In 2012, Yoselyn Ortega allegedly murdered two children under her care in New York City. This Booker prize–winning novel explores this tumultuous period in Jamaica’s history and the rumors about the unnamed would-be-assassins’ fates. In December of 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley’s scheduled performance at the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions, seven gunmen stormed the singer’s house in an attack that wounded Marley, his wife, manager, and several others. Edie must decide if she’s willing to go through with what the cult and their charismatic leader ask of her.Ī Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James Soon, she follows Suzanne into a cult, whose sprawling but run-down ranch is hidden in the hills. If you’ve ever even heard the name Manson, it shouldn’t take much for you to figure out what this one’s based on: it’s summer in the late 1960s, and 14-year-old Evie becomes infatuated with Suzanne, an enigmatic personality she encounters in a Los Angeles park. Although Lizzie was acquitted in real life, the story of these gruesome murders has remained a much-speculated piece of American lore. This novel imagines the 1892 Borden axe murders from four different perspectives, including that of the real-life primary suspect, Lizzie Borden her older sister, Emma their housemaid, Bridget and a stranger named Benjamin. Whatever might be true, a group of reformers looking to see Grace pardoned call in an expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness in Alias Grace to examine her and plead her case. But did she really do it? Some believe she's guilty and rightfully imprisoned.

Grace Marks was convicted for her involvement in the murder of her employer and his housekeeper in the nineteenth century.

Hur wrote an incredibly interesting newsletter going into the background of Crown Prince Jangheon. Not so much based on a mystery as a mysterious figure from Korean history, this book follows a young nurse working in the royal palace when a string of murders seem to implicate the dangerous Crown Prince. This novel is inspired by a mystery from 1900 in which three lighthouse keepers at Eilean Mor disappeared, leaving behind only a series of mysterious clues: the door locked from the inside, a stopped clock, and a strange series of final entries about a terrifying storm. These fictional takes on real stories are exactly the sort of high-stakes, unputdownable reading perfect for summer. Who doesn't love a good historical mystery? Unsolved cases, theories on top of theories, and unreliable narrators abound in the genre-especially when it comes to historical fiction based on actual mysteries from the past.

Scandalous Heart by Joyce Carroll