AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
NPR's Books We Love has dozens of suggestions for new novels read and approved by our staff and contributors. And who knew? Some of our editors enjoy a good mystery - must be the satisfaction they get from all that fact-checking they do.
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RASCOE: We've got three of their new book picks, starting with NPR's Natalie Escobar.
NATALIE ESCOBAR, BYLINE: I read "The Verifiers" by Jane Pek. It follows a young woman named Claudia who's just ditched her super boring corporate job and, instead, joins a PI agency where her job is to investigate people on dating apps that their clients are a little suspicious of. One day, she finds out that one of her clients has mysteriously turned up dead, and she, of course, suspects foul play. I loved this book. I'm a huge fan of Veronica Mars, and I was a big Nancy Drew fan as a kid, and it really scratched that same itch.
ARIELLE RETTING, BYLINE: I'm Arielle Retting, and I'm a growth editor for NPR. I'm recommending "The Paris Apartment," which is one book that I couldn't stop thinking about after I finished it. This is the latest whodunit from Lucy Foley, who you might know from her previous bestseller, "The Guest List." This book follows Jess, who has some messy things going on in her life. But it gets even more complicated when she decides to visit her brother Ben in Paris. He's living in an extremely nice but very eerie apartment that he should not be able to afford. On top of that, he's also gone missing.
What I liked about this book is that every character seems equally suspicious and also unlikable in their own way. So you can't help but root for Jess and her quest to find her brother, and find out if any of the other tenants had something to do with his absence. With this book, you're in for a dark and moody escape with a very crazy twist.
JASON DEROSE, BYLINE: Hello. I'm Jason DeRose, the Western bureau chief for NPR News. I'm recommending the novel "The Latinist" by Mark Prins. The genre is dark academia. Tessa Templeton is a promising classics scholar, a Latinist. She trusts her dissertation adviser, but she shouldn't. Tessa discovers that her mentor has betrayed her. He sabotaged her job prospects with a poisonous letter of recommendation. She perseveres and tries to undo the damage. Along the way, Tessa digs up the truth about a little-known fictional Latin lyric poet, famous for a limping meter, which will come back later to play a key role. Tessa learns that pleasing her venal dissertation committee depends on the right footnote and that the only person she can trust is herself.
Here's what I love about the novel "The Latinist." It's grad school noir. It's a turnabout-is-fair-play retelling of the Daphne and Apollo myth from Ovid's "Metamorphoses." And for a disgruntled one-time grad student like myself, it climaxes with a deeply satisfying blow to the treachery of academia.
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RASCOE: Three thrillers that will get your blood pumping - "The Latinist," "The Paris Apartment" and "The Verifiers." For more reading suggestions, you can check out our Books We Love list at npr.org/bestbooks.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADAM BEN EZRA'S "CAN'T STOP RUNNING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
