If it is possible to both like a book and be completely put off by it at the same time, then that might be the best summation of what it was like to read David R. Dow’s debut novel, Confessions of an Innocent Man.

Split into two halves and told from the viewpoint of Rafael Zhettah, the first part tells the story of Rafael as the chef and owner of a small-but-successful Texas restaurant. He’s also a pilot and relishes the freedom that his life allows him. When he meets Tieresse, he finds his life changed as the two soon fall in love. The fact that she is a billionaire seems to have no bearing on the couple’s love for each other, and soon they are married. But life takes a swift and tragic turn when Tieresse is found brutally murdered. Making matters worse for Rafael is that he is eventually charged, tried, and found guilty of the murder. He’s sentenced to death, and anyone who’s ever read a story about death row in Texas knows it is just a matter of time before the sentence is carried out.

Rafael insists he’s innocent and keeps a diary of his time on The Row. It details day-to-day life and his reactions to his jailers, his fellow inmates, and the various dehumanizing traits of living life overshadowed by a death sentence.

This is not the end of the story though. When circumstances unfold that allow Rafael and his lawyers to prove his innocence, he’s soon a free man. This is not really much of a spoiler, as it sets the stage for the second half of the story.

And that is where the story, for me, slides off the rails. Rafael’s vengeful actions ended up diluting any sense of sympathetic outrage I had over the miscarriage of justice he endured. I was less than enthralled by the way the story’s end cheated the reader out of a real sense of justice for any of the characters in the book.

Confessions of an Innocent Man is a relentlessly gripping and intensely well-told tale, but no matter where you happen to fall on the death penalty issue, the author seems to be expecting readers to blithely forget that old axiom most learn as children...that two wrongs don’t make a right.

This time it’s a gone guy. That’s the propulsive premise behind R. J. Jacobs’ heart-pounding first mystery, And Then You Were Gone.

When 30-year-old child psychologist Emily Firestone reluctantly agrees to go on a weekend sailing trip with her microbiologist boyfriend, Paolo Ferarra, little could she have known that the romantic outing would turn her into an amateur detective. Everything seems to be going well—some fishing, some foreplay, some French bread, more than some chardonnay and red wine—until Emily wakes up the next morning, hungover, to find her Argentine lover missing. Emily is “unmoored and drifting” (literally and figuratively), and she can’t swim.

More than wine and the heady allure of passion have contributed to Emily’s blowsy condition. She mixed Ativan with the alcohol. The medication is just one of several methods she depends on to control symptoms of her bipolar II diagnosis, a disorder that defines her personality and is the driving force in her life and the entire plot of the novel. She suffers from anxiety, nausea, and panic attacks. She attempts to calm her fears by using techniques she suggests to patients, “structure the time, focus on other things, stay busy.”

And stay busy she does. There is a great deal of backstory in the novel that unravels as Emily attempts to find out what happened to Paolo. She seeks help from old friends—her former soccer teammate at Vanderbilt University, now a public affairs officer for Nashville Metro; and one of Paolo’s softball sidekicks. The reader learns of Paolo’s doctoral research to discover a vaccine for the H1-N24 virus, as well as his motley crew of office mates and lab partners: a controlling supervisor; a young, ambitious intern; a former coworker. Along with the usual academic politics, they battle for funds, compete to publish papers, and wrangle for trips to international conferences.

As Emily’s desperation quickly spirals, she is intent on proving Paolo is alive. Jacobs’ sympathetic understanding of Emily’s mental condition, how it contributes to her stress and mania, and how it shapes her determination and her survival, is well done. In the end, Paolo may be gone but he is not forgotten—or forgiven. And Then You Were Gone is a disturbing, fully satisfying drama.

The four teenage members of the self-proclaimed “Outsiders Club” have banded together out of a need for mutual belonging, and for safety, since they are the targets of some vicious, world-class bullies. Their lives, relatively complicated for ones so young, become even more so when they discover an abandoned automobile in the woods, containing millions of dollars in the interior and a corpse in the trunk. Things go from bad to worse when concerned parties figure out their secret and descend on their small hometown, demanding the money. Suddenly, it’s literally life or death for the Outsiders and those they love.

Seth C. Adams’ debut is a solid first novel, which reaches far and mostly succeeds. It’s highly derivative—think of Stephen King’s It by way of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew by way of Scott Smith’s A Simple Plan—but it’s a fun ride, full of nostalgia for the recent past, specifically the early ’90s. Adams channels many excellent writers, some of whom he nods to in an endearing Acknowledgement (specifically King, Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson), and a handful of others he doesn’t mention, but whose presence is felt nevertheless (for example, Dan Simmons in Summer of Night). Although sometimes predictable, Adams often dashes readers’ expectations simply by going darker than one might expect. I think now that he has purged this obvious labor of love from his system, he can proceed to develop his own voice and to tell the stories only he can tell.

Authored by a former clinical psychologist in Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), A Good Enough Mother is anything but a formulaic murder mystery, although a murder does take place. Beautifully written, it takes on difficult themes, exploring the deeply fraught relationships between patient and therapist, mother and children, husband and wife, brother and sister. Many readers will recognize the title reference to influential psychologist D.W. Winnicott, and the phenomenon of transference between therapist and patient plays a key role.

Ruth Hartland is an experienced and highly skilled psychotherapist who is dedicated to her work as the director of a specialized NHS trauma unit. It’s exhausting, emotionally demanding work, but Ruth is proud of her skill at helping even the most difficult of cases. When she takes on a new patient, an unstable and manipulative young man named Dan Griffin, the victim of a violent assault, she is stunned by his uncanny resemblance to her beloved son, Tom. Tom, who attempted suicide at 16, has been missing for a year and a half—a fact she has kept secret from her professional colleagues. Instead of referring Dan to another therapist, as she well knows she should, Ruth is unable to resist the desire to help him herself. Their weekly sessions stir up turbulent emotions that lead her to violate professional boundaries she would never have crossed with another patient. There are disturbing hints that Dan, who seems obsessed with films that involve suicide, is not exactly what he seems to be. The consequences of their relationship will prove to be catastrophic for Ruth, Dan, and others.

Narrated in Ruth’s voice, A Good Enough Mother weaves Ruth’s sessions with Dan and with her own supervising therapist together with her memories of mothering Tom, an anxious and insecure boy who never seemed to fit in. Small moments, artfully drawn, highlight the ways those we love can be both endearing and infuriating—often at the same time. Ruth’s struggle to come to terms with guilt and loss is a memorable journey toward understanding and ultimately, acceptance. This rich debut novel offers a well-drawn and compelling portrayal of the fragility of families, the complexities of human relationships, and the limits of self-awareness, all in an atmosphere of steadily mounting suspense.

Crusading journalist Caitlin Bergman returns to her Indiana alma mater to receive an honorary degree, but also to confront some specters from her past, as she reveals in her acceptance speech that she was raped and left for dead in an abandoned limestone facility five miles from campus some 20 years before, a brutal act which precipitated her abrupt departure from the college. She’s returned at a truly fateful moment, as the college and the surrounding town are dealing with a pair of missing persons cases, one current, one two years old. She agrees to assist a young journalism student in her investigation of the cases, earning the antagonism of the perpetrator and the local police force.

It’s hard to believe this is a first novel, as August Norman’s understanding of his lead character appears to be so deep that it feels as if Come and Get Me might be the third or fourth entry in a series, instead of the first. Caitlin is a terrific character, a smart, complex, and capable woman who kicks ass and takes names, and who comes with a complex and colorful history. Norman writes beautifully, sending his lead and her supporting characters careening from scene to scene, further complicating their lives with each succeeding page. And just when you think things might be wrapping up, he veers off in a stunningly different direction, pushing Caitlin’s stamina and mental stability to their limits. A really great read, one which has left me yearning for more.

While tracing the family tree of a prominent Austin, Texas, family, genealogist Lucy Lancaster of Ancestry Investigations accidentally uncovers proof that her client’s great-great grandfather’s suspicious death was indeed murder. The clues point to a rival and equally prestigious Texas family as the perpetrator and Lucy starts digging into the past with her client’s blessing. With only a few clues to follow, she enlists the help of University of Texas historical preservationist, former boss, and friend Dr. Winnie Dell to help investigate. But when Winnie is brutally murdered, her office ransacked, and all the artifacts stolen, it’s crystal clear that someone will stop at nothing—not even murder—to keep something from the past hidden. Lucy knows she should let the local authorities and the handsome FBI agent (who keeps showing up like a bad penny), handle it at this point, but now it’s personal.

S.C. Perkins gives “getting to the root of the problem”—in this case a murder or two—a whole new meaning with her sophisticated and well-plotted Texas-set and -sized debut in her new Ancestry Detective series. Lucy is the cream of the protagonist’s crop; she’s smart, funny, spunky, compassionate, truehearted, and a passionate wagon-circling friend. The banter and chemistry between her and Ben, the sexy FBI agent, is swoon-worthy and will have readers salivating to see just where this attraction goes in future installments. But all of her characters, from the smallest cameos to the stars, are well developed.

