News of the Nibbies

This year’s many shortlisted nominees for the British Book Awards—also known as the Nibbies—have just been announced. There are more than 20 categories of contenders, but the two that will presumably interest Rap Sheet readers most are below.

Crime & Thriller Book of the Year:
• Our House, by Louise Candlish (Simon & Schuster)
• The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn (HarperFiction)
• The Wife Between Us, by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen (Pan)
• Close to Home, by Cara Hunter (Penguin)
• Macbeth, by Jo Nesbø (Hogarth)
• In a House of Lies, by Ian Rankin (Orion)

Debut Book of the Year:
• The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock, by Imogen Hermes Gowar
(Harvill Secker)
• Never Greener, by Ruth Jones (Bantam Press)
• The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris (Zaffre)
• Dear Mrs. Bird, by A.J. Pearce (Picador)
• Lullaby, by Leila Slimani (Faber and Faber)
• The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton (Raven)

Winners in all of the categories will be declared during a ceremony scheduled to be held on Monday, May 13.

According to press materials, “The Nibbies was launched in 1990 by Fred Newman, founder and editor of Publishing News, and taken over by The Bookseller in 2017.” Previous winners can be found here.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

READ MORE: “Dan Mallory, Author Who Once Faked Being British, Nominated for British Book Award,” by Katie Rothstein (Vulture).

Revue of Reviewers, 3-22-19

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

A Bit of Love for the Indies

This comes from B.V. Lawson’s In Reference to Murder:

The Independent Book Publishers Association officially announced finalists for the Benjamin Franklin Awards program, recognizing excellence and innovation in independent publishing. The nods in the Mystery/Suspense category [go to] An Accidental Corpse by Helen A. Harrison; Black Hearts White Minds: A Carl Gordon Legal Thriller by Mitch Margo; Burning Ridge: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima, and Welcome to Sugarville: A Novel in Stories by J.J. Haas.

There are more than 50 categories of contenders for the 2019 Benjamin Franklin Awards. See them all here.

Macdonald’s Changing Faces

I’ve had reason recently to investigate the covers on various paperback editions of Ross Macdonald’s novels. In the course of doing so, I’ve posted some of those classic fronts in my Killer Covers blog. If you have missed noticing, click here to see the only cover Robert McGinnis painted for a Macdonald work. Click here to gaze in appreciation at Mitchell Hooks’ 1970s fronts for the Lew Archer series. And click here to compare those latter covers with Hooks’ illustrations for a pair of 1955 Macdonald releases.

Want to Be in the Bouchercon Anthology?

We still have seven months to go before Bouchercon 2019 opens its doors in Dallas, Texas. However, writers interested in seeing their work published in this year’s convention anthology should be aware right now of several refinements to the submissions process.

As previously reported on this page, Rick Ollerman, the editor of Down & Out: The Magazine, will serve as editor of the coming collection, with the finished product to be published by Down & Out Books. But Paula Gail Benson, who serves as contest coordinator for the inaugural Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction, today sent me a “call for submissions” notice with the following information, which I have bullet-pointed for easier reference:

• All proceeds from the anthology’s sales will benefit LIFT, Literary Instruction For Texas, which works to enhance and strengthen communities by teaching adults to read.

• Stories must be original works (no reprints) of fewer than
5,000 words. The theme is the conference slogan: “Denim, Diamonds, and Death!”

• The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2019.

• Please send submissions to rick@downandoutmagazine.com. For additional information about the anthology, please contact rick@downandoutmagazine.com.

• The anthology will be published for distribution and signings at Bouchercon in Dallas.

• A story entered in the Bill Crider Contest may be submitted to the Bouchercon anthology; however, if the story is selected and the author agrees to publication in the anthology, the story must be withdrawn from the Crider Contest because the contest rules require that submitted stories not be published before the end of Bouchercon 2019. For additional information about Crider Contest entries, please contact subs.deepintheheart@gmail.com or Paula Gail Benson at pgbenson_4@msn.com.

Everyone hoping to see his or her work included in this anthology’s contents should probably get started soon on their writing.

Fair Play Can Be Fatal

This week marks the welcome return of Monkey Justice and Other Stories, a collection of short fiction by Michigan author Patricia Abbott. Originally released in 2011 by Snubnose Press, an e-book imprint launched by the now late, lamented Spinetingler Magazine, Monkey Justice has been reissued in both paperback and Kindle formats by Down & Out Books, with a new cover design by J.T. Lindroos.

I’m a big fan of Patti Abbott, who has contributed a couple of essays to The Rap Sheet over time (see here and here), and who I interviewed when her first novel, Concrete Angel, saw printed back in 2015. I also coordinated with her for many years on the Friday “forgotten books” series. Yet for some reason, I never read Monkey Justice when it first appeared, so it’s nice to have a second chance at poring over the contents.

