Sunny Days Are Best with Dark Fiction

Since everyone else seems lately to have been posting selections of books they look forward to enjoying this summer, I wanted to get my two cents in. Of course, my tally is a bit longer than most you’ll find online, but still not as long as some seasonal reading lists I’ve put together in the past. Below you will find more than 220 book recommendations, covering works from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, all due for release between now and the beginning of September. That seems like a lot—until you realize that my spring 2018 rundown comprised upwards of 350 titles, and my winter choices ran to almost 400 crime, mystery, and thriller works.

Clearly, I am learning to control my enthusiasm for this genre.

There are books for pretty much every taste due out in stores over the next three months, from Jennifer Hillier’s much-anticipated page-turner, Jar of Hearts, and Martin Walker’s 11th Bruno Courrèges tale, A Taste for Vengeance, to fresh novels by Stuart MacBride (The Blood Road), Megan Abbott (Give Me Your Hand), Peter Robinson (Careless Love), and Minette Walters (The Last Hours). Laurie R. King has a new Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes novel, Island of the Mad, scheduled for publication next week; the U.S. edition of William Shaw’s excellent Salt Lane—his more-or-less sequel to last year’s The Birdwatcher—is coming at the end of this month; Baby’s First Felony, the seventh entry in John Straley’s Edgar Award-winning Cecil Younger series, can be expected in early July; Linwood Barclay’s latest thriller, A Noise Downstairs, will be making some noise of its own among readers come late July; around that same time, David Hewson will introduce The Savage Shore, another installment in his series featuring Roman police detective Nic Costa, and Lawrence Osborne will debut Only to Sleep, a yarn resurrecting private eye Philip Marlowe; Sophie Hannah has another Hercule Poirot novel, The Mystery of Three Quarters, set for publication in August; Olen Steinhauer’s next thriller, The Middleman, is coming your way that same month; and be on the lookout for other works by Steve Hamilton, Caroline Kepnes, Charles Cumming, Michael Robotham, Lindsey Davis, Dan Fesperman, Val McDermid, William Kent Krueger, and Lori Rader-Day.

See what I said about something for every preference?

A handful of non-fiction books that I expect will be of interest to crime-fiction fans are identified below with asterisks (*); the rest are novels or collections of short stories. If you need still more reading suggestions, click on over to Euro Crime and The Bloodstained Bookshelf. And if you think I have overlooked any tales of particular interest due out this summer, please feel free to tell us all about them via the Comments link at the bottom of this post.

JUNE (U.S.):

• Bearskin, by James A. McLaughlin (Ecco)

• A Blood Thing, by James Hankins (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Body in the Ballroom, by R.J. Koreto (Crooked Lane)

• Bring Me Back, by B.A. Paris (St. Martin’s Press)

• Broken Ground, by Joe Clifford (Oceanview)

• Broken Ice, by Matt Goldman (Forge)

• Bum Deal, by Paul Levine (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Cabin at the End of the World, by Paul Tremblay (Morrow)

• The Captives, by Debra Jo Immergut (Ecco)

• The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder, by Sarah J. Harris (Touchstone)

• Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World’s Most Famous Detective Writer, by Margalit Fox (Random House)*

• The Darkest Time of Night, by Jeremy Finley (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Death Chamber, by Lesley Thomson (Head of Zeus)

• To Die in Vienna, by Kevin Wignall (Thomas & Mercer)

• District VIII, by Adam LeBor (Pegasus)

• Girl with a Gun, by Kari Bovee (SparkPress)

• The Good Son, by You-Jeong Jeong (Penguin)

• Hawke’s War, by Reavis Z. Wortham (Pinnacle)

• Invitation to a Bonfire, by Adrienne Celt (Bloomsbury)

• Island of the Mad, by Laurie R. King (Bantam)

• Jar of Hearts, by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur)

• The Killing Habit, by Mark Billingham (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• Last Girl Gone, by J.G. Hetherton (Crooked Lane)

• Like to Die, by David Housewright (Minotaur)

• The Little Old Lady Behaving Badly, by Catharina
Ingelman-Sundberg (Harper)

• London Rules, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)

• Lying in Wait, by Liz Nugent (Gallery/Scout Press)

• A Mask of Shadows,
by Oscar de Muriel (Pegasus)

• Mine: A Novel of Obsession,
by J.L. Butler (Morrow)

• Murder on the Left Bank,
by Cara Black (Soho Crime)

• Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense, by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)

• The Perfect Couple,
by Elin Hilderbrand (Little, Brown)

• The President Is Missing, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson (Little, Brown)

