Revue of Reviewers: 1-28-24

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

“Reacher” Renewed

Although I preferred the first series of Reacher to its sophomore run of more firepower-dominated episodes, I am pleased to hear that the Prime Video TV program—based on Lee Child’s best-selling novels—has been re-upped for a third season. From The Real Book Spy:

Jack Reacher will again be brought to life by actor Alan Ritchson, who has played the titular role in both seasons of Prime Video’s Reacher (Season 2 debuted in second place on Nielson’s Top 10 Streaming Charts). Earlier today, Amazon confirmed that a third season is, indeed, coming and that Lee Child’s 2003 novel Persuader will serve as the source material for the upcoming season, which is said to already be filming in Toronto. In addition to Ritchson, Variety is reporting that Maria Sten will also return, reprising her role as Frances Neagley after appearing in the first two seasons. ...

The official logline for the third season of Reacher reads, “Reacher must go undercover to rescue an informant held by a haunting foe from his past.”

The Real Book Spy’s Ryan Steck notes that “while we know Frances Neagley will be back in season three, her character does not appear in Child’s book, so it’ll be interesting to see how the show’s writers and producers make room for her in the overall plot.” No other casting choices have yet been announced.

Maybe Not So Cozy After All

(Editor’s note: This is the fourth Rap Sheet submission by Northern California resident Peter Handel, who has reviewed and written about crime fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Portland Oregonian, Pages Magazine, Mystery Readers International, and CrimeReads. He previously looked back at Adrian McKinty’s early works.)

On the surface, Death Under a Little Sky (Harper) checks off many of the boxes for cozy-ness chill. Small rural English village. Lush, expansive open spaces. Plucky shopkeeper, harmless oddballs, quirky—but maybe not so harmless—local denizens with a not-atypical suspicion of “outsiders.”

The village fabric is torn, however, with the arrival of Jake Jackson, a 38-year-old retired London cop, seeking healing and solitude after his marriage collapsed. He’s generally feeling discouraged about love, although a fetching, mixed-race, single mother who is the local veterinarian does catch his barely wandering eye.

Oh, there’s also a huge property and house that’s been left to our copper by his “eccentric” but generous late uncle. All in all, it’s a placid set-up, until the day of an annual village event, a contest involving a bag of “bones” that’s hidden every year for the villagers to find. Thing is, when Jake and the vet, Livia Bennett, and her precocious (natch) 7-year-old daughter, Diana, do locate the faux bone bag, it contains actual human skeletal remains, not just the usual sticks of wood.

We learn that the bones may be those of a German woman, Sabine Rohmer, who worked at a notorious, large local farm (occupied by a hard-bitten crowd: think glowering, stony matriarch and some half-wit grown sons). Sabine was found dead a decade ago after falling (?) out of a window at that farm. Unsurprisingly, no one wants to talk about it … As the Richard Thompson song famously asks, “Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed.” Sabine was also a figure of erotic longing for many of the men in the village, including Jake’s uncle and a ubiquitous, elderly man called Dr. Peter. It’s soon discovered that her crypt in a local church has been breached.

And so the probing begins!

Jake is compelled to poke around for clues; the villagers are compelled to blow off his queries; and Dr. Peter, offbeat intellectual and hedgerow expert, feeds Jake tidbits of what information he has gleaned about Sabine’s death. Added into this mix is the local representative of British law, such as it is in the middle of nowhere, a somewhat taciturn, older and thoughtful chap, Chief Inspector Gerald Watson. (Crime novels are read and referenced throughout this novel, as are rock music and classical composer Gustave Mahler.)

Before we realize it, the story’s initial “cozy” trappings have become a faded ruse the author, Stig Abell—who was once editor of the Times Literary Supplement, among his other well-known media accomplishments in the UK—has cleverly contrived.

Abell’s erudite background elevates the prose throughout this story, lending it a literary tinge. Here, for instance, is his lovely, muted description of a pub where Jake meets Watson:

A smoky fire, the sweet, cloying scent of spilled beer, a pensive dog staring lugubriously out of the window. Thick, scarred oaken beams criss-crossing low ceilings.

As Jake begins to delve more deeply into the village dynamics, violence begins. Because of their burgeoning association with Jake, Livia and Diana’s calm lives turn perilous. Another murder occurs, and the former London detective is nearly killed on more than one occasion.

In a recent essay for CrimeReads, Abell mused about the murderous possibilities to be found in rural English settings: “In the British countryside, nobody can hear you scream. It’s an arresting notion, and one that worked its way into my mind, insidious, waiting for its moment to flower into an entire fictional setting.”

He goes on from there to talk about his lifelong love of crime fiction and how—and why—he chose to write his debut mystery.

With its many almost-clichés, its blend of either endearing or appalling supporting characters, its melodrama between Livia and Jake, and its expertly plotted mystery, Death Under a Little Sky offers a most enjoyable reading experience. Happy ending? You betcha. (Shhh!)

Is it too much to hope for a sequel?

Baldacci Lauded for Supporting Education

For me, one of the genuine highlights of last autumn’s Bouchercon in San Diego was watching David Baldacci interviewed on stage. The best-selling Virginia lawyer turned author was that conference’s Lifetime Guest of Honor. I was of course familiar with his work, both from books and movie adaptations of those yarns, but I had not been aware that he was such a strong advocate for literacy or was so concerned (justifiably) about the near-future survival of U.S. democracy.

Listening to him speak made me want to investigate his fiction further. It also left me with a heightened interest in his career. So my eye was drawn by this new item from In Reference to Murder:

David Baldacci has been named PEN/Faulkner’s 2024 Literary Champion. This annual honor from the D.C.-based nonprofit celebrates a "lifetime of devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and writers." In addition to selling more than 150 million copies of his thrillers, Baldacci has created the Wish You Well literacy foundation and generously supported the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. Baldacci’s 50th novel for adults, A Calamity of Souls, will be released in April.

Baldacci will accept his award, along with the other 2024 PEN/Faulkner Awards winners and finalists, in a celebration to be held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., on May 2, 2024.

Congratulations, Mr. Baldacci!

PaperBack: “Tequila”

Part of a series honoring the late author and blogger Bill Crider.



Tequila, by Margaret Page Hood (Dell, 1952). American writer Hood (1892-1983) is likely best-remembered for penning a mystery series set along the coast of Maine, starring Gil Donan, a deputy sheriff on Fox Island. Tequila, with its story taking place in New Mexico (where Hood lived for many years), doesn’t appear to be part of the Donan line. Cover artwork by James Meese.

Aces of Diamonds

Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association is breaking seven decades of precedent, and this year will present its Diamond Dagger Award to not just one writer, but two. Both Lynda La Plante and James Lee Burke are to receive that honor, which “recognises authors whose crime-writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre.”

As a CWA news release today explains, English novelist La Plante started her career as a TV and theater actress, but in 1983 created and scripted the six-part small-screen robbery drama Widows. Eight years after that, she debuted Prime Suspect, a police procedural series starring Helen Mirren as ambitious Jane Tennison, described by Wikipedia as “one of the first female Detective Chief Inspectors in Greater London’s Metropolitan Police Service.”

La Plante’s first novel, The Legacy, was published back in 1987, and since then she has produced dozens of other books. Her latest two, released in 2023, are Taste of Blood (starring Jane Tennison) and Pure Evil (the latest of her tales about Detective Jack Warr). The CWA quotes La Plante, now 80, as saying, “In 2024 I will publish both the final book in the young Tennison series, and a memoir detailing my long career as an actress, television producer and crime writer.”

