Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman

In 1966, Maddie Schwartz decides to separate from her husband, Milton, and move out on her own. She gets a job at the Star newspaper as an assistant to the reporter who writes the help column. Maddie, though, has bigger journalistic aspirations, which only increase after she is involved in finding the body of missing child, Tessie Fine. Next, she is determined to find out who murdered Cleo Sherwood, an African-American woman who was found dead in a lake. No one is interested in pursuing what happened to Cleo--neither the police nor the media. Everyone tells Maddie to move on, that she is treading in dangerous waters, but she refuses. In Lady in the Lake, Lippman tells the story of Maddie, Cleo, and a 1966 Baltimore through the eyes of all sorts of characters in the city. It's an interesting story that stands apart from her other standalone novels that I've read.

A Bitter Feast by Deborah Crombie

Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid are invited to their colleague Melody Talbot's parents' Cotswold home for the weekend with their children, Kit, Toby, and Charlotte. A well-known chef, Viv Holland, is catering a charity lunch at the Talbot's home, but the night before the luncheon two people are killed in a car accident that also injures Duncan. One of the dead turns out to be famous chef, Fergus O'Reilly, with whomViv worked in London. Viv and O'Reilly argued the evening he died. Could this have something to do with his death? Even though it's not Gemma's and Duncan's patch, they find themselves getting involved in the investigation and wanting to see it through to its end. A Bitter Feast will be published in October.

Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear

It's 1938 and Maisie is still in mourning over her husband James' death, but she realizes that it's time to move forward and go back to live in England. Before doing that, Maisie is asked by the British Secret Service to go undercover and travel to Munich to rescue Leon Donat, a British citizen who's been imprisoned at Dachau. Maisie is to pose as Donat's daughter, but her mission becomes even more complicated when she's asked by Lorraine Otterburn to find her daughter Elaine in Munich and bring her out of Germany, too. Maisie has had a complicated relationship with the Otterburns in the past and feels they were partly responsible for James' death. Will Maisie be able to put her emotions aside and succeed in her mission?