Two genre stalwarts, a surprising genre-bender and a promising debut top the list of this month's best new mysteries.

★ Shakespeare for Squirrels

Nobody writes mystery novels quite like Christopher Moore. In one of his books, the protagonist is helped and plagued in equal measure by the Navajo trickster spirit, Coyote. In another, a prehistoric sea beast is aroused from a long sleep and emits a pheromone that inspires uncontrollable lust in anyone within range. His latest, Shakespeare for Squirrels, is the third in a series, following Fool and The Serpent of Venice. Each entry is roughly based on a play by William Shakespeare and features a main character named Pocket, who is a Fool—as in, a court jester. The bones of the story resemble Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, although in much the same way that a dinosaur skeleton resembles a living, breathing dinosaur chasing you through a prehistoric field. From that loose starting point, Moore builds relationships that didn't exist in the original work, fleshes out conversations that Shakespeare only alluded to and creates from whole cloth some conversations that were never had (with verbiage decidedly bawdier than in the original). And as hilarious as A Midsummer Night's Dream is to begin with, Moore adds a contemporary dose of sly humor that I think would impress the Bard. 

Before She Was Helen

It's not often that I read a suspense novel in which the protagonist is older than I am, so I was delighted to meet Clemmie Lakefield, the feisty and likable 70-something heroine of Caroline B. Cooney's clever new mystery, Before She Was Helen. Clemmie harbors a secret so big that it required a midlife identity change. But when you're trying to hide from your past, you never know what random occurrence may blow your cover. She was just checking on a shut-in neighbor, using the key he had given her, when she saw an unusual door and, naturally, opened it. It led into an adjacent neighbor's home, where Clemmie feasted her eyes upon a beautiful glass sculpture. She sent a photo of it to her grandnephew, who ran a Google image search and discovered that it had been stolen. So he posted a note to the artist's website, saying: "Your rig is sitting on a table in the house next door to my aunt." When the police find a body in situ and Clemmie's fingerprints nearby, her carefully constructed secret identity is threatened—with potentially lethal consequences. Half cozy Miss Marple vibe, half gritty murder mystery, this genre-bender works better than I would have ever expected.

Editor's note: Before She Was Helen was originally scheduled for publication on May 5, but its publication was delayed until Sept. 8 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Silence on Cold River

Early on in her debut thriller, Silence on Cold River, author Casey Dunn describes rural Tarson, Georgia, as "more like a morgue than it was like Mayberry." It will prove to be a prophetic characterization as three people from wildly disparate lives rendezvous with destiny on a rarely traversed mountain trail: Ama Chaplin, a successful defense attorney; Michael Walton, Ama's former client, erroneously acquitted of animal cruelty; and Eddie Stevens, returning to the scene of his daughter's disappearance one year later, gun in hand, suicide in mind, to ensure that his daughter's case is never forgotten. But life has other plans for Eddie. When he notices that Ama has not returned to her car after a reasonable time, he sets off into the woods to make sure she's OK. An abduction and a shooting follow in quick succession, and one person lies on the forest floor, bleeding out. Enter police detective Martin Locklear, tentatively distancing himself from his demons and eager to prove his worth once again. From there, Dunn ratchets up the tension with each successive chapter en route to a satisfying conclusion. Silence on Cold River doesn't feel like a suspense debut but rather the work of a genre veteran. Read it, and you will be on the lookout for whatever Dunn writes next.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Casey Dunn on fate and the importance of perspective.

Dead Land

Dead Land is Sara Paretsky's latest mystery featuring the inimitable V.I. Warshawski. One of the major themes in the series is the political cesspool that is Chicago. Time and time again, Warshawski is drawn into investigating the shady dealings of Windy City businessmen and politicians. This time, those dealings still persist (hey, it's Chicago, of course they do) but with international implications that date back to the repressive Pinochet dictatorship in 1970s Chile. A homeless folk singer is the link. Her deceased boyfriend, killed apparently at random in a mass shooting, was once an anti-Pinochet activist, and the repercussions echo forward to present day. As always, Warshawski is a dyed-in-the-wool, capital-L Liberal, and I suspect that her positions may ruffle a few capital-C Conservative feathers. But it's only when our feathers get ruffled that we stand any chance of being motivated to rethink our positions on things. Paretsky might just be the Ruth Rendell of her era. Each time she releases a new book, it is invariably better than all the others that came before, and Dead Land continues this tradition with aplomb.

When willful goddaughter Bernie Fouchard rushes in to save a beloved singer/songwriter living on the streets after her lover's death in a mass shooting, private eye V.I. Warshawski is led to something bigger: a battle among high-stakes developers over lakefront usage in Chicago. The murder of a young man belonging to the community organization SLICK, whom Bernie was dating, and the subsequent deaths of other SLICK members sends Warshawski in search of the mysterious Coop, who nightly wanders the lakefront with his dog and might understand how all these killings lead back to an international law firm. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Chicago detective V.I. Warshawski returns in the 20th installment of Paretsky's long-running mystery series (after Shell Game). After attending a contentious meeting on possible changes to the South Chicago lakefront, Warshawski gets involved in a murder investigation that links her goddaughter Bernie and an angry professional protestor. Soon, the good detective is knee deep in a quagmire of political corruption, social injustice, and the disappearance of an award-winning singer-songwriter. Paretsky packs a lot into each new adventure and though this installment is a multilayered story, it moves at a swift and poppy pace. There are times when Warshawski's escapades are a bit unbelievable—the trap she sets for the antagonists is highly implausible—but new readers should not look for logic; they should enjoy the fun of solving the mystery and rooting for Warshawski to bring down the bad guys. VERDICT This enjoyable romp through political corruption and social injustice in Chicago will please fans of the V.I. Warshawski detective series and readers who enjoy tough women PIs. [See Prepub Alert, 9/23/19.]—Leah Huey, Dekalb P.L., IL

In MWA Grand Master Paretsky's solid 21st V.I. Warshawski novel (after 2018's Shell Game), Warshawski's goddaughter, Bernadine "Bernie" Fouchard, persuades her to attend a meeting of the South Lakefront Improvement Council (SLICK), a Chicago community group. On the group's agenda is the Chicago Parks District's plan to fill in part of the lake to create a beach. The meeting erupts in protest, led by the mysterious Coop. Later, Warshawski and Bernie seek to help Lydia Zamir, a former famous singer-songwriter now living on the streets and suffering from the aftershock of the murder of her lover, Hector Palurdo, in a mass shooting. Warshawski looks into who killed Hector while also investigating the actions of SLICK after two of its speakers are murdered. Could Coop be involved? Warshawski knows well the shady politics that drive Chicago and the city's "pay for play" policies, but she wasn't expecting to uncover a conspiracy that reaches into South America. Never mind that the plot occasionally becomes mired in repetitious action. Warshawski's spirit and strength still shine. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (Apr.)