The Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of 2023

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You’ll notice something unusual in the titles below—while in previous years, we’ve dedicated much of our preview space to crossovers, especially in the realm of horror and science fiction, almost all of the picks for this year’s big most anticipated list are strictly crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers. Why? Because there are so many darn good ones out this year! There’s, like, a book from every big name in the genre coming out this year, plus a wonderful new crop of debut voices and plenty of up-and-coming writers with new releases. But never fear, we’ll still be running our spinoff previews for YA, horror, historical, and speculative, you just won’t see quite as much overlap between those and the list below as in previous years.

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JANUARY 2023

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De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Decent People
(Bloomsbury)

In De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s second novel, also set in the deeply divided and very segregated town of West Mills, North Carolina, three siblings are found shot to death soon after Ms. Jo Wright moves back to town, and she’s determined to clear her new paramour of any suspicion. After all, the three siblings were not well liked, and the professional success of one, a doctor, may have made them all targets of racist violence. And everyone in town appears to have secrets…–MO

Deepti Kapoor, Age of Vice
(Riverhead)

Damn, this book is good. And so epic. Like Renoir’s Rules of the Game, this is a perfectly crafted portrait of the moral degradation of the wealthy, as parties and profits grow to replace right and wrong in the minds of the characters. The story is told through three main points of view: Ajay, the servant whose loyalty will prove his undoing, Sunny, the uber-rich addict who wilts under his father’s expectations, and Neda, a journalist who finds herself inextricably entangled with the subject of her own assignment. The ending is shattering. Actually, this whole book is shattering. So instead of watching that colonialist POS known as Shantaram, read this book instead. –MO

Alison Rumfitt, Tell Me I’m Worthless
(Tor Nightfire)

In this intense haunted house story, three girls spend a night in a property cursed by the hatred and violence of those who first occupied its grounds. One is trapped in the house forever, and the other two barely escape, the house’s dark powers having revealed both their vulnerabilities and hatreds to each other. Rumfitt uses body horror and the tropes of the haunted house skillfully to explore the trans experience in an England full of terfs, and Tell Me I’m Worthless contains a strong anti-fascist message for a nation beset by growing prejudices. –MO

Janice Hallett, The Twyford Code
(Atria)

Janice Hallett writes charming puzzle mysteries with intriguing formats—or at least, that seems to be the pattern, as this her second novel, like her first, allows a motivated reader to piece together a solution from the primary-source-style documents provided in the novel. The Twyford Code is told entirely in transcribed voice memos recovered from a mysterious smartphone, detailing the narrator’s quest for meaning from an intricately annotated children’s book. –MO

Iris Yamashita, City Under One Roof
(Berkley)

Everyone loves a good contained-space thriller, and City Under One Roof has one of the best locked-room set-ups I’ve ever come across: a town in Alaska where every resident lives in the same giant apartment complex, there’s only one tunnel in and out of town, and as the events of the novel take place, that tunnel is closed due to an avalanche, and there’s a potential killer on the loose. Not since Yuri Slezkine’s The House of the Government (look it up) has so much drama happened in one apartment complex. –MO

Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone
(William Morrow)

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I am so excited for Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson’s smash-hit whimsical murder mystery about coming to terms with who you are (and who you are not). In the novel, our narrator-hero Ernie Cunningham (teacher, crime novel fan, and how-to author) finds himself embroiled in a complicated plot when a family reunion at a ski resort turns into a whodunnit. Could the mysterious events be the work of a serial killer called the Black Tongue? Perhaps. And all this, by the way, takes place three years after Ernie reported his own brother Michael to the police for murder after Michael requested help disposing of a dead body that turned out not to be dead. So, yes folks. I can’t wait for this one. –Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads Associate Editor

Ana Reyes, The House in the Pines
(William Morrow)

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In this deeply unsettling and atmospheric debut, a woman in Boston watches a YouTube clip of a young woman’s sudden collapse and death, an event that eerily mirrors incident from her own youth – right down to the man standing at the edge of the frame. This begins a journey back to her Berkshires hometown and into a mess of old secrets and family mysteries. Reyes has an unerring grip on this suspenseful story, full of barely suppressed adrenaline and shocking twists. –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief

Sean Adams, The Thing in the Snow
(William Morrow)

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The Thing in the Snow is bizarre in the best way possible. A small group of workers at a remote arctic facility spend their days testing chairs and counting desks, keeping the huge research station in moderately working order. One day, they spot a suspicious thing in the snow just outside. It seems to move. It must have an agenda. But what could it possibly want?! –MO

Parini Shroff, The Bandit Queens
(Ballantine)

This book is so much fun! In Parini Shroff’s dark comedy The Bandit Queens, the put-upon women of a small Indian village decide to get rid of their husbands—permanently. The plotting begins when Geeta, a village outcast with an undeserved reputation for killing her own husband, is asked by a fellow member of her economic cooperative for some help in disposing of a violent partner. Things quickly spiral out of control as the bodies start piling up, the police get curious, and Geeta enters into a second-chance romance with a quiet widower who runs a speakeasy. And there’s a dog! What’s not to love? –MO

Rachel Hawkins, The Villa
(St. Martin’s)

Perfect for fans of Dawnie Walton and Elissa Sloan, The Villa takes its inspiration from the summer Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and transfers the setting to an Italian villa, split between the 1970s and the present day. In the 1970s, two half-sisters and two musicians congregate to make art, the two sisters producing masterpieces even as the summer culminates in a horrifying murder. In the present day, two best friends return to the villa to work on their own novels, and find themselves drawn instead to the mysteries of the house. –MO

Stephen Amidon, Locust Lane
(Celadon)

Stephen Amidon has spent considerable time in London, so perhaps that’s why he’s so good at conjuring the nasty wittiness of a mid-century British novel (which is exactly the tone I want to find in a book about wealthy people behaving very, very badly). The characters of Locust Lane bicker snidely, make harsh judgements about those they despise, and willfully ignore the faults of those they love. When a girl is found murdered, the parents of the three teenagers who were partying with her will do anything to protect their own, prepared for victory by a lifetime of privilege yet vulnerable to the consequences of a lifetime of secrets. –MO

Michael Bennett, Better the Blood
(Atlantic Monthly Press)

Michael Bennett is a much-lauded Maori screenwriter and director, and this, his debut, brings his skills of storytelling to a new medium and introduces a compelling new heroine. Hana Westerman is a Maori CID detective with a rebellious teenage daughter, uncooperative colleagues, and now a truly puzzling case—someone’s been killing the descendants of a group of men responsible for an early 19th-century lynching, and it’s up to Hana to track them down while proving herself once again to her department. –MO