As far as I can tell, all 23 of the original stories are contained in this new edition. It’s a very mixed set, the pieces focusing on people who live under great stresses, and showcasing how they make decisions that will change their lives—not always for the better. For instance, the opening yarn, “Like a Hawk Rising,” gives us a burglar who has been laid up with a badly broken leg, and in his boredom has taken to peeping on the kid in the suburban house next door—a boy with a serially abusive father and a peculiar menagerie of caged animals. In “The Instrument of Their Desire,” the year is 1931, and a brother has engineered a scheme to save the family home—one that necessitates him pimping out his sister. “My Hero” finds Superman intervening in a marital dispute, with unexpected consequences. In “The Tortoise and the Tortoise,” which Abbott explains was inspired by an episode involving her own father, a man in a nursing home isn’t happy that the arrival of a priest in the room next door has caused his status in the place to slip. And Abbott wrote in her blog years ago about how this book’s title story, “Monkey Justice,” came into being:

Its genesis is easy to remember. I overheard the entire story on a bus ride into work [in Detroit]. No kidding. Well, not the part about the protagonist working with monkeys, but the rest of it.

Who could resist using a story about a man's wife and mistress giving birth to his daughters on the same day? The guy on the bus becomes Gene, the beta male, in my story. I even watched him de-bus at the [Michigan] Science Center.

He will never know that his story became my story and the title of this collection.

It was almost too easy to write it until I thought to insert the part about monkey behavior. ... Spending a week or two looking over recent capuchin monkey experiments was a treat. And those four anthropology courses finally paid off.

Abbott (the mother of fellow writer Megan Abbott) has penned more than 125 short stories, and in 2008 won the Derringer Award for one of them, “My Hero,” which features in Monkey Justice. Concrete Angel was nominated for an Anthony and Macavity award, and her subsequent novel, Shot in Detroit (2016), was in the running for both an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award. All of this should make clear that Abbott has had the opportunity to polish her storytelling style. The stories here aren’t always easily classified as crime fiction, and some of the choices their players make in pursuit of justice may cause you to shake your head with undue force. But they’re just as likely to launch you on the hunt for more of this author’s work.

Fostering a Richer Range of Writers

Beginning today, the Sisters in Crime organization is accepting submissions to its 2019 competition for the Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, a prize—now in its sixth year—intended to promote “an emerging female or male writer of color.”

A SinC press release says, “The award honors the late, pioneering African-American crime-fiction author Eleanor Taylor Bland,” creator of the police detective Marti McAllister series (Dead Time, A Cold and Silent Dying, Suddenly a Stranger). Candidates must apply by June 9, 2019, and the winner will be announced by July 1, 2019.” In addition to the commendation itself, the recipient will collect $2,000 in grant money. That SinC announcement goes on to explain:

The Eleanor Taylor Bland Award was created in 2014 with a bequest from Bland’s estate to support Sisters in Crime’s vision statement that the organization should serve as the voice for excellence and diversity in crime writing. The grant is intended for a writer beginning their crime writing career and will support activities related to career development including workshops, seminars, conferences, and retreats; online courses; and research activities required for completion of his or her work. This year, Sisters in Crime raised the grant amount from $1,500 to $2,000.

Past winners of this prize have been Mia Manansala (2018), Jessica Ellis Laine (2017), Stephane Dunn (2016), Vera H-C Chan (2015), and Maria Kelson (2014).

Complete guidelines for entering this year’s Eleanor Taylor Bland Award contest, as well as an official application, can be found here.

Taking a Brief Break

Due to conflicting professional and personal responsibilities, I find myself in the position of needing to take a short break from blogging. I have several things scheduled to go up on this page as well as at Killer Covers during the coming days, and I shall of course be keeping track, should any major crime-fiction news break. But otherwise, yours truly will be pretty quiet over the next week and a half. Stay well.

Brewskis, Books, and Bedtime

I’m not one for excessive celebrations of Saint Patrick’s Day. But I do like to commemorate the occasion each year with a plate of corned beef, cabbage and potatoes, and maybe a couple of beers to wash it all down. And since that often results in my feeling weary, I am prone to retire to a comfortable chair with a book in hand. Lucky for me, Janet Rudolph has updated Mystery Fanfare’s list of St. Patrick’s Day mysteries. Surely there’s something there enjoy this Sunday, the 17th, until my eyelids finally grow too heavy to keep open.

Revue of Reviewers, 3-11-19

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

Winslow’s Border Trilogy Bound for TV

From a particularly information-packed edition of B.V. Lawson’s “Media Murder for Monday” column—appearing today in her In Reference to Murder blog—comes this item:

FX Networks has landed the rights to adapt Don Winslow’s acclaimed Cartel Trilogy into a TV series that will include Winslow’s 2005 novel The Power of the Dog, the 2015 followup, The Cartel, and the just published conclusion, The Border. The book trilogy spans a 45-year period and follows DEA agent Art Keller through America’s long-running war on drugs as well as his blood feud with Mexican drug kingpin Adán Berrera. The first two books were originally sold to be turned into a feature film by Fox, but the company ultimately decided it was too much material for a two-hour film and better suited for “an edgy Sons of Anarchy-style series” by sister company FX.

You will find the whole column here.

Owl Be Watching You

Friends of Mystery, the Portland, Oregon-based crime-fiction fan group, has broadcast its list of 10 finalists for the 2019 Spotted Owl Award. To qualify, the author must be a primary resident of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, or the Canadian province of British Columbia.

• Fistful of Rain, by Baron R. Birtcher (Permanent Press)
• A Steep Price, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)
• Moving Targets, by Warren C. Easley (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Soul Survivor, by G.M. Ford (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Punishment She Deserves, by Elizabeth George (Viking)
• Madagascar, by Stephen Holgate (Amphorae)
• House Witness, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Line, by Martin Limón (Soho Crime)
• Baby’s First Felony, by John Straley (Soho Crime)
• The Bomb Shelter, by Jon Talton (Poisoned Pen Press)

The winner is scheduled to be announced during this month’s Friends of Mystery meeting, on Thursday, March 28.

Writes of Spring

Although I hadn’t intended such a convenient convergence of events, it seems I am posting this piece on World Book Day—at least as it’s celebrated in Great Britain. (Elsewhere, World Book Day will be observed this year on April 23.) What an ideal occasion to look ahead at crime, mystery, and thriller novels set to be released on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean between now and June 1. We can all use some suggestions of what to read next, right?

And there will be a signal abundance of books released in this genre over the next three months. Below I’ve collected more than 420 titles from which to choose. Among those are new works by Greg Iles (Cemetery Road), Alice Feeney (I Know Who You Are), Craig Russell (The Devil Aspect), Alafair Burke (The Better Sister), David Downing (Diary of a Dead Man on Leave), Ray Celestin (The Mobster’s Lament), Agnete Friis (The Summer of Ellen), Edward Conlon (The Policeman’s Bureau), Dervla McTiernan (The Scholar), John Connolly (A Book of Bones), Barbara Nadel (A Knife to the Heart), Brad Parks (The Last Act), William Shaw (Deadland), Jeffery Deaver (The Never Game), and two fresh entries by Anne Perry (Triple Jeopardy and Death in Focus). Philip Kerr’s final Bernie Gunther novel, Metropolis, is due in bookstores this season, as are Andrew Taylor’s third James Marwood/Cat Lovett historical mystery, The King’s Evil; James Runcie’s prequel to his popular Sidney Chambers series, The Road to Grantchester; Murder, My Love, the latest Mike Hammer detective yarn by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins; E.S. Thomson’s Surgeon’s Hall, her third Victorian-era thriller featuring apothecary Jem Flockhart; a previously unpublished novel by Desmond Bagley, Domino Island; another Guido Brunetti mystery by Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given; James Grady’s Condor: The Short Takes, a collection of tales featuring the CIA operative known as Condor; Sujata Massey’s The Satapur Moonstone, her sophomore outing for Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in 1920s Bombay; Thomas Harris’s new novel of “evil, greed, and the consequences of dark obsession,” Cari Mora; and a work of espionage fiction by Tom Bradby, Secret Service.

On top of all those, I’ve listed—and identified with asterisks (*)—several works of non-fiction that should interest mystery and thriller enthusiasts, including Claire Harman’s Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London and Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. Scattered among the titles below, too, are a handful penned by authors synonymous with this genre, but that are not strictly crime works (such as Louis Bayard’s Courting Mr. Lincoln).

Normally, when I put together one of these seasonal book forecasts, I recommend that readers wishing to learn about still more scheduled releases should refer to Euro Crime (for UK books) or The Bloodstained Bookshelf (for American ones). But, sadly, The Bloodstained Bookshelf seems to have gone quiet. The last time producer Ashley McConnell updated her lengthy tally was last June, and I haven’t yet been able to reach her via e-mail to determine the site’s status. I hope she will resume her regular revisions soon, as I’ve always found The Bloodstained Bookshelf to be a valuable resource.

Now on to your near-future reading opportunities …

MARCH (U.S.):

• After the Eclipse, by Fran Dorricott (Titan)

• All the Wrong Places, by Joy Fielding (Ballantine)

• Allmen and the Pink Diamond, by Martin Suter (New Vessel Press)

• Ambush, by Barbara Nickless (Thomas & Mercer)

• The American Agent, by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper)

• And Then You Were Gone, by R.J. Jacobs (Crooked Lane)

• Another Kingdom, by Andrew Klavan (Turner)

• Article 353, by Tanguy Viel (Other Press)

• Beautiful Bad, by Annie Ward (Park Row)

• A Beautiful Corpse, by Christi Daugherty (Minotaur)

• Before She Knew Him, by Peter Swanson (Morrow)

• Bertie: The Complete Prince of Wales Mysteries, by Peter
Lovesey (Soho Crime)

• Black and Blue, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)

• Black Souls, by Gioacchino Criaco (Soho Crime)

• Bloodline, by Nigel McCrery (Quercus)

• The Body in the Boat, by A.J. MacKenzie (Bonnier Zaffre)

• Bones of the Earth, by Eliot Pattison (Minotaur)

• Border Son, by Samuel Parker (Revell)

• The Case of the Careless Kitten, by Erle Stanley Gardner
(American Mystery Classics)

• Cemetery Road, by Greg Iles (Morrow)

• The Chernobyl Privileges, by Alex Lockwood (Roundfire)

• The Club, by Takis Würger (Grove Press)

• The Complete Dr. Thorndyke, Volume 1: The Red Thumb Mark, the Eye of Osiris and the Mystery of 31 New Inn, by R Austin Freeman and edited by David Marcum (MX)

