All Booked Up for Wintertide

Happy New Year’s Day, everybody … and welcome to The Rap Sheet’s latest edition of “We Bet You Can’t Read All of These Books in One Season.” OK, I am just kidding about that last part. More or less. In order to write my latest column for Kirkus Reviews, which looked at 14 choice crime-fiction releases due out between now and the end of March, I assembled a much more comprehensive catalogue of promising crime, mystery, and thriller novels destined to reach bookstores on both sides of the Atlantic during that period—some 300 works in all. Personally, I’m lucky to find the time necessary to read 100 books a year, so tackling triple that number in three months would be impossible. Yet I can’t help but taunt myself (and now you) with the range of delights soon to become available.

Included among those forthcoming volumes will be Even Dogs in the Wild, Ian Rankin’s 20th case for Edinburgh investigator John Rebus; Fuminori Nakamura’s The Gun, a philosophical thriller about a sociopath who finds and becomes fascinated with a pistol left beside the corpse of a likely suicide victim; The Shut Eye, Belinda Bauer’s tale of a woman seeking the aid of a psychic to locate her missing son; Peter May’s Coffin Road, a yarn that entwines several mysteries, one of them involving the century-old disappearances of lighthouse keepers from Scotland’s Outer Hebrides islands; Nightblind, Icelandic author Ragnar Jónasson’s dark sequel to last year’s prize-winning Snowblind; Minette Walters’s The Cellar, about a family of African immigrants living in London, whose abuse of an orphaned girl will result in more than a few terrifying turns; Flight of Dreams, by Ariel Lawhon, which tosses readers back to 1937 and the disastrous final journey of the German Zeppelin Hindenburg, always a fertile source of intrigues; Jo Nesbø’s Midnight Sun, focusing around a hit man seeking escape—and perhaps redemption—in Norway’s far north; The Widow, in which Fiona Barton imagines what life is like for a woman who’s been living under a media spotlight ever since her husband (now deceased) was accused of abducting a pretty little girl; Steps to the Gallows, by Edward Marston, which sends early 19th-century “thief-takers” Peter and Paul Skillen after the party or parties responsible for killing the editor of a scandal-mongering newspaper; Jane Steele, Lyndsay Faye’s quite satirical modern take on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, in which a young woman with homicide in her history returns to the childhood home she believes should’ve been hers, only to fall in love and be confronted with anxieties about how much to disclose of her past escapades; Murder Never Knocks, the latest collaboration between Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, looking at Manhattan private eye Mike Hammer’s efforts to protect a Hollywood producer and his Broadway actress fiancée; and Anne Perry’s Treachery at Lancaster Gate, starring Special Branch commander Thomas Pitt in an adventure that blends anarchical machinations with greed and determinedly kept secrets at the highest levels of British Victorian society.

Let’s just say that you should not have any shortage of options over the next three months when searching for fresh and promising works of crime fiction. And if the selections below are not enough (seriously?), check out The Bloodstained Bookshelf and Euro Crime. I referred to both of those Web site when compiling this list.

JANUARY (U.S.):

• After the Crash, by Michel Bussi (Hachette)

• Beside Myself, by Ann Morgan (Bloomsbury USA)

• The Bitter Season, by Tami Hoag (Dutton)

• Blackout, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)

• Black Wings Has My Angel, by Elliott Chaze (NYRB Classics)

• The Cellars of the Majestic, by Georges Simenon (Penguin)

• Coconut Cowboy, by Tim Dorsey (Morrow)

• The Covenant, by Jeff Crook (Minotaur)

• The Crooked House, by Christobel Kent (Sarah Crichton)

• Cry Blood/Killer in Silk, by H. Vernor Dixon (Stark House Press)

• A Cure for Madness , by Jodi McIsaac (Thomas & Mercer)

• Cut Me In, by Ed McBain (Hard Case Crime)

• Dearly Departed, by Hy Conrad (Kensington)

• A Death in Sweden, by Kevin Wignall (Thomas & Mercer)

• Desert City Diva, by Corey Lynn Fayman (Severn House)

• Dictator, by Robert Harris (Knopf)

• The Dirt on Ninth Grave, by Darynda Jones (St. Martin’s Press)

• Doing the Devil’s Work, by Bill Loehfelm (Sarah Crichton)

• The Drifter, by Nicholas Petrie (Putnam)

• The 8th Circle, by Sarah Cain (Crooked Lane)

• Even Dogs in the Wild, by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown)

• The Evening Spider, by Emily Arsenault (Morrow)

• Even the Dead, by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt)

• The Ex, by Alafair Burke (Harper)

