Riptide Dallas' Vacation Read Recommendations

Now that June, the traditional wedding month, is over, it’s on to July, or what I like to call murder month. That’s when we head to the beach, lake, national park, backyard, or anywhere away from work we can get. Whether you’re headed to a Wyoming ranch, Ireland, or somewhere exotic-sounding like the Greek island of Utakos, I’ve got some good books for your beach bag, carry-on, or backpack escape.

You Shouldn’t Have Come Here

By Jeneva Rose, Author

Vacation flings can be a bit of uncomplicated fun or end in a broken heart. Or worse.

New Yorker Grace Evans desperately needs a break. So, booking an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming sounds about as far from her hectic life as possible. She’s immediately thrilled with the idyllic, relaxing getaway and pleased to find that the handsome owner, Calvin Wells, is eager to share his easygoing lifestyle.

A few things weren’t made clear in the Airbnb advertisement, including the lack of cell phone service, a missing woman, and the distinct feeling Grace develops that something’s not quite right at the ranch.

As one often does on vacation, she ignores her unease, and she and Calvin begin to fall for one another. However, as her departure date looms, she can’t ignore her unease any longer. A playful romance has turned into a complicated web of lies. Grace begins to worry that Calvin’s attraction to her is becoming an obsession, while Calvin suspects that Grace is hiding something from him, including why she chose his ranch. Will they ride off into the sunset together, or will someone end up buried on Boot Hill?

Jeneva Rose has quickly become one of my favorite authors of stand-alone thrillers.

Jeneva Rose has quickly become one of my favorite authors of stand-alone thrillers. Her protagonists are fresh and relatable. She’s written other 11 thrillers, including The Perfect Marriage, The Perfect Divorce, and Home is Where the Bodies Are (which I really liked!). She is also a social media star known for her fun, twirling “sneaky signings” of her books.

Doocey Half-Sees Whodunnit

By Tom McAndrew

I read a lot of thrillers and mysteries, yet few truly surprise me. Doocey Half-Sees Whodunnit was a delightful surprise. The story follows a quirky Irish detective who is losing his eyesight and at last lands the opportunity he’s been waiting for his whole career.

Shamie Doocey gets no respect. His supervisors think he’s an idiot and use him to complete everyone’s paperwork. Thanks to his short stature and bumbling nature, no one he questions believes he’s an actual detective either. So when the brass, frustrated by the lack of results, strips Doocey’s boss of the investigation into the disappearance of a wealthy crime writer’s wife and places it in the clumsy detective’s hands, he becomes even more of an outsider.

Sick of his co-workers’ abuse and facing a tight deadline, Doocey is determined to prove he’s still a seriously good detective. However, there’s one huge obstacle: He’s due for his annual police physical, which he knows he’ll fail.

As he delves into his investigation, he discovers neglected key avenues of inquiry. Working double time to not only pursue what the other detectives had ignored while mapping his own strategy, he must also keep his failing eyesight under wraps—from everyone, especially his suspects.

You’ll love Doocey's Irish drollness, his conviction in his abilities, and his desire to make his elderly mother proud of him. After all that, get ready, because he’s going to fool even you!

Yes, Doocey Half-Sees Whodunnit is a charming cozy mystery with more clever twists and turns than I expected, but it’s a true underdog story that will have you rooting for this man who refuses to give up, even though there’s every reason he should. You’ll love Doocey's Irish drollness, his conviction in his abilities, and his desire to make his elderly mother proud of him. After all that, get ready, because he’s going to fool even you!

This is the first novel in Tom McAndrew’s series about the sight-challenged detective, and I can’t wait to read the next one!

Valley of the Moms

By Hannah Selinger

Ah, Hamilton, Massachusetts. The picture-perfect life where stay-at-home moms wear chunky diamond studs while supervising their little dividends on the playground. A million-dollar property here is considered affordable, and the parent-teacher group is a glorious hub for gossip and petty school politics. Some might struggle to keep up with the Joneses, but no one talks about something as garish as financial problems.

Frankly, Hamilton has always been like this, and everyone likes it that way.

Well, maybe not everyone.

Life might have turned out differently for so many people if the self-righteous PTO had allowed Anna Plummer’s second grader to attend the “Ziti with Your Sweetie” school dance, which required a “Premium” membership for a child. Anna, who had never imagined she’d be living such a comfortable, complacent, and, yes, bored life, snaps. She fires off an email to the formidable PTO president, and then the fur flies.

When Anna is found dead a year later in the frozen Ipswich River, her husband, Denny, is devastated. Although he’s no law enforcement expert, he’s watched enough television cop shows to know he’s likely to be the prime suspect. Denny decides that if they’re not going to find justice for his wife, he will.

Valley of the Moms examines grief, social order, and the secrets people keep. It’s a terrific beach read.

The story unfolds through alternating perspectives of Anna and Denny, one year apart, and readers are treated to a shocking final twist. Valley of the Moms examines grief, social order, and the secrets people keep. It’s a terrific beach read.

Road Trip

By Mary Kay Andrews

This novel by prolific author Mary Kay Andrews is a good vacation read, especially for anyone like me who’s been on a long road trip with siblings.

The Dunigan sisters, Maeve and Therese, haven’t spoken in years. Though raised together, the two couldn’t be more different. Maeve was always the rule-follower, and Therese the free-spirited rebel. The grief over their mother’s death and a mysterious painting that may be worth millions bring the two together.

In desperate need of money, the two women travel to Ireland to determine whether the painting is genuine. What begins as an ancestry search soon becomes a reckoning with the past. Maeve and Therese uncover secrets spanning generations that reshape everything the sisters thought they knew about their family.

Stock up on road-trip junk food and settle in for a delightful journey.

With tensions simmering between the two polar opposites, they hit the road and find themselves on winding country lanes, in charming villages, at local pubs, and among handsome men whose gift of the gab is surpassed only by their charm and good looks.

Can the two sisters survive the journey and uncover the truth without killing each other? Stock up on road-trip junk food and settle in for a delightful journey.

Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

By Lisa Unger

No beach bag is complete without a Lisa Unger novel, and Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 is newly out in paperback from the thriller master just in time.

The phrase “close your eyes and count to 10” evokes memories of childhood summer games; however, there’s nothing childish about this extreme game of hide-and-seek that turns deadly.

It doesn’t take guests who receive an invitation to an ultimate game of hide-and-seek from extreme adventurer Maverick Dillan to realize something’s not quite right. As the players gather on Falcao Island, the game quickly spirals into a frightening matter of life or death.

As a storm rages on the island, a challenge intended as a social media stunt finds its contestants stalked by a deadly threat. Adele is one contestant fiercely determined to protect her children by any means necessary and get back home to them. However, when she enters the game, she unwittingly enters a world of mystery and deception.

Can she navigate the treacherous storm and ruthless competitors to survive in a high-stakes game where the questionable line between the virtual and the real proves that the only person she can trust is herself.

Among New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger’s other novels are the psychological thrillers Confessions on the 7:45 (currently in development by Hulu) and Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six.

Murder Takes a Vacation

By Laura Lippman

Muriel Blossom, a former private investigator and now a middle-aged widow, finds a winning lottery ticket in a parking lot and believes her ship has finally come in. She’s determined to see the world she sometimes feels is passing her by.

When she booked her cruise through France, she didn’t expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight, the first man to stir something in her since her beloved husband passed. Nor did she expect Allan to be found, dead twenty-four hours later in Paris, a city he wasn’t supposed to be in.

Mrs. Blossom doesn’t know whom to trust on board the ship, especially when a mystifying man, Danny, seems to be present whenever things go awry.

Danny claims Allan was an art smuggler. However, Mrs. Blossom knows more than she lets on about both the artifact and Allan’s death. She has a knack for blending into the background, an asset left over from her days assisting private investigator Tess Monaghan.

Mrs. Blossom’s questions only mount as the cruise continues down the Seine. Is she being followed? Who was Allan, really, and why was he killed? Most puzzling to the widow is why these mysterious men keep flirting with her.

Laura Lippman knows how to write a great thriller; the longtime journalist and author has won nearly every major mystery-writing award.

Laura Lippman knows how to write a great thriller; the longtime journalist and author has won nearly every major mystery-writing award, including the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha, Shamus, Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe, and Barry awards. She’s the author of the popular, long-running Tess Monaghan detective series and the highly successful standalone thriller Lady in the Lake, which was adapted into a television series.

The Final Problem

By Arturo Perez-Reverte, Author; Frances Riddle Translator

June 1960. When out-of-work actor Ormond Basil decided to take a vacation on the idyllic Greek island of Utakos, he never dreamed it would lead to the role of a lifetime.

Guests at the only local hotel are unhappy that the weather at sea has left the group of strangers stranded. However, when Edith Mander, a quiet British tourist, is found dead in her beach cabana, her suicide further fuels their desire to leave.

But Ormond Basil, still well-known for his glory days as the most celebrated detective of all time, doubts the suicide theory. Accustomed to seeing him portray Sherlock Holmes’ amazing powers of deduction on the big screen, the other guests believe the actor should be able to uncover the truth.

But when another body surfaces, Basil’s sure a murderer is among the hotel’s guests. What’s more, the killer is staging each crime to resemble those in the pages of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes cases.

As the storm rages, Basil must become the genius detective he’s only pretended to be.

The criminal, who knows the great detective like a book, is playing a deadly game. As the storm rages, Basil must become the genius detective he’s only pretended to be.

Although not new, The Final Problem by Arturo Perez-Reverte is the perfect vacation read for fans of the masters of detection, Mr. Holmes and the equally great Hercule Poirot.