Eight Mysteries We Can’t Wait to Solve This Year
By Alison Bunis
The new year is finally here. Take a deep breath and savor the clean slate. But what’s that scent drifting in? Is that…new book smell?? Of course it is! Forge has a whole new lineup of fantastic mysteries for 2020, and they’ll be bringing you all the new book smell, mysterious thrills, and page-turning plot twists your heart could ever desire. To get you excited, here are just a few of the books you can look forward to this year from Forge. On your marks…get set…read!
opens in a new windowBlame the Dead by Ed Ruggero (3/3/20)
opens in a new window
The nurses of the US Army’s Field Hospitals contend with heat, dirt, German counterattacks, and a flood of horribly wounded GIs. At the 11th Field Hospital near Palermo, Sicily, in the summer of 1943, they also live with the constant threat of violent assault by one of their own—until someone shoots Dr. Myers Stephenson in the head. Former Philadelphia beat cop turned Military Police lieutenant Eddie Harkins is assigned the case, and he has no idea how to investigate a murder. But Eddie is determined to get to the truth. As his investigation gets more complicated and more dangerous, it becomes clear that this hospital unit is rotten to its core, that the nurses are not safe, and that the patients who have survived Nazi bullets are still at risk in this place that is supposed to save them.
opens in a new windowGone By Midnight by Candice Fox (3/10/20)
opens in a new window
It’s every parent’s nightmare. Four young boys are left alone in a hotel room while their parents dine downstairs. When Sara Farrow checks on the children at midnight, her son has disappeared. Distrustful of the police, Sara turns to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators: disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. For Ted, the case couldn’t have come at a worse time. Two years ago a false accusation robbed him of his career, his reputation, and most importantly, his family. But now Lillian, the daughter he barely knows, is coming to stay in his ramshackle cottage by the lake. With Lillian at his side, Ted must dredge up the area’s worst characters to find the missing boy. The clock is ticking, and the danger he uncovers could put his own child in deadly peril.
opens in a new windowDo No Harm by Max Allan Collins (3/10/20)
opens in a new window
The latest book in the Nathan Heller series picks up in 1954, with Heller taking on the Sam Sheppard case: a young doctor is startled from sleep and discovers his wife brutally murdered. He claims that a mysterious intruder killed his wife. But all the evidence points to a disturbed husband who has grown tired of married life and yearned to be free at all costs. Sheppard is swiftly convicted and sent to rot in prison. But just how firm was the evidence…and was it tampered with to fit a convenient narrative that settled scores and pushed political agendas?
opens in a new windowDead West by Matt Goldman (6/2/20)
opens in a new window
In Matt Goldman’s fourth standalone entry in the Nils Shapiro series, Nils accepts what appears to be an easy, lucrative job: find out if Beverly Mayer’s grandson is throwing away his trust fund in Hollywood after his fiancée’s tragic death. But nothing is what it seems in Los Angeles. Nils quickly suspects that Ebben Mayer’s fiancée was murdered, and that Ebben himself may have been the target. As Nils moves into Ebben’s inner circle, he discovers that everyone in Ebben’s professional life—his agent, manager, a screenwriter, a producer—seem to have dubious motives at best. With Nil’s friend Jameson White, who has come to Los Angeles to deal with demons of his own, acting as Ebben’s bodyguard, Nils sets out to find a killer before it’s too late.
opens in a new windowOf Mutts & Men by Spencer Quinn (7/7/20)
opens in a new window
Get ready for another canine crime caper, narrated by the world’s fluffiest PI: Chet the dog. When Chet and his human, Bernie Little of the Little Detective Agency. arrive to a meeting with hydrologist Wendell Nero, they’re greeted by a shocking sight—Wendell has been killed. What did the hydrologist want to see them about? Is his death a random robbery, or something more? Chet and Bernie, working for nothing more than an eight-pack of Slim Jims, are on the case. As Chet and Bernie look into Wendell’s work, their search leads to a struggling winemaker who has received an offer he can’t refuse. Meanwhile, Chet is smelling water where there is no water, and soon Chet and Bernie are in danger like never before…
opens in a new windowThe First to Lie by Hank Phillippi Ryan (8/4/20)
opens in a new window
We all have our reasons for being who we are—but what if being someone else could get you what you want? After a devastating betrayal, a young woman sets off on an obsessive path to justice, no matter what dark family secrets are revealed. What she doesn’t know—she isn’t the only one plotting her revenge.
An affluent daughter of privilege. A glamorous manipulative wannabe. A determined reporter, in too deep. A grieving widow who has to choose her own reality. Who will be the first to lie? And when the stakes are life and death, do a few lies really matter?
opens in a new windowAnd Now She’s Gone by Rachel Howzell Hall (9/22/20)
opens in a new window
Isabel Lincoln is gone.
But is she missing?
It’s up to Grayson Sykes to find her. Although she is reluctant to track down a woman who may not want to be found, Gray’s search for Isabel Lincoln becomes more complicated and dangerous with every new revelation about the woman’s secrets and the truth she’s hidden from her friends and family—even as Grayson is forced to confront secrets from the past she thought she’d finally left behind.
opens in a new windowA Resolution at Midnight by Shelley Noble (10/13/20)
opens in a new window
It’s Christmas in Gilded Age Manhattan. For the first time ever an amazing, giant ball will drop along a rod on the roof of the New York Times building to ring in the New Year. Everyone plans to attend the event. But the murder of a prominent newsman puts something of a damper on the festivities. And when a young newspaperwoman is the target of a similar attack, it’s clear this is not just a single act of violence but a conspiracy of malicious proportions. Really, you’d think murderers would take a holiday. Something absolutely must be done. And Lady Dunbridge is happy to oblige.