• The First Order, by Jeff Abbott
(Grand Central)

• Forty Thieves, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press)

• The Girls She Left Behind,
by Sarah Graves (Bantam)

• The Good Goodbye,
by Carla Buckley (Ballantine)

• The Guardian Stones, by Eric Reed (Poisoned Pen Press)

• The Gun, by Fuminori Nakamura
(Soho Crime)

• Hour of the Wolf, by Håkan Nesser (Pantheon)

• House of 8 Orchids, by James Thayer (Thomas & Mercer)

• Hunters in the Dark, by Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth)

• I Am Your Judge, by Nele Neuhaus (Minotaur)

• The Last Dawn, by Joe Gannon (Minotaur)

• The Locker, by Adrian Magson (Midnight Ink)

• Murder of a Lady, by Anthony Wynne (British Library Crime Classics)

• The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake, by Terry Shames
(Seventh Street)

• No Gun Intended, by Zoe Burke (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Once a Crooked Man, by David McCallum (Minotaur)

• Orchard Grove, by Vincent Zandri (Polis)

• Orphan X, by Gregg Hurwitz (Minotaur)

• The Other Me, by Saskia Sarginson (Flatiron)

• The Plague of Thieves Affair, by Marcia Muller and
Bill Pronzini (Forge)

• The Poison Artist, by Jonathan Moore (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Presumed Puzzled, by Parnell Hall (Minotaur)

• A Prisoner in Malta, by Phillip DePoy (Minotaur)

• Quarry’s Deal, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)

• The Rataban Betrayal, by Stephen Alter (Arcade)

• Real Tigers, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)

• River Road, by Carol Goodman (Touchstone)

• The Root of All Evil, by Roberto Costantini (Quercus)

• Rough Justice, by Brad Smith (Severn House)

• Shaker, by Scott Frank (Knopf)

• Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Timbuktu, by Vasudev Murthy (Poisoned Pen Press)

• The Shut Eye, by Belinda Bauer (Grove Press)

• The Silence of Stones, by Jeri Westerson (Severn House)

• A Song for the Brokenhearted, by William Shaw (Mulholland)

• Summit Lake, by Charlie Donlea (Kensington)

• A Thousand Falling Crows, by Larry D. Sweazy (Seventh Street)

• Vagabond, by Gerald Seymour (Thomas Dunne)

• What She Left, by T.R. Richmond (Simon & Schuster)

• Where It Hurts, by Reed Farrel Coleman (Putnam)

• The Winter Girl,
by Matt Marinovich (Doubleday)

• Written in Fire, by Marcus Sakey
(Thomas & Mercer)

JANUARY (UK):

• After You Die, by Eva Dolan
(Harvill Secker)

• Akin to Murder, by Alanna Knight
(Allison & Busby)

• The American, by Nadia Dalbuono (Scribe)

• Baby Doll, by Hollie Overton (Century)

• Black Widow, by Chris Brookmyre (Little, Brown)

• The Chelsea Strangler, by Susanna Gregory (Sphere)

• The Circle, by M.J. Trow (Crème de la Crime)

• City of the Lost, by Kelley Armstrong (Sphere)

• Coffin Road, by Peter May (Quercus)

• The Darkest Secret, by Alex Marwood (Sphere)

• Dead Pretty, by David Mark (Mulholland)

• Dead Secret, by Ava McCarthy (Harper)

• Deathlist, by Chris Ryan (Coronet)

• Don’t Believe a Word, by Patricia MacDonald (Severn House)

• Exposure, by Helen Dunmore (Hutchinson)

• Fever City, by Tim Baker (Faber and Faber)

• The Guilty One, by Sophie Littlefield (Head of Zeus)

• Highbridge, by Phil Redmond (Century)

• Hostage, by Jamie Doward (Constable)

• The Ides of June, by Rosemary Rowe (Severn House)

• In the Cold Dark Ground, by Stuart MacBride (HarperCollins)

• A Masterpiece of Corruption, by L.C. Tyler (Constable)

• Narrowing the Field, by A.P. McCoy (Orion)

• Nightblind, by Ragnar Jónasson (Orenda)

• The Night Wanderer, by Alys Clare (Severn House)

• No Mortal Thing, by Gerald Seymour (Hodder & Stoughton)

• On the Bone, by Barbara Nadel (Headline)

• Quick and the Dead, by Susan Moody (Severn Hosue)

• Rebound, by Aga Lesiewicz (Macmillan)

• Rough Cut, by Anna Smith (Quercus)

• The Sign of Fear, by Robert Ryan (Simon & Schuster)

• Striking Murder, by Alan Wright (Allison & Busby)

