July isn’t known to induce the chills — except maybe for those sub-zero AC temps at the office, grocery store, or my own home... in my husband’s dreams if he had full control of the thermostat. But your next trip to the library might just send chills up your spine when you get your hands on these suspenseful stories. When tracking down your next read, don’t forget to make the library your prime suspect! These mystery and thriller novels coming out this month are just waiting for amateur sleuths to figure out whodunit — and it’s all available on the Libby app from your library for the criminally good price of free.
So lock your doors, read way past your bedtime, and get ready for some seriously suspenseful, pulse-pounding, page-turning, twisty tales that will have you wondering exactly what caused those goosebumps.
And don't forget to check out your library this summer and beyond for the best new releases, audiobooks, streaming video, and so much more.
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
🎧 Audiobook
Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation's capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship.
Grace's weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?
A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva
🎧 Audiobook
Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into London to attend a reception celebrating the return of a stolen self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. But when an old friend seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation, he finds himself pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary.
The victim is Charlotte Blake, a celebrated professor of art history from Oxford who spends her weekends in the same seaside village where Gabriel once lived under an assumed identity. Her murder appears to be the work of a diabolical serial killer who has been terrorizing the Cornish countryside.
Gabriel soon discovers that Professor Blake was searching for a looted Picasso worth more than a $100 million, and he takes up the chase for the painting as only he can—with six Impressionist canvases forged by his own hand and an unlikely team of operatives. The result is a stylish and wildly entertaining mystery that moves at lightning speed from the cliffs of Cornwall to the enchanted island of Corsica and, finally, to a breathtaking climax on the very doorstep of 10 Downing Street.
All This and More by Peng Shepherd
🎧 Audiobook
Meek, play-it-safe Marsh has just turned 45, and her life is in shambles. Her career is stagnant, her marriage has imploded, and her teenage daughter grows more distant by the day. Marsh is convinced she's missed her chance at everything—romance, professional fulfillment, and adventure—and is desperate for a do-over.
She can't believe her luck when she's selected to be the star of the global sensation All This and More, a show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants the chance to revise their pasts and change their present lives. It's Marsh's only shot to seize her dreams, and she's determined to get it right this time.
But even as she rises to become a famous lawyer, gets back together with her high school sweetheart, and travels the world, she begins to worry that All This and More's promises might be too good to be true. Because while the technology is amazing, something seems a bit off...
What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena
🎧 Audiobook
The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked. Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill, Vermont. But this morning that will change.
Diana Brewer isn’t lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer.
How quickly a girl becomes a ghost. How quickly a town of friendly, familiar faces becomes a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia. Someone in Fairhill did this. Everyone wants answers.
The Burning by Linda Castillo
🎧 Audiobook
Newlywed Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is awakened by an urgent midnight call summoning her to a suspicious fire in the woods. When she arrives at the scene, she discovers a charred body of an Amish man.
Kate knows all too well that the Amish prefer to handle their problems without interference from the outside world, and no one will speak about the murdered man. From what she's able to piece together, the man led a deeply troubled life and had recently been excommunicated. But if that's the case, why are the Amish so reluctant to talk about him? When her own brother is implicated in the case, Kate finds herself not only at odds with the Amish, the world of which she was once a part, but also the English community and her counterparts in law enforcement. To uncover the truth about the death, Kate must dive deep into the Anabaptist culture, peering into all the dark corners of its history, only to uncover a secret legacy that shatters everything she thought she knew about the Amish themselves—and her own roots.
No Road Home by John Fram
🎧 Audiobook
For years, single father Toby Tucker has done his best to keep his sensitive young son, Luca, safe from the bigotry of the world. But when Toby marries Alyssa Wright—the granddaughter of a famed televangelist—he can't imagine the world that he and Luca are about to enter.
