The clever fifth installment of Thorogood’s Marlow Murder Club series (after Murder on the Marlow Belle) opens with Judith Potts being confronted in her home by a stranger who identifies herself as Eleni Paphides, the daughter of Judith’s late husband, Philippos Demetriou. Philippos died almost 50 years earlier in Greece, and Eleni accuses Judith of murdering him, a possibility considered at the time by the local police before being dropped. As Judith tries to figure out what Eleni might know about that long-ago tragedy, the village of Marlow is plagued by a murderer whose first victim is football star Gary Wise. The club’s friend on the force, DI Tanika Malik, hopes that Judith and her partners in crime—vicar’s wife Becks Starling and dog walker Suzie Harris—will help track the killer down. Thorogood expertly maintains suspense as he toggles between the novel’s two main plotlines, in part by keeping questions about Judith’s complicity in Philippos’s death tantalizingly open-ended. As ever, Thorogood balances canny plotting with sharp character development. This series is in good shape. Agent: Ginger Clark, Ginger Clark Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

This so-so whodunit from Lowry (The Roxy Letter) centers on Tilly Turner, a single mom of twins and aspiring comedian who tries to solve a murder she may or may not have committed. After 25 years in Los Angeles, Tilly is on the cusp of success as the opening act for popular stand-up Mickey Larnx, but her dreams of stardom are dashed when Mickey is caught masturbating in a hotel hot tub. Overnight, he becomes a pariah, and Tilly is unjustly labelled an enabler. When work offers evaporate, Tilly and her daughters move in with her mother in Boise, Idaho, where Tilly takes a waitressing job and tries to fit in. After her mother dies, a well-meaning neighbor signs Tilly up for pole dancing classes. It’s fun at first, until a drunken night out with her fellow students culminates with Tilly finding the corpse of a man in her trunk. Tilly can’t identify the body, but her scrapbooking scissors are sticking out of his back, so she tries to figure out who killed him and why before the police get involved. Watching Tilly juggle the investigation with the difficulties of childcare is fun for a while, but the ending feels like a cop-out. Still, diehard cozy fans will find this just cute enough. Agent: Allison Hunter, Trellis Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

The spirit of Patricia Highsmith lives on in Maton’s impressive debut about an obsessive young teaching assistant. After a prologue that teases an unidentified dead body on a beach, Maton introduces Anna Harris, a TA who lives with her fiancé, Ben, in a small English town. Ben longs for a child, but after a second miscarriage, Anna refuses to try again. She forges an intense friendship with the alluring Sofia, a renter in town, that recalls Anna’s former bond with a woman named Pippa, which disintegrated when Pippa left for university and ended with Pippa’s death. After Anna’s friendship with Sofia begins to fall apart, Sofia, too, dies in a fatal accident. Enticed by the opportunity to slip into Sofia’s shoes, Anna takes on her dead friend’s identity and begins a relationship with a man named Mark while maintaining her engagement to Ben. When a chance encounter reveals to Anna that Mark is just as duplicitous as she is, with a long history of defrauding women, she tries to end their affair—but Mark threatens to expose her. Anna’s cool, unreliable narration calls Tom Ripley to mind, but Maton freshens up familiar tropes by giving her protagonist uncommon dimension. The result is irresistible. Agent: Caroline Hardman, Hardman & Swainson. (July)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Investment banker Richard Falk and his wife, Gretchen, are sound asleep in their swanky Upper East Side co-op when police arrive with a warrant in this entertaining mystery from bestseller McCreight (Like Mother, Like Daughter). Frankie Callahan, an artist whom Richard and his college friends met on a trip to Mount Kilimanjaro weeks earlier, has been stabbed to death in her East Village apartment—and Richard is under arrest for killing her. Desperate to keep up appearances and certain that her doting husband isn’t capable of murder, Gretchen assures the couple’s three grown children the arrest is a mistake. As Gretchen tries to figure out the nature of Richard and Frankie’s relationship, McCreight shuffles in vivid first-person chapters from Frankie’s perspective that cover both the dangerous mountain trek where she met Richard and the days before her death, during which she becomes increasingly agitated about a well-connected ex-boyfriend she believes is stalking her. Though savvy mystery readers might identify Frankie’s killer early on, McCreight delivers plenty of surprising secondary twists. Dynamic characters and expert pacing further bolster the proceedings. This should satisfy the author’s fans and win her new ones. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME. (June)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