Grady Hendrix, How to Sell a Haunted House
(Berkley)

I am not exaggerating when I say that Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell newsletter saved me from losing my sense of humor during the pandemic. His hilarious, metatextual horror fiction is absurdly entertaining, and his new novel, How to Sell a Haunted House, promises to skewer the tropes of hauntings while paying homage to a long history of supernaturally possessed homes. And in a country beset by widely aging housing stock, this book is probably more practical than any of us would like to admit. –MO

Carole Johnstone, The Blackhouse
(Scribner)

Set in the remote Scottish Hebrides Islands, and based on the author’s own experiences living in the far-flung outpost, The Blackhouse promises to be one of the most atmospheric novels of the year. Carole Johnstone deeply impressed me with her lyrical debut, Mirrorland, and her new book looks to cement her reputation as a rising queen of the gothic. –MO

Chloe Mehdi, Nothing Is Lost
Translated by Howard Curtis
(Europa)

This pitch-dark French noir explores the aftermath of violence and the questions still unanswered in the wake of a teen’s murder by police. 11-year-old Mattia spends his days emotionally managing the adults around him, trying to keep his teachers from realizing he’s gifted, and thinking hard about the murder of 15-year-old Said during a police identity check. As he considers the life and death of Said, he puts together the larger puzzle of oppression in the heavily policed suburbs. Mehdi’s writing conjures the best of French noir, and reminds us why the French named the genre. –MO

Sterling Watson, Night Letter
(Akashic)

In this bleak and beautiful noir, we follow 18-year-old Travis Hollister, just released from reform school, driving through the Florida panhandle, and trying to find the woman he’s pined for since he was 12—his aunt, who’s also four years older. Publisher’s Weekly compares it to the works of S. E. Hinton, which is really all I need to know to want to read it. –MO

Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards
(Knopf)

Bret Easton Ellis is back, this time with a new serial killer novel that brings together all the best aspects of Less Than Zero and American Psycho. It’s 1981, Missing Persons is playing on the stereo, and future writer Bret is doing bumps with his prep-school friends by the poolside, dressed sharply in Ralph Lauren, as a killer makes his way closer and closer to their wealthy enclave. Ellis’ teenage emotional truths collide with violent fictional set-pieces for an epic tale of Southern Californian sins. –MO

Jordan Harper, Everybody Knows
(Mulholland)

In this pitch-dark version of Chinatown in the #metoo era, a publicist who specializes in getting scandals to go away finds herself in possession of a secret too big to bury. Harper has written for television as well as crafting novels, and his experience with dialogue shines in the propulsive pages of this novel. There are no wasted moments in this book, and every gun is Chekhov’s. When Everybody Knows gets adapted, they won’t need to change a thing. –MO

Maria Dong, Liar, Dreamer, Thief
(Grand Central)

Maria Dong’s debut is both a twisty psychological thriller and a nuanced exploration of mental illness. The narrator of Liar, Dreamer, Thief is a quiet young woman grounded by her daily rituals and overwhelmed by the world around her. She’s more than curious about a coworker, and her reality begins to unravel when she realizes her coworker is just as curious about her. What is he hiding, and why does she so desperately want to know? The extremely satisfying conclusion will leave you gobsmacked. I gobbled this one up in an evening, and I highly recommend it for the cold nights ahead. –MO

Kashana Cauley, The Survivalists
(Soft Skull)

What if you met the perfect man, and then he turned out to be obsessed with constructing the perfect bunker? That’s the set-up for Kashana Cauley’s tale of romance and survivalism, which follows a young Black professional as she begins a relationship with a coffee roaster who (along with his two rather terrifying roommates) is preparing for the end of the world. I mostly included this book on the list because there are a lot of guns in it, and the characters think carefully about their relationship with those guns, in ways that may make readers think as well. –MO

Jane Harper, Exiles
(Flatiron)

Exiles is a gripping thriller, but even more than that, it serves to remind us of that which we already know, which is that festivals are bad. If there is a festival in a novel, a bad or creepy thing is going to happen there! It just is! Trust me! Federal Investigator Aaron Falk is on vacation in Southern Australia when he learns that there, one year before, a mother and her baby disappeared during a town festival and have never been seen since. At the plea of the woman’s older daughter, Falk and his friend Raco find themselves investigating what happened that fateful night, among the crowds. At the festival. –OR

Patrick Modiano, Scene of the Crime
Translated by Mark Polizzotti
(Yale Univ. Press)

Scene of the Crime is, like other Modiano works, an interrogation of the past and of time itself. A young man finds himself the subject of interes by a shadowy band of strangers with ambiguous connections and motivations. It has something to do with his past, and perhaps with the strange ‘family’ he found himself marooned with for a time in his youth, but what exactly? Modiano’s prose is mesmerizing as ever, translated into English by Mark Polizzotti. The story plays out with the intrigue of a good noir, with an unsurpassed depth of feeling and curiosity. –DM

Christoffer Carlsson, Blaze Me a Sun
Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles
(Hogarth)

Sweden’s latest crime fiction sensation is a novel of keen insights, sharp observation, and a penetrating sense of humanity. Spanning decades, Carlsson tells the story of the fruitless hunt for a serial killer and the possible connections to the murder of the country’s prime minister. The procedural mystery is itself satisfying, but where Carlsson really excels is in balancing the dark and satisfying atmospherics with a sense of longing just beyond reach. –DM

Elle Cosimano, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun
(Minotaur)

In this highly entertaining series, a single mother and struggling writer becomes a hitwoman by accident after one of her plot descriptions is overheard in a cafe by a mobster’s wife desperate to get rid of her husband. Cosimano’s heroine, and her snarky babysitter-turned-crime-assistant, are a fantastic duo to follow, and I hope to be reading their adventures for quite some time. –MO

David James Keaton, Head Cleaner
(Polis)

Employees in the country’s last Blockbuster make a startling discovery, in this new sci-fi thriller from Keaton. In the midst of chasing up a fabled late fee, they find out their VCR may be able to change the endings to old movies; they also receive a cassette that seems to presage their own deaths. Keaton’s story provides a wild, provocative ride. –DM

Ali Winston and Darwin Bondgraham, The Riders Come Out At Night
(Atria)

In this searing history of police violence and civil rights activism in Oakland, two longtime investigative journalists unpack the circumstances that led to Oakland’s massive amount of police shootings and other officer misconduct over the past half century. The book also goes into the many half-hearted attempts to hold officers accountable and curb their violent behaviors. Monumental and not to be missed! –MO

