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Armstrong, Kelley. The Poisoner’s Ring: A Rip Through Time Novel. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Rip Through Time, Bk. 2). May 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781250820037. $28. Downloadable. MYSTERY/POLICE PROCEDURAL

In A Rip Through Time, Armstrong’s LJ -starred series launch, homicide detective Mallory Atkinson slipped from 2019 Edinburgh to the city’s 1869 alleyways, where she ended up in the body of strangled housemaid Catriona Thomson and pursued Catriona’s killer. In this second outing, she’s still in Victorian Edinburgh, working as an assistant to undertaker Duncan Gray, who doubles as a medical examiner. In their latest case, men are being poisoned, and their forlorn widows—including Gray’s oldest sister—are suspected of murder. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Haines, Carolyn. Tell-Tale Bones. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Sarah Booth Delaney, Bk. 26). May 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781250885852. $28. MYSTERY/COZY

Scrounging for cold cases at the sheriff’s office, Mississippi PI Sarah Booth Delaney and partner Tinkie find Elisa Redd begging the sheriff to reopen the search for her long-missing heiress daughter, Lydia Redd Maxell, who vanished with friend Bethany while working as a human rights organizer. Elisa has always blamed Lydia's husband for her disapperance, and now he's set to inherit Lydia's money. Alas, the first steps in the investigation lead Sarah Booth and Tinkie to an empty—and supposedly haunted—grave. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Indridason, Arnaldur. The Girl by the Bridge. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Detective Konrad, Bk. 2). May 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781250892607. $29. MYSTERY/INTERNATIONAL

Claimant to a CWA Gold Dagger and two Glass Key awards, Indridason returns with series stalwart Konrad, a retired detective here called on to investigate the disappearance of a young woman who was smuggling drugs. The case gets tangled up with his meditations on his father’s long-ago murder and the drowning of a little girl in the Reykjavík city pond. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Klingborg, Brian. The Magistrate: A Lu Fei Mystery. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Inspector Lu Fei, Bk. 3). May 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781250855015. $28. MYSTERY/POLICE PROCEDURAL

In his third outing (after Thief of Souls and Wild Prey), Deputy Chief Inspector Lu Fei has his hands full. Members of the thoroughly corrupt Nangang Benevolent Society are being snatched from the street, and a foreign gangster is found slashed and beaten to death. Meanwhile, someone is attacking the area’s illegal cyber-sex operations while moving behind the scenes to free sex-trafficked teens from North Korea. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Mason, Tim. The Nightingale Affair. Algonquin. May 2023. 400p. ISBN 9781643750392. $28. Downloadable. MYSTERY/HISTORICAL

During the 1850s Crimean War, the young society women rallied by Florence Nightingale to help save lives at British military hospitals in present-day Turkey are being picked off one by one, their mouths stitched shut by embroidered roses. Sent to investigate, Inspector Charles Field (a real-life detective and model for Inspector Bucket in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House) seems to have solved the case when the main suspect he's cornered commits suicide. But 12 years later, he has his doubts; he’s confronting a killer using the same modus operandi. Following the Wall Street Journal best-booked The Darwin Affair.

Page, Katherine Hall. The Body in the Web. Morrow. (Faith Fairchild, Bk. 26). May 2023. 240p. ISBN 9780063252530. $27.99. CD. MYSTERY/AMATEUR SLEUTH

The multi-Agatha-winning Page takes us back to Aleford, MA, where Faith Fairchild hunkers down with her family as COVID hits. Everyone’s managing until a scary Zoom bombing at a virtual town hall targets Faith’s friend, art teacher Claudia. Hours later, Claudia is found dead, and Faith is set to investigate. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Smith Ian K. The Overnights: An Ashe Cayne Novel. Amistad: HarperCollins. (Ashe Cayne, Bk. 3). May 2023. 368p. ISBN 9780063253711. $27.99. MYSTERY

Top anchor at Chicago TV station WLTV, Morgan Shaw believes that someone wants her dead and asks Black PI loner Ashe Cayne, a principled loner, to protect her. At first, he refuses; bodyguarding isn’t his thing. But he leaps to investigate when Morgan’s tires are slashed, and that pulls him into Morgan’s own investigation—meant to keep her on top of the ratings—of a white cop’s shooting of an unarmed Black man. From New York Times best-selling diet doctor Smith, third in a series launched with The Unspoken, whcih is serving as the basis of a BET+ series; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Weaver, Ashley. Playing It Safe: An Electra McDonnell Novel. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Electra McDonnell, Bk. 3). May 2023. 272p. ISBN 9781250885876. $28. MYSTERY/HISTORICAL

In this third in librarian Weaver's follow-up series to the "Amory Ames" mysteries, expert safecracker Ellie McDonnell is again asked by Major Ramsey of British Intelligence to help Great Britain during World War II. She’s sent under an assumed identity to the port city of Sunderland, where she and Ramsey discover that a dead man is connected to an operation supplying German spies with counterfeit currency. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

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