Sunday, March 17, 2024

Revue of Reviewers: 3-17-24

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





















Saturday, March 16, 2024

Ukraine’s Bid for the Booker

As incredible as it may seem, the longlist of contenders for the 2024 International Booker Prize—“which seeks to honor the best novels and short-story collections in translation published in the UK and/or Ireland every year”—includes a crime novel, The Silver Bone (HarperVia). Written by Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov, it’s the opening installment in a succession of historical Kyiv Mysteries, and was originally published in Ukraine prior to Russia’s ruthless 2022 invasion of that second-largest European country. The English version was translated by Boris Dralyuk and released earlier this month.

Summing up The Silver Bone’s plot, Publishers Weekly writes:
A Kyiv torn to pieces by WWI provides the backdrop for this fascinating series launch from Ukrainian novelist and screenwriter Kurkov ... The action begins with teenage Samson Kolechko seeing his father cut down in the street by Soviet Cossacks, followed by a saber slice to Samson’s head that severs his right ear. Alone and stunned, he takes shelter in his family’s apartment, only to find two Red Army soldiers quartered there. He files a report about the soldiers’ misdeeds, including the unwelcome removal of Samson’s father’s furniture. The eloquence of the report’s language impresses the local police investigator, who offers Samson a job “combat[ting] crime and restor[ing] order,” which he accepts. Bolstering Samson even further is a budding romance with strong-minded yet tender statistician Nadezhda. After a tailor friend and a soldier are both murdered, Samson leads an investigation into the crimes, discovering evidence including an incredibly large suit and a silver bone as long as a femur at the scenes.
A second translated Samson Kolechko yarn, The Stolen Heart, is expected to reach U.S. stores sometime in 2025.

Meanwhile, a shortlist of this year’s International Booker nominees is due on April 9, with the winner to be declared on May 21.

READ MORE:Ukrainian Writer Andrey Kurkov: ‘I Felt Guilty Writing Fiction in a Time of War,’” by Nicholas Wroe (The Guardian).

A Toast to Their Triumphs

Blogger B.V. Lawson shares this recent news:
Congratulations to Philip Wilson, winner (“A Recipe for Stovies”), and also to runner-up Elisabeth Ingram Wallace (“The Strange Sheep of Greshonish”), in the annual Glencairn Glass Crime Short Story Competition. Glencairn Crystal, the maker of Glencairn Whiskey Glass and sponsor of the McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime writing awards, also sponsors this contest that seeks crime short stories in collaboration with Bloody Scotland and Scottish Field magazine. This year’s theme was “A Crime Set in Scotland.”
The Glencairn Glass competition organizers explain that “Philip Wilson’s winning story will be featured in the May edition of Scottish Field magazine (available from 5th April) and Elisabeth’s story will be published on Scottish Field magazine’s website ... Both stories will be available for reading here ... starting 9th April.”

Friday, March 15, 2024

Go for the Green

Death by Leprechaun. Paddy Whacked. Lack of the Irish. Corned Beef and Casualties. Shamrock Shenanigans. Judging by two recently posted lists—one in the blog Mystery Fanfare, the other in Promoting Crime Fiction—there’s a feast of choices awaiting anyone in search of mystery novels associated with Saint Patrick’s Day.

But remember, that annual cultural and religious holiday is fast approaching, on Sunday, March 17. So if you hope to be in clover that day, start looking for your ideal read soon.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Forgotten Crime Flicks: “Gumshoe”

(Editor’s note: Over the last 16 years, The Rap Sheet has posted numerous pieces about “forgotten” crime, mystery, and thriller books. Today we’re trying something different: an article that examines a forgotten crime film. Its author is Brett Mead, a New York-based criminal defense attorney with the firm of Lankler, Siffert & Wohl. In his spare time, he's an amateur historian and cinephile with an ever-in-progress draft of a private detective novel.)

The foundational private eye of fiction is Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op. Wise-cracking, sardonic, preternaturally competent and, yes, a bit of a cipher. Almost as soon as Hammett had built that foundation, however, he started paving over it. In 1934, Hammett saw the publication of The Thin Man, which asks, “what would happen if the quintessential San Francisco private investigator married into New York WASP high society?” That “spin” was hard-boiled detective fiction’s first major act of self-reference: between Sam Spade and the Continental Op we “know” Nick Charles’ background and the kind of dick he was; if we didn’t, it wouldn’t be nearly as funny to imagine him sipping champagne in penthouses with Manhattan gadabouts. This kind of self-reference would play out countless times both in the golden age of noir detectives, and, even more often, in the wide world of neo-noirs that followed. “We know the noir detective story, now let’s put it somewhere else—or put someone else in it.”

