Women dominate this season’s mysteries and thrillers: exploring the pitfalls of pregnancy, heading high-risk investigations, and warding off sinister men. Plus, Stephen King and James Ellroy return, and Cedric the Entertainer debuts.
Top 10
The Bell in the Fog
Lev A.C. Rosen. Forge, Oct. 10 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-83425-6)
In 1950s San Francisco, gay private eye Andy Mills is hired by an old flame to investigate a blackmail case that cuts a little too close to his closeted Navy past.
Bluebeard’s Castle
Anna Biller. Verso Fiction, Oct. 10 ($19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-80429-185-6)
In this modern-day take on a French folktale, an author of gothic novels meets a baron at a wedding, and he sweeps her away to his palace—but her dreams curdle to nightmares as questions emerge about his true intentions.
The Dance of the Dolls
Lucy Ashe. Union Square, Sept. 5 ($27.99 ISBN 978-1-4549-5123-0)
Twin ballerinas Olivia and Clara suffer an unnerving case of life imitating art when they’re caught in a sinister love quadrangle that echoes the ballet they’re rehearsing in pre-WWII London.
Delicate Condition
Danielle Valentine. Sourcebooks Landmark, Aug. 1 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-72827-688-5)
After struggling with infertility, Anna Alcott finally gets pregnant but becomes convinced—despite the incredulity of the men in her life—that someone is trying to sabotage the pregnancy.
The Enchanters
James Ellroy. Knopf, Sept. 12 ($30, ISBN 978-0-593-32044-0)
A disgraced ex-cop is convinced he alone can solve the mystery of Marilyn Monroe’s death and the subsequent kidnapping of a B-list actress in 1960s Los Angeles.
Evergreen
Naomi Hirahara. Soho Crime, Aug. 1 ($27.95, ISBN 978-1-64129-359-4)
In the follow-up to 2021’s Clark and Division, Aki Ito and her family have returned to L.A. after a stint in an internment camp during WWII, and Aki tries to keep her loved ones from getting tangled up in a murder investigation.
Flipping Boxcars
Cedric the Entertainer. Amistad, Sept. 12 ($30, ISBN 978-0-06-325899-0)
The stand-up comedian tries his hand at crime fiction with a WWII-era heist novel inspired by his grandfather, who was a gambler.
Here in the Dark
Alexis Soloski. Flatiron, Dec. 5 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-88294-3)
Theater critic Soloski plumbs her own profession for a mystery about an actor turned critic investigating the sketchy death of someone who interviewed her.
Holly
Stephen King. Scribner, Sept. 5 ($30, ISBN 978-1-66801-613-8)
Private detective Holly Gibney squares off against a pair of Midwestern professors who may know more than they let on about a series of small-town disappearances.
The Last Election
Andrew Yang and Stephen Marche. Akashic, Sept. 12 ($16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63614-150-3)
Former presidential candidate Yang teams up with Canadian novelist Marche for a political thriller that imagines a 2024 presidential election poised to put a final nail in the coffin of American democracy.
Mysteries & Thrillers longlist
Agora
The Black Moth by Carolyne Topdjian (Oct. 3, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-957957-36-4). The owner of a crumbling gothic hotel attracts unwanted attention from a stranger who threatens to kill her incarcerated father unless she can track down the specter haunting the hotel grounds.
Akashic
Cleveland Noir, edited by Miesha Wilson Headen and Michael Ruhlman (Aug. 1, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63614-099-5). Contributors including Jill Bialosky, Paula McLain, and Susan Petrone spin tales inspired by the Midwestern city’s crime-steeped history.
Algonquin
Distant Sons by Tim Johnston (Oct. 17, $29, ISBN 978-1-64375-359-1). Two drifters, a waitress, and a detective in a small Wisconsin town converge when a surprise act of violence stirs up dust around the long-unsolved disappearances of three boys.
Atlantic Monthly Press
Invisible Woman by Katia Lief (Jan. 9, $27, ISBN 978-0-8021-6140-6). Joni Ackerman gave up filmmaking for motherhood. When a scandal threatens to unearth a secret from her time behind the camera, she finds solace in the works of Patricia Highsmith, which gradually chip away at her grip on reality.
Atria
None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell (Aug. 8, $28, ISBN 978-1-982179-00-7) finds true crime podcaster Alix Summers drawn into the life of a mysterious woman who suddenly disappears, leaving behind a violent legacy that threatens Alix’s family.
Ballantine
The Traitor Among Us: An Elena Standish Novel by Anne Perry (Sept. 12, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-35915-0). After an MI6 agent is murdered while surveilling a wealthy family with alleged fascist ties in 1930s England, Elena Standish is called in to investigate. The only problem? Her sister is about to marry into that same family.
