Revue of Reviewers: 11-12-25

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.

Odd Numbers, Even Regard

My onetime employer, Kirkus Reviews, has released its list of what editors there say are the “Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2025.” But a selection of 11 titles? It suggests insurmountable disagreements in the ranks, and a quirky compromise. Regardless, here are Kirkus’ picks:

• Marguerite by the Lake, by Mary Dixie Carter (Minotaur)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• Fog and Fury, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Thomas & Mercer)
• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)
• Detective Aunty, by Uzma Jalaluddin (Harper Perennial)
• Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
• The Man Who Died Seven Times, by Yasuhiko Nishizawa (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Buried Above Ground, by Mike Ripley (Severn House)
• The Dark Maestro, by Brendan Slocumb (Doubleday)
• The Dentist, by Tim Sullivan (Atlantic Crime)
• The Librarians, by Sherry Thomas (Berkley)

Regrettably, I have read only a small handful of those works. And Marguerite by the Lake wasn’t even on my radar, yet Kirkus’ insistence that Carter’s Rebecca-derived tale is “not to be missed, and definitely not to be imitated” now makes me want a copy post haste.

* * *

In the meantime, British bookstore chain Waterstones is out with its own nominations of this year’s top crime and thriller novels. Because there are 51 books mentioned (again, what’s with the 51, instead of a more typical 50?), I’m not going to list them all here. Let me say, though, that I completely endorse the inclusion of Martin Cruz Smith’s Hotel Ukraine (Simon & Schuster UK), Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s The Art of a Lie (Mantle), Anthony Horowitz’s Marble Hall Murders (Century), and Virginia Feito’s brilliantly bizarre Victorian Psycho (Fourth Estate)—all of which are at risk of winding up on my own roll of 2025 favorites. Again, Waterstones’ full list is here.

Never Mind

As I mentioned before (in a note since deleted), my recent efforts to edit The Rap Sheet’s considerable blogroll and move some dormant links to my Archives page triggered resistance from Blogger, the online content management system I use. It promptly declared the results in violation of its Community Guidelines. Fortunately, it gave me the option to update my material and resubmit it for review.

What it didn’t do is provide me any clues as to why that content had been blocked in the first place, or how to go about restoring the Archives page to public visibility. So I slowly went through each link that was provided there, checking to make sure none of them now led to, say, a porn site. And none did. However, there were some few that brought up information unlike what had they been furnishing previously, and others that had simply disappeared.

In the latter category were Keith Raffel’s Dot Dead Diary and Les Blatt’s excellent Classic Mysteries blog, both casualties of Typepad’s demise earlier this year. (Blatt’s Classic Mysteries Podcast is still available, though.) Other formerly just inactive sites, such as The Lady Killers, Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room, and the original Seattle Mystery Bookshop blog, are currently nowhere to be found, along with any Web presence of Chris Aldrich’s Mystery News, a bimonthly tabloid that sadly went out of print in 2009.

On the other hand, I discovered that Patrick Balester’s Picks by Pat blog and J. Sydney Jones’s Scene of the Crime have both been resuscitated. They’re now back on my regular blogroll.

Yesterday I presented The Rap Sheet’s revised Archives content to Blogger, and it reinstated the page to proper working order.

On the Chopping Block

Ever since The Rap Sheet first flickered to life in 2006 (almost 20 years ago!), it has featured a lengthy right-hand column of links to other Web-based crime-fiction resources. The precise number and variety of those connections has changed over time, as blogs and Web sites have appeared and vanished. But we have always been committed to educating readers of this genre through more than just our own news stories, reviews, and commentaries.

Adding to this page’s blogroll is always gratifying; cutting out links to once-valuable sites that are, for one reason or another, no longer being updated or have expired altogether is far less pleasant. It must be done on occasion, though—and this is one of those times.

It’s come to our attention recently that more than a handful of the Web pages we have been listing on the right are now simply gathering dust. Knowing how hard it is to keep a blog or other Web site active, we try to be generous in allowing writers to let their sites lie fallow for a spell. We have learned that sometimes, what we conjectured were dead pages were merely dormant. (The Stiletto Gumshoe being a recent example.) However, sites that haven’t been refreshed for 12 months or more are usually not going to rise from the electronic grave.

We haven’t weeded through our entire blogroll yet, but here are the first links we’ve decided to remove from it:

General Crime Fiction:
• Black Guys Do Read
• Bookgasm
• Col’s Criminal Library
• Crime by the Book
• Crime Review
• Crime Squad
• Crime Thriller Hound
• Crimeworm
• Dead Yesterday
• Double O Section
• Harriet Devine’s Blog
• The Hungry Detective
• Interview Room One: Reviews
• Lawrence Block’s Blog
• Material Witness
• Mystery Scene Blog
• New York Journal of Books: Mystery & Thriller
• Nordic Noir
• Novel Gossip
• Novel Heights
• The Reading Room
• Reviewing the Evidence
• The Secret Agent Lair
• The Trap of Solid Gold
• True Crime Fiction
• Views on Books

Podcasts:
• Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine’s Podcast
• Almost Holmes
• The Bastard Title
• The BookPeople Podcast
• Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’s Fiction Podcast
• Good Evening: An Alfred Hitchcock Presents Podcast
• Hark! The 87th Precinct Podcast
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club
• James Bond Radio
• The Killing Times Podcast
• My Favorite Detective Stories
• Queer Writers of Crime
• The Tartan Noir Show
• Two Crime Writers and a Microphone
• Writer Types

Periodicals:
• Mysterical-E
• Mystery Weekly Magazine
• Noir Nation

Short Fiction:
• Beat to a Pulp
• Flash Bang Mysteries
• Modern Mayhem Online
• Not Offended
• Pulp Metal Magazine
• Tough

In only a few cases, do we know why these sites have gone dark. The termination earlier this year of Typepad, a once-popular blogging software, spelled the end for Ben Hunt’s Material Witness blog and Harriet Devine’s Blog, and almost took down B.V. Lawson’s In Reference to Murder as well. (She wound up moving the contents of her site over to Blogger in order to save it.) Meanwhile, the founder of the New York Journal of Books, a once superior book review site, blamed the closing of his operation on Donald Trump’s chaotic tariffs. But for the most part, we have no clear idea why these resources have disappeared. Their authors left readers with no explanations.

As we continue assessing our blogroll, there will likely be more dead sites nixed. Some, like Lawrence Block’s Blog and the John D. MacDonald-focused Trap of Solid Gold, will be relocated to The Rap Sheet’s Archives page, because they remain useful, even if they’re no longer being updated. But most will go away altogether.

If you happen to be responsible for any of these orphaned sites, and can reassure us that your project has a future after all, that’s wonderful. Please drop us a line here.

Still Quiet on the Endorsements Front

Although we’ve spotted a few “best crime fiction of 2025” lists around, including those from Jake Kerridge of The Daily Telegraph and American chain retailer Barnes & Noble, this year’s influx of such inventories has so far been more trickle than torrent.

However, Elle Magazine did recently publish its “Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2025” tally. Twenty-nine is a bit too many for me to feature here, but these are its top 10 choices:

• Needy Little Things, by Channelle Desamours (Wednesday)
• All the Other Mothers Hate Me, by Sarah Harman (Putnam)
• The Maid’s Secret, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)
• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Harper)
• Julie Chan Is Dead, by Liann Zhang (Atria)
• Riddle of the Jeweled Cipher, by L.J. Alson (Sager Group)
• Marble Hall Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)
• The Dark Maestro, by Brendan Slocumb (Doubleday)
• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• The Last Ferry Out, by Andrea Bartz (Ballantine)

(Hat tip to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.)

* * *

Greg Barlin, author of the six-year-old review site Barlin’s Books, doesn’t break down his ongoing annual “best books” roll by genre, but we can. From the 69 general favorites he’s highlighted so far in 2025, here are his 10 top-ranking crime, mystery, and thriller reads:

• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam)
• The Ghostwriter, by Julie Clark (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• What Kind of Paradise, by Janelle Brown (Random House)
• Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall (Pamela Dorman)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam)
• Kills Well with Others, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
• Proof, by Jon Cowan (Gallery)
• Murder at Gulls Nest, by Jess Kidd (Atria)
• Society of Lies, by Lauren Ling Brown (Bantam)

We will keep watch to see if any other books displace one or two of these before New Year’s Day, 2026.

That Darn Bird Again, With Bonuses

I have mentioned before that Max Allan Collins has an excellent new book due for release from Hard Case Crime on January 6, 2026. Titled Return of the Maltese Falcon, it is of course a sequel to Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon—his only novel featuring San Francisco private eye Sam Spade. But as it turns out, two occasional contributors to The Rap Sheet have an expanded edition of Hammett’s 1929 tale set for release on the very same day Collins’ yarn hits stores.

Expanded in what respect? Well, according to Northern California author Mark Coggins, creator of the August Riordan series, the hardcover version of The Maltese Falcon coming from Berkeley-based publisher Poltroon Press (shown at right) will feature not only the entirety of Hammett’s original story, but as a coda, a couple of Falcon sequels that Coggins produced and published recently in Eclectica Magazine. In the following note, he explains what motivated him to continue Spade’s adventures:

For a crime-fiction devotee like me, some stories never really end. They live in your head, the characters prowling the foggy streets of your imagination long after you’ve turned the final page. For me, and I suspect for many of you, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon is chief among them. Sam Spade’s characterization of the black bird as “the stuff that dreams are made of” in the John Huston film is one of the all-time great last lines,* but it leaves a tantalizing question hanging in the air: What happened to the real falcon?

This year, I got the chance to answer that question for myself. When the copyright for Hammett’s masterpiece expired in January 2025, it felt like a door creaked open, inviting a new generation of writers to step into Spade’s world. I didn't hesitate. I sat down and penned a short story, “Mockingbird,” that picks up right where the novel left off, sending Spade back into the labyrinthine hunt for the genuine, jewel-encrusted bird. I’m happy to say the story found a home in Eclectica.

Writing new fiction in a world as richly realized as Hammett’s San Francisco is no small task. Authenticity is everything. My guiding star was Don Herron’s indispensable book, The Dashiell Hammett Tour. It’s a brilliant field guide to the city Hammett knew and wrote about.

To that I added some of my own research. Herron, for example, notes that the novel places gunman Floyd Thursby’s hotel on “Geary near Leavenworth” but doesn’t pinpoint a specific establishment. Armed with a 1928 San Francisco city directory, I went hunting. One establishment stood out as the most likely candidate: the Geary Inn Hotel at 725 Geary. Today, it’s called the Hotel Luz. I reached out to the current owner who told me that a writer who had been a tenant of his had independently come to the very same conclusion.

Once “Mockingbird” was finished, I didn’t let up. A second tale, “The Russian Egg,” followed immediately, continuing Spade’s quest. It was also published in Eclectica Magazine.

Beyond those Falcon follow-ups, Poltroon’s forthcoming edition will include Coggins’ black-and-white photographs of modern-day San Francisco, introducing each chapter. And the shot used on the cover? It’s of the alley where Spade’s partner, Miles Archer, was murdered. “One of the marvels of Hammett’s work,” says Coggins, “is how tangible his city remains. You can still stand outside Spade’s apartment building at 891 Post, look up at his office windows in the old Hunter-Dulin Building at 111 Sutter, and even walk into John’s Grill on Ellis Street and order the same meal he ate: ‘chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes.’ My photos will capture these enduring locations, bridging the nearly 100-year gap between his world and ours.”

Randal S. Brandt, who writes The Rap Sheet’s “Book Into Film” column and is curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, has prepared a new introduction for this edition. And the dust jacket will include a “mapback” showing crime-scene locations from both Hammett’s novel and Coggins’ stories.

All in all, this sounds like a volume that belongs on my shelves—right next to Collins’ Return of the Maltese Falcon.

* The actual last line is “Huh?” spoken by Detective Sergeant Tom Polhaus in response to Spade’s remark.

Cast Your Irish “Ayes” Here

Organizers of the annual An Post Irish Book Awards have announced their shortlisted nominees for this year’s prizes. There are 18 categories of nominees in total, but here are the eight contenders for Crime Fiction Book of the Year:

• Two Kinds of Stranger, by Steve Cavanagh (Headline)
• Burn After Reading, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Bantam)
• The Secret Room, by Jane Casey (Hemlock Press)
• It Should Have Been You, by Andrea Mara (Bantam)
• The Killing Sense, by Sam Blake (Corvus)
• The Stranger Inside, by Amanda Cassidy (Canelo Crime)
• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Picador)
• The Stolen Child, by Carmel Harrington (Headline Review)

The reading public is invited to vote here for their favorite among these works. Winners will be announced on November 27.

(Hat tip to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.)

In Case You Require More Options

Somehow we have now made it to November. Although there have been several favorable turns along the way (my visit to Bouchercon in New Orleans, for instance), 2025 has, in many other respects, been an annus horribilis. At least we have had many satisfying new works of crime and thriller fiction to distract us and provide comfort.

Since mid-September, when I posted my diverse list of books debuting this season—on both sides of the Atlantic—I have added dozens of titles to the more than 425 I recommended originally. Over just the last month, I have extended that inventory to cover such releases as You-Jeong Jeong’s Perfect Happiness (Creature), Jane Thynne’s Appointment in Paris (Quercus), Chuck Storla’s Murder Two Doors Down (Crooked Lane), Jennifer Graeser Dornbush’s What Darkness Does (Blackstone), C.M. Ewan’s Strangers in the Car (Grand Central), Andreina Cordani’s A Scrooge Mystery (Zaffre), Cate Holahan’s The Kidnapping of Alice Ingold (Thomas & Mercer), Johana Gustawsson’s Scars of Silence (Orenda), Cara Black’s Huguette (Soho Crime), Robin Cook’s Spasm (Putnam), and Best of The Strand Magazine, an anthology edited by Andrew F. Gulli and Lamia J. Gulli (Blackstone).

Click here to find my updated list of reading diversions.

Bloodshed on the Airwaves

With Halloween nigh upon us, I am reminded of one of the most outlandish modern stories linked to this annual celebration. Yes, I’m talking about how the October 30, 1938, radio dramatization of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds caused many listeners to think that Martians were invading Earth … or at least New Jersey.

Because I’ve written about this episode before in The Rap Sheet, I won’t repeat the story, but instead direct you to my previous report here. At that link, you can also listen to the entire, hour-long broadcast by Orson Welles’ The Mercury Theatre on the Air.

In recent decades, there has been considerable debunking of the legend—as appealing as it is—that tens of thousands of gullible Americans panicked at hearing aliens had descended upon our planet. But in the broadcast’s immediate wake, many newspaper stories spread those rumors far and wide, including the one featured atop this post, from the October 31, 1938, edition of The Baltimore Sun.

READ MORE: “Invaders in Our Living Room: Why We Love the Myth That Most Americans Believed the 1938 War of the Worlds Broadcast,” by Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey (Pacific Standard); “The War of the Worlds Panic Was Anti-Radio Propaganda,” by Louis Anslow (Pessimist’s Archive); “Retro: When Orson Welles’ 1938 Broadcast of The War of the Worlds Scared the Dickens Out of Baltimoreans,” by Frederick N. Rasmussen (The Baltimore Sun).

Prized Talents

We have two new bits of crime-fiction awards news.

First off, Scottish author Peter May has won France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policiere 2025 for his novel The Black Loch (Loch Noir), the unexpected fourth installment in his much-acclaimed Lewis Trilogy, set on an island off the northern coast of Scotland. He is one of two recipients of this prize, which is given out annually to both a French author and a foreign author. The second winner is Mathilde Beaussault, being honored for her debut novel, The Willows (Les Saules).

Second, In Reference to Murder brings word that this year’s PRIDE Award for emerging LGBTQIA+ writers, presented by Sisters in Crime, has gone to Lizabeth Engelmeier of Southern Illinois for her novel-in-progress, Soft Little Monsters. It further explains that “Engelmeier will receive a $2,000 grant to support activities related to career development, including workshops, seminars, conferences, retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of her work.” Runners-up for the prize were Shelley Kinsman of Toronto, Ontario; Derek Puddester of Vancouver, British Columbia; Bryn and Rebecca Michelson-Ziegler of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; A. Mitchell of Detroit, Michigan; and Taryn Stickrath-Hutt of Chicago, Illinois.

Easter’s Basket of Goodies

George Easter, the editor of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, has begun collecting published lists of the “best” crime, mystery, and thriller lists of 2025. I won’t repeat everything he finds, but I will try to pass on selections I think are worth your attention.

The first two offerings he highlights come from critic Jake Kerridge of England’s Daily Telegraph and from chain retailer Barnes & Noble. Among their picks are William Boyd’s The Predicament, Lindsey Davis’ There Will Be Bodies, Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune, Nita Prose’s The Maid’s Secret, Vaseem Khan’s Quantum of Menace, Louise Penny’s The Black Wolf, Mick Herron’s Clown Town, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Benbecula, and Susie Dent’s Guilty by Definition.

Expect much more on this subject over the next two months.

Revue of Reviewers: 10-26-25

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.