And In Summation ...

Had it not been for the unexpected failure of my office technology, I would have posted about many things on this page before or immediately after the new year dawned. Among those was Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter’s “best of the best” list. As he explains, he collected 89 year-end lists of the “best” crime, mystery, and thriller fiction of 2025. “Then,” he says, “I collated the lists to find out which books appeared the most on those lists. This is my attempt to find some consensus in a world of arbitrary opinion.”

He wound up with a fairly diverse roster of 28 most-favored titles, nine of which, he points out, “are on my personal best list.” The top vote-getter was S.A. Cosby’s King of Ashes (with 32 appearances among best-of-the-year selections), followed by Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune (27), Mick Herron’s Clown Town and Lisa Jewell’s Don’t Let Him In (both with 18), Amity Gaige’s Heartwood (16), Louise Hegarty’s Fair Play and Louise Penny’s The Black Wolf (both winning 15 endorsements), Holly Jackson’s Not Quite Dead Yet and Belinda Bauer’s The Impossible Thing (each amassing 14), and Lou Berney’s Crooks (with 13). The remaining 18 “bests” can all be found here.

Eleventh-Hour Endorsements

As December slowly winds down, so does the number of “best books of the year” articles and lists being published. Marilyn Brooks, who writes the Marilyn’s Mystery Reads blog and teaches on the subject of crime fiction in association with the Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Massachusetts, revealed her 2025 favorites just yesterday:

• Havoc, by Christopher Bollen (Harper; first released in hardcover in December 2024, but republished in paperback in November 2025)
• Chain Reaction, by James Byrne (Minotaur)
• Edge, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)
• Her Many Faces, by Nicci Cloke (Morrow)
• Too Old for This, by Samantha Downing (Berkley)
• The Queen of Fives, by Alex Hay (Graydon House)
• Nemesis, by Gregg Hurwitz (Minotaur)
• The Deepest Fake, by Daniel Kalla (Simon & Schuster)
• Midnight Burning, by Paul Levine (Amphorae)
• Hang On St. Christopher, by Adrian McKinty (Blackstone)
• Hotel Ukraine, by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster)
• The Mailman, by Andrew Welsh-Huggins (Mysterious Press)

Additionally, she applauds the late Ariana Franklin’s Mistress of the Art of Death, even though it came out in 2007. “I had never heard of the author until I serendipitously found it on a shelf in my local library,” explains Brooks, “and I was struck both by the title and the cover art.”

* * *

Two other selections of top-drawer crime fiction are available as well. The first comes from Vicki Weisfeld, a regular contributor to the British blog Crime Fiction Lover, and features her top-five novels from 2025 (including Philip Lazar’s debut political thriller, The Tiger and the Bear). And CrimeReads’ latest in a series of reading recaps focuses on “the year’s best new legal thrillers,” among them Victor Suthammanont’s Hollow Spaces, “a psychological thriller about lawyers, in which the adult children of an acquitted murderer are spurred to reinvestigate the case that once tore their family apart.”

Selective and Subjective, but Solid

With Christmas and 2026 nigh upon us, print and electronic publications both have sped up their issuing “best crime and mystery fiction of 2025” lists. BOLO Books’ Kristopher Zgorski says the following 13 works “had the most resonance with me this year.”

Top Reads of 2025:
• Quantum of Menace, by Vaseem Khan (Zaffre UK)
• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Burning Grounds, by Abir Mukherjee (Pegasus Crime)
• Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• The Girl in Cell A, by Vaseem Kahn (Hachette Morbius)
• The Girl in the Green Dress, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• Head Cases, by John McMahon (Minotaur)
• Home Before Dark, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir (Orenda)
• The Pastor’s Wife, by LynDee Walker (Bookouture)
• Under the Same Stars, by Libba Bray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Top Debuts:
• The Betrayal of Thomas True, by A.J. West (Orenda)
• Death on the Island, by Eliza Reid (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Whiskey Business, by Adrian Andover (Chestnut Avenue Press)

* * *

Although I have no intention of trying to catalogue every one of the “best” selections presently rolling out (Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine’s George Easter is already making a good fist of that endeavor), let me also mention that CrimeReads has posted three new lists—“Traditional Mysteries,” “International Crime Novels,” and “Noir Fiction.” In addition, the Spybrary blog is reporting on its readers’ espionage-novel picks of the last year (Mick Herron’s Clown Town and R.N. Morris’ new Cover Story included). And contributors to Britain’s Crime Fiction Lover are revealing their own top-five choices; so far we’ve heard from Sonja van der Westhuizen, Sandra Mangan (aka DeathBecomesHer), and Paul Burke, with more to come.

Finding Fine Crime in All Corners

Every December, I wait eagerly to see which crime, mystery, and thriller novels Wall Street Journal critic Tom Nolan will declare are his favorites of the year. Tom has been a contributor to the Journal for the last 35 years, but I first became acquainted with him when I interviewed him for January Magazine in 1999. He and I seem frequently to share reading preferences, so I like to see if there are any books he chooses that for some reason I missed. Sure enough, in his new article, “The Best Books of 2025: Mystery” (scheduled to appear in tomorrow’s print edition of the Journal, but available online today—behind a paywall), there are a couple of yarns I skipped originally, and will now have to catch up with in the weeks to come.

