★Konen, Leah. The Last Room on the Left. Putnam. Jan. 2025. 352p. ISBN 9780593715895. $30. SUSPENSE

It was supposed to be Kerry Walsh all by herself for a month as the Twilite Motel’s temporary caretaker. With no internet and no distractions, Kerry planned to use the time to complete the very overdue novel manuscript that garnered her an incredible advance and a film deal and was going to launch her literary career. However, when Kerry enters her temporary new home (the motel’s last room on the left), she discovers another woman’s belongings strewn about. There is no sign of the former occupant’s whereabouts until the next morning, when Kerry discovers a woman’s hand poking out of a snowdrift outside. Konen (Keep Your Friends Close) deftly shifts the mesmerizing narrative between characters as well as back and forth in time, with nerve-shredding results, before delivering a pulse-pounding conclusion with a final, delightfully devious, Hitchcockian twist. Not since Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train or A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window has an unreliable protagonist been used to such great effect. VERDICT Tipping her literary cap to Stephen King’s The Shining, Konen serves up a superbly crafted novel of suspense that will thrill and delight fans of Lucy Foley, Alice Feeney, and Sarah Pearse.—John Charles

Moke, Jenny Elder. She Doesn’t Have a Clue. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jan. 2025. 336p. ISBN 9781250354969. pap. $17. ROMANTIC MYSTERY

YA author Moke’s (Samantha Knox series) funny, fast-paced adult debut is a mystery/romance hybrid set at a wedding weekend on a private island near Seattle. Among the attendees is Kate Valentine, struggling to write her next mystery, whose deadline has long passed. The groom-to-be is her ex-fiancé, but he’s also her editor, so Kate couldn’t say no to his invitation. On the bright side, she’s hoping a weekend at an atmospheric estate will refuel her writing mojo. Then she stumbles across a body and is suspected of poisoning her ex’s new fiancée. When another member of the wedding party dies, Kate begins investigating to prove she isn’t the culprit. Helping her out is her former writing partner (and also former flame), Jake Hawkins. As Kate investigates this real-life mystery, she realizes that what she thought would never be possible with Jake just could be. The colorful cast of characters have complicated relationships, many of which give them reason to kill. VERDICT The dialogue sparkles and the eccentric characters will delight readers. For fans of the movie Knives Out and those who zipped through Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Dial A for Aunties.—Jane Jorgenson