Revue of Reviewers: 10-17-26

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

Down & Out Is Back for More

Wonder of wonders, it appears that independent crime-fiction publisher Down & Out Books—which went out of business a year ago due to crippling sales declines—is making a comeback. Now owned and operated by former D&O author Joe Ricker (Walkin’ After Midnight, Some Awful Cunning, etc.), who acquired the press from Eric Campbell, it recently announced a short list of upcoming releases.

The first new title from this imprint is supposed to be Manhattan Tension, by 89-year-old Cleveland, Ohio, author Les Roberts, which is scheduled for release on November 3 (though I don’t see notice of that on either the publisher’s Web site or in Amazon). Ricker told author-blogger Dana King recently that “our target right now is ten books a year.” Works slated for publication in 2027 include two fresh ones from veteran D&O writers, Chris Orlet’s Sun Gone Down and Brandon Daily’s Crop Burn Stories, and another couple from fictionists who’ve not previously worked with this publisher, Mark Thomas’ World in Fluxe and Scott Kauffman’s Death Row Absolution.

We wish Ricker and company the best of luck with this revival.

Timely Tributes

There was a time when the Macavity Awards, sponsored by Mystery Readers International and Mystery Readers Journal, were handed out each year at Bouchercon. But that giant gathering isn’t set to take place until next week, in Calgary, Canada, so today’s announcement of the 2026 Macavity winners (see below) is a mite early.

Best Mystery Novel: Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)

Also nominated: King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron); Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime); River of Lies, by James L’Etoile (Oceanview); The White Crow, by Michael Robotham (Scribner); and All This Could Be Yours, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Minotaur)

Best First Mystery: History Lessons, by Zoe B. Wallbrook (Soho Press)

Also nominated: Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes, by Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Minotaur); Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam); Voices of the Elysian Fields, by Michael Rigg (Level Best); and Stillwater, by Tanya Scott (Grove Atlantic)

Best Mystery Non-fiction: Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover’s Travel Guide to New England, by Dawn M. Barclay (Level Best)

Also nominated: Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer
Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation, by Michael Cannell (Minotaur); Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, by Caroline Fraser (Penguin Press); V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death, by Kathryn Harkup (Bloomsbury Sigma); Edgar Allan Poe: A Life, by Richard Kopley (University of Virginia Press); Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard, by C.M. Kushins (Mariner)

Best Mystery Short Story: “Six-Armed Robbery,” by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier (from Donna Andrews Presents Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Carla Coupe, and Michael Bracken; Wildside Press)

Also noiminated: “Hollywood Prometheus,” by Christa Faust (from Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West; Bywater); “Finding Jimmy Baldwin,” by Cheryl Head (from Crime Ink: Iconic); “The Devil Himself,” by Vaseem Khan (from Double Crossing Van Dine, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor; Crippen & Landru); and “Julius Katz Draws a Straight Flush,” by Dave Zeltserman (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September/October 2025)

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery: Bye Bye Blackbird, by Elizabeth Crowens (Level Best)

Also nominated: A Daughter’s Guide to Mothers and Murder, by Dianne Freeman (Kensington); City Lights, by Claire M. Johnson (Level Best); The Case of the Christie Conspiracy, by Kelly Oliver (Boldwood); The Case of the Missing Maid, by Rob Osler (Kensington); and No. 10 Doyers Street, by Radha Vatsal (Level Best)

The Macavity Awards take their name from Macavity the Mystery Cat, a character in T.S. Eliot’s 1939 poetry book, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Ballots for this year’s prize were cast by a members of MRI, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and “friends of MRI.”

Congratulations to all of this year’s contenders!

Oh No, Not Again

Editor Gerald So made the announcement this morning that he’s “probably” going to shutter his fine crime poetry blog, The Fifty-Two, as a result of policy changes by his online management system:

Blogger is updating its content policy effective December 16, 2026. Updates include prohibition of criminal acts and, while I don’t think poetry about crime equals crime, The Five-Two’s goal is to look unflinchingly at crime. The only way to do that is to mention crime fairly directly, perhaps too directly for a Blogger blog.

As editor, I’ve always tried to keep the poetry on the figurative, non-explicit side, but Blogger’s content reviewers may disagree with my standards. In fourteen years, I’ve received one notice of a post being put behind a sensitive-content warning, but I was unable to determine which post. I don’t want to run into this problem with future posts.

I’m not seeking a less restrictive platform. I’ve had my editorial say on all manner of crimes, and I don’t feel the need to continue for my own gratification. That’s why Blogger’s policy change may be the best time to end.

