There’s something here for everyone’s taste – and more information than you will find on any similar list for 2025. Of course, many, many 2025 titles have yet to be announced by publishers. And there is always a chance that a publisher will change the publication date on a title.
I have already read 30 of the 2025 titles (reviews to follow in the magazine) and if they are any indication of the quality of mystery/thriller fiction to be published this year, we are in a very favorable climate for reading enjoyment. What am I personally looking forward to? The new books by S. A. Cosby, Stephen King, Jo Callaghan, Cara Hunter, Michael Connelly, Michael Robotham, M. W. Craven, Vanda Symon, Dan Fesperman, Stella Rimington, Ajay Chowhury, Kim Hays, Michael Bennett, Anthony Horowitz, Carl Hiaasen, John Lawton, Bruce Borgos, Mick Herron and Val McDermid.
I’m also excited to read Dervla McTiernan’s new one as she is returning to her Cormac Reilly series, which I especially like. And speaking of returns, we have P. J. Tracy coming out with a new Monkeewrench mystery and 93-year-old Martha Grimes with a new Richard Jury puzzler.
There are also some good titles coming out in the U.K. A few are interspersed with the U.S. ones in this list.
Psychological/domestic suspense is still dominating mystery publication. I could have listed a lot more of those titles. I included herein what I guessed were highlights of that subgenre, as I am not an expert. I wait to the end of the year and read 2 or 3 of them that are considered the best. I much prefer novels of detection and action thrillers.
Please let me know at george@deadlypleasures.com if this is worthwhile for you. It takes me days to compile this list so if the information isn’t helpful to you, I could spend that time reading.
Happy New Year – George Easter

Most Anticipated Mysteries and Thrillers of 2025

January, 2025

THE BROKEN RIVER, Chris Hammer
(January 2 – in the U.K.)
Detective Nell Buchanan #4
A body has been discovered on the riverbanks of The Valley, a remote community in the hills of New South Wales, Australia. The gold mine at the heart of The Valley was once the lifeblood of this region, but it has been flooded for decades. Over the years, many have tried and failed to bring it back to life. The victim is Wolfgang Burnside, deputy mayor — a champion of change or local schemer, depending on who you ask. He had been working on plans to take the Valley off-grid with hydro-power using the lake surrounding the abandoned mine. Until he was poisoned.

HOLMES IS MISSING, James Paterson & Brian Sitts
(January 6)
Holmes, Marple & Poe #2
Success has come quickly to Holmes, Marple & Poe Investigations. The New York City agency led by three detectives—Brendan Holmes, “the brain,” Margaret Marple, “the eyes,” and Auguste Poe, the “muscle”—with famous names and mysterious pasts is one major case away from cementing its professional reputation. But as a series of child abductions tests the PIs’ legendary skills, the cerebral Holmes’s absence leaves a gaping hole in the agency roster.

LEAVE NO TRACE, Jo Callaghan
(January 7)
(AIDE Lock/Kat Frank #2
When the body of a man is found crucified at the top of a hill in the British Midlands, AIDE Lock—the world’s first AI detective—and Detective Kat Frank are thrust into the spotlight as they are given their first live case.

THE NOTE, Alafair Burke
(January 7)
When it comes to May’s friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she’s had her fair share of secrets and regrets. Their bond—forged when May was just twelve years old—has withstood a tragic accident, individual scandals, heartbreak and loss. Now the three friends have reunited for the first time in years for a few days of sun and fun in the Hamptons. But a chance encounter with a pair of strangers leads to a drunken prank that goes horribly awry.

THE BIG EMPTY, Robert Crais
(January 14)
Elvis Cole #20
Traci Beller was thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. Now, ten years later, Traci is a high-profile influencer with millions of followers and the money to hire the best detective she can find: Elvis Cole. Elvis heads to Rancha where an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, might have a line on the missing man. Kirkus & DP

PRO BONO, Thomas Perry
(January 14)
Standalone
Charles Warren, Los Angeles attorney, has dedicated his career to aiding people in financial straits. He is particularly skilled at the art of recovering assets that have been embezzled or hidden. In his newest case, helping a beautiful young widow find the money missing from her late husband’s investment accounts, Charlie recognizes a familiar scheme?one that echoes the con job that targeted his own widowed mother many years before, and that led him, as a teenager, to commit a crime of retribution that still weighs on his conscience. DP

GRAVE DANGER, James Grippando
(January 14)
Jack Swyteck #19
Jack Swyteck’s new client fled Iran to Miami with her daughter, and has been accused of kidnapping by her husband. The seasoned attorney must not only plan a winning defense, bu to stop the father from taking the girl back to Tehran, Jack must also build a case under international law and prove that returning the child would put her at risk.

PRESUMED GUILTY, Scott Turow
(January 14)
Rusty Sabich #3
Rusty is a retired judge attempting a third act in life with a loving soon-to-be wife, Bea, with whom he shares both a restful home and a plaintive hope that this marriage will be his best, and his last. But the peace that’s taken Rusty so long to find evaporates when Bea’s young adult son, Aaron, living under their supervision while on probation for drug possession, disappears. If Aaron doesn’t return soon, he will be sent back to jail. BL, PW & AZ

BEAUTIFUL UGLY, Alice Feeney
(January 14)
Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge, but his wife has disappeared. A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife. BL & AZ

KARMA DOLL, Jonathan Ames
(January 14)
Happy Doll #3
After narrowly escaping with his life at the hands of a murderous Hollywood pimp, detective Happy Doll, bullet-ridden but healing, has landed on a remote Mexican beach. In a humble shack and with his dog for company, Doll settles into a peaceful idyll of Buddhist study. But then trouble, as it always does, comes to paradise. Doll is the witness to a murder for which he is framed, and now, with an expired passport and the Mexican authorities on his tail, he must sneak across the border back to L.A. by any means necessary, with the goal of bringing the true murderer to justice. PW & DP

A VOICE IN THE NIGHT, Simon Mason
(January 21)
DI Wilkins #4
The Oxford team of mismatched detectives – DI Ryan Wilkins and DI Ray Willkins – are assigned the case of a missing elderly man who eventually found dead – suspiciously dead. DP

MASK OF THE DEER WOMAN, Laurie L. Dove
(January 21)
Debut Mystery
In the past decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some have ended up dead, others just…gone. Now local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and ex-Chicago Detective Carrie Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter—the girl she failed to save. AZ

A DEATH IN DIAMONDS, S. J. Bennett
(January 21)
Her Majesty the Queen #4
1957 – A young woman is found dead in a mews house a mile from Buckingham Palace, wearing only silk underwear and a a diamond tiara. An older man is discovered nearby, garrotted and pierced through the eye with a long, sharp implement. According to the police, a high society card game was going on downstairs that night. One of the players surely committed the murders, but each of them can give the others an alibi. When someone very close to her is implicated, the young Queen is drawn in to the investigation. AZ

THE ENIGMA GIRL, Henry Porter
(January 28)
Standalone
Slim Parsons is all but burned. When her last deep-cover job for MI5 ended with a life-and-death struggle on a private jet, she went on the run from her deadly target – a conniving businessman and money launderer codenamed “Hagfish.” Now she’s back at home, in hiding from her angry bosses in the Security Service, who have accused her of being overly violent and unsuitable for the role of an MI5 operative. But after several months off the grid, Slim is called back to another job – Operation Linesman – where she is asked to infiltrate a news website Middle Kingdom whose explosive articles clearly show that they’ve hacked into the most high-security government databases. DP

THE MAILMAN, Andrew Welsh-Huggins
(January 28)
Mercury Carter is a deliveryman and he takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address that threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage. A problem for most delivery men but not Carter — because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service. After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals – but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment. A chase ensues. LJ

HEAD CASES, John McMahon
(January 28)
PAR Unit #1
FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He also has a blind spot on the human side of investigations, a blindness that sometimes even includes people in his own life, like his beloved seven-year-old daughter Camila. Gardner and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve. When DNA links a murder victim to a serial killer long presumed dead, the team springs into action. A second victim establishes a pattern, and the murderer begins leaving a trail of clues and riddles especially for Gardner.

THE OLIGARCH’S DAUGHTER, Joseph Finder
(January 28)
Standalone
Paul Brightman is a man on the run, living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who can seemingly predict his every move. Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer named Tatyana—unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several U.S. intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government.
BL & LJ

BEEN WRONG SO LONG IT FEELS LIKE RIGHT, Walter Mosley
(January 28)
King Oliver #3
Joe King Oliver’s beloved Grandma B has found a tumor, and at her age, treatment is high-risk. She’s lived life fully and without regrets, and now has only a single, dying wish: to see her long-lost son. King has been estranged from his father, Chief Odin Oliver, since he was a young boy. He swore to never speak to the man again when he was taken away in handcuffs. But now, Grandma B’s pure ask has opened King’s heart, and through his hunt, he gains a deeper understanding of his father as a complicated, righteous man—a man defined by women, a man protected by women, a man he wants to know. Although Chief was released from prison years ago, he’s been living underground ever since. LJ

JOHNNY CARELESS, Kevin Wade
(January 28)
Police Chief Jeep Mullane has been bounced back home to Long Island’s North Shore by a heartbreaking case that both earned him his NYPD detective’s shield and burned him out of the Job. Now heading up a small local police department, he finds himself navigating the same geography he did growing up there as the son of an NYPD cop. Jeep is a “have-not” among the glittering “haves,” a sharp-witted, down-to-earth man in a territory defined and ruled by multigenerational wealth and power and the daunting tribal codes and customs that come with it.
When the corpse of Jeep’s childhood friend Johnny Chambliss – born into privilege and known as “Johnny Careless” for his reckless, golden-boy antics – surfaces in the Bayville waters, past collides with present, and Jeep is pulled into a treacherous web. PW

THE CRASH, Freida McFadden
(January 28)
Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard. She never arrives at her destination. Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle occurs: she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears. But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger.

CHAIN REACTION, James Byrne
(January 28)
Dez Limerick #3
Knocking around the country, picking up the occasional gig as a guitarist, Dez is contacted by a friend in urgent need of his musical skills. At his behest, Dez flies to the East Coast to a gig at the brand new massive complex, the Liberty Center. But he’s barely landed before he finds himself in the midst of a terrorist attack, a group has taken over the whole center and thousands of hostage lives are in danger. With the semi-willing help of a talented thief, Dez takes on the impossible task of outfighting and outwitting a literal army.

THE HIDDEN HAND, Stella Rimington
(January 30 in U.K.)
Manon Tyler #2
Li Min, a Chinese student, is forced by her government to transfer from Harvard to Oxford University, where she is recruited to an elite Chinese study centre based out of St Felix’s College.
Meanwhile, the centre’s newly recruited head stumbles on its more sinister purpose: recruiting Chinese and sympathetic British students to steal high-value research and intellectual property. Unsure who at the university he can trust, he turns to CIA agent Manon Tyler for help.

February, 2025

DEAD IN THE FRAME, Stephen Spotswood
(February 4)
Pentecost & Parker #5
NEW YORK CITY, 1947: Wealthy financier and ghoulish connoisseur of crime, Jessup Quincannon, is dead, and famed detective Lillian Pentecost is under arrest for his murder. Means, motive, and a mountain of evidence leave everyone believing she’s guilty. Everyone, that is, except Willowjean “Will” Parker, who knows for a fact her boss is innocent. She just doesn’t know if she can prove it.

