Trapped Inside with Books? No Problem!

My guess is, you thought I’d forgotten to post a list of recommended crime, mystery, and thriller reads for this season. Or else you figured I had thought about it too late, and wouldn’t bother with it now. Incorrect on both counts! In fact, I’ve been toiling over this mammoth compilation of new releases since mid-August, but two other large projects for CrimeReads (including my recent survey of vintage Agatha Christie covers) got in the way of my finishing it earlier. So buried was I in those other assignments, that I toyed with the idea of just dumping my overview of fall and early winter books this year. However, with my office schedule looking clearer for the nonce, I decided it was better to post this piece late rather than never. If nothing else, perhaps it will give folks some ideas for holiday gifts.

You may already be familiar with some of the September and October titles featured below, but probably not with all of them. And there’s a wealth of November and December debuts still on its way to bookshops. This season’s most anticipated offerings include: Angel’s Inferno, the late William Hjortsberg’s sequel to 1978’s Falling Angel; Robert Littell’s Comrade Koba, about a naïve boy’s education in Soviet dictatorship; The Sentinel, the first Jack Reacher novel co-authored by Lee Child (aka Jim Grant) and his younger brother Andrew Grant (now, for commercial purposes, bylined as Andrew Child); Michael Connelly’s sixth “Lincoln Lawyer” novel, The Law of Innocence; posthumous contributions by Jane Haddam, Karen Harper, Andrea Camilleri, and Ariana Franklin; Anthony Horowitz’s Moonflower Murders, his unexpected follow-up to the deservedly acclaimed Magpie Murders; Harald Gilbers’ Germania, focusing on a Jewish detective who’s coerced into hunting for a serial killer in war-torn Nazi Berlin; Norwegian writer Gunnar Staalesen’s Fallen Angels, starring private eye Varg Veum; and Max Allan Collins’ Skim Deep, his first new Nolan tale since 1999’s Mourn the Living.

With 2020 marking a full century since the publication of Agatha Christie’s first Hercule Poirot outing, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, these closing months of the year offer several Christie-related treats, as well, among them Sophie Hannah’s latest Poirot continuation novel, The Killings at Kingfisher Hill; Mark Aldridge’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World; a handsome hardcover reissue of Death on the Nile, linked to the pending debut of Kenneth Branaugh’s film version of that 1937 whodunit; and Marie Benedict’s The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, which revisits Christie's 11-day disappearance in 1926.

Be on the lookout, too, for fresh fiction by Ruth Ware, Charles Cumming, Liza Cody, Stuart Turton, Anne Perry, Ken Bruen, W.L. Ripley, Anne Holt, Volker Kutscher, Tana French, Jo Nesbø, Val McDermid, Gary Phillips, Jørn Lier Horst, H.B. Lyle, Nev March (winner of the 2019 St. Martin’s Minotaur/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition), Anthony J. Quinn, Brian Thornton, and Ragnar Jónasson. And don’t overlook the plenitude of reprints of vintage works by authors such as Erle Stanley Gardner, Robert Dietrich (aka E. Howard Hunt), Ellery Queen, Brian Flynn, and Anthony Boucher, plus several of Alistair McLean’s thrillers (among them Breakheart Pass).

For inhabitants of Earth’s Northern Hemisphere, months of cold and COVID loom ahead. Reading escapes will become increasingly essential. Below are more than 370 books that should appeal to crime-fiction fans, all of them set to premiere between now and New Year’s Day, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. These are primarily novels and short-story collections, but there’s also a handful of non-fiction titles that are of likely interest to readers of this genre, notably Scott Peeples’ The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City and Craig Sisterson’s Southern Cross Crime: The Pocket Essential Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film & TV of Australia and New Zealand. Books marked with an asterisk (*) are non-fiction; the rest are fiction.

