Click here for additional new Prepub Alert columns  

Griffiths, Elly. The Midnight Hour. Houghton Harcourt. Nov. 2021. 352p. ISBN 9780358424161. $25; pap. Mariner. ISBN 9780358418634. $14.99. MYSTERY/HISTORICAL

Just-launched PI Emma Holmes and partner Sam Collins already have a case: they must discover who poisoned the theater-impresario husband of retired music-hall star Verity Malone, herself suspected of the crime. (No wonder she was so anxious to hire them.) The problem: the Brighton police are also on the case, and the police superintendent is her husband. From 2020 Edgar Award winner Griffiths; with a 35,000-copy paperback and 3,000-copy hardcover first printing.

Kent, Kathleen. The Pledge. Mulholland: Little, Brown. Nov. 2021. 400p. ISBN 9780316280457. $28. MYSTERY

Det. Betty Rhyzyk has just been promoted to sergeant, but has she got problems. A hostage stand-off lands her on the phone with notorious cartel leader The Knife, who’s angry at being challenged for dominance of Dallas’s streets by ruthless cult leader Evangeline Roy. Evangeline happens to have it in for Betty, so who better as bait to draw out the newbie competitor and solve the current crisis. Kent wraps up her Edgar-nominated trilogy.

Limón, Martin. War Women. Soho Crime. Nov. 2021. NAp. ISBN 9781641292795. $27.95. MYSTERY

Senior NCO in charge of the U.S. 8th Army’s classified documents in 1970s South Korea, Sgt. First Class Cecil B. Harvey has vanished—and so has some top-secret material that was in his charge. Now Sgts. George Sueño and Ernie Bascom have another case to solve, even as they seek to spring rules-challenging Overseas Observer reporter Katie Byrd Worthington from jail while persuading her to pull a controversial story. Next in a top-notch series.

Click here for additional new Prepub Alert columns