In The Heiress—a novel of suspense set in the very-hot-right-now world of old money luxury—the twists, turns and betrayals just keep coming, all guided by Rachel Hawkins’ skilled hand.
Alex Michaelides blends Greek mythology and Agatha Christie to tantalizing effect in The Fury, which centers a reclusive, extremely famous actor and her circle of friends—one of whom is murdered during a trip to the actor’s private Greek island.
Speaking of formally impressive, Janice Hallett is back with another uniquely structured mystery. This time around, she’s combining the email format of her debut (The Appeal) with the audio transcriptions of her sophomore novel (The Twyford Code) to track the process of true crime author Amanda Bailey. Amanda is attempting to write the definite book on the Alperton Angels doomsday cult, and through the emails she sends and the interviews she conducts, it becomes clear that the case is not nearly as cut and dried as she first assumed.
It’s been five years since Flynn’s debut thriller, The Woman in the Window, was seemingly everywhere. In the time since, a sadly abysmal film adaptation was released and a scandalous New Yorker article investigated his past, but now a sophomore novel is finally in sight. Billed as “part Knives Out, part Agatha Christie,” End of Story centers on mystery novelist Sebastian Trapp, who invites Nicky Hunter, an expert on detective fiction, to his luxurious home to help draft his memoirs. But while there, Nicky becomes obsessed with solving the mysterious disappearance of Sebastian’s first wife and son.
Tana French’s immersive, thought-provoking The Hunter revels in the quiet moments, but knows true peace is elusive.
Dervla McTiernan is the connoisseur’s pick for smart, suspenseful thrillers, and her next novel sounds like another surefire winner. When a young couple’s vacation goes horribly wrong and only one of them comes home, both sets of parents go to war against each other in the public sphere. Add in the internet’s toxic, conspiratorial twist on true crime, and things quickly get combustible.
Ah, the allure of the prewar New York City apartment, an allure that has only grown stronger thanks to rage-inducing real estate prices. In Lisa Unger’s thriller, Rosie and Chad Lowen fall prey to a beautiful Big Apple building with murderous secrets beneath its floorboards, the latest of which is one of their neighbors mysteriously dying right after they move in.
There is a very specific type of historical mystery that goes like this: A female sleuth (often convention-defying in some way) teams up with a man (often more respectable, whether by birth or profession) to solve crimes and as the series progresses, they fall in love. The absolute queen of this subgenre—rivaled only by Sherry Thomas—is Deanna Raybourn, whose Veronica Speedwell mysteries are eagerly anticipated by her legion of fans. This time around, Veronica and her beau, Stoker, discover that a wax figure of a woman is actually an extremely well-preserved corpse, and they are soon on the trail of their most dangerous enemy yet.
Gillian Flynn’s new mystery & suspense imprint got off to a great start last year with Scorched Grace, poet Margot Douaihy’s debut mystery starring a queer and very punk New Orleans nun named Sister Holiday. Delightfully, this sequel sees Sister Holiday teaming up with Magnolia Riveaux, the fire inspector assigned to Scorched Grace’s arson spree, to form a new detective agency. Their first case? Figuring out who murdered a priest, all while extreme rains threaten to flood the city.
Frankie Elkin is author Lisa Gardner’s most recent creation, but she’s already well on her way to joining the ranks of Gardner’s other beloved sleuths like D.D. Warren, Pierce Quincy and Kimberly Quincy. An empathetic loner who searches for long-missing people, Frankie embarks on her most challenging case yet when she tries to crack a 12-year-old cold case presented to her by serial killer Kaylee Pierson. Pierson is going to be executed for her crimes in three weeks, but before she dies, she wants Frankie to try and find out what happened to her sister, Leilani.
Chris Bohjalian’s latest thriller, The Princess of Las Vegas is a thrilling symphony of run-down casinos, teenage hackers and royal impersonators with multiple mysteries at its core.
Sulari Gentill’s marvelous The Woman in the Library was praised by critics and fans alike, and her next mystery is another twisty novel set in the literary world: Aspiring author Theo Benton’s lover and mentor has been murdered, and her brother is the prime suspect.
Ever since “Mare of Easttown” aired and utterly riveted mystery fans everywhere, there’s been a wave of similar somewhat gloomy small town whodunits. Megan Miranda’s next thriller is a clever spin on the trend in that it centers on the daughter of a local detective, who returns to her childhood home after inheriting it and begins uncovering secrets that could explain her mother’s disappearance years earlier.