SEPTEMBER (U.S.):
• The Abstainer, by Ian McGuire (Random House)
• Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy, by Ben
Macintyre (Crown)*
• All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• And Now She’s Gone, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Forge)
• The Angel’s Mark, by S.W. Perry (Atlantic)
• Apartment Five Is Alive, by Russell Atwood (Independently Published)
• The Awkward Black Man, by Walter Mosley (Grove Press)
• Back Bay Blues, by Peter Colt (Kensington)
• Before She Was Helen, by Caroline B. Cooney (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Big Man’s Daughter, by Owen Fitzstephen (Seventh Street)
• The Book of Lamps and Banners, by Elizabeth Hand (Mulholland)
• Burn You Twice, by Mary Burton (Montlake)
• Chasing Jack, by Parnell Hall (Brash)
• A Christmas Carol Murder, by Heather Redmond (Kensington)
• Cold Malice, by Quentin Bates (Constable)
• The Darkest Evening, by Ann Cleeves (Minotaur)
• Deadly Waters, by Dot Hutchison (Thomas & Mercer)
• Dead Woman Crossing, by J.D. Adler (Bookouture)
• Death Deserved, by Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger (Orenda)
• Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie (Morrow)
• A Deception at Thornecrest, by Ashley Weaver (Minotaur)
• Don’t Look for Me, by Wendy Walker (St. Martin’s Press)
• Funeral for a Friend, by Brian Freeman (Blackstone)
• Girl Gone Mad, by Avery Bishop (Lake Union)
• The Great Hotel Murder, by Vincent Starrett (American
Mystery Classics)
• Hanging Falls, by Margaret Mizushima (Crooked Lane)
• Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club)*
• An Inconvenient Woman, by Stéphanie Buelens (Scarlet)
• Interference, by Brad Parks
(Thomas & Mercer)
• The Judas Hour, by E. Howard Hunt (Cutting Edge)
• The Killings at Kingfisher Hill, by Sophie Hannah (Morrow)
• The Lakehouse, by Joe Clifford (Polis)
• The Last Agent, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)
• Maigret and Monsieur Charles, by George Simenon (Penguin)
• Make Them Cry, by Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith (Ecco)
• Mortmain Hall, by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Murder at Queen’s Landing, by Andrea Penrose (Kensington)
• Murder in the Piazza, by Jen Collins Moore (Level Best)
• Next to Last Stand, by Craig Johnson (Viking)
• The Nicotine Chronicles, edited by Lee Child (Akashic)
• The Ninja’s Blade, by Tori Eldridge (Agora)
• Nothing Important Happened Today, by Will Carver (Orenda)
• One by One, by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press)
• One Step Behind, by Lauren North (Berkley)
• Once Two Sisters, by Sarah Warburton (Crooked Lane)
• The Orphan’s Guilt, by Archer Mayor (Minotaur)
• Poetic Justice, by Andrea J. Johnson (Agora)
• The President’s Dossier, by James A. Scott (Oceanview)
• A Pretty Deceit, by Anna Lee Huber (Kensington)
• A Question of Betrayal, by Anne Perry (Ballantine)
• The Red Horse, by James R. Benn (Soho Crime)
• The Residence, by Andrew Pyper (Skybound)
• Road Out of Winter, by Allison Stine (Mira)
• Robert B. Parker’s Fool’s Paradise, by Mike Lupica (Putnam)
• The Scarlet Venus, by Chalmers Green (Cutting Edge)
• The Shapeshifter’s Lair, by Peter Tremayne (Severn House)
• The Silent House, by Nell Pattison (Avon)
• Sins of the Bees, by Annie Lampman (Pegasus Crime)
• Sins of the Mother, by August Norman (Crooked Lane)
• The Snow Raven, by Connie Dial (Permanent Press)
• Southern Cross Crime: The Pocket Essential Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film & TV of Australia and New Zealand, by Craig
Sisterson (Oldcastle)*
• The Talented Miss Farwell, by Emily Gray Tedrowe (Custom House)
• These Violent Delights, by Micah Nemerever (Harper)
• The Three Mrs. Wrights, by Linda Keir (Lake Union)
• The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• Tie Die, by Max Tomlinson (Oceanview)
• To Tell You the Truth, by Ginny Macmillan (Morrow)
• Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland)
• The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes, by Elissa R. Sloan (Morrow)
• When No One Is Watching, by Alyssa Cole (Morrow)