Jeff Guinn, Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage
(Simon & Schuster)

As the 30th anniversary of the Waco siege approaches this February, there’s plenty to read about the subject, including Jeff Guinn’s authoritative new account of the events leading up to, including, and after the siege. Of particular fascination to me was the way Guinn takes us into the beliefs of the Branch Davidians in a way that connects them to the Great Awakening of the 1840s all the way through the growing issue of white supremacists today. There are two additional books coming out about Waco a little later in the year that also promise to be excellent reportage: Waco Rising: David Koresh, the Fbi, and the Birth of America’s Modern Militias (Jan 31), by Kevin Cook, which directly notes the lineage of descent from Waco to January 6th, and Koresh: The True Story of David Koresh and the Tragedy at Waco (April 11), by Steven Talty, a more focused biography of the man behind the cult.  –MO

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FEBRUARY

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Rafael Frumpkin, Confidence
(Simon & Schuster)

In Rafael Frumpkin’s devastatingly witty Confidence, two teenage con artists meet at a summer camp for troubled youth and start scheming together almost as soon as they meet. After the two reunite on the outside, it’s time for the cons to get bigger, and the romantic tension between the two to grow. I would like to go back to reading this now so I can keep shipping the two main characters. Destined to be a new LGBTQ classic of suspense! –MO

Johnny Compton, Spite House
(Tor Nightfire)

Eric Ross and his two daughters are on the run and looking to settle down somewhere where they won’t be too scrutinized. Enter the Spite House, a haunted house on a hill overlooking an abandoned orphanage, whose owner is looking for a new caretaker to help prove definitely that the house is occupied by ghosts. If Eric can stay in the house long enough to get proof of paranormal activity, he and his daughters will receive enough funds to go completely off the grid. But given the home’s propensity to rob its previous caretakers of their sanity, it’s a toss-up—will Eric find safety for his family, or has he placed them in more danger than ever before? Another great entry into the horror revival, and one of several gothic works on this list by Black authors.  –MO

Priya Guns, Your Driver Is Waiting
(Doubleday)

Pitched as a reverse Taxi Driver by the publisher, Priya Guns’ darkly humorous satire follows a South Asian rideshare driver through her days dealing with passengers’ microaggressions, drunkards’ vomit, and an epidemic of bad tippers. Things go from bad to worse after she meets a femme fatale in the form of a white self-proclaimed ally who turns out to be nothing of the sort. –MO

Rebecca Makkai, I Have Some Questions For You
(Viking)

I was sure the true crime podcast novel was dead by now—at least, until I picked up Rebecca Makkai’s latest, which completely revitalizes this common trope. A professional podcaster returns to the private school she once attended to teach a two week seminar on podcasting and journalism; one of her students decides to investigate a 90s-era murder that the podcaster was much closer to than she lets on to her students. Every year, I look for the novels that truly respect their victims, and think carefully about the tropes of true crime; for 2023, this is that novel. –MO

Margot Douaihy, Scorched Grace
(Zando, Gillian Flynn Books)

Margot Douaihy’s chain-smoking nun Sister Holiday may be the most original character you’ll come across for quite some time. Douaihy wanted to reclaim pulp tropes for a female protagonist, and I have to say, Sister Holiday is punk AF. Set in New Orleans, Scorched Grace takes place at a Catholic school where an arson attack has harmed several students. Sister Holiday, a fan of detective fiction, is ready to solve the case (or else face suspicion herself). –MO

Stephen Graham Jones, Don’t Fear the Reaper
(Saga)

Stephen Graham Jones blew me away with the first in his Indian Lake trilogy, My Heart is a Chainsaw, and Don’t Fear the Reaper is, if you can believe it, even better than the first! Jade is back, now in her 20s, as a killer and a snowstorm converge on the town of Proofrock and another massacre looms. Can Jade stop the serial killer Dark Mill South before he finishes taking vengeance for 38 Lakota men killed in the 19th century? The fast-paced novel takes place over only a day and a half, and you’ll want to read it just as quickly. –MO

Rupert Holmes, Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide
(Avid Reader Press)

I couldn’t resist taking work time to recommend something with this title. Also, guess what? Rupert Holmes is the “Pina Colada Song” guy! Apparently everything he turns his hand to is adorable and hilarious, because even just reading the first few pages of Murder Your Employer has convinced me that this will be one of the funniest books of the year. In Holmes’ new novel, we follow three would-be murderers as they study the applied arts of homicide. –MO

E. A. Aymar, No Home For Killers
(Thomas & Mercer)

After their brother is found murdered, two sisters must work together to find out the truth behind his murder. One is a straight-laced lawyer, but the other, one of the most charming new characters I’ve come across in a long time, is a cheerful psychopath bent on seeking vengeance (or as she likes to think of herself, a vigilante). –MO

Kwei Quartey, Last Seen in Lapaz
(Soho)

Quertey’s engaging private eye Emma Djan is on a new case, on the trail of a young woman who abandoned law school and a comfortable life in Nigeria, presumably for her new boyfriend. The trail leads to Accra, and soon enough to a potential sex trafficking ring spanning West Africa. Quartey always brings great skill and a sense of urgency to his stories. –DM

Kimberly G. Giarratano, Death of a Dancing Queen
(Datura)

Datura is the new crime fiction imprint from indie darling (at least in my star-struck eyes) Angry Robot, and I’m psyched for their list. First up from them is a New Jersey Noir that I’m calling “turnpike noir”, in which a Jewish PI goes looking for the missing girlfriend of a rich dope fiend, only to find herself dealing with Israeli mobsters, white supremacist skinheads, and general New Jersey sleaze. A perfect use of setting, Death of a Dancing Queen is hopefully just the first of this sleuth’s adventures. –MO

Chris Lloyd, Paris Requiem
(Pegasus)

This smart historical thriller centers on a WWII-era Paris policeman who finds himself working on behalf of the occupiers, pushing him into a moral crisis and a new case that forces him to confront the true extent of the damage being done to the soul of his city. –DM

Hank Phillippi Ryan, The House Guest
(Forge)

Hank Phillippi Ryan’s dark and twisty divorce thriller about exes, friends, and making deals is a top-shelf cocktail of a book. It’s the kind of book I would bring to read at a swanky bar if I read at swanky bars. It’s slick, the story of a woman who realizes that her wealthy almost-ex-husband is scheming to make sure she ends up with nothing, and her new friend, whom she invites to stay in her guest house, who might have an idea about how to turn the tables on him. Salut! –OR

