Patterson (Cross and Sampson) teams up with Oscar winner Davis (Finding Me) for a legal thriller that’s stronger on characterization than plot. Alabama circuit judge Mary Stone, well-known for offering free breakfasts at her home in the small town of Union Springs, finds herself in a tough spot as her reelection campaign approaches. She’s been assigned the trial of Dr. Bria Gaines, who is charged with intentionally performing an illegal abortion after terminating the pregnancy of 13-year-old Nova Jones. Under state law, the act is a felony, and a conviction could send the doctor to prison for the rest of her life. The case attracts attention from people on both sides of the abortion debate, including Union Springs’ local pastor as well as Alabama governor Bert Lamar. After the state attorney general asks Judge Stone to recuse herself in favor of a more experienced jurist, tensions escalate further, and someone intimately involved with the case is murdered. Though Judge Stone proves a memorable, fiercely independent lead, and the authors deserve credit for tackling a hot-button issue, contrivances abound and the narrative ends with a whimper. Despite glimmers of promise, this never quite gels. Agent: Deneen Howell, Williams & Connolly. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Byrne (Chain Reaction) pulls out all the stops in his pulse-pounding fourth adventure for Dez Limerick, an Irish ex-mercenary who juggles guitar-playing gigs and high-profile hacking jobs. This time around, Dez is in Paris working as a bodyguard for a client whom he saves from two assassins, killing one and letting the other—a woman known as Ash—live. Months later, Dez is tapped by the FBI for a case involving the Fuchs Underground Neutrino Collector, a scientific facility in Newfoundland doing complex particle physics research. Fuchs has gone into lockdown and stopped communicating with the outside world after a visit from donor Petra Alexandris, the CEO of Triton Expediters, the bank “for much of the world’s military and government infrastructure.” The Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team recruits Dez to help them infiltrate Fuchs, make sure Alexandris is alive and well, and determine where the orders to seal off the facility came from. The seemingly straightforward mission gets complicated when Ash resurfaces. Byrne brilliantly braids plot threads from previous installments into the action, creating a high-octane page-turner that respects its audience’s intelligence. Readers will be tempted to devour this in a single sitting. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Maggi’s solid second outing for National Park Service special agent Emme Helliwell (after A Murder in Zion) matches a diverting puzzle with convincing emotional stakes. A family kayaking on Yellowstone Lake is stunned when a geyser spews a severed, sneaker-clad foot that lands near their boat. To Emme’s chagrin, she’s assigned to investigate; she fumbled her last case in Yellowstone National Park three years earlier, and her superiors assign her ex-boyfriend, park ranger Holden Thrush, to help with the new investigation. A coroner’s report indicates the foot belonged to a teenager. After Emme finds a pocketknife in the geyser that belongs to a wilderness school for troubled teens, she and Holden dig into the organization’s shady enrollment practices. Maggi peppers the action with enough clues—including potential links to Emme’s previous, unsolved Yellowstone case—to keep armchair sleuths guessing, while Emme’s fraught relationship with Holden adds emotional stakes. Paul Doiron fans will appreciate this. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Zigman (Small World) skewers the publishing industry in this sly closed-circle whodunit. Faye Wader is the bestselling author of a mystery series featuring a math teacher-turned-gumshoe. Despite her success, she’s desperately jealous of Abby Schuss, a romantasy author with a larger fanbase. To narrow the gap between them, Faye plans a fan weekend on Massachusetts’s Great Misery Island. Fifty of her admirers sign up, including superfan Peggy Mercer. The ensuing events are recounted from the perspectives of Faye; her long-suffering assistant, Jade Smythe, who’s secretly invited Abby to the event for a panel; her agent, Hal Tinder, who fears he can’t sell Faye’s 15th novel given its emphasis on the protagonist’s menopausal anxieties; and her editor, Merry Golden. The weekend takes a turn when one of the guests dies, possibly by poisoning, and the remaining crew of mystery experts is left to unravel the case. The satire can be a bit heavy-handed: waiters describe the doughnuts available on Great Misery Island as “locally sourced,” and Faye’s publisher is called Hatchet House. Still, Zigman delivers a fizzy combination of send-up and murder mystery. It’s good fun. Agent: Stephanie Rostan, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

An off-hour tour of a fabled New York City library turns deadly in this overstuffed mystery from Pliego (You Are Fatally Invited). The Daedalus Library is known for its neo-Gothic architecture and for housing the last remaining copy of The Dark Hearth Tales, a controversial collection of 19th-century fairy tales. After Evangeline Riordan, the library’s founder and patron, dies under murky circumstances, the library decides to host an exclusive “after dark” tour. Bookseller Aria Stokes’s new boyfriend, Jasper, surprises her with a ticket, and she accepts, despite her dark history with the library. Aria and Jasper are joined by five other guests, including a retired nurse and a Scottish professor, with whom they navigate locked rooms, secret passageways, and possible paranormal activity. Then a lock malfunctions, trapping the group inside, and a member of the tour group turns up dead, prompting the others to fear there’s a killer among them. Pliego alternates between first-person chapters from each tour member and spooky passages from The Dark Hearth Tales. Unfortunately, she does little to differentiate the characters’ voices, and a third-act pileup of secret identities and narrative rug pulls grows exhausting. Eerie atmosphere aside, this misses the mark. Agent: Hannah Schofield, LBA Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Kelly debuts with an atmospheric series launch featuring C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and other literary luminaries as gumshoes. In 1936 Oxford, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sets out to solve the recent murder of his friend, Lord Roger Pennington, who was killed on the night of a full moon. Doyle calls on Lewis, Tolkien, and other literary acquaintances for help, and they end up forming the Inklings Detective Agency. During the Inklings’ initial inquiry, another man is murdered under a full moon, ratcheting up the stakes and moving the Inklings to reach out to Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie for their expertise. Together, the crew infiltrates secret societies, researches the origins of various poisons, and digs into a cold case involving the death of a young boy. Though there’s plenty of sleuthing on offer, Kelly delivers more of a well-researched tribute to his real-life characters than a traditional mystery, offering pages upon pages of unbroken dialogue as they sift through papers, nurse pints of beer, and peruse libraries. The momentum suffers as a result, but Kelly makes up for it with vivid characterizations and plenty of literary Easter eggs. The result is a charming if eccentric detective yarn. Agent: Adam Chromy, Movable Type. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

A white Hong Kong police detective is torn between family, faith, and duty as he tackles corruption at the highest levels of government in the satisfying latest from Elegant (A Floating Life). In 2019, disgraced police superintendent Killian Tong is called back from his rural post when a mutilated body is discovered in a Hong Kong landfill. Though Killian believes solving the murder might help get his career back on track, his superiors want the case resolved as quickly and quietly as possible, owing in part to escalating anti-government protests. As Killian investigates, he tries to mend his relationship with his younger sister, Jun, an anti-police activist whose activities have landed her on a government watch list. Eventually, Killian’s inquiry implicates major power players in Hong Kong’s government, and his superiors insist he bury the truth, forcing him to reckon with the episode that got him exiled in the first place. The David-and-Goliath struggle at the heart of the novel is thrilling to witness, and Elegant fortifies it with a complex portrait of Hong Kong’s racial politics and a sobering study of widespread political malfeasance. Striking just the right balance of tension and emotional depth, this bruising thriller delivers the goods. Agent: Peter Rubie, Fine Print. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Ranelli debuts with an intriguing if messy mystery centered on American concierge Sterling Lockwood, who works at Vienna’s notorious Hotel Orient, a well-known location for illicit affairs between wealthy men and sex workers from a nearby brothel. Since all guests use aliases, and no cameras or mobile phones are allowed on the premises, Sterling’s job primarily consists of protecting the identities and private matters of the hotel’s transitory residents. She adores the anonymity the job provides, owing in part to her own shady past. One night, however, two guests are found murdered in their room after a particularly chaotic evening, and police arrive on the premises. Aided by Fernando, a budding actor and faithful bellhop, Sterling investigates the deaths, hoping to solve the case before the police can dig too deeply into her affairs or those of the Orient’s regular clients. The story gets off to a slow start, and Ranelli’s insistent focus on the Orient’s salacious sexcapades can feel gratuitous. Eventually, however, her large cast of colorful characters and convincing evocation of the setting win out. Readers who stick with the program will be rewarded. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore & Co. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this so-so series launch from Cannon (a pseudonym for We Were Illegal author Jessica Goudeau), Leo Holloway returns home to Blue Oak, Tex., after failing to find work as an English professor in New York City. Leo’s godmother, Kay Schneider, offers her a job as an in-house photographer for her real estate firm, and with no other prospects, Leo accepts. Things go awry with her first assignment when she discovers a body wrapped in painter’s drop cloths in one of Kay’s properties. The victim is Chaz Nickolson, owner of a real estate agency that rivals Kay’s. Detective Jake Nguyen, a childhood friend of Leo’s, takes her to the station for questioning. Meanwhile, sheriff Stan Quackenbush, who’s aware of the feud between agencies, deduces that Kay had motive to murder Chaz and arrests her. Jake, however, suspects that someone is framing Kay, and hires Leo as a consultant on the case. The pair interviews a wide array of suspects, but Cannon’s rushed conclusion identifies a culprit that most readers will have guessed much earlier. A subplot about the secret past of Leo’s mother generates more heat than the core investigation. This misses the mark. Agent: Mackenzie Brady Watson, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

The amusing latest in former FBI director Comey’s crime series featuring deputy U.S. attorney Nora Carlton and special agent Benny Dugan (after FDR Drive) finds the duo involved in a foreign espionage case. Edgar Perez, CFO of drone maker Grand Central Avionics, goes out for pasta at his favorite New York City restaurant and dies at the table. Medical examiners reveal he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, a preferred execution method of Russian intelligence. Nora and Benny soon discover, however, that the Perez killing was a mistake, and the probable victim was his boss, George Costas, who was spying for Russia. The pair arrests Costas and takes him to trial, and it’s in the courtroom that the novel comes to life. Comey masterfully orchestrates the legal proceedings as Nora and assistant U.S. attorney Sean Fitzpatrick battle an irascible father-son defense team, and ushers the narrative to a seemingly sound conclusion that he turns on its head with a final twist. Bolstered by Comey’s easy familiarity with subjects ranging from New York City’s Italian restaurants to Russia’s intelligence apparatus, this sleek blend of legal thriller and spy drama goes down smooth. It’s pure pleasure. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink