Books like Arson and Americanos — picked by fans

Caroline Popov is promoted to General Manager of the Night Hawk Casino in the California high desert.

I cheered as Caroline didn’t let anyone push her around. If, like me, you’re curious about the real story behind the gaming industry, but a trip to a casino isn’t in your future, this story is right up your alley.

I was blown away by gaming industry pro-Bertoia’s physical description of the casino, the emotional atmosphere that permeates the place, and the characters who play and work there that were so spot on. I checked my wallet to make sure I didn’t lose a bucket of bucks at the Blackjack table.

Kate Tessler’s father and his retirement community coffee group come to her with a problem: their friend Larry's much younger wife claims her husband has dementia.

The group is convinced that Larry’s wife and her two adult, deadbeat kids are out to steal Larry’s money. But before they can authenticate the truth, their efforts are complicated when Larry is accused of committing a murder. Now they must prove Larry is both mentally competent and not a killer.

I love this saucy whodunit that came with the reminder that the term senior citizen doesn’t mean soft in the head. I cheered this fast-paced, witty cozy starring a gang of savvy seniors with humor, heart, and tenacity. Something Deadly on Desert Drive is perfect for fans of laugh-out-loud amateur detective stories who need no reminder that age is only a number.

As a long-time resident of Palm Springs, California, I’ve rubbed elbows with my share of entertainers; some beloved, others so obnoxiously full of themselves that I wondered how they managed not to get knocked off.

In A Murder in Palm Springs, antique appraiser Marty Morgan and her pal Carl are tasked to evaluate American Idol Jimmy Joseph's memorabilia collection. When Jimmy ends up dead, it's obvious not everyone was a fan. There’s no shortage of suspects, and Patron, Marty’s sister’s white boxer with paranormal abilities, can identify the culprit, but nobody’s asking his opinion.

Give me a whodunit with a whisper of woo-woo, and I’m a happy camper. Harman’s physical descriptions of Palm Springs are so spot on, you’ll be slathering on the suntan lotion and heading for the pool. 

Two sisters check into a hotel in their Arizona hometown to celebrate one another’s birthdays.

Their celebratory getaway is abruptly interrupted when one of the sisters discovers the corpse of a nasty hotel guest. Both sisters are hopeless snoops who can’t mind their own beeswax. So, naturally, they stick their noses everywhere they don’t belong to sniff out the killer, much to the consternation of the homicide detective in charge of the case.

Give me a madcap cast that takes readers on a raucous, wild rollercoaster ride at a breakneck pace in a fun romp with a plot that has more twists and turns than a pretzel, plenty of motives and red herrings like this one any day of the week. 

It’s not often that a thirty-something man nails the depiction of the interior life of a seventeen-year-old girl, but Jesse Ball did exactly that in his 2016 novel. Scrappy, arson-obsessed Lucia Stanton just might be my favorite literary teenage hero of all time. I think of her as a mix between Holden Caulfield’s charming disaffection and Juno’s precocious wit.

Ball imbues Lucia’s voice with intelligence and a hint of world-weariness, but he still manages to convey her innocence. You learn a lot from her, but you also want to protect her. My copy is dog-eared and underlined into oblivion. It’s one of those books I think is woefully underrated, and I recommend it any chance I get.

I loved this book because it shows her female character's resilience and strength in reinventing her career in fire after a debilitating accident on the job as a firefighter. Split-second decisions matter in the perilous world of fighting fire.

When Anne Ashburn finds a new career as a fire investigator, she must investigate a string of suspicious fires that endanger the lives of her former colleagues. The hero in the story teams up with Anne to find answers, and a heated attraction soon ignites. This story has enough twists and turns to confuse even the best GPS.

Is there anything hotter than a man willing to launch himself into a wilderness fire to save complete strangers? If you think there isn't, may I direct you to Marsh’s three-book series with action, suspense, drama – and scorching-hot men risking everything to help others. Burning Up introduces the reader to a close-knit group of smokejumpers, vengeful arsonists, regrets, and lost love… and reminds us that the riskiest jobs often result in heartbreak. I doubt that I could handle the stress of loving someone who lays down their life every single time they go to work, but I do find the psychology of the risk-taker fascinating and sexy: real heroes are rare and maybe that’s what makes them so irresistible… even if they are fictional.

You weren’t expecting me to recommend a Leverage tie-in novel, were you?

From my perspective, a book based on a television series is just as valid as a television series based on a book—and if you don’t share the same view, you might need to adjust one of your mirrors. I love The Con Job because takes the nerdy, cozy world of Leverage and places it in San Diego Comic-Con, giving the characters a real-world experience that many of us will have experienced ourselves.

There’s not a lot of music in this one, which may disappoint those of us who watched Leverage for the Rimsky-Korsakov, but there’s plenty of math and physics and a few inside jokes. It’s a comfort read, in more ways than one—which is probably why I keep reading it.

Steven James is one of my favorite authors, and this novel is one of his best works. I connected with the main character, Travis Brock, a person blessed with an eidetic memory. Travis remembers everything he sees, but like an eyewitness to a crime, some things seen prove haunting afterward.

Threats, trouble, and conflict kept me turning pages. This story's ending, with one of the best twists I have ever read or heard of, left me with a sense of urgency to read the sequel as soon as it is published.

I started this book for the unlikely main character–Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, tattooed, queer nun–but it was the mystery that kept me reading. I always love it when a writer can make me feel like I am the one on the line, like I am fighting for my life or to prove my innocence. This book did just that.

I found I was holding myself tightly as Sister Holiday investigated but just kept finding more evidence against herself. The snippets of her past life made me feel for her more and more, taking the character from an unlikely hero to someone I cared deeply about. I can’t wait to get my hands on the second in the series.