Mind Games and Motives: Mysteries and Thrillers That Outsmart Readers

19 Jun 2025

Mind Games and Motives: Mysteries and Thrillers That Outsmart Readers

These books don’t just keep you guessing; they dare you to outsmart them at every turn. From chilling cold cases with no obvious clues to killers lurking right under everyone’s noses, each story masterfully twists logic into heart-pounding suspense.

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Messenger for the Dead (Mathieu James Thriller Book 2)

by Matthew Fults

Release Date: June 17, 2025

ADVANCE READERS AGREE: “An intense, riveting, gripping, raw read.” “Relentless.” “Well written, highly recommend.” “Feels like you’re in a movie.” Messenger for the Dead is the sequel to the award-winning The Scotland Project. Mathieu James leads an international manhunt for the world’s most-wanted terrorist. Vengeance belongs to the departed.

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Suite Lies and Alibis (Harmony Landing Mysteries Book 1)

by Kristy T Dixon

Release Date: June 4, 2025

Harmony finally owns her dream hotel—creepy suite, murder rumors, and all. The catch? The brooding handyman accused of the crime still lives there. As she digs into the five-year-old mystery, Harmony starts to suspect Chase might be innocent… and she might be falling for the guy who fixes the plumbing.

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Her First Mistake (Noelle Marshall Book 1)

by Kendra Elliot

Release Date: June 10, 2025

Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten. Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised.

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King of Ashes

by S. A. Cosby

Release Date: June 10, 2025

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

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Vindicate (Joe Dillard Series Book 11)

by Scott Pratt & J.D. Pratt

Release Date: June 3, 2025

Two isolated killings. Two potentially innocent men. Jack Dillard—son of Joe—is a criminal defense attorney reeling in the wake of the ordeals he’s endured the last few years. He’s lost and angry, especially because the family reputation his parents built is in tatters. Though not entirely his fault, he blames himself.

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Small Things (Alibis collection)

by Wanda M. Morris

Release Date: June 2, 2025

Hannah and her husband appear to live a good life. No one knows the emotional nightmare Hannah endures behind closed doors. A blessed freedom is in the jewelry she crafts in the shed behind her house. But what will Hannah do when her husband threatens to take away even the smallest things that bring her joy? Hannah has a plan. Now it’s just a matter of pulling it off without leaving a single trace behind.

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