• The Sword of Justice, by Leif G.W. Persson (Doubleday)

• The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, by Joanna Cannon
(Borough Press)

• Try Not to Breathe, by Holly Seddon (Corvus)

• Victim Without a Face, by Stefan Ahnhem (Head of Zeus)

• The Witness, by Simon Kernick (Century)

• The Woman Who Ran, by Sam Baker (Harper)

FEBRUARY (U.S.):

• Apricot’s Revenge, by Song Ying (Minotaur)

• Back Blast, by Mark Greaney (Berkley)

• Baggage, by S.G. Redling
(Thomas & Mercer)

• Betty Boo, by Claudia Piñeiro
(Bitter Lemon Press)

• The Black Glove, by Geoffrey Miller (Brash)

• The Blood Strand, by Chris Ould (Titan)

• The Blue Hour, by Douglas Kennedy (Atria)

• Bonita Faye, by Margaret Moseley (Brash)

• Breaking Wild, by Diane Les Becquets (Berkley)

• The Capitalist, by Peter Steiner (Thomas Dunne)

• The Cellar, by Minette Walters (Mysterious Press)

• City of Rose, by Rob Hart (Polis)

• Cometh the Hour, by Jeffrey Archer (St. Martin’s Press)

• Death of a Nurse, by M.C. Beaton (Grand Central)

• El Camino Del Rio, by Jim Sanderson (Brash)

• The Fall of Moscow Station, by Mark Henshaw (Touchstone)

• Find Her, by Lisa Gardner (Dutton)

• The Fine Art of Murder, by Emily Barnes (Crooked Lane)

• Flight of Dreams, by Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday)

• Floodgate, by Johnny Shaw (Thomas & Mercer)

• Girl in the Dark, by Marion Pauw (Morrow)

• The Girl in the Red Coat, by Kate Hamer (Melville House)

• The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes, by Michael Kurland (Titan)

• The God’s Eye View, by Barry Eisler (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Good Liar, by Nicholas Searle (Harper)

• He Will Be My Ruin, by K.A. Tucker (Atria)

• Hidden Bodies, by Caroline Kepnes (Atria/Emily Bestler)

• Honky Tonk Samurai, by Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland)

• Ice Chest, by J.D. Rhoades (Polis)

• If I Run, by Terri Blackstock (Zondervan)

• I’m Traveling Alone, by Samuel Bjørk (Viking)

• Interior Darkness: Selected Stories, by Peter Straub (Doubleday)

• Into Oblivion, by Arnaldur Indridason (Minotaur)

• Jane and the Waterloo Map, by Stephanie Barron (Soho Crime)

• Journey to Death, by Leigh Russell (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Judge’s House, by Georges Simenon (Penguin)

• Keep Calm, by Mike Binder (Henry Holt)

• A Killer’s Love, by Mike Monson (All Due Respect)

• The Killing Forest, by Sara Blaedel (Grand Central)

• Land of Shadows, by Priscilla Royal (Poisoned Pen Press)

• The Language of Secrets, by Ausma Zehanat Khan (Minotaur)

• The Lion’s Mouth, by Anne Holt (Scribner)

• Midnight Sun, by Jo Nesbø (Knopf)

• A Midsummer’s Equation, by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur)

• Missing Pieces, by Heather Gudenkauf (Mira)

• Montalbano’s First Case and Other Stories, by Andrea Camilleri (Penguin)

• Murder at the Manor: Country House Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Murder in an Irish Village, by Carlene O’Connor (Kensington)

• The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish, by Tim Flannery (Minotaur)

• No Cure for Love, by Peter Robinson (Morrow)

• No Shred of Evidence, by Charles Todd (Morrow)

• Old Money, by Bobby Cole (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Other Child, by Lucy Atkins (Quercus)

• Out of the Blues, by Trudy Nan Boyce (Putnam)

• The Oxford Inheritance, by Ann A. McDonald (Morrow)

• The Passenger, by F.R. Tallis (Pegasus)

• Perfect Days, by Raphael Montes (Penguin Press)

• Quarry’s Cut, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)

• Queen of the Night, by Alexander Chee (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Runaway, by Peter May (Quercus)

• Saving Jason, by Michael Sears (Putnam)

• Secret Justice, by Paul Goldstein (Ankerwycke)

• Shaft’s Revenge, by David F. Walker (Dynamite Entertainment)

• Shoot, by Loren D. Estleman (Forge)

• The Silence of the Sea, by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir (Minotaur)

• South of Nowhere, by Minerva Koenig (Minotaur)

• Spoils of Victory, by John A. Connell (Berkley)

