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.
This month’s list seems rather lack-luster and short to me. Where is EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD by Ace Atkins? I admit that I haven’t read any of the books, but I intend to read THE LIVING AND THE DEAD, which is probably the best mystery of this month’s picks.
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 – December, 2025
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD, Christoffer Carlsson (Hogarth, $29.00, December). On a snowy winter night in 1999, Sander and Killian leave a house party together outside a small town in rural Sweden. The very best of friends, the two seventeen-year-olds imagine they will remain so forever. But by the next morning, a corpse is found in the trunk of a car, and each boy is a suspect in the murder. Each has something they want to conceal from the police. And from the other.
The hunt for the killer will take more than twenty years. It will see the lead detective leave the force forever. And it won’t end until a second body turns up in similar circumstances, and the tight-knit community’s secrets are finally brought to light. Kirkus and Library Journal Starred Reviews
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 Bookstop, 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
BEST OFFER WINS, Marisa Kashino (Celadon, $27.99, November). Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband Ian – and in turn, get their marriage, plan to have a baby, and whole life back on track ? Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend (with unbeatable, all-cash offers in hand).
A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged?but just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing. The most unsettling part? You’ll root for her, even as you gasp in disbelief.
CAPE FEVER, Nadia Davids (Simon & Schuster, $27.00, December). The year is 1920, in a small, unnamed city in a colonial empire. Soraya Matas believes she has found the ideal job as a personal maid to the eccentric Mrs. Hattingh, whose beautiful, decaying home is not far from The Muslim Quarter where Soraya lives with her parents. As Soraya settles into her new role, she discovers that the house is alive with spirits.
While Mrs. Hattingh eagerly awaits her son’s visit from London, she offers to help Soraya stay in touch with her fiancé Nour by writing him letters on her behalf. So begins a strange weekly meeting where Soraya dictates and Mrs. Hattingh writes—a ritual that binds the two women to one another and eventually threatens the sanity of both. Kirkus & Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews
THE LAST DAYS OF MARILYN MONROE, James Patterson (Little, Brown, $32.00, December) – True Crime. Not sure what it is doing on a fiction list.
EVERYONE IN THE GROUP CHAT DIES, L. M. Chilton (Gallery/Scout Press, $19.00, December). Kirby Cornell needs a break from everything:
Her crumbling apartment in the sleepy town of Crowhurst (famous for its bucolic countryside and a second-rate serial killer from the ’90s).
Her dead-end job.
Her sleazy landlord
Her messy roommates.
And, most of all, the terrible thing they all did.
Luckily, that hasn’t caught up with her just yet. Until a new message on their old group chat pops up: Everyone in the group chat dies. It’s the first text her ex-roommate Esme has sent for ages, but that’s not the really weird thing. The really weird thing is, Esme died twelve months ago.
THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF JUNETTA PLUM (Kensington, $27.00, December). 1926: Harriet Stone, a liberated, educated Black woman, and Lovey, the orphaned, biracial 12-year-old she is bound to protect, are Harlem-bound, embarking on a new, hopefully less traumatic chapter in their lives. They have been invited to move from Connecticut by Harriet’s cousin, Junetta Plum, who runs a boardinghouse for independent-minded single women.
It’s a bold move, since Harriet has never met Junetta, but the fatalities of the Spanish flu and other tragedies have already forced her and Lovey to face their worst fears. Alone but for each other, they have little left to lose—or so it seems as they arrive at sophisticated Junetta’s impressive brownstone. What ensues will lead Harriet to question Junetta’s very identity—and to wonder if she and Lovey are in danger, as well. It will also tie Harriet to five strangers. Among them, Harriet is sure someone knows something. What she doesn’t yet know is that one will play a crucial role in helping her investigate her cousin’s murder . . . that she will be tied to the others in ways she could never imagine . . . and that her life will take off in a startling new direction.
MAY CONTAIN MURDER, Orlando Murrin (John Scognamiglio Book, 28.00, December). While his flooded house undergoes repairs, chef-turned-writer Paul Delamare has been offered an accommodation upgrade—an all-expenses-paid trip aboard a private superyacht in the company of Xéra, one of his dearest friends. Paul will help Xéra work on her memoirs as Maldemer glides its sumptuous way to the Caribbean. The scenery is stunning, the luxury is unparalleled, and the food…well, at least the dishes that Paul is roped into preparing are delicious. The hired chef, meanwhile, seems completely out of her depth.
When Xéra’s priceless new necklace goes missing, Paul falls under suspicion. But there’s far worse in store, as one of the passengers is found dead in mysterious and grisly circumstances. The stormy weather matches the threatening mood onboard, and as Maldemer veers off course, every semblance of order goes with it.