• The Complete Dr. Thorndyke, Volume 2: Short Stories (Part I):
John Thorndyke’s Cases—The Singing Bone, the Great Portrait Mystery and Apocryphal Material, by R Austin Freeman and edited by David Marcum (MX)

• Crown Jewel, by Christopher Reich (Mulholland)

• A Dangerous Collaboration, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)

• Dark Tribute, by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s Press)

• Dead in a Week, by Andrea Kane (Bonnie Meadow)

• Death Blow, by Isabella Maldonado (Midnight Ink)

• Death on the Aisle, by Frances and Richard Lockridge (American Mystery Classics)

• Desert Redemption, by Betty Webb (Poisoned Pen Press)

• The Devil Aspect, by Craig Russell (Doubleday)

• Double Exposure, by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Grand Central)

• The Dutch Shoe Mystery, by Ellery Queen (American Mystery Classics)

• The Elephant of Surprise, by Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland)

• Family Man, by Jerome Charyn and Joe Staton (IDW)

• Finding Katarina M., by Elisabeth Elo (Polis)

• Forgotten Murder, by Dolores Gordon-Smith (Severn House)

• A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, by William Boyle (Pegasus)

• The Gardener of Eden,
by David Downie (Pegasus)

• The Good Detective,
by John McMahon (Putnam)

• The Greene Murder Case, by S.S. Van Dine (Felony & Mayhem)

• Her Father’s Secret,
by Sara Blaedel (Grand Central)

• Hipster Death Rattle,
by Richie Narvaez (Down & Out)

• The Horseman’s Song,
by Ben Pastor (Bitter Lemon Press)

• House on Fire, by Bonnie Kistler (Atria)

• I Am Watching, by Emma Kavanagh (Kensington)

• If She Wakes, by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown)

• The Last Act, by Brad Parks (Dutton)

• The Last Woman in the Forest. by Diane Les Becquets (Berkley)

• The Liar’s Child, by Carla Buckley (Ballantine)

• A Lily in the Light, by Kristin Fields (Lake Union)

• Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler, by Lynne Olson
(Random House)*

• Maigret and the Lazy Burglar, by Georges Simenon (Penguin)

• The Marrow of Tradition, by Charles W. Chesnutt (Belt)

• The Malta Exchange, by Steve Berry (Minotaur)

• Memo from Turner, by Tim Willocks (Blackstone)

• The Man With No Face, by Peter May (Quercus)

• Mercy River, by Glen Erik Hamilton (Morrow)

• The Mobster’s Lament, by Ray Celestin (Mantle)

• Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London,
by Claire Harman (Knopf)*

• Murder in Belgravia, by Lynn Brittney (Crooked Lane)

• Murder in Park Lane, by Karen Charlton (Thomas & Mercer)

• Murder, My Love, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Titan)

• My Lovely Wife, by Samantha Downing (Berkley)

• The Never Game, by Jeffery Deaver (Putnam)

• The Night Visitors, by Carol Goodman (Morrow)

• Nothing to Lose, by Victoria Selman (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Other Americans, by Laila Lalami (Pantheon)

• The Perfect Alibi, by Phillip Margolin (Minotaur)

• The Persian Gamble, by Joel C. Rosenberg (Tyndale House)

• A Puzzle for Fools, by Patrick Quentin (American Mystery Classics)

• Redemption Point, by Candice Fox (Forge)

• Redheads Die Quickly and Other Stories, by Gil Brewer
(Stark House Press)

• RED Hotel, by Gary Grossman and Ed Fuller (Beaufort)

• The Rescue, by Steven Konkoly (Thomas & Mercer)

• The River, by Peter Heller (Knopf)

• Rose City, by Michael Pool (Down & Out)

• Run Away, by Harlan Coben (Grand Central)

• Safe Haven, by Patricia MacDonald (Severn House)

• Saigon Red, by Gregory C. Randall (Thomas & Mercer)

• St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking, by Dana Haynes (Blackstone)

• Save Me from Dangerous Men, by S.A. Lelchuk (Flatiron)

• Silent Remains, by Jerry Kennealy (Down & Out)

• Smoke and Ashes, by Abir Mukherjee (Pegasus)

• The Stranger Diaries, by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• A Stranger Here Below, by Charles Fergus (Skyhorse)

• Take-Out and Other Tales of Culinary Crime, by Rob Hart (Polis)

• A Taste for Honey, by H.F. Heard (American Mystery Classics)

• A Town Called Malice, by Adam Abramowitz (Thomas Dunne)

• The Trial of Lizzie Borden, by Cara Robertson (Simon & Schuster)

• Tyler Cross: Angola, by Fabian Nury (Titan Comics)

• Until the Day I Die, by Emily Carpenter (Lake Union)

• Unto Us a Son Is Given, by Donna Leon (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• The Unsuspected, by Charlotte Armstrong (American
Mystery Classics)

• The War Heist, by Ralph Dennis (Brash)

• We Can See You, by Simon Kernick (Penguin Random House)

• What Would Maisie Do?: Inspiration from the Pages of Maisie Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper Perennial)*

• While You Sleep, by Stephanie Merritt (Pegasus)

• The Wicked Shall Rot, by Allen T. Grimes (Xlibris)

