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.
Melissa Larsen’s debut thriller is a chilly masterpiece, plus new cases for Elvis Cole and Professor Galileo in this month’s Whodunit.
Fans of fierce looks and found family will devour Murder in the Dressing Room, a funny and engaging cozy mystery set in the world of drag.
Astrid Dahl’s The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey, a murder mystery set on a Housewives-style reality show, effectively straddles the line between dark humor and genuine suspense.
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.
These fresh takes on the dark corners of suspense are like a breath of cold, fresh air.
Paraic O’Donnell inserts touches of humor and insight without lessening the tension in his breathtaking gothic historical mystery, The Naming of the Birds.