If any of the titles garnered starred reviews in the four library journals, that is indicated after the plot summary of the title. Amazon does a good job of coming up with these monthly lists and especially its year-end best list.
I’ve only read three of the recommended titles – NOBODY’S HERE by M. W. Craven, which is an entertaining action thriller, AGAINST THE GRAIN by Peter Lovesey, the last Peter Diamond by the acclaimed author who is retiring after a sterling career, and, LOCKED IN by Jussi Adler-Olsen, the 10th and final episode of the Department Q Files – excellent read. Two of our DP contributors, Ali Karim and Ayo Onatade put THE TURNGLASS by Gareth Rubin on their best of the year lists when it came out in the U.K. last year. Nationally-syndicated crime fiction reviewer Oline Cogdill (a member of our Barry Award Nomination Committee) has TROUBLE ISLAND by Sharon Short on her Best of 2024 list. Two of the titles received 2 starred reviews: NOBODY’S HERE by M. W. Craven and GABRIEL’S MOON by William Boyd. As usual there are many psychological/domestic suspense titles on the list. And there are more than the ususal cozy/traditional titles listed.

Disclaimer: this is not intended to advertise amazon.com or encourage you to buy books from that site. It is for information purposes only.

Amazon Editor’s Picks: Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense – Standalones –December, 2024

THE RESURRECTIONIST, A. Rae Dunlap (Kensington, $28.00, December). Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828. Naïve but determined James Willoughby has abandoned his posh, sheltered life at Oxford to pursue a lifelong dream of studying surgery in Edinburgh. A shining beacon of medical discovery in the age of New Enlightenment, the city’s university offers everything James desires—except the chance to work on a human cadaver. For that, he needs to join one of the private schools in Surgeon’s Square, at a cost he cannot afford. In desperation, he strikes a deal with Aneurin “Nye” MacKinnon, a dashing young dissectionist with an artist’s eye for anatomy and a reckless passion for knowledge. Nye promises to help him gain the surgical experience he craves—but it doesn’t take long for James to realize he’s made a devil’s bargain . . .
Nye is a body snatcher. And James has unwittingly become his accomplice. Intoxicated by Nye and his noble mission, James rapidly descends into the underground ranks of the Resurrectionists—the body snatchers infamous for stealing fresh corpses from churchyards to be used as anatomical specimens. Before he knows it, James is caught up in a life-or-death scheme as rival gangs of snatchers compete in a morbid race for power and prestige.

TROUBLE ISLAND, Sharon Short (Minotaur, $29.00, December). Many miles from anywhere in the middle of Lake Erie, Trouble Island serves as a stop-off for gangsters as they run between America and Canada. The remote isle is also the permanent home to two women: Aurelia Escalante, who serves as a maid to Rosita, lady of the mansion and wife to the notorious prohibition gangster, Eddie McGee. In the freezing winter of 1932, the women anticipate the arrival of Eddie and his strange coterie: his right-hand man, a doctor, a cousin, a famous actor, and a rival gangster who Rosita believes murdered their only son.
Aurelia wants nothing more than to escape Trouble Island, but she is hiding a secret of her own. She is in fact not a maid, but a gangster’s wife in hiding, as she runs from the murder she committed five years ago. Her friend Rosita took her in under this guise, but it has become clear that Rosita wants to keep Aurelia right where she is.

GABRIEL’S MOON, William Boyd (Atlantic Monthly Press, $28.00, December). Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a fire that took his mother’s life. Every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing the changing landscapes of Europe in the grip of the Cold War. When he is offered the chance to interview Patrice Lumumba, newly elected president of the People’s Republic of the Congo, he finds himself drawn into a web of duplicities and betrayals.
Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthlessly efficient MI6 handler, he becomes “her spy,” unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia, and passion consuming Gabriel’s new covert life, there will also be revelations closer to home that may change his own story, and the fates of those around him. Kirkus & Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews

THE CLOSE-UP, Pip Drysdale (Gallery, $28.99, December). When Zoe Ann Weiss moves to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming a writer, her whole future is wide open. But then Zach, the bartender and aspiring actor she’s falling for, ghosts her. Her debut novel, a thriller, fails. And she has writer’s block worse than ever before. Now, three years later, Zach is famous and Zoe is…not.
She’s facing her thirtieth birthday, a dead-end job at a flower shop, and a demanding agent, terrified she’ll never get her life back on track. But when she goes to make a flower delivery and Zach is at the address, it’s like no time has passed at all. They start casually dating in secret, her writer’s block disappears, and Zoe begins to wonder: Zach inspired her first novel, so why can’t he inspire her second?
But then the inevitable happens and photos are leaked, landing Zoe in the press. Her first novel goes viral, and now everyone seems to know her name. Except the problem with everyone knowing your name is that everyone knows your name—including the mysterious stalker obsessed with Zach.

