Bloody Good Choices

The Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival today released its longlist of candidates for the 2022 McIlvanney Prize.

• A Matter of Time, by Claire Askew (Hodder)
• The Sound of Sirens, by Ewan Galt (Leamington)
• The Blood Tide, by Neil Lancaster (HarperCollins)
• From the Ashes, by Deborah Masson (Transworld)
• The Heretic, by Liam McIlvanney (HarperCollins)
• Rizzio, by Denise Mina (Polygon)
• May God Forgive, by Alan Parks (Canongate)
• A Corruption of Blood, by Ambrose Parry (Canongate)
• A Rattle of Bones, by Douglas Skelton (Polygon)
• The Second Cut, by Louise Welsh (Canongate)

As Scottish Field observes, “Ten books are competing for the £1,000 award ... Two-and-a-half of the authors have won the prize before: Liam McIlvanney in 2018; Denise Mina in 2017; and Chris Brookmyre in 2016, who continues his lucky streak as 50% of ‘Ambrose Parry,’ having appeared on every longlist either as himself or half of his alter ego.”

From these 10 novels, a shortlist will be culled and finally announced in early September. This year’s winner is to be revealed at the start of the Bloody Scotland festival, September 15-18.

Bullet Points: Revival and Redesign Edition

• After an absence of a year or more, the Dead Good Reader Awards—organized by the British crime-fiction Web site Dead Good—have suddenly returned. Public suggestions of nominees are currently being solicited in six categories:

— The Something in the Air Award for Most Atmospheric Novel
— The Love Is Blind Award for Most Twisted Couple
— The Cold As Ice Award for Most Chilling Read
— The Race-Against-Time Award for Best Action Thriller
— The New Kid on the Block Award for Best New Series
— The Dead Good Recommends Award for Most Recommended Book

“The books with the most nominations,” explains a recent message on the site, “will form the shortlists and go to a public vote, with winners announced at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate this July.” Everyone participating in this nominating process, we’re told, will be “entered into our prize draw for the chance to win £100 worth of thrilling crime books too!”

• Speaking of competitions, the blog In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel has the results of its latest online poll to determine the top Golden Age mystery writers of all time. Rex Stout, Edmund Crispin, Dorothy L Sayers, and Ellery Queen all found places on the list, but the winner is … Well, you’ll just have to click here to find out.

• In Reference to Murder reports that one of Rap Sheet contributor Steven Nester’s favorite novels of 2021 is being adapted for television:

Fox is developing Felonious Monk, a one-hour drama based on William Kotzwinkle’s novel, from writer Michael Brandon Guercio (Treadstone) and Fox Entertainment. Felonious Monk is about a disgraced cop with anger issues-turned-monk who returns to his hometown to take care of his dead uncle’s outstanding business debts. But when he suspects foul play, he’s forced to abandon his serene monastery life in order to solve his uncle’s murder and other homicide cases.

• Happy 18th birthday to Terence Towles Canote’s diverse and ever-interesting blog, A Shroud of Thoughts.

• Meanwhile, UK novelist Christopher Fowler is thinking of giving up his own blog, which has been active since the early 2000s. “Do writer blogs still have any purpose?” he asks. “Are there easier ways of providing readers with information? Let me know what you think.”



• It seems the June 13 release Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Warren Zevon has undergone an 11th-hour redesign. Art Taylor, who edited the work with Libby Cudmore, says “some concerns about the imagery on the cover” led to said changes. A statement from publisher Down & Out Books reads:

The last two weeks before a book’s release hardly seem the ideal time to radically change that book’s cover, but with the number of mass shootings in the news recently, we and several of our contributors have had mixed feelings about the original cover image for Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Clearly, these stories are crime fiction—violence regularly an integral part of the genre and gun violence specifically central to several plotlines within these very pages—but images often speak louder than words, louder and less clearly, and having a semi-automatic weapon as the key image associated with this anthology felt uncomfortable … but fortunately was not unavoidable. We’re grateful that our cover artist, Zach McCain, had designed two cover treatments for the book and that Down & Out has been able to make a swift change so close to our publication date. Thanks to them, to our contributors, and to our readers for understanding and support here.

Frankly, I think this worked out for the best. The original cover, shown above and on the left, lacks the elbow-jabbing humor (those Zevon-esque spectacles!) that the altered front beside it boasts. I look forward to seeing the completed book.

• Finally, Sisters in Crime Australia has announced that a whopping 166 books are vying to win its 2022 Davitt Awards competition for best crime and mystery works—“far in excess of the record 127 in the running last year and in 2019.” The winners in half a dozen Davitt categories will be declared on Saturday, August 27, during “a gala dinner” held at South Melbourne’s Rising Sun Hotel: Best Adult Novel; Best Young Adult Novel; Best Children’s Novel; Best Non-fiction Book; Best Debut Book (any category); and Readers’ Choice (as voted the 500+ members of Sisters in Crime Australia).

Our Caliber of Thrills

Last evening, during a ceremony held at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel, in Manhattan, the International Thriller Writers organization announced the winners of its 2022 Thriller Awards. It proved to be a good night, indeed, for Virginia novelist S.A. Cosby.

Best Hardcover Novel:
Razorblade Tears, by S. A. Cosby (Flatiron)

Also nominated: The Turnout, by Megan Abbott (Putnam); Rock Paper Scissors, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron); These Toxic Things, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Thomas & Mercer); Red Widow, by Alma Katsu (Putnam); and I Am Not Who You Think I Am, by Eric Rickstad (Blackstone)

Best Audiobook: Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby, narrated by Adam Lazarre-White (Macmillan)

Also nominated: Sleeping Dogs Lie, by Samantha Downing, narrated by Melanie Nicholls-King and Lindsey Dorcus (Audible Originals); How It Ends, by Rachel Howzell Hall, narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt (Audible Originals); Prodigal Son, by Gregg Hurwitz, narrated by Scott Brick (Macmillan); and The Jigsaw Man, by Nadine Matheson, narrated by Davine Henry (HarperCollins)

Best First Novel:
My Sweet Girl, by Amanda Jayatissa (Berkley)

Also nominated: Girl A, by Abigail Dean (HarperCollins); Repentance, by Eloísa Díaz (Agora); Damascus Station, by David McCloskey (Norton); and Bones of Hilo, by Eric Redman (Crooked Lane)

Best Paperback Original Novel:
Bloodline, by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer)

Also nominated: Flight Risk, by Joy Castro (Lake Union); Under Color of Law, by Aaron Philip Clark (Thomas & Mercer); The Lighthouse Witches, by C. J. Cooke (Berkley); and My Mistress’ Eyes Are Raven Black, by Terry Roberts (Turner)

Best Short Story:
“The Lemonade Stand,” by Scott Loring Sanders (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], January/February 2021)

Also nominated: “Not My Cross to Bear,” by S.A. Cosby (from Trouble No More: Crime Fiction Inspired by Southern Rock and the Blues, edited by Mark Westmoreland; Down & Out); “Demon in the Depths,” by William Burton McCormick (EQMM, September/October 2021); “The Interpreter and the Killer,” by Jeff Soloway (EQMM, January/February 2021); and “Bad Chemistry,” by John Wimer (EQMM, July/August 2021)

Best Young Adult Novel:
The Project, by Courtney Summers (Wednesday)

Also nominated: The Box in the Woods, by Maureen Johnson (HarperCollins); Calculated, by Nova McBee (Wolfpack); Dark and Shallow Lies, by Ginny Myers Sain (Penguin Young Readers); and House of Hollow, by Krystal Sutherland (Penguin Young Readers)

Best E-Book Original Novel:
Blood Parish, by E.J. Findorff (Neutral Ground)

Also nominated: The Dark Side: Alex Hunter 9, by Greig Beck (Pan Macmillan); Where the Wicked Tread, by John A. Connell (Nailhead); Little Girl Taken, by Wendy Dranfield (Bookouture); Mother May I, by S.E. Green (SEG); Blue Madagascar, by Andrew Kaplan (Smugglers Lane Press); and Last One Alive, by Karin Nordin (HarperCollins)

In addition, authors Frederick Forsyth and Diana Gabaldon were named as recipients of ThrillerMaster Lifetime Achievement Awards; the literary agency Writers House was given the Thriller Legend Award; Theresa Lee and Rosie Story were recognized as the 2022 ThrillerFans; and Joseph Finder and Veronica Roth were honored as Spotlight Guests.

(Hat tip to The Gumshoe Site.)

Revue of Reviewers: 6-3-22

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

Aussie Pulp Claims the Limelight

Andrew Nette, my editor from Sticking It to the Man (2019), recently let it be known that he has a new book coming out in July, and its subject matter—Australia’s Horwitz Publications—is right up my alley. As he explains in his blog, Pulp Curry,

Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction & the Rise of the Australian Paperback originated in a PhD I took at Sydney’s Macquarie University, and turning it into a monograph has taken a considerable amount of my time over the last year. Regular readers will no doubt be familiar with Horwitz, as the publisher of many of the paperback covers that I post on this site. My study is the first book-length examination of Australian pulp and one of the few detailed studies ... of a specific pulp publisher to appear anywhere.

It not only looks [at] the genres Horwitz published, but the writers and artists who worked for it, including some groundbreaking research on Australian female pulp writers. It also reveals the hidden role that Horwitz, derided purely as a low-rent purveyor of cheap, salacious fiction for most of its existence, had in the take up of the paperback by mainstream Australian publishers, as well as how Horwitz pulp was a key vehicle for powerful vernacular modernist currents that coursed through Australia in the 1950s & 1960s.

You can order a hardcover copy of this Anthem Press publication here. Its retail price is a bit steep—$125 AUD, or about $90 USD—but Nette says, “I have negotiated with Anthem for a much cheaper paperback version of the book will be released by Anthem next year.”

Of Pride, Premieres, and Peggy Fair

• Concurrent with President Joe Biden declaring June to be LGBTQ Pride Month in the United States, Sisters in Crime has opened the submissions process for its second annual Pride Award for Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writers. Up for grabs is a $2,000 grant for an unpublished piece of fiction. Entries of 2,500 to 5,000 words in length will be accepted between now and July 31, with this year’s winner to be announced in the fall. “Established in 2021 as part of the legacy project by former Sisters in Crime president Sherry Harris,” a news release explains, “the grant aims to raise visibility of diverse voices in the genre and is intended for a crime writer beginning their career, and will support activities related to career development including workshops, seminars, conferences, retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of his, her or their work. One winner and five runners-up will also be awarded a one-year Sisters in Crime membership, as well as a critique from an established Sisters in Crime member.” West Orange, New Jersey, writer C.J. Prince captured last year’s Pride Award. To find further information and the application, simply click here.

• I haven’t yet watched Slow Horses, the Apple+ TV spy series based on Mick Herron’s Slough House novels, and starring Gary Oldman. Nonetheless, The Hollywood Reporter says it has already been greenlit for two more seasons. “The renewal,” it explains, “will take the show through its fourth season … Season two of Slow Horses is set to premiere later this year. The first two seasons were shot at the same time (though only the first was announced), and Apple TV+ teased the next installment at the end of the six-episode first season. Season two is based on Dead Lions, … and follows Jackson Lamb (Oldman) and his team as they seek to prove a Cold War-era colleague of Lamb’s was murdered. Seasons three and four will be based on the corresponding books in Herron’s series, Real Tigers and Spook Street.”

• Slowly but surely, the good folks behind PBS-TV’s Sunday Masterpiece series are spreading news about when their popular shows will return to the screen—or, in one case, debut. Here’s the complete lineup: Endeavour, Season 8, will premiere on June 19; Grantchester, Season 7, on July 10; Guilt, Season 2, on August 28; Van Der Valk, Season 2, on September 25; Miss Scarlet and the Duke, Season 2, on October 16; Magpie Murders, on October 16; and Annika, Season 1, on October 16 (though it’s already available via PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece streaming service). A trailer highlighting these shows can be enjoyed here.

• TV critic Stephen Taylor takes a fond look back at Gail Fisher, who played secretary Peggy Fair on the 1967-1975 CBS series Mannix.

• According to In Reference to Murder, “The shortlist was announced for the 2022 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, culled from a panel of UK librarians and library staff. These six titles are now with a judging panel and over the summer months, readers will be invited to participate in the Reader's Vote, which equates to one seat on the judge's panel. The finalists include The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield; Where Blood Runs Cold by Giles Kristian; The Vacation by John Marrs; The Plant Hunter by T.L. Mogford; Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo; and Moonlight and the Pearler's Daughter by Lizzie Pook.” This year’s winner is to be revealed on September 21.

• R.I.P., Bo Hopkins, the South Carolina-born actor whose face was so familiar in TV productions of the 1970s and ’80s, among them The Rockford Files, Charlie’s Angels, The Manhunter, Doc Elliott, and Dynasty. Hopkins featured as well in big-screen films such as The Wild Bunch and American Graffiti, and in the boob-tube flicks The Kansas City Massacre and The Invasion of Johnson County, the latter of which was an unsuccessful 1976 pilot also starring Bill Bixby. The actor was 84 years old, and died from a heart attack.

• Finally, here are a couple of lists you might enjoy: The Columbophile Blog gathers together what it suggests are the 12 funniest scenes from the vintage Peter Falk crime drama, Columbo—one of them featuring Jamie Lee Curtis in an early acting role; and Great Detectives of Old Time Radio host Adam Graham identifies what he claims are the “Top Five Forgotten OId Time Radio Detective Programs.” The Airmail Mystery, from 1932? I, for one, have no memory at all of that series of 13 fifteen-minute episodes.

Private Eyes Eye the Prizes

The Private Eye Writers of America organization today announced the nominees for its 2022 Shamus Awards, in four categories.

Best P.I. Hardcover:
• Runner, by Tracy Clark (Kensington)
• Last Redemption, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview)
• Pay or Play, by Howard Michael Gould (Severn House)
• Family Business, by S.J. Rozan (Pegasus)
• Head Case, by Michael Wiley (Severn House)

Best Original P.I. Paperback:
• Every City Is Every Other City, by John McFetridge (ECW Press)
• The Burden of Innocence, by John Nardizzi (Weathertop Media)
• Angels in the Wind, by Manuel Ramos (Arte Público Press)
• Frog in a Bucket, by Clive Rosengren (Coffeetown Press)
• An Empty Grave, by Andrew Welsh-Huggins (Swallow Press)

Best First P.I. Novel:
• Porno Valley, by Phillip Elliot (Into the Void)
• Dead Man’s Eyes, by Lori Duffy Foster (Level Best)
• Suburban Dicks, by Fabian Nicieza (Putnam)
• The Arrangement, by M. Ravenel (Chikara Press)
• Lost Little Girl, by Gregory Stout (Level Best)

Best P.I. Short Story:
• “Disposable Women,” by Michael Bracken (Tough)
• “Sixteen Lies,” by Matt Goldman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine [EQMM], September/October)
• “Sweeps Week,” by Richard Helms (EQMM, July/August)
• “Oro de Tontos (Fool’s Gold),” by Tom Larsen (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November/December)
• “The Hidden Places,” by Linda Stansberry (EQMM, May/June)

The winners are expected to be declared in August.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

A Summer’s Worth of Arresting Crime

Although, sadly, the United States doesn’t schedule an annual National Crime Reading Month (NCRM), Great Britain does—and it begins today, June 1. A news release from the UK Crime Writers’ Association describes this as “a major initiative designed to celebrate the genre and get the nation reading.

“Running in collaboration with national reading charity, The Reading Agency, bestselling authors have been appointed as regional ambassadors of NCRM across the British Isles and Ireland,” adds that CWA notice. “Ambassadors include authors Steve Cavanagh, M.W. Craven, Elly Griffiths, Alis Hawkins, Anthony Horowitz, Vaseem Khan, Nadine Matheson, Louise Phillips, Ian Rankin, L.J. Ross, Robin Stevens and Sarah Ward.” There are already plenty of presentations and associated activities on the calendar, with more to come. “NCRM will be an inclusive initiative celebrating diversity in the genre at every level, with events both in person and virtual to ensure accessibility. Whether it’s a Crime Fact and Fiction walk through London, or an online workshop, there will be events for everyone.”

If only I could jet to Britain over the next 29 days, but alas …

Instead, like my fellow deprived Americans, I shall just have to recognize our favorite genre in the customary way: by reading as many new releases as I can. The choices are certainly not few. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been checking publisher catalogues and assorted mystery-fiction Web sites, and have come up with a list of more than 390 books—all due for publication between now and September 1—that should appeal to Rap Sheet readers. These include fresh novels by Dan Fesperman (Winter Work), Robert Galbraith (The Ink Black Heart), Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Kill Me If You Can), Amanda Jayatissa (You’re Invited), First Crime Novel Competition winner Nev March (Peril at the Exposition), Anthony Horwitz (The Twist of a Knife), Val McDermid (1989), and the prolific Loren D. Estleman (Monkey in the Middle, his 30th Amos Walker private-eye novel). Also clamoring for our attention are Heat 2, by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner, described as “a prequel and a sequel” to Mann’s 1995 crime-drama flick, Heat; David Young’s Blitz City, a thriller set during World War II in the bomb-ravaged English burg of Hull, and featuring a one-armed former cavalryman turned police inspector; The Deal Goes Down, the long-awaited fourth yarn starring New York City gumshoe Tony Casella, penned by Larry Beinhart, whose 1993 novel American Hero was transformed into the 1997 picture Wag the Dog; Stark House Press’ re-release of the fifth and six entries (of 14) in Barry N. Malberg’s “darkly humorous” Lone Wolf series, published originally as by “Mike Barry”; Unnatural Ends, a spirited whodunit from Christopher Huang, the author previously of A Gentleman’s Murder (2018); Faye Kellerman’s last Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus outing, Hunt; the initial 10 mysteries by “forgotten” Golden Age writer Alice Campbell, beginning with Juggernaut (1928), all from Dean Street Press; and no fewer than three books by Joyce Carol Oates.

Keep an eye out during these sunnier next three months, too, for historical true-crime works dealing with everything from a tarnished ex-spy’s investigation of a mystery at sea and the symbiotic relationship between jazz music and the underworld, to America’s first publicized rape trial (way back in 1793). This season’s end will also bring the U.S. release of Martin Edwards’ extraordinary study, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators (available in UK bookstores since May 26).

Regular blog followers may have noticed that I failed to produce a spring books reading selection this year, due to other editorial obligations as well as my debilitating concussion in March. I’m trying to make up for that with the following lengthy inventory of publications, all due out imminently in English, on one side of the Atlantic or the other. As usual, those marked with an asterisk (*) are non-fiction, while the rest are novels or collections of short stories.

JUNE (U.S.):
• After the Lights Go Out, by John Vercher (Soho Press)
• And There He Kept Her, by Joshua Moehling (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Architect of Courage, by Victoria Weisfeld (Black Opal)
• Ashton Hall, by Lauren Belfer (Ballantine)
• Beneath Cruel Waters, by Jon Bassoff (Blackstone)
• The Blue Diamond, by Leonard Goldberg (Minotaur)
• The Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons, by Kate Khavari (Crooked Lane)
• The Bride’s Guide to Marriage and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
• Can’t Look Away, by Carola Lovering (St. Martin’s Press)
• Carnival Blues, by Damien Boyd (Thomas & Mercer)
• The City Inside, by Samit Basu (Tordotcom)
• Cold Fear, by Brandon Webb and John David Mann (Bantam)
• Counterfeit, by Kirstin Chen (Morrow)
• Deadline at Dawn, by Cornell Woolrich (American Mystery Classics)
• Death and Hard Cider, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)
• Death at Fort Devens, by Peter Colt (Severn House)
• December ’41, by William Martin (Forge)
• Double Agent, by Gene Stackelberg (Cutting Edge)
• The Drowning Sea, by Sarah Stewart Taylor (Minotaur)
• Even the Darkest Night, by Javier Cercas (Knopf)
• Extenuating Circumstances, by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)
• A Face to Die For, by Iris Johansen (Grand Central)
• The Falcon, by Isabella Maldonado (Thomas & Mercer)
• First Victim, by Debbie Babitt (Scarlet)
• The Gatekeeper, by James Byrne (Minotaur)
• Ghost of the Hardy Boys: The Writer Behind the World’s Most Famous Boy Detectives, by Leslie McFarlane (David R. Godine)*
• The Ghosts of Paris, by Tara Moss (Dutton)
• The Girl They All Forgot, by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Girl Who Survived, by Lisa Jackson (Kensington)
• The Goldenacre, by Philip Miller (‎Soho Crime)
• Good Husbands, by Cate Ray (Park Row)
• The Guilty Couple, by C.L. Taylor (Avon)
• Hardscrabble Private Eye, by O’Neil De Noux (Big Kiss)
• Harlem Sunset, by Nekesa Afia (Berkley)
• Hatchet Island, by Paul Doiron (Minotaur)
• Her Dying Day, by Mindy Carlson (Crooked Lane)
• The House Across the Lake, by Riley Sager (Dutton)
• Immoral Origins, by Lee Matthew Goldberg (Rough Edges)
• In Place of Fear, by Catriona
McPherson (Mobius)
• In the Dark We Forget, by Sandra S.G. Wong (HarperCollins)
• Invitation to Murder / A Party to Murder, by Lionel White (Stark House)
• It Could Be Anyone, by Jamie Lynn Hendricks (Scarlet)
• It Dies with You, by Scott Blackburn (Crooked Lane)
• Juggernaut, by Alice Campbell
(Dean Street Press)
• The Key to Deceit, by Ashley Weaver (Minotaur)
• A Killer’s Tears, by John Bae (BookBaby)
• Lady of Bones, by Carolyn Haines (Minotaur)
• Last Call at the Nightingale, by Katharine Schellman (Minotaur)
• The Lava Witch, by Debra Bokur (Kensington)
• Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Warren Zevon, edited by Libby Cudmore and Art Taylor (Down & Out)
• The Lies I Tell, by Julie Clark (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Little Dog Laughed, by Joseph Hansen (Soho Syndicate)
• The Local, by Joey Hartstone (Doubleday)
• Local Gone Missing, by Fiona Barton (Berkley)
• The Locked Room, by Elly Griffiths (Mariner)
• The Lost, by Jeffrey B. Burton (Minotaur)
• The Lunar Housewife, by Caroline Woods (‎Doubleday)
• The Maker of Swans, by Paraic O’Donnell (Tin House)
• The Man Burned by Winter, by Pete Zacharias (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Midcoast, by Adam White (Hogarth)
• Monkey in the Middle, by Loren D. Estleman (Forge)
• Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter, by Lizzie Pook
(Simon & Schuster)
• More Than You’ll Ever Know, by Katie Gutierrez (Morrow)
• Movieland, by Lee Goldberg (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Next Time I Die, by Jason Starr (Hard Case Crime)
• Night, Neon: Tales of Mystery and Suspense, by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)
• Nobody from Somewhere, by Dietrich Kalteis (ECW Press)
• No Place to Run, by Mark Edwards (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Omega Factor, by Steve Berry (Grand Central)
• One of the Girls, by Lucy Clarke (Putnam)
• Outside, by Ragnar Jónasson (Minotaur)
• The Peace Keeper, by B.L. Blanchard (47North)
• The Physicists’ Daughter, by Mary Anna Evans (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Point Last Seen, by Christina Dodd (HQN)
• Private Clients, by Marsha H. Lupi (BookBaby)
• Project Namahana, by John Teschner (Forge)
• The Recruit, by Alan Drew (Random House)
• Red on the River, by Christine Feehan (Berkley)
• Red Warning, by Matthew Quirk (Morrow)
• Rock of Ages, by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime)
• Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks, by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday)*
• The Second Husband, by Kate White (Harper)
• A Secret About a Secret, by Peter Spiegelman (Knopf)
• The Self-Made Widow, by Fabian Nicieza (Putnam)
• Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Jeweled Falcon and Other Tales of Mystery and Suspense, by G.C. Rosenquist (MX)
• The Science of Murder: The Forensics of Agatha Christie, by Carla Valentine (Sourcebooks)*
• Shifty’s Boys, by Chris Offutt (Grove Press)
• Snowstorm in August, by Marshall Karp (Blackstone)
• So Happy for You, by Celia Laskey (Hanover Square Press)
• The Spy Who Knew Too Much: An Ex-CIA Officer’s Quest Through a Legacy of Betrayal, by Howard Blum (Harper)*
• Tell Us No Secrets, by Siena Sterling (Morrow)
• Vera Kelly: Lost and Found, by Rosalie Knecht (Tin House)
• We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School, by Erin Kimmerle (Morrow)*
• When You Leave Me, by Susan Wingate (Down & Out)
• The Wife Before, by Shanora
Williams (Dafina)
• The Wild One, by Colleen
McKeegan (Harper)
• The Woman in the Library, by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen Press)

JUNE (UK):
• The Apartment Upstairs, by Lesley Kara (Bantam Press)
• Bad for Good, by Graham Bartlett
(Allison & Busby)
• The Bay, by Allie Reynolds (‎Headline)
• The Best Friend, by Jessica Fellowes (Sphere)
• Birthday Girl, by Niko Wolf (Hodder Studio)
• The Blackbird, by Tim Weaver (Michael Joseph)
• The Botanist, by M.W. Craven (Constable)
• The Box, by Dan Malakin (Viper)
• Cat & Mouse, by M.J. Arlidge (Orion)
• Chemical Cocktail, by Fiona Erskine (Point Blank)
• The Colour Storm, by Damian Dibben (Michael Joseph)
• The Companion, by Lesley Thomson (Head of Zeus)
• Complicit, by Winnie M. Li (Orion)
• Death of a Matador, by James García Woods (Lume)
• A Death of Promise, by David Penny (Rivertree)
• The Death of Remembrance, by Denzil Meyrick (Polygon)
• Death on Gokumon Island, by Seishi Yokomizo (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Dirt Town, by Hayley Scrivenor (Macmillan)
• The Drowning Hour, by S.K. Tremayne (HarperCollins)
• The Favour, by Nora Murphy (Macmillan)
• The Fever of the World, by Phil Rickman (Corvus)
• The Gone and the Forgotten, by Clare Whitfield (Apollo)
• Göering’s Gold, by Richard O’Rawe (Melville House)
• The Guest House, by Robin Morgan-Bentley (Orion)
• The Guilty Couple, by C.L. Taylor (Avon)
• The Guilty Girl, by Patricia Gibney (Bookouture)
• A Home for the Lost, by Sharon Maas (Bookouture)
• The Infinity Pool, by Claire S. Lewis (Head of Zeus)
• A Killing Rain, by Faye Snowden (Flame Tree Press)
• A Kiss After Dying, by Ashok Banker (Michael Joseph)
• Last Seen Alive, by Jane Bettany (HQ)
• London in Black, by Jack Lutz (Pushkin Vertigo)
• The Lost Ones, by Marnie Riches (Bookouture)
• The Lover, by Helene Flood (MacLehose Press)
• Lying Beside You, by Michael Robotham (Sphere)
• The Missing Wife and the Stone Fen Siamese, by Kate High (Constable)
• Murder Before Evensong, by Richard Coles (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• The Murder Book, by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown)
• Murder on the Marmora, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)
• Murder on the Salsette, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)
• My Killer Vacation, by Tessa Bailey (Tessa Bailey)
• The Nurse, by Claire Allan (Avon)
• The Other Guest, by Helen Cooper (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Prime Minister’s Affair, by Andrew Williams
(Hodder & Stoughton)
• Running Scared, by Mandasue Heller (Macmillan)
• The Seat of the Scornful, by John Dickson Carr (British Library
Crime Classics)
• The Sleeping and the Dead, by Ann Cleeves (Macmillan)
• Storm, by Stephanie Merritt (HarperCollins)
• Sun Damage, by Sabine Durrant (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Sweet Revenge: Two Novellas, by Camilla Läckberg (HarperCollins)
• To Kill a Troubadour, by Martin Walker (Quercus)
• The Venice Train, by Georges Simenon (‎Penguin Classics)
• WAKE, by Shelley Burr (Hodder & Stoughton)
• We All Have Our Secrets, by Jane
Corry (‎Penguin)
• When the Night Ends, by M.J. Lee (Canelo)

JULY (U.S.):
• Augusta Wake, by G.M. Malliet
(Severn House)
• The Binding Room, by Nadine Matheson (Hanover Square Press)
• The Birdcage, by Eve Chase (Putnam)
• The Black Girls Left Standing, by Juliana Goodman (Feiwel & Friends)
• Blackout, by Erin Flanagan (Thomas & Mercer)
• Blood Ties, by Ruth Lillegraven (‎Amazon Crossing)
• Bread, by Maurizio de Giovanni (World Noir)
• Chrysalis, by Lincoln Child (Doubleday)
• Cold, Cold Bones, by Kathy Reichs (Scribner)
• Confidence, by Denise Mina (‎Mulholland)
• Dark Objects, by Simon Toyne (Morrow)
• The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
• Death and the Conjurer, by Tom Mead (Mysterious Press)
• Death and the Decorator, by Simon Brett (Severn House)
• Death Doesn’t Forget, by Ed Lin (Soho Crime)
• Desperate Undertaking, by Lindsey Davis (Minotaur)
• The Disinvited Guest, by Carol Goodman (Morrow)
• Don’t Look Back, by Joe Calderone (Post Hill Press)
• Early Graves, by Joseph Hansen (Soho Syndicate)
• Fatal Witness, by Robert Bryndza (Raven Street)
• Finale, by Ian Hamilton (Spiderline)
• The Finalists, by David Bell (Berkley)
• First Born, by Will Dean (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight, by Riku Onda (Bitter
Lemon Press)
• Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler (American Mystery Classics)
• Hack, by Mark Pawlosky (Girl Friday)
• The Half Life of Valery K, by Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury)
• Hawk Mountain, by Conner Habib (Norton)
• The Heathens, by Ace Atkins (Putnam)
• Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod, by Casey Sherman (Sourcebooks)*
• The Hidden One, by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)
• Hokuloa Road, by Elizabeth Hand (Mulholland)
• Holy Chow, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)
• An Honest Living, by Dwyer Murphy (Viking)
• Iced, by Felix Francis (Crooked Lane)
• The It Girl, by Ruth Ware (‎Gallery/Scout Press)
• I Told You This Would Happen, by Elaine Murphy (Grand Central)
• Jacked: An Anthology of Crime Fiction, edited by Vern
Smith (Runamok)
• Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey (Tor)
• The Kingdoms of Savannah, by George Dawes Green (Celadon)
• The Last to Vanish, by Megan Miranda (Scribner/Marysue Rucci)
• The Lemon Man, by Keith Bruton (Brash)
• The Librarian Spy, by Madeline Martin (Hanover Square Press)
• Listen to Me, by Tess Gerritsen (Ballantine)
• The Lone Wolf: Havana Hit / Chicago Slaughter, by Barry N. Malzberg (Stark House Press)
• Look Closer, by David Ellis (Putnam)
• Miss Aldridge Regrets, by Louise Hare (Berkley)
• The Murder Box, by Mark Billingham (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The New Neighbor, by Karen Cleveland (Ballantine)
• Nightwork, by Joseph Hansen (Soho Syndicate)
• The Other Guest, by Helen Cooper (Putnam)
• Out of Her Depth, by Lizzy Barber (Mira)
• The Pale Door / Death of a Ladies’ Man, by Robert Martin
(Stark House Press)
• The Pallbearers Club, by Paul Tremblay (Morrow)
• The Perfect Neighborhood, by Liz Alterman (Crooked Lane)
• Peril at the Exposition, by Nev March (Minotaur)
• The Pier, by Matt Brolly (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Pink Hotel, by Liska Jacobs (MCD)
• The Poisonous Solicitor: The True Story of a 1920s Murder Mystery, by Stephen Bates (Icon)*
• Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Daniel Silva (Harper)
• Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality, by Fredric
Jameson (Verso)*
• Reputation, by Sarah Vaughan (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Retreat, by Sarah Pearse (Pamela Dorman)
• The Ruins, by Phoebe Wynne (St. Martin’s Press)
• See You Next Tuesday, by Ken Harris (Black Rose Writing)
• The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America, by John Wood Sweet (Henry Holt)*
• Should I Fall, by Scott Shepherd (Mysterious Press)
• The 6:20 Man, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
• Soulless, by Rozlan Mohd Noor (Arcade Crimewise)
• The Swell, by Allie Reynolds (Putnam)
• Take No Names, by Daniel Nieh (Ecco)
• They Drown Our Daughters, by Katrina Monroe (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Things We Do in the Dark, by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur)
• Under a Broken Sky, by Kris Calvin (Crooked Lane)
• The Unkept Woman, by Allison Montclair (Minotaur)
• Unnatural Ends, by Christopher Huang (Inkshares)
• Vicious Creatures, by Ashton Noone (Scarlet)
• Wake of War, by Zac Topping (Forge)
• Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years, 1923-25, edited by Jonathan Maberry and Justin Criado (Wordfire Press)
• We Lie Here, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Thomas & Mercer)
• Winter Work, by Dan Fesperman (Knopf)

JULY (UK):
• The Accomplice, by Steve Cavanagh (Orion)
• Agent in Peril, by Alex Gerlis (Canelo Action)
• All I Said Was True, by Imran Mahmood (Raven)
• The Angels of Venice, by Philip Gwynne Jones (Constable)
• Betrayal in the Cotswolds, by Rebecca Tope (Allison & Busby)
• The Blood Flower, by Alex Reeve (Raven)
• Blood Sisters, by Cate Quinn (Orion)
• Bryant & May’s Peculiar London, by Christopher Fowler (Doubleday)
• The City Underground, by Michael
Russell (Constable)
• The Cliff House, by Chris Brookmyre (Little, Brown)
• Cold Grave, by Jenny O’Brien (HQ)
• Crook O’Lune, by E.C.R. Lorac (British Library Crime Classics)
• Dark Objects, by Simon Toyne (HarperCollins)
• The Daves Next Door, by Will Carver (Orenda)
• Deadly Company, by Ann Granger (Headline)
• Death and Fromage, by Ian Moore (Farrago)
• Death in Blitz City, by David Young (Zaffre)
• Death of a Heretic, by Peter Tremayne (Headline)
• Death on the Isle, by M.H. Eccleston (Head of Zeus)
• Eye of the Beholder, by Margie Orford (Canongate)
• A Grain of Truth, by Christian Unge (MacLehose Press)
• The Hive, by Scarlett Brade (Zaffre)
• The Island of Lost Girls, by Alex Marwood (Sphere)
• Judgment at Santa Monica, by E.J. Copperman (Severn House)
• Katastrophe, by Graham Hurley (Head of Zeus)
• Lights Down, by Graham Hurley (Severn House)
• The Lost Children, by Michael Wood (One More Chapter)
• Meantime, by Frankie Boyle (Baskerville)
• Night Shadows, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir (Orenda)
• No Secrets, by David Jackson (Viper)
• Old Bones Lie, by Marion Todd (Canelo)
• One Last Secret, by Adele Parks (HQ)
• The Partisan, by Patrick Worrall (Bantam Press)
• Realm of Darkness, by Paul Doherty (Headline)
• The Reunion, by Polly Phillips (Simon & Schuster)
• A Season in Exile, by Oliver Harris (Little, Brown)
• The Secret Couple, by J.S. Lark (One More Chapter)
• The Serial Killer’s Daughter, by Alice Hunter (Avon)
• Simenon: The Man, the Books, the Films: A 21st Century Guide,
by Barry Forshaw (Oldcastle)*
• The Trenches, by Parker Bilal (Canongate)
• The Trial, by S.R. Masters (One More Chapter)
• Truly, Darkly, Deeply, by Victoria Selman (Quercus)
• Under the Marsh, by G.R. Halliday (Vintage)
• What Doesn’t Break Us, by Helen Sedgwick (Point Blank)
• Where Demons Hide, by Douglas Skelton (Polygon)
• The Whisperer’s Game, by Donato Carrisi (Little, Brown)
• Whisper House, by C.S. Green (HarperCollins)
• The Woman on the Bridge, by Holly Seddon (Orion)

AUGUST (U.S.):
• All the Broken Girls, by Linda Hurtado Bond (Entangled)
• All the Lies They Did Not Tell: The True Story of Satanic Panic in an Italian Community, by Pablo Trincia (Amazon Crossing)*
• American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street’s Biggest Fortune, by Greg Steinmetz (Simon & Schuster)*
• Are You Sara? by S.C. Lalli (Morrow)
• Babysitter, by Joyce Carol Oates (Knopf)
• Bad Day Breaking, by John Galligan (Atria)
• The Benson Murder Case, by S.S. Van Dine (American
Mystery Classics)
• The Blame Game, by Sandie Jones (Minotaur)
• Bodies from the Library: Forgotten Stories of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection, edited by Tony Medawar
(Collins Crime Club)
• The Bride Price, by Barbara Nadel (Headline)
• Catch Your Death, by Lissa Marie Redmond (Severn House)
• Complicit, by Winnie M. Li (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Couple at Number 9, by Claire Douglas (Harper)
• Daisy Darker, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)
• Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld, by T.J. English (Morrow)*
• Dark Harvest, by Will Jordan (Blackstone)
• Dark Music, by David Lagercrantz (Knopf)
• The Darkness of Others, by Cate Holahan (Grand Central)
• The Deal Goes Down, by Larry Beinhart (Melville House)
• Dear Little Corpses, by Nicola Upson (Crooked Lane)
• Death at the Manor, by Katharine Schellman (Crooked Lane)
• Death of a Heretic, by Peter Tremayne (Severn House)
• The Devil Takes You Home, by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland)
• Die Around Sundown, by Mark Pryor (Minotaur)
• Dirt Creek, by Hayley Scrivenor (Flatiron)
• Do No Harm, by Robert Pobi (Minotaur)
• The Family Remains, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)
• Firestorm, by Taylor Moore (Morrow)
• The Forty Elephants, by Erin Bledsoe (Blackstone)
• Fox Creek, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)
• Girl, Forgotten, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)
• Golden Cargoes, by Fiona Buckley (Severn House)
• The Gravedigger’s Song, by Martyn Waites (Blackstone)
• Heat 2, by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner (Morrow)
• The Housekeeper, by Joy Fielding (Ballantine)
• Hunt, by Faye Kellerman (Morrow)
• The Ink Black Heart, by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland)
• I Remember You, by Brian Freeman (Thomas & Mercer)
• Kill Me If You Can, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Titan)
• Kismet, by Amina Akhtar (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Last Housewife, by Ashley Winstead (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Lies I Told, by Mary Burton (Montlake)
• The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators, by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club)*
• Long Gone, by Joanna Schaffhausen (Minotaur)
• The Lost Kings, by Tyrell Johnson (Anchor)
• Mad Woman, by Louise Treger (Bloomsbury)
• Murder at Beacon Rock, by Alyssa Maxwell (Kensington)
• My Dirty California, by Jason Mosberg (Simon & Schuster)
• Nameless Acts of Cruelty, by Julie Cameron (Scarlet)
• One Mile and Two Days Before Sunset, by Shimon Adaf (Picador)
• On Java Road, by Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth)
• Out (Anniversary Edition), by Natsuo Kirino (Vintage Crime/
Black Lizard)
• Please Join Us, by Catherine McKenzie (Atria)
• Reckoning, by Catherine Coulter (Morrow)
• Round Up the Usual Peacocks, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur)
• The Rule of Three, by E.G. Scott (Dutton)
• Run Time, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Blackstone)
• The Secret of Bow Lane, by Jennifer Ashley (Berkley)
• Shutter, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
• A Simple Choice, by David Pepper (Putnam)
• Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls, by Kathleen Hale (Grove Press)*
• Stay Awake, by Megan Goldin (St. Martin’s Press)
• Three Assassins, by Kotaro Isaka (Overlook Press)
• Till Death Do Us Part, by John Dickson Carr (Poisoned Pen Press)
• To Kill a Troubadour, by Martin Walker (Knopf)
• Traitor’s Dance, by Jeff Abbott (Grand Central)
• WAKE, by Shelley Burr (Morrow)
• Wayward Son, by Steve Goble (Oceanview)
• We Were Never Here, by Andrea Bartz (Ballantine)
• What She Found, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)
• When We Were Bright and Beautiful, by Jillian Medoff (Harper)
• Where the Sky Begins, by Rhys Bowen (Lake Union)
• Whisper Room, by Thomas Kies (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Wrong Place, Wrong Time, by Gillian McAllister (Morrow)
• Yesterday’s Spy, by Tom Bradby (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• You’re Invited, by Amanda Jayatissa (Berkley)

AUGUST (UK):
• After She’d Gone, by Alex Dahl (Head of Zeus)
• Alias Emma, by Ava Glass (Century)
• The Ambassador, by Tom Fletcher (Canelo Action)
• Auē, by Becky Manawatu (Scribe)
• The Blackhouse, by Carole Johnstone (HarperCollins)
• The Bookseller of Inverness, by S.G. MacLean (Quercus)
• Conspiracy of Blood, by Katarzyna Bonda (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Creek, by L.J. Ross (Dark Skies)
• Dark Rooms, by Lynda La Plante (Zaffre)
• Death of Jezebel, by Christianna Brand (British Library Crime Classics)
• Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stevenson (Michael Joseph)
• Fake Alibi, by Leigh Russell (No Exit Press)
• From the Ashes, by Deborah Masson (Penguin)
• The Furies, by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Genesis, by Chris Carter (Simon & Schuster)
• The Glass Pearls, by Emeric Pressburger (Faber and Faber)
• Hope to Die, by Cara Hunter (Penguin)
• The Last House, by R.G. Adams (Riverrun)
• The Last Party, by Clare Mackintosh (Sphere)
• The Long Knives, by Irvine Welsh (Jonathan Cape)
• The Lost Man of Bombay, by Vaseem Khan (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Man in the Shadows, by Alys Clare (Severn House)
• Murder at Mount Ephraim, by Julie Wassmer (Constable)
• Murder at the Victoria and Albert Museum, by Jim Eldridge
(Allison & Busby)
• The Murder List, by Jackie Kabler (One More Chapter)
• Murder on the Celtic, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)
• My Other Husband, by Dorothy Koomson (Headline Review)
• 1989, by Val McDermid (Little, Brown)
• The Pudding Lane Plot, by Susanna Gregory (Sphere)
• The Red Notebook, by Michel Bussi (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Serpent’s Point, by Kate Ellis (Piatkus)
• Seventeen: Last Man Standing, by John Brownlow
(Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Shadow Lily, by Johanna Mo (Penguin)
• Sherlock Holmes: The Defaced Man, by Tim Major (Titan)
• The Sign of the Devil, by Oscar de Muriel (Orion)
• A Silent Truth, by Rachel Amphlett (Saxon)
• Such a Good Mother, by Helen Monks Takhar (HQ)
• There Are No Happy Loves, by Sergio Olguin (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Time to Kill, by Paul Gitsham (HQ)
• The Twist of a Knife, by Anthony Horowitz (Century)
• The Way It Is Now, by Garry Disher (Viper)
• Whisper of the Seals, by Roxanne Bouchard (Orenda)
• The Will, by Rebeccas Reid (Penguin)

I figure there’s something on this list for everyone, whether you’re a fan of hard-boiled escapades, historical whodunits, lighthearted mysteries, or true crime. But it’s altogether possible that I neglected to mention a coming release of merit. If so, please drop a message into the Comments section below to let us all know about it.

I’ll likely add titles to this compilation as I hear about them, because every month is Crime Reading Month here at The Rap Sheet.