• The Wolf and the Watchman, by Niklas Natt och Dag (Atria)

• Wolf Pack, by C.J. Box (Putnam)

• The Woman in the Dark, by Vanessa Savage (Grand Central)

• Woman 99, by Greer Macallister (Sourcebooks Landmark)

• You Fit the Pattern, by Jane Haseldine (Kensington)

MARCH (UK):

• Accidental Agent,
by Alan Judd (Simon & Schuster)

• After She’s Gone,
by Camilla Grebe (Zaffre)

• Black Death,
by M.J. Trow (Creme de la Crime)

• The Blame Game, by C.J. Cooke (HarperCollins)

• A Body in the Lakes, by Graham Smith (Bookouture)

• The Boy in the Headlights, by Samuel Bjork (Doubleday)

• Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour, by Christopher Fowler (Doubleday)

• The Burning House, by Neil Spring (Quercus)

• The Courier, by Kjell Ola Dahl (Orenda)

• A Deadly Lesson, by Paul Gitsham (HQ)

• Death Has Deep Roots, by Michael Gilbert (British Library)

• A Death in Chelsea, by Lynn Brittney (Mirror)

• The Friend, by Joakim Zander (Head of Zeus)

• The Friends of Harry Perkins, by Chris Mullin (Scribner)

• A Gift for Dying, by M.J. Arlidge (Michael Joseph)

• The Godfather: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Mario Puzo (Heinemann)

• The Grasmere Grudge, by Rebecca Tope (Allison & Busby)

• The Guilty Party, by Mel McGrath (HQ)

• Indian Summer, by Sara Sheridan (Constable)

• I Thought I Knew You, by Penny Hancock (Mantle)

• The Inquiry, by Will Caine (HQ)

• I Thought I Knew You, by Penny Hancock (Mantle)

• Keep Her Close, by M.J. Ford (Avon)

• Killing State, by Judith O’Reilly (Head of Zeus)

• The Last Thing She Told Me, by Linda Green (Quercus)

• The Leaden Heart, by Chris Nickson (Severn House)

• Maigret and the Nahour Case, by Georges Simenon (Penguin Classics)

• Marked Men, by Chris Simms (Severn House)

• A Mind Diseased, by Catherine Moloney (Robert Hale)

• Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing, by Maryla Szymiczkowa (Point Blank)

• Never Go There, by Rebecca Tinnelly (Hodder)

• Nothing Else Remains, by Robert Scragg (Allison & Busby)

• Past Life, by Dominic Nolan (Headline)

• Prefecture D, by Hideo Yokoyama (Riverrun)

• The Road to Grantchester, by James Runcie (Bloomsbury)

• The Scandal, by Mari Hannah (Orion)

• Season of Darkness, by Cora Harrison (Severn House)

• She Lies in Wait, by Gytha Lodge (Michael Joseph)

• The Silver Road, by Stina Jackson (Corvus)

• Something Buried, by Kerry Wilkinson (Bookouture)

• The Stalker, by Alex Gray (Sphere)

• Surgeons’ Hall, by E.S. Thomson (Constable)

• A Suspicion of Silver, by P.F. Chisholm (Head of Zeus)

• Three Bullets, by R.J. Ellory (Orion)

• The Unmourned, by Meg and Tom
Keneally (Point Blank)

• Too Close, by Natalie Daniels (Corgi)

• Watchers of the Dead, by Simon Beaufort (Severn House)

APRIL (U.S.):

• Alice’s Island, by Daniel Sánchez
Arévalo (Atria)

• All My Colors, by David Quantick (Titan)

• Angel in the Fog, by T.J. Turner (Oceanview)

• Antiques Ravin’, by Barbara Allan (Kensington)

• An Artless Demise, by Anna Lee Huber (Berkley)

• At Home in the Dark, edited by Lawrence Block (Subterranean)

• Begging to Die, by Graham Masterton (Head of Zeus)

• The Better Sister, by Alafair Burke (Harper)

• The Bishop Murder Case, by S.S. Van Dine (Felony & Mayhem)

• A Bloody Business, by Dylan Struzan (Hard Case Crime)

• A Bouquet of Rue, by Wendy Hornsby (Perseverance Press)

• Buried Deep, by T.R. Ragan (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Caretaker’s Wife, by Vincent Zandri (Polis)

• Cold Wrath, by Peter Turnbull (Severn House)

• Come and Get Me, by August Norman (Crooked Lane)

• Condor: The Short Takes, by James Grady (Mysterious Press/
Open Road)

• Confessions of an Innocent Man, by David R. Dow (Dutton)

• Courting Mr. Lincoln, by Louis Bayard (Algonquin)

• D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II, by Sarah Rose (Crown)*

• Dead Heat, by Glenis Wilson (Severn House)

• Dead Man’s Lane, by Kate Ellis (Piatkus)

• The Deadly Cotton Heart, by Ralph Dennis (Brash)

• The Deadly Kiss-Off, by Paul Di Filippo (Blackstone)

• A Death in Rembrandt Square, by Anja de Jager (Constable)

• Death of a New American, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)

• A Deceptive Devotion, by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Editions)

• The Department of Sensitive Crimes, by Alexander McCall
Smith (Pantheon)

