ӣ����Ƶ

The big-ticket author (in fact, tickets are required) is Ruth Ware, arriving Saturday to unveil a first for her: a sequel. Ware’s “The Woman in Cabin 10” was the talk of 2016, and since then the author has built a hugely successful career on stand-alone novels, never repeating herself — until now.

“The Woman in Suite 11,” due out Tuesday, revisits the character of Laura “Lo” Blacklock, the emotionally fragile travel writer who in “Cabin 10” insisted she’d seen a woman thrown overboard, a woman everyone else was sure did not exist.

Lo is back and traveling again, now with a supportive husband and two sons at home, and her meds better adjusted. Eager to get back to work, she accepts an invitation to visit, and write about, a new, luxury hotel in Switzerland. There, faces from the past and a series of shocks send her mind reeling back to the ill-fated cruise.

“For years, readers have asked whether I might return to any of the characters” from “Cabin 10,” Ware told People magazine last year when the sequel was announced. “With Lo now 10 years older, and at a different stage in her life, I’m excited to share a fresh perspective on her story, and to send her on a new adventure.”

Reading “The Woman in Suite 11,” though, I was reminded most of all just how annoying I found Lo the first time around. Her shaky mental state and enduring self-doubt make her the queen of bad decisions, here just as much as in her first adventure.

Or so I think. I also remembered early on that I barely remembered the plot details of “The Woman in Cabin 10.” (With a Netflix adaptation finally arriving Aug. 29, starring Kiera Knightley, I recommend a refresher synopsis.)

A refresher is important for the new book, as Ware builds a lot of Lo’s eyebrow-raising actions on her history on that ill-fated ship. You may wonder, as I did, if it might not have been better for everyone if she’d just stayed home this time.

But Ware will wait. The library’s mini-festival of mystery writers begins Monday with Martin Walker, the Scottish journalist who created the delightful “Bruno, Chief of Police” series, set in the charming yet crime-prone village of St. Denis in the southwest of France.

I’ve enjoyed every one of the “Bruno” novels I’ve read; they are not “cozy” mysteries but just cozy enough, with a fresh and vivid sense of place and sharply drawn characters we’d like to hang out with at the cafe, sipping a 10 a.m. “petit blanc” glass of wine. If you don’t know Bruno, there’s no need to read in order (there are 18 or so, depending on how you count), but do start with the first, “Bruno, Chief of Police,” for a good introduction.

The latest “Bruno,” “An Enemy in the Village,” out now, turns on the death of a real estate agent, a woman found with a suicide note — but did she really take her own life? As with all successful, long-running series, the only thing readers really need to know about this new entry is that they’ll want to read it tout suite.

Clémence Michallon, in town Wednesday, is at the start of her career as a suspense writer; her first novel, “The Quiet Tenant,” came out in 2023. Michallon, a Paris-born journalist now living in New York, sets “Our Last Resort” (Knopf, 320 pages) in Utah, where siblings who fled from a cult get mixed up in murder at a luxe resort.

I didn’t get a chance to preview “Our Last Resort,” but if you think the plot sounds perfect for a “White Lotus”-style adaptation, know that the rights have already been snapped up.

Next-to-last in the lineup is one of my favorites, Linda Castillo, who has featured Police Chief Kate Burkholder in a long-running series of mysteries set in Painters Mill, Ohio, a small town in Amish country.

With 17 full-length books to date, the challenge for Castillo at this point might be coming up with a different crime to rattle the Amish community. ��貹����” is set during a miserably hot summer and turns on the murder of a young man who strayed from the church, only to return. The crime is both gory and graphic, and the investigation puts Kate herself in mortal danger, with a larger conspiracy revealed to be timely and horrifying.

On the lighter side, Kate and her new husband, state investigator John Tomasetti, are settling nicely into married life and even welcome an addition to the family. No, not that. It’s a cat.

More reading

“Dogged Pursuit,” by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur, 288 pages; out now), is a prequel to Rosenfelt’s long-running Andy Carpenter series, with a tongue-in-cheek twist. The plot finds a younger Andy, still wrestling with his first marriage and newly working as a defense attorney, meeting the people who will become his team for the first time. The twist: Andy also adopts his beloved golden retriever, Tara. Read the author’s note for an explanation of this deliberate anachronism.

“Don’t Let Him In,” by Lisa Jewell (Atria, 368 pages, out now), does what Jewell does best — delve into the darkest corners of human behavior. Her not-a-hero, who goes by several names, is a deeply creepy charmer who uses and abuses women under the guise of love. Prepare to stay up late hoping he gets what’s coming to him.

“The Unraveling of Julia,” by Lisa Scottoline (Grand Central, 400 pages, due July 15), is a modern gothic that finds a young widow traveling to Italy to take possession of a crumbling villa she has somehow inherited. It’s a fun and ultimately satisfying read, even if we’d sometimes like to grab Julia and shake some sense into her.