Close to Death offers a supremely engrossing and expertly plotted whodunit that will challenge and delight even the most well-read mystery fans.
Beloved, critically acclaimed romance author Alyssa Cole made her thriller debut with 2020’s When No One Is Watching, and now she returns with another creative and suspenseful premise: Kenetria Nash has dissociative identity disorder and is a caretaker for a historic home on an isolated island. When a surprise visit from the members of the home’s trust ends in murder, Ken and her alternate personalities have to find the killer to clear their name.
Chicago PI V.I. Warshawski heads to Kansas in Sara Paretsky’s Pay Dirt, where she gets wrapped up in the case of a missing college student and runs afoul of both the FBI and the local opioid dealers.
Think Jurassic Park, but with woolly mammoths. Megabestselling author Douglas Preston (he of Preston & Child fame) is setting his latest thriller in an exclusive resort in Colorado where prehistoric beasts roam free. Come for the mammoth, stay for the giant ground sloth.
Australia’s finest thriller writer since Liane Moriarty, Sally Hepworth has found the perfect combination of character-based drama and completely unpredictable plots. Her latest rollercoaster of a novel follows three women who escaped a strict and mercurial foster mother when they were children, only to be reunited with her when bones are found on her property and the women are called in for questioning by the police.
Kellye Garrett’s stark yet entertaining thriller Missing White Woman offers a Black woman’s perspective on the true crime industrial complex.
Having written some of the most idiosyncratic and haunting classics of modern sci-fi (Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion), Dan Simmons has in recent years turned his attention to historical thrillers that may be more down to earth, but are no less chilling. Now, the author of The Terror and The Abominable will turn his attention to the high-pressure environment of America’s nuclear weapons program at the height of World War II. Paul Haber is a German physicist who was banished by the Nazis and lost his wife and child to the horrors of a concentration camp. But then a Nazi spy approaches Paul and asks him to turn traitor, as his family is actually alive.
Stuart Turton has only written two books, but since those two books are the stone-cold masterpieces that are The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water, he is entitled to take as much time as he wants in between releases. He will be gracing us a widely creative new whodunit this spring, set on an island that is the last safe place in the world after an unspecified apocalypse. The inhabitants of the island are kept safe by three scientists, but when one of the scientists dies, the villagers have to solve the crime before their home is overrun by the same mysterious fog that’s choked out all other life.
After three marvelous and critically acclaimed Alice Vega mysteries, Louisa Luna will return with a very Hitchcockian-sounding thriller. New York City psychiatrist Dr. Carolyn Strange’s life is upended when a new patient tells her two terrifying things: I am going to kill someone, and I know who you really are. Carolyn soon becomes the prime suspect in a woman’s disappearance, and goes on the run to evade the police and catch her possibly murderous patient herself.
With an emphasis on psychological versus physical terror, Darling Girls is a one-sitting read full of twists and turns.
Close to Death offers a supremely engrossing and expertly plotted whodunit that will challenge and delight even the most well-read mystery fans.
Sara Koffi’s While We Were Burning is a searing thriller that dares readers to question their own perspectives on everyday, casual racism.
Plus, the latest whodunits from Sulari Gentill, Robbie Morrison and Sara Paretsky round out a great month in suspense fiction.
In Daughter of Mine, Megan Miranda commits to her flirtation with gothic elements, embracing all things creepy, unexplainable and unreliable.
With top notch humor and endearing relationships, The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties is a satisfying conclusion to Jesse Q. Sutanto’s beloved series.
All whodunit fans know that little country towns are really dens of sin.
Chris Bohjalian’s latest thriller, The Princess of Las Vegas is a thrilling symphony of run-down casinos, teenage hackers and royal impersonators with multiple mysteries at its core.
Our mystery columnist hails Juan Gómez-Jurado’s Antonia Scott novels as the best suspense series since Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy.
These books turn the voyeuristic gaze of true crime back upon the reader. You may not like what you find.
Fans of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries certainly won’t be disappointed with this latest, more gothic installment—and they’ll be thrilled to see Veronica and Stoker happily in love.
The best new books of the month include highly anticipated follow-ups from Sloane Crosley, Sasha LaPointe and Juan Gómez-Jurado.