Here are the 10 crime tales Tom found most rewarding in 2025:

• The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne, by Ron Currie (Putnam)
• Beartooth, by Callan Wink (Spiegel & Grau)
• Murder at Gulls Nest, by Jess Kidd (Atria)
• Kill Your Darlings, by Peter Swanson (Morrow)
• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Harper)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• A Case of Mice and Murder, by Sally Smith (Raven)
• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• The Diary of Lies, by Philip Miller (Soho Crime)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Mulholland)

* * *

In the meantime, The New York Times has sprung forth with two lists of interest to Rap Sheet readers. The first comes from Sarah Weinman, and covers her choices of the “Best Mystery Novels of 2025”:

• Dead in the Frame, by Stephen Spotswood (Doubleday)
• At Midnight Comes the Cry, by Julia Spencer-Fleming (Minotaur)
• Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man), by Jesse Q.
Sutanto (Berkley)
• Glory Daze, by Danielle Arceneaux (Pegasus Crime)
• Notes on Surviving the Fire, by Christine Murphy (Knopf)
• History Lessons, by Zoe B. Wallbrook (Soho Crime)
• Her One Regret, by Donna Freitas (Soho Crime)
• Death Takes Me, by Cristina Rivera Garza (Hogarth)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• Hollow Spaces, by Victor Suthammanont (Counterpoint)

And Sarah Lyall submits her “Best Thrillers of 2025” selections:

• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• Your Steps on the Stairs, by Antonio Muñoz Molina (Other Press)
• Venetian Vespers, by John Banville (Knopf)
• The Impossible Thing, by Belinda Bauer (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Dissolution, by Nicholas Binge (Riverhead)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Berkley)
• A Beautiful Family, by Jennifer Trevelyan (Doubleday)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Mulholland)
• The Predicament, by William Boyd (Atlantic Crime)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)

Both of these pieces are scheduled for inclusion in the print version of The New York Times this coming Sunday, December 14.

* * *

Finally for today, CrimeReads has added its six picks of this year’s best espionage fiction to its previous selections of 2025’s top 20 crime novels and best debut novels:

• Oxford Soju Club, by Jinwoo Park (Dundurn Press)
• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)
• The Poet’s Game, Paul Vidich (Pegasus Crime)
• Pariah, by Dan Fesperman (Knopf)
• The Oligarch’s Daughter, by Joseph Finder (Harper)
• Mrs. Spy, by M.J. Robotham (Aria/Bloomsbury)

“Bests” Just Keep Bobbing Up

I’m not going to try to inventory every “best crime and mystery fiction of 2025” list popping out across the media right now (Deadly Pleasures editor George Easter definitely has the edge in that game). But mentioning a few more entries in the field can’t hurt.

Late last week CrimeReads posted its nominations of “20 novels that defined the year for mystery readers.” Now managing editor Molly Odintz has returned with the site’s picks of the 15 “Best Debut Novels of 2025” (at least in the crime, mystery, and thriller arena):

• If the Dead Belong Here, by Carson Faust (Viking)
• The Slip, by Lucas Schaefer (Simon & Schuster)
• The Snares, by Rav Grewal-Kök (Random House)
• We Don’t Talk About Carol, by Kristen L. Berry (Bantam)
• Florida Palms, by Joe Pan (Simon & Schuster)
• Best Offer Wins, by Marisa Kashino (Celadon)
• The Museum Detective, by Maha Khan Phillips (Soho Crime)
• Leverage, by Amran Gowani (Atria)
• Julie Chan Is Dead, by Liann Zhang (Atria)
• The Fact Checker, by Austin Kelley (Atlantic Crime)
• Ruth Run, by Elizabeth Kaufman (Penguin)
• Boom Town, by Nic Stone (Simon & Schuster)
• Hollow Spaces, by Victor Suthammanont (Counterpoint)
• History Lessons, by Zoe B. Wallbrook (Soho Crime)
• Fireweed, by Lauren Haddad (Astra House)

Odintz offers a second new “best of” post, which went up earlier today: “The Best Psychological Thrillers of 2025.”

* * *

Robin Agnew, who for many years co-owned (with her husband, Jamie) Aunt Agatha’s Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, still runs a lively crime-fiction blog and contributes reviews to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. Her 15 top choices for 2025 are generally, but not exclusively, drawn from this genre’s cozier side:

• Glory Daze, by Danielle Arceneaux (Pegasus Crime)
• A Death in Diamonds, by S.J. Bennett (Crooked Lane)
• Just Another Dead Author, by Katarina Bivald (Poisoned Pen Press)
• I Died for Beauty, by Amanda Flower (Berkley)
• The List of Suspicious Things, by Jennie Godfrey (Sourcebooks/Landmark)
• The Frozen People, by Elly Griffiths (Pamela Dorman)
• Marble Hall Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)
• Making a Killing, by Cara Hunter (Morrow)
• An Excellent Thing in a Woman, by Allison Montclair (Severn House)
• No Comfort for the Dead, by R.P. O’Donnell (Crooked Lane)
• The Case of the Missing Maid, by Rob Osler (Kensington)
• At Midnight Comes the Cry, by Julia Spencer-Fleming (Minotaur)
• Hunter’s Heart Ridge, by Sarah Stewart Taylor (Minotaur)
• The Botanist’s Assistant, by Peggy Townsend (Berkley)
• No. 10 Doyers Street, by Radha Vatsal (Level Best)

Meanwhile, Agnew has published brief remembrances of “30 great reads” from the last dozen months, including books by both veteran authors and newbies. It’s good to see Mariah Fredericks’ The Girl in the Green Dress, Beth Lewis’ The Rush, and Susie Dent’s Guilty by Definition all mentioned. And look here for a separate post covering top mystery-fiction finds from other Aunt Agatha’s critics.

* * *

Down Under crime-fiction critic Jeff Popple, who writes for the Canberra Weekly as well as Deadly Pleasures, has so far posted two different “best” lists. The first covers his 13 favorite works, all of them released in Australia over the course of 2025:

• Leo, by Deon Meyer (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The White Crow, by Michael Robotham (Sphere)
• Hang On St. Christopher, by Adrian McKinty (Blackstone)
• The Poet’s Game, by Paul Vidich (No Exit Press)
• Mischance Creek, by Garry Disher (Text)
• Unbury the Dead, by Fiona Hardy (Affirm Press)
• Marble Hall Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (Century)
• Gunner, by Alan Parks (Baskerville)
• Softly Calls the Devil, by Chris Blake (Echo)
• The Proving Ground, by Michael Connelly (Allen & Unwin)
• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Baskerville)
• Dust, by Michael Brissenden (Affirm Press)
• Buried Above Ground, by Mike Ripley (Severn House)

In addition, Popple has produced his own collection of what he confidently says are the “Best Debut Novels of 2025.” Works by Jakob Kerr, Tanya Scott, and Ronni Salt all make the cut.

* * *

Last but not least, Steve Donoghue, whose literary criticism has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor and The Washington Post, is out with a roster of his own crime- and mystery-fiction recommendations for 2025. He lists them in order of his liking:

1. Tiny Wild Things, by Danielle Wong (Storm)
2. Ted Bell’s Monarch, by Ryan Steck (Berkley)
3. Silent Horizons, by Chad Robichaux, with Jack Stewart (Tyndale)
4. Return to Sender, by Craig Johnson (Viking)
5. Tomlinson’s Wake, by Randy Wayne White (Hanover Square Press)
6. Nightshade, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
7. Midnight Black, by Mark Greaney (Berkley)
8. Hotel Ukraine, by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster)
9. Dead Line, by Marc Cameron (Kensington)
10. Apostle’s Cove, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)

In his mini-review of Ted Bell’s Monarch, Donoghue employs a splendid term I’m going to have to remember for the future: “necro-fiction,” meaning a story that “keeps an established series character going after that character’s creator dies.” Bell breathed his last in 2023, a dozen books into his spy-thriller series starring Lord Alexander Hawke.

Did You Read These in 2025?

Adding to the recent deluge of “best crime fiction” lists, CrimeReads has named its 20 favorite novels released over the last 12 months:

• We Are Watching, by Alison Gaylin (Morrow)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• The Search Committee, by José Skinner (Arte Publico)
• El Dorado Drive, by Megan Abbott (Putnam)
• Ruth Run, by Elizabeth Kaufman (Penguin)
• Kill Your Darlings, by Peter Swanson (Morrow)
• Best Offer Wins, by Marisa Kashino (Celadon)
• The Slip, by Lucas Schaefer (Simon and Schuster)
• Leverage, by Amran Gowani (Atria)
• Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• With a Vengeance, by Riley Sager (Dutton)
• Friends Helping Friends, by Patrick Hoffman (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)
• The House on Buzzards Bay, by Dwyer Murphy (Viking)
• The Dark Maestro, by Brendan Slocumb (Doubleday)
• Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
• Darkenbloom, by Eva Menasse (Scribe)
• Mississippi Blue 42, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)
• Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie, by James Lee Burke (Atlantic
Monthly Press)
• The Favorites, by Layne Fargo (Random House)

And if you think that 20 isn’t narrowing the options well enough, consider that the site’s “Notable Selections” roster runs to more than 50 titles! Something for everyone, I guess.

* * *

The social cataloguing site Goodreads has revealed the winners of its 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards, in 15 categories.

Taking top honors in the Mystery and Thriller division is Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam). It triumphed over 19 other nominees: We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow); Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Atria); The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown (Doubleday); The Ghostwriter, by Julie Clark (Sourcebooks Landmark); King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar); The Intruder, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press); Gone Before Goodbye, by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben (Grand Central); The Tenant, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press); Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man), by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Berkley); Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster); The Crash, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press); The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman); The Missing Half, by Ashley Flowers (Bantam); Forget Me Not, by Stacy Willingham (Minotaur); You Killed Me First, by John Marrs (Thomas & Mercer); Famous Last Words, by Gilliam McAllister (Morrow); The Perfect Divorce, by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone); The Widow, by John Grisham (Doubleday); and Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron).

To find the full array of 2025 Choice Award recipients, go here.

* * *

Not to be outshone, Ayo Onatade of the British blog Shotmag Confidential has compiled her dozen favorites from this last year:

• Kings of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)
• Quantum of Menace, by Vaseem Khan (Bonnier)
• The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Profile)
• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Baskerville)
• The Darkest Winter, by Carlo Lucarelli (Orenda)
• Midnight Streets, by Phil Lecomber (Titan)
• The Proving Ground, by Michael Connelly (Orion)
• Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman (Faber & Faber)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Harvill Secker)
• Strange Pictures, by Uketsu (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Moscow Underground, by Catherine Merridale (HarperCollins)
• The Art of a Lie, by Laura Shepherd Robinson (Pan Macmillan)

Beyond those, she names four Honourable Mentions:

• Hang on St. Christopher, by Adrian McKinty (Blackstone)
• Murder at Worlds End, by Ross Montgomery (Viking)
• The Good Nazi, by Samir Marchado de Machado (Pushkin Press)
• The Burning Grounds, by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage)

Wilson and She Reads Take Their Stands

Author and Guardian book Laura Wilson has released her own choices of the 10 “best” crime and thriller works released in 2025:

• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Baskerville)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Harvill Secker)
• The Confessions, by Paul Bradley Carr (Faber & Faber)
• The Winter Warriors, by Olivier Norek (Open Borders)
• The Ghosts of Rome, by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)
• The Bureau, by Eoin McNamee (Riverrun)
• The Death of Us, by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press)
• The Impossible Thing, by Belinda Bauer (Bantam)
• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Picador)
• Strange Pictures, by Uketsu (Pushkin Vertigo)

* * *

Concurrently, the Web site and digital magazine She Reads has announced the winners of its best books of 2025 awards, chosen by readers. There are 17 categories of recipients, but the most important of those (at least for Rap Sheet readers) might be Mystery, Thriller & Suspense. Top honors there go to King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar).

Also nominated in that same division were Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron); Count My Lies, by Sophie Stava (Gallery/Scout Press); Culpability, by Bruce Holsinger (Spiegel & Grau); Fog and Fury, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Thomas & Mercer); Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster); Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam); The Compound, by Aisling Rawle (Random House); and We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow).

To review the results in all 17 categories, click here.

Verdicts Without Agreement

Now we have The Times of London making its opinions known as to what the “best books of 2025” might be. Among the categories included is Crime Fiction. Critics Joan Smith and Mark Sanderson do the choosing there—four titles each, with Smith’s picks listed first here:

• Red Water, by Jurica Pavičić, translated by Matt Robinson
(Bitter Lemon)
• The Dead Husband Cookbook, by Danielle Valentine (Viper)
• The Token, by Sharon Bolton (Orion)
• The Day of the Roaring, by Nina Bhadreshwar (Hemlock Press)

• Murder Mindfully, by Karsten Dusse, translated by Florian
Duijsens (Faber & Faber)
• A Voice in the Night, by Simon Mason (Riverrun)
• Paperboy, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin Vertigo)
• A Schooling in Murder, by Andrew Taylor (Hemlock Press)

Meanwhile, reviewers James Owen and John Dugdale put together the Times’ selections from this year’s Thrillers. Owen’s top three are mentioned first, followed by Dugdale’s favorites:

• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• Red Star Down, by D.B. John (Harvill Secker)
• The Seventh Floor, by David McCloskey (Swift Press)

• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Michael Joseph)
• The Death of Us, by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press)
• Presumed Guilty, by Scott Turow (Swift Press)

For Rap Sheet readers, it should be noted too that Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress and Doctor Crippen (Doubleday), Hallie Rubenhold’s excellent account of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen’s 1910 slaying of his music-hall-performer wife, found a place on the Times’ top-20 roster of History releases.

* * *

For their part, Katie Russell and Joanne Finney, from the crime-fiction Web site Dead Good, recommend “15 of the best crime books” published in Great Britain over the last 12 months:

• Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Penguin)
• The New Neighbours, by Claire Douglas (Penguin)
• Marble Hall Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (Penguin)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Viking)
• She Didn’t See It Coming, by Shari Lapena (Bantam)
• Exit Strategy, by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Bantam)
• It Should Have Been You, by Andrew Mara (Bantam)
• Nobody’s Fool, by Harlan Coben (Century)
• Nemesis, by Gregg Hurwitz (Michael Joseph)
• Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall (Michael Joseph)
• The Summer Guests, by Tess Gerritsen (Bantam)
• The Cleaner, by Mary Watson (Bantam)
• The Inheritance, by Trisha Sakhlecha (Penguin)
• Famous Last Words, by Gillian McAllister (Michael Joseph)
• Murder for Busy People, by Tony Parsons (Century)

* * *

And Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter brings us the “best thrillers” picks from Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper:

• A Schooling in Murder, by Andrew Taylor (Hemlock Press)
• Detective Aunty, by Uzma Jalaluddin (HarperCollins)
• Karla’s Choice, by Nick Harkaway (Penguin Canada)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Leo, by Deon Meyer (Atlantic Crime)
• Nightshade, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• The Arizona Triangle, by Sydney Graves (Harper Paperbacks)
• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• The Drowned, by John Banville (Hanover Square Press)
• The Hitchhikers, by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s Press)

The Globe and Mail’s full “100 best books of 2025” roll can be found here, but it’s tucked behind a paywall.

READ MORE: “Daily Mail’s Best Crime Fiction 2025,” by George Easter (Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine).

Cogdill Chimes In

Continuing the rollout of this year’s critics’ picks, Oline H. Cogdill of the South Florida Sun Sentinel today delivers her “Best Mystery Novels of 2025” list. Novels, short story compilations, and even one biography are included—22 works in all.

Novels:
• El Dorado Drive, by Megan Abbott (Putnam)
• The Proving Ground, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• Too Old for This, by Samantha Downing (Berkley)
• The Bone Thief, by Vanessa Lillie (Berkley)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• The Trouble Up North, by Travis Mulhauser (Grand Central)
• The Girl in the Green Dress, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• The Oligarch’s Daughter, by Joseph Finder (Harper)
• The Note, by Alafair Burke (Knopf)
• Low April Sun, by Constance E. Squires (University of
Oklahoma Press)
• Mississippi Blue 42, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)
• Head Cases, by John McMahon (Minotaur)

Best Debuts:
• We Don’t Talk About Carol, by Kristen L. Berry (Bantam)
• Florida Palms, by Joe Pan (Simon & Schuster)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Berkley)

Short Story Anthologies:
• Crime Ink: Iconic, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater)
• Double Crossing Van Dine, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor (Crippen & Landru)
• Every Day a Little Death, edited by Josh Pachter (Level Best)
• Hollywood Kills: An Anthology, edited by Andrew Meyer and Alan Orloff (Level Best)
• Best of The Strand Magazine, edited by Andrew F. Gulli and Lamia J. Gulli (Blackstone)

Non-fiction:
Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard, by C.M. Kushins (Mariner)

Oline is an incisive, award-winning reviewer who has been at this game longer than I have, and whose taste I very much respect. So her reading recommendations have a greater impact on me than some others might. I’ve tackled a number of the works listed here, though not all. I’m pleased to see The Girl in the Green Dress make the cut, as Oline and I discussed its merits during our appearance on a panel together at this year’s Bouchercon. And I could kick myself for not yet having cracked open either Crooks or The Trouble Up North. I’ll definitely have to get to those before year’s end.

Holding Us Over

While we wait for New York Times critics to issue their lists of favorite crime, mystery, and thriller novels published over the last dozen months (their 2024 picks were released after December 1), we at least can take in that newspaper’s “100 Notable Books of 2025” feature. A few works from this genre won mention on it, among them:

• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• The Feeling of Iron, by Giaime Alonge (Europa Editions)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Mulholland)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• Hollow Spaces, by Victor Suthammanont (Counterpoint)
• Shadow Ticket, by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press)
• Venetian Vespers, by John Banville (Knopf)
• Victorian Psycho, by Virginia Feito (Liveright)

Meanwhile, Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine brings us other top choices from National Public Radio, The New Zealand Listener, India’s English-language Times Now TV channel, and elsewhere.

Riot Recommends

You can now add Book Riot to the roster of online literary sources declaring they have identified the “best” mystery and thriller releases of 2025. Only four titles are given, two of which are young-adult publications and one of which is both horror and crime:

• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Salt Bones, by Jennifer Givhan (Little, Brown)
• The Scammer, by Tiffany D. Jackson (Quill Tree)
• This Place Kills Me, by Mariko Tamaki (Harry N. Abrams)

Book Riot also names its favorite works in 11 more categories, from Comics and Fantasy to Non-fiction and Science Fiction. All of those lists should be accessible right here.

Piling on With Plaudits

BookPage has chimed in with its own “Best Mystery & Suspense of 2025” list, comprising 10 works released over the last year:

• All of Us Murderers, by K.J. Charles (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Flashout, by Alexis Soloski (Flatiron)
• Hot Wax, by M.L. Rio (Simon & Schuster)
• Listen, by Sacha Bronwasser (Penguin)
• Salty, by Kate Myers (HarperVia)
• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Man Who Died Seven Times, by Yasuhiko Nishizawa
(Pushkin Vertigo)
• The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective, by Jo Nichols (Minotaur)
• The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne, by Ron Currie (Putnam)
• The Wolf Tree, by Laura McCluskey (Putnam)

It’s nice to see some unique choices being made here, though a couple of these books managed to miss my radar entirely.

Note, too, that Currie’s The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne also made the cut as one of BookPage’s “10 Best Books of 2025.”

* * *

Among the New York Public Library’s new “Best Books of 2025” selections are 50 works for adults, four of them pulled straight out of the Crime, Mystery, and Thriller stacks:

• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Harper)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Vantage Point, by Sara Sligar (MCD)

* * *

Meanwhile, just yesterday Britain’s Historical Writers Association announced the three winners of its 2025 HWA Crown Awards, “celebrating the best in recent historical writing, fiction and non-fiction.” They include the Debut Crown Award recipient: A Poisoner’s Tale, by Cathryn Kemp (Bantam), described as “a gothic and spellbinding historical novel about the first female serial killer.”

Ayo Onatade, chair of the Debut Crown judges (and an editor at Shots), said Kemp’s novel, set in 17th-century Italy, “not only evoked a profound sense of place and intrigue but the geography, local culture, and historical period all intertwined to produce this well-written and inseparable tragedy based on a true crime.”

(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

Good to See That Many Mentioned

Time recently released its list of what editors and critics at that magazine say are “The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025,” and unless I’ve overlooked something, only five works from the crime, mystery, and thriller end of the literary spectrum found places on it. They are:

• Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Other People’s Houses, by Clare Mackintosh (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Shadow Ticket, by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press)
• Victorian Psycho, by Virginia Feito (Liveright)

You’ll find all of Time’s must-read choices by clicking here.

Post Toasts and Times Tributes

What with high-profile resignations, financial pressures, turmoil provoked by shifts of direction in its editorial section, and consequent subscriber cancellations, 2025 has been a trying year for The Washington Post. But at least that newspaper has maintained its tradition of publishing “best books of the year” lists. Two of particular pertinence have been released over the last couple of days.

First up we have critic and former librarian Karen MacPherson’s choices of “The 10 Best Mystery Novels of 2025”:

• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Bone Thief, by Vanessa Lillie (Berkley)
• Detective Aunty, by Uzma Jalaluddin (Harper Perennial)
• The Dentist, by Tim Sullivan
(Atlantic Crime)
• The Game Is Afoot, by Elise Bryant (Berkley)
• Guilty By Definition, by Susie Dent (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Hidden City, by Charles Finch (Minotaur)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• The Killing Stones, by Ann Cleeves (Minotaur)
• Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)

Then today brought us the Post’s “10 Best Thrillers of 2025” picks:

• The Ascent, by Allison Buccola (Random House)
• Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam)
• The Note, by Alafair Burke (Knopf)
• A Thousand Natural Shocks, by Omar Hussain (Blackstone)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Berkley)
• We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• What Kind of Paradise, by Janelle Brown (Random House)

Additionally, three crime/mystery titles feature among the Post’s “10 Best Audiobooks of 2025”: Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Simon & Schuster Audio); The Impossible Thing, by Belinda Bauer (Dreamscape); and The Queens of Crime, by Marie Benedict (Macmillan Audio).

* * *

Also this week, Britain’s daily Financial Times has delivered two shorter selections of works from this genre. Seemingly ubiquitous authority Barry Forshaw named his five favorite crime reads:

• The Burning Grounds, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina
(Harvill Secker)
• Kill Your Darlings, by Peter Swanson
(Faber & Faber)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)
• Making a Killing, by Cara Hunter (Hemlock Press)

And Adam Lebor applauded these five thrillers:

• Appointment in Paris, by Jane Thynne (Quercus)
• The Protocols of Spying, by Merle Nygate (No Exit Press)
• Moscow Underground, by Catherine Merridale (Fontana)
• The Poet’s Game, by Paul Vidich (No Exit Press)
• Red Water, by Jurica Pavičić (Bitter Lemon)

* * *

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, which has been keeping a watchful eye on the release of this year’s “bests” rolls, points us as well to mystery- and thriller-fiction lists compiled by both the Chicago Public Library and the online audiobook retailer Audible.

She Reads’ Divine Nine

The book review site Goodreads is already busily soliciting votes to determine the recipients of its 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards. But now the Web site and digital magazine She Reads has also begun inviting book lovers to choose their favorite works from this year, in 17 categories—Mystery, Thriller & Suspense among them.

There are nine nominees in that division, by men as well as women:

• Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)
• Count My Lies, by Sophie Stava (Gallery/Scout Press)
• Culpability, by Bruce Holsinger (Spiegel & Grau)
• Fog and Fury, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Thomas & Mercer)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam)
• The Compound, by Aisling Rawle (Random House)
• We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)

Click here to register your preference among these novels, but be sure to do so by Sunday, November 30. The winner in this and other She Reads categories will be revealed on December 3.

Amazon Decides, Goodreads Deliberates

Two thousand twenty-five’s “best crime fiction of the year” pronouncements seemed to dribble out at first, but now their pace of delivery is accelerating. Giant online retailer Amazon, for instance, came out with its editors’ top-20 mystery, thriller, and suspense picks:

• The Intruder, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• What a Way to Go, by Bella Mackie (Harper Perennial)
• Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam)
• Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests, by K.J. Whittle (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)
• The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
• The Oligarch’s Daughter, by Joseph Finder (Harper)
• The Hallmarked Man, by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland)
• Gone Before Goodbye, by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben (Grand Central)
• She Didn’t See It Coming, by Shari Lapena (Pamela Dorman)
• Fever Beach, by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)
• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• Strangers in Time, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
• Guilty by Definition, by Susie Dent (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Never Flinch, by Stephen King (Scribner)
• No Body No Crime, by Tess Sharpe (MCD)

Both The Intruder and King of Ashes also appear among Amazon’s foremost general favorites of 2025.

