Savor Your Right to Read This Spring

Count me among those who are contemptuous—and proudly so—of book-banning. People who believe that society is better off denying its history, its record of past poor judgments, and its racial and ethnic inequities by censoring reading material are doing themselves and our planet an unforgivable disservice. The only way to fully understand the present and perhaps improve the future is to give voice to all of those who wish to be heard, whether we agree with them or not. Those who are so small-minded as to deny Americans—especially young Americans—the chance to read books by people who harbor different beliefs and different perspectives on the world aren’t protecting anyone; they’re only championing ignorance at a dire cost to enlightenment. “Censorship,” intoned former U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart, “reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.”

Yet parochial bomb-throwers in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere continue to insist there’s no room for writers who might challenge our orthodox view of things, or who might cause children to question the values of their elders. According to Lit Reactor, the free-expression advocates at PEN America found “2,532 instances of book bans between July 2021 and June 2022. This number is staggering, especially when you consider these are just the bans PEN America is aware of—it’s unclear how many challenges and bans there are that haven’t been reported.” Those fervid assaults on literacy are frequently aimed at particular identity groups, “predominantly LGBTQ narratives and characters and people of color—characters and stories,” explains Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson, a writer who’s been tracking book challenges across the United States. “[It goes] back and forth between which is the number one.” Stories pertaining to sexual identity and coming-of-age difficulties are frequently attacked, as well.

A CBS News story from late last year about “the 50 most banned books in America” included no crime, mystery, or thriller titles. However, some such works have come in for ridicule, notable among them being Harper Lee’s To Kill and Mockingbird (1960) and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003). And with censorious right-wingers now in high dudgeon, there’s nothing to prevent them from coming after our favorite genre in the near future. Which would be its own kind of offense, because if there’s one thing crime and mystery fiction does well, it’s to lay bare to scrutiny our culture’s accepted improprieties, deliberate self-deceptions, and moral fractures. At its best, this field of fiction not only entertains, but deftly employs the conventions of criminal investigation to investigate the conventional wisdom of our times.

Fortunately, accounts of criminal and sleuthing escapades are not yet being ripped from library shelves or damned in spittle-spattered effusions on nightly TV news programs. Instead, their numbers are burgeoning. Setting myself to the task of cataloguing what I think will be this genre’s most interesting and distinctive additions, due out this spring on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, I came up with more than 375 titles. And that’s a fraction of the total set to debut.



Numbering among that profusion will be novels by Eleanor Catton (of The Luminaries fame), Joe R. Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Harlan Coben, Andrew Taylor, Samantha Jayne Allen, Don Winslow, John Lawton, Anne Perry, Linwood Barclay, Candice Fox, Ben Creed, Jacqueline Winspear, Jo Nesbø, T.J. Newman, Eli Cranor, Elly Griffiths, and Alan Parks. Keep your eyes peeled, too, for Blind Spots, a speculative thriller from Thomas Mullen, author of the Darktown series; Megan Abbott’s vacation-gone-awry drama, Beware the Woman; Tim Mason’s The Nightingale Affair, his Victorian-era sequel to 2019’s captivating The Darwin Affair; Mark Billingham’s introduction of a brand-new detective in The Last Dance; Small Mercies, a “tumultuous” tale of tensions in 1970s Boston from Dennis Lehane; the sinister Looking Glass Sound, from Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street; Martin Cruz Smith’s 10th Arkady Renko mystery, Independence Square; Ivy Pochada’s “gritty, feminist Western thriller,” Sing Her Down; the fourth Rachel Savernake mystery from Martin Edwards, Sepulchre Street; and the U.S. release of Peter Robinson’s 28th—and final—Alan Banks yarn, Standing in the Shadows.

Also awaiting publication between now and the end of May are several non-fiction titles of likely interest to Rap Sheet readers, such as Timothy Egan’s “riveting” Ku Klux Klan history, A Fever in the Heartland, and The Wager, an 18th-century shipwreck-and-savagery grabber from David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z.

Should any of today’s priggish book banners seek to steal my copies of these gems, they’ll have to rip them from my cold, dead hands!

