Ann Cleeves’ The Dark Wives is a standout entry in her Vera Stanhope series, a crackerjack mystery with a clear political conscience.
A murder-mystery party blurs the lines between dramatic artifice and harsh reality in Kate Atkinson’s sixth Jackson Brodie mystery.
Attica Locke’s language is precise, refreshing and often beautiful in Guide Me Home, the final installment in the literary triumph that is her Highway 59 mystery series.
In Alan Bradley’s 11th mystery starring preteen sleuth Flavia de Luce, the chemistry prodigy faces murder by mushroom and her own impending adulthood.
In We Solve Murders, Richard Osman accomplishes the seemingly impossible: a cozy mystery-thriller mashup.
Rough Pages, Lev AC Rosen’s third postwar noir starring gay PI Andy Mills, is as unsettling as it is vital.
Gripping, disturbing and absolutely wild, The Sequel is a more than worthy, well, sequel, to Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot.
In Karla’s Choice, author Nick Harkaway ably updates his father’s iconic George Smiley novels while lovingly preserving the tone and mood of the original novels.
Regency romance author Vanessa Kelly hops genres but not time periods for this series starter, which follows Emma Knightley (née Woodhouse) as she solves crimes in her little town of Highbury, England. Mysteries inspired by or starring Jane Austen are certainly common, but Emma is an inspired choice for a sleuth: She loves gossip, has a great deal of freedom thanks to her status as Highbury’s queen bee, and is in desperate need of a meaningful hobby so she doesn’t fall back into old habits and start matchmaking again. Equally inspired is Kelly’s choice of first victim: the detestable Mrs. Elton.
The Grey Wolf is far and away Louise Penny’s most ambitious mystery to date, landing Gamache and his team squarely into the middle of an ecoterrorism plot.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
Plus, Colleen Cambridge gifts readers with another clever mystery starring Phyllida Bright, housekeeper to none other than Agatha Christie.
Got a serious bibliophile on your list? Tick that box with one of these titles.
The Author’s Guide to Murder is a triple-perspective, locked-room mystery that’s long on suspense, sass and sumptuous Scottish scenery.
In Murder Town, the acclaimed Australian author investigates the allure of so-called “dark tourism.”