SEPTEMBER (UK):
• Act of Revenge, by John Bishop (Mantid Press)
• After the Silence, by Louise O’Neill (Riverrun)
• The Asylum, by Debra Meller (Bloodhound)
• The Body Under the Bridge, by Nick Louth (Canelo Crime)
• Dead Doubles: The Extraordinary Worldwide Hunt for One of the Cold War’s Most Notorious Spy Rings, by Trevor Barnes
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)*
• A Death Most Monumental, by J.D. Kirk (Zertex Crime)
• Evil Never Dies, by S.M. Hardy (Allison & Busby)
• A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, by Emma Southon (Oneworld)
• Fifty-Fifty, by Steve Cavanagh (Orion)
• Gift or Theft, by Liza Cody (iUniverse)
• Hermit, by S.R. White (Headline)
• House of Correction, by Nicci French (Simon & Schuster)
• The Kingdom, by Jo Nesbø (Harvill Secker)
• Lost Cause, by Rachel Lynch
(Canelo Crime)
• The Mathematical Murder of Innocence, by Michael Carter (Book Guild)
• Murder, Forgotten, by Deb Richardson-Moore (Lion)
• The Point of No Return, by Neil Broadfoot (Constable)
• Sherlock’s Sisters: Stories from the Golden Age of the Female Detective, edited by Nick Rennison (No Exit Press)
• Slaughter in the Sapperton Tunnel, by Edward Marston
(Allison & Busby)
• A Song of Isolation, by Michael Malone (Orenda)
• Stone Cold Trouble, by Amer Anwar (Dialogue)
• To Cook a Bear, by Mikael Niemi (MacLehose Press)
• The Unwanted Dead, by Chris Lloyd (Orion)
• The Webs We Weave, by Michelle Morgan (Bloodhound)
• When the Past Kills, by M.J. Lee (Canelo Crime)
• The Witch Hunter, by Max Seeck (Welbeck)