Houston, Texas-born author James Lee Burke, 87, saw his first novel, Half of Paradise, published in 1965. He went on to teach at universities, become a newspaper reporter, and eventually gain international fame penning a variety of books, including 24 about Dave Robicheaux, a former New Orleans homicide detective relocated to New Iberia, Louisiana. (The latest installment in that series is Clete, due out in June.) The CW adds that “James Lee Burke has two Edgar Awards, a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow.”

CWA chair Vaseem Khan says, “James Lee Burke's lyrical depiction of the American South transcends crime fiction—his prose is often considered among the best to have graced the genre. For many, Dave Robicheaux is the very embodiment of the dogged, morally incorruptible detective beset by personal demons—a beautifully rendered character.”

Burke and La Plante are scheduled to receive their Diamond Daggers on July 4, during the annual CWA Dagger Awards presentation. They join a distinguished pantheon of previous winners, among whom are P.D. James, John le Carré, Peter Lovesey, Sara Paretsky, Reginald Hill, Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Ann Cleeves, and Walter Mosley.

Johnson’s Musical Odyssey Ends

The Spy Command’s Bill Koenig brings news that Laurence “Laurie” Johnson, “a composer whose works included The Avengers TV show and 1964’s Dr. Strangelove, has died at 96 …”

Film and TV music historian Jon Burlingame elaborates in Variety:

Johnson was among the last of the prominent English film composers active during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. He scored “Dr. Strangelove” for Stanley Kubrick in 1964, along with such features as “Tiger Bay” (1959), the Werner von Braun biopic “I Aim at the Stars” (1960) and sci-fi and fantasy films “First Men in the Moon” (1964) and “Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter” (1972). But it was his music for “The Avengers,” the lighthearted and stylish teaming of troubleshooters John Steed and Emma Peel, winningly played by Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, that gave him star status. Johnson came aboard for the fourth season of the British-made series, which aired in America starting in 1966.

He remained with the series after Rigg’s departure and the arrival of Linda Thorson as Tara King in the series’ sixth season. Johnson scored virtually every episode, “an unheard-of extravagance,” he once said. “Sometimes there would be as much as 30 minutes of music to be recorded and synchronized every week. Over the whole series I must have composed around 50 hours of music.”

Meanwhile, In Reference to Murder reports that “The Avengers, is getting a remake. StudioCanal, which owns the rights to The Avengers catalog, has been quietly plotting a reboot for some time, and a pilot has been written by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay (the writing team behind hit HBO/BBC series, Industry). Ben Taylor is a co-creator and will also direct the series and executive produce.”

There’s a bit more information about this project here.

Adding to My Authors Life List

Were one to judge my writing and reading performances in 2023 solely on the basis of statistics, I might look fairly unimpressive. Yes, I published 331 new stories in The Rap Sheet last year (which is 81 more than went up in 2022—and puts me well on my way to a total of 9,000!), but the postings in my other blog, Killer Covers, dropped to just 44 (24 fewer than the year before). And though I never lacked for a book in hand, my reading consumption declined from 2022.

An embarrassing feeling of indolence always washes over me when I read about people such as Lori Lutes, who wrote in her blog, She Treads Softly, that she devoured 240 books in 2023; or Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter, who says he made it through 130 mysteries, crime novels, and thrillers during those same dozen months. I didn’t come anywhere near achieving my reading goals last year. This may have been due partly to the fact that I chose to tackle some fairly hefty titles (notably World’s End, the 1940 opening installment in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series, weighing in at 740 pages). But I also started a large number of books that, for one reason or another, I did not finish—something I almost never do. On the plus side, almost half of the books I completed were composed by women.

Because the total quantity of works I managed to read in 2023 was down, so was the number of new-to-me authors I sampled. I’ve been keeping a record of these annual “discoveries” since 2008. I’m not somebody who turns over and over again to a small number of writers for entertainment. Yes, there are people whose regular output I gobble up, such as Max Allan Collins, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Edward Marston, Loren D. Estleman, and Denise Mina. However, I also crave frequent exposure to new literary voices.

My high-water mark in trying new wordsmiths on for size came in 2015, when I polished off 47 books by writers whose prose I had not previously perused. That count nosedived to just 26 in 2020, the year COVID-19 clobbered the planet and, as a result of Donald Trump’s ignorance and disregard, 400,000 Americans died. You’d have presumed that my being trapped at home for months, starved of social contact and with a reduced work schedule, would have led me to read more than normal; instead, I allowed (not unreasonable) health concerns to distract me, and when I did pick up a book, it was usually by somebody whose efforts I had appreciated in the past.

Checking my records, I see that over the run of last year, I buried myself (most often happily) in 29 works by authors I had not investigated before. That equals my disappointing results from both 2018 and 2019. Still, two of those titles found places on my “Favorite Crime Fiction of 2023” list, and one—Mariah Fredericks’ The Wharton Plot, a January 2024 release that I read early, in November—has every chance of appearing among this year’s “bests.” Of the 29, the following 18 came from the Crime Fiction category. (Evidently, I didn’t try any mainstream stories by new-to-me writers in 2023.) First novels—not all of which debuted in 2022—are boldfaced.

• E.A. Aymar (No Home for Killers)
• Katharine Beutner (Killingly)
• Amy Chua (The Golden Gate)
• Brad Crowther (Murder Takes the Cake)
• Erin Flanagan (Come with Me)
• Mariah Fredericks (The Wharton Plot)
• Dolores Hitchens (The Alarm of the
Black Cat)
• Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (The Innocent Mrs. Duff/The Blank Wall)
• Mur Lafferty (Chaos Terminal)
• Vanessa Lillie (Blood Sisters)
• Amulya Malladi (A Death in Denmark)
• H.L. Marsay (The Body in Seven Dials)
• Sujata Massey (The Mistress of Bhatia House)
• Richard Osman (The Thursday Murder Club)
• Philip Pullman (The Tin Princess)
• Oriana Ramunno (Ashes in the Snow)
• Elaine Viets (The Dead of Night)
• Bridget Walsh (The Tumbling Girl)

As satisfying as the majority of those yarns were to digest, it was some of the non-fiction by writers formerly unfamiliar to me that I found most interesting in 2023. Darrell Hartman’s Battle of Ice and Ink, for instance, tells an outstanding story about the rise of newspapers in late 19th and early 20th century New York City and the concurrent (occasionally controversial) ambitions of the Arctic explorers those broadsheets chose to champion. Meanwhile, Jennifer Wright’s Madame Restell is an engrossing biography of Ann Lohman, a British-born American provider of midwife and abortion services in Victoria-era Manhattan, that reiterates how feminist struggles, hateful misogynists, and puritanical hypocrites are nothing new in the world. These 10 fact-based titles all rewarded my attention:

• Paul French (City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai)
• Richard J. Goodrich (Comet Madness: How the 1910 Return of Halley’s Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization)
• Darrell Hartman (Battle of Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media)
• Victoria Kastner (Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect)
• Gary Lovisi (A Mystery, Crime & Noir Notebook)
• Charles McGrath (The Summer Friend)
• Anne Meadows (Digging Up Butch and Sundance)
• Reid Mitenbuler (Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic
Journey, a Lost Age)
• Susan Wels (An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder)
• Jennifer Wright (Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York’s Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist)

So far as my continuing campaign to explore fresh authorial voices goes, 2024 has gotten off to a strong start. I’ve already notched books by Norwegian fictionist Victoria Kielland and Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov, and relished the first of Peter Steiner’s Willi Geismeier historical thrillers. Tales by C.B. Bernard, Robert Dugoni, Lori Brand, and Hake Talbot all await my enthusiastic scrutiny.

But how about you, dear Rap Sheet followers? Which authors (of either fiction or non-fiction) did you encounter for the first time last year? Please let us all know in the Comments section below.