• Switcheroo, by Aaron Elkins (Thomas & Mercer)

• Try Not to Breathe, by Holly Seddon (Ballantine)

• Tundra Kill, by Stan Jones (Bowhead Press)

• Unreasonable Doubt, by Vicki Delany (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Violent Crimes, by Phillip Margolin (Harper)

• A Voice from the Field, by Neal Griffin (Forge)

• What Remains of Me, by Alison Gaylin (Morrow)

• Where I Lost Her, by T. Greenwood (Kensington)

• The Widow, by Fiona Barton (NAL)

• The Wolves, by Alex Berenson (Putnam)

FEBRUARY (UK):

• Acts of Violence, by James Craig (Constable)

• Behind Closed Doors, by B.A. Paris (Mira)

• Black Hammock, by Michael Wiley (Severn House)

• Buried, by Graham Masterton (Head of Zeus)

• Cat Among the Herrings, by L.C. Tyler (Allison & Busby)

• The Damage Done, by James Oswald (Michael Joseph)

• Dangerous Minds, by Priscilla Masters (Severn House)

• The Drowned Detective, by Neil Jordan (Bloomsbury)

• Every Three Hours, by Chris Mooney (Penguin)

• A Fever of the Blood, by Oscar de Muriel (Michael Joseph)

• First Response, by Stephen Leather (Hodder & Stoughton)

• For Richer, For Poorer, by Kerry
Wilkinson (Pan)

• French Concession, by Xiao Bai (Oneworld/Point Blank)

• The Hollow Men,
by Rob McCarthy (Mulholland)

• The House at Baker Street,
by Michelle Birkby (Pan)

• The House of Eyes, by Kate Ellis (Piatkus)

• I Am No One, by Patrick Flanery (Atlantic)

• Melody of Murder, by Stella Cameron (Crème de la Crime)

• Missing, Presumed, by Susie Steiner (Borough Press)

• Murder at the Loch, by Eric Brown (Severn House)

• The Narrow Bed, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Papercuts, by Colin Bateman (Head of Zeus)

• The Primrose Pursuit, by Suzetta A. Hill (Allison & Busby)

• Promises of Blood, by David Thorne (Corvus)

• Retribution, by Steffen Jacobsen (Quercus)

• Stasi Child, by David Young (Twenty7)

• Steps to the Gallows, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)

• The Stopped Heart, by Julie Myerson (Jonathan Cape)

• Tainted Love, by Kimberley Chambers (HarperCollins)

• 13 Minutes, by Sarah Pinborough (Gollanc)

• To the Last Drop, by Sandra Balzo (Severn House)

• Westmorland Alone, by Ian Sansom (Fourth Estate)

• The Woman in Blue, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)

• Written in Red, by Annie Dalton (Severn House)

MARCH (U.S.):

• Bad Samaritan, by Michael J. Malone (Contraband)

• Bad Signs, by R.J. Ellory (Overlook Press)

• A Bed of Scorpions, by Judith Flanders (Minotaur)

• Buckular Dystrophy, by Joseph Heywood (Lyons Press)

• Cambodia Noir, by Nick Seeley (Scribner)

• Closed Circles, by Viveca Sten (AmazonCrossing)

• The Considerate Killer, by Lene Kaaberbøl and
Agnete Friis (Soho Crime)

• Crazy Blood, by T. Jefferson Parker (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Dalwich Desecration, by Gregory Harris (Kensington)

• Dark Debts, by Karen Hall (Simon & Schuster)

• Death Descends on Saturn Villa, by M.R.C. Kasasian (Pegasus)

• Death on the Riviera, by John Bude (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Deep Blue, by Randy Wayne White (Putnam)

• Death in Cantera, by John D. Nesbitt (Five Star)

• Devil in the Grass, by Christopher Bowron (Koehler)

• The Eloquence of the Dead, by Conor Brady (Minotaur)

• Far From True, by Linwood Barclay (NAL)

• Fool Me Once, by Harlan Coben (Dutton)

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

• Gone Again, by James Grippando (Harper)

• Goodbye to the Dead, by Brian Freeman (Quercus)

• Hap and Leonard, by Joe R. Lansdale (Tachyon)

• Hard Cold Winter, by Glen Erik Hamilton (Morrow)

• The Hourglass Factory, by Lucy Ribchester (Pegasus)

• The Hundred Mile View, by C.J. Howell (280 Steps)

• The Infidel Stain, by M.J. Carter (Putnam)

• The Invisible Guardian, by Dolores Redondo (Atria)

• Jane Steele, by Lyndsay Faye (Putnam)

• Journey to Munich, by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper)

