Catherine Ryan Howard is one of my favorite “hidden gem” psychological thriller writers who really isn’t that “hidden” anymore—her work is finally getting the widespread acclaim it so richly deserves with the publication of her much-buzzed-about new thriller 56 DAYS, available today in the US. In 56 DAYS, Catherine Ryan Howard gives readers an utterly riveting thriller that weaves timely topics into its gripping and twisty central mystery. In this psychological thriller, a new couple decides to move in together when Covid-19 reaches Ireland’s shores and a strict lockdown is imposed. But before the lockdown period is up, one of them will be dead. Tense, claustrophobic, and wholly original, Catherine Ryan Howard’s 56 DAYS brilliantly uses the geographic restriction of Ireland’s stringent early-2020 lockdown rules to turn up the pressure on our story’s unwitting pair of lovebirds. In 56 DAYS, nothing is what it seems, and no one is to be trusted. 56 DAYS is easily one of my favorite crime books of 2021—pick this one up for a high-concept thriller that brilliantly captures the honeymoon phase of a new relationship and twists it into something dark and sinister as only Catherine Ryan Howard can.