Thanks to everyone who’s contributed to the site in any way. I need to accept five new submissions to make it to Monday, December 14. Send ’em. Let's go out with a bang.

In the fall of 2023, So first discontinued updating The Fifty-Two, only to reverse course about a year and a half later. Let’s hope he has a similar change of heart about this latest termination of effort.

Another Death in the Family

Mark Pryor, best known for penning the Hugo Marston and Henri Lefort mystery novels, “passed away unexpectedly in his sleep on October 8, 2026,” according to an online obituary. He was only 59 years old.

The same remembrance explains that Pryor was born in Welwyn Garden City, England, in May 1967; that he studied journalism at Strad Broke College in Sheffield, England, as well as at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill; and that he subsequently attended Duke University School of Law, before moving on to serve as an assistant district attorney in Travis County, Texas, for 14 years. He subsequently went into private practice as a criminal defense lawyer.

Pryor produced 16 novels over the course of his career, including The Bookseller (2012), his first yarn starring Marston, an ex-FBI agent from Texas, now heading up security at the U.S. Embassy in Paris; 2022’s Die Around Sundown, which introduced World War II-era Paris police inspector Lefort; and a pair of tales featuring “Dominic, a charming Englishman, prosecutor, and musician in Austin, Texas, [who] is also a psychopath.” Most recently, he returned to Hugo Marston in 2026’s The Most Mysterious Bookshop in Paris (2026), which imagined his protagonist having become a crime-solving book retailer. A second entry in that revival series, A Vintage Murder in Paris, is due out from Kensington Publishing in March 2027.

“A private celebration of life will be held to honor Mark's life and legacy,” says his obituary. “In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests patronizing and supporting your local bookstore, in memory of Mark’s passion for literature and his unwavering support for the written word.” A fitting tribute, if there ever was one.

READ MORE: “Mark Pryor, May His Memory Be a Blessing,” by James W. Ziskin (Criminal Minds).

CFL Is Back in the Game

We’re moving swiftly into that hectic season when newspapers, magazines, and book-oriented Web sites weigh in with their idiosyncratic lists of favorite crime, mystery, and thriller fiction from the year past. Crime Fiction Lover is taking part in that exercise once more, after sitting out 2025 due to a staffer’s “serious health issues.”

Starting today, the blog is inviting readers to submit their top choices for the 2026 Crime Fiction Lover Awards in six categories: Book of the Year, Best Debut, Best in Translation, Best Indie Novel, Best Author, and Best Crime TV Show. “Nominated books need to have been published in English between 1 November 2025 and 31 October 2026,” the site explains. “In the Best Author category, the author needs to have published crime fiction during this period.” Participants don’t have to submit picks in all of the divisions for their votes to count.

This stage of the process will close on Wednesday, November 4. From the many submissions they receive, CFL editors will then develop a shortlist of books and TV series, and ask readers once more to let their opinions be known. Winners should be announced in December.

Click here to find the official nominating form.

B&N Takes the Lead

Well, it was inevitable that this would happen sometime.

American bookseller Barnes & Noble is first out of the gate with its choices of the “best mystery and thriller books” released in the United States over the last 12 months. Among those 32 works you will find a collection of novellas, modern and historical yarns, one true-crime stunner, and half a dozen titles that aren’t yet available.

• All the Secrets, by May Cobb
(Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Bad Company, by Sara Paretsky (Minotaur)
• Big Little Truths, by Liane Moriarty (Crown)
• The Ending Writes Itself, by Evelyn Clarke (HarperCollins)
• The Final Problem, by Arturo Perez-
Reverte (Little, Brown)
• The Final Score, by Don Winslow (HarperCollins)
• Five, by Ilona Bannister (Crown)
• The French Illusion, by John Grisham (Doubleday)
• God’s Country, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)
• Heart of Glass, by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur)
• Heather, by Caitlin Mullen (Celadon)
• Helpless, by Jessica Knoll (Scribner)
• How to Cheat Your Own Death, by Kristen Perrin (Dutton)
• It Could Have Been Her, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)
• The Keeper, by Tana French (Viking)
• London Station, by David McCloskey (Norton)
• Look What the Cat Dragged In, by Jason Rekulak (Flatiron)
• Mad Mabel, by Sally Hepworth (St. Martin’s Press)
• Miss Wolcott’s Ghost, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, by Lucy Foley (Morrow)
• The Murder at World’s End, by Ross Montgomery (HarperCollins)
• My Husband’s Wife, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)
• Revenge Plot, by Stephanie Wrobel (Berkley)
• The Secret Dinner, by Raphael Montes (Celadon)
• This Changes Everything, by Lisa Scottoline (Grand Central)
• The Unknown, by Riley Sager (Dutton)
• Valley of the Moms, by Hannah Selinger (Little, Brown)
• A Violent Masterpiece, by Jordan Harper (Little, Brown)
• We Chase Shadows, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• Wolf Point, by Lisa Howells
(Grand Central)
• You’ll Be Sorry, by Lisa Gardner
(Grand Central)
• London Falling, by Patrick Radden
Keefe (Doubleday)