This is certainly not a bad list; I’ve read several of the titles here, and enjoyed them greatly. My sole disappointment is that it holds no surprises—with the possible exception of Mackie’s What a Way to Go. With its worldwide Web presence, Amazon has an oversize impact on book sales. Rather than merely endorse what is already flying off the shelves, wouldn’t it be wonderful if its editors championed a few standout yarns that have enjoyed less publicity, giving their authors the sort of encouragement needed to dream bigger?

Or is that just terribly naïve of me?

* * *

At the same time, the social cataloguing site Goodreads (another Amazon property, by the way) has opened its initial round for public voting in the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards competition. In the Mystery and Thriller category, the 20 nominees are:

• We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)
• Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)
• The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
• The Ghostwriter, by Julie Clark (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• The Intruder, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Gone Before Goodbye, by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben (Grand Central)
• The Tenant, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man), by Jesse Q.
Sutanto (Berkley)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• The Crash, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam)
• The Missing Half, by Ashley Flowers (Bantam)
• Forget Me Not, by Stacy Willingham (Minotaur)
• You Killed Me First, by John Marrs (Thomas & Mercer)
• Famous Last Words, by Gilliam McAllister (Morrow)
• The Perfect Divorce, by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone)
• The Widow, by John Grisham (Doubleday)
• Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)

There’s rather more novelty in this mix, but also a pretty serious over-representation by pseudonymous author Freida McFadden.

If you’d like to participate in selecting this year’s Mystery and Thriller winner, go here by Sunday, November 23, to vote for your favorite candidate. The second and final round of balloting will take place from November 25 to 30, with the winner in this and other Goodreads categories to be declared on Thursday, December 4.

Odd Numbers, Even Regard

My onetime employer, Kirkus Reviews, has released its list of what editors there say are the “Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2025.” But a selection of 11 titles? It suggests insurmountable disagreements in the ranks, and a quirky compromise. Regardless, here are Kirkus’ picks:

• Marguerite by the Lake, by Mary Dixie Carter (Minotaur)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• Fog and Fury, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Thomas & Mercer)
• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)
• Detective Aunty, by Uzma Jalaluddin (Harper Perennial)
• Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
• The Man Who Died Seven Times, by Yasuhiko Nishizawa (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Buried Above Ground, by Mike Ripley (Severn House)
• The Dark Maestro, by Brendan Slocumb (Doubleday)
• The Dentist, by Tim Sullivan (Atlantic Crime)
• The Librarians, by Sherry Thomas (Berkley)

Regrettably, I have read only a small handful of those works. And Marguerite by the Lake wasn’t even on my radar, yet Kirkus’ insistence that Carter’s Rebecca-derived tale is “not to be missed, and definitely not to be imitated” now makes me want a copy post haste.

* * *

In the meantime, British bookstore chain Waterstones is out with its own nominations of this year’s top crime and thriller novels. Because there are 51 books mentioned (again, what’s with the 51, instead of a more typical 50?), I’m not going to list them all here. Let me say, though, that I completely endorse the inclusion of Martin Cruz Smith’s Hotel Ukraine (Simon & Schuster UK), Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s The Art of a Lie (Mantle), Anthony Horowitz’s Marble Hall Murders (Century), and Virginia Feito’s brilliantly bizarre Victorian Psycho (Fourth Estate)—all of which are at risk of winding up on my own roll of 2025 favorites. Again, Waterstones’ full list is here.

Still Quiet on the Endorsements Front

Although we’ve spotted a few “best crime fiction of 2025” lists around, including those from Jake Kerridge of The Daily Telegraph and American chain retailer Barnes & Noble, this year’s influx of such inventories has so far been more trickle than torrent.

However, Elle Magazine did recently publish its “Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2025” tally. Twenty-nine is a bit too many for me to feature here, but these are its top 10 choices:

• Needy Little Things, by Channelle Desamours (Wednesday)
• All the Other Mothers Hate Me, by Sarah Harman (Putnam)
• The Maid’s Secret, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)
• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Harper)
• Julie Chan Is Dead, by Liann Zhang (Atria)
• Riddle of the Jeweled Cipher, by L.J. Alson (Sager Group)
• Marble Hall Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)
• The Dark Maestro, by Brendan Slocumb (Doubleday)
• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• The Last Ferry Out, by Andrea Bartz (Ballantine)

(Hat tip to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.)

* * *

Greg Barlin, author of the six-year-old review site Barlin’s Books, doesn’t break down his ongoing annual “best books” roll by genre, but we can. From the 69 general favorites he’s highlighted so far in 2025, here are his 10 top-ranking crime, mystery, and thriller reads:

• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron)
• Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam)
• The Ghostwriter, by Julie Clark (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• What Kind of Paradise, by Janelle Brown (Random House)
• Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall (Pamela Dorman)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam)
• Kills Well with Others, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
• Proof, by Jon Cowan (Gallery)
• Murder at Gulls Nest, by Jess Kidd (Atria)
• Society of Lies, by Lauren Ling Brown (Bantam)

We will keep watch to see if any other books displace one or two of these before New Year’s Day, 2026.

Easter’s Basket of Goodies

George Easter, the editor of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, has begun collecting published lists of the “best” crime, mystery, and thriller lists of 2025. I won’t repeat everything he finds, but I will try to pass on selections I think are worth your attention.