• Diary of a Dead Man on Leave, by David Downing (Soho Crime)

• Diary of a Murderer: And Other Stories, by Young-Ha Kim (Mariner)

• Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive, by Michael Allred and Lee Allred (IDW)

• The Double Mother, by Michel Bussi (World Noir)

• Doublespeak, by Alisa Smith (St. Martin’s Press)

• Down to the River, edited by Tim O’Mara (Down & Out)

• A Dream of Death, by Connie Berry (Crooked Lane)

• The Eighth Sister, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)

• Endurance, by J.A. Konrath (Pinnacle)

• Everything About You, by Heather Child (Orbit UK)

• A Fall of Shadows, by Nancy Herriman (Crooked Lane)

• Fatally Haunted, edited by Rachel Howzell Hall, Sheila Lowe, and Laurie Stevens (Down & Out)

• The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)*

• Flowers Over the Inferno, by Ilaria Tuti (Soho Crime)

• The Fourth Courier, by Timothy Jay Smith (Arcade)

• Freedom’s Detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan and the Man Who Masterminded America’s First War on Terror, by Charles Lane (Hanover Square Press)*

• Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, by Casey Cep (Knopf)*

• Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense, edited by Lisa Morton and
Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus)

• Girl Most Likely, by Max Allan Collins (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Girl with 39 Graves, by Michael
Beres (BookBaby)

• The Godless, by Paul Doherty
(Crème de la Crime)

• A Good Enough Mother, by Bev Thomas (Pamela Dorman)

• Hide and Seek, by Mary Burton (Montlake Romance)

• I Know Who You Are, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)

• In the Dark, by Andreas Pflüger (Dover)

• The Invited, by Jennifer McMahon (Doubleday)

• The Korean Woman, by John Altman (Blackstone)

• The Last, by Hanna Jameson (Atria)

• The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation, by Mark Bowden (Atlantic Monthly Press)*

• Lights All Night Long, by Lydia Fitzpatrick (Penguin Press)

• Lights! Camera! Puzzles!, by Parnell Hall (Pegasus)

• Like Lions, by Brian Panowich (Minotaur)

• Little Darlings, by Melanie Golding (Crooked Lane)

• Little Lovely Things, by Maureen Joyce Connolly
(Sourcebooks Landmark)

• Loch of the Dead, by Oscar de Muriel (Pegasus)

• The Loch Ness Papers, by Paige Shelton (Minotaur)

• The Lost History of Dreams, by Kris Waldherr (Atria)

• The Magnetic Girl, by Jessica Handler (Hub City Press)

• Malice in Malmö, by Torquil MacLeod (McNidder & Grace)

• Metropolis, by Philip Kerr (Putnam)

• Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (Sarah Crichton)

• The Missing Corpse, by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)

• The Missing Years, by Lexie Elliott (Berkley)

• The Mother-in-Law, by Sally Hepworth (St. Martin’s Press)

• Murder Knocks Twice, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)

• Murder on Trinity Place, by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)

• My Detective, by Jeffrey Fleishman (Blackstone)

• The Mykonos Mob, by Jeffrey Siger (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Odd Partners: An Anthology, edited by Anne Perry (Ballantine)

• Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper, by Gyles
Brandreth (Pegasus)

• The Pandora Room, by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Poison Bed, by Elizabeth Fremantle (Pegasus)

• Pray for the Girl, by Joseph Souza (Kensington)

• The Providence Rider, by Robert McCammon (Subterranean)

• The Question Authority, by Rachel Cline (Red Hen Press)

• Redemption, by David Baldacci
(Grand Central)

• A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary, by Terry Shames (Seventh Street)

• Saving Meghan,
by D.J. Palmer (St. Martin’s Press)

• Scot & Soda, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)

• A Snapshot of Murder,
by Frances Brody (Crooked Lane)

• Soho Angel,
by Greg Keen (Thomas & Mercer)

• Someone Knows, by Lisa Scottoline (Putnam)

• The Spectators, by Jennifer duBois (Random House)

• State University of Murder, by Lev Raphael (Perseverance Press)

• Stick Together, by Sophie Hénaff (MacLehose Press)

• The Stillwater Girls, by Minka Kent (Thomas & Mercer)

• Stone Mothers, by Erin Kelly (Minotaur)

• Strong As Steel, by Jon Land (Forge)

• Sweeney on the Rocks, by Allen Morris Jones (Ig)

• The Tale Teller, by Anne Hillerman (Harper)

• They All Fall Down, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Forge)

• Throw Me to the Wolves, by Patrick McGuinness (Bloomsbury)

• Triple Jeopardy, by Anne Perry (Ballantine)

• A Veil Removed, by Michelle Cox (She Writes Press)

• When Trouble Sleeps, by Leye Adenle (Cassava Republic Press)

• Who Slays the Wicked, by C.S. Harris (Berkley)

• With Our Blessing, by Jo Spain (Crooked Lane)

• Wolfhunter River, by Rachel Caine (Thomas & Mercer)

• A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, by Sonia Purnell (Viking)*

• Women Talking, by Miriam Toews (Bloomsbury)

APRIL (UK):

• The Absolution, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Blood on the Rocks, by Priscilla Masters (Severn House)

