Nothing is as exciting as a great book, especially a mystery or a thriller.

The unreal and the all-too-real combined to give a good scare, unbearable tension, and often something

to say about the world as well.

I'm Linda Holmes and today we're recommending some great mysteries and thrillers on

pop culture happy hour from NPR.

Joining me today is Leah Danella, she's the supervising editor at NPR's Code Switch.

Hey Leo, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me.

All right, books we love as many of our listeners hopefully know is NPR's sortable list of book recommendations from real people

inside and outside NPR like Leah Denella. Today we are talking about

mysteries and thrillers so Leah what are we starting with? Okay the first

book is called The Osyenda and it's by Isabel Kagnas and I am a total sucker

for Gothic novels I especially loved ones recently that take place somewhere

unexpected, so you know, not Europe. And this one, this one takes place in kind of a remote town in Mexico in the 1820s and it follows our heroin by a trees who moves from Mexico City to her husband's estate,

it's kind of in the middle of the desert,

and realizes very quickly that her husband

is not the person that she thought he was, this kind of wealthy, handsome stranger who she thought was so charming.

He has some other dimensions and the estate that they move on to is just very obviously and terrifyingly haunted so

haunted house and she has to kind of figure out how to survive and who is even real and not real in this

house and who's on her side and who's trying to kill her.

Wow I love a spooky story. This sounds like a spooky story.

Oh, it is very, very chilling.

I would recommend reading with like hot chocolate or something

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