I’ve read only a few of these titles. There aren’t many surprise picks, which is no doubt due to the fact that Barnes & Noble is in the business of selling books, especially those from major publishers with substantial promotional budgets. Still, the works here that I have read stand a real shot at making my own list of 2026 favorites.

(Hat tip to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.)

Even More End-of-Year Enticements

I wasn’t in my office at the beginning of October, so failed to draw your attention to The Rap Sheet’s expanded fall-winter books list. More than two dozen additional titles have now found their way onto that roster, including Michael J. Malone’s The Cutting; Libby Fischer Hellmann’s Capital Partners; David Liss’ The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek; Ty Landers’ Baby Queen; Dan Jones’ new James Bond adventure, All In; Neil Albert’s 12th (perhaps final?) Dave Garrett private-eye novel, Last December; and Merry Murders on Bedford Square, a brand-new collection of Christmas-oriented short stories from editor Maxim Jakubowski.

To learn about those and many more works of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction to get you through this last quarter of 2026, click here.

A Life of Victories and Dishonor

First it was Peter May, now it’s Jeffrey Archer. I just returned to my office after a few days away to discover this news. From The Guardian:

Jeffrey Archer, the bestselling author and former MP whose political career ended in disgrace when he was imprisoned for perjury, has died at the age of 86.

Archer, who was a Conservative MP for five years before serving as the party’s deputy chair, died “suddenly and peacefully” at his home “between writing sessions” on Monday, his publisher HarperCollins said.

The newspaper goes on to quote Archer’s editor, Kate Elton, as saying:

“He was the master storyteller and an editor’s dream—phenomenally hard-working, utterly committed to completing draft after draft to get every word as perfect as possible, and a true champion of the team nature of great publishing.”

Archer’s death came just one day before the publication of his new novel, Adam and Eve, on Tuesday 6 October.

His first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was published in 1976, two years after bankruptcy marked the end of his time as a sitting MP. This marked the beginning of an enviable writing career. Archer spent a total of 14 years and five months on the Sunday Times bestseller lists and over five years on the New York Times bestseller lists, selling 300 million books in 119 countries in 49 languages.

But as noted above, the London-born thriller writer did not live a high life of successes without scandal.

During a run to become mayor of London for the Conservatives in 1999, his political career was in effect ended when it emerged he had lied in court over a decade earlier when a newspaper accused him of paying money to a sex worker. He was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice and imprisoned for four years.

An Old Bailey jury found that he had lied in a libel action he had brought against the Star newspaper in 1987 in which he had been awarded £500,000 in damages.

He was released early in 2003 and returned to the House of Lords until he retired in 2024.

I admit, I haven’t cracked open a Jeffrey Archer novel in many years. However, he clearly didn’t require my attention to prosper greatly. As The New York Times recalls in its own Archer obituary, the author “described himself as a storyteller, a qualification which he depicted as both unusual and the object of resentment.

“Storytellers are very rare, but they create a lot of envy,” Mr. Archer said in an interview with fellow author Anthony Horowitz for The Sunday Telegraph Magazine in 2011. “The people who survive are storytellers.”

The interview evoked some of the ambiguities and passions surrounding Mr. Archer’s work, which drew on themes such as power, rivalry, ambition and greed.

“I’m painfully aware that of the two writers in the room only one has an original Monet on the wall,” Mr. Horowitz wrote, referring to the location of the interview in his subject’s apartment. He noted that Mr. Archer’s 1979 novel, Kane & Abel, which sold more than 50 million copies since its publication in 1979, helped fund his art collection.

The Guardian adds that Archer’s demise, from causes not yet reported, “came less than 24 hours after [he] had met and signed books for hundreds of fans at a sold-out event with broadcaster Gyles Brandreth at the Leicester Square Theatre in central London on Sunday.”

