You Should Have Known

A deeply thought-provoking, intimately drawn psychological thriller about an elderly woman who sets out to avenge her granddaughter’s death.

A sharp, sensitive, self-aware 72-year-old intimately narrates You Should Have Known, a beautifully drawn psychological literary thriller--and an accomplished first novel--by Rebecca A. Keller.

 

Francine “Frannie” Greene is a widowed wife and grandmother. This retired nurse still grieves for her husband and a teenaged granddaughter who was killed by a drunk driver years before. The girl’s shattering death deeply affected--and reshaped the lives of--everyone in the family.

 

After sustaining a few falls, Frannie’s adult children convince her to move into a high-end assisted living facility. Frannie is pleasantly surprised by her new living arrangement—she sparks an instant friendship with a woman in the library, Katherine, discovering they share affinities for books, pie and soap operas. Frannie, however, later learns that Katherine’s husband, Nathaniel, is the “reprehensible” judge who accepted a bribe and let off her granddaughter’s killer from serving prison time. Angered Frannie secretly plots revenge on the judge, but her actions go awry. When another resident dies suddenly and an investigation plays out--implicating others in the sudden death--Frannie is forced to face her own evils. Can she stand by and watch another injustice play out?  

 

The suspense of this complex thriller is heightened by Frannie’s wise, introspective narrative voice. Her anger and resentments contrasted against flaring bouts of conscience and self-questioning, make for an immensely thought-provoking psychological portrait that explores themes of what it is right and what is just.

 

You Should Have Known by Rebecca A. Keller

Crooked Lane Books, $29.99 hardcover, 9781639102600, 320 pages

Publishing Date: April 4, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (April 7, 2023), link HERE

Mango, Mambo, and Murder

When a food anthropologist moves from New York City to Miami, she suddenly finds herself in hot water created by a double-murder plot. 

Mystery writer Raquel V. Reyes plunges a lovable, quick-witted Cuban-American amateur sleuth deep into hot water in her fun, first cozy mystery novel, Mango, Mambo, and Murder.

 

Miriam Quinones-Smith, an academic-turned-food anthropologist-turned-cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV program, moves from New York City to Miami with her restless husband and adorable young son. When her best friend, Alma, drags her to a Women’s club luncheon, a socialite at the event face-dives into a pile of chicken salad…and dies. When another woman dies soon thereafter, all hell breaks loose. Miriam’s curious mind and meddling sweeps her into an investigation that delves into the Miami social scene and soon upends her life—and the lives of those she loves. Can her amateur super-sleuthing figure a way out of--and solve--the mayhem?

 

Reyes delivers a fast-paced, spicy debut--replete with rich details of Cuban-American culture--that will satiate the appetites of foodies and cozy mystery lovers alike.

 

Mango, Mambo, and Murder (A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery) Raquel V. Reyes

Crooked Lane Books, $26.99 hardcover, 9781643857848, 336 pages

Publication Date: October 12, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

A Grave Issue

A fired TV reporter turned mortician investigates the death of a small-town banker who made enemies and harbored secrets.

Author Lillian Bell* launches a lively new mystery series starring Desiree Turner, a TV reporter axed from her job after a hot microphone incident went viral. Returning to Verbena, Calif., a small town near Sacramento, Desiree rejoins her sister Donna, brother-in-law Greg and their Uncle Joey. They all live and work together at the family-owned funeral home. The Turners deal in grief, including their own, since the widowed father of Desiree and Donna died in a surfing accident. A year later, the sisters still struggle with his disappearance.

 
When Rosemarie and Alan Brewer's beloved pet emu dies, the couple blames the unruly shepherd dogs belonging to neighbors Lola and Kyle Hansen. Their conflict escalates into a fistfight between the wives; soon after, Alan is found murdered. While the Turners tend to Alan's funeral, Kyle Hansen, who was like a second father to Desiree and Donna, becomes the prime suspect in Alan's homicide. Inquisitive Desiree starts a quest to exonerate Kyle and learn more about the murder victim, who was the manager of the Verbena Union Bank. Desiree discovers that Alan harbored many secrets and had a long list of enemies.

Suspenseful subplots and red herrings unravel this smartly crafted comic mystery that assembles a well-conceived cast of suspects embroiled in the stifling absurdities of small-town life. Bell cleverly ties up loose ends, while leaving some stragglers that are sure to rouse reader enthusiasm for the next installment.

* Lillian Bell also writes under the pseudonyms Kristi Abbott, Eileen Rendahl and Eileen Carr

A Grave Issue: A Funeral Parlor Mystery by Lillian Bell

Crooked Lane Books, $26.99 Hardcover,  9781683314905, 304  pages

Publication Date: March 9, 2018

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (March 9, 2017), link HERE