WSJ’s Top Book Recommendations-Cary Regional

Discover the best books of the year, handpicked by the editors of The Wall Street Journal. From thought-provoking nonfiction to engrossing fiction, our Top Book Recommendations offer a curated list of exceptional reads that will inform, inspire, and entertain. Featuring titles from acclaimed authors and emerging voices, our selection spans genres and subjects, ensuring there's something for every reader. Dive into the world of ideas, stories, and perspectives that will change the way you think, feel, and see the world.

Showing 1 - 20 of 26  There are a total of 302 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Alter ego"
Star rating for Alter ego
Description:
"Alex Segura, LA Times Book Prize-winning author of Secret Identity, returns with a clever and escapist mystery set in the world of comic books. In the present day, a comics legend is given the chance to revive a beloved but forgotten character. But at what price? Annie Bustamante is a cultural force like none other: an acclaimed filmmaker, an author, a comic book artist known for one of the all time best superhero comics in recent memory. But she's...
Book cover for "Big sky"
Star rating for Big sky
Series:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son and an aging Labrador, both at the discretion of his ex-partner Julia. It's picturesque, but there's something darker lurking behind the scenes. Jackson's current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, is fairly standard-issue, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into...
Book cover for "Bletchley riddle"
Star rating for Bletchley riddle
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"This middle grade historical adventure follows two siblings at Bletchley Park, the home of WWII codebreakers, as they try to unravel a mystery surrounding their mother's disappearance."--
Book cover for "Blood grove"
Star rating for Blood grove
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
After being approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a white woman from a black man, Easy embarks on an investigation that takes him from mountaintops to the desert, through South Central and into sex clubs and the homes of the fabulously wealthy, facing hippies, the mob, and old friends perhaps more dangerous than anyone else.
Book cover for "The bramble and the rose"
Star rating for The bramble and the rose
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Series:
Description:
"A headless stranger is found in the woods of Wild Thyme, a small town in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania. All signs point to a man-killing bear, and Officer Henry Farrell would just as soon leave this hunt to the Game Commission. But doubts arise when he discovers the victim was a retired investigator. What drew the investigator to sleepy Wild Thyme? Before Henry can find answers, his own nephew disappears into the hills. Then an old flame...
Book cover for "A case of mice and murder"
Star rating for A case of mice and murder
Author:
Series:
Description:
"When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms at exactly two minutes to seven on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case--the disputed authorship of bestselling children's book, Millie the Temple Church Mouse--that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep. But even he cannot fail to notice the judge's dusty bare feet, in shocking contrast to his flawless evening dress, nor...
Book cover for "Dark sacred night"
Star rating for Dark sacred night
Series:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Detective Renee Ballard is working the graveyard shift again, and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours only to find that an older man has snuck in and is rifling through old file cabinets.The intruder is none other than legendary LAPD detective Harry Bosch, working a cold case that has gotten under his skin. Ballard kicks him out, but eventually Bosch persuades her to help and she relents. Bosch is investigating the death of fifteen-year-old...
Book cover for "The drop"
Star rating for The drop
Series:
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Harry Bosch has been given three years before he must retire from the LAPD, and he wants cases more fiercely than ever. In one morning, he gets two. DNA from a 1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional Crime Lab? The latter possibility could compromise all of the lab's DNA cases currently in court. Then Bosch and his partner are called to a...
Book cover for "The drowned"
Star rating for The drowned
Series:
Quirke mysteries volume 10.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn't approach but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally--the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke--a man he is linked to in increasingly...
Book cover for "The enigma of room 622"
Star rating for The enigma of room 622
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"One night in December, a corpse is found in Room 622 of the Hotel Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. A police investigation begins without definite end, and public interest wanes with the passage of time. Years later, the writer Joel Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary ingenue, arrives at that same hotel to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his longtime publisher, and begin his next novel. Little does Joel know that his...
Book cover for "The family chao"
Star rating for The family chao
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"An acclaimed storyteller returns with "a gorgeous and gripping literary mystery" that explores "family, betrayal, passion, race, culture and the American Dream" (Jean Kwok). The residents of Haven, Wisconsin have dined on the Fine Chao restaurant's delicious Americanized Chinese food for thirty-five years, happy to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. But when brash, charismatic, and tyrannical patriarch Leo Chao is found dead-presumed...
Book cover for "Fever beach"
Star rating for Fever beach
Description:
"'The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he'd take him there after finishing an errand.' Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads-in pure Hiaasen-style-into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion...
Book cover for "Head cases"
Star rating for Head cases
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"Gardner Camden is a walking analytical brain with an affinity for riddles, puzzles, and codes. It makes him the perfect fit for the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit of the FBI, a team of five brilliant but misfit agents tasked with solving cold cases. Gardner's smart, but he's all business--except for his seven-year-old daughter and occasional visits to his elderly mother, he prioritizes his work and justice over everything else, no matter the...
Book cover for "Heartwood"
Star rating for Heartwood
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie,...
Book cover for "The last equation of Isaac Severy"
Star rating for The last equation of Isaac Severy
Author:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"The Family Fang meets The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry in this literary mystery about a struggling bookseller whose recently deceased grandfather, a famed mathematician, left behind a dangerous equation for her to track down--and protect--before others can get their hands on it. Just days after mathematician and family patriarch Isaac Severy dies of an apparent suicide, his adopted granddaughter Hazel, owner of a struggling Seattle bookstore, receives...
Book cover for "The long drop"
Star rating for The long drop
Author:
Description:
"In 1950s Glasgow, a household of women were found slaughtered in their beds. The father, William Watt, had a cast-iron alibi but police were convinced he was guilty. Determined to clear his name, Watt let it be known that he would pay for information. Step forward career criminal Peter Manuel, with compelling details only the murderer could know. Watt agreed to meet him. They spent twelve hours together, driving and drinking in Glasgow pubs and clubs...
Book cover for "Magpie murders"
Star rating for Magpie murders
Series:
Magpie murders volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan's traditional formula has proved hugely successful. Conway's latest tale has Atticus Pund investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing...
Book cover for "Marble Hall murders"
Star rating for Marble Hall murders
Series:
Magpie murders volume 3.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel, and her Greek boyfriend Andreas in search of a new life back in England. Freelancing for a London publisher, she's given the last job she wants: working on an Atticus Pünd continuation novel called Pünd's Last Case. Worse still, she knows the new writer. Eliot Crace is the troubled grandson of legendary children's author Miriam Crace, who died twenty years ago. Eliot is convinced she...
Book cover for "Murder in Pitigliano"
Star rating for Murder in Pitigliano
Series:
Description:
"Ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle finds himself unwittingly stepping into the role of a PI to investigate a murder that has torn a young family apart in this rustic mystery set in the beautiful Medieval village of Pitigliano, Italy. One morning at the café, Nico notices Cilia, a seven-year-old girl he has never seen before, playing with OneWag on the floor. He later discovers she has left a note in the dog's collar--Please help my babbo. With help from...
Book cover for "The museum detective"
Star rating for The museum detective
Average Rating:
2.5 stars
Description:
"When Dr. Gul Delani receives a call in the middle of the night from the Sindh police, she thinks they may have finally found her niece, Mahnaz-a precocious, politically conscious teenage girl who went missing three years prior. Gul has been racked with grief since Mahnaz's disappearance, and distracts herself through work: she's a talented curator at the Museum of Heritage and History in Karachi, one of the country's leading experts in archaeology...