OCTOBER (U.S.):
• The Art Fiasco, by Fiona Veitch Smith (Lion)
• Be My Victim, by Robert Dietrich (Cutting Edge)
• Beyond a Reasonable Stout, by Ellie Alexander (Minotaur)
• Blood Sisters, by Dharma Kelleher (Dark Pariah Press)
• Brute Madness, by Ledru Baker Jr. (Cutting Edge)
• The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, by Anthony Boucher (American Mystery Classics)
• Cardiff, by the Sea: Four Novellas of Suspense, by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)
• The Clerkenwell Affair, by Susanna Gregory (Sphere)
• Collision Course, by Matt Hilton (Severn House)
• Confessions on the 7:45, by Lisa Unger (Park Row)
• Conspiracy, by S.J. Parris (Pegasus Crime)
• Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin, by Megan Rosenbloom (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)*
• Dear Child, by Romy Hausmann (Flatiron)
• Death and the Maiden, by Ariana Franklin and Samantha
Norman (Morrow)
• The Deep, Deep Snow, by Brian Freeman (Blackstone)
• The Devil and the Dark Water, by Stuart Turton
(Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Devil in a Blue Dress: 30th Anniversary Edition, by Walter Mosley (Washington Square Press)
• The Dirty South, by John Connolly (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Dogs of Winter, by Ann Lambert (Second Story Press)
• Echo Chambers, by Richard Himmel (Cutting Edge)
• The Exphoria Code, by Antony Johnston (Pegasus Crime)
• The Eyes of the Queen, by Oliver Clements (Atria/Leopoldo)
• Final Proof, by Rodrigues Ottolengui (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Fortune Favors the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood (Doubleday)
• The Girl in the Mirror, by Rose Carlyle (Morrow)
• The Girl Who Wasn’t There, by Vincent Zandri (Oceanview)
• Goodnight Beautiful, by Aimee Molloy (Harper)
• The Haunting of H.G. Wells, by Robert Masello (47North)
• The Horn, by Brian Flynn (Dean Street Press)
• I Am Dust, by Louise Beech (Orenda)
• Invisible Girl, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)
• The Land, by
Thomas Maltman (Soho Press)
• Leave the World Behind, by
Rumaan Alam (Ecco)
• The Long Shadow, by Anne Buist (Text)
• The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City, by Scott Peeples (Princeton University Press)*
• The Man in Milan, by Vito Racanelli (Polis)
• Midwinter Murder: Fireside Tales from the Queen of Mystery, by Agatha Christie (Morrow)
• The Mirror Man, by Jane Gilmartin (Mira)
• Ms. Tree, Volume 2: Skeleton in the Closet, by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty (Titan Comics)
• Murder Is in the Air, by Frances Brody (Crooked Lane)
• Murder on Cold Street, by Sherry Thomas (Berkley)
• Never Turn Back, by Christopher Swann (Crooked Lane)
• The Night Will Find Us, by Matthew Lyons (Keylight)
• The Nightworkers, by Brian Selfon (MCD)
• Old Anger, by Phillip Thompson (Brash)
• One for the Road, by Robert Dietrich (Cutting Edge)
• Only Truth, by Julie Cameron (Scarlet)
• Primary Obsessions, by Charles Demers (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Rattlesnake Rodeo, by Nick Kolakowski (Down & Out)
• The Reflecting Pool, by Otho Eskin (Oceanview)
• The Rock Hole, by Reavis Z. Wortham (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Scavenger, by Christopher Chambers (Three Rooms Press)
• The Searcher, by Tana French (Viking)
• The Secrets of Winter, by Nicola Upson (Crooked Lane)
• The Sentinel, by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Delacorte Press)
• Sexton Blake Versus the Master Crooks, edited by
Mark Hodder (Rebellion)
• Shadow Ridge, by M.E. Browning (Crooked Lane)
• Sherlock Holmes: The Spider’s Web, by Philip Purser-Hallard (Titan)
• The Shirley Jackson Collection, by Shirley Jackson
(Library of America)
• The Sicilian Method, by Andrea Camilleri (Penguin)
• Silent Bite, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)
• Sister, by Kjell Ola Dahl (Orenda)
• Snake Island, by Ben Hobson (Arcade Crimewise)
• Snow, by John Banville (Hanover Square Press)
• A Solitude of Wolverines, by Alice Henderson (Morrow)
• A Song for the Dark Times, by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown)
• The Spiked Lion, by Brian Flynn (Dean Street Press)
• Stasi Winter, by David Young (Zaffre)
• Still Life, by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Suicide Blonde: Three Novellas, by Brian Thornton (Down & Out)
• The Sussex Cuckoo, by Brian Flynn (Dean Street Press)
• They Never Learn, by Layne Fargo (Gallery/Scout Press)
• A Time for Mercy, by John Grisham (Doubleday)
• The Traveller and Other Stories, by Stuart Neville (Soho Crime)
• Tread Softly, by Brian Flynn (Dean Street Press)
• The Unspoken, by Ian K. Smith (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Witch Hunter, by Max Seeck (Berkley)
• Wobble to Death: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Peter Lovesey
(Soho Crime)
• Zero Zone, by Scott O’Connor (Counterpoint)

OCTOBER (UK):
• Angel’s Inferno, by William Hjortsberg (No Exit Press)
• Betrayal, by Lilja Sigurdardóttir (Orenda)
• The Book Club, by C.J. Cooper (Constable)
• Box 88, by Charles Cumming (HarperCollins)
• The Choice, by Alex Lake (HarperCollins)
• City of Ghosts, by Ben Creed (Welbeck)
• The Couple in Room 13, by John Rector (Simon & Schuster)
• The Creak on the Stairs, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir (Orenda)
• Death and the Brewery Queen, by Frances Brody (Piatkus)
• Death and the Singing Birds, by Amy Myers (Severn House)
• Death at the Orange Locks, by Anja de Jager (Constable)
• Death Awaits in Durham, by Helen Cox (Quercus)
• The Evidence,
by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)
• The Fuhrer’s Orphans,
by David Laws (Bloodhound)
• The Haunted Shore,
by Neil Spring (Quercus)
• The House, by Tom Watson and Imogen Robertson (Sphere)
• House of the Patriarch,
by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)
• I Follow You, by Peter James (Macmillan)
• The List, by Carys Jones (Orion)
• Lost, by Leona Deakin (Black Swan)
• The Lullaby Man, by Anni Taylor (Bookish Coast)
• Mr. Cadmus, by Peter Ackroyd (Canongate)
• The Moment Before Impact, by Alison Bruce (Constable)
• Mongkok Station, by Jake Needham (Pintuporn Needham)
• Peace, by Garry Disher (Viper)
• People of Abandoned Character, by Clare Whitfield (Head of Zeus)
• Playdate, by Alex Dahl (Head of Zeus)
• Poison in Paris, by Robert Wilton (Elbow)
• The Port of London Murders, by Josephine Bell (British Library)
• The Postscript Murders, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• Pulpit Rock, by Kate Rhodes (Simon & Schuster)
• The Quiet Man, by Caimh McDonnell (McFori Ink)
• The Return, by Harry Sidebottom (Zaffre)
• Scatter Her Ashes, by Heine Bakkeid (Raven)
• The Secret Life of Mr. Roos, by Håkan Nesser (Mantle)
• Smoke Chase, by Jack Callan (Matador)
• The Stolen Sisters, by Louise Jensen (HQ)
• Take Me Home, by Alex Hart (Orion)
• These Are Not Gentle People, by Andrew Harding (MacLehose Press)*
• The Windsor Knot, by S.J. Bennett (Zaffre)