Bantam
The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin (Sept. 26, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-59995-2). To gain new followers, an influencer starts renovating a house known as the site of some high-profile murders. When violent accidents pile up, she suspects someone is trying to kill her—or the house itself is driving her mad.
Berkley
I’m Not Done with You Yet by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Aug. 22, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-54691-8). When a flailing, frustrated writer finds her long-missing best friend’s name atop the New York Times bestseller list one morning, she heads to a writer’s convention to pin down the truth.
Blackstone
The Detective Up Late by Adrian McKinty (Aug. 8, $26.99, ISBN 979-8-212-01900-2) takes the Edgar-winning Sean Duffy series to the cusp of the 1990s in Northern Ireland. The detective’s career is winding down, but the disappearance of a 15-year-old girl exposes a crime ring he can’t help confronting.
Bold Strokes
Death on the Water by C.J. Birch (Nov. 14, $18.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63679-497-6). Journalist Claire Mills’s luxury cruise vacation goes south when the passenger next door is found dead of an apparent suicide. With the aid of the assistant cruise director, Mills investigates.
CamCat
Phantom by Helen Power (Oct. 10, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7443-0266-0). A struggling artist sells her hand to a mysterious patron for a million dollars. When she starts popping pills to treat phantom limb pain, she’s suddenly able to feel everything the hand is up to—including murder.
Counterpoint
Gangsters Don’t Die by Tod Goldberg (Sept. 12, $28, ISBN 978-1-64009-304-1). Las Vegas hit man-turned-rabbi Sal Cupertine is ready to leave his past behind in the final installment of Goldberg’s Gangsterland series. To make it out of the desert alive, he’ll have to form some unlikely alliances.
Crooked Lane
Close Enough to Hurt by Katherine A. Olson (Oct. 10, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-63910-501-4) centers on a Bay Area vigilante for hire who specializes in taking down male predators. She gets the gig of a lifetime when she’s tapped to get revenge on the pharmaceutical CEO who once assaulted her sister.
Datura
The Graveyard Shift by Maria Lewis (Sept. 12, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-915523-06-8). Horror-obsessed radio show host Tinsel Munroe is thinking of hanging up her headphones until a Halloween caller is murdered on air. Teaming up with a local detective, Tinsel sets out to find the killer.
Delacorte
The Secret: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee and Andrew Child (Oct. 24, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-984818-58-4) finds Reacher joining a task force to investigate eight suspicious, high-profile deaths scattered across the country, while questioning the motives of everyone working alongside him.
Dutton
The Night of the Storm by Nishita Parekh (Jan. 16, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-47337-5). As Hurricane Harvey bears down on Houston, Jia Shah and her extended family take shelter together. Tensions flare, and two people wind up dead. Jia must ferret out the killer before they strike again—or she’s blamed for the crimes.
Gallery
Becoming the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Oct. 10, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-66800-916-1) follows up 2021’s Chasing the Boogeyman with another metafictional thriller inspired by real-life killings in the author’s hometown of Edgewood, Md.
Grand Central
The Ascent by Adam Plantinga (Jan. 2, $30, ISBN 978-1-5387-3987-7). In police officer Plantinga’s debut thriller, an imprisoned ex-cop helps shuttle the Missouri governor’s daughter to safety when a security system malfunction releases hordes of prisoners during her visit to a maximum-security facility.
Graydon House
The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski (Dec. 26, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5258-1145-6). Following a public scandal, the wealthy Van Ness siblings are especially excited for their annual getaway to a luxury winery. Conflicts predictably arise, but a major rainstorm comes as a surprise—as does the murder that follows.
Hanover Square
The Framed Women of Ardemore House: A Netherleigh Mystery by Brandy Lain (Jan. 2, $30, ISBN 978-1-335-01403-0). After an autistic New York City book editor takes possession of an English estate, its groundskeeper winds up dead on her rug. She joins with a Welsh antique dealer and a grumpy detective to solve
the murder.
Harper
Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion (Aug. 15, $30, ISBN 978-0-06-331477-1). In this “artful slow burn,” per PW’s starred review, Nessa Garvey believes that her sister’s ex-husband murdered the sister before decamping with the couple’s child, Ruby, to rural Vermont. As Ruby grows up, she comes to believe the same.
Kensington
Death and the Sisters by Heather Redmond (Sept. 26, $27, ISBN 978-1-4967-3799-1) kicks off the Mary Shelley Mystery series with the tale of 16-year-old Mary Godwin, her stepsister, and her future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, teaming up to solve the murder of Mary’s classmate.
Knopf
The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons: A Lisbeth Salander Novel by Karin Smirnoff, trans. by Sarah Death (Aug. 29, $29, ISBN 978-0-593-53669-8), finds Salander heading to northern Sweden to care for her niece, and Mikael Blomkvist hoping to escape family troubles. Their lives intersect once again, and soon they’re sniffing out a global conspiracy.