With genealogy being all the rage thanks to sites like 23andMe and Ancestry.com, it’s a clever trope and captivating read. It’s a a bit darker than your usual cozy, but not quite a thriller. Readers be warned: pay close attention to the genealogical clues or some pertinent information may be missed. Fans of series by Faye Kellerman, Deborah Crombie, and Rhys Bowen will love this book.

Poor Meghan Gerard. The teenager is wracked by confounding symptoms. Suffering from fatigue, muscle weakness, blinding headaches, she sometimes doubles over, collapsing in agonizing pain. No wonder the girl is in and out of doctor’s offices, and the ER, or that all the medical tests she’s been subjected to have given her a serious fear of needles. And no wonder her mother, Becky, is completely devoted to finding out what it is that ails her.

D.J. Palmer’s Saving Meghan is a riveting, well-written page-turner that is equal parts medical and domestic thriller. Deftly plotted, and told from a handful of perspectives, it opens to find Becky taking a seat on a plane headed from Boston to California to visit her mother in hospice care. Conflicted about how she should feel about the woman who was such a damaging influence on her life, Becky feels no such ambivalence when it comes to her own daughter. As the plane is readying for takeoff Becky answers a phone call; Meghan has just been rushed to a local hospital. Becky demands to disembark. When the flight attendants won’t oblige, Becky pitches a fit. Her histrionics lead to an encounter with an air marshal. Led off in handcuffs, she winds up making the evening news.

As this crafty novel reveals, Becky isn’t the most trustworthy of protagonists. Having grown up with a conniving mother who faked illnesses in order to receive disability checks, Becky is herself quite the manipulator.

Meghan, meantime, is dealing with being in the middle of an emotional tug-of-war between her mother and father, Carl, as well as with an army of physicians. Dr. Zachary Fisher specializes in mitochondrial disease—metabolic disorders that lead to neuromuscular disease. Perhaps he can find out what’s wrong with Meghan? Other medical experts enter the picture. One of them winds up dead.

Becky is questioned by the police.

A striking beauty who looks a decade younger than her 48 years, the woman is adept at using her charms to get what she wants. Where her daughter’s care is concerned, she’s not above making veiled threats to those with whom she clashes. She unleashes her anger when it’s suggested that Meghan’s health issues might be psychosomatic. Is Becky guilty of what’s known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy?

Characters and relationships evolve. There are twists and just the right combination of suspense and medical data. Author Palmer knows his way around the latter. He previously teamed for a handful of titles with his father, Michael Palmer, a physician who turned out stacks of medical thrillers, including Extreme Measures (which became a film of the same title). The senior Palmer, who passed away in 2013, has left us in skilled hands.

In her 14th Ali Reynolds mystery, J.A. Jance takes us back and forth in time, and to and from a dozen locations, to tell the saga of an imprisoned fertility clinic physician with a deadly agenda. Dr. Edward Gilchrist has tattooed his upper thigh with five initials; it’s what he dubs his “A list.” As in A for annihilation. Reynolds is on that list.

Alison Reynolds anchors one of four (four!) ongoing series by the ultra-busy Jance. The former newscaster was booted from her prominent Southern California gig because she committed the ultimate broadcasting sin—she aged out—but not before reporting one last story that would lead to exposing that Gilchrist was using his own sperm in his fertility clinic’s procedures.

Since returning to her hometown of Sedona, Arizona, Reynolds has reinvented herself over time as the owner of a cybersecurity company. And though now the grandmother of twins, she’s got a handsome, successful and, oh yeah, much younger husband. Did we mention she’s had two previous marriages? Or that she was a single mother when she married hubby number two? That marriage ended when he was mysteriously offed. She was a suspect in his death.

Readers needn’t worry about being up to speed on the assorted backstories. Jance is archaeological. She digs up the histories of almost all her characters and the various cases in which they’ve played a part.

Yes, all those backstories can challenge the narrative flow, but what is most challenging about The A List is all the jumping around in place and time over three different states in a 15-year span as it charts the members of the Progeny Project, a group of women and their children who were victims of Gilchrist. And now the doctor is out for revenge a decade later, aided and abetted by a prison kingpin, and by his own devoted mother—a chilling supporting character.

Woven into all this is the science behind the high-tech artificial intelligence gadgetry used by Ali’s agency and the details about advancements in DNA. And though Jance doesn’t get preachy, the storyline underscores the need for any would-be parent considering a trip to a fertility clinic to do some due diligence.

The A List also has plenty of intrigue, surprises, and heart—a Jance trademark—as it underscores the force of friendship and, for better and worse, the power of a mother’s love.