One such neo-noir is Stephen Frears’ forgotten 1971 gem, Gumshoe, a film in which the main character could tell you as much about the history of detective fiction as just about anybody. His name is Eddie Ginley and, from the jump, he’s shown as a Hammett obsessive. In Gumshoe’s opening scene, we watch Ginley (played by Albert Finney at the peak of his powers) give his shrink his best Humphrey Bogart-as-Spade impression. The shrink is unimpressed and asks Ginley what he wants to do with the rest of his life. “I want to write The Maltese Falcon and I want to record ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’” he answers. The problem is, it’s 1971 in the film, too, and both have already been done. But that won’t stop Ginley, who informs his shrink that he’s now advertising his services as a “gumshoe” in a local Liverpool rag.

And so begins the (then) latest-and-greatest “spin” on the P.I.: the P.I. as a fanboy and a daydreamer, raised on the classics, and desiring nothing more than to live life as a Hammett character—and who ends up embroiled in a mystery worthy of Hammett as a result. The subtle self-reference of Spade-cum-Charles is now overt. Ginley narrates (and almost as often interacts) in a sort of classic P.I. patois: part Spade, part Philip Marlowe, and a whole lot of Out of the Past’s Jeff Markham (“what’s the pitch?” being Ginley’s go-to verbal tic).

The other characters here mostly play along. Ginley is still holding the torch for his ex, Ellen (portrayed by Billie Whitelaw), who’s far and away the most tolerant of his shtick, even if she has run off with his no-good brother. She likes Ginley’s canned lines and, at one point, obliges him with a song request for “Melancholy Baby” (another Out of the Past reference). Then there’s the parade of heavies, a ring of pro-apartheid gun-runners who indulge Ginley’s detective fantasies by hiring him to knock off the Liverpool-based daughter of an anti-colonial African revolutionary. Like all of his heroes, Ginley may play the cynic, but he’s got a heart of gold. And he’s certainly no gun-for-hire. So he takes it upon himself to unmask a conspiracy that ends up hitting surprisingly close to home.

But not before some hijinks ensue. This is a comedy after all, albeit one with a plot that many straight detective mysteries would do well to imitate. At first, Ginley thinks the hit he’s been hired to carry out is all just a gag. You see, Ginley’s in the entertainment business himself and that’s just the kind of joke “the guys” would play on him. Maybe “Blue Suede Shoes” springs to his mind in the opening scene because it’s the kind of fare they play at Liverpool’s Broadway Club, where Ginley’s employed as a presenter and sometime stand-up comic. He’s a “club-caller” in contemporary English slang. The script, penned by Liverpool’s own Neville Smith, uses that city’s setting and native dialogue just as deftly as it does classic noir language and tropes.

Much of the local color comes through in the Broadway Club itself: from a flashing neon sign which invokes classic noir photography, to a cast of characters that lend the film both humor and verisimilitude. The joint is headed up by Tommy, an old hand in local entertainment circles (he’s 42, but “in the club game, you can multiply that by three”) with an office full of fake photos of him posing with (mostly American) celebrities. “From the kid from Hoboken to the kid from Liverpool” reads a particularly convincing one of Tommy beside Frank Sinatra. “Good, aren't they?” says Tommy. Never mind that Tommy’s wearing the same suit in all the pictures. Then there’s the toothless handyman who Tommy has to implore to put in his dentures so he doesn’t scare off the customers. “How can I?” the man responds. “Me wife’s got ‘em!” At one point, in need of a heavy of his own, Ginley goes to Tommy for a reference. Tommy provides “Joey. He’s muscle. He fought Rommel—and Rommel lost!” When Joey shows up in the next scene, he’s revealed to be a paunchy, good-natured pensioner. Asked by Eddie about his tussle with Rommel, he answers: “Personally, Eddie, I never seen the bugger. I seen James Mason take him off it in a film once. Couldn’t stand it. All them good Germans.” The way the characters talk pop culture is a bit of Tarantino-before-Tarantino, just as the mix of noir and comedy is a bit of Lebowski-before-Lebowski.

These kinds of scenes, which revel in the early ’70s Liverpool milieu, are Gumshoe at its best. The more direct invocations of noir-classics are a somewhat mixed bag. A scene in which Ginley flirts with a London bookshop girl, for instance, is a little too on the nose: it’s a nearly beat-for-beat reconstruction of Bogart’s bookshop interaction with Dorothy Malone in The Big Sleep. A brief heroin-related subplot also ill-serves Gumshoe’s tone, opting for a bit of straight-noir gratuitousness that this movie could have done without. The worst invocation by far of the bygone era of the ’40s noir, though, is a scrap of casual but vicious racism deployed by Ginley against an interloper. To Gumshoe’s credit, Ginley’s racist remarks are neither played for laughs nor to sap the dignity of the film’s lone Black character. The film gives Trinidadian actor Oscar James, playing Azinge, the last word in that exchange—he crumples Ginley with a single punch then straightens out his suit and walks off with a choice dig. And since Azinge turns out to be one of the good guys, Ginley ultimately realizes the error of his ways. Still, to modern viewing audiences, Ginley’s cruel, old-fashioned jabs will prove (rightly) jarring.



Those missteps aside, Finney is Gumshoe’s standout. He narrates, appears in every scene, and even produced the film after a white-hot run of gigs that had made him one of Britain’s most marketable stars. His Ginley is anything but a cipher. He’s a wannabe comedian, a wannabe dick, and a wannabe lover with literary flair and a sense of humor. It’s a stellar performance. The movie also features a neat bit of directing from UK screen legend Stephen Frears, plucked from obscurity to direct here for the first time and who, for all his commendable efforts, wouldn’t be given another chance to helm a film for another 13 years (when he’d get his hands on one more underappreciated crime classic, 1984’s The Hit, starring John Hurt, Terence Stamp, and Tim Roth in a BAFTA Award-nominated role). Aside from the moments when he and cinematographer Chris Menges are ably imitating the best of Huston, Hawks, and RKO cinematography legend Nicholas Musuraca, the film’s aesthetic is a humble and no doubt indie-inspiring look at northern England, similar in some ways to 1971’s Get Carter. And, like Get Carter, you can tell that while Gumshoe was made for cheap, it doesn’t suffer for it.

A cameo by American actress Janice Rule as Gumshoe’s would-be femme fatale is great, as is the performance of Fulton Mackay as Straker, the bungling Scottish hit man whose place, we learn, Ginley accidentally took when he accepted this first sleuthing assignment. Straker is all menace for the initial half of the film, but he quickly breaks down into a comedic standout. That process begins with Ginley giving Straker the slip at Britain’s equivalent of the social security office. In Gumshoe, our hero doesn’t have “ins” with the cops. Instead, he’s got a pal at the unemployment office who’s a bit disappointed to see Eddie advertising for work (“haven’t lost faith in us, now have you, Eddie?”), but who lets him sneak out the back anyways. Straker is ultimately exposed as a fake-it-till-you-make-it heavy perfectly suited to Ginley’s play-acting detective. When Ginley tells Straker his hopes for a payday are sunk in the film’s final scene, Straker answers with his own revelation: Straker’s not a hit man at all. He was just filling in for the real hit man, who fell ill on the appointed day. What’s more, he never even had a gun—his plan for extracting funds from Ginley was to involve no more than “violence of the tongue.” After he and Ginley make nice, Straker asks his new pal to “lend us a couple of quid” before taking his leave.

Herein lies the true cleverness of Gumshoe. It’s a detective story in which everyone self-consciously plays a part they remember from detective stories past. The central mystery is solid and the plot is slick and well-paced, but the comedy’s even better. If, as they say, comedy is about subverting expectations, then Gumshoe does it masterfully. The audience, after all, is nearly as keyed in to detective noir as Ginley, and knows all too well how these things are supposed to go. That just makes it all the funnier when everyone, in turn, emerges as a fraud. There’s no Sam Spade here, not even a Nick Charles. Just “gumshoe Ginley and slyboots Straker” and the “damn, crummy, ramshackle outfit” that tried to shoehorn them into a story where the stakes are as real as in Hammett, but nothing else is.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Smaller Screens, Different Stars

This evening will bring the presentation of the 96th annual Academy Awards for artistic and technical excellence in films for 2023. And while most eyes will be focused on that Hollywood spectacle, the British Web site The Killing Times is counter-programming its own prizes commending “the great and the good from the world of crime drama.”

There are four categories of honorees: Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor. I watched a number of the candidates in the performances that won them this latest approbation, including Sarah Lancashire in Happy Valley, Emma Corrin in A Murder at the End of the World, Gary Oldman in Slow Horses, and James Norton in Happy Valley. Others, though, appeared in productions I have not yet seen, among them David Morrissey in The Long Shadow, Jasmine Jobson in Top Boy, and Évelyne Brochu from Paris Police 1905.

That means I have more fine television to take in over the coming months. Maybe starting tonight, as I’m not a big Oscars fan.

Preparing a Tracy Revival

Here’s a bit of unforeseen news, from the entertainment site CBR:
In 1931, Chester Gould introduced comic strip readers to a trench coat-clad, fedora-wearing, intrepid police detective named Dick Tracy. Tracy’s hard-nosed sense of justice, colorful collection of rogues, and inventive gadgets captured the imagination of readers and allowed him to step out into other mediums, like comics, toys, and films. The character continues to be a presence in comic strips, but his last major appearance in other media was the 1990 Dick Tracy feature film directed by and starring Warren Beatty.

This year Alex Segura, Michael Moreci, and Chantelle Aimée Osman, the holders of the Dick Tracy comic book rights, are looking to change all that with the launch of an all-new, ongoing
Dick Tracy series from Mad Cave Studios. The book, written by Segura and Moreci and featuring art by Geraldo Borges, launches in April and will be a noir-tinged “Year One” approach to the character. CBR spoke with Segura and Moreci about their series’ late 1940s setting and their plans for Dick Tracy’s iconic collection of villains and supporting characters.
CBR’s Dave Richards goes on to ask Moreci and Segura about what Tracy means to them; their decision to begin the series in 1947; which classic Tracy supporting characters they intend to include (Tess Trueheart fans, listen up); and much more.