A LONG TIME GONE, Joshua Moehling
(February 4)
Ben Packard #3
Ben Packard was just a boy when his older brother disappeared. His brother was never seen again. Decades later, Deputy Packard finds himself with too much time on his hands. A shooting has him on leave and under investigation, and all he can do is dwell on the past. For the first time in years, new information about his brother has surfaced that may lead them to the location of a body.
,
OPEN SEASON, Jonathan Kellerman
(February 4)
Alex Delaware #40
The body of an aspiring actress is found dumped near a hospital emergency room. She’s been drugged and murdered and the motive for the callous crime remains maddeningly out of reach. Until, a prime suspect materializes. Another Hollywood hopeful. Only to be shot dead by a sniper using a weapon that turns out to have been catalogued in a previous murder. And another, before that. It’s not long before more bodies begin piling up.

Robert B. Parker’s BURIED SECRETS, Christopher Farnsworth
(February 4)
Jesse Stone #22
Chief of Police Jesse Stone is on his way home from a long shift when a call comes in for a welfare check on an elderly resident of the wealthy seaside town of Paradise, Massachusetts. Inside a house packed with junk and trash is a man’s dead body. It’s a sad, lonely end, but nothing criminal . . . until Jesse finds the photos of murder victims strewn around the corpse, on top of a treasure trove of $2 million in cash.

GHOSTS OF ROME, Joseph O’Connor
(February 4)
The Choir #2
In the final months of World War II, a clandestine group known as The Choir successfully smuggles thousands of escapees out of Nazi-occupied Rome via a secret route known as the Escape Line. When an unidentified airman falls wounded from the sky, The Choir is plunged into danger and the survival of the Escape Line itself is threatened. The Escape Line’s collapse would leave thousands stranded. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, its architect and the acknowledged leader of The Choir, broods inside the Vatican, paralyzed by the perils of keeping his Roman underground railroad functioning. Meanwhile, SS Commander Paul Hauptmann has been tasked with destroying the entire operation, and the price of failure is high—his wife and children are under Gestapo lock-and-key in Berlin. PW, BL & Kirkus

SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET, William Boyle
(February 4)
Gravesend, Brooklyn, 1986: Risa Franzone lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saint of the Narrows Street with her bad-seed husband, Saverio, and their eight-month-old baby, Fabrizio. On the night Risa’s younger sister, Giulia, moves in to recover from a bad breakup, a fateful accident occurs: Risa, boiled over with anger and fear, strikes a drunk, erratic Sav with a cast-iron pan, killing him on the spot. The sisters are left with a choice: notify the authorities and make a case for self-defense, or bury the man’s body and go on with their lives as best they can. In a moment of panic, in the late hours of the night, they call upon Sav’s childhood friend—the sweet, loyal Christopher “Chooch” Gardini—to help them, hoping they can trust him to carry a secret like this. PW & Kirkus

SHOOT THE MOON, Ava Barry
(February 4)
Rainey Hall #2
While in high school, Rainey spent a summer taking advantage of the wildfires near Los Angeles to break into the empty houses of the rich and famous with her best friends, Alice and Spencer, committing small acts of larceny. These acts of rebellion culminated in a big theft from a powerful, well-connected musician with underworld ties. Days later, Alice went missing.
Now—nine years later—Rainey is a private detective chasing a missing person case. Chloe, a young vulnerable artist with a history of substance abuse, disappeared from her parents’ house without a trace.

BAPTISTE: THE BLADE MUST FALL, David Hewson
(February 4)
Prequel to TV show
France, 1976. Baptiste is an intelligent but somewhat naive detective, sent to work in Clermiers, a town filled with corruption. A girl goes missing, presumed dead after bloody clothes are found close to an illicit party near an abandoned chateau. Baptiste believes he’s nailed the culprit, the eccentric Gilles Mailloux. When he appears in court, the public call for the guillotine – and that’s the sentence Mailloux gets. But as Mailloux awaits an appeal for clemency, he asks to see Baptiste, who’s still haunted by the fact the girl’s body remains missing. As the clock ticks towards execution hour, Baptiste begins to realise he may have made a terrible mistake.

PARANOIA, James Patterson & James O. Born
(February 10)
Michael Bennett #17
At every death scene, Bennett says a prayer over the victim. But recently, too many of the departed have been fellow cops. “I want you to look at these deaths on special assignment,” NYPD Inspector Celeste Cantor says. “Report only to me.” Bennett excels as a solo investigator.

NEMESIS, Gregg Hurwitz
(February 11)
Orphan X #10
Tommy Stojack might be Evan Smoak’s best friend in the world. He’s a gifted gunsmith who has created much of Evan’s own weapons and combat gear. But now, he has apparently crossed one of Evan’s hardest lines and their argument explodes into open warfare. Now Evan has no choice but to track and face down his only friend.

BLOOD TIES, Jo Nesbo
(February 11)
Kingdom #2
Nesbø’s sequel to The Kingdom follows murderous Norwegian brothers Carl and Roy Opgard as they interfere with plans for a new highway while dodging a suspicious sheriff. PW & BL

SMOKE ON THE WATER, Loren D. Estleman
(February 11)
Amos Walker #32
Detroit PI Amos Walker probes a hit-and-run that killed a junior law associate who was guarding a file of top-secret papers.

THE QUEENS OF CRIME, Marie Benedict
(February 11)
Inspired by an actual incident in the life of crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, this historical mystery features five renowned women authors who decide to tackle a real-life murder case in 1930s London. Agatha Christie is in the mix, too.

YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED, Ande Pliego
(February 11)
On a dark and stormy island, six thriller novelists assemble for a week of games and puzzles hosted by legendary author J. R. Alastor. The inevitable dead body appears—really and truly and quite messily dead. And the party is just getting started.

THE MEDICI RETURN, Steve Berry
(February 11)
Cotton Malone #19
Cotton Malone is on the hunt for a forgotten 16th century Pledge of Christ—a sworn promise made by Pope Julius II that evidences a monetary debt owed by the Vatican, still valid after five centuries—now worth in the trillions of dollars. But collecting that debt centers around what happened to the famed Medici of Florence—a family that history says died out, without heirs, centuries ago.

THE CALL, Gavin Strawhan
(February 11 – 2024 title in Australia)
Aukland New Zealand DS Honey Chalmers is on health leave in her hometown taking care of her mother. A local gang is looking for an informant and Honey becomes involved in protecting the informant’s life. A very promising debut novel, which I’ve read and liked. DP

LEO, Deon Meyer
(February 18)
Benny Griessel #8
Detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido are languishing in Stellenbosch. Run-of-the-mill police work in the leafy university town is a far cry from their previous life in Cape Town fighting crime and government corruption at the highest level. Then a student is found dead on a mountain trail, and the key suspect, a local businessman, is found murdered in what looks like a professional hit delivering a message—suffocated by fast-action filler foam sprayed down his throat.
On the other side of the country, a beautiful wildlife guide is recruited by a group of special forces soldiers to act as a honeytrap, part of a dangerous multi-million-dollar heist that goes tragically wrong. A single link connects the murdered businessman to the special forces, making Benny and Vaughn’s case all the more mysterious. Another former soldier is soon killed, as is an agent of the country’s disgraced former president; and then the heist crew reorganizes with an even more audacious theft in mind. PW & DP

MIDNIGHT BLACK, Mark Greaney
(February 18)
Gray Man #14
The Gray Man is determined to rescue his partner and lover Zoya Zakharova from a Russian prison camp. The task proves to be even more difficult than imagined. My early pick for best thriller of 2025. DP

THE QUIET LIBRARIAN, Allen Eskens
(February 18)
Standalone
Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared.
Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head. BL & DP

PREY, Vanda Symon
(February 18)
Sam Shephard #6
On her first day back from maternity leave, Detective Sam Shephard is thrown straight into a cold-case investigation – the unsolved murder of a highly respected Anglican Priest in Dunedin.
The case has been a thorn in the side of the Police hierarchy, and for her boss it’s personal. With all the witness testimony painting a picture of a dedicated church and family man, what possible motive could there have been for his murder? But when Sam starts digging deeper into the case, it becomes apparent someone wants the sins of the past to remain hidden. And when a new potential witness to the crime is found brutally murdered, there is pressure from all quarters to solve the case before anyone else falls prey.

THE ANTIQUE HUNTER’S DEATH ON THE RED SEA, C. L. Miller
(February 18)
Freya & Aunt Carole #2
When a painting vanishes from a maritime museum and a dead body is found nearby, the newly established Lockwood Antique Hunter’s Agency, Freya Lockwood and her Aunt Carole, are called to investigate. Following a lead that takes them aboard a glamorous antiques cruise sailing toward the Red Sea in Jordan, they quickly discover that the ships art gallery is filled with stolen antiquities. Each antique is also listed in Freya’s late mentor’s journals that detail unsolved cases

UNTOUCHABLE, Mike Lawson
(February 25)
Joe DeMarco #18
Brandon Cartwright was a rich guy worth a couple billion bucks—inherited, of course—meaning he hadn’t worked a day in his life. But he sure knew how to party, and the people he rubbed shoulders with were all sorts of rich and famous: politicians and movie stars and British royalty and Russian oligarchs. So when Brendan Cartwright is executed in his own home, the cops quickly conclude that he was most likely killed by one or more of the rich, powerful people he partied with. But when John Mahoney, the former Speaker of the House, emerges from a clandestine meeting with the head of the National Archives, he learns there’s evidence suggesting that the President of the United States was somehow involved with Cartwright’s death. Mahoney needs someone who can investigate from the shadows—enter Joe DeMarco, Mahoney’s fixer. PW & DP

AN ISLAND OF SUSPECTS, Jean-Luc Bannalec
(February 25)
Brittany #10
An August heat wave has all of Brittany in its grasp, and the only chance to cool down for Commissaire Georges Dupin is his daily swim in the ocean. Until one morning his routine is interrupted because a body has been found in the harbor with clear signs of foul play. Patric Provost was from one of the long-established families on the island of Belle-Île, Breton’s biggest and most famous island. Provost owned and operated a company dealing in an island delicacy: the famous Belle-Île-sheep. Dupin has barely stepped foot on the utopia-like island before it comes to light that Provost was not well liked. And someone was blackmailing him for one million euros, the deadline for payment the night before Provost’s body was caught on the buoy. PW

BATTLE MOUNTAIN, C. J. Box
(February 25)
Joe Pickett #25
The campaign of destruction that Axel Soledad and Dallas Cates wreaked on Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett left both men in tatters, especially Nate, who lost almost everything. Wondering if the civilized life left him vulnerable to attack, Nate dropped off the grid with his falcons in tow to prepare for vengeance. When Joe gets a call from the governor asking for help finding his son-in-law, who has gone missing in the Sierra Madre mountain range, he enlists the help of a local, a rookie game warden named Susan Kany.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS, Gillian McAllister
(February 25)
Standalone
Imagine you’ve just dropped off your daughter at the nursery when you discover that your husband is part of a hostage situation in the city. Then imagine your surprise when you discover your husband isn’t a hostage. He’s the gunman.