• A Book of Bones, by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Call Me Star Girl, by Louise Beech (Orenda)

• A Capitol Death, by Lindsey Davis (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The Chemical Detective, by Fiona Erskine (Point Blank)

• A Conspiracy of Wolves, by Candace Robb (Creme de la Crime)

• Critical Incidents, by Lucie Whitehouse (Fourth Estate)

• Cruel Acts, by Jane Casey (HarperCollins)

• Dark Sky Island, by Lara Dearman (Trapeze)

• Dead Man’s Daughter, by Roz Watkins (HQ)

• Death in Focus, by Anne Perry (Headline)

• The Detective, the Woman and the Pirate’s Bounty,
by Amy Thomas (MX)

• The Dower House Mystery, by Alanna Knight (Allison & Busby)

• Envy, by Amanda Robson (Avon)

• The Evidence Against You, by Gillian McAllister (Penguin)

• Fallen Angel, by Chris Brookmyre (Little, Brown)

• A Fatal Flaw, by Faith Martin (HQ)

• 55, by James Delargy (Simon & Schuster)

• From the Shadows, by G.R. Halliday (Harvill Secker)

• The Girl in the Letter, by Emily Gunnis (Headline Review)

• Inheritance Tracks, by Catherine Aird (Allison & Busby)

• Intrigo, by Håkan Nesser (Mantle)

• The Killer in Me, by Olivia Kiernan (Riverrun)

• The King’s Evil,
by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins)

• Kossuth Square,
by Adam Lebor (Head of Zeus)

• Liberation Square,
by Gareth Rubin (Michael Joseph)

• Maigret’s Pickpocket,
by Georges Simenon (Penguin Classics)

• The Neighbour,
by Fiona Cummins (Macmillan)

• One More Lie, by Amy Lloyd (Century)

• Perfect Crime, by Helen Fields (Avon)

• The Playground Murders, by Lesley Thomson (Head of Zeus)

• The Ringmaster, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)

• Rocco and the Price of Lies, by Adrian Magson (Dome Press)

• The Scent of Death, by Simon Beckett (Bantam Press)

• Sleep, by C.L. Taylor (Avon)

• The Sound of Her Voice, by Nathan Blackwell (Orion)

• Stasi 77, by David Young (Zaffre)

• Stone Mothers, by Erin Kelly (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Swimming with the Dead, by Peter Guttridge (Severn House)

• #Taken, by Tony Parsons (Century)

• Things in Jars, by Jess Kidd (Canongate)

• Throw Me to the Wolves, by Patrick McGuinness (Jonathan Cape)

• The Unnatural Death of a Jacobite, by Douglas Watt (Luath Press)

• The Venetian Masquerade, by Philip Gwynne Jones (Constable)

• What She Saw Last Night, by M.J. (Mason) Cross (Orion)

• You Die Next, by Stephanie Marland (Trapeze)

MAY (U.S.):

• The Almanack, by Martine Bailey (Severn House)

• The Assassin of Verona, by Benet Brandreth (Pegasus)

• The Big Kahuna, by Janet Evanovich and Peter Evanovich (Putnam)

• Berlin Noir, edited by Thomas Wörtche (Akashic)

• Beyond the Point, by Damien Boyd (Thomas & Mercer)

• Black Mountain, by Laird Barron (Putnam)

• The Body in the Wake, by Katherine Hall Page (Morrow)

• Breaking the Dance, by Clare O’Donohue (Midnight Ink)

• Cari Mora, by Thomas Harris (Grand Central)

• Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone, by Maurizio de Giovanni
(World Noir)

• Confessions to Mr. Roosevelt, by M.J. Holt (Five Star)

• Dark Site, by Patrick Lee (Minotaur)

• Death of an Art Collector, by Robert Goldsborough (Mysterious Press/Open Road)

• Deception Cove, by Owen Laukkanen (Mulholland)

• Deep Past, by Eugene Linden (RosettaBooks)

• Devil’s Fjord, by David Hewson (Crème de la Crime)

• The East End, by Jason Allen (Park Row)

• False Move, by Matt Hilton (Severn House)

• The Furious Way, by Aaron Philip Clark (Shotgun Honey)

• The 45th, by D.W. Buffa (Polis)

• Have Your Ticket Punched by Frank James, by Fedora
Amis (Five Star)

• Hitmen I Have Known, by Bill James (Severn House)

• Houston Noir, edited by Gwendolyn Zepeda (Akashic)

• The Island, by Ragnar Jónasson (Minotaur)

• The Jean Harlow Bombshell, by Mollie Cox Bryan (Midnight Ink)

• A King Alone, by Jean Giono (NYRB Classics)

• Last Stage to Hell Junction, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Kensington)

• The Last Thing She Remembers,
by J.S. Monroe (Park Row)

• The Last Time I Saw You,
by Liv Constantine (Harper)

• The Mad Hatter Mystery, by John Dickson Carr (American Mystery Classics)

• Milwaukee Noir,
edited by Tim Hennessy (Akashic)

• A Murderous Malady,
by Christine Trent (Crooked Lane)

• My Sister’s Lies, by S.D. Robertson (Avon)

• Necessary People, by Anna Pitoniak (Little, Brown)