An indie pop star hires a Nashville private detective to bring her increasingly unhinged stalker to justice in this empowering thriller from Nossett (The Professor). Women hire PI Kelly Williams because, “unlike law enforcement,” she listens, she’s discreet, and she gets results. These qualities appeal to new client Sarah Owens, the front woman of wildly successful, unapologetically feminist indie pop trio Seraph and the Garden Snakes. For two years, the group has received angry messages calling them sluts and whores; recently, a masked man grabbed Sarah near the trio’s shared home and branded her with a W. Kelly vows to ID the assailant, but the next night, somebody shoots Sarah while she’s onstage, and her ambulance vanishes before reaching the hospital. Kelly resolves to keep working the case, praying its solution will lead her to Sarah even as others assume she’s been killed. Nossett’s multifaceted mystery intrigues from the jump, with fraught band dynamics and music industry power plays adding dimension and drama to Kelly’s investigation. Kelly’s charming first-person narration, meanwhile, injects the tense proceedings with humor and hope. Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid should take note. Agent: Hillary Jacobson, CAA. (July)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Patrick’s engrossing latest (after Fast Boys and Pretty Girls) follows 64-year-old Meg Gregory, who reckons with accusations that her granddaughter is a murderer. Meg has wound up back in her hometown of Tuskin, Ga., where her anxious daughter, Nina, and reserved 15-year-old granddaughter, Lucy, live. When Lucy’s boyfriend, Josh, is murdered, Lucy’s traumatized silence and disturbing visit to her ex-boyfriend’s house draw scrutiny from police and neighbors alike. The investigation, led by the methodical Detective Aldridge, soon broadens to include several of Lucy’s peers, but the town’s focus remains firmly on the Gregorys. Meanwhile, tensions simmer between Lucy, Meg, and the image-conscious Nina. Refusing to speak, Lucy communicates her turmoil through haunting sketches that hint at secrets she cannot—or will not—reveal. Meanwhile, Meg has secrets of her own, which she’s been hiding for decades and worries might tie directly to Lucy’s fate. Humid atmosphere (“The ducks had come over a few times for the cereal, but even they were bored from the sun”) and emotional acuity enhance Patrick’s well-honed suspense en route to a quietly powerful conclusion. This delivers the goods. Agent: Alyssa Jennette, Stonesong. (July)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Weeks before celebrated classical composer Ryder Wakefield dies, he presses his 30-something protégée, Mia Voss, to complete his work-in-progress, precipitating her plunge into the agony and ecstasy of the creative process in this harrowing psychological thriller from Pedersen (Sacrificial Animals). When a grief-numbed Mia returns to Ryder’s modernist Santa Fe mansion after burying him next to his son, Oliver—a piano prodigy and Mia’s former lover who died by suicide—she soon becomes overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge ahead and the memories that haunt the house’s now silent rooms. She forgets just about everything else, including sleeping, eating, and her girlfriend back home, as her sanity suffers and she starts to fantasize about self-mutilation. Meanwhile, she reflects on the time she spent with Ryder and Oliver, all three supremely talented musicians who were never able to shake feeling like misfits: Ryder as a self-hating gay Jew, Oliver and Mia as Asian adoptees. Like the minimalist compositions that made Ryder famous, this disturbing exploration of identity, genius, and madness will not appeal to everyone, but it rewards close attention and resonates long after striking its final chord. Strong-nerved readers will be intoxicated. Agent: Paul Lucas, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

A 74-year-old former thief plots one last heist in this gleeful caper from bestseller London (Everything Is Probably Fine). Fit and feisty septuagenarian Frances Deluca is not ready to slip gently into old age, as evidenced by the fact tht she was recently kicked out of her pickleball league for being too aggressive on the court. When Frances is diagnosed with terminal cancer, her craving for one final adventure kicks into high gear. Back in her 20s, Frances belonged to a gang of female thieves, and she decides to gather her former colleagues for a new job. Thus begins a road trip to locate her old associates, including scam artist Irene, still in the game; Joan, who’s made a killing selling medical marijuana in Colorado; and Edie, who married rich and is now a doting grandmother. Once the four are reunited, they settle on their target—a Las Vegas tech bro who scammed Edie’s granddaughter out of a fortune. London’s characters are richly drawn, their motives for coming out of retirement feel plausible, and their sheer joy in being back in action is exhilarating to behold. This cozy caper is as invigorating as a breath of fresh air. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (June)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

Army veteran Murphy (We Defy) delivers an inspired remix of Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game.” U.S. Army sergeant Jeremy Lopez is in Niger finishing up a recon job when he settles into a rooftop bar and buys drinks for the beautiful woman on the next barstool over. The next thing Lopez knows, he’s waking up in a crude jail cell, where a guard tells him he’s going to be the quarry in a hunt led by grizzled South African safari guide Koos DeKlerk. The hunters are eight high-status men armed with tactical sport rifles and modernized crossbows. They’re all wealthy, including Elon Musk stand-in Balthazar Botha—a South African U.S. citizen and the richest man in the world. Most are tech professionals, and all have paid hefty fees for the opportunity to hunt experienced soldiers. It’s nine against one—but Lopez’s years on the battlefield make him a more fearsome opponent than anyone expects. The outcome is predictable, but it’s an undeniable blast to follow Lopez as he forges a club from wood he finds on the forest floor and embarks on his bloody quest to stay alive. This is good for a quick thrill. Agent: Alec Shane, Writers House. (June)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

Rowan (The Last Room on the Left, written as Leah Konen) delivers a fiendishly clever feminist remix of Psycho. Marion Crane is staying at the Billings Motel on the outskirts of New Paltz, N.Y., after her bus broke down and every other hotel room in the area was booked. The dilapidated motel is run by a handsome young man named Norm Billings, who owns it alongside his ailing mother. When Norm invites Marion to dinner, they share a lovely evening—until Marion returns to her room, and Norm tries to kill her in the shower. But Marion isn’t who or what she seems, and Norm isn’t prepared for what happens next. Neither is Marion, exactly, and when she fights off Norm, she creates a major problem for herself. It turns out to be one among many, as Marion is already being pursued by her boss for stealing money from her Manhattan ad agency, and is attempting to liberate her sister from an abusive marriage. Rowan’s bold take on Hitchcock’s classic benefits from wicked humor, a well-rounded heroine fueled by righteous anger, and a breakneck pace. Readers will want to check in to the Billings for a long stay. Agent: Elisabeth Weed, Book Group. (June)

Correction: An earlier version of this review misdescribed the book as the author’s debut.

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink