Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves mysteries, gothic lit, mythology/folklore, and all things witchy. Vanessa can be found on Instagram at @BuenosDiazSD or taking pictures of pretty trees in Portland, OR, where she now resides.
Real talk: I didn’t clock the lack of diversity in my reading until my late 20s when I began to look at it more critically. I was a dedicated reader of cozy mysteries and authors from the golden age of crime, a fangirl for the likes of Agatha Christie. I still love those authors, they’re titans of the genre for a reason. But let’s be honest: if this is all you’re consuming, your reading is going to look like a ski slope (thank you for that, Kalynn Bayron!). That’s where I found myself, at least in my mystery reading. Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it, and set out to make my reading more intentional and diverse.
The problem is that the genre itself is sorely lacking in diversity. This is why I scream into a pillow when I see weirdos on the clock app talking about how no one wants to publish white authors anymore. I beg your finest pardon!? Walk on over to your local Barnes & Noble and take a look at any end cap or table. Go look at any Amazon books landing page, or any bestseller list. Hell, we run a Bestselling Books of the Week post here at Book Riot, and we’ve had to add a “hey, these books are almost all by white authors, here are some diverse books you should also read” disclaimer for every edition of this thing since we started it in 2022. Every (clap) single (clap) one!
We have made progress, yes. But while finding diverse mysteries is much easier now than it used to be, what we do have is still just a tiny little drop in the bucket. That becomes even more apparent when you drill down by specific cultural identities, which is why I’m highlighting some fantastic mysteries by Latine authors today. There aren’t nearly enough of these for my liking (my kingdom for a cozy with an nosy tia or abuela sleuth!!), but the ones we do have are a treat. Today I have one for true crime lovers about a woman leading a double life in Texas and Mexico City, a series starter for foodies starring a food anthropologist, a coming-of-age noir set in Baja California in 1979, and more.
More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez
True crime blogger Cassie Bowman is searching for a big, juicy story to launch her journalism career when she stumbles upon a decades-old case involving Lore Rivera, an international banker who secretly led a double life in 1985. She already had a husband and kids in Laredo, Texas when she married another man in Mexico City, and one husband was later convicted of murdering the other. Cassie desperately wants the chance to dive into the “why” of the story and persuades a hesitant Lore to open up; but as their interviews unfold, Cassie begins to question the events surrounding the murder—and whether she’s gotten too close to Lore to see the truth clearly. If you love true crime and nuanced stories about marriage and motherhood and women who get to be messy and complex, pick this up.
Mango, Mambo, and Murder by Raquel V. Reyes
This first entry in the Caribbean Kitchen mystery series introduces us to food anthropologist Miriam Quiñones-Smith, whose recent move from New York to Miami meant putting her career on hold to care for her young son. Between her very opinionated suegra and her husband getting a little too chummy with an ex, she’s not entirely sold on this new life in Coral Shores. Her situation improves when her bestie hooks her up with a Caribbean cooking segment gig on a Spanish-language morning show, and it’s an immediate success! But when two people wind up dead, both in Miriam’s presence, she goes from charming TV chef to primary suspect. She agrees to help the detective in charge of the case by infiltrating Coral Shores’s social scene and Spanish-speaking community. The closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she’s in. Have snacks on hand for this one!
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Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is most widely known for Mexican Gothic, but real ones know SMG’s catalog runs deep and spans many genres. Untamed Shore is her coming-of-age noir set in Baja California in 1979. In the small fishing town of Desengańo, 18-year-old Viridiana dreams of a different life, one of romance and adventure with options beyond marriage and motherhood. When three Americans arrive in the town—a writer, his wife, and his brother-in-law—Viri is swept up in their glamor and hastily agrees when the writer offers her a job as his assistant. Then one of her new friends ends up dead, and Viri lies to protect the others… a choice she will come to regret.
Secret Identity by Alex Segura
In 1975, Calmen Valdez is an assistant at Triumph Comics. Triumph is a small, scrappy operation compared to Marvel or DC, and Carmen’s lifelong comics dream wasn’t to be an assistant. But her big break might finally be within reach when a Triumph writer and friend asks Carmen to help him create a new character. Together, they develop The Lethal Lynx, Triumph’s very first female hero, but the vibes are off: the writer is acting all suss and wants Carmen to keep their collaboration a secret. Then the guy is found dead, and Carmen learns he’s submitted the pages for Lethal Lynx without crediting Carmen for her work (*Selena voice* Cobarde!!!!). Carmen starts digging to find out what happened to the writer and why she was cut out of the deal, especially since Lethal Lynx is an instant hit. But the more she digs, well… you know how this goes. Alex Segura is a prolific crime fiction writer and comics creator, and his expertise really shines here.
Uptown Thief by Aya de Leon
I knew this would be great when Jamie Canaves compared it to the movie Hustlers and Robin Hood. Marisol Rivera is an abuse survivor who now runs a women’s clinic in New York’s Lower East Side, determined to help women get the care they need and a chance at a better life. She’ll do anything to keep the clinic doors open, including robbing from the corrupt one-percenters she meets while running an exclusive escort service for New York City’s rich and powerful. Sex workers stealing from terrible men to fund a women’s clinic? We’ll take it.
The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes
Maya has a good life in Boston, where she lives with her loving boyfriend and is finally kicking the addiction that helped her cope with the trauma of losing her best friend in high school. Then that trauma comes roaring back when she stumbles across a YouTube video of a girl keeling over and dying in front of a man, but not just any man: the man’s name is Frank, and he’s the same man her best friend died in front of in the same way seven years ago. Maya returns home to the Berkshires for answers, and at her mother’s house, she finds hidden messages in an unfinished book by her deceased Guatemalan dad that she never noticed before. As she tries to understand this cryptic story written before she was born, all roads appear to lead to Frank’s cabin in the woods.
English (US) · 