Wintertime Is Reading Time

You thought your to-be-read pile of crime fiction was already daunting enough? Well, prepare to add a few more titles to that mountain.

In order to put together a recent Kirkus Reviews post focused on what I called the “First Must-Read Crime Novels of the New Year,” I developed a much longer list of mysteries and thrillers due out during the first three months of 2012. It covered English-language works from publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, though I ultimately culled from that rundown only eight U.S. releases.

Rather than let the complete inventory go to waste, I’m posting it here for your consideration. These are all books I think will be worth reading, though there aren’t many human beings who could so much as hope to get through all 145 of them between now and the end of March ... or even by December 31, 2012!

JANUARY (U.S.):

• Agent 6, by Tom Rob Smith

• All I Did Was Shoot My Man, by Walter Mosley (Riverhead)

• The Anatomist’s Apprentice, by Tessa Harris (Kensington)

• The Best Bad Dream, by Robert Ward (Mysterious Press)

• Blindside, by Ed Gorman (Severn House)

• Bloodland, by Alan Glynn (Picador)

• Blues in the Night, by Dick Lochte (Severn House)

• Breakdown, by Sara Paretsky (Putnam)

• The Burning Edge, by Rick Mofina (Mira)

• The Chalk Girl, by Carol O’Connell (Putnam)

• A Charitable Body, by Robert Barnard (Scribner)

• The China Gambit, by Allan Topol (Vantage Point)

• City of the Lost, by Stephen Blackmoore (DAW)

• Cold Comfort, by Quentin Bates (Soho Crime)

• The Confession, by Charles Todd (Morrow)

• The Darkening Field, by William Ryan (Minotaur)

• Dead Low Tide, by Bret Lott
(Random House)

• Defending Jacob, by William Landay (Delacorte Press)

• The Ely Testament, by Philip Gooden (Severn House)

• The Exterminators, by Bill Fitzhugh (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Fifth Victim, by Zoë Sharp (Pegasus)

• Guilty Consciences, edited by Martin Edwards (Severn House)

• The House at Sea’s End, by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• The Jaguar, by T. Jefferson Parker (Dutton)

• Midnight Guardians, by Jonathon King (Severn House)

• Perlmann’s Silence, by Pascal Mercier (Grove Press)

• Pineapple Grenade, by Tim Dorsey

• A Quiet Vendetta, by R.J. Ellory (Overlook)

• Raylan, by Elmore Leonard (Morrow)

• Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail!: Stories of Crime,
Love and Rebellion, edited by Gary Phillips and Andrea Gibbons

• The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen, by Thomas Caplan (Viking)

• Taken, by Robert Crais (Putnam)

• Those Who Love Night, by Wessel Ebersohn (Minotaur)

• Vulture Peak, by John Burdett (Knopf)

• The Way Between the Worlds, by Alys Clare (Severn House)

• What It Was, by George Pelecanos (Reagan Arthur/Back Bay)

JANUARY (UK):

• As Easy as Murder, by Quintin Jardine (Headline)

• Birthdays for the Dead, by Stuart MacBride (HarperCollins)

• The Cold Cold Ground, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail)

• A Cold Season, by Alison Littlewood (Jo Fletcher Books)

• Dead of Night, by Barbara Nadel (Headline)

• Death and the Olive Grove, by Marco Vichi (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, by Barry Forshaw (Palgrave Macmillan)*

• Death’s Door, by Jim Kelly (Creme de la Crime)

• The Doll Princess, by Tom Benn (Jonathan Cape)

• Finders Keepers, by Belinda Bauer (Bantam Press)

• Good Bait, by John Harvey (William Heinemann)

• The Lewis Man, by Peter May (Quercus)

• Nightmare, by Stephen Leather
(Hodder & Stoughton)

• A Room Full of Bones, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)

• Siege, by Simon Kernick (Bantam Press)

• Voices of the Dead, by Peter Leonard (Faber and Faber)

FEBRUARY (U.S.):

• Ackroyd: A Mystery of Identity, by Jules Feiffer (Fantagraphics)

• Archive 17, by Sam Eastland (Bantam)

• Available Dark, by Elizabeth Hand (Minotaur)

• The Bedlam Detective, by Stephen Gallagher (Crown)

• Before the Poison, by Peter Robinson (Morrow)

• Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, edited by Joseph Goodrich (Perfect Crime)*

• Children of Wrath, by Paul Grossman (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Comedy Is Finished, by Donald E. Westlake (Hard Case Crime)

• A Darker Shade of Blue, by John Harvey (Pegasus)

• Dead and Not So Buried, by James L. Conway (Camel Press)

• Deader Homes and Gardens, by Joan Hess (Minotaur)

• Dead Tease, by Victoria Houston (Tyrus)

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

• The Devil’s Odds, by Milton T. Burton (Minotaur)

• Hanging Hill, by Mo Hayder (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• Heart of a Killer, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)

• Hunting Sweetie Rose, by Jack Fredrickson (Minotaur)

• Liar Moon, by Ben Pastor (Bitter Lemon Press)