Rachel Koller Croft, Stone Cold Fox
(Berkley)

Stone Cold Fox is about a woman who’ll do anything to secure the luxury and stability she has always wanted, and I do love a scrappy social climber novel. Growing up with an unstable, narcissistic mother, Croft’s antiheroine has been through plenty and come out street-smart on the other side. But her new engagement with one of the nation’s most eligible bachelors threatens to derail her success when his family appears unhappy with the match. Who will back down first, in this modern variant on Vanity Fair? –MO

Dizz Tate, Brutes
(Catapult)

Told by a Greek chorus of neighborhood adolescent girls, Dizz Tate’s Brutes recounts the disappearance, and legend, of Sammy, preacher’s daughter, Eddie’s girlfriend, and now-vanished symbol of small-town glamour. They didn’t know her well before she was gone, but the group girls narrating the story are determined to find the truth of what made her leave, even if their innocence too vanishes along the way. –MO

Jennifer Savran Kelly, Endpapers
(Algonquin)

A literary mystery perfect for the bookish crowd, Endpapers features a genderqueer book conservator unhappy in the gap between her sense of self and the life she lives. When she goes searching for the owner of a love letter she finds tucked in the pages of an ancient lesbian pulp paperback, she also goes in quest of the answer to a lifelong question: how to live an authentic representation of self. –MO

Robin R. Means Coleman, PhD, and Mark H. Harris, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar
(Saga)

This pop culture history of Black representation in horror is at turns delightful, shocking, disturbing, hilarious, and always fascinating. Alternating between set pieces, analysis, and lists, the authors take us through the entire history of Black horror—from the era of comedic yet deeply offensive caricatures, to the pleasant surprise of Night of the Living Dead, through the Blaxpoitation era, the doldrums of the 80s, the 90s Black cinema renaissance, and finally, today’s current explosion of Black-directed and Black-written horror. (Also, never have I found a book that referenced Deep Blue Sea more, or indeed, at all. Which is a shame, as Deep Blue Sea is highly deserving of critical engagement. And that parrot!) –MO

Thomas Mallon, Up With the Sun
(Knopf)

Dick Kallman was a real-life actor whose career was poisoned by homophobia against him and his own bad behavior, around in the 50s and 60s as an up-and-comer only to vanish in the wake of scandal and reappear in the news as a murder victim in 1980. There’s nothing more cynical than a crime novel about failed Hollywood dreams, and I can’t wait to be emotionally devastated by this one. –MO

Mariana Enriquez, Our Share of Night
(Hogarth)

What a strange and luminous novel. Mariana Enriquez stunned with her collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, and Our Share of Night is just as fantastic (and fantastical). Beginning in Argentina in the years of the dictatorship, Our Share of Night follows a father and son on a grief-driven road trip as they mourn the loss of the woman who united them, her dangerous (and possibly immortal) family close in pursuit. A dark vampiric noir that heralds a new era in South American horror. –MO

Julia Bartz, The Writing Retreat
(Atria)

I cannot wait to read Julia Bartz’s horror-whodunnit debut. Get this: it is set during a mysterious month-long writing retreat at a famous horror writer’s estate, where the guests are made to complete an entire novel from start to finish, competing for an enormous book deal.

(If ever a book synopsis knew how to read the room, it would be this one.) Cutthroat politics and disappearing contestants don’t deter our heroine, an underdog writer named Alex, from trying to win the literary tournament. But it’s not long before she senses that something far more insidious than the promise of prestige seems to be hanging over the whole affair. Part publishing satire, part haunted house tale, part classic mystery, part snowstorm-set thriller, The Writing Retreat promises an ideal cocktail of twisty, spooky, gripping entertainment, as well as hefty catharsis for anyone who’s ever published anything. I intend to devour it as soon as I get my copy. –OR

Sean Doolittle, Device Free Weekend
(Grand Central)

In this cleverly plotted technothriller, six friends reunite for a Labor Day weekend at the private island of the seventh in their old college group—the “benevolent dictator” of a social media empire. Recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, and lately grown discomforted by the effects of his technology, the billionaire is there to ask for his friends’ assistance in making an impossible decision with potentially deadly consequences. Worth reading for the banter between characters alone, but so much more than just snappy dialogue! –MO

Kathleen Kent, Black Wolf
(Mulholland)

In 1990, as the Soviet Union crumbles and the threat of nuclear arms heading to new hands spreads, the CIA calls in a woman with an extraordinary ability: a so-called “super-recognizer.” But once she’s on the ground in Minsk, and women begin disappearing, the mission takes on a new shape. Kent has produced a ‘save-the-world’ thriller with moments of intimacy and sharp observation. –DM

Tom Rob Smith, Cold People
(Scribner)

A powerful new post-apocalyptic thriller in which survivors band together and venture to the Antarctic in search of a way for humanity to start over. Tom Rob Smith handles the dystopian suspense with grace and insight.–DM

Walter Mosley, Every Man a King
(Mulholland)

Mosley, a modern master of the noir form, brings readers a worthy follow-up to Down the River and Unto the Sea. This time, King Joe Oliver is asked for a favor from a friend he can’t refuse, a case that forces him to look into the unsavory connections between white nationalists, Russians, and high finance. Mosley knows exactly how to craft a mystery that keeps you at the edge of your seat all the while forcing you to reckon with sinister forces at the heart of American society. –DM

Tiffany McDaniel, On the Savage Side
(Knopf)

Tiffany McDaniel’s gorgeously written On the Savage Side, loosely inspired by the Chillicothe murders in Ohio, tells the story of two twin sisters, their friends who go missing, and all the ways women suffer in the world. Reading this book is like looking through a haunted kaleidoscope. Although the title comes from a very badass crochet metaphor. More book titles should be inspired by crafting, IMO. –MO

Paz Pardo, The Shamshine Blind
(Atria)

Paz Pardo’s The Shamshine Blind is one of the more exciting debuts to hit in early 2023, a heady mix of high-concept speculative fiction, alternative history, and hardboiled detective fiction. In an alternate 2009, a new chemical compound that can elicit targeted human emotions has been weaponized in war and made ubiquitous for recreational purposes, upending the global and social orders. Amidst the new chaos, a small city enforcement agent gets put on the trail of a new product, a trail that points in the direction of a much broader conspiracy. Pardo’s novel is full of wit and wild invention and is sure to leave readers wanting more. –DM