The first two offerings he highlights come from critic Jake Kerridge of England’s Daily Telegraph and from chain retailer Barnes & Noble. Among their picks are William Boyd’s The Predicament, Lindsey Davis’ There Will Be Bodies, Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune, Nita Prose’s The Maid’s Secret, Vaseem Khan’s Quantum of Menace, Louise Penny’s The Black Wolf, Mick Herron’s Clown Town, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Benbecula, and Susie Dent’s Guilty by Definition.

Expect much more on this subject over the next two months.

Passing the Word Around

• Yesterday brought news that The Clues in the Fjord, by Finnish author Satu Rämö, has won the 2025 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. That book, which judges described as “a sophisticated and atmospheric police procedural with a pleasingly unpredictable dark and twisty plot,” was translated by Kristian London and published in Britain by Zaffre. Also nominated for the Petrona were Dead Island, by Samuel Bjørk, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Norway, Bantam); The Widows, by Pascal Engman, translated by Neil Smith (Sweden, Legend Press); Deliver Me, by Malin Persson Giolito, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Sweden, Simon & Schuster UK); The Dancer, by Óskar Guðmundsson, translated by Quentin Bates (Iceland, Corylus); The Sea Cemetery, by Aslak Nore, translated by Deborah Dawkin (Norway, MacLehose Press); and Pursued by Death, by Gunnar Staalesen, translated by Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda). Incidentally, the annual Petrona Award memorializes Maxine Clarke, the British editor, crime-fiction blogger, and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction” who passed away in December 2012 (Petrona was the name of her long-running blog).

• And so it begins—the annual roll out of “best books of the year” lists. First up comes Publishers Weekly, which today revealed its dozen favorite mystery and thriller novels of 2025:

— Cape Fever, by Nadia Davids (Simon & Schuster)
— Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
— The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
— Fever Beach, by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)
— The Human Scale, by Lawrence Wright (Knopf)
— Listen, by Sacha Bronwasser (Viking)
— A Murder in Paris, by Matthew Blake (Harper)
— Saint of the Narrows Street, by William Boyle (Soho Crime)
— Salt Bones, by Jennifer Givhan (Little, Brown)
— The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne, by Ron Currie (Putnam)
— We Don’t Talk About Carol, by Kristen L. Berry (Bantam)
— Your Steps on the Stairs, by Antonio Muñoz Molina (Other Press)

I have read only a few of those, but own a couple more that I should probably now move up in my TBR stack.

• Variety reports that BAFTA nominee John Hannah (The Last of Us, Rebus, Four Weddings and a Funeral) will lead a new, Death in Paradise-like detective drama titled Death in Benidorm, expected to debut next year on the Paramount Skydance-owned UK network Channel 5. This six-part series finds Hannah playing Dennis Crown, “a former detective trying to escape his past who swaps the chaos of the UK for a quieter life running a bar in Benidorm [on Spain’s Mediterranean coast]. But when tourists start turning up dead, he’s reluctantly drawn back into detective work — egged on by his barmaid Rosa, a crime drama superfan. … [W]ith Dennis’ real-world experience and Rosa’s encyclopaedic TV knowledge, ‘each episode sees the duo tackling a new murder in paradise, whilst trying to remain on the right side of the local Spanish cops.’” Spanish actress Carolina Bécquer (8 años, On/Off) has the role of Rose, with Ariadna Cabrol Damian Schedler Cruz also helping to fill out the cast.

• Speaking of television, I’m currently watching Season 2 of Keri Russell’s political thriller The Diplomat on Netflix, and will soon sign up for BritBox in order to see the six-episode third season of Kris Marshall’s Beyond Paradise. But I’m looking forward as well to the Season 2 premiere—on Thursday, November 20—of A Man on the Inside. You’ll recall that it stars Cheers alumnus Ted Danson as Charles Nieuwendyk, a retired and widowed college engineering professor who works undercover for a San Francisco private investigator. The opening season of this half-hour Netflix comedy-drama found Nieuwendyk trying to solve mysteries at an assisted-living facility on Nob Hill. The latest batch of eight episodes will send him to probe dubious doings on a college campus. Danson’s real-life wife of three decades, Mary Steenburgen, is among the guest stars we will see this time around.

• I’d never heard of M.M. Bodkin’s Victorian “lady detective,” Dora Myrl, until Olivia Rutigliano wrote about her in CrimeReads.

• The location for Left Coast Crime 2027 has been chosen, and it’s … Santa Fe, New Mexico, which last hosted that convention in 2011.

• With Halloween coming right up, on Friday, October 31, I’ve noticed some new attention being paid to American artist Edward Gorey, famous for his oft-macabre pen-and-ink illustrations. Clues magazine editor Elizabeth Foxwell recently posted in her blog about visiting the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, which she says a docent quipped was “the house that Dracula built.” Meanwhile, Ohio’s Ironton Gazette notes that Gorey, who died back in 2000 at age 75, had his ashes interred in that southern Ohio town’s Woodland Cemetery (near his maternal ancestors), but only recently has the gravesite been given “its first proper marker.” The white, two-part headstone features an appropriate quote, taken from Gorey’s 1969 surrealist country-house mystery, The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley: “The monuments above the dead / Are too eroded to be read.”