• The Never Game, by Jeffery Deaver (Putnam)

• Next Girl to Die, by Dea Poirier (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Night Before, by Wendy Walker (St. Martin’s Press)

• One More Lie, by Amy Lloyd (Hanover Square Press)

• One Small Sacrifice, by Hilary Davidson (Thomas & Mercer)

• Only Ever Her, by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen (Lake Union)

• The Pages of Her Life, by James L. Rubart (Thomas Nelson)

• The Paris Diversion, by Chris Pavone (Crown)

• Peccadillo at the Palace, by Kari Bovée (SparkPress)

• The Policewomen’s Bureau, by Edward Conlon (Arcade)

• The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth, by Josh Levin (Little, Brown)*

• The Road to Grantchester, by James Runcie (Bloomsbury)

• Robert B. Parker’s Buckskin, by Robert Knott (Putnam)

• The Royal Secret, by Lucinda Riley (Atria)

• The Satapur Moonstone, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)

• The Scandal, by Mari Hannah (Orion)

• The Scent of Murder, by Kylie Logan (Minotaur)

• The Scholar, by Dervla McTiernan (Penguin)

• The Sentence Is Death, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)

• Shibumi (40th Anniversary Edition), by Trevanian (Rare Bird)

• Silent Footsteps, by Jo Bannister (Severn House)

• Spring Cleaning, by Antonio Manzini (Harper)

• The Stone Circle, by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Such a Perfect Wife, by Kate White (Harper)

• The Summer of Ellen, by Agnete Friis (Soho Crime)

• Swann’s Down, by Charles Salzberg (Down & Out)

• Tightrope, by Amanda Quick (Berkley)

• The Unquiet Heart, by Kaite Welsh (Pegasus)

• The Vavasour Macbeth, by Bart Casey (Post Hill Press)

• Westside, by W.M. Akers (Harper Voyager)

• The Woman in the Blue Cloak, by Deon Meyer (Atlantic Monthly Press)

MAY (UK):

• All That’s Dead, by Stuart MacBride (HarperCollins)

• The Anarchists’ Club, by Alex Reeve (Raven)

• As Long As We Both Shall Live, by JoAnn Chaney (Mantle)

• Black Wolf, by G.B. Abson (Mirror)

• Boy in the Well, by Douglas Lindsay (Mulholland)

• Breakers, by Doug Johnstone (Orenda)

• The Carrier, by Mattias Berg (MacLehose Press)

• Closer Than You Think, by Darren O’Sullivan (HQ)

• Conviction, by Denise Mina (Harvill Secker)

• The Copycat, by Jake Woodhouse (Penguin)

• Date with Death, by Mark Roberts (Head of Zeus)

• Dead at First Sight, by Peter James (Macmillan)

• Deadland, by William Shaw (Riverrun)

• Domino Island,
by Desmond Bagley (HarperCollins)

• The Family Secret,
by Terry Lynn Thomas (HQ)

• The Fatherland Files,
by Volker Kutscher (Sandstone Press)

• For Better and Worse,
by Margot Hunt (Orion)

• Forget Me Not, by Claire Allan (Avon)

• The House on the Edge of the Cliff, by Carol Drinkwater (Penguin)

• Hunting Evil, by Chris Carter (Simon & Schuster)

• The Killer in the Choir, by Simon Brett (Creme de la Crime)

• A Knife to the Heart, by Barbara Nadel (Headline)

• The Lost Shrine, by Nicola Ford (Allison & Busby)

• Maigret Hesitates, by Georges Simenon (Penguin Classics)

• Motive X, by Stefan Ahnhem (Head of Zeus)

• Murder Fest, by Julie Wassmer (Constable)

• Murder in Bel-Air, by Cara Black (Soho Press)

• Murder in the Mill-Race, by E.C.R. Lorac (British Library)

• Never Be Broken, by Sarah Hilary (Headline)

• Night by Night, by Jack Jordan (Corvus)

• No One Home, by Tim Weaver (Michael Joseph)

• November, by Jorge Galan (Constable)

• The Ottoman Secret, by Raymond Khoury (Michael Joseph)

• Out of the Ashes, by Vicky Newham (HQ)

• A Prisoner of Privilege, by Rosemary Rowe (Severn House)

• Rogue Killer, by Leigh Russell (No Exit Press)

• Secret Service, by Tom Bradby (Bantam Press)

• Shadow, by James Swallow (Zaffre)

• A Shadow Intelligence, by Oliver Harris (Little, Brown)

• A Single Source, by Peter Hanington (Two Roads)

• Stolen, by Paul Finch (Avon)

• Strange Tombs, by Syd Moore (Point Blank)

• The Sussex Murder, by Ian Sansom (Fourth Estate)

• Their Little Secret, by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown)

• Tick Tock, by Mel Sherratt (Avon)

• The Vinyl Detective: Flip Back, by Andrew Cartmel (Titan)

• Worst Case Scenario, by Helen Fitzgerald (Orenda)

• Your Deepest Fear, by David Jackson (Zaffre)

So what did I miss? Please drop a note into the Comments section at the bottom of this post, if you’d like to suggest other books crime-fiction fans should watch for during the next three months.