Changing Seasons, Not Subjects

In early 2017, when my long-term gig with Kirkus Reviews ended, I figured I would finally have time again to read books other than crime and mystery novels. I had historical non-fiction I was hankering to tackle, plus a heap of mainstream novels I had set aside for free moments that somehow never came around. Yet, a year later, I find that I am consuming no fewer detective tales, whodunits, and espionage yarns than I did before. The only differences may be that (1) I can now supplement my diet of fresh-off-the-press releases with a greater number of older works, and (2) I am at more liberty these days to sample books by Big Name Authors than I was when my goal was to expand Kirkus’ coverage beyond oh-so-familiar wordsmiths.

It seems confirmed: I’m a crime-fiction addict.

Fortunately, there are ample ways to feed my particular dependence. This spring season—starting officially on March 20 in the Northern Hemisphere—will bring with it hundreds of new books to fill up store shelves. Just a few of the works I’m looking forward to adding to my personal collection: Greeks Bearing Gifts, Philip Kerr’s 13th novel featuring German investigator Bernie Gunther; Money in the Morgue, a Roderick Alleyn sleuthing yarn begun by Ngaio Marsh during World War II, but completed more recently by Stella Duffy; Derek B. Miller’s American by Day, which follows one of his Scandinavian cops from Norwegian by Night (2013) west, to upper New York state, in search of her missing sibling; Kelli Stanley’s fourth Miranda Corbie private-eye mystery, City of Sharks; Abir Mukherjee’s A Necessary Evil, his sequel to A Rising Man; the latest Mike Hammer collaboration between Max Allan Collins and the late Mickey Spillane, Killing Town; E.S. Thomson’s third Jem Flockhart historical puzzler, The Blood; CNN News anchor Jake Tapper’s debut political thriller, The Hellfire Club; Arnaldur Indridason’s The Shadow Killer, his sequel to last year’s The Shadow District; John Harvey’s final Frank Elder novel, Body & Soul; Andrew Taylor’s The Fire Court, his follow-up to 2016’s The Ashes of London; Lee Goldberg’s True Fiction, starring “the unluckiest writer alive”; Goldstein, a third case confronting Volker Kutscher’s Detective Gereon Rath; William Shaw’s Salt Lane, in which we’re offered the sophomore appearance of Alexandra Cupidi, from The Birdwatcher; Shakespeare-inspired fiction from both Jo Nesbø (Macbeth) and David Hewson (Juliet and Romeo); R.N. Morris’ fourth Silas Quinn historical mystery, The Red Hand of Fury; the return of Detective Superintendent Richard Jury, in Martha Grimes’ The Knowledge; J. Todd Scott’s second Chris Cherry novel, High White Sun, set among the parched Texas/Mexico borderlands; Forever and a Day, Anthony Horowitz’s sophomore shot at a James Bond adventure (following Trigger Mortis); and the new edition of Kingsley Amis’ Colonel Sun, the first Agent 007 continuation novel, published in 1968—four year after Ian Fleming’s death.

On top of all those literary delights, we can expect to welcome new books this season by Loren D. Estleman, Naomi Hirahara, Robert Goddard, Alex Kava, Peter Swanson, Donna Leon, David Downing, Sarah Hilary, Christopher Moore, K.J. Howe, John Connolly, Fuminori Nakamura, Sarah Pinborough, Steve Hamilton, Julia Heaberlin, Peter James, Belinda Bauer, and others. Even a crime-fiction junkie like yours truly isn’t likely to run out of fine fixes anytime soon.

Below I have listed more than 350 promising works for followers of crime and thriller fiction, published in English and set to reach bookshops on both sides of the Atlantic between now and June 1. Non-fiction books are identified here with asterisks (*); the rest are novels or collections of short stories. If you need still more reading ideas, check out Euro Crime and The Bloodstained Bookshelf.

