The Headmaster's Wife begins on an early winter morning, with a man walking into New York City's Central Park. He takes off his hat, then his clothes and shoes, and continues his walk. He is taken to a police station and asked what happened. He says he must begin at the beginning, which he does.

Arthur Winthrop is the headmaster of a Vermont prep school, like his grandfather and father before him. His son, Ethan, chose not to follow the family plan and instead joined the army right out of high school. Arthur's wife, Elizabeth, is drifting away from him, interested only in tennis and sitting in Ethan's room, worrying.

Arthur tells the police about his obsession with a student, Betsy, their sexual encounters and her leaving him for Russell Hurley, a handsome basketball player her own age. Arthur plants alcohol under Russell's dorm bed, arranges a room search and has him expelled.

At this point, the policeman interviewing Arthur brings in a man he introduces as an attorney. Arthur hasn't asked for one, and the man's arrival turns everything upside down. The reader knows from Thomas Christopher Greene's clever foreshadowing that something monumental has happened--but only midway through do we learn what it is. The story turns, and it is as if a new book is being written, but such is not the case.

Slowly, our questions are answered and the truth comes out in this examination of grief, love, marriage, madness and hope. Before you pick up this book, clear the decks--because you will read it in one sitting. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

A killer who seems to have the ability to vanish baffles Philadelphia detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano, and the city's residents live in constant fear as more victims are discovered, virtually under the department's nose. But the key to The Stolen Ones, Richard Montanari's seventh novel starring Byrne and Balzano, isn't supernatural at all.

Luther Wade was born and raised in a hospital for the criminally insane; when it closed, he remained, trolling the passageways underneath the city and carrying out the nightmarishly evil dreams of one of Europe's deadliest serial killers. A mute child found wandering in the street in the middle of the night carries with her a vital clue to the case, as well as a link between the past and the present. Byrne and Balzano have to race to put the clues together and find this mad man before he can wreak more havoc; as they do, Montanari steeps the story in the devious secrets of the hospital's past.

With a plot as eerie and contorted as the catacombs Luther inhabits, The Stolen Ones is a thriller fan's delight--a book readers will stay up late to finish, with all the lights on. Part thriller, part mystery, part horror, The Stolen Ones is a completely great story. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

Welsh Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths returns for her second outing (following 2012's Talking to the Dead) in Harry Bingham's Love Story, with Murders. She finds a female leg in the freezer of an old woman who died recently. Fi's investigation reveals the old woman was cranky with her neighbors but not that cranky. Then other body parts start showing up all over town--more from the original victim, who was apparently killed about seven years earlier, but also those of a more recently murdered man.

Because the body parts are so widely scattered around Cardiff, the detectives pin an entire phone book up on the board to represent the list of suspects. Fi gets to the bottom of things by going "off-piste"--following her own instincts more than protocol--but not before having her own chilling encounters with the killers.

Bingham combines sharp observations (a smile is described as "so thin it was probably manufactured in an Apple design lab") with an expanding portrait of his unusual heroine. The mystery of the body parts parallels Fiona's own struggles with Cotard's syndrome, a rare condition that makes the afflicted think they're dead or unable to feel certain parts of their body. Fiona is attempting to put the victims' bodies back together just as she tries to make herself feel whole. She has surprisingly poignant reactions to harrowing situations; if she fears dying, then she must still be alive. She sometimes thinks she's out of touch with her feelings, but Bingham is very much in control of his characters' inner lives. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, crime-fiction editor, The Edit Ninja

Kate Rhodes defies the sophomore slump in A Killing of Angels, the follow-up to 2013's Crossbones Yard, as psychologist Alice Quentin is unable to refuse Detective Don Burns when he comes to her for help on a new case. Someone is killing employees of London's Angel Bank, leaving an angel picture and white feathers at each scene. To find the murderer, Quentin and Burns must discover the connection between the bankers--the sin for which they are being punished--before another of them becomes the avenging angel's next mark.

Despite the plot's relentless summer sun, A Killing of Angels is a dark psychological thriller that's about more than a series of murders, delving into society's idea of what constitutes mental stability. Several supporting characters vie for attention with strong, colorful personalities. Rhodes infuses her whole cast with as much momentum as the plot, filled with strong twists and plausible red herrings. Alice Quentin's job is to analyze others, but her own psychology engages the reader as much as that of the criminals she observes. And Don Burns, forced to deal with department politics while his family life has deteriorated, views his job as the only thing he has left--but the angel killer may snuff that out as well. His devotion, sincerity and compassion will leave readers rooting not only for his success but his redemption. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

Isabella Bradford's A Wicked Pursuit kicks off a new romance trilogy about three noble brothers with a bewitching tale of a most accidental match.

Harry Fitzroy, the future Duke of Breconridge, has finally met a perfectly bred, perfectly beautiful woman, Lady Julia Barclay, to make his wife. Before he can propose, though, a fall from his horse at the country estate of Julia's family leaves Harry injured, sick and abandoned to the care of Julia's younger sister, Lady Augusta.

Practical, capable "Gus" is used to the ways of her dazzling but spoiled older sister, but even she is shocked by Julia's desertion. As she nurses Harry back to health, Gus is further shocked by her own attraction to the arrogant, demanding nobleman, and soon she and Harry both realize he nearly proposed to the wrong sister. When Harry learns his injury may have left one of his legs permanently crippled, his self-confidence is shattered, and Gus will have to fight to convince him that a man is more than the sum of his parts.

