Clever Little Thing is an impressively twisty thriller, but it’s also a testament to a mother’s intuition and love for her child.
Jeffery Deaver’s Colter Shaw series—which also now serves as the source material for Tracker, a hit TV show on CBS—follows the titular character as he searches for missing people and, inevitably, stumbles upon a crime he must put right. For his fifth adventure, Colter travels to Northern California to find a family that’s lost in the rising floodwaters as a nearby levee fails.
Harlan Coben’s extensive backlist has proved fertile ground for Netflix in recent years, with adaptations of the thriller master’s effortlessly engaging novels frequently becoming the most watched shows on the platform. Fool Me Once, based on Coben’s novel of the same name, was an enormous hit, and so the ever-savvy Coben has penned a sequel of sorts: Nobody’s Fool, which follows former detective Sami Kierce of Fool Me Once as he investigates a mystery from his past.
Andrea Bartz’s thrillers are marvelous marriages of ripped-from-the-headlines plots and nuanced character work, the perfect read to while away a day by the pool or on a blanket in a park. So The Last Ferry Out had a near-guaranteed spot on our summer reading list, even before we heard its juicy premise: A woman travels to the island paradise where her fiancée died to find closure, and befriends a charming group of expats. But then one of the expats vanishes—right after saying he knows the truth about what happened to her fiancée.
We loved both of Julie Clark’s two previous novels, The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell, both of which were international bestsellers. So we can’t wait to get our hands on The Ghostwriter, which follows Olivia, the titular character, as she prepares for her most challenging job yet: writing her father’s last book. A legendary horror writer who was suspected of killing his siblings, Olivia’s father is finally ready to reveal the truth.
Reese Witherspoon has built a reputation as one of our most literary celebrities by helming her very influential book club, green-lighting approximately a gajillion book adaptations and writing her own picture book series. But this fall, she’ll release her very first novel for adults, with the help of blockbuster thriller author Harlan Coben. As with the new Thursday Murder Club mystery, there’s no word yet on what the book will be about, but the presence of Coben is certainly intriguing, and may hint that Witherspoon isn’t interested in working in the Big Little Lies mode that many might assume she would gravitate toward.
The lauded author of All the Sinners Bleed (our Best Mystery of 2023), S.A. Cosby has become one of the kings of Southern noir thanks to his fusion of genre thrills with matter-of-fact social commentary. His next novel, King of Ashes, is reportedly inspired by The Godfather, and there are few people better suited to provide a new take on that classic saga than Cosby, who understands that there are few things more American than crime.
Falling in love with a Russian photographer seemed like a blessing to Paul Brightman—until threats from her oligarch father have him running for his life.
A stolen parking spot leads to murder in Alafair Burke’s twisty thriller, The Note.
Melissa Larsen’s must-read debut thriller, The Lost House, is a note-perfect example of Nordic noir—written by an American.
Sara Sligar’s Vantage Point is an entertaining literary companion to shows like Succession, but also a chilling warning about the rise of deepfake technology.
A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
This eerie, Christmastime thriller boasts an absolutely diabolical final twist.
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