THE PROFILER (in UK PROFILE K), Helen Fields
(February 25)
Midnight Jones is an analyst trained to understand the human mind. But everything changes when, in the course of her work, she discovers Profile K’s file – because K stands for killer, and she knows that someone more dangerous than she could have ever imagined walks among them.

Stuart Woods’ SMOLDER, Brett Battles
(February 25)
Stone Barrington #65
Finally enjoying some downtime in Santa Fe, Stone Barrington agrees to attend an art exhibit with a dear friend. There, he encounters an intriguing woman who is on the trail of a ring of art thieves. Always one to please, Stone offers his help.

FAGIN THE THIEF, Allison Epstein
(February 25)
Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scratching out a life for himself in the dark alleys of nineteenth-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney shortly after his father was executed as a thief, Jacob’s whole world is his open-minded mother, Leah. But Jacob’s prospects are forever altered when a light-fingered pickpocket takes Jacob under his wing and teaches him a trade that pays far better than the neighborhood boys could possibly dream.

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND COUNT TO 10, Lisa Unger
(February 25)
Standalone
Charismatic daredevil and extreme adventurer Maverick Dillan invites you to the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. But as the players gather on Falcao Island, the event quickly spirals into a chilling test of survival. A storm rages as a deadly threat stalks the contestants, turning the challenge into something far more sinister than the social media stunt it was intended to be. Kirkus

BOYSTOWN, John Shannon
(February 25)
Jack Liffey #15
Legendary LA sleuth Jack Liffey is back, and facing down a changing world, when his brazen daughter Maeve enlists him to help find Benjy—a gay social justice activist gone missing. Meanwhile, a needless act of violence sets off an urban range war between a group of gun-happy poachers and former Soviet paramilitary soldiers in an unlikely location: West Hollywood. Jack, still recovering from heart surgery and grappling with Maeve’s aspirations to follow in his footsteps, must save the day before the entire community goes up in flames.

25 Sarah Bailey,
THE HOUSEMATE
(February 25)
This was a 2023 title in the U.K and Australia. I read it in that year and it was on my Best of 2023 list. I’m glad its finally made it to the U.S.
Dubbed the Housemate Homicide, it’s a mystery that has baffled Australians for almost a decade. Melbourne-based journalist Olive Groves worked on the story as a junior reporter and became obsessed by the case. Now, nine years later, the missing housemate turns up dead on a remote property. Olive is once again assigned to the story, this time reluctantly paired with precocious millennial podcaster Cooper Ng.

THE DAUGHTER, T. M. Logan
(February 27 – U. K.)
Standalone
(I was very impressed with the author’s 2023 suspense title THE MOTHER. I’m going to give him another try.)
Lauren can’t wait to see her daughter again, to pick her up from university at the end of her first term. But when she arrives at her hall and knocks on the door to her room, a stranger opens it.
At first, Lauren thinks she must have the wrong room, or the wrong floor. Maybe even the wrong building. But she soon realises the truth: Evie’s not there. She hasn’t been there for weeks. So where is she?

March, 2025

HANG ON ST. CHRISTOPHER, Adrian McKinty
(March 4)
Sean Duffy #8
Rain slicked streets, riots, murder, chaos. It’s July 1992 and the Troubles in Northern Ireland are still grinding on after twenty-five apocalyptic years. Detective Inspector Sean Duffy got his family safely over the water to Scotland. Duffy’s a part-timer now, only returning to Belfast six days a month to get his pension. But then a murder case falls into his lap while his protege is on holiday in Spain. A carjacking gone wrong and the death of a solitary, middle-aged painter. But something’s not right, and as Duffy probes he discovers the painter was an IRA assassin. So, the question becomes: Who hit the hitman and why? LJ & DP

BLOOD MOON, Sandra Brown
(March 4)
Standalone
Detective John Bowie is one misstep away from being fired from the Auclair Police Department in coastal Louisiana. Recently divorced and slightly heavy-handed with his liquor, Bowie does all that he can to cope with the actions taken (or not taken) during the investigation of Crissy Mellin, a teenage girl who disappeared more than three years prior. But now, Crisis Point, a long-running true crime television series, is soon to air an episode documenting the unsolved Mellin case. Bowie has been instructed by his unscrupulous boss to keep to himself his grievances and criticisms over the mishandling of the investigation.

THE LAST DAYS OF KIRA MULLAN, Nicci French
(March 4)
Standalone
Nancy North is ready to put her life back together. After suffering a psychotic break that ruined friendships, stalled her fledgling restaurant, and forced her to move out of her comfortable flat, she’ll do anything to get back to normal. She and her partner Felix—who has been a saint through her recent troubles—move into a new flat for a fresh start. Nancy is taking her pills, seeing her therapist, and avoiding unnecessary stress. She’s doing absolutely everything right, but something is still very, very wrong. On the first day in the new flat, she hears them again; the mysterious voices that triggered her first episode

BROKEN FIELDS, Marcie R. Rendon
(March 4)
Cash Blackbear #4
Minnesota, 1970s: It’s spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear is doing fieldwork for a local farmer—until she finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the property’s rented farmhouse. The tenant, a Native field laborer, and his wife are nowhere to be found, but Cash discovers their young daughter, Shawnee, cowering under a bed. The girl, a possible witness to the killing, is too terrified to speak.

GLORY DAZE, Danielle Arceneaux
(March 4)
Glory Broussard #2
In the sequel to the Edgar-winning Glory Be, small-time, churchgoing bookie Glory Broussard investigates the murder of her ex-husband with the help of his new wife.

FINLAY DONOVAN DIGS HER OWN GRAVE, Elle Cosimano
(March 4)
Finlay Donovan #5
Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, have not always gotten along with Finlay’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Haggerty, the community busybody and president of the neighborhood watch. But when a dead body is discovered in her backyard, Mrs. Haggerty needs their help. At first a suspect, Mrs. Haggerty is cleared by the police, but her house remains an active crime scene. She has nowhere to go . . . except Finlay’s house, right across the street.

FIFTY-FIFTY, Steve Cavanagh
(March 4)
Eddie Flynn #5
Two sisters on trial for murder. They accuse each other. Who do you believe?

GALWAY’S EDGE, Ken Bruen
(March 4)
Jack Taylor #18
A secretive vigilante group called Edge cleanses Galway of its worst criminals. But when someone starts picking off Edge members, private detective Jack Taylor steps in to investigate.

IF IT ISN’T ONE THING…, Steven F. Havill
(March 4)
Posadas County #27
When a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer collides with a loaded semi, it seems like a straightforward accident. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman presumes the most complicated part of the clean-up will be getting thirty tons of unsplit firewood off of Posadas County’s state highway. But the plot thickens when the mangled vehicles are wrenched apart and the pickup’s deceased driver is not who Estelle was expecting. Who is the dead man – and where was he heading with his cargo, a prized stallion whose owner is frantic to get him back?

A SCANDALOUS AFFAIR, Leonard Goldberg
(March 4)
Daughter of Sherlock Holmes #8
In 1918, during the height of the Great War, Joanna Holmes and the Watsons receive a late-night, clandestine visit from Sir William Radcliffe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who brings with him an agonizing tale of blackmail; a case so sensitive that it can only be spoken of in the confines of 221B Baker Street.

THE WHITE FORTRESS, Boyd Morrison & Beth Morrison
(March 6)
Lawless Land #3
Croatia, 1351. Daring knight Gerard Fox and his adventurous wife Willa, fresh from a dangerous quest across Italy and Greece, soon find themselves embroiled in a new intrigue as they sail toward the walled city of Dubrovnik. Having inadvertently hindered a rescue mission, Fox and Willa make amends by helping a desperate Croatian couple forced into a terrible dilemma: either they betray their hometown to a treacherous nobleman and the brutal warlord he serves, or their abducted child will be murdered.

WHITE KING, Juan Gomez-Jurado
(March 11)
Antonia Scott #3
The Red Queen project is under attack on all fronts. Across Europe, its agents are murdering each other and cases from the past, long believed resolved, are rearing their deadly heads again. At the center of it is the mysterious Mr. White, who has been weaving a web around Antonia for a very long time. He is as smart and capable as her but, unlike her, he’s a psychotic killer who has isolated Antonia Scott. Jon Gutierrez, Antonia’s protector and the only person she trusts, has been kidnapped. Antonia’s husband has been killed and her remaining family is in hiding. With Jon’s life at stake, Mr. White gives her a seemingly innocuous challenge: solve three crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice. The only way to keep Jon alive is to play Mr. White’s game, but can even Antonia win a game when she can only see part of the board?

WITNESS 8, Steve Cavanagh
(March 11)
(Eddie Flynn #8
A former resident of the ultra-elite Manhattan upper class, Ruby now works as a maid in the type of houses she used to live in. Unassuming, she sees everyone’s dirty secrets from the inside of their beautiful, renovated brownstones. But when Ruby witnesses a murder, she has wicked plans in mind that don’t involve telling the authorities the truth. Eddie Flynn, streetwise ex con-artist-turned-defense attorney, is the only lawyer in New York City willing to take on hopeless cases. And none is more hopeless than John Jackson’s—the gun that killed his neighbor found, with Jackson’s DNA, in his own home.

KILLS WELL WITH OTHERS, Deanna Raybourn
(March 11)
Killers of a Certain Age #2
After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their time off, but the lack of excitement is starting to chafe: a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions without itching to strangle someone…literally. When they receive a summons from the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.
Someone on the inside has compiled a list of important kills committed by Museum agents, connected to a single, shadowy figure, an Eastern European gangster with an iron fist, some serious criminal ambition, and a tendency to kill first and ask questions later. This new nemesis is murdering agents who got in the way of their power hungry plans and the aging quartet of killers is next.

A MOTHER’S LOVE, Sara Blaedel
(March 11)
Louise Rick #11
When innkeeper Dorthe Hyllested is found murdered, the police are surprised and puzzled to discover a concealed nursery in her upstairs apartment. As far as her friends and family knew, the recently widowed Dorthe was childless—so who lived in this secret toy-strewn room? And more importantly, where is the child now?

THE SOCIALITE’S GUIDE TO SLEUTHING AND SECRETS, S. K. Golden
(March 11)
Pinnacle Hotel #3
New York, 1958. When Evelyn’s mail is delivered during a luncheon in the Gold Room, she’s surprised to find she has received a diamond tiara, which catches the attention of a costume jewelry sales team lunching nearby. Their leader, Lois Mitchel, is especially interested, but by the end of the lunch, Lois has choked and fallen into Evelyn’s lap—and by the end of the day, she’s dead.

ALL THE OTHER MOTHERS HATE ME, Sarah Harman
(March 11)
When 10-year-old Alfie Risby goes missing during a class trip, everyone starts pointing fingers. The boy’s rich parents land on former party girl and disgraced girl-band member Florence Grimes’ son, Dylan, who was mercilessly bullied by Alfie. Now Florence must do the unthinkable: make nice with the other school moms in order to clear her kid’s name.

PAPERBOY, Callum McSorley
(March 13 – U.K.)
DI Alison McCoist #2
DCI Alison McCoist is back: newly promoted and even less popular. Chuck Gardner is the proud owner of both a confidential paper-shredding business and a serious betting habit. When Chuck finds some scandalous paperwork and McCoist investigates a rat-nibbled corpse under a flyover, they are both sucked into a deadly stramash of gangland wars and police corruption.