PRETTY DEAD THINGS, Lilian West (Crooked Lane. $29.99, December). 2024. Recently-engaged city girl Cora is new to the small town of Hickory Falls. Still adjusting to the change in pace, she’s delighted when she stumbles upon a quaint estate sale. Drawn in by the knickknacks, she buys a jar of colorful baubles and is surprised to find two rings at the bottom of the jar. When she innocently sets out to find the original owner of the rings, she instead stumbles upon a decades-old mystery.
1953. Clarity Grey should’ve known better than to get involved with a married man, but their connection went too deep to ignore. When he divorces his wife for her, they marry, and she gets the family life she’s always dreamed of, with a new stepdaughter and a child of her own. But just as suddenly, her new life slips out of her hands when she simply vanishes, never to be seen or heard of again.

KNIFE SKILLS FOR BEGINNERS, Orlando Murrin (John Scognamiglio Book, $28.00, December). The Chester Square Cookery School in the heart of London offers students a refined setting in which to master the fine art of choux pastry and hone their hollandaise. True, the ornate mansion doesn’t quite sparkle the way it used to—a feeling chef Paul Delamare is familiar with these days. Worn out and newly broke, he’d be tempted to turn down the request to fill in as teacher for a week-long residential course, if anyone other than Christian Wagner were asking.
Christian is one of Paul’s oldest friends, as well as the former recipient of two Michelin stars and host of Pass the Gravy! Thanks to a broken arm, he’s unable to teach the upcoming session himself, and recruits Paul as stand-in. The students are a motley crew, most of whom seem more interested in ogling the surroundings (including handsome Christian) than learning the best ways to temper chocolate.
Yet despite his misgivings, Paul starts to enjoy imparting his extensive knowledge to the recruits—until someone turns up dead, murdered with a cleaver Paul used earlier that day to prep a pair of squabs. Kirkus Starred Review

WHAT THE WIFE KNEW, Darby Kane (Morrow, $30.00). Dr. Richmond Dougherty is a renowned pediatric surgeon, an infamous tragedy survivor, and a national hero. He’s also very dead—thanks to a fall down the stairs. His neighbors angrily point a finger at the newest Ms. Dougherty, Addison. The sudden marriage to the mysterious young woman only lasted ninety-seven days, and he’d had two suspicious “accidents” during that time. Now Addison is a very rich widow.
As law enforcement starts to circle in on Addison and people in town become increasingly hostile, sides are chosen with Kathryn, Richmond’s high school sweetheart, wife number one, and the mother of his children, leading the fray. Despite rising tensions, Addison is even more driven to forge ahead on the path she charted years ago…

THE TURNGLASS, Gareth Rubin (Union Square, $29.99, December). 1880s, Essex, England: Idealistic young doctor Simeon Lee is called from London to treat his ailing relative Parson Oliver Hawes, who lives in Turnglass House on a bleak island off the coast. Hawes believes he’s being poisoned by his sister-in-law, Florence, who was declared mad years ago after killing the parson’s brother in a jealous rage. Hawes keeps her locked in a glass-walled apartment in the Turnglass library; the secret to how she came to be there is found in his tête-bêche journal, where one side tells a very different story from the other.
1930s, Hollywood: Celebrated author Oliver Tooke, the governor’s son, is found dead by apparent suicide. His aspiring actor friend Ken Kourian isn’t so sure Oliver took his own life. He finds a link between Oliver’s death and the mysterious kidnapping of Oliver’s brother when they were children. He also discovers the secret incarceration of Oliver’s mother, Florence, in an asylum. To get to the truth, Ken must decipher clues hidden in Oliver’s final book, a tête-bêche novel called The Turnglass—which is about a young doctor named Simeon Lee.

DEADBEAT, Adam Hamdy (Atria, $28.99, December). Peyton Collard was a good man once, but his life changed after a horrific car accident. Divorced, drunk, and severely damaged, Peyton is offered a life-changing sum of money to kill an evil man. But as he goes on a vigilante journey that leaves a trail of bodies across California, Peyton wonders about the identity of his anonymous patron. Soon, his questions become an obsession, and he embarks on a tense and potentially deadly investigation to discover the truth about the murders he’s committed. Publishers Weekly Starred Review

A TRINKET FOR TAKING, Victoria Laurie (Kensington Cozies, $27.00, November). Dovey Van Dalen has a gorgeous day planned for her 200th birthday: driving her new Porsche, admiring the cherry blossoms abloom in her adopted city of Washington, D.C., and a little pampering. But her boss has other ideas. A powerful artifact has been stolen, and he fears it’s causing chaos in the unmagical world . . .
The rich and connected Ariti family has suffered a string of suspicious deaths, with no signs of foul play. Yet each member has died in the way they feared most. As the enchanting agent most skilled at blending in with mere mortals, Dovey must find answers and retrieve the dangerous trinket.

Amazon Editor’s Picks: Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense – New and Continuing Series –December, 2024

BOOKED FOR MURDER, P. J. Nelson (Minotaur, $28.00, December). Madeline Brimley left small town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she’s left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore, and restart her life, Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the back yard is set ablaze and a late night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn’t leave immediately.
But Madeline Brimley, not one to be intimidated, ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there’s another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it’s up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim. Library Journal Starred Review

THE RIVALS, Jane Pek (Vintage, $18.00, December). Claudia Lin—mystery novel superfan and, until recently, clichéd underemployed English major—has scored her dream job: co-running Veracity, a dating detective agency for chronically online New Yorkers who want to know if their prospective partners are telling the truth. Unfortunately, along the way, she and her colleagues—tech savant Squirrel, and the elegant and intimidating Becks—have uncovered a far-reaching AI conspiracy. And the corporate matchmakers may be resorting to murder to protect their secrets.
In the wake of a client’s sudden death, Claudia convinces his ex, an industry insider, to turn on his employer and feed the verifiers information about what the powerful dating platforms are really up to. But even as Claudia starts to get a feel for this new genre—just call her Lin, Claudia Lin—she’s distracted by the possibility of romance with both Becks and a very charming target. She also fears that her beloved older brother is unwittingly being drawn into the matchmakers’ deadly web. And as Becks reminds Claudia: spy tropes dictate that someone you trust will betray you. Kirkus Starred Review

NOBODY’S HERO, M. W. Craven (Flatiron, $29.99, December). The man who can’t feel fear is back. When a shocking murder and abduction on the streets of London leads investigators to open a safe in Langley for the first time in ten years, they find a note directing them to a few key individuals. Three of the people on the list are dead. The fourth is Ben Koenig.
Koenig has no idea why his name is on the list. Then he realizes that he knows the woman who carried out the killings. Ten years earlier, without being told why, he was tasked with helping her disappear. Far from being a deranged killer, she is the gatekeeper of a secret that could take down America, and for the safety of the country, she has been in hiding for years?until now. And if she has resurfaced, the danger may be closer and more terrifying than anyone can imagine. Kirkus & Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews

LOVE THE STRANGER, Michael Sears (Soho Crime, $28.95, December). Ted Molloy has hit his stride with a foreclosure investment scheme that brings him into contact with a cast of shady characters across New York’s most diverse borough, from Hollis to Howard Beach. On the side, he helps his activist girlfriend, Kenzie, with her work to halt construction on “the Spike”—a corporate-backed development project in Corona that would displace the largely immigrant communities surrounding it.
Stop the Spike is heating up: Kenzie spends most of her waking hours fending off smear campaigns and touring community spaces in Queens to spread the word, which she can do thanks to Mohammed, Ted and Kenzie’s close friend, a recent Yemeni immigrant and most expedient cab driver. But when Kenzie learns that Mohammed’s immigration lawyer may be taking advantage of him financially, she decides to snoop around at the law offices—and comes face to face with a dead body and a shadowy figure, fleeing the scene. Now Kenzie is the sole witness to a potential murder.

INVISIBLE HELIX, Keigo Higashino (Minotaur, $28.00, December). The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident – Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He’d been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend Sonoka Shimauchi, but when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found. She’s taken time off from work, clothes and effects are missing from the apartment she shared. And when the detectives learn that she was the victim of domestic abuse, they presume that she was the killer. But her alibi is airtight – she was hours away in Kyoto when Ryota disappeared, forcing Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi to restart their investigation.
But if Sonoko didn’t kill her abusive lover, then who did? A thin thread of association leads them to their old consultant, brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, known in the department as “Detective Galileo.” With Sonoko still missing, the detectives investigate other threads of association – an eccentric artist, who was Sonoko’s mother figure after her own single mother passed; and an older woman who is the owner of a hostess club. And how is Sonoko continuing to stay one step ahead of the police searching for her?

AGAINST THE GRAIN, Peter Lovesey (Soho Crime, $28.95, December). Detective Peter Diamond, chief of the Avon and Somerset Murder Squad, is taking a short holiday in the country. His former colleague Julie Hargreaves has invited Diamond and his partner, Paloma, to visit the idyllic village of Baskerville (no relation to the Sherlock Holmes story, so he’s told). It turns out Julie’s invitation was not without ulterior motives. The woman who owns the village’s largest dairy farm has been convicted of manslaughter following a terrible accident in her grain silo. Julie’s ex-investigator instinct tells her there has been a miscarriage of justice and a murderer is on the loose—but Julie’s been keeping secrets of her own, and can’t take her inquiry any further.
Diamond takes the bait; the case is a fascinating one, and he’s quite enjoying his incognito information-gathering, getting to know the villagers as they prepare for their annual Harvest Festival. The deeper into the cow dung Diamond mucks, the more convinced he becomes there was foul play. But maintaining his innocent tourist facade becomes harder as he closes in on his suspects. To protect his alias, he might have to learn how to operate a tractor or drive a herd of wayward cows. He might even be forced to attend a hoedown—not that he’d dance, not even to catch a killer. Or would he? The curmudgeonly detective has plenty to learn about himself as he tries on some new hats: undercover private investigator; village detective; country gentleman. Publishers Weekly Starred Review

BURIED ROAD, Katie Tallo (Harper Paperbacks, $18.99, December). When the love of her life disappeared on a camping trip, Gus Monet was devastated. Her daughter was only nine at the time, but young Bly still remembers the heartbreak vividly. Howard had been like a father to her. He was a journalist working on a story that took a dark and dangerous turn. The last time they saw him, he was going to meet a source he believed could blow the story wide open.
Three years later, shocked to see Howard’s obituary in the paper, Gus and Bly are drawn back to Prince Edward County where he was last seen and where the camper Howard was driving has been found. Sneaking into the camper, mother and daughter find what investigators missed. Booklist Starred Review

LOCKED IN, Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton, $30.00, December). On the day after Christmas, head of Department Q, Detective Carl Mørck, finds himself handcuffed in a police car headed for Copenhagen’s Vestre prison. After fifteen years, a violent case from his past has caught up with him. Charges of drug trafficking and murder threaten to destroy his life and career. But he is being framed. Someone has a million-dollar bounty on his head to make sure he doesn’t talk, putting him in grave danger among the prison’s incarcerated criminals and corrupt officers. The question that remains is, Why?
Carl’s colleagues at the Copenhagen Police Department instantly turn their backs on him, leaving the ever-loyal Department Q team as his only hope. In search of answers, Rose, Assad, and Gordon must disobey direct orders from way up the chain to try to unravel case. With only one another to trust and Carl’s battle against the unknown mastermind’s henchmen worsening by the day, they must work faster than ever before if they are to clear his name—and save his life. Publishers Weekly Starred Review

THE SECRET OF THE THREE FATES, Jess Armstrong (Minotaur, $28.00, December). American heiress Ruby Vaughn still hasn’t entirely forgiven her octogenarian employer and housemate Mr. Owen for bringing the occult into their lives during her recent trip to Cornwall. He claims their journey to Manhurst Castle in the Scottish Borders is simply to appraise and acquire illuminated manuscripts for their rare books shop, however when Ruby discovers there are no manuscripts and receives news of a séance to be held that very night, she begins to grow suspicious about the true reason why they have come.
The Great War left grieving families willing to sacrifice anything for the chance to say goodbye to a lost loved one. Mr. Owen is no exception. He is desperate to speak to his son, but he doesn’t want to face the spirits alone. When the séance?hosted by a trio of mediums billing themselves as The Three Fates?goes awry, Mr. Owen’s secrets begin to unravel, threatening to reveal a history that he has been running from for half his life. Something Ruby knows all too well how to do. Library Journal Starred Review

THE CASE OF THE MISSING MAID, Rob Osler (Kensington, $27.00, December).
Chicago, 1898. Rough-around-the-edges Harriet Morrow has long been drawn to the idea of whizzing around the city on her bicycle as a professional detective, solving crimes for a living without having to take a husband. Just twenty-one with a younger brother to support, she seizes the chance when the prestigious Prescott Agency hires her as its first woman operative. The move sparks controversy—with skeptical male colleagues, a high-strung office secretary, and her boss, Mr. Theodore Prescott, all waiting for her to unravel under the pressure . . .
Only an hour into the job, Harriet has an assignment: Discover the whereabouts of a missing maid from one of the most extravagant mansions on Prairie Avenue. Owner Pearl Bartlett has a reputation for sending operatives on wild goose chases around her grand estate, but Harriet believes the stunningly beautiful Agnes Wozniak has indeed vanished under mysterious circumstances—possibly a victim of kidnapping, possibly a victim of something worse.