Library thriller picks
Library patrons are recommending sharp new reads: CJ Leede’s Maeve Fly (compared to a ‘feminine American Psycho’) and Stuart Turton’s The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle for its RPG-like mystery twists (x.com). These crowd-sourced recs are trending among mystery readers looking for dark satire and high-concept whodunits (x.com).
CJ Leede’s Maeve Fly was published by Tor Nightfire on June 6, 2023 and is listed at 288 pages in its hardcover edition. (torpublishinggroup.com) The novel won the 2023 Octavia E. Butler Golden Poppy Award and took Best Novel at the 2024 Splatterpunk Awards, and it was a Bram Stoker Award finalist for First Novel. (caliballiance.org) (killerconatx.com) (thebramstokerawards.com) Trade and library reviews flagged Maeve Fly for graphic sex and violence paired with dark humor, with Library Journal advising the title for readers who seek extreme-horror voices rather than general-audience thrillers. (libraryjournal.com) Stuart Turton’s The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle debuted in the UK in February 2018, won the Costa First Novel Award that year, and has been promoted as a million-copy global bestseller translated into more than thirty languages. (bloomsbury.com) (en.wikipedia.org) Reviewers describe Turton’s structure as a repeated single-day mystery in which the protagonist occupies multiple other characters’ bodies to solve a murder, a mechanic reviewers liken to time-loop and body-swap puzzle fiction. (fantasybookreview.co.uk) Prince William Public Libraries amplified crowd-sourced reader picks for both titles in a post on X from the system’s official account, a move that follows the branch’s broader social-media engagement strategy. (x.com) (piclur.com)