NOVEMBER (U.S.):
• Absence of Mercy, by S.M. Goodwin (Crooked Lane)
• Anonymous, by Elizabeth Breck (Crooked Lane)
• Bangkok Gamble, by Tom Crowley (Down & Out)
• The Best American Mystery Stories 2020, edited by
C.J. Box (Mariner)
• The Big Book of Espionage, edited by Otto Penzler
(Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
• Black Lotus 2: The Vow, by K’wan (Akashic)
• Breakheart Pass, by Alistair MacLean (HarperCollins)
• The Case of the Reincarnated Client, by Tarquin Hall (Severn House)
• A Christmas Resolution, by Anne Perry (Ballantine)
• The Cipher, by Isabella Maldonado (Thomas & Mercer)
• Come Spy With Me, by Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens (Wolfpack)
• Comrade Koba, by Robert Littell (Overlook Press)
• Crossed Skis, by Carol Carnac (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Daylight, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
• Death Comes Hot, by Michael Jecks (Severn House)
• Death, Diamonds, and Deception, by Rosemary Simpson (Kensington)
• The Egyptian Cross Mystery, by Ellery Queen (American Mystery Classics)
• A Galway Epiphany, by Ken Bruen (Mysterious Press)
• Girls of Brackenhill, by Kate Moretti (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Golden Gate, by Alistair MacLean (HarperCollins)
• The Haunting of Brynn Wilder, by Wendy Webb (Lake Union)
• Head Wounds, by Michael McGarrity (Norton)
• Hot to Trot, by M.C. Beaton (Minotaur)
• How to Raise an Elephant, by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon)
• The Intrusions, by Stav Sherez (Europa World Noir)
• The Kingdom, by Jo Nesbø (Knopf)
• The Lady Upstairs, by Halley Sutton (Putnam)
• Last Dance, by Jeffrey Fleishman (Blackstone)
• The Law of Innocence, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• Little Cruelties, by Liz Nugent (Gallery/Scout Press)
• Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century, by Thomas Doherty (Columbia University Press)
• Little Threats, by Emily Schultz (Putnam)
• Lois Lane: Enemy of the People, by Greg Rucka (DC Comics)
• The Lost Adventures of James Bond, by Mark Edlitz (Mark Edlitz)*
• The Magic Bullet, by Larry Millet (University of Minnesota Press)
• Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem, by
Gary Phillips (Agora)
• Miami Noir, edited by Les Standiford (Akashic)
• Moonflower Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)
• Murder by Milk Bottle, by Lynne Truss (Bloomsbury)
• Murder in Old Bombay, by Nev March (Minotaur)
• The Murder Specialist, by Bud Clifton (Cutting Edge)
• Night in Tehran, by Philip Kaplan (Melville House)
• The Night of the Fire, by Kjell Eriksson (Minotaur)
• Nothing Good Happens After Midnight: A Suspense Magazine Anthology, by Jeffery Deaver, Joseph Badel, Linwood Barclay, Rhys Bowen, and others (Suspense)
• One of Our Own, by Jane Haddam (Minotaur)
• The Outcast Girls, by Alys Clare (Severn House)
• Out of Her Mind, by T.R. Ragan (Thomas & Mercer)
• Piece of My Heart, by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke
(Simon & Schuster)
• Prefecture D: Four Novellas, by Hideo Yokoyama
(MCD x FSG Originals)
• The Preserve, by Ariel S. Winter (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Russian Pink, by Matthew Hart (Pegasus)
• Secret Santa, by Andrew Shaffer (Quirk)
• Shadow Sands, by Robert Bryndza (Thomas & Mercer)
• Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons, by James Lovegrove (Titan)
• Shills Can’t Cash Chips, by Erle Stanley Gardner (Hard Case Crime)
• The Silver Shooter, by Erin Lindsey (Minotaur)
• Thunder Storme, by W.L. Ripley (Brash)
• Time to Hunt, by Simon Gervais (Thomas & Mercer)
• V2, by Robert Harris (Knopf)
• White Ivy, by Susie Yang (Simon & Schuster)
• A Will to Kill, by R.V. Raman (Agora)
• The Year of the Gun, by
H.B. Lyle (Quercus)
• You Will Never Know, by
S.A. Prentiss (Scarlet)

NOVEMBER (UK):
• The Butcher of Berner Street, by
Alex Reeve (Raven)
• The Coral Bride, by
Roxanne Bouchard (Orenda)
• The Dead of Winter, by S.J. Parris (HarperCollins)
• A Death at the Hotel Mondrian, by Anja de Jager (Constable)
• The Diabolical Bones, by Bella Ellis (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Dog Island, by Philippe Claudel (MacLehose Press)
• The Drowned Woman, by C.J. Lyons (Bookouture)
• Fallen Angels, by Gunnar Staalesen (Orenda)
• Festival of Death, by Laurence Anholt (Constable)
• Fortune Favours the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood (Wildfire)
• The Game, by Luca Veste (Simon & Schuster)
• The Good Samaritan, by C.J. Parsons (Headline)
• Guilt at the Garage, by Simon Brett (Severn House)
• The House of the Hanged Woman, by Kate Ellis (Piatkus)
• I Am Fear, by Ethan Cross (Head of Zeus)
• In Cold Blood, by Jane Bettany (HQ)
• The Inner Darkness, by Jørn Lier Horst (Michael Joseph)
• Letters from the Dead, by Sam Hurcom (Orion)
• The Lost and the Damned, by Olivier Norek (MacLehose Press)
• Lost Hours, by Alex Walters (Canelo Crime)
• The Mitford Trial, by Jessica Fellowes (Sphere)
• Murder on Mustique, by Anne Glenconner (Hodder & Stoughton)
• A Necessary Death, by Anne Holt (Corvus)
• The Package, by Sebastian Fitzek (Head of Zeus)
• River of Sins, by Sarah Hawkswood (Allison & Busby)
• The Roots of Evil, by Quintin Jardine (Headline)
• Sherlock Holmes: Remarkable Power of Stimulus, by
Gretchen Altabef (MX)
• Turncoat, by Anthony J. Quinn (No Exit Press)