(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Pour a Little Sugar on It, Baby!

I must confess to being rather puzzled by recent stories about the upcoming Apple TV+ series Sugar, which will star award-winning Irish actor Colin Farrell as a Los Angeles gumshoe named John Sugar. The eight-part drama has been called “genre-bending” and “a science-fiction drama,” yet nowhere do I see any explanation that would justify such labeling. And a new trailer for the program, which is set to premiere on April 5, does nothing to clear up the matter.



Of the plot, Deadline says it finds Sugar “on the heels of the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Siegel [portrayed by Sydney Chandler], the beloved granddaughter of legendary Hollywood producer Jonathan Siegel [James Cromwell]. As Sugar tries to determine what happened to Olivia, he will also unearth Siegel family secrets; some very recent, others long-buried.” Again, this gives us nary a clue as to why Sugar, created by Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend), is “genre-bending.” Yes, the voice-over narration suggests that the protagonist may not be as much of a “good guy” as he seems; and there are those back-to-back points in the trailer where, first, actress Amy Ryan tells the private eye, “You have secrets,” and then Sugar develops an extreme twitch in his left hand, which leads to his self-scolding whisper, “Not now.” Otherwise, though, Sugar looks like another typical shamus yarn, its scenes blessed by Southern California sunshine but riddled with emotional complexities and sorrows.

I guess we’ll just have to wait until sometime closer to its debut to discover what’s so “unique” about this streaming show.

Tuesday, March 05, 2024

Sound Judgments

As promised, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) last evening announced the winners of its 2024 Audie Awards during a ceremony in Los Angeles. There were 27 categories of prizes, but below are the two of greatest interest to Rap Sheet readers.

Best Mystery: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto; narrated by Eunice Wong (Penguin Random House Audio)

Also nominated: The Golden Gate, by Amy Chua; narrated by Robb Moreira, Tim Campbell, and Suzanne Toren (Macmillan Audio); A Line in the Sand, by Kevin Powers; narrated by Christine Lakin (Hachette Audio); Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide, by Rupert Holmes; narrated by Neil Patrick Harris and Simon Vance (Simon & Schuster Audio); and A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny; narrated by Robert Bathurst (Macmillan Audio)

Best Thriller/Suspense: All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby; narrated by Adam Lazarre-White (Macmillan Audio)

Also nominated: Bad Cree, by Jessica Johns; narrated by Tanis Parenteau (Penguin Random House Audio); I Will Find You, by Harlan Coben; narrated by Steven Weber (Brilliance); None of This Is True, by Lisa Jewell; narrated by Nicola Walker, Louise Brealey, and a full cast including Kristin Atherton, Ayesha Antoine, Alix Dunmore, Elliot Fitzpatrick, Lisa Jewell, Thomas Judd, Dominic Thorburn, and Jenny Walser (Simon & Schuster Audio); and The Woodkin, by Alexander James; narrated by Alex Knox (CamCat)

Congratulations to all of this year’s nominees!

Sunday, March 03, 2024

Spring Brings a Finale and a Feast



This coming spring promises to deliver both a welcome change of weather (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere) and the unwelcome end of a long-running fiction-writing career.

American author Don Winslow says that City in Ruins—due out on April 2 from U.S. publisher William Morrow and the UK’s Hemlock Press—is to be his final novel. It is also the concluding chapter in a trilogy focused on dueling Rhode Island criminal empires and on Danny Ryan, once a young Irish dock worker and occasional Irish mob muscleman, now a Las Vegas businessman still dogged by enemies. City in Ruins follows City on Fire (2022) and City of Dreams (2023).

Deadline reported back in 2022 that Winslow had decided to retire from the writing game and become more politically active. Since that time, he’s invested heavily in digital campaigns that support Democratic causes and vigorously oppose the “cynical, soulless, corrupt, and sub-literate worldview” of Republican Donald Trump, who—despite being charged with 91 felonies—is running for president again this year on a platform threatening the very future of American democracy. “I love writing and do not make this decision lightly,” the author said in a statement, “but I’m going to pick a fight.”