Doing Poe Proud

The Mystery Writers of America today announced its nominees, in nine categories, for the 2024 Edgar Allan Poe Awards (“honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television published or produced in 2023”). Also released were lists of contenders for four related prizes.

Best Novel:
• Flags on the Bayou, by James Lee Burke (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• The Madwomen of Paris, by Jennifer Cody Epstein (Ballantine)
• Bright Young Women, by Jessica Knoll (S&S/Marysue Rucci)
• An Honest Man, by Michael Koryta (Mulholland)
• The River We Remember, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)
• Crook Manifesto, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

Best First Novel by an American Author:
• The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (Atria)
• The Golden Gate, by Amy Chua (Minotaur)
• Small Town Sins, by Ken Jaworowski (Henry Holt)
• The Last Russian Doll, by Kristen Loesch (Berkley)
• Murder by Degrees, by Ritu Mukerji (Simon & Schuster)

Best Paperback Original:
• Boomtown, by A.F. Carter (Mysterious Press)
• Hide, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Taken Ones, by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer)
• Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q.
Sutanto (Berkley)
• Lowdown Road, by Scott Von Doviak (Hard Case Crime)

Best Fact Crime:
• In Light of All Darkness: Inside the Polly Klaas Kidnapping and the Search for America’s Child, by Kim Cross (Grand Central)
• Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, by Zeke Faux (‎Crown Currency)
• Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege, and the Murdaugh Family Murders, by John Glatt (St. Martin’s Press)
• Crooked: The Roaring ’20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal, by Nathan Masters (Hachette)
• I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever, by Barbara Rae-Venter (Ballantine)
• The Lost Sons of Omaha: Two Young Men in an American Tragedy, by Joe Sexton (Scribner)

Best Critical/Biographical:
• Perplexing Plots: Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder, by David Bordwell (Columbia University Press)
• Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction, by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor (Mysterious Press)
• A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Mark Dawidziak (St. Martin's Press)
• Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Robert Morgan
(LSU Press)
• Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy, by Steven
Powell (Bloomsbury)

Best Short Story:
• “Hallowed Ground,” by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)
• “Thriller,” by Heather Graham (Blackstone)
• “Miss Direction,” by Rob Osler (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2023)
• “The Rise,” by Ian Rankin (Amazon Original Stories)
• “Pigeon Tony’s Last Stand,” by Lisa Scottoline (Amazon
Original Stories)

Best Juvenile:
• Myrtle, Means, and Opportunity, by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Algonquin Young Readers)
• The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto, by Adrianna Cuevas (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers)
• Epic Ellisons: Cosmos Camp, by Lamar Giles (Versify)
• The Jules Verne Prophecy, by Larry Schwarz and Iva-Marie Palmer (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• What Happened to Rachel Riley? by Claire Swinarski (Quill Tree)

Best Young Adult:
• Girl Forgotten, by April Henry (Little, Brown Books for
Young Readers)
• Star Splitter, by Matthew J. Kirby (Dutton Books for Young Readers)
• The Sharp Edge of Silence, by Cameron Kelly Rosenblum (Quill Tree)
• My Flawless Life, by Yvonne Woon (Katherine Tegen)
• Just Do This One Thing for Me, by Laura Zimmerman (Dutton Books for Young Readers)

Best Television Episode Teleplay:
• “Time of the Monkey,” Poker Face, written by Wyatt Cain and
Charlie Peppers (Peacock)
• “I’m a Pretty Observant Guy,” Will Trent, written by Liz
Heldens (ABC)
• “Dead Man’s Hand,” Poker Face, written by Rian Johnson (Peacock)
• “Hózhó Náhásdlii (Beauty Is Restored),” Dark Winds, written by Graham Roland and John Wirth (AMC)
• “Escape from Shit Mountain,” Poker Face, written by Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman (Peacock)

* * *

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award:
• “Errand for a Neighbor,” by Bill Bassman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], January/February 2023)
• “The Body in Cell Two,” by Kate Hohl (EQMM, May/June 2023)
• “The Soiled Dove of Shallow Hollow,” by Sean McCluskey (EQMM, January/February 2023)
• “It’s Half Your Fault,” by Meghan Leigh Paulk (EQMM, July-August 2023 (Dell Magazines)
• “Two Hours West of Nothing,” by Gabriela Stiteler (EQMM, September/October 2023)

The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award:
• Play the Fool, by Lina Chern (Bantam)
• The Bones of the Story, by Carol Goodman (Morrow)
• Of Manners and Murder, by Anastasia Hastings (Minotaur)
• The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard, by Kate Robards (Crooked Lane)
• Murder in Postscript, by Mary Winters (Berkley)

The G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award:
• Hard Rain, by Samantha Jayne Allen (Minotaur)
• An Evil Heart, by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)
• Bad, Bad Seymour Brown, by Susan Isaacs (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Past Lying, by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• A Stolen Child, by Sarah Stewart Taylor (Minotaur)

The Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award:
• Glory Be, by Danielle Arceneaux (Pegasus Crime)
• Misfortune Cookie, by Vivien Chien (St. Martin’s Paperbacks)
• Hot Pot Murder, by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley)
• Murder of an Amish Bridegroom, by Patricia Johns (Crooked Lane)
• The Body in the Back Garden, by Mark Waddell (Crooked Lane)

The winners of this year’s Edgars will be named and celebrated during the 78th Annual Edgar Awards ceremony, to be held on May 1 at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square.

Recipients of the 2024 Grand Master and Ellery Queen awards were announced earlier this month.

Leftys Coming in the Spring

Organizers of the 2024 Left Coast Crime convention—to be held in Bellevue, Washington, from April 11 to 14—today announced the nominees for this year’s Lefty Awards. “The awards will be voted on at the convention and presented at a banquet on Saturday, April 13, at the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue,” explains a press release.

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel:
• Hot Pot Murder, by Jennifer J. Chow (Berkley Prime Crime)
• The Great Gimmelmans, by Lee Matthew Goldberg (Level Best)
• A Sense for Murder, by Leslie Karst (Severn House)
• Hop Scot, by Catriona McPherson (Severn House)
• Dying for a Decoration, by Cindy Sample (Cindy Sample)
• Cheap Trills, by Wendall Thomas (Beyond the Page)

Bill Gottfried Memorial Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (books set before 1970):
• Night Flight to Paris, by Cara Black (Soho Crime)
• The Bitter Past, by Bruce Borgos (Minotaur)
• Death Among the Ruins, by Susanna Calkins (Severn House)
• A Newlywed’s Guide to Fortune and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
• Time’s Undoing, by Cheryl A. Head (Dutton)
• Evergreen, by Naomi Hirahara (Soho Crime)

Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel:
• Play the Fool, by Lina Chern (Bantam)
• Scorched Grace, by Margot Douaihy (Gillian Flynn)
• Dutch Threat, by Josh Pachter (Genius)
• The House in the Pines, by Ana Reyes (Dutton)
• Mother-Daughter Murder Night, by Nina Simon (Morrow)

Lefty for Best Mystery Novel (not in other categories):
• Hide, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)
• All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• Odyssey’s End, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview)
• Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland)
• Face of Greed, by James L’Etoile (Oceanview)
• The Raven Thief, by Gigi Pandian (Minotaur)

Lefty Award nominees are chosen by convention registrants.

Who Could Get Through So Many Titles?

I’m posting this selective list of the coming season’s new crime, mystery, and thriller works rather later than I had hoped. My original intention was to finish it prior to Christmas, but that turned out to be a forlorn wish. There was simply too much end-of-the-year news to report, and too many “best books of 2023” picks to mention.

