It was a slow summer socially, but a lot transpired for me to have enough material to share in therapy for the rest of the year! It’s been that kind of summer. I did have a lot of time to catch up on my reading though, and I decided to finish reading some mysteries set outside of the US by authors that were not American. Without further ado, here are five recent reads that I recommend:

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Zimbabwe) is set in Botswana. The story follows Precious Ramotswe who uses her inheritance to start a detective agency. You meet a lot of interesting characters along the way as this first novel in a series explores her past and future. I know there’s a series on Max, and it’s on my list of things to watch.

A Disappearance in Fiji by Nilima Rao (Fijian Indian Australian) is set in Fiji. After an embarrassing professional fumble, Akal Singh was relocated to work in Fiji. When he is assigned a case of a missing indentured Indian woman, he is faced with the harsh realities of indentureship and the racism of the British colonizers. This part of the story felt very familiar to what happened in Guyana with indentureship, and having not explored that history outside of what I learned in school I found the historical aspect of the story fascinating (and difficult).

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (Japan) is set in Japan. If you’re familiar with the And Then There Were None plot and love that kind of story then I highly recommend this. It’s a fresh take on that story and kept you guessing on the why and the hows all the way through.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (Australia) is set in Australia. It has a wild title but it was a fantastic read. Everyone in the Cunningham family has killed someone and Ernest takes you through all the deaths as well as the circumstances. He does all of this while trying to solve the most recent death, as he’s trapped in a ski resort with his family (most of whom want nothing to do with him). This book had me in a chokehold from the beginning, and while I had a good guess as to who the murderer was, it kept me locked in until the very end.

The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker (Switzerland) is set in Switzerland. It’s a mystery within a mystery. A writer goes to a Swiss hotel for a writing retreat and gains inspiration for his novel from the real mystery of Room 622 – a seemingly non-existent hotel room. What might have been a dry story about banking turned into an intriguing story that kept me glued to the book until the very end. I think I read this one in a day!