• Providence, by Caroline Kepnes (Lenny)

• Queen’s Progress, by M.J. Trow (Severn House)

• The Real Michael Swann, by Bryan Reardon (Dutton)

• The Red Hand of Fury, by R.N. Morris (Severn House)

• Salt Lane, by William Shaw (Mulholland)

• Santa Cruz Noir, edited by Susie Bright (Akashic)

• See Her Run, by Peggy Townsend (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Shimmer, by Carsten Stroud (Mira)

• Side by Side, by Jenni L. Walsh (Forge)

• Slowly We Die, by Emelie Schepp (Mira)

• Social Creature, by Tara Isabella Burton (Doubleday)

• Something in the Water, by Catherine Steadman (Ballantine)

• Splinter in the Blood, by Ashley Dyer (Morrow)

• A Steep Price, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)

• Still Lives, by Maria Hummel (Counterpoint)

• A Stone’s Throw, by James W. Ziskin (Seventh Street)

• A Study in Treason, by Leonard Goldberg (Minotaur)

• A Taste for Vengeance, by Martin Walker (Knopf)

• Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto (Black Balloon)

• Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht (Tin House)

• Widows, by Lynda La Plante (Zaffre)

• Woman at the Devil’s Door: The Untold True Story of the Hampstead Murderess, by Sarah Beth Hopton (Indiana University Press)*

• The Woman in the Woods, by John Connolly (Atria/Emily Bestler)

• The Word Is Murder, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)

JUNE (UK):

• Beautiful Liars, by Isabel Ashdown (Trapeze)

• Big Sister, by Gunnar Staalesen (Orenda)

• Bitter Sun, by Beth Lewis (Borough Press)

• The Blood Road, by Stuart MacBride (HarperCollins)

• The Chosen Ones, by Howard Linskey (Penguin)

• City of Sinners, by A.A. Dhand (Bantam Press)

• Dancing on the Grave, by Zoë Sharp (Zace)

• Dark Queen Rising, by Paul Doherty (Creme de la Crime)

• The Dead Ex, by Jane Corry (Penguin)

• Death Notice, by Zhou Haohui (Head of Zeus)

• Double Take, by S.J. Watson (Harper)

• Estocada, by Graham Hurley (Head of Zeus)

• Firefly, by Henry Porter (Quercus)

• Fugitive from the Grave, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)

• Incorruptible, by Barbara Nadel (Headline)

• The Lies We Tell,
by Kristina Ohlsson (Simon & Schuster)

• Loose Tongues,
by Chris Simms (Severn House)

• The Man Between,
by Charles Cumming (HarperCollins)

• The Old Religion,
by Martyn Waites (Zaffre)

• The Other Wife, by Michael Robotham (Sphere)

• The Quaker, by Liam McIlvanney (HarperCollins)

• The Sideman, by Caro Ramsay (Severn House)

• Smoke and Ashes, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)

• Thirteen, by Steve Cavanagh (Orion)

• Three Little Lies, by Laura Marshall (Sphere)

• Us Against You, by Fredrik Backman (Michael Joseph)

JULY (U.S.):

• After the Monsoon, by Robert Karjel (Harper)

• All These Beautiful Strangers, by Elizabeth Klehfoth (Morrow)

• The Annotated Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler; edited by Owen Hill, Pamela Jackson, and Anthony Dean Rizzuto (Vintage Crime/
Black Lizard)

• April in Paris, 1921, by Tessa Lunney (Pegasus)

• Baby Blue, by Pol Koutsakis (Bitter Lemon Press)

• Baby’s First Felony, by John Straley (Soho Crime)

• Baby Teeth, by Zoje Stage (St. Martin’s Press)

• Believe Me, by J.P. Delaney (Ballantine)

• The Big Somewhere: Essays on James Ellroy’s Noir World, edited by Steven Powell (Bloomsbury Academic)*

• Bloody Sunday, by Ben Coes (St. Martin’s Press)

• Bound for Gold, by William Martin (Forge)

• The Boy at the Door, by Alex Dahl (Berkley)

• Caged, by Ellison Cooper (Minotaur)

• Caught in Time, by Julie McElwain (Pegasus)

• A Death in Eden, by Keith McCafferty (Viking)

• The Deepest Grave, by Jeri Westerson (Severn House)

• The Disappearing, by Lori Roy (Dutton)

• The Dollar-a-Year Detective, by William Wells (Permanent Press)

• A Double Life, by Flynn Berry (Viking)

• Final Resting Place,
by Jonathan F. Putnam (Crooked Lane)

