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

The Hangman by Louise Penny

The Hangman by Louise Penny

On a cold November morning, a jogger runs through the woods near the peaceful Quebec village of Three Pines. On his run, he finds a dead man hanging from a tree. The man was a guest at the local Inn and Spa. The man might have been looking for peace and quiet, but something else found him. Something horrible. Did the man take his own life? Or was he murdered? Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to the crime scene. As Gamache follows the trail of clues, he opens a door into the past. And he learns the true reason why the man came to Three Pines. A quick and easy read for people on the go.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Car accident

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny

Welcome to winter in Three Pines, a picturesque village in Quebec, where the villagers are preparing for a traditional country Christmas, and someone is preparing for murder. No one liked CC de Poitiers. Not her quiet husband, not her spineless lover, not her pathetic daughter—and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines. CC de Poitiers managed to alienate everyone, right up until the moment of her death. When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, of the Sûreté du Québec, is called to investigate, he quickly realizes he’s dealing with someone quite extra… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia & body-shaming
  • Forced institutionalisation
  • Eating disorder
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

Welcome to Three Pines, where the cruellest month is about to deliver on its threat. It’s spring in the tiny, forgotten village; buds are on the trees and the first flowers are struggling through the newly thawed earth. But not everything is meant to return to life. When some villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the Old Hadley House, they are hoping to rid the town of its evil—until one of their party dies of fright. Was this a natural death, or was the victim somehow helped along?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Fatmisia
  • Cancer
  • Murder
  • Animal death

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

It is Winter Carnival in Quebec City, bitterly cold and surpassingly beautiful. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has come not to join the revels but to recover from an investigation gone hauntingly wrong. But violent death is inescapable, even in the apparent sanctuary of the Literary and Historical Society— where an obsessive historian’s quest for the remains of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, ends in murder. Could a secret buried with Champlain for nearly 400 years be so dreadful that someone would kill to protect it? Although he is supposed to be… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Attempted suicide
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping