Under Water by Tara Menon

Published by Riverhead Books on March 17, 2026

Under Water is a story of friendship and loss. In the present (2012), Marissa lives in New York. In the past (2004), Marissa lived in Thailand. The chapters alternate between the two years. Although the action in each location unfolds over a couple of days, Marissa’s first-person narrative fills in the essential background of her life.

Marissa was born to parents who grew up in New York but met in the Philippines. Her mother, a marine biologist, died in a car accident when she was six. After her death, Marissa's father accepted an invitation to stay with one of her mother’s colleagues, Rosalind Watkins, on an uninhabited island near Phuket where she set up a research station to study manta rays. Her father managed the lab, supervised visiting grad students, and did some cooking.

Marissa’s best friend was Arielle, whose wealthy mother was gifted a hotel in Phuket when she married a man of limited means. Marissa and Arielle developed the kind of intense friendship that is a phenomenon of youth. Both girls loved the water. They spent most of their days swimming with manta rays, but Marissa likes to party in Phuket on the weekends. Arielle would prefer to stay on the island but usually agrees to join Marissa in Phuket.

Water and death are pervasive themes. The story in both time frames is filled with wet weather and allusions to natural disasters around the world. The story’s bookends are wet weather events — a tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004, Hurricane Sandy in New York in 2012.

In Marissa’s world, water seems to symbolize both life and death. The ocean is alive with fish and coral, but by 2012, ocean life is starting to die. Arielle is alive in 2004 but appears only in Marissa’s memory in 2012. The specifics of her death are revealed late in the novel but often foreshadowed, so the reader knows that Arielle will drown. Marissa will spend the next years blaming herself because Arielle would still be alive if Marissa had not insisted that they spend the weekend in Phuket.

Tara Menon’s vivid descriptions of the tsunami and its aftermath are so chilling in their realism that I wondered whether she had herself survived one. She grew up in Singapore, so she at least has personal experience with tropical storms. The novel’s convincing portrayal of the chaotic environment in Phuket during the tsunami contributes to its power.

The New York story explores the impact Arielle’s death had on Marissa. She works as a copy editor and exists as a loner. She regularly picks up men for sex but not if they approach her before she invites the approach. Perhaps Marissa suffers from PTSD, but when she looks up the symptoms, Facebook begins to display targeted ads for aromatherapy and gravity blankets. The Facebook experience is one of many small moments that help the reader connect with Marissa’s life.

The story usually moves quickly, but Menon spends too much time dispensing facts about manta rays in Thailand and quaker parrots in Central Park. A lengthy list of fish that Marissa sees while swimming is a bit too tedious to stand as a worthwhile contribution to the novel’s atmosphere.

Fortunately, Menon finds more effective ways to help the reader visualize life in Thailand. She riffs on the thousand daily changes of color in the ocean and explains why Homer never used “blue” to describe the sea. Her most interesting riff explores the notion that climate change is imagined as a catastrophic event, when “most of the time devastation is quiet, subtle, humdrum.” Reefs gradually turn white as coral dies; populations of fish slowly thin. Nothing happens that humans regard as dramatic until until humans start to die.

But the novel is not a political tome about global warming. It is a very personal account of friendship, loss and regret. Although much of the story lives in Marissa’s memory, Menon keeps it in motion and steadily builds momentum until it reaches its climax. The moving aftermath slows the pace, giving the reader time to process the emotions that Menon sparks. This is a nicely crafted work of literature and, as a debut novel, a promising start to a career.

RECOMMENDED

The Dark Time by Nick Petrie

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on March 10, 2026

Peter Ash is the tough guy in this tough guy thriller series. Having served as a Recon Marine in combat zones, he has the usual tough guy credentials. When the series began, his PTSD was so intense that he risked a panic attack if he slept indoors (or even ventured inside a building). An “Oregon shrink” taught him some coping mechanisms. Now he’s in a relationship with June Cassidy, a veteran reporter.

June has a older friend, also a journalist, named KT Thorsen. KT received a note instructing her to stop her investigations and threatening to kill her and her daughter Eleanor. The note also says “We are watching. We are Legion.” KT is working on several investigations and doesn’t know which one prompted the threat. KT takes a photo of the note and sends it to June, who promptly asks her to share her cellphone location and promises to have Ash check up on her.

