Spring highlights range from bestseller Stephen King’s End of Watch, a crime novel that concludes a trilogy, to newcomer Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney, a supernatural thriller originally published by a specialty press in the U.K.
Mysteries & Thrillers Top 10
City of the Lost
Kelley Armstrong. Minotaur, May 3
Canadian author Kelly, a bestseller in both adult and YA paranormal as well as urban fantasy, brings her talent for worldbuilding and creating characters with depth to a new mystery series.
The Considerate Killer
Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnette Friis. Soho Crime, Mar. 1
This is the fourth and final volume in this Danish crime series. It began with 2011’s The Boy in the Suitcase, which has been translated into 30 languages and has sold half a million copies.
The Dead Don’t Bleed
David Krugler. Pegasus Crime, June 6
Paul Boyer, author of By the Bomb’s Early Light, calls historian Krugler’s WWII thriller “deeply researched and engagingly written,” offering “imagined—but firmly grounded—scenarios of the chaos an actual nuclear attack would surely have unleashed.”
End of Watch
Stephen King. Scribner, June 7
MWA Grand Master King concludes his crime trilogy that began with 2014’s Mr. Mercedes, which won an Edgar Award for best novel, and continued with 2015’s Finders Keepers.
An Honorable Man
Paul Vidich. Atria/Bestler, Apr. 12
Olen Steinhauer says that Vidich’s first novel, a Cold War spy thriller set in 1953, is “wonderful—an unputdownable mole hunt written in terse, noirish prose, driving us inexorably forward.”
The Loney
Andrew Michael Hurley. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 10
First published in 2014 by a tiny specialty press in the U.K., Hurley’s debut, a supernatural thriller, has been sold to 11 territories. Stephen King calls it “an amazing piece of fiction.”
Maestra
L.S. Hinton. Putnam, Apr. 19
The first in a trilogy, Hinton’s psychological thriller has already sold publication rights in more than 25 countries, and Sony’s TriStar Pictures has optioned the book with Amy Pascal’s Pascal Pictures producing.
Missing Pieces
Heather Gudenkauf. Mira, Feb. 2
Bestselling author Gudenkauf makes her hardcover debut with her fifth novel, which Jennifer McMahon calls an “emotional roller-coaster of suspense that will keep you guessing.”
Redemption Road
John Hart. St. Martin’s/Dunne, May 3
Fans of bestseller Hart, the only author to win back-to-back Edgars for best novel, have waited five years for this crime novel. Emi Battaglia, president of Thomas Dunne Books, calls it “simply astounding.”
The Widow
Fiona Barton. NAL, Feb. 16
Barton’s first novel has sold rights in more than 20 countries. Kara Welsh, senior v-p/publisher of the Berkley Publishing Group, calls this British author an “exciting, fresh new voice in suspense,” and the book will appeal to fans of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl
Mysteries & Thrillers Listings
Akashic
Necropolis by Avtar Singh (June 14, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-61775-380-0). Sajan Dayal, a Delhi detective, pursues a serial (though nonlethal) collector of human fingers. Dayal’s team encounters would-be vampires and werewolves, plus a woman named Razia who may or may not be centuries old.
Amazon/Thomas & Mercer
The God’s Eye View by Barry Eisler (Feb. 2, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-5039-5151-8). Evelyn Gallagher’s job at the NSA pays for the private schooling of her deaf son, Dash. But when Evelyn discovers the existence of a secret program linked to the mysterious deaths of a string of journalists and whistle-blowers, her doubts put her and Dash in the crosshairs of a pair of government assassins.
Atlantic Monthly
The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon (Mar. 8, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-8021-2480-7). Commissario Guido Brunetti finds himself drawn into a 15-year-old case of a teenage girl who suffered brain damage after nearly drowning in a Venetian canal. Was it an accident—or can the man who rescued her, an alcoholic, be believed when he claims that the girl was thrown in?
Atria/Bestler
An Honorable Man by Paul Vidich (Apr. 12, hardcover, $24, ISBN 978-1-5011-1038-2). In Washington, D.C., in 1953, a double agent within the CIA is selling secrets to the Soviets. George Muller, the CIA man charged with identifying the mole, has secrets of his own.
Ballantine
Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon (Feb. 16, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-101-88586-4). Alex Dale’s destructive habits have cost her a marriage and a journalism career. Then she becomes involved in the case of Amy Stevenson, who has been in a coma for 15 years following a vicious assault.
Bantam
The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King (Apr. 5, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-0-804-17790-0). Mary Russell, the wife of Sherlock Holmes, has opened her heart to the couple’s longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson. Then a man who claims to be Mrs. Hudson’s son arrives on the doorstep with a gun in his hand.
Berkley
Back Blast by Mark Greaney (Feb. 16, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-425-28279-3). The CIA betrayed its best agent, Court Gentry (aka the Gray Man). Now Court is back in Washington, D.C., determined to find out what happened all those years ago that made the agency turn against him.
Bitter Lemon
(dist. by Consortium)
Betty Boo by Claudia Piñeiro, trans. by Miranda France (Feb. 9, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-908524-55-3). When a renowned Buenos Aires industrialist is found dead at his home in an exclusive gated community, the novelist Nurit Iscar covers the story. Nurit learns that the murder is no random crime, but one in a series that goes to the heart of the establishment.
Bloomsbury USA
Breaking Cover: A Liz Carlyle Novel by Stella Rimington (July 26, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-63286-526-7). A new Cold War is coming, and Liz Carlyle of MI5 finds herself on the hunt for a Russian spy on British soil—a spy whose intentions are unknown, and whose presence is a threat not only to Russian dissidents living in England but also to the security of the nation itself.
Counterpoint
(dist. by PGW)
Blood of the Oak by Eliot Pattison (Mar. 15, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-61902-615-5). In America in 1765, Duncan McCallum investigates ritualistic murders that are strangely connected to both the theft of an Iroquois artifact and a series of murders and kidnappings in the network of secret runners supporting those colonists engaged in the first organized political dissent against British rule.
Crooked Lane
(dist. by Legato Publishing Group)
Written Off: A Mysterious Detective Mystery by E.J. Copperman (June 14, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-62953-599-9). Rachel Goldman writes mysteries in which Duffy Madison, consultant to the county prosecutor’s office, helps find missing persons. When a man calls out of the blue asking for help in a missing persons case, he says he’s Duffy Madison. Is this real or has Rachel lost her mind?
Crown
The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton (Feb. 16, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-101-90367-4). Yasmin, a beautiful astrophysicist, and her precocious deaf daughter, Ruby, arrive in a remote part of Alaska to be told that Ruby’s father, Matt, has been the victim of a catastrophic accident. Unable to accept the account of his death as truth, Yasmin and Ruby set out into the hostile winter of the Alaskan tundra in search of answers.
Doubleday
Smoke by Dan Vyleta (May 24, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-385-54016-2). This suspense novel imagines an England of a century or so ago where people who are wicked in thought or deed are marked by smoke that pours forth from their bodies, a sign of their fallen state. Members of the aristocracy do not smoke.
Dutton
Find Her by Lisa Gardner (Feb. 9, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-0-525-95457-6). When Boston detective D.D. Warren is called to a crime scene—a dead man and the bound, naked woman who killed him—Warren learns that the woman, Flora Deane, has tangled with three other men suspected of preying on women. Is Flora a victim or a vigilante?
ECW
Triggerfish by Dietrich Kalteis (June 14, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-77041-153-1). Rennie Beckman is a dishonored ex-cop with only two things on his mind: his new boat, the Triggerfish, and his hot date, an environmentalist named Vicki. After the two unknowingly dock the boat in the same secluded cove as a Mexican drug cartel’s submarine, the date ends with a bang.
FSG/Crichton
Let the Devil Out: A Maureen Coughlin Novel by Bill Loehfelm (July 5, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-374-29857-9). A rookie New Orleans cop, Coughlin is suspended after a stinging brush with the corrupt heart of her adopted city. As she waits out the suspension, hoping to save her badge, Maureen believes getting back to the job she loves is worth any sacrifice.
Forge
Trail of Echoes by Rachel Howzell Hall (May 31, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-8117-0). When LAPD homicide detective Elouise “Lou” Norton investigates the murder of 13-year-old Chanita Lords, Lou is surprised to find Chanita lived in the apartment building she herself grew up in. Chanita’s death fits a chilling pattern of exceptional girls—dancers, artists, honors scholars—recently gone missing in the same school district.
Grand Central
The Killing Forest by Sara Blaedel (Feb. 2, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-4555-8154-2). The disappearance of a 15-year-old boy may be linked to a group of young men, including Danish Det. Insp. Louise Rick’s first great love, Klaus, who practiced rituals in the woods inspired by old Norse religious beliefs.
Grove/Atlantic/Mysterious
The Cellar by Minette Walters (Feb. 2, hardcover, $24, ISBN 978-0-8021-2451-7). In this crime novel set in present-day England, a family of well-to-do immigrants harbors a terrible secret: the young girl they call “daughter” is actually a slave.
Hard Case Crime
Pimp by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr (Mar. 15, trade paper, $9.95, ISBN 978-1-78329-569-2). Former drug kingpin Max Fisher stumbles on a designer drug that could put him back on top. Meanwhile, a femme fatale from his past has turned Hollywood producer of a series based on her and Max’s life story.
Harper
Journey to Munich: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear (Mar. 29, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-06-222060-8). In 1938, Britain’s Secret Service wants Maisie Dobbs to pose as a relative and travel to Nazi Germany to retrieve a British subject being held prisoner at Dachau.
Holt
Keep Calm by Mike Binder (Feb. 2, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-1-62779-347-6). Former Michigan detective Adam Tatum travels to 10 Downing Street to participate in a high-stakes conference. Immediately after his visit, a bomb detonates, wounding the prime minister and placing Adam squarely in the crosshairs of suspicion.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (May 10, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-0-544-74652-7). When the remains of a child are discovered during a winter storm on a bleak stretch of the Lancashire coast, a man named Smith is forced to confront the terrifying events that occurred 40 years earlier, when he visited the place as a boy.
Kensington
Wedding Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke (Feb. 23, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-61773-216-4). Baker Hannah Swensen of Lake Eden, Minn., is finally marrying Ross Barton, her college crush. Meanwhile, Alain Duquesne, a celebrity chef with a nasty reputation, is stabbed to death in the Lake Eden Inn’s walk-in cooler—before he’s even had a chance to taste Hannah’s Butterscotch Sugar Cookies.
Knopf
The Fall of Man in Wilmslow: The Death and Life of Alan Turing by David Lagercrantz (May 3, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-101-94669-5). When British mathematician Alan Turing is found dead in his home in 1954, everyone assumes that he committed suicide, unable to cope with the humiliation of a criminal conviction for homosexuality. But Det. Sgt. Leonard Corell suspects otherwise.
Little, Brown
You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott (July 26, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-316-23107-7). Katie and Eric Knox have dedicated their lives to their 15-year-old daughter, Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful. But when a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community just weeks before an all-important competition, everything the Knoxes have worked so hard for feels suddenly at risk.
LB/Mulholland
The Second Girl by David Swinson (June 7, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-316-26417-4). Frank Marr may be the best investigator Washington, D.C., has ever known, but he’s also a secret drug addict. After accidentally discovering a kidnapped teenage girl in the home of a drug gang, Frank becomes a hero and is thrust into the spotlight.
Minotaur
City of the Lost by Kelley Armstrong (May 3, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-250-09214-4). Homicide detective Casey Duncan retreats to a town off the gird to escape a vengeful mob boss. But after two violent deaths in the town, it’s clear there’s a murderer among them, in a classic locked room mystery.
Mira
Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf (Feb. 2, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-7783-1865-1). Sarah Quinlan’s husband, Jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother under mysterious circumstances. When Jack’s beloved aunt is in an accident, he and Sarah are forced to confront the past that they have long evaded.
Morrow
What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin (Feb. 23, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-0-06-236985-7). Five years after Kelly Lund is released from prison for shooting Oscar-nominated director John McFadden in 1980 when she was 17, her father-in-law, movie legend Sterling Marshall, is found dead in his home in the Hollywood Hills—from a shot to the head, just like his old friend John McFadden. Once again, Kelly is suspected of murder.
NAL
The Widow by Fiona Barton (Feb. 16, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-101-99026-1). London hairdresser Jean Taylor gets an emotional jolt after her husband, Glen, is fatally hit by a bus. Glen turns out to be the prime suspect in the kidnapping of a two-year-old girl four years earlier in Southampton.
Oceanview
(dist. by Midpoint)
Mortal Dilemma by H. Terrell Griffin (Apr. 5, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-60809-174-4). Jock Algren arrives on Longboat Key, Fla., in a state of depression and hopelessness. His most recent mission for a secretive U.S. government intelligence agency has been disastrous; then the bad guys show up and danger erupts on all fronts.
Overlook
Bad Signs by R.J. Ellory (Mar. 15, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-4683-1127-3). Half-brothers Clarence Luckman and Elliott Danziger have been raised in state institutions since an act of senseless violence claimed their mother’s life. Things only get worse when a convicted serial killer seizes them as hostages en route to death row.
Pantheon
Version Control by Dexter Palmer (Feb. 23, hardcover, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-307-90759-2). Rebecca Wright, who works in computer support for an Internet dating site, has gotten her life back after a personal tragedy. Meanwhile, Rebecca’s scientist husband, Philip, works on a causality violation device, popularly known as a time machine.
Pegasus Crime
(dist. by norton)
The Dead Don’t Bleed by David Krugler (June 6, hardcover, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-68177-139-7). When the corpse of a Navy Intelligence officer is found in a Washington, D.C., alley toward the end of WWII, Lt. Ellis Voigt investigates. Pursuing crosses and double-crosses, Voigt discovers something far larger than the usual spy versus spy shenanigans.
Penguin
Montalbano’s First Case and Other Stories by Andrea Camilleri, trans. by Stephen Sartarelli (Feb. 23, trade paper, $18, ISBN 978-0-14-312162-6). Twenty-one short stories survey the career of Sicily’s Inspector Montalbano, from the title story, featuring a young deputy Montalbano newly assigned to Vigàta, to “Montalbano Says No,” in which the inspector makes a late-night call to Camilleri himself to refuse an outlandish case.
Penguin Press
The Searcher by Christopher Morgan Jones (Mar. 22, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-59420-559-0). Ben Webster, a member of a London corporate espionage firm, journeys to the republic of Georgia for the funeral of a journalist who inexplicably committed suicide after publishing the exposé of a lifetime. When Ben disappears, Ike Hammer, Ben’s colleague, rushes to Tbilisi to track down his missing friend.
Permanent
Nakamura Reality by David Freed (Feb. 28, hardcover, $29, ISBN 978-1-57962-409-5). At a California beach one day, middle school teacher Hugh Mcpherson loses track of his 11-year-old twin sons. They may have been swept out to sea, but a heartbroken Hugh spends the next 12 years looking for answers to their disappearance.
Poisoned Pen
Come Dark: A Posadas County Mystery by Steven F. Havill (Apr. 5, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-4642-2052-5). In New Mexico’s Posadas County, Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman looks into the murder of Clint Scott, the coach of the high school girls’ volleyball team, found shot in the girls’ shower room. Bill Gastner, the retired former sheriff, helps investigate.
Polis
Down the Darkest Street by Alex Segura (Apr. 12, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-940610-75-7). Pete Fernandez should be dead. His life—professional and personal—is in ruins. Meanwhile, the former journalist finds himself investigating a missing girl and inching closer and closer to a vicious, calculating killer cutting a swath of blood across Miami.
Prometheus Books/Seventh Street
A Brilliant Death by Robin Yocum (Apr. 5, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-63388-128-0). Amanda Baron died in a boating accident on the Ohio River in 1953. Or did she? Her body was never found. Years later, her son Travis, an infant at the time of the accident, begins a search for the truth about the mother he never knew.
Putnam
Maestra by L.S. Hilton (Apr. 19, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-399-18426-0). Meet seductive Judith Rashleigh. She’s a woman who knows what she wants—and exactly how to get it. A smooth confidence woman with a talent for self-invention, she’s seen inside the invisible club of the debonair and wealthy, and she knows where she belongs.
Quercus
The Father: Made in Sweden, Part 1 by Anton Svensson, trans. by Elizabeth Clark Wessel (Apr. 5, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-68144-540-3). This first in a two-part crime novel series is based on the true story of three brothers, all under the age of 24, who committed a string of audacious bank robberies in Sweden in the 1990s.
St. Martin’s/Dunne
Redemption Road by John Hart (May 3, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-312-38036-6). A boy with a gun waits for the man who killed his mother. A troubled detective confronts her past in the aftermath of a brutal shooting. After 13 years in prison, a good cop walks free. But for how long? These strands come together in a town on the brink.
Scribner
End of Watch by Stephen King (June 7, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-5011-2974-2). When retired police detective Bill Hodges and his investigation agency partner, Holly Gibney, are called to a suicide scene, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill’s friend Jerome Robinson and Jerome’s teenage sister, Barbara.
Severn
Cold Florida: A Foggy Moskowitz Mystery by Phillip Depoy (Apr. 1, hardcover, $28.95, ISBN 978-0-7278-8575-3). A car thief on the run from the Brooklyn authorities, Foggy Moskowitz ends up in Florida, where he becomes an unlikely but tenacious child protection officer. An investigation to find a missing infant, removed from the hospital by her addict mother, takes several unexpected turns.
Simon & Schuster
The Passenger by Lisa Lutz (Mar. 1, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-4516-8663-0). Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, and flees town. She meets Blue, a female bartender who offers her a place to stay. Tanya-now-Amelia accepts, and an uneasy—and dangerous—alliance is born.
Soho Crime
The Considerate Killer by Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnette Friis (Mar. 1, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-61695-528-1). When Danish nurse Nina Borg is attacked in a parking lot, she hears her assailant ask for her forgiveness. Only later does she understand that this isn’t for what he’s just done, but for what he plans to do.
Titan
(titanbooks.com)
The Vinyl Detective: Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel (May 10, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-78329-767-2). A beautiful, mysterious woman hires the man known as the Vinyl Detective, a record collector, to find a priceless lost recording on behalf of a wealthy, shadowy, and somewhat sinister client.
Viking
Buffalo Jump Blues by Keith McCafferty (June 28, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-0-525-42959-3). Sheriff Martha Ettinger investigates the death of a young Native American man at a buffalo jump site. Meanwhile, fly fisherman, painter, and sometime private detective Sean Stranahan is helping the beautiful Ida Evening Star—who swims as a mermaid at the Trout Tails Bar & Grill—to find her old flame John Running Boy.