THE SHADOW, Ajay Chowdhury
(March 13 – U.K.)
Kamil Rahman #5
After a bruising encounter with a terrorist group, Detective Kamil Rahman has decided to hand in his resignation to the Met and set up a detective agency with his friend Anjoli. But when his boss asks him to go to India to investigate the murder of a British engineer who was found with eighteen arrows stuck in his body, Kamil agrees to take the case, as long as Anjoli can accompany him.

THE SUMMER GUESTS, Tess Gerritsen
(March 18)
Maggie Bird #2
Retired spy Maggie Bird leaps back into action when a teenager in her quiet Maine neighborhood vanishes, and Maggie’s friend becomes the primary suspect.

THE MAN WHO SWORE HE’D NEVER GO HOME AGAIN, David Handler
(March 18)
Stewart Hoag #16
Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag always swore that he would never return to Oakmont, Connecticut, the small mill town where his family lived for generations. He certainly has no desire to interrupt his high life as the newest great American novelist to revisit the town that hates his family and will only bring back memories of his unhappy childhood. But when his childhood sweetheart phones to say that her mother, Mary McKenna, the librarian who inspired Hoagy’s dream to be a writer, has died, Hoagy knows he has to return for her funeral. Especially when Maggie adds that her mother didn’t die of natural causes.

NOBODY’S FOOL, Harlan Coben
(March 25)
Sami Kierce #2
The sequel to Fool Me Once centers on a man who runs into his former girlfriend 20 years after her supposed death—for which he’s long believed he was responsible.

Ted Bell’s MONARCH, Ryan Steck
(March 25)
Alex Hawke #13
Former Chief Inspector of Scottland Yard Ambrose Congreve calls Alex Hawke with stunning news. Just days away from a controversial vote threatening to tear the United Kingdom apart at the seams, King Charles has disappeared while vacationing at Balmoral Castle. The prime minister believes she can keep the news quiet for no more than 72 hours. After that, Britain will be plunged into chaos.

LETHAL PREY, John Sandford
(March 25)
Davenport & Flowers
Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers join forces to track down a ruthless killer who will do whatever it takes to keep the past buried.

THE RELUCTANT SHERIFF, Chris Offutt
(March 25)
Mick Hardin #4
Mick Hardin never wanted to be sheriff. An ex-Army CID officer, he’s supposed to be retired—or he was until his sister, Linda, was shot in the line of duty, requiring him to step in as interim sheriff while she recovered. Now he’s stuck in Rocksalt, the place he was most hoping to escape. Back in uniform, Mick is chafing at the sudden dissolution of his retirement plans, wearied by the petty squabbles of Rocksalt’s townsfolk. It’s all business as usual, until the murder of a local bar owner draws an unlikely suspect who threatens to fan the flames of Mick’s past.

THE UNLUCKY ONES, Hannah Morrissey
(March 25)
Black Harbor #4
The scene to which Sergeant Nikolai Kole responds is anything but a rote homicide. In the back of a clubhouse lies a body wrapped in garbage bags and doused in bleach. It isn’t just any body. Tommy Greenlee, the ex-husband of Kole’s former lover, Hazel, has been shot several times and left for dead. What’s more…the killer left what appears to be a calling card.

I WOULD DIE FOR YOU, Sandie Jones
(March 25)
Standalone
California, 2011: Nicole Forbes lives a quiet life in the small seaside town of Coronado with her husband and daughter. She is not expecting a writer to knock on her door asking for her personal insight into the downfall of the biggest British band of the 1980s?unveiling the threads of a life she left behind years ago. The same day, her daughter goes missing and the school claims her aunt picked her up . . . but she doesn’t have an aunt. Convinced of a link between the two, Nicole is forced to revisit long-abandoned memories from her past to protect everything she now holds dear.

HOMICIDE IN THE INDIAN HILLS, Erica Ruth Neubauer
(March 25)
Jane Wunderly #6
Intrepid American newlywed Jane Wunderly learns that tigers aren’t the only dangers lurking in 1920s India, when a murder in a popular resort town threatens to destabilize the local government and undermine the resistance movement for Indian self-rule.

INTO THE GRAY ZONE, Brad Taylor
(March 26)
Pike Logan #19
While on a routine security assessment in India, Taskforce operator Pike Logan foils an attempted attack on a meeting between the CIA and India’s intelligence service. Both government agencies believe it’s nothing more than a minor terrorist attack, but Pike suspects that something much more sinister is at play.

A SPY AT WAR, Charles Beaumont
(March 27 – U.K.)
Oxford Spy Ring #2
Simon Sharman is out for revenge, pursuing the assassin of his former colleague across war-torn Ukraine. Back in London, a Russian spy ring at the heart of the British Establishment remains active and a secret, yet desperate, struggle is underway to limit its attempts to sabotage the West’s support for Ukraine. On the battlefields of the Donbas, Simon may have a chance to locate the assassin but larger forces are at work and he finds himself sucked into a terrifying shadow conflict between Russia and the West.

April, 2025

VERA WONG’S GUIDE TO SNOOPING (ON A DEAD MAN), Jesse Q. Sutanto
(April 1)
Vera Wong #2
San Francisco tea shop owner Vera Wong agrees to help a young woman find her missing friend, then discovers a dossier on that friend among the possessions of her son’s police officer girlfriend.

THE MUSEUM DETECTIVE, Maha Khan Phillips
(April 1)
When Dr. Gul Delani receives a call in the middle of the night from the Sindh police, she thinks they may have finally found her niece, Mahnaz—a precocious, politically conscious teenage girl who went missing three years prior. Gul has been racked with grief since Mahnaz’s disappearance and distracts herself through work: a talented curator at the Museum of Heritage and History in Karachi, she is one of the country’s leading experts in archaeology and ancient civilizations, a hard-won position for a woman.

OVERKILL, J. A. Jance
(April 1)
Ali Reynolds #18
Chuck Brewster, the former business partner of Ali Reynolds’s husband B. Simpson, once carried on an affair with Clarice, B.’s first wife. So when he’s found murdered with Clarice standing nearby covered in blood, it seems an open and shut case. But Clarice swears she’s innocent and begs for Ali’s help.

THE RAILWAY CONSPIRACY, S. J. Rozan & John Shen Yen Nee
(April 1)
Dee & Lao #2
Judge Dee and Lao She must use all their powers of deduction—and kung fu skills—to take down a sinister conspiracy between Imperial Russia, Japan, and China in a rollicking new mystery set in 1920s London.

THE CHOW MANIAC, Vivien Chien
(April 1)
Noodle Shop #11
When Lydia brings Lana onto the case, three of the members of an elite Asian order known as the Eight Immortals have already been murdered. Each member of the order holds one item that represents their immortal counterpart, and someone is dying to get their hands on them all. Lydia’s client insists he – and only he – knows who will be next and wants the murderer captured before there is another victim.

HARD TOWN, Adam Plantinga
(April 8)
Kurt Argento
A former Detroit police officer is taking a breather in a small Arizona town when a woman asks him to help find her missing husband in this sequel to The Ascent.

THE MAID’S SECRET, Nita Prose
(April 8)
Molly the Maid #3
When an Antiques Roadshow–esque TV program starts filming at the Regency Grand, Molly the Maid brings in jewelry for appraisal. It turns out to be hugely valuable, and then it’s stolen, pointing Molly toward a mystery with links to her late grandmother’s past.

THE IMPOSSIBLE THING, Belinda Bauer
(April 8)
Standalone
On the cliffs of Yorkshire, men are lowered on ropes to steal the eggs of the sea birds who nest there. The most beautiful are sold for large sums. A small girl—penniless and neglected by her family—retrieves one such treasure. Its discovery will forever alter the course of her life.
A century later. In a remote cottage in Wales, Patrick Fort finds his friend, Nick, and his mother tied up and robbed. The only thing missing: a carved case containing an incredible scarlet egg. Doggedly attempting to retrieve it, Patrick and Nick discover the cruel world of egg trafficking, and soon find themselves on the trail of a priceless collection of eggs lost to history. Until now.

SPLINTERED JUSTICE, Kim Hays
(April 15)
Linder & Donatelli #4
Swiss homicide detective Giuliana Linder of the Bern Police and her investigating partner Renzo Donatelli are facing cases that may not be what they appear. Renzo is on the scene near the Bern cathedral when a young man repairing a medieval window is injured by falling from a scaffold—a fall deliberately caused by a teenage boy. Finding evidence that the boy’s attack on the glassworker is linked to his mother’s suicide fifteen years earlier, Renzo decides to reexamine the woman’s death, hoping his work on the case will help get him promoted to homicide detective. He learns that the apparent suicide still haunts the injured glassworker, although he was a child of ten when the boy’s mother died.

STRANGERS IN TIME, David Baldacci
(April 15)
Historical Standalon
Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life.
Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of children to have been evacuated to the countryside Molly has been away from her home for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there.
Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost.

THE DEATH OF US, Abigail Dean
(April 15)
A divorced couple reunites for the trial of the home invader who nearly killed them 28 years earlier. In the decades since, they’ve had vastly different responses to the trauma.

WHO WILL REMEMBER, C. S. Harris
(April 15)
Sebastian St. Cyr #20
August 1816. England is in the grip of what will become known as the Year Without a Summer. Facing the twin crises of a harvest-destroying volcanic winter and the economic disruption caused by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the British monarchy finds itself haunted by the looming threat of bloody riots not seen since the earliest days of the French Revolution. Amidst the turmoil, a dead man is found hanging upside down by one leg in an abandoned chapel, his hands tied behind his back.

HIDDEN IN SMOKE, Lee Goldberg
(April 22)
Sharpe & Walker #3
After dozens of Hollywood apartment buildings erupt in flames during a single night of terror, arson investigators Walter Sharpe and Andrew Walker are assigned to catch the serial torcher and end his spree. But then a catastrophic fire destroys a major freeway, crippling the city and forcing Sharpe and Walker to take on another massive case.
Desperate for help, they know exactly who to call: homicide detectives Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone. Together the four detectives must quickly figure out whether the freeway disaster was a tragic accident…or the work of a mastermind with a horrific plan.

SHADOW OF THE SOLSTICE, Anne Hillerman
(April 22)
Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito #10
The Navajo Nation police are on high alert when a U.S. Cabinet Secretary schedules an unprecedented trip to the little Navajo town of Shiprock, New Mexico. The visit coincides with a plan to resume uranium mining along the Navajo Nation border. Tensions around the official’s arrival escalate when the body of a stranger is found in an area restricted for the disposal of radioactive uranium waste.

SEASON OF DEATH, Will Thomas
(April 22)
Barker & Llewelyn #16
The sudden collapse of a railway tunnel in the East End of London kills dozens and shuts down services all over the city. Meanwhile, a mysterious beggar calling herself “Dutch” guides Barker and Llewelyn to an attempt by a powerful aristocrat to take over London’s criminal underworld. With a missing heiress and a riot at a women’s shelter acting as distractions designed to stop the duo from getting to the truth, Barker must relentlessly fight to reach the trust while Llewelyn wonders how a simple beggar woman can be the catalyst for such destruction.