Ash arrives just in time to save KT when she is attacked by a gunman. He takes KT and Eleanor to a cheap motel, but another gunman — this one a bit more professional — tracks them down. He kills KT but Ash manages to save Eleanor.

Ash isn’t adept at interacting with 13-year-old girls, but Eleanor refuses to leave his side. Ash believes she is still in danger and doesn’t want to leave her with a social worker, so he takes her to stay with his friend Manny Martinez and his wife and kids. Manny was one of Peter’s platoon sergeants in Iraq and is a tough guy on his own merit.

Ash enlists the help of another buddy, a former criminal and current tough guy named Lewis. When Lewis takes Ash on a trip to purchase some unregistered weapons, trouble breaks out, giving Ash and Lewis a chance to show off their combat skills. The black market weapons supplier has been making armor-piercing ammunition, a task that requires more sophisticated equipment than northwestern hillbillies should be able to buy.

Naturally, the bad guys will track down Eleanor. They kidnap her along with Manny’s wife. Much of the story focuses on June's attempts to locate the place where the kidnappers have stashed them, as well as the nick-of-time heroics of Ash, Manny, Lenny, and a security guard who joins forces with them to save the world.

The novel’s mysteries are the nature of the story KT was investigating, the identity of the principal bad guy, and the evil deed the bad guy intends to unleash. Without revealing anything significant, it is fair to say that the evil deed involves an attempt to accelerate the biblical “end times.” The principle bad guy turns out to be something of a cult leader. Ash discovers a link between that plot and the armor piercing shells that the hillbillies were manufacturing.

I had difficulty buying into the bad guys’ ability to orchestrate their planned societal collapse by their chosen means. While far-fetched, the plot is no more outlandish than is typical for a modern action thriller.

Propelled by strong action scenes, the story moves quickly. Eleanor’s snark adds some comic relief while her mother’s death contributes emotional weight to the story.

Because of his struggle with PTSD, Ash has a bit more personality than is typical of a tough guy protagonist. He is extremely capable but doesn’t perform the superheroic deeds of tough guy heroes who defeat twenty thugs in a shootout. I always appreciate tough guy action heroes who don’t act like The Batman without a cape and cowl.

No Peter Ash novel has disappointed me, although some have had more credible (and thus more entertaining) plots than The Dark Time. Given that believable plots have become optional for modern action thrillers, I recommend the novel for Nick Petrie’s ability to craft convincing characters and strong action scenes.

RECOMMENDED

Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto

First published in Japan in 1982; published in translation by Random House/Modern Library on March 3, 2006

I’m a sucker for stories about a criminal defendant who is widely viewed as guilty based on strong but circumstantial evidence until a crafty defense attorney unmasks the true culprit. Suspicion departs from the usual formula by omitting the trial and adds a twist with a journalist whose self-preservation requires the defendant to be convicted.

Moichi Akitani is a reporter at the Hokuriku Daily. He is visiting a relative in a hospital when he stumbles upon Masao Harayama, a criminal defense lawyer who has a bad liver. Harayama is defending Kumako Onizuka on a charge of murdering her husband, Fukutarō Shirakawa.

As they chat about the case, the reader learns that the circumstantial evidence against Onizuka is strong. A witness reported seeing her drive a car at a high speed before it left the road and plunged into the sea. Onizuka claims that her husband was driving and hoped to kill them both, but says she escaped through the shattered windshield and swam to safety while her husband drowned. Onizuka’s credibility is damaged by evidence that she took out several large insurance policies on her husband’s life shortly before he died, not to mention her contradiction of eyewitness testimony.

Akitani wrote a series of blistering stories about Onizuka, exposing her history of greed and bad behavior with men and her ties to the yakuza. He’s sure of Onizuka’s guilt, but he worries that she will send gangsters to exact revenge against him and his family if she is acquitted.

Harayama wants to pass the case along to another lawyer because he has become too old and ill to conclude it. The court eventually appoints a civil lawyer, Takukichi Sahara, to handle the case. This pleases Akitani because he expects the inexperienced Sahara to fumble it.

The story’s hook involves a wrench and a shoe that were found in the car. Characters float theories about why the wrench wasn’t in the trunk and why only one of Shirakawa’s feet lost a shoe in the crash.