Niklas Natt och Dag, The City Between the Bridges: 1794
(Atria)

I adored Niklas Natt och Dag’s brilliantly cynical debut, The Wolf and the Watchman, and The City Between the Bridges is just full of filth and cynicism, the perfect combination for depicting the late 18th century and its terrible iniquities. The watchman of The Wolf and the Watchman returns to solve a new crime, this one the brutal murder of a tenant’s daughter on the eve of her wedding to a seemingly sensitive nobleman. Natt och Dag is particularly adept at savagely ripping the notion of a “civilized age” apart and showing the raw suffering underneath. As a side note, I’ve long believed that historical fiction is only to be trusted when the author is willing to describe bad smells to set the scene, and this book is full of truly disgusting odors. –MO

Harriet Tyce, It Ends at Midnight
(Sourcebooks Landmark)

What’s better than a countdown thriller? A countdown thriller set on New Year’s Eve, of course. By the end of the New Year’s Party at which most of this book takes place, one guest will be dead, and another will be a murderer… –MO

Joel Warner, The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scandal, A Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History
(Crown)

I feel like the title of this one…kinda sums it up? Like, if you don’t want to read this book, what are you even doing on this site. And as a side note, I have already successfully pushed this book upon my coworkers by saying virtually the same thing. –MO

Cheryl Head, Time’s Undoing
(Dutton)

Cheryl Head turned to her own grandfather’s murder for the inspiration behind this timely tale of injustice and protest. Time’s Undoing is split between two time periods – the 1920s, when the narrator’s grandfather is murdered by a police officer in Birmingham, and the 2010s, when the narrator heads to Alabama on a journalistic assignment to connect what happened to her grandfather to ongoing issues with racist policing. She quickly finds herself up against those who would rather the truth be buried, but finds unlikely allies ready to help her fight for the truth, no matter its implications. –MO

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MARCH

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Leopoldo Gout, Piñata
(Tor Nightfire)

This stunningly crafted possession novel is rooted in Aztec history and Nahua religious practice, with an ancient Aztec vessel as the conduit for a powerful spirit seeking to avenge the victims of colonialism. Piñata follows an architect and her two daughters, first in Mexico City, then in New York City, pursued by the spirit all the while, as Gout examines the classic possession tale—an adolescent girl, given powers through her liminal state—and reframes it as a response to racism and the erasure of history and culture. –MO

Peter Swanson, The Kind Worth Saving
(William Morrow)

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High school English teacher turned private investigator Henry Kimball is plying his trade in the suburbs when a new case comes through his door: a woman from his past with a husband who may be cheating, a case that seems determined to drag Kimball back through his own past tragedies. Swanson is bringing the keen pacing and insights of psychological thrillers to the private eye genre, and with remarkable results: The Kind Worth Saving is a pitch perfect mystery with all the humanity and depth we’ve come to expect from this master of suspense. –DM

Jesse Q. Sutanto, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
(Berkley)

Vera Wong is a lonely, bored tea shop owner who can’t seem to connect with her zoomer son, but that all changes when one day she finds a dead body in her shop and takes an important clue for herself before the police can get there. I love a novel featuring a mature woman solving a crime, especially one so confident in her own abilities. –MO

Philip Ellis, Love and Other Scams
(Putnam)

Nothing brings two people together quite like desperation and a get-rich-quick scheme (I’m really hoping there’s some fan fiction that gets this going with The Sting). In Philip Ellis’ utterly charming new novel, coming out next March, a down-on-her-luck graphic designer with a passion for pick-pocketing teams up with a handsome bartender with his own skills at purloining valuable objects after they discover a once-in-a-lifetime chance to steal an enormous diamond. –MO

Juan Gómez-Jurado, Red Queen
(Minotaur)

Red Queen feels made for multiple seasons of television with its compelling main character, a brilliant but reclusive woman who refuses to put her forensic skills to work after a personal tragedy. When a new crime thrusts an old murder back into the spotlight, she must be coaxed into solving it by a cop whose career is hanging on a thread and depends on getting her cooperation. No one does Thomas Harris-style murders like crime writers in Spain (perhaps it’s the odd-couple dynamics that also make me think of Harris), and Red Queen promises to be as bloody as it is intricate. –MO

Gigi Pandian, The Raven Thief
(Minotaur)

Tempest Raj and the rest of the Secret Staircase Construction crew are back in this next new locked-room-mystery from the modern day master of the subgenera! Tempest and her team are attending a party the home of a client when they stumble upon a dead body. But even before this disaster, it’s not just any home: this is the newly refurbished house where the team has just installed a mystery-novel-inspired interior. And the dead body they find is the husband of their client. And they find him during a mock-seance, while all their hands are clasped together around a table.  What! –OR

Cara Black, Night Flight to Paris
(Soho)

If you’ve always been partial to the first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (and were rather annoyed by Doris Day in the remake), then Cara Black’s sharpshooting heroine Kate Rees is the perfect sleuth to get behind. You’ll also want to be behind her because those in front of her are her targets, and she does not miss her targets. Cara Black’s Aimee Leduc series has always been a favorite of mine, and it was wonderful to see Black expand into historical fiction with 2020’s Three Hours in Paris. WWII-era espionage and Cara Black’s gritty heroines turned out to be the perfect match. –MO

Cynthia Pelayo, The Shoemaker’s Magician
(Agora)

In the second book of Pelayo’s Chicago Saga, an old movie palace and an icon of horror film culture may be the keys to solving a gruesome new homicide. Pelayo brings out the city’s gothic culture with loving care and plots an invigorating mystery with compelling characters. –DM

Cherie Dimaline, VenCo
(William Morrow)

The HarperCollins Union has been on strike since November 10, 2022. Literary Hub stands in solidarity with the union. Please consider donating to the strike fund.