Expect plenty of fight in City in Ruins, too. Here, in part, is Publishers Weekly’s write-up on Winslow’s new work:
In 1997, Ryan has relocated from California to Sin City, using millions of dollars of stolen cartel money to buy his way into the thriving Tara Group corporation. As director of hotel operations, Ryan owns two leading properties on the Strip, with ambitions to build a third: his elegant dream hotel, Il Sogno. When Ryan’s chief rival, Vernon Winegard, bids on a crumbling 1950s relic in a prime location for Il Sogno, Ryan slyly undermines the sale, blocking Vernon’s plans to dominate the Strip. Retaliatory moves from Vernon, together with FBI subdirector Regina Moneta’s relentless efforts to get revenge on Ryan for his role in the death of her lover 10 years earlier, soon demolish his hotelier dreams and turn his days into a gory fight for survival.
While City in Ruins may overshadow much of its competition this season, the 71-year-old Winslow will not be the only crime-fictionist with a new book to flog. Also waiting in the wings are spring titles by David Baldacci, C.J. Tudor, Harry Dolan, Elly Griffiths, Ajay Chowdhury, Samantha Jayne Allen, the pseudonymous Ben Creed, Sara Paretsky, Craig Johnson, Lindsey Davis, John Connolly, Ruth Ware, Anne Hillerman, and Robert Dugoni. Gary Phillips’ Ash Dark as Night, the follow-up to 2022’s One-Shot Harry, should reach stores soon. As will Tana French’s The Hunter; Anthony Horowitz’s fifth Hawthorne/Horowitz mystery, Close to Death; David Hewson’s Baptiste, a prequel to the 2019-2021 British TV drama of that same name; and Mark Coggins’ often-funny and twist-suffused Geisha Confidential, in which his San Francisco private eye, August Riordan, heads to Japan to figure out who’s trying to kill a trans bar hostess.

Much-anticipated as well is Philip Miller’s The Hollow Tree, which finds Scottish investigative reporter Shona Sandison (from The Goldenacre) looking into a suicide that may expose a clutch of modern fascists … but lose Shona her closest friend. Kim Sherwood has a second novel (A Spy Like Me) coming in her series about modern-day Double O agents not named James Bond. Swedish author Niklas Natt och Dag’s The Order of the Furies: 1795, his wind-up to a trilogy centered on “unlikely allies … [struggling] to end the reign of a powerful cabal of depraved hedonists in 18th-century Stockholm,” will arrive on this side of the Atlantic in late April. Although she died more than two years ago, Mo Hayder’s last novel, Bonehead—built around a woman who survives a fatal bus accident, only to be haunted by a skeletal apparition—won’t become available (in the UK) until the end of May. In addition, Brits can look forward to the release of William Shaw’s The Wild Swimmers (the latest of his Kent-based mysteries starring Detective Sergeant Alexandra Cupidi) and They Thought I Was Dead, Peter James’ long-hoped-for account of what happened to Sandy Grace, the missing wife of his fictional protagonist, Roy Grace.

Oh, and it should be mentioned that James Patterson has three new books coming out over the next couple of months (one of them celebrating “the magic of reading”). And TV weather presenter Al Roker suddenly has a fourth Billy Blessing novel in the offing, a full dozen years after the last one (written with Dick Lochte) debuted.

The list below contains a diverse feast of more than 400 books, all of likely interest to followers of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction, and all expected to appear between now and the beginning of June. In addition to the usual novels, you will find short-story collections (one of them from Stephen King) and reprints of historical works (by Ian Fleming, Cornell Woolrich, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, and others). There are also a few non-fiction publications that should appeal to lovers of this genre. (They’re marked with asterisks.)

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)
Current of Darkness, by Robert Brighton (Ashwood Press)
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)
In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA, Unmasked, by Jonna Mendez (PublicAffairs)*
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)
Off the Books, by Dana King (Independently published)
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 Rockpool Murder, by Emylia Hall (Thomas & Mercer)
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)
Speculations in Sin, by Jennifer Ashley (Berkley)
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)
Top Secret Kill, by James P. Cody (Brash)
Tourist Trap, by James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn (Independently published)
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)
The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice, by Alex Hortis (Pegasus Crime)*
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)
Moral Injuries, by Christie Watson (W&N)
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)

APRIL (U.S.):
Another Day’s Pain, by K.C. Constantine (Mysterious Press)
Ash Dark as Night, by Gary Phillips (Soho Crime)
Assassin Eighteen, by John Brownlow (Hanover Square Press)
At the Edge of the Woods, by Victoria Houston (Crooked Lane)
Bankhaus, by Neil Giarratana (Thousand Acres)
A Better World, by Sarah Langan (Atria)
The Bin Laden Plot, by Rick Campbell (St. Martin’s Press)
Blood Mountain, by Alisa Lynn Valdés (Thomas & Mercer)
The Broken Afternoon, by Simon Mason (Quercus)
Burner, by Mike Trigg (SparkPress)
Butter, by Asako Yuzuki (Ecco)
A Calamity of Souls, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
The Canal Murders, by J.R. Ellis (Thomas & Mercer)
Cast a Cold Eye, by Robbie Morrison (Bantam)
Circle in the Water, by Marcia Muller (Grand Central)
City in Ruins, by Don Winslow (Morrow)
The Clock Struck Murder, by Betty Webb (Poisoned Pen Press)
Close to Death, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)
The Coffin Maker’s Apprentice, by Chris McGillion (Coffeetown Press)
Cold to the Touch, by Kerri Hakoda (Crooked Lane)
Crooked Seeds, by Karen Jennings (Hogarth)
Cutout, by Max Allan Collins and Barbara Collins (NeoText)
The Darkest Water, by Mark Edwards (Thomas & Mercer)
Darling Girls, by Sally Hepworth (St. Martin’s Press)
Daughter of Mine, by Megan Miranda (S&S/Marysue Rucci)
Death and Glory, by Will Thomas (Minotaur)
Death in the Details, by Katie Tietjen (Crooked Lane)
Death of a Master Chef, by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)
Death of an Author, by E.C.R. Lorac (Poisoned Pen Press)
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, by Erik Larson (Crown)*
Don’t Turn Around, by Harry Dolan (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Down Among the Dead, by C.S. Green (HarperCollins)
Eldorado Red, by Donald Goines
(Holloway House)
An Enchanting Case of Spirits, by Melissa Holtz (Berkley)
Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies, by Catherine Mack (Minotaur)
Fatal Domain, by Steven James
(Tyndale House)
The Father She Went to Find, by Carter Wilson (Poisoned Pen Press)
A Fondness for Truth, by Kim Hays (Seventh Street)
Freeze, by Kate Simants (Serpent’s Tail)
Friends in Napa, by Sheila Yasmin Marikar (Mindy's Book Studio)
A Game of Lies, by Clare Mackintosh (Sourcebooks Landmark)
The Gathering, by C.J. Tudor (Ballantine)
The Girl from the Grand Hotel, by Camille Aubray (Blackstone)
Granite Harbor, by Peter Nichols (Celadon)
Hidden Rooms, by Kate Michaelson (CamCat)
The Hollow Tree, by Philip Miller (Soho Crime)
Home Fires, by Claire Booth (Severn House)
Home Is Where the Bodies Are, by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone)
The Hungry Dark, by Jen Williams (Crooked Lane)
I Disappeared Them, by Preston L. Allen (Akashic)
An Inconvenient Wife, by Karen E. Olson (Pegasus Crime)
Indian Burial Ground, by Nick Medina (Berkley)
Iniquity, by Laurie Buchanan (SparkPress)
The Innocents, by Bridget Walsh (Gallic)
It Had to Be You, by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke
(Simon & Schuster)
A Killing on the Hill, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)
A Kiss Before Dying, by Ira Levin (Blackstone)
Landscape of Murder, by Michael Jecks (Severn House)
The Last Word, by Elly Griffiths (Mariner)
The Lies Among Us, by Sarah Beth Durst (Lake Union)
Lost Birds, by Anne Hillerman (Harper)
Matterhorn, by Christopher Reich (Thomas & Mercer)
Max’s War, by Libby Fischer Hellmann (Red Herrings Press)
The Mayfair Dagger, by Ava January (Crooked Lane)
Missing White Woman, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland)
Mrs. Homicide / Naked Fury / Murder on the Side, by Day Keene (Stark House Press)
Molten Death, by Leslie Karst (Severn House)
Money Money Money, by David Wagoner (Brash)
The Mousetrap: 70th Anniversary Edition, by Agatha Christie (Orion)
The Murder Inn, by James Patterson and Candice Fox (Grand Central)
Murder in Rose Hill, by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)
A Murder Most French, by Colleen Cambridge (Kensington)
The Murder of Mr. Ma, by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan
(Soho Crime)
The Mystery of the Cape Cod Players, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Penzler/American Mystery Classics)
Murder on Demand, by Al Roker and Matt Costello (Blackstone)
Murder on the Dodder, by Keith Bruton (Brash)
Murdle, Volume 3: 100 Elementary to Impossible Mysteries to Solve Using Logic, Skill, and the Power of Deduction, by G.T. Karber (St. Martin’s Griffin)*
Neighborhood Watch, by Sarah Reida (Keylight)
Never Come Back, by Joe Hart (Thomas & Mercer)
Next of Kin, by Samantha Jayne Allen (Minotaur)
The North Line, by Matt Riordan (Hyperion Avenue)
Nosy Neighbors, by Freya Sampson (Berkley)
Nothing But the Bones, by Brian Panowich (Minotaur)
Nothing Without Me, by Helen Monks Takhar (Random House)
A Nye of Pheasants, by Steve Burrows (Point Blank)
One by One, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
One of Us Knows, by Alyssa Cole (Morrow)
One of You, by Erin E. Adams (Bantam)
On the Horns of Death, by Eleanor Kuhns (Severn House)
The Order of the Furies: 1795, by Niklas Natt och Dag (Atria)
Ordinary Bear, by C.B. Bernard (Blackstone)
Pay Dirt, by Sara Paretsky (Morrow)
The Penguin Book of Pirates, edited by Katherine Howe (Penguin Classics)*
Perilous Waters, by Terry Shames
(Severn House)
The Reaper Follows, by Heather
Graham (Mira)
Rough Trade, by Katrina Carrasco (MCD)
The Rush, by Michelle Prak (Crooked Lane)
Safe and Sound, by Laura McHugh
(Random House)
A Scarlet Death, by Elaine Viets (Severn House)
The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading, by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann
(Little, Brown)*
Sherlock Holmes: Eliminate the Impossible, by Paula Hammond (MX)
She’s Not Sorry, by Mary Kubica (Park Row)
The Sicilian Inheritance, by Jo Piazza (Dutton)
The Sleepwalkers, by Scarlett Thomas (Simon & Schuster)
Someone Saw Something, by Rick Mofina (Mira)
A Spy Like Me, by Kim Sherwood (Morrow)
Stag, by Dane Bahr (Counterpoint)
The Translator, by Harriet Crawley (Bitter Lemon Press)
The Underhanded, by Adam Sikes (Oceanview)
Under the Paper Moon, by Shaina Steinberg (Kensington)
The Vacancy in Room 10, by Seraphina Nova Glass (Graydon House)
What Cannot Be Said, by C.J. Harris (Berkley)
While We Were Burning, by Sara Koffi (Putnam)
The Widow Spy, by Megan Campisi (Atria)
The Wooden Overcoat, by Pamela Branch (Felony & Mayhem Press)
You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen (Dutton)
You Only Live Twice, by Ian Fleming (Morrow Paperbacks)
Young Rich Widows, by Kimberly Belle, Layne Fargo, Cate Holahan, and Vanessa Lillie (Sourcebooks Landmark)

APRIL (UK):
Baptiste: The Blade Must Fall, by David Hewson (Orion)
The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age, by Michael Wolraich (Union Square)*
Bloodshed on the Boards, by Judy Leigh (Boldwood)
Clickbait, by L.C. North (Bantam)
The Clifftop Murders, by Rachel McLean (Canelo Hera)
A Clock Stopped Dead, by J.M. Hall (Avon)
The Concert Hall Killer, by Jonathan Whitelaw (HarperNorth)
Dark Island, by Daniel Aubrey (HarperNorth)
The Darkest Night, by Victoria Hawthorne (Quercus)
Dark Road Home, by Sheila Bugler (Canelo Crime)
Death in a Lonely Place, by Stig Abell (Hemlock Press)
Death on a Train, by Anita Davison (Boldwood)
Death on the Tiber, by Lindsey Davis (Hodder & Stoughton)
Double Trouble, by Stephanie Harte (Boldwood)
The Dying Time, by Anthony Carragher (Book Guild)
Five Bad Deeds, by Caz Frear (Simon & Schuster UK)
The Four, by Ellie Keel (HQ)
The Grand Illusion, by Syd Moore (Magpie)
The Household, by Stacey Halls (Manilla Press)
The House of Mirrors, by Erin Kelly (Hodder & Stoughton)
The In Crowd, by Charlotte Vassell (Faber and Faber)
The Intruders, by Louise Jensen (HQ)
Last Man Standing, by Richard
Holland (Troubador)
A Lesson in Cruelty, by Harriet
Tyce (Wildfire)
London Particular, by Christianna Brand (British Library Crime Classics)
Mr. Einstein’s Secretary, by Matthew
Reilly (Orion)
A Monster Among Us, by Alex Scarrow (GrrrBooks)
The Montford Maniac, by M.R.C.
Kasasian (Canelo)
The Night in Question, by Susan Fletcher (Bantam)
The Other Tenant, by Lesley Kara (Bantam)
A Plague of Serpents, by K.J. Maitland (Headline Review)
The Potting Shed Murder, by Paula Sutton (Renegade)
Profile K, by Helen Fields (Avon)
Seven Days, by Robert Rutherford (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Skeleton Army, by Alis Hawkins (Canelo)
Sleeping Dogs, by Russ Thomas (Simon & Schuster UK)
The Spy, by Ajay Chowdhury (Harvill Secker)
Step Inside My Soul, by Nick Curran (Constable)
The Sweetheart Killer, by N.J. Mackay (Canelo Hera)
The Venetian Candidate, by Philip Gwynne Jones (Constable)
Women Who Murder: An International Collection of Deadly True Crime Tales, by Mitzi Szereto (Mango)*

MAY (U.S.):
The Alone Time, by Elle Marr (Thomas & Mercer)
Bad Men, by Julie Mae Cohen (Overlook Press)
Blond Hair, Blue Eyes, by Chris Kelsey (Black Rose)
Blood Red Summer, by Eryk Pruitt (Thomas & Mercer)
Blood Rubies, by Mailan Doquang (Mysterious Press)
Blotto, Twinks and the Phantom Skiers, by Simon Brett (Constable)
The Bootlegger’s Daughter, by Nadine Nettmann (Lake Union)
Buster: A Dog, by George Pelecanos (Akashic)
Butcher, by Joyce Carol Oates (Knopf)
Camino Ghosts, by John Grisham (Doubleday)
The Cuckoo, by Camilla Läckberg (HarperCollins)
Death on the Lusitania, by R.L. Graham (MacMillan UK)
The Deepest Lake, by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Soho Crime)
Double Tap, by Cindy Dees (Kensington)
First Frost, by Craig Johnson (Viking)
The Five Year Lie, by Sarina Bowen (Harper Paperbacks)
A Friend Indeed, by Elka Ray (Blackstone)
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Gentleman Burglar, by Sam Siciliano (Titan)
A Guilty Secret, by Philippa East (HQ)
Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee (Mulholland)
The Hunter’s Daughter, by Nicola Solvinic (Berkley)
If Something Happens to Me, by Alex Finlay (Minotaur)
The Instruments of Darkness, by John Connolly (Atria/Emily Bestler)
Into the Night, by Cornell Woolrich and Lawrence Block (Hard Case Crime)
I Will Ruin You, by Linwood Barclay (Morrow)
Jack’s Boys, by John Katzenbach (Blackstone)
The Lagos Wife, by Vanessa Walters (Atria)
The Last Hope, by Susan Elia
MacNeal (Bantam)
The Last Murder at the End of the World, by Stuart Turton (Sourcebooks Landmark)
A Lethal Question, by Mark Rubinstein (Oceanview)
The Library Thief, by Kuchenga Shenjé (Hanover Square Press)
Lightning Strikes the Silence, by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Editions)
Lights, Camera, Bones, by Carolyn Haines (Minotaur)
Locked in Pursuit, by Ashley Weaver (Minotaur)
A Lonesome Place for Dying, by Nolan Chase (Crooked Lane)
Long Time Gone, by Charlie Donlea (Kensington)
The Man on the Train, by Debbie Babitt (Scarlet)
Man’s Best Friend, by Alana B. Lytle (Putnam)
A Nest of Vipers, by Harini Nagendra (Pegasus Crime)
Nonna Maria and the Case of the Lost Treasure, by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Bantam)
One Perfect Couple, by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press)
The Other Fiancé,
by Ali Blood (Avon)
Phantom Orbit, by David Ignatius (Norton)
Return to Blood, by Michael Bennett (Atlantic Monthly Press)
The Return of Ellie Black, by Emiko Jean (Simon & Schuster)
Rich Justice, by Robert Bailey (Thomas & Mercer)
Southern Man, by Greg Iles (Morrow)
Spitting Gold, by Carmella Lowkis (Atria)
Swiped, by L.M. Chilton (Gallery/Scout Press)
Think Twice, by Harlan Coben (Grand Central)
Thrilling Cities, by Ian Fleming (Morrow Paperbacks)
Truth Truth Lie, by Claire McGowan (Thomas & Mercer)
The 24th Hour, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown)
Under the Palms, by Kaira Rouda (Thomas & Mercer)
Very Bad Company, by Emma Rosenblum (Flatiron)
Westport, by James Comey (Mysterious Press)
When We Were Silent, by Fiona McPhillips (Flatiron)
You Like It Darker, by Stephen King (Scribner)

MAY (UK):
The Art of Murder, by Fiona Walker (Boldwood)
Bad Apple, by Alice Hunter (Avon)
The Beach Hut, by Leah Pitt (Hodder Paperbacks)
Before the Fact, by Francis Iles (British Library Crime Classics)
Between Two Worlds, by Olivier Norek (MacLehose Press)
Bonehead, by Mo Hayder (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Deadly Spark, by Roxie Key (HQ)
Displeasure Island, by Alice Bell (Corvus)
The Estate, by Denzil Meyrick (Bantam)
Estella’s Revenge, by Barbara Havelocke (Canelo Hera)
Faith, by Linda Calvey (Welbeck)
Father’s Day, by Richard Madeley
(Simon & Schuster UK)
The Hollow Mountain, by Douglas
Skelton (Polygon)
Invasion, by Frank Gardner (Bantam)
Lessons in Crime: Academic Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards (British Library Crime Classics)
Life Sentence, by Jackie Kabler (One More Chapter)
The Little Sparrow Murders, by Seishi Yokomizo (Pushkin Vertigo)
Man of Bones, by Ben Creed (Welbeck)
Murder at the Allotment, by Julie Wassmer (Constable)
Murder at Raven’s Edge, by Louise Marley (Storm)
Murder Under the Midnight Sun, by Stella Blómkvist (Corylus)
The Mystery of the Crooked Man, by Tom Spencer (Pushkin Vertigo)
The Puppet Master, by Sam Holland (Hemlock Press)
Queen Macbeth, by Val McDermid (Polygon)
Shanghai, by Joseph Kanon (Simon & Schuster UK)
Somebody Knows, by Michelle McDonagh (Hachette Ireland)
They Thought I Was Dead, by Peter James (Macmillan)
The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle, by Nick Louth (Canelo)
The Venus of Salò, by Ben Pastor (Bitter Lemon Press)
When the Needle Drops, by Colin MacIntyre (Black & White)
When We Were Silent, by Fiona McPhillips (Bantam)
The Wild Swimmers, by William Shaw (Riverrun)
The Witching Hour, by Catriona McPherson (Hodder & Stoughton)

You should keep in mind that this catalogue, long though it may be, is not comprehensive. There are many more March-May releases in the pipeline, on both sides of the Atlantic. As the next three months progress, you can expect additions to be made here. If you’re already aware of books that merit inclusion, but are not mentioned, please drop us an e-mail note with all the relevant information.