Sahara comes up with a plausible but far-fetched theory that solves the mystery. I didn’t think the theory was convincing and I’m confident that no American judge or jury would buy it, but perhaps Japanese judges are more open to unlikely theories of innocence.

The more interesting aspect of the story lies in the journalist’s fear of an acquittal. The novel sends a strong message about the danger of journalists assuming a defendant’s guilt — a sin that American journalists regularly commit. Akitani confesses that journalists are manipulated by sources from the police or a prosecutor’s office who provide (and spin) inside information. While the journalists are aware that they are being used, they report the tips from the government’s perspective for fear that if they don’t, they will lose their sources.

The story’s ending is meant to be surprising, although it is foreshadowed by earlier events and probably won’t shock most readers. The plot is less than gripping and is marred by redundant reviews of the evidence. The redundancies stretch a longish short story into a novella, which may have been their intended purpose. The reader doesn’t need internal summaries in such a short book. While Suspicion has just enough twists to merit a tepid recommendation, it lacks the clever plot and quirky characters that I have come to enjoy in Japanese mysteries.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Politician by Tim Sullivan

First published in Great Britain in 2022; published by Grove Atlantic on March 3, 2026

The Politician is the fourth novel to chronicle the work of Detective Sargeant George Cross. They are being newly released to the American market, having originally been published in Great Britain. I send my gratitude to Atlantic Crime for introducing Cross to American readers.

Peggy Frampton was an “agony aunt.” I was unfamiliar with the phrase before reading The Politician, but it seems to be the social media version of an advice columnist. Peggy had an online following of five million. Before Peggy started dispensing advice on the internet, she was the mayor of Bristol.

Peggy’s body is found in her home. While it initially appears that she died from a blow to the head, an autopsy suggests a different cause. A search of her locked safe reveals that jewelry is missing. DCI Ben Carson, the lazy detective Cross disdains, immediately concludes that Peggy interrupted a robbery, but Cross is never content with the easy answer.

Peggy’s husband, Luke Frampton, is a relatively successful criminal barrister. He has never been elevated to the status of Queen’s Counsel, supposedly because he views the title as elitist. Cross suspects he has some other reason not to improve his professional status.

Peggy was a friend of the Chief, so he assembles a large team to find her killer. Fortunately for Cross, he assigns Chief Superintendent Heather Matthews as the senior investigator. He assures the other officers that his choice is in no way a reflection on Carson. “Which of course made everyone in the room immediately think it was exactly that.”

Internet trolls made nasty comments on Peggy’s site, so staffer and series regular Alice Mackenzie is assigned to review them. The police would like to get some help from Peggy’s long-time assistant, Janette Coombes, but she is “travelling through the Golden Triangle in South-East Asia” and only talks to her husband Mark about once a month (her choice, Mark reports with some sadness).

One suspect is Michael Ribble, who asked Peggy for advice about proposing to his girlfriend and blamed her when she rejected him. Luke is a suspect because he regularly cheated on Peggy and husbands are always suspects. He has been dating Agnesha Dragusha, a much younger woman whose father, Luke’s former client, is the head of an Albanian crime family who manages the family business from prison.

A different branch of the investigation involves Peggy’s social activism. She had opposed a housing plan because the developer would not satisfy her demand for affordable housing. The developer, Adam Chapel, seems like a decent man, but his pursuit of money over morality cost him his friendship with his founding partner. His new second-in-command, Clive Bland, strikes Cross as a sketchier businessman.

As always, Tim Sullivan tells a story that is rich with detail. I appreciate the way Sullivan shares clues with the reader as Cross discovers them, giving a clever reader an opportunity to solve the mystery before the truth is revealed. I managed to guess (rather than deduce) part of the reveal, but some clues slipped past me. It is fun to watch Cross weave them all together as he interrogates the suspect and provokes an inevitable confession. As always, Cross chases down every clue and refuses to make assumptions. Unless every puzzle piece fits perfectly, he isn’t satisfied.

As Cross and Ottey travel around the English countryside interviewing suspects, atmospheric descriptions of buildings and gardens give this (and the other Cross novels) a strong sense of place. Character development continues, with a focus on Cross’ relationship with his father. Cross finally learns the truth behind his mother’s decision to abandon him in his childhood (or so it seemed to him), a decision he always attributed to her inability to cope with his autistic behavior. I’m a little slow, but the explanation finally dawned on me after Sullivan offered a clue about three-quarters of the way into the novel. Savvier readers might clock the truth more quickly. The explanation for his mother’s mysterious disappearance makes perfect sense.