If you loved the third season of American Horror Story, or just rode the wave of new witch books out this past year, then VenCo is for you! A millennial Metis woman finds a tarnished silver spoon in her wall that allows her to access indigenous magic and connects her to a host of witches hiding in plain sight. –MO

Joe R. Lansdale, The Donut Legion
(Mulholland Books)

Joe Lansdale has a new book out–and it’s a stand-alone! I plan to enjoy this East Texas farce to the fullest, in which the investigation of a missing woman leads to a cult-owned donut shop, a doomsday compound, and a leashed gorilla, among many other Terrible Sights and Strange Happenings. –MO

Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, Tina, Mafia Soldier
Translated by Robin Pickering-Iazzi
(Soho)

An extravagantly violent woman serving as the unlikely head of a Sicilian mafia outfit and a writer from Rome in search of a new subject with Sicilian roots of her own are at the center of this fast-moving, provocative novel. The story is at once a compelling mob fiction and a clear-eyed assault on gender conventions in a society awash in corruption and hypocrisy. –DM

Ron DeStefano, How I’ll Kill You
(Berkley)

Forget twins. It’s time for some murderous triplets!!! Sissy’s two siblings have been serial killers for a while, while Sissy helps them carefully dispose of the bodies. But now, her sisters are ready for Sissy to take up the family mantel: make a man fall in love with her, then kill him before he can break her heart. The problem is, her ideal target also turns out to be her ideal man, and as she falls in love with her planned victim, she starts to wonder how to get out of it without herself ending up dead. So much fun, y’all. –MO

Sherry Thomas, A Tempest at Sea
(Berkley)

Charlotte Holmes is back in this seventh installment of the Lady Sherlock series. This time, she finds herself in hiding, after feigning her death to fool the devilish Moriarty—and her only option for an eventual return to normal life is to take a case for the Crown. That investigation takes her to the RMS Provence, which is transporting the object she is chasing. But then, one night, there is a murder on the ship. And what she needs to do is not solve it, or else her whereabouts and true identity will be made known. –OR

Alma Katsu, Red London
(Putnam)

In this follow-up to Red Widow, Katsu brings back CIA Agent Lyndsey Duncan, this time putting her many skills to use in London, working an operation to sidle up to the wife of a Russian billionaire. Katsu paints a vivid picture of modern London at the intersection of a vast geopolitical game between Russia, its monied exiles, the British upper classes, and American intelligence. –DM

Joyce Carol Oates, 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister
(Mysterious Press)

Joyce Carol Oates’s crime novels really rip into the despair and dread that appear when a loved one seems to disappear. This novel is about a girl named Gigi whose beautiful older sister Marguerite vanishes one night. Gigi doesn’t know where, or why, her sister has left—but suddenly, every single thing her sister has left behind is a potential clue towards a reality that might be anywhere or anything. –OR

Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio
(Zando)

Part of a new wave of haunted house horror that continues to expand and redefine the genre, Monstrilio is about a woman who creates a monster from a piece of her dead son’s lung, feeding it bloody sacrifices as it grows into the image of her long-gone child. Her monstrilio is loved, cared for, and wholly monstrous. But are not the monsters among us also capable (and deserving) of love? Read this if you liked Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home! -MO

Jinwoo Chong, Flux
(Melville House)

Flux is full of surprises and difficult to describe. Three storylines slowly begin to converge into a tale of time-traveling corporate serial killers. Woven into all three stories is a connection to a 1980s detective show featuring a now-canceled star facing damning abuse allegations. If you like stories featuring neo-noir style, corporate corruption, and anything else that wouldn’t be out of place in a slightly more humorous version of the Blade Runner universe, then check this one out! Also notable as an exploration of queer and Asian-American identities. –MO

Christopher Bollen, The Lost Americans
(Harper)

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Cate Castle is shocked with her weapons technician brother is found dead of an apparent suicide in Egypt, but Egyptian authorities and her brother’s bosses are sure that Eric Castle died by his own hand. Cate heads out to Cairo to find out the truth with the help of a young local named Omar, but the two run into plenty of roadblocks on their way to the unpleasant truth. Complicated, thrilling, but sensitive, Bollen’s latest is another elegant new entry from a leading voice in the field. –MO

Josh Weiss, Sunset Empire
(Grand Central)

I loved Josh Weiss’s speculative alternative history noir Beat the Devils, and his follow-up, Sunset Empire, looks to be just as compelling and imaginative. The setting is fascinating, and explored with a seriousness towards in-world logic: an alternate timeline where McCarthy wins the presidential election, the war in Korea continues after years with no signs of ending, and anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia are at an all-time high. In the second in this series, a young Korean-American man blows up a department store in a suicide bombing probably caused by hypnosis for what I’m speculating is going to be a reverse Manchurian Candidate plotline. Meanwhile, Weiss’ policeman hero is under suspicion for the death of his ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Short, and needs to solve both the bombing and Short’s murder before his time runs out to make a difference or clear his own name. –MO

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APRIL

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Nick Medina, Sisters of the Lost Nation
(Berkley)

Nick Medina’s debut is told from the perspective of Anna Horn, a young Native girl who works at her town’s local casino and starts to notice a pattern when it comes to the reservations’s many missing women. A gripping and timely novel informed by a rich tapestry of myth and legend, Sisters of the Lost Nation marks the entrance of strong new voice to crime writing. –MO

James A. McLaughlin, Panther Gap
(Flatiron)

McLaughlin’s 2018 debut, Bearskin, was one of the most assured, exciting nature thrillers to come out in quite some time, and with Panther Gap he’s set to cement his place in the crime world. Two siblings, raised in highly unorthodox fashion on an isolated Colorado ranch, are reunited by the prospect – and the danger – of a new inheritance, one that will set them on a journey through the underbelly of the American West. McLaughlin’s writing is absolutely electric. –DM

India Holton, The Secret Service of Tea and Treason
(Berkley)

In this Victorian steampunk adventure, pirates use magic to fly houses, upper class ladies are organized in secret, rival covens, and the government’s secret service is made up of servants trained in magic and espionage. Two of these servants-cum-spies are ordered to work together to steal a dangerous weapon from a country manor house during, of course, a large ball, and sparks soon fly between the debonair butler and the amusingly literal-minded ladies maid. –MO

Eli Cranor, Ozark Dogs
(Soho)

Eli Cranor is back in 2023 with the follow-up to his widely acclaimed debut, Don’t Know Tough. The new novel, which traces a volatile history of violence between two families, is a powerful portrait of love, revenge, and trauma. Cranor paints a vivid Ozark landscape and populates it with characters who jump off the page and demand your attention. Ozark Dogs establishes Cranor as a premier crime writer and on the rise. –DM

V. Castro, The Haunting of Alejandra
(Del Rey)

V. Castro’s heroine is haunted by the spirit of La Llorena—or, at least, an ancient evil that has found a way to embody a folk legend. She must go to a curandera and process her personal and generational trauma before she can even hope to be free of the demon possessing her, in what also functions as a perfect metaphor for clearing the fog of depression and seeing the societal structures and history that contribute to our present-day malaise. –MO

Hester Fox, The Last Heir to Blackwood Library
(Graydon House)

This book is about a young woman in post World War I England who inherits a mysterious estate, which has a massive library. Now, for many of you, that’s as far as you’ll need to read, but just in case: the library seems to be haunted. –OR