• A Gathering of Secrets,
by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)

• A Gentleman’s Murder,
by Christopher Huang (Inkshares)

• The Girl from Blind River,
by Gale Massey (Crooked Lane)

• Give Me Your Hand,
by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown)

• Hangman, by Daniel Cole (Ecco)

• Her Sister’s Lie, by Debbie Howells (Kensington)

• Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shaffer (Quirk)

• In the Vines, by Shannon Kirk (Thomas & Mercer)

• It All Falls Down, by Sheena Kamal (Morrow)

• Last Seen Alive, by Claire Douglas (Harper)

• The Last Time I Lied, by Riley Sager (Dutton)

• Memphis Luck, by Gerald Duff (Brash)

• The Moment Before Drowning, by James Brydon (Akashic)

• The Night Ferry, by Lotte and Søren Hammer (Bloomsbury)

• A Noise Downstairs, by Linwood Barclay (Morrow)

• Only to Sleep, by Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth)

• The Other Woman, by Daniel Silva (Harper)

• Pandora’s Boy, by Lindsey Davis (Minotaur)

• Paradox, by Catherine Coulter (Gallery)

• Potter’s Field, by Rob Hart (Polis)

• The Price You Pay, by Aidan Truhen (Knopf)

• Requiem, by Geir Tangen (Minotaur)

• Rip the Angels from Heaven, by David Krugler (Pegasus)

• Safe Houses, by Dan Fesperman (Knopf)

• The Sinners, by Ace Atkins (Putnam)

• Somebody’s Daughter, by David Bell (Berkley)

• Some Die Nameless, by Wallace Stroby (Mulholland)

• Soul Survivor, by G.M. Ford (Thomas & Mercer)

• Spymaster, by Brad Thor (Atria/Emily Bestler)

• Stay Hidden, by Paul Doiron (Minotaur)

• A Tale of Two Murders, by Heather Redmond (Kensington)

• The Thief of All Light, by Bernard Schaffer (Kensington)

• Understudy for Death, by Charles Willeford (Hard Case Crime)

• The Upper Hand, by Johnny Shaw (Thomas & Mercer)

• Watch the Girls, by Jennifer Wolfe (Grand Central)

• White River Burning, by John Verdon (Counterpoint)

JULY (UK):

• Bad, by Chloe Esposito (Michael Joseph)

• Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire, by M.R.C. Kasasian
(Head of Zeus)

• Bodies from the Library: Lost Classic Stories by Masters of the Golden Age, edited by Tony Medawar (Collins Crime Club)

• The Break Line, by James Brabazon (Michael Joseph)

• Careless Love, by Peter Robinson (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Cold Desert Sky, by Rod Reynolds (Faber and Faber)

• The Corpse at the Crystal Palace, by Carola Dunn (Constable)

• Day of the Dead, by Nicci French
(Michael Joseph)

• Dead of Night, by Michael Stanley (Orenda)

• Dead Man’s Gift and Other Stories, by Simon Kernick (Century)

• The Forger, by Cay Rademacher (Arcadia)

• Our Friends in Berlin, by Anthony Quinn (Jonathan Cape)

• The Good Sister, by Morgan Jones (Mantle)

• In the Dark, by Cara Hunter (Viking)

• In the Garden of the Fugitives, by Ceridwen Dovey (Hamish Hamilton)

• Open Your Eyes, by Paula Daly (Corgi)

• The Savage Shore, by David Hewson (Severn House)

• Sins As Scarlet, by Nicolás Obregón (Michael Joseph)

• Sticks and Stones, by Jo Jakeman (Harvill Secker)

• Stick Together, by Sophie Hénaff (MacLehose Press)

• The Story Keeper, by Anna Mazzola (Tinder Press)

• An Unfinished Murder, by Ann Granger (Headline)

• Unrest, by Jesper Stein (Mirror)

• Watching You, by Lisa Jewell (Century)

• Yellowhammer, by James Henry (Riverrun)

• Zero, by Marc Elsberg (Doubleday)

AUGUST (U.S.):

• Abandoned, by Allison Brennan (Minotaur)

• Back Door to L.A., by Jack Clark (CreateSpace)

• Bibliomysteries: Volume Two: Stories of Crime in the World of Books and Bookstores, edited by Otto Penzler (Pegasus)

• Black Hats, by Max Allan Collins (Brash)

• Blackout, by Ragnar Jónasson (Minotaur)

• Blood Highway, by Gina Wohlsdorf (Algonquin)

• Blood Work: Remembering Gary Schulze, Once Upon a Crime, edited by Rick Ollerman (Down & Out)

