Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar Mysteries), Harlan Coben; Delacorte Press

“Sports agent Myron Bolitar is poised on the edge of the big time. So is Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback and Myron’s prized client. But when Christian gets a phone call from a former girlfriend, a woman who everyone, including the police, believes is dead, the deal starts to go sour. Trying to unravel the truth about a family’s tragedy, a woman’s secret, and a man’s lies, Myron is up against the dark side of his business—where image and talent make you rich, but the truth can get you killed.”
Robin’s Note: Harlan Coben is a popular mystery writer, and his plots are suspenseful and engaging alongside world-building details about the culture each series is set within.  This series can make a good match for teens interested in sports as well as mysteries who are looking outside the teen fiction offerings.  As with any mystery series, there are more after this first title – and if you just like his mysteries, he’s written a number of different series aside from this group.

Finding Nouf: A Novel, Zoë Ferraris; Houghton Mifflin

“A captivating page-turner that vividly evokes Saudi Arabiansociety and introduces an original new hero.When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing and is found drowned in the desert outside Jeddah, Nayir-a desert guide hired by her prominent family to search for her-feels compelled to find out what really happened. Gentle, hulking, conscientious Nayir soon finds himself delving into the interior life of a wealthy, protected teenage girl in one of the most rigidly segregated of Middle Eastern societies.To gain access to the world of women, Nayir realizes he will have to join forces with Katya Hijazi, a lab technician at the coroner’s office and the fiancée of Nouf ‘s brother.”
Robin’s Note: This mystery (much like the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall-Smith) is excellent in how it evokes a culture very different from the US.  All of the details of society are presented through the characters, keeping it emotionally invested rather than feeling like a list of facts about Saudi Arabia.  The characters of investigator Nayir and lab tech Katya, an intelligent woman pushing against the confines of her society, are immediately likable and filled with humor, and the mystery is a carefully plotted puzzle.

The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde; Penguin Books

“England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in Wordsworth poems, militant Baconians roam freely spreading the gospel that Bacon, not Shakespeare, penned those immortal works. And forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. This is all business as usual for brainy, bookish (and heat-packing) Thursday Next, a renowned Special Operative in literary detection — that is, until someone begins murdering characters from works of literature.”

Robin’s Note: The Thursday Next series, which starts with this first volume, is both a thrilling chase through literary crime as well as a hilarious jab at literary theory, history, and academia.  While the jokes can be more academic, the feeling of these books is as far from typical “literary fiction” as you can get.  Thursday Next is a no-nonsense, hard-bitten civil servant, and her adventures in and out of the famous works of fiction are never boring.

The Bone Key, Sarah Monette; Prime Books

“An unwilling foray into necromancy makes Booth attractive to the creatures who roam the darkness of the world. Ghouls, ghosts, and incubi single him out as one of their own in these ten stories.”

Robin’s Note: This collection of interconnected short stories is fueled by an old-fashioned sense of horror, built around frightening ideas and situations rather than gore or violence.  Monette has a keen sense of atmosphere, and Booth, her lead character, is an appealingly awkward lead.  Lightened by flashes of humor, Booth’s entanglements with spirits and ghouls haunt the reader long after this collection ends.  If you like horror but not gore, these stories are a great new collection to consider, and the spookiness can’t be beat.