Skip to main content

Week of August 24, 2026

New in Paperback

Week of August 24, 2026

Paperback releases for the week of August 24th include THE BLACK WOLF, the 20th installment in Louise Penny's Armand Gamache series, which finds the Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec playing a lethal game of cat and mouse with an invisible foe who is gathering forces and preparing to strike; BACKSTAGE, a memorable collection of stories and essays on writing, reading, teaching and Venice by Donna Leon, the celebrated author of the Commissario Guido Brunetti novels; BRADY VS. BELICHICK by Gary Myers, a unique and unparalleled look into the nature and relationship of two of the pillars in the NFL's greatest dynasty; and Kelly Sundberg's THE ANSWER IS IN THE WOUND, an intimate, linked and lyrical essay collection focusing on the longer-lasting effects of trauma and PTSD on survivors --- challenging a culture in which violence against women is normalized.

The Alphabet Sleuths by Laura Jensen Walker - Mystery

August 25, 2026

At 69 years old, Claire Reynolds is changing things up. She’s volunteering. She's learning to rollerblade. She’s rescued a shelter dog. And today, she’s killed a man. It wasn’t on her to-do list, but stuff happens. Besides, the man in question was strangling her good friend, Daphne, so what’s a gal to do? Scream, possibly. Call the cops. Or --- at retired officer Daphne’s insistence --- call in the rest of their senior gal pals, roll up the body in a blanket, and toss it off a cliff. The dead man is a member of the local crime family, and if the police get involved, it’s not just Daphne at risk, it’s all of them. But the body is just the start. Soon the Alphabet Girls --- Atsuko, Barbara, Claire and Daphne --- must transform into the Alphabet Sleuths if they’re to keep their liberty...and their lives.

The Answer Is in the Wound by Kelly Sundberg - Memoir/Essays

August 25, 2026

Kelly Sundberg’s abusive marriage nearly broke her, and finding the courage to leave and begin the difficult process of putting herself back together was only the beginning of her story. THE ANSWER IS IN THE WOUND deftly explores the trials and joys Sundberg encountered not only as a newly single parent but also as someone in full pursuit of life. She developed an appreciation for new spiritual practices and reclaimed her body through tattoos. From erasure poetry crafted from emails and a court-mandated apology letter from her ex-husband, to engaging with the research of some of the most prominent voices in 50 years of trauma psychiatry and psychology, this book is a profound meditation on trauma and its lasting effects.

Backstage: Stories of a Writing Life by Donna Leon - Memoir

August 25, 2026

Donna Leon’s memoir, WANDERING THROUGH LIFE, gave her legions of fans a colorful tour through her life --- from her childhood in New Jersey to her adventures in China and Iran, to her love of Venice and opera. Nowhere, however, did she discuss her writing life. In BACKSTAGE, Donna reveals her admiration for, and inspiration from, the great crime novelists Ruth Rendell and Ross Macdonald, examining their approach to storytelling as she dissects her favorite books of theirs. She expresses her love for Charles Dickens’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS and her appreciation for Sir Walter Scott’s generosity of spirit. And she chronicles the amount of research she undertakes to be able to present authentically, through Guido Brunetti and his colleagues, places and characters far from her own experience.

The Black Wolf by Louise Penny - Mystery

August 25, 2026

Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it. A man they called the Black Wolf. But their relief is short-lived. In a sickening turn of events, Armand has realized that plot was just the beginning. Perhaps even a deliberate misdirection. One he fell into. Something deeper and darker, more damaging, is planned. Did he in fact arrest the Black Wolf, or are they still out there? Armand is appalled to think that his mistake has allowed their conspiracy to grow, to gather supporters. To spread lies, manufacture enemies, and feed hatred and division. Still recovering from wounds received in stopping the first attack, Armand is confined to the village of Three Pines, leading a covert investigation from there.

Brady vs. Belichick: The Dynasty Debate by Gary Myers - Sports

August 25, 2026

The greatest dynasty in NFL history stood on two pillars: Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Together they forged a working relationship that provided thrilling results that would change the NFL forever. But what was the nature of that relationship? How did these two figures come together on a national --- and global --- stage and create the most dominant team in the NFL? The answer is more complex and more fraught than anyone really understands. Brady vs. Belichick: Who deserves the credit for nine Super Bowl appearances and six Super Bowl championships? Gary Myers draws on his unique and unparalleled access to Belichick and Brady, but also to the myriad players, coaches, personnel and family, to get to the bottom of this argument and resolve it once and for all.