2 SISTERS MURDER INVESTIGATION, James Patterson, Candice Fox
(April 22)
2 Sisters #2
Rhonda and Barbara “Baby” Bird are half-sisters—and full partners in their Los Angeles detective agency. They agree on nothing. Rhonda, a former attorney, takes a by-the-book approach to solving crimes, while teenage Baby relies on her street smarts. But when they take a controversial case of a loner whose popular wife has gone missing, they’re accused of being PIs who can’t tell a client from a killer.

THE SECRET ROOM, Jane Casey
(April 24)
Maeve Kerrigan #12
2:32 p.m. Wealthy, privileged Ilaria Cavendish checks into a luxury London hotel and orders a bottle of champagne. Within the hour, her lover discovers her submerged in a bath of scalding water, dead. At first glance it looks like an accident. No one went in with her. No one came out. But all the signs point to murder. For DS Maeve Kerrigan, the case is a welcome distraction. But when shock news hits close to home, affecting her partner, DI Josh Derwent, she faces the toughest challenge of her career.

HUMAN REMAINS, Jo Callaghan
(April 24 – U.K. only)
AIDE Lock & Kat Frank #3
Fresh from successfully closing their first live case, the Future Policing Unit are called in to investigate when a headless, handless body is found on a Warwickshire farm. But as they work to identify the victim and their killer, the discovery of a second body begins to spark fears that The Aston Strangler is back. And as the stakes rise for the team, so do the tensions brewing within it.
When DCS Kat Frank is accused of putting the wrong man behind bars all those years ago, AIDE Lock – the world’s first AI Detective – pursues the truth about what happened with relentless logic.

IF TWO ARE DEAD, Rick Mofina
(April 29)
Standalone
Driving alone at night in a wild rainstorm, Luke Conway strikes something—or someone. He and his wife, Carrie, recently moved back to Clear River to help take care of her ailing father, and after a tragedy at his previous job, this move is their last chance at a new life. Now, standing in the downpour on this Texas road, Luke, an off-duty cop, has a decision to make—and he has to make it fast. No one else is around. No witnesses. And he can’t find a body.

HOW TO SEAL YOUR OWN FATE, Kristen Perrin
(April 29)
Castle Knoll #2
Annie Adams is caught in a new web of murder that spans decades, returning us to the idyllic English village that holds layers of secrets.

JULIE CHAN IS DEAD, Liann Zhang
(April 29)
Debut mystery
Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she’s always envied.

THE UNQUIET GRAVE, Dervla McTiernan
(April 30 – I think)
Cormac Reilly #4
When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, Cormac Reilly assumes the find is historical. But closer examination reveals a more recent story. The dead man is Thaddeus Grey, a local secondary school principal who disappeared two years prior. There’s nothing in Grey’s past that would explain why he was murdered, or why his body was mutilated in a ritual manner. At first, progress on the case is frustratingly slow and Cormac struggles to keep his mind on the job. His ex-girlfriend, Emma Sweeney, is in trouble, and she’s reached out to him for help—Emma’s new husband has gone missing in Paris, and the French police are refusing to open an investigation into his disappearance.

May, 2025

THE CHILDREN OF EVE, John Connolly
(May 6)
Charlie Parker #22
Wyatt Riggins, the boyfriend of rising Maine artist Zetta Nadeau, has gone missing, leaving behind a cell phone containing a single-word message: RUN. Private investigator Charlie Parker is hired to find out why Riggins has fled, and from whom. Parker discovers that Riggins, an ex-soldier, has been involved in the abduction of four children from Mexico: three girls and a boy, all belonging to the cartel boss Blas Urrea—except Urrea’s family is safe and well in Mexico, which means the abductees cannot be his children. Yet whoever they are, Urrea wants them back, and has dispatched his agents to secure them, even if it means butchering everyone who stands in their way.

SOUTH OF NOWHERE, Jeffery Deaver
(May 6)
Colter Shaw #5
When a levee collapses in Hinowah, a small town in Northern California, Colter Shaw is brought on by his sister, Dorion, a disaster response specialist, to help locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive. But after a surprise attack along the river obstructs Colter’s urgent search, the siblings are forced to consider a new reality: Is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes, or is someone sabotaging it?

THE POET’S GAME, Paul Vidich
(May 6)
Standalone Espionage Novel
Alex Matthews thought he had left it all behind: his CIA career, the viper’s den of bureaucracy at headquarters, the deceits of the cat-and-mouse game of double agents, and the sudden trips to Russia, which poisoned his marriage and made him an absentee husband and father, with tragic results. But then the Director came asking for a favor. Something that only Alex could do because it involved the asset Byron—a Russian agent whom Alex had recruited. Byron had something of great interest to the CIA; the Director said it was a matter of grave national security that implicated the White House, and that Byron would hand over the kompromat once he was extricated from Russia.

BIG BAD WOOL, Leonie Swann
(May 6)
Sheep Detective #2
With one solved mystery under their wooly belts, the time has come for the sheep of Glennkill to explore Europe. Together with their new shepherdess, Rebecca, they move into their winter quarters in the shadow of a French chateau. But their new home is far from idyllic. A number of sheep from a previous flock have disappeared, and deer are dying unnatural deaths in the forest. Then a human dies and the Sheep Detective investigates.

PARENTS WEEKEND, Alex Finlay
(May 6)
Five college students disappear from their Northern California campus while their families are visiting, prompting a media storm that illuminates their class differences and the sins of their parents.

THE LADIES ROAD GUIDE TO UTTER RUIN, Alison Goodman
(May 6)
Ill-Mannered Ladies #2
To most of Regency high society, forty-two-year-old Lady Augusta Colebrook, or Gus, and her twin sister, Julia, are just unmarried ladies of a certain age—hardly worth a second glance. But the Colebrook twins are far from useless old maids. They are secretly protecting women and children ignored by society and the law. When Lord Evan—a charming escaped convict who has won Gus’s heart—needs to hide his sister and her lover from their vindictive brother, Gus and Julia take the two women into their home. They know what it is like to have a powerful and overbearing brother. But Lord Evan’s complicated past puts them all in danger. Gus knows they must clear his name of murder if he is to survive the thieftakers who hunt him.

THE TENANT, Freida McFadden
(May 6)
After getting fired from his high-paying marketing job, Blake Porter decides to take in a beautiful roommate. Soon, her behavior alarms the neighbors, and she hints at knowing secrets about Blake’s past.

THE MISSING HALF, Ashley Flowers
(May 6)
Two women connect to solve the long-ago disappearances of their sisters only two weeks apart.

MARBLE HALL MURDERS, Anthony Horowitz
(May 13)
Susan Ryland – Magpie #3
Book editor Susan Ryeland starts working on the manuscript for a new mystery by a promising young writer, only to discover that its pages are filled with clues about the murder of his famous grandmother. Then the author himself is killed.

SLAYING YOU, Michelle Gagnon
(May 13)
Amber Jamison #2
Grace and Amber’s first encounter was anything but ordinary—they bonded over being stalked by the same psychopath. After narrowly escaping that ordeal they went their separate ways, determined to get back to their lives. Surprise: neither of them is very good at being “normal.” Despite their best efforts, they both feel an irresistible pull toward the dark side. So when they reunite for a Vegas wedding and discover that an even more dangerous killer is targeting their friends, it’s time to get the gang back together.

SILENT HORIZONS, Chad Robichaux with Jack Stewart
(May 13)
Standalone Action Thriller
Foster Quinn is more than a former Force Recon Marine. He’s a husband. A father. A faithful brother to his teammates. When one of them is killed during a high-risk operation to track down a dangerous arms dealer, Foster struggles to balance his roles as a dedicated family man and an elite warrior. Despite his inner demons?or maybe because of them?Foster can’t walk away from his brothers. Then he gets the chance to step in where his best friend left off, assuming a cover identity in Iran that will get him close to the arms dealer and pave the way for a critical mission. On his own in a new country, he must carefully choose who to trust. An Iranian taxi driver. An American hunter. A British oil executive. One wrong move could spell disaster. Not just for the mission, but for Foster.

FEVER BEACH, Carl Hiaasen
(May 13)
Hiaasen’s latest comic crime saga features an ex–Proud Boy, an angry environmentalist, an inept congressman, and scheming billionaires.

DARK MAESTRO, Brendan Slocumb
(May 13)
A cello prodigy from the Washington, D.C., projects is forced into witness protection after his drug dealer father informs on his cartel bosses. When the Feds prove inept, the cellist and his family take matters into their own hands.

THE MAN MADE OF SMOKE, Alex North
(May 13)
After escaping from a serial killer as a child, Dan Garvie makes a career as a criminal profiler. When his dad dies, he returns to his island hometown and starts to suspect the killer has returned.

THE SILVERSMITH’S PUZZLE, Nev March
(May 13)
Jim & Diana #4
In 1894 colonial India, Lady Diana’s family has lost their fortune in a global financial slump, but even worse, her brother Adi is accused of murder. Desperate to save him from the gallows, Captain Jim and Lady Diana rush back to Bombay. However, the traditional Parsi community finds Jim and Diana’s marriage taboo and shuns them.

SMOKE AND EMBERS, John Lawton
(May 13)
Inspector Troy #9
SMOKE AND EMBERS opens in 1950, when Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Troy learns that his sergeant has been conducting an affair with the known mistress of infamous London racketeer Otto Ohnherz. Troy is immediately intrigued by the mysterious origins of Ohnherz’s second-in-command, Jay Fabian, who is a major contributor to all three British political parties and claims to have survived the concentration camps—yet he lacks proof beyond his word.

NIGHTSHADE, Michael Connelly
(May 20)
Detective Stilwell
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found wrapped in plastic and weighed down at the bottom of the harbor. Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, he starts doggedly working the case. Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

MAKING A KILLING, Cara Hunter
(May 20)
DI Fawley #7
When Nick Vincent, producer of true-crime show Infamous, hears about an explosive new angle on a high-profile case—the 2016 murder of an eight-year-old girl in Oxford—he leaps at the chance to send a researcher to verify the claims. Two months later, a dog walker discovers a woman’s body, bound and buried in a shallow grave in the woods. Forensic evidence links the corpse to the disappearance of that same child. DCI Adam Fawley, the original investigating officer, is called in to run the enquiry. And he remembers the case well—he arrested the child’s mother for murder. A murder he now knows she didn’t commit.

KAUA’I STORM, Tori Eldridge
(May 20)
Ranger Makalani Pahukula #1
After ten years as a national park ranger in Oregon, Makalani Pahukula is back on Kaua‘i for her grandmother’s birthday. Having been gone for so long, Makalani finds the disconnect with her people and her struggles have never been more profound. Neither has her need to reacquaint herself with everything she left behind. When she reaches the homestead, she finds a bickering family and the disconcerting news that her cousins – a failed college football player and a rebellious teenage girl – have gone missing.

THE DOORMAN, Chris Pavone
(May 20)
The doorman at a ritzy New York City apartment building bridges the divide between its residents and staff when violent protests erupt across the city. Before the end of his shift, someone will die.

NEVER FLINCH, Stephen King
(May 20)
Holly Gibney #5
When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to “kill thirteen innocents and one guilty” in “an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man,” Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help.

Stuart Woods’ GOLDEN HOUR, Brett Battles
(May 27)
Teddy Fay #7
Teddy Fay is ready to embark on the European press tour of Peter Barrington’s latest film Storm’s Eye, when he receives an unexpected visit from Lance Cabot, director of the CIA. Several CIA agents have been turning up dead. The commonality? They were all part of a mission Teddy was involved in: Golden Hour. Lance wants Teddy to use his trip as a cover to investigate who is behind these killings.

A DEAD DRAW, Robert Dugoni
(May 27)
Tracy Crosswhite #11
Detective Tracy Crosswhite isn’t one to lose her cool. Until her interrogation of the taunting and malicious Erik Schmidt, a suspect in two cold case killings. Schmidt also has unnerving ties to the monster who murdered Tracy’s sister, stirring memories of the crime that shaped Tracy’s life. After a critical mistake during a shooting exercise, Tracy breaks.

RETURN TO SENDER, Craig Johnson
(May 27)
Longmire #21
The Sheriff of Absaroka confronts a cabal of devious outlaws who are hell bent on getting what they want, even though they have to bend and break the law. Walt is stretched to his physical limits to try to stop them, and has to answer the question of just how far he will go to stop these outlaws.

THE BLACK HIGHWAY, Simon Toyne
(May 28)
Laughton Rees #3
Forensic specialist Laughton Rees is not ashamed of her checkered past—after all, her youthful indiscretions led to the birth of her daughter Gracie, the person she loves most in the world—but when Gracie’s father unexpectedly turns up in their lives again, Laughton is automatically wary.
Shelby Facer is a dangerous man, formerly imprisoned for his involvement in an international drug trafficking ring, and no matter what Laughton once felt for him, she doesn’t want him anywhere near Gracie. But when Shelby claims that he has information about an especially difficult murder case she is working, she can’t turn him down.

June, 2025

THE GOOD LIAR, Denise Mina
(June 3)
As a doctor prepares to deliver a speech about the faulty evidence she gave in a high-profile murder case, flashbacks reveal how she and her colleagues pieced together the inaccurate testimony.

ONE FINAL TURN, Ashley Weaver
(June 3)
Electra McDonnell #5
Ellie McDonnell is about to embark on her most perilous mission yet: go to Lisbon, Portugal to save her beloved cousin Toby who has reportedly escaped from a German prisoner of war camp. Toby has been missing since the Battle of Dunkirk and Ellie had all but lost hope in ever seeing him again until Major Ramsey, the British military intelligence officer she had been working closely with over the past few months, shared the news he’d intercepted.

THE GHOSTWRITER, Julie Clark
(June 3)
For decades, horror writer Vincent Taylor has been plagued by rumors that he killed two of his siblings. When he hires his daughter to ghostwrite his latest project, she’s shocked to learn it’s a true crime tell-all about what really happened.

DON’T FORGET ME, LITTLE BESSIE, James Lee Burke
(June 3)
Holland Family #5
This novel continues the author’s Holland Family series with a thriller about 14-year-old Bessie Holland standing up to a nefarious Texas oil company.

CEYLON SAPPHIRES, Mailan Doquang
(June 3)
Rune Sarasin #2
At a private showing in the Louvre, Napoleon Bonaparte’s great-great-grand niece Margot Steiner admires the painting of her famous ancestor while wearing a precious Ceylon sapphire necklace commissioned by the emperor himself. After getting caught in a commotion on the crowded staircase, however, Mrs. Steiner discovers that her necklace is gone and the suspicious young woman who started the commotion has melted away into the throng.
Rune Sarasin is new to Paris, but not new to stealing priceless jewels. She has spent the last few years plying her trade in the fast-paced city of Bangkok, but after unwittingly stealing from the ruthless smuggler Charles Lemaire, she now must hunt down the gems that he requests until she repays what she owes. But when Lemaire demands that she now steal sapphire earrings to match the necklace, Rune realizes that he will never willingly let her go.

KING OF ASHES, S. A. Cosby
(June 10)
When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

THE BACHELORETTE PARTY, Camilla Sten
(June 10)
A disgraced true crime podcast host attends her best friends bachelorette party on a remote island and discovers clues to a famous cold case.

CRY HAVOC, Jack Carr
(June 10)
Tom Reese #1
Just before the Tet Offensive changes the dynamic in Vietnam, before President Johnson announces he will not run for reelection, before the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, as riots and protests rage across the nation, a spy ship, the USS Pueblo, is captured by communist forces off the coast of North Korea. The crew thought they had destroyed everything of intelligence value. They were wrong.
As a KGB “illegal” elicits information from a high-ranking CIA official, and teams of special operators infiltrating into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam disappear without a trace, an ambitious Soviet advisor launches an ingenious plan with consequences that reach far beyond the battlefields of Southeast Asia, one that will forever alter the world balance of power.
Tom Reece, a SEAL operator attached to the highly classified and shadowy MACV-SOG is about to be thrust into a bloody battle to discover the truth.

AN ENEMY IN THE VILLAGE, Martin Walker
(June 10)
Bruno #18
When Bruno stumbles upon a motionless figure in a car parked at a scenic overpass on the ridge of the Vézère valley, he’s ready to investigate. Inside, he finds a suicide note and the dead body of Monique, a successful businesswoman who rented châteaus to wealthy expats. It seems like an open-and-shut case. But Bruno can’t shake the feeling that something sinister lurks underneath this tidy narrative

DEATH AT THE WHITE HART, Chris Chibnall
(June 10)
The creator of the TV series Broadchurch spins a small-town detective story about the brutal murder of a pub owner.

KILL YOUR DARLINGS, Peter Swanson
(June 10)
Told in reverse, this unconventional domestic thriller explains why a poet develops a plan to murder her English professor husband.

A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI, Nilima Rao
(June 10)
Sergeant Akal Singh #2
Sergeant Akal Singh, an unwilling transplant to Fiji, is just starting to settle into his life in the capital city of Suva when he is sent to the neighboring island of Ovalau on a series of fool’s errands. First: investigate strange reports of Germans, thousands of miles from the front of World War I. Second: chaperone two strong-willed European ladies, Mary and Katherine, on a sight-seeing tour. And third: supervise the only police officer currently on Ovalau, an eighteen-year-old constable with a penchant for hysterics.

WITH A VENGEANCE, Riley Sager
(June 10)
In the 1950s, a woman lures six people onto a train from Philadelphia to Chicago in hopes of getting them to confess to conspiring against her family. When one of them is murdered, the stakes skyrocket.

GONE DARK, Ryan Steck
(June 17)
Matthew Redd #4
Late-summer wildfires are a fact of life in Montana. But as an inferno nears Wellington, Matthew Redd gets the unusual call that a team of smoke jumpers has suddenly gone dark. As head of the county’s fledgling search and rescue team, Redd drops into the fire zone and finds way more than he bargained for: a killer has taken out the smoke jumper team along with two civilians, and only a terrified young boy is left as witness. Redd and little Jack narrowly escape the raging fire, and Redd calls in Gavin Kline, now acting director of the FBI, to investigate the bigger forces at play.

MURDER TAKES A VACATION, Laura Lippman
(June 17)
A prim grandmother and ex-PI falls for a handsome stranger on a flight to France. When he’s found dead a day later, she reignites her investigative instincts to find out what happened.

DON’T OPEN YOUR EYES, Liv Constantine
(June 17)
The pseudonymous authors of The Last Mrs. Parrish deliver a standalone thriller featuring a woman who struggles with disturbing dreams about her family’s safety. Eventually, she realizes she’s seeing the future.

THE PROTEST, Rob Rinder
(June 19 in U.K.)
Adam Green #3
At a star-studded opening night for the Royal Academy’s celebration of renowned artist Max Bruce, someone is hiding a dark secret. As the night reaches its climax and Max addresses his admirers, the occasion takes a shocking turn when a protester runs from the crowd and sprays the artist with blue paint. Max collapses and it soon turns out that the paint was laced with cyanide. Someone has been plotting to kill him. All evidence points to the protestor – and newly qualified barrister Adam Green is assigned the impossible task of their defence. But could there be others who wanted Max dead?

EL DORADO DRIVE, Megan Abbott
(June 24)
When Harper moves in with her sister Pam, she’s surprised to find Pam doing so well financially after her messy divorce. After all, Pam’s ex-husband wiped their bank accounts, even stole from their kids. But Pam managed to find her way back. Thanks to the Wheel… Twice a month, the women of the Wheel meet. New members bring cash to the party that is pooled together and then gifted to one lucky member. It’s all about giving back. Lifting each other up. As women should. As they must. But when Harper is invited, with the promise of an end to her financial burdens, the sisters inadvertently unleash a darkness lurking within the group. If they’re not careful, it might just get them killed.

THEM BONES, David Housewright
(June 24)
Mac McKenzie #22
There are two things that Rushmore McKenzie hates to turn down—a request from a friend and a challenge. Both of them show up in his wife’s nightclub in the person of Angela Bjork, who has come to request McKenzie’s help. McKenzie, once a homicide detective, now through a series of unlikely events, is a retired millionaire. But occasionally, for friends, he will do some unofficial private detective work. Over the years, he’s hunted down a stolen Stradivarius, the hoard of 1930’s gangster, and recovered a stolen, apparently cursed, artifact but McKenzie never imagined a case like this. An exceedingly rare dinosaur skull has been stolen.

THE BLACK HIGHWAY, Simon Toyne
(June 24)
Laughton Rees #3
Forensic specialist Laughton Rees is not ashamed of her checkered past—after all, her youthful indiscretions led to the birth of her daughter Gracie, the person she loves most in the world—but when Gracie’s father unexpectedly turns up in their lives again, Laughton is automatically wary.
Shelby Facer is a dangerous man, formerly imprisoned for his involvement in an international drug trafficking ring, and no matter what Laughton once felt for him, she doesn’t want him anywhere near Gracie. But when Shelby claims that he has information about an especially difficult murder case she is working, she can’t turn him down.

THE MEDUSA PROTOCOL, Rob Hart
(June 24)
Assassins Anonymous #2
When Astrid, known in her assassin days as Azrael, stopped showing up to Assassins Anonymous, the group assumed her past had caught up with her. Only her sponsor Mark, formerly the deadliest killer in the world, holds out hope that she’s okay. Then, during a meeting, the group gets a sign, or rather, a pizza delivery. Is there another psychopath out there who actually likes olives on their pizza, or is Astrid trying to send Mark a message? Meanwhile, Astrid wakes up in the cell of a black site prison, on a remote island. A doctor subjects her to mysterious experiments, plumbing the depths of her memory and looking for a vital clue from her past. She’ll do anything to escape, except…killing anyone.

DON’T LET HIM IN, Lisa Jewell
(June 24)
Restauranteur Paddy Swann was the life of the party until the day a man pushed him in the path of an oncoming train, leaving his twenty-something daughter Ash and wife Nina devastated. Shortly after Paddy’s funeral, the two women receive a surprise in the mail: a note and package from Nick Radcliffe, an old friend of Paddy’s, and a nondescript lighter that once belonged to him decades ago. This unexpected gift draws Nick and Nina closer together—much to Ash’s dismay.
Martha is a small-town florist with dreams of expansion. She lives with her second husband Al, her baby, and two sons from her prior marriage. But they never seem to have any money, and with his constant traveling for work, she feels like a single parent—especially when an emergency makes her realize something needs to change.
But Nick and Al may not be who they say they are, leading these three women on a shocking collision course, wishing they had heeded a warning: Don’t let him in.

July, 2025

INTO THE LEOPARD’S DEN, Harini Nagendra
(July 1)
Kaveri & Ramu #4
Bangalore, 1922: Pregnant and confined to the house by her protective mother-in-law, Kaveri Murthy has resolved to take a break from detection. But when an elderly woman is stabbed at night and dies clutching a photograph of Kaveri while asking for her help—how can she refuse? Missing the assistance of her husband Ramu, who is working in Coorg, Kaveri investigates her new case with her able assistants, milk boy Venu and housemaid Anandi. They find a trail of secrets that lead them to suspect the killer may be in Coorg.

EDGE OF HONOR, Brad Thor
(July 1)
Scot Harvath #24
No plot summary available

THE RED QUEEN, Martha Grimes
(July 1)
Richard Jury #26
One calm night in Twickenham, a businessman named Tom Treadnor is shot off his barstool at The Queen pub. Superintendent Richard Jury is called in to investigate, and quickly realizes that everyone in Treadnor’s life – from his widow, Alice, to the staff at his manor, to his business partner had differing opinions of him. And to complicate things further, Jury has just happened upon a photo in a newspaper of a man in the United States, who is a dead ringer for Treadnor.
Meanwhile, Wiggins, Jury’s partner at New Scotland Yard, becomes sidetracked by an investigation of his own: His sister, missing for years and presumed dead, has just sent a postcard to their mother. When Wiggins takes off in search of his sister, the two investigations begin to converge.

DOGGED PURSUIT, David Rosenfelt
(July 1)
Andy Carpenter #31
Andy Carpenter has spent the three years since graduating law school working as a prosecutor in Paterson. But having seen how the system never looks out for the little guy, he leaves to start his own practice as a defense attorney. His office might be a little bit of a dump, but he’s excited to make a change.
Andy goes to the shelter to adopt a dog, where he meets his beloved golden retriever, Tara, for the first time and feels an immediate connection. The shelter is crowded and Tara’s been sharing space with a dog named Sunny; Andy hates to break them up and so asks to take Sunny, too, but since there’s a pending criminal case involving the owner, he’ll need to get written permission for temporary possession.
Andy discovers that Sunny’s owner, Frank Tierney, has been arrested for the murder of his ex-boss. But he takes an immediate liking to Frank and his clear dedication to his dog, and ends up with his first case along with the two dogs.

THE WHITE CROW, Michael Robotham
(July 1)
Philomena McCarthy #2
A young London police officer—whose family are well-known criminals—tackles two intertwined cases involving a child who may have killed their parent and a violent jewel theft.

THE RED SHORE, William Shaw
(July 3 in the U.K.)
DS Eden Driscoll #1
Met detective Eden Driscoll never wanted a child, but when his estranged sister vanishes from her sailboat, he is asked to look after her son Finn – the nephew he hadn’t even known existed.
Resettled in the seaside town of Teignmouth, Eden adjusts to his newfound parenthood. Then Finn disappears from school, and Eden knows something is dreadfully wrong.
When Eden’s sister’s body is finally found, floating in the sea, local police rule her death an accident, but Eden isn’t convinced. She was an experienced sailor and would never sail without a life jacket. Eden starts searching his sister’s life for answers, and what he discovers changes everything.

WHAT THE NIGHT BRINGS, Mark Billingham
(July 8)
Tom Thorne #19
The targeted murder of four officers is only the first in a series of attacks that leaves police scared, angry and, most disturbingly of all, vengeful. As Tom Thorne and Nicola Tanner dig into the reasons for the violence, a deeper darkness begins to emerge: the possibility that these murders are payback. The price paid for an unspeakable betrayal.

THE FROZEN PEOPLE, Elly Griffiths
(July 8)
Ally Dawson #1
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they’re frozen—or so their inside joke goes. Ali’s work seems like a safe desk job, but what her friends—and even her beloved son—don’t know is that her team has a secret: they can travel back in time to look for evidence.

OUR LAST RESORT, Clémence Michallon
(July 7)
Frida and Gabriel arrive seeking a fresh start at the stunning Ara Hotel in the secluded desert of Escalante, Utah. Once so close they were able to finish each other’s sentences, they’ve grown apart in recent years after a sudden, unspeakable tragedy. Now, at the luxe resort, they are ready to reconnect between dips in the pool and hikes on spectacular desert trails. It all feels like paradise—until the dead body of a beautiful young woman who was vacationing at the Ara with her powerful, much older husband is discovered. When the local police arrive and put the resort into lockdown, Gabriel and Frida are forced to revisit memories from their upbringing in a cloistered cult in upstate New York, led by a charismatic and fanatical leader. It was their dramatic, fiery escape from his control fifteen years earlier that bonded them for life—or so Frida thought.

THE BLUE HORSE, Bruce Borgos
(July 8)
Porter Beck #3
A controversial wild horse round-up in the high desert of Nevada results in two murders and too many suspects for Sheriff Porter Beck to deal with.

THE GIRL IN CELL A, Vaseem Khan
(July 8)
Convicted of murder at seventeen, infamous killer and true crime celebrity Orianna Negi has always maintained her innocence. Orianna has a blind spot over that fateful day: she can’t remember what happened. Forensic psychologist Annie Ledet is tasked with unlocking the truth.

THE WOMAN IN SUITE 11, Ruth Ware
(July 8)
A former travel journalist tries to reignite her career with a trip to a luxury Swiss hotel, where she meets a desperate woman who claims to be the mistress of the hotel’s billionaire owner.

CARVED IN BLOOD, Michael Bennett
(July 15)
Hana Westerman #3
When Detective Inspector Jaye Hamilton stops at an Auckland liquor store for a bottle of champagne, it is supposed to be celebratory: his daughter Addison has just gotten engaged. Instead, he is suddenly gunned down at the register by a balaclava-clad assailant in what appears at first to be a random act. The getaway car is quickly recovered, containing the cell phone of a young Maori man, Toa Davis, who is immediately the object of an all-out police search.
Jaye’s ex-wife, former Maori detective Hana Westerman, asks in on the investigation. Her instincts suggest that the vehicle was meant to be found, and that Jaye had been targeted.

THE HOUSE AT DEVIL’S NECK, Tom Mead
(July 15)
Joseph Spector #4
An apparent suicide in a London townhouse uncannily mirrors a similar incident from twenty-five years ago, prompting Scotland Yard’s George Flint to delve deep into the past in search of the solution to a long-forgotten mystery.
Meanwhile, Joseph Spector travels with a coach party through the rainy English countryside to visit an allegedly haunted house on a lonely island called Devil’s Neck. The house, first built by a notorious alchemist and occultist, was later used as a field hospital in the First World War before falling into disrepair. The visitors hold a seance to conjure the spirit of a long-dead soldier. But when a storm floods the narrow causeway connecting Devil’s Neck to the mainland, they find themselves stranded in the haunted house. Before long, the guests begin to die one by one, and it seems that the only possible culprit is the phantom soldier.

PARIAH, Dan Fesperman
(July 22)
Hal Knight, a comedian and movie star-turned politician, is no stranger to controversy. But after a disastrous #MeToo encounter on set, Knight resigns from Congress, quits social media, and disappears to the tiny Caribbean island of Vieques to drink dirty martinis and nurse his wounds. Shortly after his arrival, he is approached by a trio of CIA operatives hoping to recruit him to infiltrate the power structure of Bolrovia—a hostile, Eastern European country whose despotic president, Nikolai Horvatz, happens to be a longtime fan of Knight’s adolescent male humor. Knowing that Horvatz plans to invite the disgraced star for an official visit, the CIA coaxes Knight to accept. Skeptical, but with little to lose, Knight accepts the challenge, sensing this might be his one chance to do something worthwhile, even if no one else ever finds out.

THERE WILL BE BODIES, Lindsey Davis
(July 22)
Flavia Albia #13
In first century Rome, Flavia Albia?daughter and successor to Marcus Didius Falco?is once again faced with uncovering the truth. Quite literally. Only ten year’s previous, Mount Vesuvius erupted and rained ash down about the Roman cities and towns along the Bay of Naples. But while some cities were destroyed, others were merely badly damaged. And the uncle of Flavia Albia’s husband seizes the opportunity to buy a villa…cheap! It just has to be dug out of the ash, and restored. Oh, and any bodies uncovered, including the previous owner, given a proper burial.
And as the Villa is being renovated, there are indeed bodies found. But one is not like the others – instead of buried in the ash, the previous owner’s body is found in a locked storeroom and Albia is immediately suspicious that he didn’t die in the eruption.

DEAD LINE, Marc Cameron
(July 29)
Arliss Cutter #7
Deputy U.S. Marshal Arliss Cutter and his partner brave the unforgiving, brutal Alaskan wilderness of snow and ice to save a government witness from cold-blooded assassins.

SHE DIDN’T SEE IT COMING, Shari Lapena
(July 29)
Bryden and Sam have it all: thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condominium, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple.
Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden – working from home that day – has failed to collect their daughter from daycare. Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall. Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out.

MEAN MOMS, Emma Rosenblum
(July 29)
Meet Frost, Morgan, and Belle?a wealthy, gorgeous group of New York City moms, the queen bees of downtown Manhattan. Their children attend Atherton Seminary, the top private school in the city, and their social lives revolve around elaborate themed parties. On the first day of school, the arrival of a new mom and mysterious beauty from Miami named Sofia shakes up their world. When Sofia quickly integrates herself into their clique, inexplicably bad things start to happen to the women.

YOU BELONG HERE, Megan Miranda
(July 29)
A decades-old secret that drove a mother from her hometown now threatens her college-bound daughter.

GUESS AGAIN, Charlie Donlea
(July 29)
Ten years ago, 17-year-old high school volleyball star Callie Jones vanished from her quiet Wisconsin lake community. A highly publicized search followed but her body was never found. The case went cold, but the echoes still linger.
Ethan Hall, a former renegade detective turned ER doctor, left law enforcement to escape the horrors of the kid crime division. But on the tenth anniversary of Callie’s disappearance, his former partner, Pete Kramer, makes a desperate request. Pete is the veteran detective who originally investigated the case. Now he’s dying, and to ease his conscience and get closure for the Jones family, he needs Ethan to return to the haunting work he left behind—and solve what happened to Callie, once and for all.

August, 2025

MISSISSIPPI BLUE 42, Eli Cranor
(August 5)
FBI Special Agent Rae Johnson #1
Special Agent Rae Johnson grew up on football fields alongside her father, a national-championship-winning coach. Which is exactly why, fresh out of Quantico, she is sent down to Compson, Mississippi, to investigate the illicit money flowing into a bustling football program in the heart of the Delta. But two days into the assignment, things take a dire turn when UCM’s star quarterback is flung off a college bar’s roof, lands on a bag of money, and dies.

FOR DUCK’S SAKE, Donna Andrews
(August 5)
Meg Langslow #37
Meg is in the backyard of the house her brother Rob, Delaney, and their new baby have moved into, supervising some workmen who are using a bulldozer to start digging out a duck pond. She wants to get away from her own house, which has become the staging site for Caerphilly’s first Mutt March, which will be held the next day. Meg thinks it will be more peaceful at Rob’s house–and it is until the bulldozers uncover a skeleton whose skull has a hole and a bullet rattling around inside.