Mystery fans will do themselves a favor by treating the George Cross novels as essential reading. The Politician is my favorite of the series so far, not because the mystery is clever — they’re always clever — but because of the touching way Cross’ character evolves as he processes new information about his parents’ relationship.

RECOMMENDED

Untouchable by Jeffery Deaver

Published by Amazon Original Stories on February 17, 2026

I’m not a fan of Deaver’s Constant Marlowe stories, largely because Marlowe is the kind of self-righteous character who thinks she’s entitled to bully people. Marlowe is a special agent with the Illinois Department of Criminal Investigations. She starts Untouchable by detaining a man she doesn’t know because a young woman began to cry after he spoke to her. That hardly seems like evidence of a crime, given that the man walked past the woman on the sidewalk without speaking to her. The woman stopped and shouted an obscenity at him while screaming “Are you the one?” She only cried after he said something in response that Marlowe didn’t hear. Where is the crime? Why does Marlowe think she has the right to accost the man and demand his ID?

Marlowe believes her suspicions are founded because she sees “fear” in the woman’s eyes, notwithstanding the woman’s insistence that she doesn’t need help. Marlow believes she has a spidey sense that is triggered by women's hidden pain so she decides to meddle. Like too many crime novel heroines, Marlowe considers herself an avenging angel for abused women, but that doesn’t give her the right to abuse her authority as a law enforcement officer. And when Deaver tells us that “Constant Marlowe believed that rules were more suggestions than anything,” I have to wonder why a bully with a badge who disrespects the law is anyone a crime fiction fan would regard as a hero.

Jeffery Deaver could have used this novella to explore Marlowe’s sense of entitlement or her willingness to violate the civil rights of men in her quest to protect women. Instead, like most writers who glorify “tough guy” cops of either gender, he appears to believe that readers should admire a character who routinely betrays her oath to uphold the Constitution.

Marlowe carries a locked bag so that, when a suspect doesn’t conform to her behavioral standards, she can lock up her gun and challenge him to a fight. Cops should be fired when they start fights, even if they believe the men they beat up “deserve it.” But when Marlowe hands her locked weapon to a stranger to hold for her — someone who might make off with her firearm while she’s busy fighting — I have to wonder why anyone would believe she should be allowed to carry a badge.

Regardless of my reservations about Marlowe, I am always prepared to be entertained by a good story. Untouchable falls short. Marlowe is doing something in Prescott, Illinois, home to fictional Hamline University, when she sees the encounter between Kathleen Delaine (the crying woman) and the unfortunate man who leered at her.

Marlowe learns that Delaine wrote a letter to the local newspaper suggesting that Hamline’s football program should pay more attention to concussions and the lasting brain damage they can cause. She is unfairly blamed on social media for destroying the football program as vengeance for being dumped by a football player. Someone posts a photo of Delaine sleeping on the team bus and accuses her of shagging the entire team.

A Manosphere podcaster picks up the story and Delaine begins to receive nasty emails suggesting all the sexual fantasies the emailers would like to act out with her. When she shouted “Are you the one?” she was asking whether he sent the emails. She shouts the same question to every guy who gives her a knowing smile.

The plot addresses Marlowe’s effort to identify the “stalker” emailer, a quest that has her confronting the podcaster. None of this is particularly interesting. Neither are lectures about chronic traumatic encephalopathy and the various bullet calibers that start with .3 (.308, .32, etc.) and Marlowe’s career as a boxer.

Any interest the story might have generated is diminished by its preachy nature. While I broadly agree with its message that the Manosphere is doing the country no favors, I don’t enjoy heavy-handed lectures about the evils of social media delivered by psychopathic characters who would themselves benefit from a good lecture about appropriate behavior.

The story goes off the rails with the armed confrontation of a suspected stalker. That incident leads to a silly explanation for the stalking. Without spoiling anything, I’ll simply suggest that the bad guy’s motivation isn’t within spitting distance of being credible. Even if I had enjoyed the rest of the story, the attempt to reimagine the stalking as a component of a deeper and unrelated crime would have been sufficient reason not to recommend Untouchable.

NOT RECOMMENDED