The Fiction Shelf

The Sedalia Code

Patricia Raybon

North Carolina, 1943. A teacher at a Black academy decodes a prisoner of war's message about a Nazi plot to kill the president, and when the Army won't listen she acts on it herself.

Numb Were the Beadsman's Fingers

Alan Bradley

A nun dies at Golgotha House and turns out to have lived under a false name. Flavia de Luce and Dogger follow the trail to a crime decades old.

Midnight in the House of Commons

Charles Finch

London, 1881. A member of Parliament is poisoned on the floor of the House of Commons, and Scotland Yard arrests detective Charles Lenox's brother.

The Resurrection of Evania James

Jaime Jo Wright

Dual timeline. In 1879 a woman searches an asylum for her missing sister; in the present, human remains turn up sealed inside the wall of a family mansion.

Content note: gothic material - an asylum, grave robbing, and human remains.

The Glades

Angela Hunt

A storm cuts off a family's weekend on a private Everglades island, the caretaker goes missing, and the island's history starts to come out.

Content note: marital betrayal and life-threatening peril.

The Undercover Bookshop

Katherine Reay

A Cotswold village in 1950. A newcomer who loves mysteries starts to suspect the village baker of spying for the Soviets, and finds herself caught between MI5 and the KGB.

We Chase Shadows

Richard Osman

A bodyguard is killed outside a villa in Tuscany, and the We Solve Murders trio set out to learn who wanted him dead.

Content note: occasional mild language.

Target Down

Ryan Steck

A former operative who faked his death is found by a Russian mafia hit team, and Matthew Redd hides his children while hunting the traitor in his old unit.

Content note: frequent, intense combat violence.

Murders in the Marquee

Dana Mentink

San Francisco, 1905. A reformed jewel thief working at a grand hotel thinks he sees a body fall from a penthouse window.

Content note: a murder and one grisly discovery.

The Home Front Sisters

Amy Lynn Green

Little Women retold on the WWII home front. The sisters are scattered by the war, one running a Philadelphia streetcar and another training Navy gunners in Florida.

The Dogwood Gospel

Cindy Morgan

Kentucky, 1954. A sixteen-year-old learns she was adopted, runs away dressed as a boy, and joins a traveling carnival as a trick rider.

Unwavering Heart

Angela Hunt

Rebekah leaves her home to marry Isaac and vows to love her children equally, a vow tested by Jacob and Esau and by God's covenant.

Our Noble Selves

Kate Atkinson

London, 1951. A survivor of the Burma Railway working for the Festival of Britain becomes a suspect when a woman he met disappears.

Content note: war trauma; may include some strong language.

Every Given Day

Cathy Gohlke

New York, 1918. A schoolteacher moves into her sister's house to tutor the children during the flu pandemic, and when her nephew is diagnosed with diabetes she fights for every treatment as insulin is being discovered.

Content note: deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic and a child's serious illness.

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

Andrew Peterson

The first Wingfeather book retold as a graphic novel. The Igiby children live under the rule of the Fangs of Dang and hold the secret to the lost jewels of Anniera.

Content note: fantasy battle violence with some blood.

The Story Baker

Carsten Henn

A ballet dancer whose career ended in injury takes a temporary job at a village bakery and slowly recovers under the old baker's care.

Vaim Hotel

Jon Fosse

A man checks into a half-empty hotel in a Norwegian fishing village, his things begin to disappear, and he finds he cannot pay or leave.

A Serving of Hope

Hisashi Kashiwai

A father and daughter who run a small Kyoto diner recreate dishes from their customers' pasts.