A trip to the Wright family's compound in sun-scorched Texas soon turns hellish when Toby realizes that Alyssa and the rest of her brood have dangerous plans for him and his son. The situation only grows worse when a freak storm cuts off the roads and the family patriarch is found murdered on the roof of their sprawling mansion. Suspicion immediately turns to Toby, but when his son starts describing a spectral figure in a black suit lurking around the house with unfinished business in mind, Toby realizes this family has more than murderer to conceal—and to fear. As the Wrights close in on Luca, no one is prepared for the lengths Toby will go in the fight to clear his name and protect his son.
Hard to Kill by James Patterson and Mike Lupica
🎧 Audiobook
Attorney Jane Smith is mounting an impossible criminal defense. Her client, Rob Jacobson, is the unluckiest of the unlucky. No sooner is he accused of killing a family of three in the Hamptons than a second family is gunned down. It's not double jeopardy. It's not double murder. It's double triple homicide. Jane's career has spanned from NYPD beat cop to Hamptons courtroom. She's tough to beat. She's even tougher to kill. The defense may never rest.
It’s Elementary by Elise Bryant
🎧 Audiobook
Mavis Miller is not a PTA mom. She has enough on her plate with her feisty seven-year-old daughter, an exhausting job at a nonprofit, and the complexities of a multigenerational household. So no one is more surprised than Mavis when she caves to Trisha Holbrook, the long-reigning, slightly terrifying PTA president, and finds herself in charge of the school’s brand-new DEI committee.
As one of the few Black parents at this California elementary school, Mavis tries to convince herself this is an opportunity for real change. But things go off the rails at the very first meeting, when the new principal's plans leave Trisha absolutely furious. Later that night, when Mavis spies Trisha in yellow rubber gloves and booties, lugging cleaning supplies and giant black trash bags to her waiting minivan, it’s only natural that her mind jumps to somewhere it surely wouldn’t in the light of day.
Except Principal Smith fails to show up for work the next morning, and has been MIA since the meeting. Determined to get to the bottom of things, Mavis, along with the school psychologist with the great forearms (look, it’s worth noting), launches an investigation that will challenge her views on parenting, friendship, and elementary school politics.
The Conditions of Unconditional Love by Alexander McCall Smith
🎧 Audiobook
Everyone's favorite moral philosopher and amateur sleuth, Isabel Dalhousie, is back and once again finds herself facing a number of tricky situations and philosophical questions, both public and private.
Isabel's life has fallen into a comfortable and tidy rhythm. But when her husband, Jamie, invites a woman named Dawn—recently embroiled in a contentious affair with a member of Jamie's orchestra—to stay with them, things begin to go awry. Strange noises can be heard from the upper floor, even when Dawn is supposedly at work, and the couple wonders whether something more nefarious may be afoot. If that weren't enough, Professor Robert Lettuce is staging an academic conference and has asked Isabel to publish the conference papers in a special issue of the Review of Applied Ethics. But something is definitely suspect about the funding, and it will be up to Isabel to sort it out. As the truth comes to light, Isabel must once more rely on her kindness, powers of deduction, and philosophical expertise to navigate these sensitive matters.
The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani
🎧 Audiobook
Tokyo, 1979. Yoriko Shindo, a workhorse of a woman who has been an outcast her whole life, is kidnapped and dragged to the lair of the Naiki-kai, a branch of the yakuza. After she savagely fends off a throng of henchmen in an attempt to escape, Shindo is only permitted to live under one condition: that she will become the bodyguard and driver for Shoko Naiki, the obsessively sheltered daughter of the gang's boss.
Eighteen-year-old Shoko, pretty and silent as a doll, has no friends, wears strangely old-fashioned clothes, and is naive in all matters of life. Originally disdaining her ward, Shindo soon finds herself far more invested in Shoko's wellbeing than she ever expected. But every man around them is bloodthirsty and trigger-happy. Shindo doubts she and Shoko will survive much longer if nothing changes. Could there ever be a different life for two women like them?
🔎 Take the mystery out of finding your next great read. Subscribe to Libby Life for more new releases and book recommendations.
RELATED READ: The most popular mysteries & thrillers of all time in the Libby app
Published Jul 16, 2024