• Boise Longpig Hunting Club, by Nick Kolakowski (Down & Out)

• Bone on Bone, by Julia Keller (Minotaur)

• The Bouncer, by David Gordon (Mysterious Press)

• The Breakers, by Marcia Muller (Grand Central)

• A Conspiracy of Bones, by Kathy Reichs (Heinemann)

• Dead Man Running, by Steve Hamilton (Putnam)

• Derailed, by Leena Lehtolainen (AmazonCrossing)

• Desolation Mountain, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)

• Don’t Eat Me, by Colin Cotterill (Soho Crime)

• The Drama Teacher, by Koren Zailckas (Crown)

• Feared, by Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin’s Press)

• Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding, by Rhys Bowen (Berkley)

• Her Kind of Case, by Jeanne Winer (Bancroft Press)

• Hollywood Ending, by Kellye Garrett (Midnight Ink)

• The King Tides, by James Swain (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Last Hours, by Minette Walters (Mira)

• Last Looks, by Howard Michael Gould (Dutton)

• The Line That Held Us,
by David Joy (Putnam)

• A Long Time Coming,
by Aaron Elkins (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Masterpiece,
by Fiona Davis (Dutton)

• The Middleman,
by Olen Steinhauer (Minotaur)

• Murder in the Oval Library,
by C.M. Gleason (Kensington)

• The Mystery of Three Quarters, by Sophie Hannah (Morrow)

• Nameless Serenade, by Maurizio de Giovanni (World Noir)

• The Negotiator, by Brendan DuBois (Midnight Ink)

• Not Her Daughter, by Rea Frey (St. Martin’s Griffin)

• One on One, by Michael Brandman (Poisoned Pen Press)

• The Other Sister, by Sarah Zettel (Grand Central)

• The Other Woman, by Sandie Jones (Minotaur)

• Our House, by Louise Candlish (Berkley)

• Pieces of Her, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)

• Presiding Over the Damned, by Liam Sweeny (Down & Out)

• Presidio, by Randy Kennedy (Touchstone)

• The Prisoner in the Castle, by Susan Elia MacNeal (Bantam)

• Read Me, by Leo Benedictus (Twelve)

• Red, White, Blue, by Lea Carpenter (Knopf)

• The Reservoir Tapes, by Jon McGregor (Catapult)

• River of Secrets, by Roger Johns (Minotaur)

• Rust & Stardust, by T. Greenwood (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Second Son, by Martin Jay Weiss (Rare Bird)

• Sister of Mine, by Laurie Petrou (Crooked Lane)

• Smart Moves, by Adrian Magson (Dome Press)

• Snap, by Belinda Bauer (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• Sort ’Em Out Later, by Jim Wilsky (Down & Out)

• Suffer the Children, by Lisa Black (Kensington)

• Sweet Little Lies, by Caz Frear (Harper)

• Swift Vengeance, by T. Jefferson Parker (Putnam)

• Tear Me Apart, by J.T. Ellison (Mira)

• Touchfeather, Too, by Jimmy Sangster (Brash)

• Under a Dark Sky, by Lori Rader-Day (Morrow)

• Under an English Heaven: The Remarkable True Story of the 1969 British Invasion of Anguilla, by Donald E. Westlake (Silvertail)

• An Unwanted Guest, by Shari Lapena (Pamela Dorman/Viking)

• The Washington Decree, by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton)

• The Way of All Flesh, by Ambrose Parry (Canongate)

• The Weight of Silence, by Gregg Olsen (Thomas & Mercer)

• When You Can’t Stop, by James W. Hall (Thomas & Mercer)

• With You Always, by Rena Olsen (Putnam)

AUGUST (UK):

• An Autumn Hunting, by Tom Callaghan (Quercus)

• Broken Ground, by Val McDermid (Little, Brown)

• Fall Down Dead, by Stephen Booth (Sphere)

• The Girl I Used to Be, by Mary Torjussen (Headline)

• Intrigue in Covent Garden, by Susanna Gregory (Sphere)

• The Katharina Code, by Jørn Lier Horst (Michael Joseph)

• Kill With Kindness, by Ed James (Thomas & Mercer)

• A Lethal Frost, by Danny Miller (Bantam Press)

• Murder Mile, by Lynda La Plante (Zaffre)

• Prague Spring, by Simon Mawer (Little, Brown)

• The Red Ribbon, by H.P. Lyle (Hodder & Stoughton)

• A Summer of Murder, by Oliver Bottini (MacLehose Press)

• A Treachery of Spies, by Manda Scott (Bantam Press)