EVIL BONES, Kathy Reichs
(August 5)
Temperance Brennan #24
Small creatures—a rat, a rabbit, a squirrel—have been turning up throughout Charlotte, North Carolina, mutilated and displayed in the same bizarre manner. But one day, as Tempe is relaxing at home alongside her aimless, moody great-niece Tory, she’s diverted by a disturbing call. Now, it seems, the perp is upping the ante. This find is larger. Could the remains be human?

KISS HER GOODBYE, Lisa Gardner
(August 12)
Frankie Elkin #4
Recent Afghan refugee Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband seems unconcerned. Sabera’s closest friend, however, is convinced Sabera would never willingly leave her three-year old daughter. At her insistence, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search through the broiling streets of Tucson. Just in time for a video of the young mother to surface—showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder.

GONE IN THE NIGHT, Joanna Schaffhausen
(August 12)
Annalisa Vega #5
Detective Annalisa Vega hasn’t forgiven her brother for his role in a murder, and he hasn’t forgiven her for turning him in, so she’s surprised when he asks her to visit him in prison. Turns out, he has a possible case for her: one of his fellow inmates, Joe Green, may be innocent of the murder that landed him behind bars.

THE FINAL VOW, M. W. Craven
(August 14 – in U.K – I think)
Poe & Tilly #7
No plot summary available

HATCHET GIRLS, Joe R. Lansdale
(August 19)
Hap & Leonard #14
When Hap and Leonard are called in on a strange request (subduing a meth-hopped hog) by a desperate young lady, they quickly learn this woman is part of a fringe group: The Hatchet Girls, who have pledged their allegiance to a crazed and grudge-bearing leader bent on bloody societal revenge. The timing couldn’t be worse to be caught in such a vile, sticky wicket of a case: both boys are wrapped up in their domestic lives: Leonard is in the midst of wedding planning with fiancee, Pookie. And meanwhile, Hap and Brett are hard at work on their new home. Homemaking bliss will have to wait as Hap and Leonard are driven to stop the danger in its tracks and better understand the group’s mission and the plans they have already set in place for helter-skelter esque mayhem.

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD, Ace Atkins
(August 19)
No plot summary available

THE TOURISTS, Christopher Reich
(August 26)
Mac Decker #2
No plot summary available

CARNIVAL OF LIES, D. V. Bishop
(August 26)
Cesare Aldo #5
Venice. Winter, 1539. When Cesare Aldo learns of a conspiracy to assassinate Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, he is hired to protect the ruler of Florence. The deadly attack leads to bodies, bloodshed – and something far more dangerous. The instigators obtain a secret journal of Cosimo’s thoughts and strategies that – in the wrong hands – could destroy all of Florence. Aldo must hunt down those responsible and reclaim the journal, or face banishment from the city and everyone he loves.

September, 2025

CLOWN TOWN, Mick Herron
(September 2)
Slow Horses #9
“Old spies grow ridiculous, River. Old spies aren’t much better than clowns.” Or so David Cartwright used to say, but he forgot to add they can be dangerous too, especially if they’ve fallen on hard times—as Diana Taverner learns when the past lands on her desk. An operation carried out during the height of the Troubles laid bare the ugly side of state security, and those involved are threatening to expose details. But every threat hides an opportunity, and the would-be blackmailer is soon being used as Taverner’s solution to a much newer problem.
The O.B. himself is long buried, and has left his library to the Spooks’ College, where it turns out that one of the books has gone missing. Or perhaps never existed . . . River Cartwright has time to kill while waiting to be passed fit for work, and investigating the secrets his grandfather’s library hid seems a harmless activity. But nothing involving the slow horses stays harmless for long.

KANE, Graham Hurley
(September 2 – in U.K.)
Spoils of War #10

Quincy Kane, former star of the Boston Police Department and scourge of organised crime, finds himself guarding the most important man in the country: President Roosevelt. Kane’s trusted position reflects his meteoric rise in the Secret Service. Then Imperial Japan attacks the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. For Kane, US entry to World War Two means he is soon tasked with the most crucial mission of his career: a complex scheme of bribery and subterfuge that could change the course of the conflict and save thousands of Allied lives. To succeed, he will have to return to the world of organised crime, a web that is spun from the home of Hollywood, Tinseltown itself: Los Angeles, where every gangster has Quincy Kane in their crosshairs. His mission is set to take him across the Atlantic… but first Kane must survive the City of Angels.

THE HALLMARKED MAN, Robert Galbraith
(September 9)
Cormoran Strike #8
No plot summary available

THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING CRIME WRITER, Ragnar Jonasson
(September 9)
One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing. There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before its leaked to the press. As Helgi interviews the people closest to her – a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge – he realizes that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote. As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of the writer’s very unexpected life.

THE DEEPEST CUT, P. J. Tracy
(September 9)
Monkeewrench #11
Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth arrest a sadistic pair of killers for the murder of several women with the help of Monkeewrench, their eccentric, cyber-sleuth friends and partners. One of the killers dies in custody and the other, Wolfgang Mauer, is sent to a maximum security mental hospital in a rural corner of Minnesota. There, Mauer plots his escape–and his vengeance. With the help of his mother, a former militia leader and assassin living an extravagant, reclusive life, he schemes to get out of the mental hospital and hunt down the detectives and the Monkeewrench crew that got him a life sentence.

MURDER ON THE MARLOW BELLE, Robert Thorogood
(September 16)
Marlow Murder Club #4
Verity Beresford is worried about her husband. Oliver didn’t come home last night, so of course Verity goes straight to Judith Potts, Marlow’s resident amateur sleuth, for help. Oliver, founder of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, had hired The Marlow Belle, a private pleasure cruiser, for an exclusive party with the MADS committee but no one remembers seeing him disembark. And then Oliver’s body washes up on the Thames with two bullet holes in him. It’s time for the Marlow Murder Club to leap into action.

OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES, Clare Mackintosh
(September 16)
The Hill is the kind of place everyone wants to live: luxurious, exclusive and safe. But now someone is breaking and entering these Cheshire homes one by one, and DS Leo Brady suspects the burglar is looking for something, or someone, in particular. Over the border in Wales, DC Ffion Morgan recovers the body of an estate agent from the lake. There’s no love lost between Ffion and estate agents, but who hated this one enough to want her dead – and why? As their cases collide, Ffion and Leo discover people will pay a high price to keep their secrets behind closed doors

A BITTER WIND, James R. Benn
(September 23)
Billy Boyle #20
After his last mission put him in the tailspin of the Battle of the Bulge, Captain Billy Boyle travels to southeast England to visit his girlfriend, Diana Seaton, for a brief holiday respite. Diana is engaged in classified work at RAF Hawkinge, including Operation Corona, which recruits German-speaking Women’s Auxiliary Air Force members—many of them Jewish refugees from the Kindertransport rescue mission—to countermand German orders and direct night fighters away from Allied combat bombers. It’s fascinating and critical espionage work, but it’s laced with peril, as Billy is soon to find out.

Clive Cussler’s THE SERPENT’S EYE, Robin Burcell
(September 30)
Fargo #13
No plot summary available.

UNTITLED, Richard Osman
(September 30)
Thursday Murder Club #
No plot summary available

October, 2025

SILENT BONES, Val McDermid
(October 7)
Karen Pirie #8
No plot summary available

FALLEN STAR, Lee Goldberg
(October 14)
Eve Ronin #6
No plot summary available

ICARUS 17, Charles Cumming
(October 25)
Box 88 #4
In Stockholm, BOX 88 intelligence chief Lachlan Kite has barely finished dealing with the lone gunman shot dead on the doorstep when his former girlfriend, Martha Raine, comes knocking. Her 24-year-old son, Max, has disappeared and Martha is desperate to track him down.
Together with the BOX 88 team, Lachlan discovers Max is in a relationship with a woman operating under a false identity, and the young couple have a team of Balkan mercenaries on their tail. As the mission hurtles toward a collision between rival spy networks, Lachlan finds himself at the intersection of his past and his present. To save Max and prevent a geopolitical catastrophe, he must navigate a world where loyalty is fluid, danger is constant, and even BOX 88’s unparalleled reach may not be enough.

THE BLACK WOLF, Louise Penny
(October 28)
Armand Gamache #20
No plot summary available

THE KING’S RANSOM, Janet Evanovich
(October 28)
Recovery Agent #2
Gabriela Rose, recovery agent extraordinaire, can find just about anything. Too bad she can’t seem to lose her gorgeous-but-infuriating ex-husband Rafer Jones. And now he needs her help. His cousin, Harley, is in trouble…big trouble. As the president of a too-big-to-fail bank, Harley invested an astronomical amount of money in insuring some of the world’s most priceless artifacts at the urging of his board. It seemed like a low-risk, high-reward business move, so he jumped in with both feet. But recently, these insured pieces started going missing and worse, there’s no paper trail of Harley being directed to make these risky investments.

November, 2025

WILD INSTINCT, T. Jefferson Parker
(November 11)
Lew Gale, a former Marine sniper, now an Orange County California Sheriff’s detective, is assigned to track and shoot a mountain lion that has killed a man in Caspers Park, located in the rugged country east of Laguna Beach, California. The victim is Bennet Tarlow, a rich developer and man-about-town in upscale coastal Orange County.
The investigation takes an unexpected—and chilling—turn when Lew and his deputy sheriff arrive at the kill site in the Santa Ana mountains, only to discover that Bennet was dead before the lion got to him. And while Bennet might have been the first to die, he certainly will not be the last.

THE QUEEN WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, S. J. Bennett
(November 11)
Her Majesty the Queen #5
It’s 1961 and the Queen is planning her state visit to Italy aboard Britannia. But before she goes, an unreliable witness claims to have seen a brutal murder from the royal train. Did it really happen, and could the victim be a missing friend of Princess Margaret’s new husband, Tony Armstrong Jones? The Queen and her assistant private secretary, Joan McGraw, get to work on their second joint investigation, little imagining that this time it will take them all the way to Venice in a tale of spies, lies and Cold War skulduggery.

BLOOD OATH, Steve Unszenyi
(November 18)
Alexandra Martel #3
CIA Special Agent Alexandra Martel is on safari in Tanzania with her father, a retired US Army general, when they encounter a group of wildlife rangers under attack. After a gunfight, Alex and her father return to their camp, where they discover the unexpected arrival of Alex’s boss, CIA Branch Chief Caleb Copeland.
The following day, Alex’s father is kidnapped. Feeling guilty for not anticipating the danger, Alex assembles a crack team of mercenaries to track down her father. With the help of Caleb’s elite unit and another CIA paramilitary officer, they embark on a dangerous mission to rescue the general from a terrorist network that has plans to sell him to a major African-based terrorist organization in exchange for deadly technology.

December, 2025

THE QUIET MOTHER, Arnaldur Indridason
(December 9)
Detective Konrad #3
A woman is found murdered in her home. On her desk is a note with a phone number and a name: Detective Konrad. Called in to investigate, Konrad realises he met the woman shortly before her death when she asked him for help locating the child she’d given up for adoption fifty years earlier. Distressed at having declined her request, Konrad vows to make up for it. Could her murder and the search for her missing child be linked?