READ MORE: “My Last Lunch with Jeffrey Archer and How He Changed My Life,” by Fraser Nelson (The Times); “Jeffrey Archer Firmly Believed His Final Novel Was His Best,” by Scott Heller (The New York Times); “Jeffrey Archer Dies: Bestselling Kane & Abel Author & Politician Was 86,” by Jake Kantner (Deadline).

Peter May Is Suddenly No More

I can hardly believe this to be true! Scottish playwright and screenwriter Janice Hally, the wife of award-winning novelist Peter May, posted word this morning on Facebook that May died on September 25 at age 74. She added this tribute from “his long-term [British] publisher and dear friend, Jon Riley”:

Riverrun, an imprint of the John Murray Group, has announced the sad news of the death of the Sunday Times bestselling Scottish crime writer Peter May, on Friday night at his holiday home in the south of France.

Peter May was one of the most popular, and loved writers of crime fiction of his generation, and his books have sold around 15 million copies around the world. The novel which he had announced would be his last, Island of the Dead, is to be published in January 2027.

May began his career as a journalist in Scotland, winning Young Journalist of the Year aged twenty-one, and published his first novel, The Reporter, in 1976, at the age of twenty-six. After it was adapted as a BBC drama series, he quit journalism for television, and in the fifteen years that followed he became a successful scriptwriter and producer on two seminal series, Take the High Road and the Gaelic-language, Isle of Lewis-set Machair. It was while working on location on Machair, that his love for the Hebrides, which informed and influenced so much of his writing, was formed.

He returned to fiction with a series of China-set thrillers, which was followed by the French-set Enzo Files, both of which featured characters who reflected his growing interest in forensic science. However, it was the publication of the Lewis-set thriller The Blackhouse in 2011, that brought international fame, and bestselling success, and resulted in The Lewis Trilogy. He published a bestseller almost every year between The Blackhouse and his last book, The Black Loch, in 2024. His writing will always be associated with the Isle of Lewis, and the Hebrides.

Peter published twenty-six books with Quercus, and his work was hugely successful in his adopted homeland of France, where his work garlanded many prestigious literary awards.

Peter was a talented musician, and in 2025 he released a CD,‘Towards the Light’, which reflected in song many of his interests as a novelist.

Although he had announced his retirement, which he was looking forward to sharing with his beloved wife, the writer Janice Hally, May found there was one more novel in him, and he delivered Island of the Dead in July this year. He was preparing for a farewell tour of Scotland and Lewis to coincide with publication in January 2027.

Peter May was not only one of the best writers of crime fiction we had, but he inspired enormous affection in his readers and in those lucky enough to work with him. His kindness, generosity and largeness of spirit, loyalty, engagement with life, and the world, made him a much-loved, as well as much-admired figure. He is irreplaceable.

I was fortunate enough to share dinner with May and his wife during a couple of his publicity tours to the States. He was delightful—funny, brilliant, and a real wine aficionado—and an evening spent in his company was guaranteed to be memorable. Like so many others, my discovery of Peter May’s novels began with The Blackhouse, and I kept reading them from then on. Between myself and Rap Sheet correspondent Ali Karim, we interviewed him twice, with the results posted here, here, and here. And May contributed a couple of essays to this page, one relating the background of his 2015 novel, Entry Island, and the other telling us about his work on 2016’s Runaway.

Peter May will be sorely missed, indeed.

FOLLOW-UP: May’s cause of death was not immediately reported. But according to Britain’s Daily Express newspaper, he “suffered a heart attack” after taking his dog, Daftie, out for an evening walk.

READ MORE: “‘Irreplaceable’ Crime Author Peter May Dies in South of France,” by Jane Bradley (The Scotsman); “Peter May Obituary,” by Brian Wilson (The Guardian).

Paring Down the Petronas

Just shy of a month since announcing their longlist of nominees for the 2026 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year, organizers have released a shortlist of only seven contenders:

• One True Word, by Snæbjörn Arngrímsson,
translated by Larissa Kyzer (Pushkin Vertigo, Iceland)
• Murder Tide, by Stella Blómkvist,
translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus, Iceland)
• Broken, by Jón Atli Jónasson,
translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus, Iceland)
• Into Thin Air, by Ørjan N Karlsson,
translated by Ian Giles (Orenda, Norway)
• The Writing in the Water, by John Ajvide Lindqvist,
translated by Michael Meigs (Amazon Crossing, Sweden)
• The Grave in the Ice, by Satu Rämö,
translated by Kristian London (Zaffre, Finland)
• The Winter Job, by Antti Tuomainen,
translated by David Hackston (Orenda, Finland)

The winning work is set to be revealed on October 22.

Revue of Reviewers: 9-22-26

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