MARCH (U.S.):

• The Affliction, by Beth Gutcheon (Morrow)

• Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life, by Laura Thompson (Pegasus)*

• Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions, by Mario Giordano
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Bad Cops, by Nick Oldham (Severn House)

• The Bags of Tricks Affair, by Bill Pronzini (Forge)

• Barbed Wire Heart, by Tess Sharpe (Grand Central)

• The Bishop’s Pawn, by Steve Berry (Minotaur)

• Black and White Ball, by Loren D. Estleman (Forge)

• Bloody Scotland: New Fiction from Scotland’s Best Crime Writers, edited by James Crawford (Pegasus)

• Bone Music, by Christopher Rice (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Broken Girls, by Simone St. James (Berkley)

• Caribbean Rim, by Randy Wayne White (Putnam)

• City of Sharks, by Kelli Stanley (Minotaur)

• Closer Than You Know, by Brad Parks (Dutton)

• Close to Home, by Cara Hunter (Penguin)

• The Coincidence Makers, by Yoav Blum (St. Martin’s Press)

• Colonel Sun, by Kingsley Amis (Pegasus)

• Crimson Lake, by Candice Fox (Forge)

• Dangerous Boys, by Greg F. Gifune (Down & Out)

• Dayfall, by Michael David Ares (Tor)

• The Day She Disappeared, by Christobel Kent (Sarah Crichton)

• Dead Guy in the Bathtub, by Paul Greenberg (All Due Respect/
Down & Out)

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

• Death at the Durbar, by Arjun Raj Gaind (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Death Comes in Through the Kitchen, by Teresa Dovalpage
(Soho Crime)

• Death of an Unsung Hero, by Tessa Arlen (Minotaur)

• The Devil and the River, by R.J. Ellory (Overlook Press)

• Devil in the Basement: White Supremacy, Satanic Ritual, and My Family, by Charlotte Laws (Stroud House)

• Devil’s Wolf, by Paul Doherty (Headline)

• A Different Kind of Evil, by Andrew Wilson (Washington Square Press)

• The Disappeared, by C.J. Box (Putnam)

• Dodging and Burning, by John Copenhaver (Pegasus)

• The Echo Killing, by Christi Daugherty (Minotaur)

• The Escape Artist, by Brad Meltzer (Grand Central)

• Exacting Justice, by T.G. Wolff (Down & Out)

• Exhibit Alexandra, by Natasha Bell (Crown)

• Fade to Black, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)

• The Family Next Door, by Sally Hepworth (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Fighter, by Michael Farris Smith (Little, Brown)

• The Flight Attendant, by Chris Bohjalian (Doubleday)

• Foreign Bodies, edited by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press)

• A Funeral in Mantova, by David P. Wagner (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Glimpse, by Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin’s Press)

• Gods of Howl Mountain, by Taylor Brown (St. Martin’s Press)

• A Guide for Murdered Children, by Sarah Sparrow (Blue Rider Press)

• High White Sun, by J. Todd Scott (Putnam)

• Hiroshima Boy, by Naomi Hirahara (Prospect Park)

• Holmes Entangled, by Gordon McAlpine (Seventh Street)

• Holy Ceremony, by Harri Nykänen (Bitter Lemon Press)

• Human Face, by Aline Templeton (Allison & Busby)

• The Hunger, by Alma Katsu (Putnam)

• I Bring Sorrow & Other Stories of Transgression, by Patricia Abbott (Polis)

• If I Die Tonight, by Alison Gaylin (Morrow)

• I’ll Keep You Safe, by Peter May (Quercus)

• The Innocent Wife, by Amy Lloyd
(Hanover Square)

• I Was Anastasia,
by Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday)

• Jackrabbit Smile,
by Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland)

• A Killing for Christ,
by Pete Hamill (Akashic)

• The Kremlin Conspiracy, by Joel C. Rosenberg (Tyndale House)

• The Last Equation of Isaac Severy, by Nova Jacobs (Touchstone)

• Last Ferry Home, by Kent Harrington (Polis)

• The Last Stand, by Mickey Spillane (Hard Case Crime)

• Let Me Lie, by Clare Mackintosh (Berkley)

• Looking Glass, by Andrew Mayne (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Longest Silence, by Debra Webb (Mira)

• Lock 13, by Peter Helton (Severn House)

• Lost Creed, by Alex Kava (Prairie Wind)

• Maigret and the Minister, by Georges Simenon (Penguin)

• Memento Mori, by Ruth Downie (Bloomsbury USA)

• Mind of a Killer, by Simon Beaufort (Severn House)

• The Misadventures of Ellery Queen: 16 Tales Inspired by the Great Detective, edited by Josh Pachter and Dalce C. Andrews
(Wildside Press)

• Murder at Half Moon Gate, by Andrea Penrose (Kensington)

• The Nightingale Murder, by Leena Lehtolainen (AmazonCrossing)

• The Night of the Flood, edited by E.A. Aymar and Sarah M. Chen (Down & Out)

• Not That I Could Tell, by Jessica Strawser (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Other Mother, by Carol Goodman (Morrow)

• Plain Confession, by Emma Miller (Kensington)

• The Punishment She Deserves, by Elizabeth George (Viking)

• The Purloined Puzzle, by Parnell Hall (Minotaur)

• Rainbirds, by Clarissa Goenawan (Soho Press)

• Rip Crew, by Sebastian Rotella (Mulholland)

• The Sandman, by Lars Kepler (Knopf)

• Santa Fe Mourning, by Amanda Allen (Crooked Lane)

• Searcher of the Dead, by Nancy Herriman (Crooked Lane)

• Second Story Man, by Charles Salzberg (Down & Out)

• The Silent Companions, by Laura Purcell (Penguin)

• Silent Victim, by Caroline Mitchell (Thomas & Mercer)

• Sometimes I Lie, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)

• The Sons: Made in Sweden, Part II, by Anton Svensson (Quercus)

• The Stakes, by Ben Sanders (Minotaur)

• Such Dark Things, by Courtney Evan Tate (Mira)

• Tangerine, by Christine Mangan (Ecco)

• The Temptation of Forgiveness, by Donna Leon
(Atlantic Monthly Press)

• The Terminal List, by Jack Carr (Atria/Emily Bestler)

• They All Fall Down, by Tammy Cohen (Pegasus)

• The Third Victim, by Phillip Margolin (Minotaur)

• To Die But Once, by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper)

• True Fiction, by Lee Goldberg (Thomas & Mercer)

• White Rose, Black Forest, by Eoin Dempsey (Lake Union)

• The Wild Inside, by Jamey Bradbury (Morrow)

• Worth Killing For, by Jane Haseldine (Kensington)

MARCH (UK):

• Acts of Vanishing, by Fredrik T. Olsson (Sphere)

• The Bone Keeper, by Luca Veste (Simon & Schuster)

• Bring Me Back, by B.A. Paris (HQ)

• Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors, by Christopher Fowler (Doubleday)

• Class Murder, by Leigh Russell (No Exit Press)

• Come and Find Me, by Sarah Hilary (Headline)

• Damnation, by Peter Beck (Point Blank)

• The Darkness, by Ragnar Jónasson (Michael Joseph)

• The Devil’s Dice, by Roz Watkins (HQ)

• End Game, by Matt Johnson (Orenda)

• The Fear, by C.L. Taylor (Avon)

• Girl on Fire, by Tony Parsons (Century)

• Hangman, by Daniel Cole (Trapeze)

• Kin, by Snorri Kristjansson (Jo Fletcher)

• The Last Hour, by Harry Sidebottom (Zaffre)

• The Long Forgotten,
by David Whitehouse (Picador)

• The Lost, by Mari Hannah (Orion)

• Money in the Morgue, by Ngaio Marsh and Stella Duffy (Collins Crime Club)

• Murder at the Bayswater Bicycle Club, by Linda Stratmann (History Press)

• Only Child, by Rhiannon Navin (Mantle)

• Only the Dead Can Tell,
by Alex Gray (Sphere)

• Out of Thin Air: A True Story of
Impossible Murder in Iceland, by Anthony Adeane (Riverrun)*

• Panic Room, by Robert Goddard (Bantam Press)

• The Parentations, by Kate Mayfield (Point Blank)

• The Perfect Girlfriend, by Karen Hamilton (Wildfire)

• Queen’s Progress, by M.J. Trow (Creme de la Crime)

• The Red Hand of Fury, by R.N. Morris (Severn House)

• The Shadow Killer, by Arnaldur Indridason (Harvill Secker)

• Sleeper 13, by Rob Sinclair (Orion)

• The Smiling Man, by Joseph Knox (Doubleday)

• South Atlantic Requiem, by Edward Wilson (Arcadia)

• Splinter in the Blood, by Ashley Dyer (Corsair)

• The Tin God, by Chris Nickson (Severn House)

• 29 Seconds, by T.M. Logan (Zaffre)

• Two Little Girls, by Kate Medina (HarperCollins)

• The Western Wind, by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape)

• We Were the Salt of the Sea, by Roxanne Bouchard (Orenda)

• Where the Missing Go, by Emma Rowley (Orion)

• While You Sleep, by Stephanie Merritt (HarperCollins)

APRIL (U.S.):

• Acts of Vanishing, by Fredrik T. Olsson (Little, Brown)

• After Anna, by Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Air Raid Killer, by Frank Goldammer (AmazonCrossing)

• Albatross, by Ryan Sayles (Down & Out)

• All the Beautiful Lies, by Peter Swanson (Morrow)

• American by Day, by Derek B. Miller (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Annie’s Bones, by Howard Owen (Permanent Press)

• Antiques Wanted, by Barbara Allan (Kensington)

• The Awkward Squad, by Sophie Hénaff (MacLehose Press)

• The Bad Break, by Jill Orr (Prospect Park)

• Bad Optics, by Joseph Haywood (Lyons Press)

• The Battered Badge, by Robert Goldsborough (Mysterious Press/
Open Road)

• The Black Car Business, Volume 1, edited by Lawrence Kelter
(Down & Out)

• Bluff, by Michael Kardos (Mysterious Press)

• A Breath After Drowning, by Alice Blanchard (Titan)

• The Burial Place, by Larry Enmon (Crooked Lane)

• By His Own Hand, by Neal Griffin (Forge)

• Cave of Bones, by Anne Hillerman (Harper)

• The Circumstantial Man, by Gary Reilly (Running Meter Press)

• Collected Millar: First Things, Last Things: Banshee; Spider Webs; It’s All in the Family; Collected Short Fiction, by Margaret Millar
(Soho Syndicate)

• Country Dark, by Chris Offutt (Grove Press)

• The Cutting Edge, by Jeffery Deaver (Grand Central)

• Damon Runyon’s Boys, by Michael Scott Cain (Stark House Press)

• The Dark Clouds Shining, by David Downing (Soho Crime)

• A Death of No Importance, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)

• A Dying Note, by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru, by Karen Lee Street (Pegasus)

• The Elizas, by Sara Shepard (Atria)

• The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, by Robert Dugoni (Lake Union)

• The Fallen, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)

• The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, by Kirk W. Johnson (Viking)*

• Fiction Can Be Murder, by Becky Clark (Midnight Ink)

• First Person, by Richard Flanagan (Knopf)

• Fistful of Rain, by Baron R. Birtcher (Permanent Press)

• The Fleur de Sel Murders, by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)

• Flight to Darkness / 77 Rue Paradis, by Gil Brewer (Stark House Press)

• Follow Me,
by Angela Clarke (Crooked Lane)

• The Frozen Woman,
by Jon Michelet (Oldcastle)

• The Girl I Used to Be,
by Mary Torjussen (Berkley)

• The Great Darkness,
by Jim Kelly (Allison & Busby)

• Greeks Bearing Gifts, by Philip Kerr (Marian Wood Books/Putnam)

• Hard Aground, by Brendan DuBois (Pegasus)

• If We Had Known, by Elise Juska (Grand Central)

• In Prior’s Wood, by G.M. Malliet (Minotaur)

• Inquisition, by David Gibbins (St. Martin’s Press)

• I’ve Got My Eyes on You, by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster)

• Killing Town, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Titan)

• The Knowledge, by Martha Grimes (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• La Mordida, by Jim Sanderson (Brash)

• Macbeth, by Jo Nesbø (Hogarth)

• Maigret and the Headless Corpse, by Georges Simenon (Penguin)

• A Matter of Chance, by Julie Maloney (She Writes Press)

• Necessary Ends, by Tina Whittle (Poisoned Pen Press)

• A Necessary Evil, by Abir Mukherjee (Pegasus)

• The Neighbor, by Joseph Souza (Kensington)

• Noir, by Christopher Moore (Morrow)

• 100 Greatest Literary Detectives, edited by Eric Sandberg
(Rowman & Littlefield)*

• The Oracle Year, by Charles Soule (Harper Perennial)

• Our Little Secret, by Roz Nay (St. Martin’s Press)

• Passion Play, by W. Edward Blain (Pegasus)

• A Perfect Shot, by Robin Yocum (Seventh Street)

• Precious Cargo, by Linda Sands (Down & Out)

• Resurrection Bay, by Emma Viskic (Pushkin Vertigo)

• The Saint of Wolves and Butchers, by Alex Grecian (Putnam)

• Scot Free, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)

• Savage Gods, by M.P. Cooley (Morrow)

• Shattered Mirror, by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s Press)

• Skyjack, by K.J. Howe (Quercus)

• Speakeasy, by Alisa Smith (Thomas Dunne)

• Supernatural Sherlocks: Stories from the Golden Age of the Occult Detective, edited by Nick Rennison (Oldcastle)

• Ten Year Stretch: Celebrating a Decade of Crime Fiction at CrimeFest, edited by Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller
(Poisoned Pen Press)

• Then She Was Gone, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)

• The Things You Didn’t See, by Ruth Dugdall (Thomas & Mercer)

• Time Is a Killer, by Michel Bussi (World Noir)

• Too Close to Breathe, by Olivia Kiernan (Dutton)

• Twenty-One Days, by Anne Perry (Ballantine)

• Twisted Prey, by John Sandford (Putnam)

• Undercurrents, by Mary Anna Evans (Poisoned Pen Press)

• The Vinyl Detective: Victory Disc, by Andrew Cartmel (Titan)

• Warning Light, by David Ricciardi (Berkley)

• The Waters & The Wild, by DeSales Harrison (Random House)

• The Way I Die, by Derek Haas (Pegasus)

• Weeping Waters, by Karin Brynard (World Noir)

• Whispers of the Dead, by Spencer Kope (Minotaur)

• Why Kill the Innocent, by C.S. Harris (Berkley)

• Worth Killing For, by Jane Haseldine (Kensington)

APRIL (UK):

• Angel in the Shadows, by Walter Lucius (Michael Joseph)

• Beside the Syrian Sea, by James Wolff (Bitter Lemon Press)

• Blind Defence, by John Fairfax (Little, Brown)

• The Blood, by E.S. Thomson (Constable)

• Blood Feud, by Anna Smith (Quercus)

• Body & Soul, by John Harvey (William Heinemann)

• A Brush with Death, by Quintin Jardine (Headline)

• The Fire Court, by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins)

• Ghosts of the Past, by Marco Vichi (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Historical Noir, by Barry Forshaw
(Pocket Essentials)*

• The Ice Swimmer,
by Kjell Ola Dahl (Orenda)

• In the Cage Where Your Saviours Hide,
by Malcolm Mackay (Apollo)

• I, Witness, by Niki Mackay (Orion)

• Mercury Falling,
by Robert Edric (Doubleday)

• My Little Eye,
by Stephanie Marland (Trapeze)

• Now You See, by Max Manning (Wildfire)

• Our House, by Louise Candlish (Simon & Schuster)

• Pandora’s Boy, by Lindsey Davis (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Perfect Match, by D.B. Thorne (Corvus)

• Presumed Dead, by Mason Cross (Orion)

• A Shimmer of Hummingbirds, by Steve Burrows (Point Blank)

• The Silenced, by Stephen Lloyd Jones (Headline)

• The Staveley Suspect, by Rebecca Tope (Allison & Busby)

• Too Close to Breathe, by Olivia Kiernan (Riverrun)

• Turn a Blind Eye, by Vicky Newham (HQ)

• Ultima, by L.S. Hilton (Zaffre)

• Vengeance in Venice, by Philip Gwynne Jones (Constable)

• What Falls Between the Cracks, by Robert Scragg (Allison & Busby)

• The Woman in the Woods, by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton)

MAY (U.S.):

• The Agency, by James Phelan (Quercus)

• Alter Ego, by Brian Freeman (Quercus)

• A Baby’s Bones, by Rebecca Alexander (Titan)

• Blackout, by Alex Segura (Polis)

• Blood Standard, by Laird Barron (Putnam)

• The Bomb Shelter, by Jon Talton (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Broken Places, by Tracy Clark (Kensington)

• Cirque, by Mary Ellen Dennis (Five Star)

• The Council of Twelve, by Oliver Pötzsch (Mariner)

• Cult X, by Fuminori Nakamura (Soho Crime)

• The Dante Chamber, by Matthew Pearl (Penguin Press)

• The Dark Angel, by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Dead Girls, by Graeme Cameron (Park Row)

• The Dead House, by Billy O’Callaghan (Arcade)

• The Death of Mrs. Westaway, by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press)

• Deep Blue Trouble, by Steph Broadribb (Orenda)

• Don’t Believe It, by Charlie Donlea (Kensington)

• Everything That Follows, by Meg Little Reilly (Mira)

• The Evil That Men Do, by Robert Gleason (Forge)

• Exit Strategy, by Charlton Pettus (Hanover Square Press)

• Fall of Angels, by Barbara Cleverly (Soho Crime)

• The Favorite Sister, by Jessica Knoll (Simon & Schuster)

• The Fens, by Pamela Wechsler (Minotaur)

• For Those Who Know the Ending, by Malcolm Mackay (Mulholland)

• Frenzy of Evil, by Henry Kane (Black Gat)

• Gale Force, by Owen Laukkanen (Putnam)

• Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir, by Nick
Triplow (Oldcastle)*

• The Grave Above the Grave, by Bernard Kerik (Humanix)

• A Handful of Ashes, by Rob McCarthy (Pegasus)

• The Hellfire Club, by Jake Tapper (Little, Brown)

• An Honorable Assassin, by Steve Hamilton (Putnam)

• The House Swap, by Rebecca Fleet (Pamela Dorman)

• How Far She’s Come, by Holly Brown (Morrow)

• How It Happened, by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown)

• A Howl of Wolves, by Judith Flanders (Minotaur)

• In Dust and Ashes, by Anne Holt (Scribner)

• In the Hush of the Night, by Raymond Benson (Skyhorse Publishing)

• Last Instructions, by Nir Hezroni (St. Martin’s Press)

• Little Disasters, by Randall Klein (Viking)

• The Lonely Witness, by William Boyle (Pegasus)

• Lost Creed, by Alex Kava (Prairie Wind)

• Lowdown, by Anthony Schneider (Permanent Press)

• Madman Walking, by L.F. Robertson (Titan)

• Maigret Sets a Trap, by Georges Simenon (Penguin)

• The Mandela Plot, by Kenneth Bonert (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• A Million Drops, by Víctor del Árbol (Other Press)

• Murder on Union Square, by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)

• The Murder That Never Was, by Andrea Kane (Bonnie Meadow)

• No Cure for the Dead, by Christine Trent (Crooked Lane)

• The Other Lady Vanishes, by Amanda Quick (Berkley)

• The Otter of Death, by Betty Webb (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Our Kind of Cruelty, by Araminta Hall (MCD)

• The Outsider, by Stephen King (Scribner)

• Paper Ghosts, by Julia Heaberlin (Ballantine)

• The Perfect Mother, by Aimee Molloy (Harper)

• The Pot Thief Who Studied Edward Abbey, by J. Michael
Orenduff (Open Road)

• Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic, by Ace Atkins (Putnam)

• Rocks Beat Paper, by Mike Knowles (ECW Press)

• Saving Sin City: William Travers Jerome, Stanford White, and the Original Crime of the Century, by Mary Cummings (Pegasus)*

• The Seasonaires, by Janna King (Pegasus)

• See Also Proof, by Larry D. Sweazy (Seventh Street)

• The Shadow Killer, by Arnaldur Indridason (Minotaur)

• A Sharp Solitude, by Christine Carbo (Atria)

• A Sin Such as This, by Ellen Hopkins (Atria)

• Star of the North, by D.B. John (Crown)

• A Tooth for a Tooth, by Ben Rehder (CreateSpace)

• Tushhog, by Jeffery Hess (Down & Out)

• What You Want to See, by Kristen
Lepionka (Minotaur)

• Wicked River, by Jenny Milchman (Sourcebooks Landmark)

MAY (UK):

• Absolution, by Paul E. Hardisty (Orenda)

• Capture or Kill, by Tom Marcus (Macmillan)

• The Case of the Fool,
by E.V. Harte (Constable)

• The Cliff House, by Amanda Jennings (HQ)

• The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder, by Sarah J. Harris (HarperCollins)

• The Craftsman, by Sharon Bolton (Trapeze)

• Cross Her Heart, by Sarah Pinborough (HarperCollins)

• Death Is Not Enough, by Karen Rose (Headline)

• Dead Girls, by Abigail Tarttelin (Mantle)

• Dead If You Don’t, by Peter James (Macmillan)

• Don’t Make a Sound, by David Jackson (Zaffre)

• Don’t Trust Me, by Joss Stirling (Killer Reads)

• Fault Lines, by Doug Johnstone (Orenda)

• Forever and a Day, by Anthony Horowitz (Jonathan Cape)

• Ghost, by James Swallow (Zaffre)

• Goldstein, by Volker Kutscher (Sandstone Press)

• Guess Who, by Chris McGeorge (Orion)

• The House on Half Moon Street, by Alex Reeve (Raven)

• Hunted, by G.X. Todd (Headline)

• It Was Her, by Mark Hill (Sphere)

• Juliet and Romeo, by David Hewson (The Dome Press)

• A Killing Mind, by Luke Delaney (HarperCollins)

• Killing Time, by Mark Roberts (Head of Zeus)

• Kill the Angel, by Sandrone Dazieri (Simon & Schuster)

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

• The Moscow Cipher, by Scott Mariani (Avon)

• Murder at the Grand Raj Palace, by Vaseem Khan (Mulholland)

• My Husband’s Lies, by Caroline England (Avon)

• Nightfall Berlin, by Jack Grimwood (Michael Joseph)

• No Turning Back, by Sam Blake (Zaffre)

• The Old You, by Louise Voss (Orenda)

• The Rabbit Hunter, by Lars Kepler (HarperCollins)

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

• Red Hot Front, by Harry Brett (Corsair)

• Salt Lane, by William Shaw (Riverrun)

• Snap, by Belinda Bauer (Bantam Press)

• Star of the North, by D.B. John (Harvill Secker)

• Strange Fascination, by Syd Moore (Point Blank)

• Ultimatum, by Frank Gardner (Bantam Press)

• The Underneath, by Melanie Finn (Two Dollar Radio)

• What We Did, by Christobel Kent (Sphere)

• Wrong Way Home, by Isabelle Grey (Quercus)

• You Were Gone, by Tim Weaver (Michael Joseph)

As I have done so many times in the past, I invite readers to suggest other new or soon-to-be-published crime novels of particular merit that I may have overlooked. Please make those recommendations in the Comments section at the bottom of this post.