• The Next One to Fall, by Hilary Davidson (Forge)

• Night Rounds, by Helene Tursten (Soho Crime)

• No Mark Upon Her, by Deborah Crombie (Morrow)

• One Blood, by Graeme Kent (Soho Crime)

• The Royal Wulff Murders, by Keith McCafferty (Viking)

• The Technologists, by Matthew Pearl (Random House)

• Trail of the Spellmans: Document #5, by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

• Treacherous, by Gary Phillips
(Perfect Crime)

• Wild Thing, by Josh Bazell (Reagan Arthur)

FEBRUARY (UK):

• A Dark Redemption, by Stav Sherez
(Faber and Faber)

• The Fall, by Claire McGowan (Headline)

• The Glass Room, by Ann Cleeves (Macmillan)

• The Golden Scales, by Parker Bilal (Bloomsbury)

• Happy Days, by Graham Hurley (Orion)

• The Killing Room, by Richard Montanari (William Heinemann)

• Kind of Cruel, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Robinson)

• Moscow Option, by Jeremy Duns (Simon & Schuster)

• The Murder of Gonzago, by R.T. Raichev (Constable)

• Never Apologise, Never Explain, by James Craig (Robinson)

• No Going Back, by Matt Hilton (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Pantheon, by Sam Bourne (HarperCollins)

• The Queen’s Secret, by Victoria Lamb (Bantam Press)

• A Sentimental Traitor, by Michael Dobbs (Simon & Schuster)

• Tom-All-Alone’s, by Lynn Shepherd (Corsair)

• Uncommon Enemy, by Alan Judd (Simon & Schuster)

MARCH (U.S.):

• An American Spy, by Olen Steinhauer (Minotaur)

• Angelmaker, by Nick Harkaway (Knopf)

• Another Time, Another Life, by Leif G.W. Persson (Pantheon)

• Ashes to Dust, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (St. Martin’s Griffin)

• Astride a Pink Horse, by Robert Greer (North Atlantic)

• Blackstone and the Great War, by Sally Spencer (Severn House)

• Blood in the Water, by Jane Haddam (Minotaur)

• Chasing Midnight, by Randy Wayne White (Putnam)

• Clawback, by Mike Cooper (Viking)

• Death at the Jesus Hospital, by David Dickinson (Soho Constable)

• Deception, by Adrian Magson (Severn House)

• Edge of Dark Water, by Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland)

• Elegy for Eddie, by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper)

• The Girl Next Door, by Brad Parks (Minotaur)

• The Gods of Gotham, by Lyndsay Faye (Amy Einhorn/Putnam)

• Helsinki White, by James Thompson (Putnam)

• Hush Now, Don’t You Cry, by Rhys Bowen (Minotaur)

• The Last Good Man, by A.J. Kazinski (Scribner)

• The Memory of Blood, by Christopher Fowler (Bantam)

• Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, by Cara Black (Soho Crime)

• Nine for the Devil, by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer (Poisoned Pen Press)

• The Piccadilly Plot, by Susanna Gregory (Little, Brown)

• Point and Shoot, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)

• Poison Flower, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press)

• The Professionals, by Owen Laukkanen (Putnam)

• Rizzo’s Daughter, by Lou Manfredo (Minotaur)

• Sail of Stone, by Åke Edwardson (Simon & Schuster)

• Stay Close, by Harlan Coben (Dutton)

• Stein, Stung, by Hal Ackerman (Tyrus)

• The Thief, by Fuminori Nakamura
(Soho Crime)

• The Titanic Secret, by Jack Steel
(Gallery Books)

MARCH (UK):

• Asbury Park, by Rob Scott (Gollancz)

• The Black Rose of Florence, by Michele Giuttari (Little, Brown)

• Bloodman, by Robert Pobi (Arrow)

• Dark Angel, by Mari Jungstedt (Doubleday)

• The Devil’s Beat, by Robert Edric (Doubleday)

• The Drowning, by Camilla Lackberg (HarperCollins)

• The English Monster, by Lloyd Shepherd (Simon & Schuster)

• Fault Line, by Robert Goddard (Bantam Press)

• A Foreign Country, by Charles Cumming (HarperCollins)

• Grandad, There’s a Head on the Beach, by Colin Cotterill (Quercus)

• Holy City, by Guillermo Orsi (MacLehose Press)

• Lost Angel, by Mandasue Heller (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Master and God, by Lindsey Davis (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The Namesake, by Conor Fitzgerald (Bloomsbury)

• The Other Child, by Charlotte Link (Orion)

• Phantom, by Jo Nesbø (Harvill Secker)

• Secondhand Daylight, by D.J. Taylor (Corsair)

• Snakes & Ladders, by Sean Slater (Simon & Schuster)

• The Voice of the Spirits, by Xavier-Marie Bonnot (MacLehose Press)

Did I miss anything important? If so, please let us all know about it in the Comments section of this post.

* Non-fiction works

READ MORE: “2012 Australian Crime Fiction Releases” (Fair
Dinkum Crime).