From my perspective, though, assembling this piece for the blog was a breeze compared with the challenges I faced the last time I tried putting together such a quarterly compilation of releases.

You should know that creating these catalogues of anticipated attractions requires I begin amassing information about books well in advance of their reaching shelves. I spend considerable time each week reading about the genre, and whenever I come across word of a forthcoming new book, I make a note of it or bookmark the date of its debut in my computer. So by the time I sit down to compose one of these lengthy lists, I already have a solid grounding of potential recommendations from which to choose. I then build that out, drawing on editorial sources such as CrimeReads, Stop, You’re Killing Me!, Euro Crime, and Shotsmag Confidential, and retail Web sites on the order of Blackwell’s and Goldsboro Books, both based in the UK, and—finally—Amazon, which (despite its inimical impact on independent bookshops) is a useful register of titles nearing print.

Ideally, this process runs predictably and smoothly. Last summer, however, as I was preparing to construct The Rap Sheet’s inventory of new books expected during the concluding four months of 2023, I accidentally deleted from my desktop computer all of the information about imminent publications. You can only imagine what shock I felt as I stared at my screen, bewildered by the disappearance of months worth of research, and knowing I had precious little time to re-create those files before leaving for Bouchercon in San Diego. If I screamed or tore my graying hair out over the situation, I have no memory of it. My recollection is that, instead, I took a few (well, perhaps more than a few) deep breaths and dove into reconstituting the results of my previous labors.

By the time I was done, I’d accumulated more than 400 different crime, mystery, and thriller works worth buying for oneself or giving as holiday presents.

For the initial three months of 2024, I’ve identified—below—roughly the same quantity of new crime-fiction works, all deserving of particular notice. My only qualifications were that the books had to appear in English, and be available in either the United States or Great Britain. There’s something here for most fans of this diverse field, I believe. You’ll find fresh fiction from Thomas Perry, Elly Griffiths, Duane Swierczynski, Tana French, Robert Littell, Stacy Willingham, Chris Hammer, S.J. Bennett, Terry Hayes, Louise Welsh, Alex Michaelides, Lynda La Plante, Jim Fusilli, B.A. Paris, Charles Todd, Laurie R. King, Gerald Seymour, Abigail Dean, R.J. Ellory, Dervla McTiernan, Lee Goldberg, Sulari Gentill, Derek B. Miller, Jane Casey, and many others. Argylle, the novel on which an espionage-comedy film of the same name (premiering February 2) is based, is just out from “Elly Conway,” which may or may not be a pseudonym for singer-songwriter and political activist Taylor Swift. British author Simon Mason has a third entry in his excellent Ray Wilkins/Ryan Wilkins police procedural series, Lost and Never Found, ready to roll out next week. Mariah Fredericks, having at least briefly left behind her Gilded Age-era lady’s maid-cum-sleuth, Jane Prescott, follows up her Agatha Award-nominated The Lindbergh Nanny with The Wharton Plot, enlisting real-life writer Edith Wharton in pursuit of whoever murdered a fellow (but significantly less beloved) scribbler on the steps of his swank Manhattan club. Also arriving this month is Where You End, about twin sisters, lost memories, and threatening shadows from the past, penned by Abbott Kahler, whose last book—published under the byline “Karen Abbott”—was the 2019 non-fiction yarn The Ghosts of Eden Park.

Waiting in the wings is End of Story, by A.J. Finn (The Woman in the Window), which asks whether a “perfect” crime writer might have committed a “perfect crime.” In Village in the Dark, her sequel to last year’s brilliant City Under One Roof, Iris Yamashita has former Alaska police detective Cara Kennedy questioning whether her husband and young son perished accidentally ... or were victims of gang violence. Amanda Jayatissa’s Island Witch propels us back into 19th-century Sri Lanka, where we find the daughter of a “demon-priest” trying to solve killings among coastal villagers—and clear her father of suspicion in the bargain. I’m still hoping Thomas Mullen will return to his captivating series about Black cops in 1950s Georgia (Darktown), but in the meantime he delivers a spirited new thriller, The Rumor Game, that imagines a fact-check-focused newspaper reporter in World War II-era Boston struggling to untangle a puzzle that links domestic fascism and propaganda with the expiry of a factory worker. Watch, too, in February for Owning Up, a short anthology comprising four novellas by George Pelecanos, and Under the Storm, Swedish crime-fictionist Christoffer Carlsson’s follow-up to Blaze Me a Sun.

If all of those don’t satisfy, you can look forward as well to David Downing’s eighth John Russell/World War II spy novel, Union Station; Icelandic writer Óskar Guðmundsson’s dark noir tale, The Dancer, built around the psychological and criminal consequences of child abuse; E.S Thomson’s latest case for Victorian-era London apothecary Jem Flockhart, Under Ground (released last fall in the UK); Death Comes Too Late, a collection of 20 more-or-less-hard-boiled short stories by Charles Ardai, founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, released to commemorate his imprint’s 20th anniversary; Amanda Flower’s To Slip the Bounds of Earth, which places Katharine Wright, the teacher/suffragette sister of pioneering aviators Orville and Wilbur Wright, in the unexpected role of investigator after her siblings’ flying machine goes missing; Murder at the College Library, by Con Lehane, which tasks Raymond Ambler, the crime-fiction curator at New York City’s 42nd Street Library, with making sense of a slaying supposedly perpetrated by an old friend and colleague; Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov’s The Silver Bone, an outstanding mystery set in 1919 Kyiv and introducing rookie detective Samson Kolechko; and The Last Murder at the End of the World, a post-apocalyptic whodunit about people whose safety on a remote island is dangerously unsettled by homicide in their midst, composed by Stuart Turton (The Devil and the Dark Water).

I think of the following record of January-March 2024 releases as the start, not the end of my efforts to appraise this genre’s most compelling new additions. Have little doubt that I shall expand it as the weeks go on and I learn of further alluring options. If you are already familiar with other books I should have included here, but did not, please drop me an e-mail note with that information.

Per my usual practice, books I’ve marked with an asterisk (*) are non-fiction, while the rest are novels or treasuries of short stories.

JANUARY (U.S.):
• Agent 355, by Marie Benedict (Open Road Media)
• Alcatraz Ghost Story: Roy Gardner's Amazing Train Robberies, Escapes, and Lifelong Love, by Brian Stannard (Skyhorse)*
• The Amish Wife: Unraveling the Lies, Secrets, and Conspiracy That Let a Killer Go Free, by Gregg Olsen (Thomas & Mercer)*
• Anna O, by Matthew Blake (Harper)
• Argylle, by Elly Conway (Bantam)
• The Ascent, by Adam Plantinga (Grand Central)
• The Beaver Theory, by Antti Tuomainen (Orenda)
• Before the Dawn, by D.S. Butler (Thomas & Mercer)
• Blizzard, by Marie Vingtras (Overlook Press)
• A Body at the Séance, by Marty Wingate (Bookouture)
• The Body in the Bed / The Body Beautiful, by Bill S. Ballinger
(Stark House Press)
• A Body on the Doorstep, by Marty Wingate (Bookouture)
• Broadcast Blues, by R.G. Belsky (Oceanview)
• The Bulldog Detective: William J. Flynn and America's First War Against the Mafia, Spies, and Terrorists, by Jeffrey D. Simon (Prometheus)*
• Bull’s Eye, by Shannon Baker (Severn River)
• The Busy Body, by Kemper Donovan (John Scognamiglio)
• The Butler Died in Brooklyn / Murder Runs a Fever, by Ruth Fenisong (Stark House Press)
• California Bear, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)
• The Cleaner, by Brandi Wells (Hanover Square Press)
• The Clinic, by Cate Quinn (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Crimeucopia: Say It Again (Murderous Ink Press)
• The Curse of Pietro Houdini, by Derek B. Miller (Avid Reader Press)
• The Dark Corner / Sleep My Love, by Leo Rosten (Stark House Press)
• Dark Ride, by James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn
(Independently published)
• Deadly to the Core, by Joyce Tremel (Crooked Lane)
• Dead Man’s Hand, by Brad Taylor (Morrow)
• Death at a Scottish Wedding, by Lucy Connelly (Crooked Lane)
• The Deceiving Look, by Victor Methos (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Deepest Kill, by Lisa Black (Kensington)
• Deep Freeze, by Michael C. Grumley (Forge)
• The Devil’s Daughter, by Gordon Greisman (Blackstone)
• Dream Town, by Lee Goldberg (Thomas & Mercer)
• Easter Basket Murder, by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Barbara Ross (Kensington Cozies)
• The Escape, by Ruth Kelly (Pan)
• Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect, by Benjamin
Stevenson (Mariner)
• The Expectant Detectives, by Kat Ailes (Minotaur)
• Firetrap, by Otho Eskin (Oceanview)
• First Lie Wins, by Ashley Elston (Pamela Dorman)
• Friday Harbor, by D.C. Alexander (Acheron)
• Front Sight, by Stephen Hunter (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice, by Elizabeth
Flock (Harper)*
• The Fury, by Alex Michaelides (Celadon)
• The Fury of Beijing, by Ian Hamilton (Spiderline)
• The Glass Box, by J. Michael Straczynski (Blackstone)
• The Glass Woman, by Alice McIlroy (Datura)
• Goodbye Girl, by James Grippando (Harper)
• The Guests, by Margot Hunt (Thomas & Mercer)
• Halifax: Resurrection, by Roger Simpson (Blackstone)
• Harbor Lights, by James Lee Burke (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Heiress, by Rachel Hawkins (St. Martin’s Press)
• Hero, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press)
• Holmes, Marple and Poe, by James Patterson and Brian Sitts (Little, Brown)
• Ilium, by Lea Carpenter (Knopf)
• Invisible Woman, by Katia Lief (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Jan Larkin Mysteries, Volume 1, by Stephen Burdick (Down & Out)
• The Kelsey Outrage, by Alison Louise Hubbard (Black Rose)
• A Killing in November, by Simon
Mason (Quercus)
• The Lies You Wrote, by Brianna Labuskes (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Lost Van Gogh, by Jonathan Santlofer (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Man-Killer, by Lawrence Kelter (Black Rose)
• Maude Horton’s Glorious Revenge, by Lizzie Pook (Simon & Schuster)
• Midnight, by Amy McCulloch (Doubleday)
• The Missing Witness, by Allison Brennan (Mira)
• The Morning Show Murders, by Al Roker and Dick Lochte (Blackstone)
• The Mountain King, by Anders de la Motte (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• Murder Beyond the Pale, by Wendy Church (Polis)
• Murder in Transit, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)
• My Favorite Scar, by Nicolás Ferraro (Soho Crime)
• The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, by Janice Hallett (Atria)
• Necessary Deeds, by Mark Wish (Regal House)
• A Night at the Shore, by Tony Knighton (Brash)
• The Night of the Storm, by Nishita Parekh (Dutton)
• No One Can Know, by Kate Alice Marshall (Flatiron)
• Northwoods, by Amy Pease (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Nubian’s Curse, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)
• Obey All Laws, by Cindy Goyette (Level Best)
• Of Hoaxes and Homicides, by Anastasia Hastings (Minotaur)
• One of the Good Guys, by Araminta Hall (Gillian Flynn)
• Only If You’re Lucky, by Stacy Willingham (Minotaur)
• The Paris Mistress, by Mally Becker (Level Best)
• The Pike Boys, by Danny Cheery Jr. (Big Easy Press)
• The Price You Pay, by Jim Fusilli (Down & Out)
• Prima Facie, by Suzie Miller (Henry Holt)
• The Problem of the Wire Cage, by John Dickson Carr (Penzler/American Mystery Classics)
• Rabbit Hole, by Kate Brody (Soho Crime)
• Radiant Heat, by Sarah-Jane Collins (Berkley)
• Rock, by David Wagoner (Brash)
• Searching for Patty Hearst: A True Crime Novel, by Roger D. Rapoport (Lexographic Press)
• The Search Party, by Hannah Richell (Atria)
• The Sign of Four Spirits, by Vicky Delany (Crooked Lane)
• The Silence in Her Eyes, by Armando Lucas Correa (Atria)
• A Song for the Dead, by D.K. Hood (Bookouture)
• The Son’s Secret, by Daryl Wood Gerber (Severn House)
• A Soul for a Soul, by Carol Wyer (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Storm We Made, by Vanessa Chan (S&S/Marysue Rucci)
• A Taste of Blood, by Lynda La Plante (Zaffre)
• This Plague of Souls, by Mike McCormack (Soho Press)
• Thunderball, by Ian Fleming (Morrow Paperbacks)
• The Truth About the Accident, by Nicole Trope (Grand Central)
• Twenty-Seven Minutes, by Ashley Tate (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Twilight Queen, by Jeri Westerson (Severn House)
• The Washing Away of Wrongs, by G.M. Malliet (Constable & Robinson)
• The Wharton Plot, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• What Mother Won’t Tell Me, by Ivar Leon Menger (Poisoned
Pen Press)
• Where the Body Was, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
(Image Comics)
• Where You End, by Abbott Kahler (Henry Holt)
• Who’s Watching the Children? by Carren Strock (Gray Rabbit)
• Who to Believe, by Edwin Hill (Kensington)
• The Woman on the Ledge, by Ruth Mancini (Harper)

JANUARY (UK):
• The Accident, by L.H. Stacey (Boldwood)
• The Actor, by Chris MacDonald (Michael Joseph)
• The Beholders, by Hester Musson (Fourth Estate)
• The Best Revenge, by Gerald Seymour (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Blotto, Twinks, and the Phantom Skiers, by Simon Brett (Constable)
• Cover the Bones, by Chris Hammer (Wildfire)
• Death on the Lusitania, by R.L. Graham (Macmillan)
• Directions for Dark Things, by Stephanie Sowden (Canelo)
• The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead, by Antony Johnston
(Allison & Busby)
• The Excitements, by C.J. Wray (Orion)
• Farewell Dinner for a Spy, by Edward Wilson (Arcadia)
• The Favourite, by Rosemary Hennigan (Orion)
• Fear Stalks the Village, by Ethel Lina White (British Library)
• The Girl in Room 12, by Kathryn Croft (Bookouture)
• The Girl in Seat 2A, by Diana Wilkinson (Boldwood)
• The Grief House, by Rebecca Thorne (Raven)
• The Guests, by Agnes Ravatn (Orenda)
• A Guilty Secret, by Philippa East (HQ)
• Halfway House, by Helen FitzGerald (Orenda)
• Harlequin Butterfly, by Toh EnJoe
(Pushkin Press)
• Helle & Death, by Oskar Jensen (Viper)
• Here in the Dark, by Alexis Soloski (Raven)
• House Woman, by Adorah Nworah
(Borough Press)
• The Knowing, by Emma Hinds
(Bedford Square)
• The Last Word, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• Laying Out the Bones, by Kate Webb (Quercus)
• Life Inside: The Hard Reality of Prison and What It Takes to Survive, by Linda Calvey (Welbeck)*
• The Longest Goodbye, by Mari Hannah (Orion)
• Lost and Never Found, by Simon Mason (Riverrun)
• The Lover of No Fixed Abode, by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Miss Austen Investigates, by Jessica Bull (Michael Joseph)
• Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Gondola of Doom, by Olga
Wojtas (Saraband)
• Mission Churchill, by Alex Abella (Adler Entertainment)
• Moscow X, by David McCloskey (Swift Press)
• Munich Wolf, by Rory Clements (Zaffre)
• Murder by Candlelight, by Faith Martin (HQ Digital)
• Murder on Lake Garda, by Tom Hindle (Century)
• Poppy Takes the Lead, by Leigh Russell (Crime & Mystery Club)
• The Queen of Poisons, by Robert Thorogood (HQ)
• The Reckoning, by Martina Murphy (Constable)
• The Spy Coast, by Tess Gerritsen (Bantam)
• Taken, by Dinuka McKenzie (Canelo)
• The Teacher, by Tim Sullivan (Head of Zeus/Aries)
• Thorn in My Side, by C.J. Skuse (HQ Digital)
• Three Little Birds, by Sam Blake (Corvus)
• To the Dogs, by Louise Welsh (Canongate)
• Trans-Mongolian Express, by David L. Robbins (Adler Entertainment)
• The Trials of Marjorie Crowe, by C.S. Robertson
(Hodder & Stoughton)
• Unburied, by Heather Critchlow (Canelo)
• What Goes Around, by Jen Faulkner (Bloodhound)
• The Wizard of the Kremlin, by Giuliano da Empoli (Pushkin Press)

FEBRUARY (U.S.):
• Alfred Hitchcock Storyboards, by Tony Lee Moral (Titan)*
• All the Rage, by Cara Hunter (Morrow Paperbacks)
• Almost Surely Dead, by Amina Akhtar (Mindy’s Book Studio)
• The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder, by C.L. Miller (Atria)
• At Any Cost, by Jeffrey Siger (Severn House)
• The Atlas Maneuver, by Steve Berry (Grand Central)
• At the River, by Kendra Elliot (Montlake)
• The Bad Weather Friend, by Dean Koontz (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Best of Lupin, by Maurice Leblanc (Vintage)
• Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor, by Ronald Drabkin (Morrow)*
• The Bezzle, by Cory Doctorow (Tor)
• The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age, by Michael Wolraich (Union Square)*
• The Boy Who Cried Bear, by Kelley Armstrong (Minotaur)
• Cahokia Jazz, by Francis Spufford (Scribner)
• The Chaos Agent, by Mark Greaney (Berkley)
• Chicago ’63, by Terrence McCauley (Silverback)
• The Cliff’s Edge, by Charles Todd (Morrow)
• Columbo: Make Me a Perfect Murder, by Amelie Hastie
(Duke University Press)*
• The County Line, by Steve Weddle (Lake Union)
• The Cry of Cicadas, by J. Sydney Jones (J. Sydney Jones)
• Cult Trip: Inside the World of Coercion & Control, by Anke Richter (HarperCollins)*
• Dark Arena, by Jack Beaumont (Blackstone)
• A Death in Chelsea, by H.L. Marsay (Tule)
• Death in Hilo, by Eric Redman (Crooked Lane)
• Death of a Spy, by M.C. Beaton with R.W. Green (Grand Central)
• The Diabolical, by David Putnam (Oceanview)
• End of Story, by A.J. Finn (Morrow)
• The Escape Artist, by David Wagoner (Brash)
• The Essential Harlem Detectives: A Rage in Harlem / The Real Cool Killers / The Crazy Kill / Cotton Comes to Harlem, by Chester Himes (Everyman’s Library)
• Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead, by Jenny Hollander (Minotaur)
• Fatal First Edition, by Jenn McKinlay (Berkley)
• Final Appeal, by Remigiusz Mróz (Crooked Lane)
• The Floods of Fear, by John and Ward Hawkins (Black Gat)
• The Fortune Seller, by Rachel Kapelke-Dale (St. Martin’s Press)
• The Framed Women of Ardemore House, by Brandy Schillace (Hanover Square Press)
• The Frame-Up, by Gwenda Bond (Del Rey)
• Ghost Island, by Max Seeck (Berkley)
• The Ghost Orchid, by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine)
• The Guest, by B.A. Paris (St. Martin’s Press)
• Hard Girls, by J. Robert Lennon (Mulholland)
• A Haunting in the Arctic, by C.J. Cooke (Berkley)
• The Hive, by Scarlett Brade (Zaffre)
• Hollywood Hustle, by Jon Lindstrom (Crooked Lane)
• The Holy Terrors, by Simon R. Green (Severn House)
• Hurt for Me, by Heather Levy (Montlake)
• The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, by Malka
Older (Tordotcom)
• I Only Read Murder, by Ian Ferguson and Will Ferguson (Mira)
• Island Witch, by Amanda Jayatissa (Berkley)
• James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction, by Nathan
Ashman (McFarland)*
• Keep Your Friends Close, by Leah Konen (Putnam)
• King Nyx, by Kirsten Bakis (Liveright)
• The Lantern’s Dance, by Laurie R. King (Bantam)
• The Last Few Miles of Road, by Eric Beetner (Level Best)
• Last Night, by Luanne Rice (Thomas & Mercer)
• Last Seen in Havana, by Teresa Dovalpage (Soho Crime)
• Leave No Trace, by A.J. Landau (Minotaur)
• Lethal Vengeance, by Robert Bryndza (Raven Street)
• Lone Wolf, by Gregg Hurwitz (Minotaur)
• McKee of Centre Street, by Helen Reilly (Penzler/American Mystery Classics)
• Murder by Lamplight, by Patrice McDonough (Kensington)
• A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown’s Most Shocking Crime, by Casey Sherman (Sourcebooks)*
• Murder in Masquerade, by Mary
Winters (Berkley)
• The Museum Heist: A Mystery Agency Puzzle Book, by Henry Lewis (Mobius)
• My Name Was Eden, by Eleanor Barker-White (Morrow)
• Nightwatching, by Tracy Sierra (Pamela Dorman)
• Nobody’s Angel, by Jack Clark (Hard Case Crime)
• No One Dies Yet, by Kobby Ben Ben (Europa Editions)
• Nowhere Like Home, by Sara Shepard (Dutton)
• Once Upon a Murder, by Samantha Larsen (Crooked Lane)
• One Wrong Word, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)
• Operation Snow Queen, by Colin Campbell (Down & Out)
• Ordinary Human Failings, by Megan Nolan (Little, Brown)
• Original Sins, by Erin Young (Flatiron)
• Owning Up, by George Pelecanos (Mulholland)
• Paper Cage, by Tom Baragwanath (Knopf)
• Past Crimes, by Jason Pinter (Severn House)
• The Phalanx Code, by A.J. Tata (St. Martin’s Press)
• The Phoenix Crown, by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang (Morrow)
• A Plague on Both Your Houses, by Robert Littell (Blackstone)
• The Price You Pay, by Nick Petrie (Putnam)
• Queens of London, by Heather Webb (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Resort, by Sara Ochs (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Rumor Game, by Thomas Mullen (Minotaur)
• Silent Came the Monster, by Amy Hill Hearth (Blackstone)
• The Smoke in Our Eyes, by James Grady (Pegasus Crime)
• Smoke Kings, by Jahmal Mayfield (Melville House)
• The Split, by Kit Frick (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• Spy Hunter, by H.B. Lyle (Mobius)
• The Spy Who Loved Me, by Ian Fleming (Morrow Paperbacks)
• A Step Past Darkness, by Vera Kurian (Park Row)
• Stigma, by Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger (Orenda)
• The Stranger in the Asylum, by Alys Clare (Severn House)
• The Stranger in the House, by John Marrs (Thomas & Mercer)
• Strong Passions: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York, by Barbara Weisberg (Norton)*
• The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey)
• The Teacher, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Three-Inch Teeth, by C.J. Box (Putnam)
• The Tigress / The Exotic / Angel! by Carter Brown
(Stark House Press)
• Tile M for Murder, by Felicia Carparelli (Bella)
• Under the Storm, by Christoffer Carlsson (Hogarth)
• Union Station, by David Downing (Soho Crime)
• The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells, by Rebecca Rego Barry
(Post Hill Press)*
• A Vigil of Spies, by Candace Robb (Severn House)
• Village in the Dark, by Iris Yamashita (Berkley)
• Watch Her Run, by Paula Lennon (Wildfire)
• The Wedding Party, by L.R. Jones (Thomas & Mercer)
• Whale Fjord, by Michael Ridpath (Yarmer Head)
• What Is Mine, by Lyn Liao Butler (Thomas & Mercer)
• What We Buried, by Robert Rotenberg (Simon & Schuster)
• When She Left, by E.A. Aymar (Thomas & Mercer)
• Where They Lie, by Claire Coughlan (Harper Perennial)
• The Woman Who Lowered the Boom, by David Handler
(Mysterious Press)
• The Year of the Locust, by Terry Hayes (Atria/Emily Bestler)

FEBRUARY (UK):
• Bird Spotting in a Small Town, by Sophie Morton-Thomas (Verve)
• The Borrowdale Body, by Rebecca Tope (Allison & Busby)
• The Dancer, by Óskar Guðmundsson (Corylus)
• Dead Heat, by Jessie Keane (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney (Zaffre)
• Death at Lovers’ Leap, by Catherine Coles (Boldwood)
• Death Flight, by Sarah Sultoon (Orenda)
• A Death in Chelsea, by H.L. Marsay (Tule)
• A Death in Diamonds, by S.J. Bennett (Zaffre)
• Deep Harbour, by Tove Alsterdal (Faber and Faber)
• The Dream Home, by T.M. Logan (Zaffre)
• The Escape Room, by L.D. Smithson (Bantam)
• Every Smile You Fake, by Dorothy Koomson (Headline Review)
• For Our Sins, by James Oswald (Wildfire)
• The Fox Wife, by Yangsze Choo (Quercus)
• The Gathering Storm, by Lynne McEwan (Canelo)
• The Girl in the Smoke, by Matt Hilton (Severn House)
• A Grave for a Thief, by Douglas Skelton (Canelo)
• The Holiday, by John Nicholl (Boldwood)
• Impact of Evidence, by Carol Carnac (British Library)
• In Her Shadow, by Emma Christie (Welbeck)
• Jericho’s Dead, by William Hussey (Zaffre)
• Knife Skills for Beginners, by Orlando Murrin (Bantam)
• The Lagos Wife, by Vanessa Walters (Hutchinson Heinemann)
• The Last Reich, by Brian Klein (Spirit Entertainment)
• Last Seen, by Anna Smith (Quercus)
• The Lesson, by James Craig (Constable)
• The List of Suspicious Things, by Jennie Godfrey (Hutchinson Heinemann)
• Mayday, by Grethe Bøe (Mountain
Leopard Press)
• The Murder After the Night Before, by Katy Brent (HQ Digital)
• Murder at the Leaning Tower, by T.A. Williams (Boldwood)
• Murder in the Library, by Anita
Davidson (Boldwood)
• The Mysterious Mrs Hood: A True Victorian Mystery of Scandal, Arson, Murder & Betrayal, by Kim Donovan (Seven Dials)*
• A Nye of Phesants, by Steve Burrows (Point Blank)
• Only the Children, by S.A. Dunphy (Bookouture)
• The Other Fiancé, by Ali Blood (Avon)
• The Perfect Parents, by J.A. Baker (Boldwood)
• Red Menace, by Joe Thomas (Arcadia)
• The School Run, by Ali Lowe (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Shadow Network, by Tony Kent (Elliott & Thompson)
• The Sister Queens, by Justin Scott (Severn House)
• The Sleeping Beauties, by Lucy Ashe (Magpie)
• The Spider, by Lars Kepler (Zaffre)
• The Summer of Lies, by Louise Douglas (Boldwood)
• Too Many Cooks, by Rosemary Shrager (Constable)
• The Trials of Lila Dalton, by L.J. Shepherd (Pushkin Vertigo)
• True Crime, by Georgina Lees (One More Chapter)
• What We Did in the Storm, by Tina Baker (Viper)
• The Winter Visitor, by James Henry (Riverrun)

MARCH (U.S.):
• The Admirable Physician, by Sarah Woodbury
(Independently published)
• The Babylon Plot, by David Leadbeater (Avon)
• Baby X, by Kira Peikoff (Crooked Lane)
• The Berlin Letters, by Katherine Reay (Harper Muse)
• The Best Way to Bury Your Husband, by Alexia Casale (Penguin)
• The Big Lie, by Gabriel Valjan (Level Best/Historia)
• Big Time, by Ben H. Winters (Mulholland)
• Black Wolf, by Juan Gómez-Jurado (Minotaur)
• Blessed Water, by Margot Douaihy (Gillian Flynn)
• Bury the Lead, by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti (Spiderline)
• Bye, Baby, by Carola Lovering (St. Martin’s Press)
• Call of the Void, by J.T. Siemens (Newest Press)
• Cape Rage, by Ron Corbett (Berkley)
• The Cat Wears a Noose, by Dolores Hitchens (Penzler/
American Mystery Classics)
• Cheater, by Karen Rose (Berkley)
• Circles of Death, by Marcia Talley (Severn House)
• Cirque du Slay, by Rob Osler (Crooked Lane)
• Committed, by Chris Merritt (Wildfire)
• Dark Dive, by Andrew Mayne (Thomas & Mercer)
• Day One, by Abigail Dean (Viking)
• A Deadly Endeavor, by Jenny Adams (Crooked Lane)
• A Deadly Walk in Devon, by Nicholas George (Kensington Cozies)
• The Dead Years, by Jeffrey B. Burton (Severn House)
• Death and Fromage, by Ian Moore (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Death Comes Too Late, by Charles Ardai (Hard Case Crime)
• Deliver Me, by Malin Persson Giolito (Other Press)
• The Devil and Mrs. Davenport, by Paulette Kennedy (Lake Union)
• Don’t Forget Me, by Rea Frey (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Dredge, by Brendan Flaherty (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Esmeralda Goodbye, by Corey Lynn Fayman (Konstellation Press)
• Everyone Is Watching, by Heather Gudenkauf (Park Row)
• Every Single Secret, by Christina Dodd (Canary Street Press)
• The Extinction of Irena Rey, by Jennifer Croft (Bloomsbury)
• The Far Side of the Desert, by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman (Oceanview)
• Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice, by Elle Cosimano (Minotaur)
• A Friend in the Dark, by Samantha M. Bailey (Thomas & Mercer)
• Galway Confidential, by Ken Bruen (Mysterious Press)
• Geisha Confidential, by Mark Coggins (Down & Out)
• Good Half Gone, by Tarryn Fisher (Graydon House)
• The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties, by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Berkley)
• A Grave Robbery, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
• Half Crime, by Rusty Barnes (Redneck Press)
• Hanging with Hugo, by Katherine Bolger Hyde (Severn House)
• Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French (Morrow)
• The House on Rye Lane, by Susan Allott (Borough Press)
• How to Solve Your Own Murder, by Kristen Perrin (Dutton)
• The Hunter, by Tana French (Viking)
• Ian Fleming: The Complete Man, by Nicholas Shakespeare (Harper)*
• The Inmate, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• In Sunshine or in Shadow, by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles (Minotaur)
• In the Fog, by Richard Harding Davis (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Kill for Me, Kill for You, by Steve Cavanagh (Atria)
• Kingpin, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Knife Skills, by Wendy Church (Severn House)
• The Last Verse, by Caroline Frost (Morrow)
• Like It Never Happened, by Jeff Hoffman (Crooked Lane)
• Lilith, by Eric Rickstad (Blackstone)
• Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera (Celadon)
• Little Underworld, by Chris Harding Thornton (MCD)
• Lost Man’s Lane, by Scott Carson (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• A Man Downstairs, by Nicole Lundrigan (Viking)
• The Memory Bank, by Brian Shea and Raquel Byrnes (Severn River)
• A Midnight Puzzle, by Gigi Pandian (Minotaur)
• Murder and the Missing Dog, by Susan C. Shea (Severn House)
• Murder at la Villette, by Cara Black (Soho Crime)
• Murder at the College Library, by Con Lehane (Severn House)
• Murder Road, by Simone St. James (Berkley)
• The Mystery Writer, by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The New Couple in 5B, by Lisa Unger (Park Row)
• Night Boat to Paris, by Richard Jessup (Stark House Press)
• Nobody Lives Forever / Tomorrow’s Another Day, by W.R. Burnett (Stark House Press)
• The #1 Lawyer, by James Patterson and Nancy Allen (Little, Brown)
• Off the Air, by Christina Estes (Minotaur)
• One in the Chamber, by Robin Peguero (Grand Central)
• On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, by Ian Fleming (Morrow Paperbacks)
• Perfect Opportunity, by Steven F. Havill (Severn House)
• Peril in Pink, by Sydney Leigh (Crooked Lane)
• Pierce, by Patrick B. Simpson (Apprentice House)
• Point of Order, by Michael Ponsor (Open Road Media)
• Point Zero, by Seichō Matsumoto (Bitter Lemon Press)
• The Princess of Las Vegas, by Chris Bohjalian (Doubleday)
• Rainbow Black, by Maggie Thrash (Harper)
• Rhythm and Clues, by Olivia Blacke (St. Martin’s Paperbacks)
• The Road to Murder, by Camilla Trinchieri (Soho Crime)
• The Scream of Sins, by Chris Nickson (Severn House)
• Secrets of a Scottish Isle, by Erica Ruth Neubauer (Kensington)
• Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Gray, by Christian Klaver (Titan)
• Sherlock Holmes: Five Miles of Country, by Gretchen Altabef (MX)
• The Silence, by Mary McGarry Morris (Open Road Media)
• The Silver Bone, by Andrey Kurkov (HarperVia)
• Sleeping Giants, by Rene Denfeld (Harper)
• The Stars Turned Inside Out, by Nova Jacobs (Atria)
• Still See You Everywhere, by Lisa Gardner (Grand Central)
• Street Fight: The Chicago Taxi Wars of the 1920s, by Anne
Morrissy (Lyons Press)*
• Such a Lovely Family, by Aggie Blum Thompson (Forge)
• Suspicious Activity, by Mike Papantonio and Christopher
Paulos (Arcade)
• Sweet Poison, by Mary Fitt (Moonstone Press)
• To Slip the Bonds of Earth, by Amanda Flower (Kensington)
• The Truth About the Devlins, by Lisa Scottoline (Putnam)
• Twice the Trouble, by Ash Clifton (Crooked Lane)
• Under Ground, by E.S. Thomson (Constable & Robinson)
• The Unquiet Bones, by Loreth Anne White (Montlake)
• The Vinyl Detective: Noise Floor, by Andrew Cartmel (Titan)
• Watch It Burn, by Kristen Bird (Mira)
• Watch Where They Hide, by Tamron Hall (Morrow)
• What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan (Morrow)
• Wild Houses, by Colin Barrett
(Grove Press)
• Women of Good Fortune, by Sophie Wan (Graydon House)
• You’d Look Better as a Ghost, by Joanna Wallace (Penguin)

MARCH (UK):
• All Us Sinners, by Katy Massey (Sphere)
• And Now the Light Is Everywhere,
by L.A. MacRae (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Assassin, by Tom Fletcher (Canelo)
• The Bell Tower, by R.J. Ellory (Orion)
• The Birthday Weekend, by Zöe Miller (Hachette Ireland)
• Blood Roses, by Douglas Jackson (Canelo)
• Blood Ties, by Verónica E. Llaca (Mountain Leopard Press)
• The Brothers, by Kimberley Chambers (HarperCollins)
• Bridges to Burn, by Marion Todd (Canelo)
• City on Fire, by Graham Bartlett (Allison & Busby)
• Crow Season, by Suzy Aspley (Orenda)
• Death on the Thames, by Alan Johnson (Wildfire)
• The Devil You Know, by Neil Lancaster (HQ Digital)
• Eliza Mace, by Sarah Burton and Jem Poster (Duckworth)
• Every Move You Make, by C.L. Taylor (Avon)
• The Exploit, by Daniel Scanlan (Head of Zeus/Aries)
• Finding Sophie, by Imran Mahmood (Raven)
• Follow the Butterfly, by Martta Kaukonen (Pushkin Vertigo)
• The Girl in the Dark, by Zoë Sharp (Bookouture)
• Hotel Arcadia, by Sunny Singh (Magpie)
• How to Kill a Guy in Ten Ways, by Eve Kelman (Avon)
• In Her Place, by Edel Coffey (Sphere)
• The Kellerby Coce, by Jonny Sweet (Faber and Faber)
• The Last Murder at the End of the World, by Stuart Turton (Raven)
• Leave No Trace, by Jo Callaghan (imon & Schuster UK)
• Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera (Bantam)
• Looking Good Dead, by Stephen Puleston (Independently published)
• Made for Murders, by Peter Tremayne (Headline)
• The Mind of a Murderer, by Michael Wood (One More Chapter)
• The Missing Maid, by Holly Hepburn (Boldwood)
• Never Trust the Husband, by Jessica Payne (Bookouture)
• On the Run, by Max Luther (Canelo)
• Out of Darkness, by Alex Gray (Sphere)
• The Red Hollow, by Natalie Marlow (Baskerville)
• Revenge Killing, by Leigh Russell (Bedford Square)
• Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case, by Elsa Drucaroff (Corylus)
• Savage Ridge, by Morgan Greene (Canelo)
• The Split, by S.E. Lynes(Bookouture)
• A Stranger in the Family, by Jane Casey (HarperCollins)
• A Telegram from Le Touquet, by John Bude (British Library)
• Ten Seconds, by Robert Gold (Sphere)
• To The River, by Vikki Wakefield (No Exit Press)
• The Trade-Off, by Sandie Jones (Pan)
• The Translator, by Harriet Crawley (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Two Sisters, by Alex Kane (Canelo Hera)
• The War Widow, by Tara Moss (Verve)
• White Ash Ridge, by S.R. White (Headline)
• The Widows, by Pascal Engman (Legend Press)
• The Wrong Sister, by Claire Douglas (Penguin)

You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that I am well into stockpiling particulars about crime, mystery, and thriller works due for publication later in this leap year. There are so many more new books in the pipeline you’ll want to know about, by authors ranging from Anthony Horowitz, S.J. Rozan, Peter May, Bonnie MacBird, Peter Lovesey, and Ruth Ware to Eli Cranor, Shelley Burr, Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane, Anna Lee Huber, and Garry Disher. There will be plenty to say about those as time goes on—provided I don’t lose the relevant computer files beforehand.