DECEMBER (U.S.):
• Accra Noir, edited by Nana-Ama Danquah (Akashic)
• Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World, by Matthew Aldridge (Morrow)*
• The Arctic Fury, by Greer Macallister (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Art of Violence, by S.J. Rozan (Pegasus Crime)
• Athabasca, by Alistair MacLean (HarperCollins)
• Belgrade Noir, edited by Milorad Ivanović (Akashic)
• The Blade Between, by Sam J. Miller (Ecco)
• Blind Vigil, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview)
• Cut Me In, by Jack Karney (Stark House Press/Black Gat)
• The Dead of Winter, by S.J. Parris (Pegasus Crime)
• The Dead Season, by Tessa Wegert (Berkley)
• Deity, by Matt Wesolowski (Orenda)
• Eddie’s Boy, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press)
• Every Last Secret, by A.R. Torre (Thomas & Mercer)
• Fool Me Twice, by Jeff Lindsay (Orion)
• Germania, by Harald Gilbers (Thomas Dunne)
• Goodbye California, by Alistair MacLean (HarperCollins)
• A Hanging at Dawn, by Charles Todd (Witness Impulse)
• Hard Times, by Les Edgerton (Bronzeville)
• In League with Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus Crime)
• The Lies You Told, by Harriet Tyce (Grand Central)
• The March Fallen, by Volker Kutscher (Sandstone Press)
• Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder, by T.A. Willberg (Park Row)
• Murder at the Mayfair Hotel, by C.J. Archer (C.J. Archer)
• Murder on a Midnight Clear, by Sara Rosett (McGuffin Ink)
• The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, by Marie Benedict
(Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics, by Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Othes (Dark Horse)
• The Open House, by Sam Carrington (Avon)
• The Opium Prince, by Jasmine Aimaq (Soho Crime)
• Poppy Redfern and the Fatal Flyers, by Tessa Arlen (Berkley)
• Red Hands, by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Press)
• Richard Stark’s Parker: The Martini Edition—Last Call, by Darwyn Cooke, Ed Brubaker, and Sean Phillips (IDW)
• Shed No Tears, by Caz Frear (Harper)
• Skim Deep, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)
• Snowdrift, by Helene Tursten (Soho Crime)
• The Spoilt Kill, by Mary Kelly (Poisoned Pen Press)
• A Spy in the Struggle, by Aya de León (Dafina)
• The System, by Ryan Gattis (MCD)
• Take It Back, by Kia Abdullah (St. Martin’s Press)
• Under a Gilded Moon, by Joy Jordan-Lake (Lake Union)
• Under the Alaskan Ice, by Karen Harper (Mira)
• Vultures in the Sky, by Todd Downing (American Mystery Classics)
• The Wicked Hour, by Alice Blanchard (Minotaur)

DECEMBER (UK):
• Be Careful What You Wish For, by Vivien Brown (One More Chapter)
• The Casebook of Inspector Armstrong: Volume 4, by
Martin Daley (MX)
• Cover Me: The Vintage Art of Pan Books: 1950-1965, by
Colin Larkin (Telos)*
• Dead Perfect, by Noelle Holten (One More Chapter)
• Hard as Nails, by Helen Black (Constable)
• Murder at the Castle, by M.B. Shaw (Trapeze)
• Verbal, by Peter Murphy (No Exit Press)
• Winterkill, by Ragnar Jónasson (Orenda)

So what’s missing? If there are other end-of-2020 crime-fiction releases that you believe deserve special attention, please tell us all about them in the Comments section below.