While Harry's initially shallow outlook on marriage may seem a bit off-putting, Gus's steadfast sense of duty and wistful longing to be something more than second fiddle to her sister will have readers in her corner immediately. All that remains is the delight of watching Harry learn a woman's worth comes from within as Gus's faith in their love leads to a satisfying happily ever after. --Jaclyn Fulwood, youth services manager at Latah County Library District and blogger at Infinite Reads

The Perfect Score Project chronicles Debbie Stier's year of exploring a variety of test-preparation strategies as she sat for the SAT seven times, with the goal of helping her son, Ethan, prepare for his own college-entrance exams. Stier knew Ethan's ability to obtain merit-based financial aid would depend on high scores on the standardized tests, but her last experience with the SAT had been nearly 30 years earlier, and an extensive test-prep industry has sprouted since then.

Stier tried a different study method before each test, from personal tutoring to online learning to self-directed practice using official College Board materials. The Perfect Score Project discusses the pros and cons of each approach, her test scores serving as the final verdict. Stier's evaluation of her SAT experience weighs its effects on her personal growth and relationship with her son at least as heavily as her test scores. While what she did comes across at times as a particularly intense example of "helicopter parenting," and readers might not agree with either her tactics or her conclusions, she offers many helpful insights about the testing process to parents of the college-bound--as well as to the test-takers themselves. --Florinda Pendley Vasquez, blogger at The 3 R's Blog: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness

In Dear Abigail, Diane Jacobs returns to the topic of smart women in revolutionary times that she previously explored in Her Own Woman, her biography of Mary Wollstonecraft.

Readers are familiar with Abigail Adams thanks to her sharp-witted and loving correspondence with her husband--but John Adams wasn't the only person who benefited from Abigail's pen. In Dear Abigail, Jacobs uses the correspondence of Abigail and her sisters to build a picture of what it was like to watch the American Revolution from the sidelines.

Mary, Abigail and Betsy Smith were the daughters of a wealthy and influential Massachusetts minister. They were highly educated, well read and opinionated--and they married men who valued those qualities. In their letters, they complain about gender inequalities and household problems while discussing the intellectual issues of the time, from the theological questions of the Great Awakening to the philosophical underpinnings of revolution. They arrange to be inoculated for smallpox--a controversial issue at the time. They share news about the war. They worry about their parents, their husbands and their children.

Much of the book deals with the day-to-day difficulties of the war. Of the three sisters, Abigail suffered the most; some of the most poignant passages show her struggling alone with a difficult pregnancy and ultimate stillbirth. But all of them deal with shortages, lack of information and fear.

Dear Abigail is a perfect companion to David McCullough's John Adams. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins

In Blood Royal, Eric Jager returns to the world of medieval true crime that he popularized in The Last Duel.

On a cold November night in 1407, a band of masked men assassinated Louis I of Orléans, the powerful and unpopular brother of the intermittently insane King Charles, on a dark street in Paris. Jager tells the stories of both the criminal investigation that followed and the subsequent impact of the assassination on French politics.

The first half of Blood Royal is presented as a medieval murder mystery, based on working notes of the investigation written by Guillaume de Tignonville, the provost of Paris responsible for finding the duke's killers. Except for the absence of modern forensic science, Tigonville's investigation techniques will be familiar to any fan of police procedurals, from interviewing witnesses to tracing physical clues. Jager maintains a high level of suspense throughout the inquiry as Tigonville and his men eliminate suspect after suspect until they uncover the shocking solution.

The second half of Blood Royal, equally interesting, is more traditional history. Jager examines the power vacuum in the royal family left by Orléans' death, the civil war that followed and Henry V's opportunistic invasion of France. He ends with the rise of Joan of Arc on the horizon.

Blood Royal will appeal to history buffs, true crime fans and anyone who loves historical mysteries or police procedurals. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins

With a text that celebrates their perseverance, endnotes that describe their uses and illustrations that commemorate their beauty, this book invites young readers to re-examine their view of weeds.

"Weeds send their seeds into the world in wondrous ways: fluffing up like feathers and floating away on the wind," reads the text as a girl blows on a dandelion and sends its seeds soaring. The red sky and pine-green meadow in the mixed-media and collage illustrations make an ideal contrast for the white umbrella-like seed pods. Next, the girl's red sneakers appear in close-up alongside her dog's paws, moving through long grasses where dandelion seeds catch on "prickly burrs that stick to socks and fur." Elegant language and incidental rhymes make these pages as fun to read aloud as they are to pore over. Author and artist tour the seasons. "Weed seeds find a way to wait, sitting still in icy earth all winter," and others bake on the "white-hot sidewalk" in the summer heat. Fisher invents a visual story line that follows girl and dog through the pages, and tucks in magenta nodding thistle and orange hawkweed aplenty. The final spread erupts in fuchsia-colored fireweed, from which the girl twines a necklace.

Endnotes describe many of the weeds' medicinal and edible uses and make an incisive point: "any plant could be considered a weed if it is growing in a place where someone does not want it to be." This fact-filled picture book that reads like poetry may well cause young readers to rethink the idea of unwanted guests in the garden. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness