Amazon’s Editor’s Picks: Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense for January, 2026
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 contains several debut novels that I was not aware of. Also one young adult novel, which isn’t usually found on this monthly list. The surprise book to me was HOW TO COMMIT A POSTCOLONIAL MURDER by Nina McConigley. It has received three star reviews, which is a lot for a first novel. I haven’t read any of these – which is rare with the Amazon Editor’s Pioks lists.
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 – January, 2026
THE CASTAWAYS, Lucy Clarke (Atlantic Crime, $18.00, January). Two years ago, a small plane disappeared over Fiji. For Erin, it’s been two years of obsessing over every detail, refusing to move forward even as life does. Her sister Lori was on that plane, and Erin was meant to be, too, but after a bitter argument, she failed to show. Everyone thinks Lori is dead, but Erin can’t let go.
Just when Erin is on the verge of losing hope, the pilot of the missing plane turns up still in Fiji, seemingly with no memory of the crash. In a final bid to find her sister, Erin travels there herself—but what she discovers is beyond anything she could have predicted.
BETH IS DEAD, Katie Bernet (Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, $19.99, January). When Beth March is found dead in the woods on New Year’s Day, her sisters vow to uncover her murderer.
Suspects abound. There’s the neighbor who has feelings for not one but two of the girls. Meg’s manipulative best friend. Amy’s flirtatious mentor. And Beth’s lionhearted first love. But it doesn’t take the surviving sisters much digging to uncover motives each one of the March girls had for doing the unthinkable. Kirkus & Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews
THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS, Jennie Godfrey (Sourcebooks/Landmark, $17.99, December 30). Twelve-year-old Miv is panicking. Life has been complicated since her mom got sick, and now her dad is talking about wanting to move their family away from the town Miv has lived in her whole life – because of the murders. Young women are dying, everyone is afraid, and no one knows who the culprit might be.
But as far as Miv is concerned, leaving Yorkshire and her best friend Sharon simply isn’t an option, no matter the dangers lurking round their way; or the strangeness at home that started the day Miv’s mum stopped talking. Perhaps if she could solve the case of the disappearing women, they could stay after all? Kirkus Starred Review
BEHIND THESE FOUR WALLS, Yasmin Angoe (Thomas & Mercer, $28.99/$16.30, January). Isla Thorne had a rough start in life. Orphaned young, she spent her formative years in a group home where she met her best friend, Eden Galloway. At sixteen, they decide to run away to LA…but Eden never makes it.
It’s been ten years since Eden vanished. And Isla’s determined to find her.
She begins at the last place Eden visited: the Corrigan mansion in Virginia. Eden claimed to have unfinished business there. Posing as an aspiring journalist, Isla insinuates herself into the wealthy family’s home and begins searching for the truth.
HOW TO COMMIT A POSTCOLONIAL MURDER, Nina McConigley (Pantheon, $26.00, January). Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousin—newly arrived from India—into their house in rural Wyoming where they’ll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that it’s time for their uncle to die.
According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West
Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and Library Journal Starred Reviews
A GIFT BEFORE DYING, Malcolm Kempt (Crown, $28.00, January). After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Corporal Elderick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, a vast territory in the Arctic Circle known for its untamed beauty, frigid temperatures, and endless winter nights. With his family having severed all ties, Cole waits out the result of a civil lawsuit alone—the wrong verdict could end what’s left of his flailing career.
His bleak existence takes a sinister turn when he discovers the hanging body of Pitseolala, a troubled Inuit girl whom he had sworn to protect. Her death dredges up demons he thought he’d buried along with the scars of a fractured marriage and the aching divide between him and his estranged daughter. Publishers Weekly Starred Review
YOU’LL NEVER FORGET ME, Isha Raya (Bantam, $30.00, January). Struggling actress Dimple Kapoor wouldn’t call herself a murderer, per se—she’d prefer the term “opportunist.” Years ago, she did what had to be done to get herself out of a bad situation. And now, after accidentally killing her Hollywood rival, Irene Singh, at a party, she’s simply seizing the chance to nab her dream leading role and resuscitate her career in the process. There’s only one problem: Someone else at the event witnessed the crime . . . and caught it all on camera.
With everything she’s ever wanted within reach, Dimple will stop at nothing to keep stardom in her grasp. Library Journal Starred Review
WRECK YOUR HEART, Lori Rader-Day (Minotaur, $29.00, January). Dahlia “Doll” Devine had the kind of hardscrabble beginning that could launch a thousand broken-hearted country songs, but now she’s the star of her own stage at McPhee’s Tavern. As part of Chicago’s – yes, Chicago’s – country music scene, Dahlia is an up-and-coming singer in spangles and boots of classic country tunes. Up and coming, that is, until her boyfriend Joey up and went, taking the rent money with him.
So Dahlia is back to square one, relying on Alex McPhee?again. Alex helped her out of a bad situation when she was a kid living rough with her mother. Now he’s part landlord, part band booster, all-around rescuer. It’s just that Dahlia wishes she didn’t keep giving him reasons to have to do it. Publishers Weekly Starred Review
THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM, Laura Dave (Scribner, $29.00, January).
Five years after her husband, Owen, disappeared, Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter, Bailey, have settled into a new life in Southern California. Together, they’ve forged a relationship with Bailey’s grandfather Nicholas and are putting the past behind them.
But when Owen shows up at Hannah’s new exhibition, she knows that she and Bailey are in danger again.
Hannah and Bailey are forced to go on the run in a relentless race to keep their past from catching up with them.
THE FAIR WEATHER FRIEND, Jessie Garcia (St. Martin’s, $29.00, January). It’s always sunny in Detroit for Faith Richards. The popular TV meteorologist, endearingly referred to as “The Fair Weather Friend” by her viewers, has the world by the tail. But one night, Faith leaves work on a dinner break and never returns. Her body is found the next morning.
The town is reeling, suspects emerge, and long-buried secrets are uncovered. While her allies rally, her list of adversaries also grows. Little does anyone know that only the deepest secrets will expose the truth.