Rory Carroll, There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History
(Putnam)

The IRA’s attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher has often been explored in fiction over the years, including quite brilliantly in Adrian McKinty’s In the Morning I’ll Be Gone, and now there’s a new nonfiction work that will take us into both the incident itself and the manhunt that followed. A definitive and thrilling account of a pivotal moment in history, Carroll’s new book should make it onto every nonfiction reader’s shelf. –MO

Monica Brashears, House of Cotton
(Flatiron)

In this photography horror novel, Monica Brashears’ 19-year-old narrator is broke, working a dead-end job, and newly suffering the loss of her grandmother, the most important adult figure in her life, when she gets a strange offer from the owner of a funeral home: come model for him as he creates experiences for those who are having a hard time saying goodbye to the dead. What follows is a haunting and sly Southern Gothic with plenty of things to say about race, gender, and appropriation. –MO

Sarah Penner, The London Seance Society
(Park Row)

I don’t know if this is at all useful to mention, but I can almost guarantee you that Arthur Conan Doyle would have run through quicksand just to get his hands on a book with this title. The good news is that it’s definitely much better than the kind of book old Conan Doyle probably would have thought it was (which is to say, a nonfiction book about people who were successfully able to contact the spirit world). No, bestselling author Sarah Penner’s book is a canny romp through the Victorian zeitgeist that cemented Conan Doyle’s interests in spiritualism, a world in which science and rationalism clashed with spectacle and illusion and all of those things clashed with a preoccupation with ghosts and the occult. Anyway, it’s about a famed spiritualist and a non-believer who wind up joining forces to solve a murder… and then find themselves embroiled in a crime. Tell me you yourself wouldn’t run through quicksand to acquire this book, and I won’t believe you. –OR

David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
(Doubleday)

Grann is not only a meticulous researcher, but a brilliant storyteller too. In The Wager, we get a wild tale of shipwrecks, mutiny, and court marital; its lessons—about how people tell stories, and who to believe—are eerily prescient today. In 1742, 30 emaciated sailors—survivors of a ship that left England two years before and had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia—wash up on the coast of Brazil. Then, six months later, another boat lands off the coast of Chile with three castaways—and their story is very different. They claim the 30 sailors are actually mutineers. The first group accuses the new arrivals as murderous senior officers. A court martial is called to determine the truth. Grann pulls the story together from archival materials, diaries, and court documents (he even traveled to the island where the sailors were marooned), all to get to the truth. But whose truth matters most depends on who has the best story to tell. –Emily Firetog, Lit Hub deputy editor

Dennis Lehane, Small Mercies
(Harper)

The HarperCollins Union has been on strike since November 10, 2022. Literary Hub stands in solidarity with the union. Please consider donating to the strike fund.

Lehane is back with his first book since 2017’s Since We Fell, and this time he’s headed to Southie in 1974, in the middle of a heat wave as the city sorts through its controversial plan to de-segregate local schools. A woman whose daughter goes missing sets off on a journey through the city’s underworld, asking some uncomfortable questions of the Irish mobsters who rule her neighborhood, while also pulling on surprising threads that point to a possible link with the death of a young Africa-n-American man. –DM

Meagan Jennett, You Know Her
(MCD)

The thesis of You Know Her is that *everyone else doesn’t know her*! You heard me. Rookie officer Nora Martin is new to her small-town police department, but she knows in her gut that there is something going on with Sophie Braam, her new friend and the bartender at the local watering hole where a young man’s mutilated body is just discovered. There has been a serial killer stalking their tiny Virginia community. And Nora thinks it’s Sophie. And she’s the only one.–OR

Samantha Jayne Allen, Hard Rain
(Minotaur)

Samantha Jayne Allen is one of the new troubadours of a broken and booming West. In her second novel, a follow-up to last year’s well-received Pay Dirt Road, Allen’s private investigator is back, this time trying to track down a hero who saved a woman from a flash flood. As the PI’s investigation gets going, she soon realizes: her good samaritan may be an even better killer. –MO

Alice Slater, Death of a Bookseller
(Scarlet)

I truly feel like this book was written for me, but also for all of you, dear readers, for it is creepy AF in the best way. Two booksellers, one obsessed with true crime and the other deeply uncomfortable with the medium, get ready for a deadly showdown when one discovers the other has a more personal connection to the genre than most realize. Also there are snails. –MO

Caroline Kepnes, For You and Only You
(Random House)

Joe Goldberg heads to an MFA program to work on his novel in this fourth installment of Kepnes’s series, now close to the Ripliad in length and almost as huge in scope. Goldberg, like Ripley, is as bad as they come—but we can all relate to his visceral disgust at the hypocrisy of his surroundings, especially now that Joe is at an Ivy League program being taught by a pompous, no-talent has-been with a penchant for ruining the literary dreams of women who won’t sleep with him. Joe quickly falls in love with the only other student in the program who shares his working-class origins, but of course, he’s bound to project far more onto “Dunkin’ Sally Rooney” than she could ever live up to. –MO

Don Winslow, City of Dreams
(William Morrow)

The HarperCollins Union has been on strike since November 10, 2022. Literary Hub stands in solidarity with the union. Please consider donating to the strike fund.

In this follow-up to City on Fire, the action moves from the Rhode Island coast to Hollywood, but the story remains firmly rooted in Greek epic poetry. Danny Ryan is trying to lay low and start over in California, but a new movie based on his life, and a run-in with a movie star, set him back on the road toward violence. –DM

Adam Sternbergh, The Eden Test
(Flatiron)

Sternbergh’s newest is thriller set at a couple’s retreat, and each day the lucky pair, whose relationship is very much on the rocks, is asked a provocative new question that throws them deeper and deeper into crisis. That’s a perfect recipe for some emotionally heavy suspense. –DM

Megan Miranda, The Only Survivors
(Scribner)

In Miranda’s newest, old classmates get together ten years after a tragedy, but when one of them disappears, it calls into question everything the group thought it had already reckoned with. Miranda always delivers a gripping thriller. –DM

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MAY

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Megan Abbott, Beware the Woman
(Putnam)

Megan Abbott goes Rosemary’s Baby! A pregnant woman and her doting husband head to a family retreat in the woods, ready to relax with the knowledge that her father-in-law is a doctor. But a sudden health scare, and the family’s strict supervision of her activities, make the cottage start to feel more like a prison, and Abbott’s narrator starts to get a bad feeling about her mother-in-law’s early demise. Abbott has already proven that teenage girlhood is Noir AF, so I’m psyched to read her do the same thing for pregnancy. –MO

Emma Rosenblum, Bad Summer People
(Flatiron)

It was difficult to tear myself away from this delicious thriller long enough to write a blurb for it, and you’ll find yourself tearing through the pages of what feels like the crime fiction equivalent of that show Revenge that doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere. Like, seriously, what happened to Revenge? Anyway, the people in this nasty and terribly enjoyable novel are not to be envied, despite their beautiful second homes in a normie outpost on Fire Island. They treat each other terribly, dressing each other down when they’re not vigorously pursuing extramarital affairs or scheming to win island tennis champions, and as is wont to happen in such novels, eventually a murder results. –MO

Molly Odintz, Scott Montgomery, Hopeton Hay eds, Austin Noir
(Akashic Books)

The long-running Akashic noir series gets a standout installment this year, with a new collection focused on stories from one of America’s most fascinating cities, still clinging to its traditional ‘weirdness’ but also reckoning with a massive influx of money and an extreme clash of cultures that in many ways stands in for the broader forces at play in America today. The new collection has stories from Gabino Iglesias, Ace Atkins, and more, and with Molly Odintz, Scott Montgomery, and Hopeton Hays handling editorial duties, the volume takes on a rare sophistication worthy of its subject. This is the collection the city — and noir readers everywhere — deserve. –DM

Michelle Gagnon, Killing Me
(Putnam)

In this wild ride of a thriller, a woman finds herself rescued from the clutches of a serial killer by a mysterious female vigilante. She should be happy. Or at least trying to heal. But post-escape she’s now a person of interest who also happens to be a con artist. Her now-threatened exposure forces her to go on the run to Vegas, where she starts a cautious flirtation with a sex worker and meets a madam with a heart of gold. Things are going well—that is, until the vigilante returns with a very particular agenda. –MO

Ivy Pochoda, Sing Her Down
(MCD)

Ivy Pochoda is one of the great writers of today, crime or otherwise, although luckily for me, she writes pure noir. Her latest plays with tropes of the western as two former cellmates from an Arizona prison engage in a cat-and-mouse game after both achieve release. I will be spending my upcoming vacation reading this amazing new novel so that I can recommend it to you all in far more detail come May. You’re welcome, my darlings (although reading this book is truly the opposite of sacrifice). –MO

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JUNE AND BEYOND

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S. A. Cosby, All The Sinners Bleed
(Flatiron)

Why isn’t this one on netgalley yet, she cries into the abyss? Anyway, despite my lack of access to this book at the moment, I can assure you that S. A. Cosby is awesome and his new book is bound to be awesome too. In Cosby’s latest, the first Black sheriff of a small Southern town investigates the murder of an unarmed Black man and finds himself uncovering dangerous secrets about the very foundations of his community. –MO

Jessie Gaynor, The Glow
(Random House)

Gaynor’s sharpened blades are out for the wellness industry and its cult-like devotion to personal brands, but The Glow is more than just incisive observation and pitch-perfect satire. There’s a deep well of human ambition and desire at the root of this story, not to mention a sharp plot that bounds ahead with the assurance of the best thrillers. Gaynor builds layer on layer of mystery out of everyday human yearning, creating a whole that’s deeply satisfying and always surprising. –DM

Clemence Michallon, The Quiet Tenant
(Knopf)

I just got my advance copy of Clémence Michallon’s much-anticipated new novel and I *can* confirm that it’s worth the hype!! It is a beautifully and thoughtfully written book with a pitch-perfect premise, about a man named Aidan, who, after he loses his wife, must downsize. He must move to a new, smaller home with his teenage daughter… and the woman he’s secretly had captive on his property for five years. He is a serial killer, and she is the one woman he has ever spared. Narrated by the three women in his life—his daughter, the woman who falls for his cultivated charms, and the woman whose very existence is the only clue to his vicious true self. This book is fantastic.–OR

Dwyer Murphy, The Stolen Coast
(Viking)

If the lovers at the heart of Casablanca had met about 30 years later, and had a kid, and then that kid and his dad started a business, then the story might have gone something like Dwyer Murphy’s upcoming New England beach thriller, The Stolen Coast. Murphy’s hero and his retired spy dad have an unusual business helping people on the run, using the legions of homes left abandoned outside of the summer season. When an ex-girlfriend shows up with a plan for a diamond heist, the risks of an already-dangerous job go through the roof, but the rewards may just be big enough to be worth it. I have been assured that this book has no boat shoes. –MO

Colson Whitehead, Crook Manifesto
(Doubleday)

Pulitzer Prize winner Whitehead continues his journey through the history of modern New York City, this time taking on the 1970s, as the cast of characters from Harlem Shuffle get swept up in political action, civil unrest, corrupt policing, the rise of Blaxploitation culture, and more. It’s a rich backdrop for Whitehead’s powerful human dramas, and he paints a vivid portrait of people moving between the straight and the crooked world, just trying to get by. –DM

Sarah Weinman, Evidence of Things Seen
(Ecco)

Sarah Weinman is the exact voice I want to be thinking and writing critically about true crime culture, what it provides, and who it exploits, and I can’t wait to read her new anthology of criticism featuring a wide variety of thinkers on the subject. –MO

Andrea Bartz, The Spare Room
(Ballantine)

A young woman new to Philadelphia starts lockdown with the man who’s just called off her wedding, so naturally she takes up the offer from a friend and her husband who have a spare room…And then things get really interesting. Bartz always brings a healthy portion of social satire and incisive observation to her thrillers. –DM

Danielle Trussoni, The Puzzle Master
(Random House)

Trussoni’s new novel is an absolute joy to dive into. A former football star suffers a brain injury that results in him acquiring extraordinary puzzle solving abilities. His path eventually leads him to a woman in prison drawing mysterious puzzles that seem to connect to the work of a thirteenth-century Jewish mystic. If that sounds like a heady, mesmerizing, exhilarating story, you’d be right, and you’d want to get your hands on this Trussoni gem as soon as possible. –DM

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate
(Random House)

Both of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s parents worked in radio, so perhaps that’s part of the inspiration behind this bonkers ode to sound engineering and the (literal magical) power of the human voice. Silver Nitrate features a sound editor and a has-been actor as they befriend an elderly icon from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, only to find themselves drawn into a vast conspiracy to harness the magic of the silver screen and bring an occult-obsessed Nazi back from the dead. This book has everything, and I could not recommend it enough! –MO

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