The Color of Hope by Danielle Steel - Fiction

August 25, 2026

Following the unexpected death of her beloved husband, art gallery owner Samantha Thompson takes a trip to Paris. Once abroad, an impulsive day trip from Paris to Biarritz leads Samantha to discover the charming medieval village of Arcangues in the Basque countryside. The château is the ancestral home of Xavier de Bonport, who is trapped in a loveless marriage and trying to dig himself out financially after a business failed due to the pandemic. He needs rental income as urgently as Samantha needs a refuge. With Xavier living in a smaller house on the property, Samantha begins to transform the château into a temporary home and considers fostering some children at the request of the local Dominican nuns, whose orphanage is filled to capacity. As a newfound family begins to fill the château, Samantha and Xavier wonder if their friendship is becoming something more.

Ecstasy by Ivy Pochoda - Psychological Thriller/Horror

August 25, 2026

Lena’s wealthy, controlling, humorless husband has just died, and now she contends with her controlling, humorless son, Drew. She lands in Naxos with her best friend in tow for the unveiling of her son's pet project --- the luxurious Agape Villas. Here, she yearns to rediscover her true nature and remember the exuberant dancer and party girl she once was. But Drew tightens his grip, keeping her cloistered inside the hotel and demanding that she fall in line. Lena is intrigued by a group of women living in tents on the beach in front of the Agape. She can feel their drums at night and hear their seductive leader calling her to dance. Soon she'll find that an ancient God stirs on the beach, awakening dark desires of women across the island. The only questions left will be whether or not Lena will join them and what it will cost her.

Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein - Historical Thriller

August 25, 2026

Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scrounging a life for himself in the dark alleys of 19th-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney after his father was executed for theft, Jacob grows up with his mother, Leah. But his prospects are altered when a seasoned pickpocket teaches him a trade that pays better than an honest living ever could. Striking out on his own, Jacob familiarizes himself with London's wealthiest neighborhoods while forging a path in the shadows. Everything changes when he adopts aspiring teenage thief Bill Sikes, whose mercurial temper poses a danger to himself and anyone foolish enough to cross him. But when a major robbery goes awry, Jacob is forced to decide what he stands for --- and what a life is worth.

Man One: An Amos Walker Mystery by Loren D. Estleman - Hard-boiled Mystery

August 25, 2026

Young widow Sage Holland doesn’t look like a murderer --- and that’s because she isn’t one. The beautiful dame has driven non-stop from her home in frozen Alaska to seek out the services of private investigator Amos Walker, bringing not just the ice and snow with her. Sage has a stalker: her late husband’s vengeful brother, who’s determined to make her pay for a crime she didn’t commit. Someone killed David, but it wasn’t her. Walker knows not to take the words of husky-voiced, sorrowful women at face value. But Sage is in sore need of protection, and Walker’s hunt for clues on Detroit’s wintry streets soon leads to far more dead bodies than expected. He’ll have to use every trick he’s learned if he’s to keep not just his client’s blood but also his own from staining the snow.

Mississippi Blue 42 by Eli Cranor - Thriller/Humor

August 25, 2026

Special Agent Rae Johnson grew up on football fields alongside her father, a national-championship-winning coach. Which is exactly why, fresh out of Quantico, she’s sent down to Compson, Mississippi, to investigate the illicit money flowing into a bustling football program in the heart of the Delta. But two days into the assignment, things take a dire turn when the university’s star quarterback is flung from the roof of a college bar, lands on a bag of money, and dies. With rumors of corruption rustling through the kudzu vines, Rae realizes there’s more to the game than what she’d learned as a child. And in order to win, she’ll have to put all her father’s lessons to the ultimate test.

Murder in the Reading Room: A 42nd Street Library Mystery by Con Lehane - Mystery

August 25, 2026

Raymond Ambler, crime-fiction curator at New York City’s prestigious 42nd Street Library, doesn’t consider it a big deal when he misses a call from visiting professor Robin Cartwright…until she turns up dead in a hotel room. Ambler feels duty-bound to find the culprit, and not just because the police half-suspect he’s guilty of the crime. It wasn’t just Professor Cartwright’s phone call he missed, but any sign that she was in danger. Robin was researching accidental deaths she believed were murders. Could her work have gotten her killed? Soon Ambler is knee-deep in suspects, including a shady ex-husband, a slippery pastor, and at least one of his own colleagues. If he doesn’t catch a ruthless killer soon, it won’t be just his own life in danger, but also those of his partner and newborn child.

The Naming of the Birds: An Inspector Cutter Mystery by Paraic O'Donnell - Gothic/Historical Mystery

August 25, 2026

Something is troubling Inspector Henry Cutter. Sergeant Gideon Bliss is accustomed to his ill-tempered outbursts, but lately the inspector has grown silent and withdrawn. Then the murders begin. The first to die is the elderly Sir Aneurin Considine, a decorated but obscure civil servant who long ago retired to tend his orchids. If the motive for his killing is a mystery, the manner of his death is more bewildering still. The victims who follow suffer similar fates, their deaths gruesome but immaculately orchestrated. The murderer comes and goes like a ghost, leaving only carefully considered traces. As the hunt for this implacable adversary mounts, the inspector’s gloom deepens, and to Sergeant Bliss, his methods seem as mystifying as the crimes themselves.

Narrow the Road by James Wade - Historical Fiction/Adventure

August 25, 2026

With his father missing and his mother gravely ill, William Carter is struggling to keep his family's cotton farm afloat. As his options wane, William receives a mysterious letter that claims to know his father's whereabouts. Together with his best friend, Ollie, he sets out to find his father and bring him home to set things right. But before the boys can complete their quest, they must navigate the labyrinth of the Big Thicket, some of the country's most uncharted, untamed land. But the danger is doubled when they agree to take on a medicine show runaway named Lena, eliciting the ire of the show's leader, the nefarious con man Doctor Downtain. As William, Ollie and Lena race to uncover the clues and find William's father, Downtain is closing in on them, readying to make good on his violent reputation.

A New New Me by Helen Oyeyemi - Fiction

August 25, 2026

Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day. On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath. Kingas A–G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life. Between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion and bossiness. At least three of them are Team Toxic. It’s an arrangement that’s not without its fair share of admin, grudges and half-truths. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.

The Opposite of Murder by Sophie Hannah - Mystery

August 25, 2026

Jemma Stelling walks into a police station and confesses --- not to a murder she's committed, but to the one she's terrified she might. Jemma can't stop herself from thinking about murdering her stepmother, Marianne Upton. The only way to stop herself might be to confess before she snaps and does the unthinkable. But while Jemma is still giving her statement, a call comes in: Marianne has just been found stabbed to death, killed in exactly the way Jemma described. Suddenly, the woman desperate to prevent a murder has an unshakeable alibi…and a disturbingly accurate description of the crime she couldn't have committed. Is Jemma an innocent bystander? Or a brilliant, cold-blooded killer who planned everything down to the minute?

OverKill: An Ali Reynolds Mystery by J. A. Jance - Mystery/Thriller

August 25, 2026

Chuck Brewster, the former business partner of Ali Reynolds’ tech entrepreneur husband B. Simpson, once carried on an illicit affair with Clarice --- B.’s first wife --- while his own wife lay dying of breast cancer. Once the affair came to light and tore both families apart, Chuck and B.’s partnership dissolved. Now, decades later, Chuck is found stabbed to death in his bed with Clarice standing at the top of the staircase, wearing a bloodied nightgown and holding a blood-covered knife. Jailed on suspicion of homicide, Clarice calls B. to ask for help and ends up reaching Ali instead. Although B. washes his hands of the whole situation, Ali suspects there might be more to the case than law enforcement thinks. At the same time, someone is targeting Camille Lee, High Noon Enterprise’s outside salesperson.

The Persian by David McCloskey - Political Thriller

August 25, 2026

Kamran Esfahani, a dentist living out a dreary existence in Stockholm, agrees to spy for the Mossad after he’s recruited by Arik Glitzman, the chief of a clandestine unit tasked with running targeted assassinations and sabotage inside Iran. At Glitzman’s direction, Kam returns to his native Tehran and opens a dental practice there, using it as a cover for the Israeli intelligence agency. But when he tries to recruit an Iranian widow seeking to avenge the death of her husband at the hands of the Mossad, the operation goes terribly wrong, landing him in prison under the watchful eye of a sadistic officer. And now, after enduring three years of torture in captivity, Kamran Esfahani sits in an interrogation room, preparing to write his final confession. Kam knows it is too late to save himself. But he has managed to keep one secret --- only one --- and he just might be able to save that.

Sacred Light: A Georgia O'Keefe Mystery by Kathryn Lasky - Historical Mystery

August 25, 2026

New Mexico, 1937. Painter Georgia O’Keeffe is excited for her trip to the intriguing wilderness of the Bisti Badlands. A common site for archaeological excavations, it’s a historical place with enchanting desertscapes but also perilous natural structures. Her trip is overshadowed by the sad news of her friend and native, Juan Nez, going missing. No one knows where he is, and it’s unlikely he’s gotten lost. He knows these lands like the back of his hand. Has something happened to him? And if so, was it an accident, or has a horrible crime taken place? Trying to make sense of the situation, Georgia seeks solace in her art, but soon she comes face to face with a dangerous reality and an even deadlier disaster.

Sherlock Holmes and the Real Thing: A Case History Recorded by John H. Watson, M.D. by Nicholas Meyer - Historical Mystery

August 25, 2026

London, 189–: While the great city is brought to a standstill by a series of blizzards, a landlady complains that her artist tenant is behind on rent. The next thing you know, there are several corpses, and Sherlock Holmes and his biographer, John H. Watson, MD, find themselves drawn into one of the most bizarre cases of the great detective’s career. And into the cutthroat big business of Art, where chicanery and mendacity (and cut throats) proliferate. What makes a work of art worth killing for? Is it the artist, his mistress, his dealer or his blackmailer? The cast of characters is large. But are they perpetrators, accomplices or victims? And just who is Juliet Packwood, with whom Watson has become infatuated?

A Study in Secrets: A Redacted Man Mystery by Jeffrey Siger - Mystery

August 25, 2026

Michael A lives a quiet, comfortable life since his retirement from the intelligence services. He spends his days imagining the lives of the anonymous people he watches in the park beneath the window of his elegant New York townhouse --- number 221 --- his every need tended to by his housekeeper, Mrs. Baker. For weeks, a girl has sat in the park every morning at dawn. Always alone. Always watchful. And when the sun rises, she vanishes, as if she was never there. But one day her routine changes --- and Michael realizes that she faces terrible danger. He makes an uncharacteristic decision to abandon his solitude and help her. Soon, Michael finds himself plunged into the New York underworld, and he’ll have to use all the tricks of his former trade if he’s to keep not just himself, but his new friend, alive.

This Here Is Love by Princess Joy L. Perry - Historical Fiction

August 25, 2026

As the 17th century burns to a close in Tidewater, Virginia, America’s character is wrought in the fires of wealth, race and freedom. Young Bless, the only child left to her enslaved mother, stubbornly crafts the terms of her vital existence. She stands as the lone bulwark between her mother and irreparable despair, her mother’s only possibility of hope, as Bless reshapes the boundaries of love. David is a helping child and a solace to his parents, and he gave a purpose to their trials. His survival hinges on his mother’s shrewd intellect and ferocious fight, but his sustenance is his freed Black father’s dream of emancipation for the entire family. Jack Dane, a Scots-Irish boy, sails to Britain’s colonies when his father sells him into indentured servitude as an escape from poverty. There Jack learns from the rich the value of each person’s life.

Treaty by Davis Bunn - Science Fiction/Adventure

August 25, 2026

Kirra Barret lives with her clan in a mining community in the Fifth Ward of Florian, a city in a human-occupied zone on planet Treaty. She is determined to have a brighter future --- and her unique connection to the planet’s flying alien beasts could be the key to improving her fortunes. In Florian’s upmarket Second Ward, Eva Fourier is offered the chance to become a secret government agent and go after criminals accumulating wealth and power on Treaty by dubious means. From different ends of Florian’s social spectrum, battle lines are drawn as Kirra and Eva’s lives intertwine in unexpected and high-stakes ways --- ways that threaten the long-standing agreement between humans and aliens on Treaty forever.

The Whitechapel Full Moon Society by Elizabeth DeLozier - Historical Fantasy/Supernatural Thriller

August 25, 2026

When Caroline Foster arrives at the Whitechapel Full Moon Society in search of her missing brother, she finds a dilapidated façade belying an interior as opulent as any exclusive gentlemen’s club. In exchange for room and board, Caroline is hired as the Full Moon’s maid. But when it is revealed that the previous maid was murdered --- an early victim of Jack the Ripper --- and her brother has left behind no answers, only more questions, Caroline begins to suspect her hosts might be hiding something. As more bodies turn up with a connection to the Society, Caroline fears she may have unwittingly stumbled into a bedtime story --- the kind with monsters and curses, family secrets and ancient lore.

The Woman Who Wouldn't Die Quietly by Katarina Bivald - Mystery

August 25, 2026

If you've spent your entire life running your family as ruthlessly as you've run the family business, it is perhaps not the best idea to gather them all on a cold and dark remote island to celebrate your 80th birthday. When Margrethe Cullenberg-Franzén falls to her death during her birthday celebration, Ian Ahmed is convinced it's murder. Trapped in a wintry landscape of muted colors and creeping shadows, he and novelist Berit Gardner struggle to unravel the toxic family secrets behind Margrethe's imposing legacy. As winter deepens and the ice seals the islands in silence, the question echoes louder: Who stood to gain the most from the matriarch's fall? And how long before the killer strikes again?

You Know Why by J.T. Ellison - Domestic Thriller

August 25, 2026

It’s the holidays, and photographer Brooklyn Locke is bound for Italy with her husband, Trey, and their two children. But when Trey vanishes from the airport, missing their connecting flight, their impromptu vacation --- and life as she knows it --- begins to unravel. Desperate to find her husband, Brooklyn accepts help from a stranger on the same flight, Eden Barrow. But Eden soon makes a shocking claim. She is the sister of Trey’s first wife, and 10 years ago he was the main suspect in her murder. Struggling to comprehend these accusations, fate delivers one more blow: a violent accident that leaves Brooklyn fighting for her life. With nowhere else to turn, Brooklyn leans on Eden for support. But each kindness feels too rehearsed, feeding her doubts about Eden’s motives and Trey’s true past.