• Jump Cut, by Libby Fischer Hellmann (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Just Fall, by Nina Sadowsky (Ballantine)

• The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins, by Antonia Hodgson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Leave Her to Hell/Let Me Kill You, Sweetheart/Take Me Home, by Fletcher Flora (Stark House)

• Lesser Evils, by Joe Flanagan
(Europa Editions)

• Lie in Plain Sight,
by Maggie Barbieri (Minotaur)

• The Midwife and the Assassin,
by Sam Thomas (Minotaur)

• Murder Never Knocks, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Titan)

• The North Water, by Ian McGuire (Henry Holt)

• No One Knows, by J.T. Ellison (Gallery)

• Nowhere Girl , by Susan Strecker (Thomas Dunne)

• Off the Grid, by C.J. Box (Putnam)

• Oil and Marble, by Stephanie Storey (Arcade)

• The Other Side of Silence, by Philip Kerr (Marian Wood Books/Putnam)

• The Passenger, by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

• Pimp, by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr (Hard Case Crime)

• Quarry’s Vote, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)

• Rain Dogs, by Adrian McKinty (Seventh Street)

• Serpents in Paradise: Countryside Crimes, edited by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Signed, Picpus, by Georges Simenon (Penguin)

• Silent City, by Alex Segura (Polis)

• The Singing Bone, by Beth Hahn (Regan Arts)

• Speakers of the Dead, by J. Aaron Sanders (Plume)

• The Squad Room, by Robert Nivakoff and John Cutter (Beaufort)

• The Steel Kiss, by Jeffery Deaver (Grand Central)

• Stop the Presses!, by Robert Goldsborough
(Mysterious Press/Open Road)

• The Taxidermist’s Daughter, by Kate Mosse (Morrow)

• Thursday’s Children, by Nicci French (Penguin)

• Time of Fog and Fire, by Rhys Bowen (Minotaur)

• The Travelers, by Chris Pavone (Crown)

• Treachery at Lancaster Gate, by Anne Perry (Ballantine)

• Twisted River, by Siobhán MacDonald (Penguin)

• The Unfortunate Englishman, by John Lawton (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• The Vanished, by Lotte and Søren Hammer (Bloomsbury)

• The Watcher in the Wall, by Owen Laukkanen (Putnam)

• The Waters of Eternal Youth, by Donna Leon (Atlantic Monthly Press)

MARCH (UK):

• Beloved Poison, by E.S. Thomson (Constable)

• Bone by Bone, by Sanjida Kay (Corvus)

• Brit Noir : The Pocket Essential Guide to British Crime Fiction, Film & TV, by Barry Forshaw (Pocket Essentials)

• Bryant & May: Strange Tide, by Christopher Fowler (Doubleday)

• A Cast of Vultures, by Judith Flanders (Allison & Busby)

• Classic at Bay, by Amy Myers (Severn House)

• The Darkest Goodbye, by Alex Gray (Sphere)

• Death in Bayswater, by Linda Stratmann (History Press)

• Deep Waters, by Patricia Hall (Severn House)

• Drinking Gourd, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)

• Fire Damage, by Kate Medina (HarperCollins)

• Gone Astray, by Michelle Davies (Macmillan)

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

• Guilt in the Cotswolds, by Rebecca Tope (Allison & Busby)

• Hard Cover, by Adrian Magson (Severn House)

• The House of Smoke, by Sam Christer (Sphere)

• The Ice Child, by Camilla Läckberg (HarperCollins)

• Little Boy Blue, by M.J. Arlidge (Michael Joseph)

• Murder at the Ashmolean, by Max Hunter (Allison & Busby)

• Ordeal, by Jørn Lier Horst (Sandstone Press)

• Penance, by Kate O’Riordan (Constable)

• The Primrose Path, by Rebecca Griffiths (Sphere)

• Safari, by Tony Park (Quercus)

• She Died Young, by Elizabeth Wilson (Serpent’s Tail)

• Shot Through the Heart, by Isabelle Grey (Quercus)

• Sisters and Lies, by Bernice Barrington (Penguin Ireland)

• Six Four, by Hideo Yokoyama (Quercus)

• Ten Days, by Gillian Slovo (Canongate)

• Thin Ice, by Quentin Bates (Constable)

• Think Wolf, by Michael Gregorio (Severn House)

• Trust No One, by Clare Donoghue (Pan)

• Two Evils, by Mark Sennen (Avon)

• What She Never Told Me, by Kate McQuaile (Quercus)

Given the size of this listing endeavor, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that I’ve made some errors here. Or that I have left out forthcoming books that other readers consider particularly noteworthy. Any and all comments are welcome.