Little, Brown
Cross Out: An Alex Cross Thriller by James Patterson (Nov. 20, $32, ISBN 978-0-316-40248-4). Washington, D.C., detective Cross is hot on the trail of a serial killer when a plane explodes on the runway of Reagan Airport. Is there a link? Cross and his colleagues are determined to find out.
Minotaur
North of Nowhere by Allison Brennan (Aug. 8, $28, ISBN 978-1-250-16442-1). While fleeing their crime boss father in a private plane, siblings Kristen and Ryan McIntyre crash land in the middle of rural Montana. With a blizzard coming and several pursuers closing in, they fight to stay alive.
Morrow
Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night by Sophie Hannah (Oct. 24, $30, ISBN 978-0-06-299163-8). Agatha Christie’s beloved Belgian sleuth tackles a yuletide mystery in the latest whodunit from bestseller Hannah.
Mulholland
Gaslight by Femi Kayode (Nov. 21, $29, ISBN 978-0-316-53664-6). In the follow-up to 2021’s Lightseekers, Dr. Philip Taiwo sets out to solve a missing person’s case tied to a Nigerian megachurch.
Oceanview
Deadly Depths by John F. Dobbyn (Aug. 1, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-60809-548-3). After his mentor’s death is suspiciously ruled a suicide, law professor Matthew Shane discovers the man belonged to a cabal of archaeologists seeking a precious historical artifact, and Shane joins the group on a globe-trotting adventure.
Pegasus Crime
Geneva by Richard Armitage (Oct. 20, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-63936-540-1). A Nobel Prize–winning scientist flies to Switzerland to undergo experimental treatments for her early-onset dementia in actor Armitage’s debut. As the woman gets to know more about the man behind the treatments, she starts to suspect something is amiss.
Poisoned Pen
Dangerous Women by Mark de Castrique (Oct. 24, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-72825-833-1) zeroes in on Ethel Fiona Crestwater, a septuagenarian former FBI agent, as she teams up with her college-age cousin, a tech whiz, to protect the Supreme Court’s chief justice from a hit man’s crosshairs.
Polis
The Golden Mountain by J.D. Rhoades (Aug. 22, $28, ISBN 978-1-957957-33-3). In this historical thriller, L.D. Cade, a Union Army veteran turned San Francisco gun for hire, takes on two cases: a murder investigation focused on a mid-séance slaying, and a hit on a major crime family commissioned by a beautiful assassin.
Prospect Park
Die Laughing by Andy Weinberger (Oct. 3, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-68442-960-8). After his former comedy partner is found murdered in his Hollywood home, aging entertainer Benny Wolfe hires half-retired gumshoe Amos Parisman to clear his name.
Putnam
The Hurricane Blonde by Halley Sutton (Aug. 8, $18 trade paper,ISBN 978-0-593-42189-5) kicks off when a former child star
discovers a dead body while hosting a Hollywood bus tour and becomes convinced that the culprit is also responsible for her sister’s long-unsolved slaying.
Riverhead
Edith Holler by Edward Carey (Oct. 31, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-18890-3). In 1901 Norwich, England, young Edith Holler writes a play inspired by a vicious folktale and fights to keep her father from marrying a woman who seems to be plucked straight from its pages.
Scarlet
It Takes Monsters by Mandy McHugh (Oct. 17, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61316-444-0). Victoria Tate is ready to stage the perfect crime and murder her domineering husband, but she’s beaten to the punch. Authorities zero in on her anyway, and she has to both clear her name and face down a killer.
Severn House
The Borgia Portrait by David Hewson (Aug. 1, $31.99, ISBN 978-1-4483-0657-2). After Lizzie Hawker’s father dies, she inherits the family palazzo, where a corpse is found clutching clues to the location of a long-missing family heirloom. Lizzie recruits retired archivist Arnold Clover to help her outrun murderous competitors on the trail of the same object.
Simon & Schuster
The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak (Nov. 14, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-66801-474-5). After the Kremlin assassinates a U.S. senator in Egypt, CIA agent Amanda Cole is assigned to investigate. But uncovering the truth might mean betraying her father, a veteran of the agency.
Thomas & Mercer
Broadway Butterfly: A Thriller by Sara Divello (Aug. 1, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-66251-013-7). This “nonfiction novel” focuses on the real-life murder of flapper Dot King in 1920s Manhattan and involves a kaleidoscopic cast of gangsters, Broadway stars, reporters, and crooked cops.
Viking/Dorman
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston (Jan. 9, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-49291-8). A ruthless hit woman who goes by the pseudonym Evie Porter has been assigned to kill a man named Ryan Sumner. When she starts to develop feelings for her victim, she wonders—is it time to leave her life of violence behind?
