Christopher Golden’s latest tells the story of down-on-his-luck documentary producer Felix “Teig” Teigland and his best friend and camera operator, Jack Prentiss, as they set out to explore Siberia’s Kolyma Highway, also cheerily known as the Road of Bones.

They are scouting the highway and the surrounding environs in hopes of finding interesting locales for the reality show they want (and desperately need) to sell, betting on the final product to break their current losing streak. Their ultimate destination is the remote village of Oymyakon, where they arrive after an eventful and trying trek to find the hamlet empty of life, with the exception of a shell-shocked 9-year-old girl.

They soon discover that forces beyond their reckoning are after the child, and that their only hope is to backtrack to more civilized locales in search of aid and assistance. Although the trip to reach Oymyakon was grueling, the return trip is liable to cost them their lives—or at least their sanity—as the dark, relentless entities inhabiting the woods close in on their target.

Entering the third decade of a distinguished (he’s won two HWA Bram Stoker awards), varied, and productive career (besides myriad praiseworthy standalone novels, he has penned numerous media tie-ins, edited several anthologies, and written a plethora of comic books), Golden shows no signs of fatigue, or of complacency. Significantly, he continues to produce at a high level, building on already proficient skills, willing to strike out in new directions. Road of Bones is proof positive of this statement; tightly written and expertly crafted, it finds him at the top of his game. The action begins on page one, and continues almost nonstop, as Golden raises the stakes with each succeeding chapter.

You’ll squirm a bit as he puts his cast through their paces, but as a reader you’ll savor every minute of their desperate and harrowing journey into the very heart of darkness.

Australian debut novelist Karen Herbert makes an accomplished start with The River Mouth, a rural mystery where the death of a middle-aged woman tears the lid from a Pandora’s box of past tragedy and small-town secrets that have festered for many years—even as some have tried to forget.

The vastness of Australia is underappreciated by those abroad: a massive nation both island and continent, similar in spread to the lower 48. The distance from Sydney or world-famous beaches in the east to coastal towns in Western Australia is akin to driving from Charleston to Los Angeles. Herbert’s tale unfolds among those tiny towns in the west, surrounded by massive deserts and the Indian Ocean.

A decade after her teenage son Darren is found shot dead in the Weymouth River, Sandra Davies gets door-knocked by the local police. A break in the case, unexpected and unwelcome. Sandra’s best friend Barbara has been found dead on a remote road in the Pilbara desert. Another tragedy to face. But it gets worse: Barbara’s DNA matches that found under Darren’s fingernails all those years before. Was Sandra’s best friend involved in her son’s death? Was she in fact the killer who was never found?

As whispers spread, Sandra must question what she thought she knew about her best friend and her son. Secrets have been kept, truths avoided, and lies told by many people she knows. Herbert engages readers early in a tale of swirling secrets and townsfolk with plenty to hide. Or avoid. Her debut flows well and there’s a lovely pace and nice tension even as The River Mouth eschews much in the way of violence and operates at a steady simmer. Soaked in small-town atmosphere, The River Mouth is a good first bow that has me looking forward to an encore from Karen Herbert.

Farrah Turner and Cherish Whitman, the only two Black girls in their wealthy, mostly white community, have been best friends since they were children. Farrah’s family, once prosperous, have fallen on hard times and are their house has been foreclosed on. Meanwhile, Cherish—raised by wealthy adoptive white parents—has everything she could ever want.

While Farrah’s parents deal with their financial troubles, they allow Farrah to stay with Cherish and her family. But what few know is how manipulative and cunning Farrah can be or how far she will go to keep from losing the status she believes is rightfully hers. Through Farrah’s narration, readers are privy to the cold calculations and carefully scripted behavior of a sociopath, which lends an eerie tone to the story. As her family’s situation deteriorates, Farrah ingratiates herself with the Whitmans even further; and as her behavior begins to spiral out of control, she risks pulling Cherish down with her.

Cherish Farrah is an exploration of complex, sometimes toxic relationships, and a searing statement on the dark side of human nature. Bonds between parents and children, between friends, between different races and social classes, are also explored. These complicated relationships with one another make up a core part of the book, especially Farrah and Cherish’s codependency.

Author Bethany C. Morrow creates a detailed setting and cast of characters, and though the story takes a while to get going, the horrifying confrontations and revelations in the end are well worth the investment. Cherish Farrah gives readers a sobering look behind the masks people wear and the subtle manipulations that can occur beneath the surface of any relationship.

The Fields is the flawed but entertaining first crime novel by Erin Young, also known as the bestselling British romance writer Robyn Young. It begins when Detective Sergeant Riley Fisher, of the Black Hawk County, Iowa, sheriff’s office, is called to the scene of a corpse in a cornfield and recognizes the dead woman as her childhood friend Chloe Clark. Chloe’s body is partially decomposed and scarred with what Riley believes are animal bites, but the case takes an ominous tack when the coroner determines the bites were made by a human mouth.

Chloe’s husband, James Miller, never reported her missing, and it is obvious to Riley that he’s hiding something. When another victim is discovered in an abandoned slaughterhouse, a human tooth wedged in her thigh, Riley’s suspicion shifts to a missing homeless man named George Anderson. But the FBI, called in by the sheriff, doesn’t share Riley’s suspicions about Anderson, and it doesn’t take long for her to feel like she’s on the outside of her own investigation.

The Fields is a busy tale—murder, political intrigue, big agriculture scheming, personal demons, office grudges—marred by an opening that introduces too many characters too quickly and a climax tangled by an overly complicated conspiracy that nearly shatters believability, but Young pulls it off by building a likable and believable character with Riley Fisher. The Iowa setting helps, too. While Young is British, she captures the feel of the American Midwest well—the summer heat, the bugs, and most importantly, the people. The Fields is advertised as the first in a new series, and I’m betting the second Riley Fisher will be worth waiting for.

It’s the first winter of the 20th century in Greenwich Village and operatic trouser diva Ella Shane is supposed to be relaxing before heading to London for her next theatrical production. But rest isn’t easy to find when your royal beau’s mother—and her dowager sisters—show up demanding you marry her son. Things go from confusing to upheaval after said royal ladies are forced to move in with Ella after finding a dead body in their hotel bathtub, the duke himself arrives ready to hammer out a marriage contract, and Ella’s best friend unconvincingly confesses to the dead man’s murder.

How’s a diva supposed to juggle it all?

Light on mystery, the third Ella Shane cozy from Kathleen Marple Kalb puts strong-willed Ella centerstage amidst a background of murder and jealousy. Why has her friend confessed to a murder she clearly didn’t commit? Do the countess and her sisters know more about the dead man’s demise than they’re letting on? And why does the duke keep having close calls of his own?

But like the high tea Ella’s wannabe mother-in-law favors, A Fatal Overture doesn’t have much substance. There’s more tension surrounding whether or not Ella and her duke will be able to settle on the terms of their marriage arrangement than who the killer is. Despite the background of murder and intrigue, the focus is solidly on Ella and her internal struggles. Set at a time when women were essentially their husband’s property after marriage, Ella’s struggle to balance her professional career, past traumas, and new love drive the story to its conclusion.

The year is 1925, and when the ailing attorney general of Vancouver is found dead in a wingback chair at a large social event with a drink by his side, it is believed that he died of natural causes. Not long after, the wife of a prominent politician dies while drinking the same brand of liquor, but, despite the misgivings of Detective Sergeant Calvin Hook, no major police investigation takes place. It isn’t until local reporter Ed McCurty calls attention to the similarity that things begin to happen. So begins a complex yarn involving Canadian political shenanigans, anti-liquor enthusiasts, and the Ku Klux Klan.

McCurdy is a successful reporter and sometimes poet who begins each column with an appropriate poetic intro. Although an accomplished fact-seeker and writer, a major part of his unmatched reporting is because he is able to break stories that most other newsmen have no inkling of. Much of this is thanks in large part to the information he is able to buy from telephone operator Mildred Wickstram, whose eavesdropping on calls provides her with valuable inside dope.

Unfortunately for McCurdy, his latest column doesn’t sit well with some people and he is attacked and beaten soon after the column appears. When a sniper’s bullet later misses his head by inches, his usual bravado takes a hit and he contacts his friend, Sergeant Hook, for help. Despite more danger for McCurdy and thanks to additional probing by a determined Detective Hook, their combined efforts eventually move the investigation along to a successful conclusion.

One of the more interesting relationships in the mystery is that between Sergeant Hook, a battle-tested World War I Army veteran, and his new associate, Constable Quam, whose forte seems to be brawn over brains. The fact that Quam did not serve in the military during the Great War makes their relationship even more tenuous…but matters are not always what they seem.

This is the second book in a series by this author and, although I enjoyed it, if I could make one suggestion, I would spend less time on the politics—which is basically the same in most free countries—and more on the detecting.

You think politics makes for strange bedfellows? Try Hollywood.

But my, what great bedfellows Canadian author Rio Youer (Lola on Fire) has in this camera-ready, swirling potboiler of revenge, redemption, and bloody ambition.

First off, there’s sk8rgrl Kitty Rae, a spirited Black Kentucky transplant to Los Angeles with hopes to become a star. She’s working as a sidewalk-surfing courier for Sly Boy, a minor league drug dealer/nightclub owner, but it’s just temporary, of course—until her ship comes in. Four months in, though, our heroine’s already homesick.

But even as Kitty’s slowly inching her way up the food chain (she’s already moved from a shared lodging in MacArthur Park to a small apartment in Silver Lake), our would-be hero Luke Kingsley, a former movie star, is definitely on his way down following the disappearance of his wife, Lisa, several years ago. Most people—including the cops—think he killed her, but it’s hard to nail someone for murder when there’s no body. Suddenly a persona non grata in Hollywood, Luke’s roles have dried up and he’s been reduced to voice-over work. The swank Sherman Oaks pad is long gone and he’s driving a beater Dodge Caliber and living in a two-bedroom dump right across the street from Kitty.

Most intriguing, though, is the bad guy, Johan Fly, a larger-than-life bruiser: a smug, self-styled influencer, night-prowling manabout- town and drug dealer to the red carpet crowd, peddling some upscale designer drug he calls “Canary.” He fancies himself a modern- day Viking warrior, and drags Krókr, a giant battle axe, around to warn those who would cross him that his ancestors’ voices sing in his veins.

Did I mention he’s a little unbalanced?

It’s a given that the trio are on a collision course, but it’s always more fun when readers know—and care about—who’s zooming who. And to his credit, Youers keeps it tight and right, while offering up plenty of snark, much of it aimed at the star-making machinery of Hollywood and our obsession with celebrity.

Things hit the ground running when Johan spots Kitty on a night run and becomes obsessed with adding her to his stable. But it’s her “meet-cute” with Luke soon after that really gets the ball rolling when she looks out her window and ends up thwarting the has-been’s early morning suicide attempt.

From there it’s a good ol’ fashioned rock ’em, sock ’em cage match full of mayhem and blood, much of it from the business end of Krókr, although there are enough fists, guns, knives, and even cars used as well, culminating in a grisly desert showdown.

Can’t wait for the movie.

While many books and true crime series have featured strippers as victims of heinous crimes, Real Easy, which is based in a Midwestern strip club, is less a story about murder than a character study of the women who hold this dangerous job. Funny, sad, and often harsh, the story chronicles the lives of the dancers at the Lovely Lady, where catering to men’s obsessions can be a very dangerous business.

Author Marie Rutkoski does an impressive job of sharing the women’s backstories and humanizing the dancers, including main character Samantha, who, because of a genetic disorder, can’t have children but acts as a mother to other young dancers; and Georgia, who despite being an outstanding college-bound high school student, began stripping as a way to support a mother suffering from dementia.

When one woman is murdered and another disappears, not only are the other women at risk, but they have to wonder if the killer is among the many men that they perform for every night. The suspect pool grows even larger as alternating chapters featuring the points of view of club patrons, family members, dancers, the detectives investigating the crimes, and even the killer, show just how difficult it is to solve a crime with so many possible leads. When Georgia grudgingly joins forces with Holly, one of the detectives working the case, she unknowingly makes herself a target, leading to a suspenseful, page-turning conclusion.

While the setting is unique, the story of women being viewed as objects and often, victims, isn’t unique to the subculture Rutkoski explores. While a strip club can be a dangerous place to work, it isn’t the only place where women are in danger.