Following my customary pattern with these quarterly lists, I have marked non-fiction releases appearing below with an asterisk (*), while the remainder are novels or collections of short stories.

MARCH (U.S.):
• All the Queen’s Spies, by Oliver Clements (Atria/Leopoldo & Co.)
• All That Is Hidden, by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles (Minotaur)
• All That Is Mine I Carry with Me, by William Landay (Bantam)
• The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring, by Patti McCracken (Morrow)*
• Bert and Mamie Take a Cruise, by John Keyse-Walker (Severn House)
• Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Blood on the Siberian Snow, by C.J. Farrington (Constable)
• Bones Under the Ice, by Mary Ann Miller (Oceanview)
• Burning Distance, by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman (Oceanview)
• Chopped, by Dale M. Pollock (Shadowbrook)
• Conspiracy of Blood, by Katarzyna Bonda (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Cost of Deceit, by H. Mitchell Caldwell (Nine Innings Press)
• A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands, by Zephaniah Sole
(Black Spring Press)
• Crooked: The Roaring ’20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal, by Nathan Masters (Hachette)*
• The Dangers of This Night, by Matthew Booth (Level Best)
• Dark Queen Wary, by Paul Doherty (Severn House)
• Dead Find, by T.F. Muir (Constable)
• The Deadly Weed, by Cora Harrison (Severn House)
• Dead Man Inside, by Vincent Starrett (American Mystery Classics)
• The Dead Will Rise, by Chris Nickson (Severn House)
• Death and Croissants, by Ian Moore (Poisoned Pen Press)
• A Death at the Party, by Amy Stuart (Simon & Schuster)
• A Death in Denmark, by Amulya Malladi (Morrow)
• Death of a Bookseller, by Bernard J. Farmer (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Death Ride, by Nick Oldham (Severn House)
• Death Watch, by Stona Fitch (Arrow Editions)
• Deep Fake, by Ward Larsen (Forge)
• Deliver Them from Evil, by Amanda DuBois (Girl Friday)
• Dr. Gatskill’s Blue Shoes, by Paul Conant (Stark House Press)
• The Donut Legion, by Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland)
• Even When You Lie, by Michelle Cruz (Crooked Lane)
• The Family Bones, by Elle Marr (Thomas & Mercer)
• Fancy Anders For the Boys, by Max Allan Collins (NeoText)
• A Flaw in the Design, by Nathan Oates (Random House)
• Flux, by Jinwoo Chong (Melville House)
• Force of Hate, by Graham Bartlett (Allison & Busby)
• 48 Clues Into the Disappearance of My Sister, by Joyce Carol Oates
(Mysterious Press)
• Gangbuster: One Man’s Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan, by Alan Prendergast (Citadel)*
• Gentleman Bandit: The True Story of Black Bart, the Old West's Most Infamous Stagecoach Robber, by John Boessenecker (Hanover Square Press)*
• A Gentle Murderer, by Dorothy Salisbury Davis (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Golden Spoon, by Jessa Maxwell (Atria)
• Gone Again, by Minka Kent (Thomas & Mercer)
• Good Dog, Bad Cop, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)
• The Guilty One, by Bill Schweigart (Crooked Lane)
• Her Deadly Game, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)
• Hiss and Tell, by Rita Mae Brown (Bantam)
• How I’ll Kill You, by Ren DeStefano (Berkley)
• Intrigue in Istanbul, by Erica Ruth Neubauer (Kensington)
• I Will Find You, by Harlan Coben (Grand Central)
• The Kind Worth Saving, by Peter Swanson (Morrow)
• The Last Russian Doll, by Kristen Loesch (Berkley)
• The London Séance Society, by Sarah Penner (Park Row)
• The Lost Americans, by Christopher Bollen (Harper)
• Loyalty, by Lisa Scottoline (Putnam)
• The Maid’s Diary, by Loreth Anne White (Montlake)
• A Mansion for Murder, by Frances Brody (Crooked Lane)
• The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older (Tordotcom)
• Mission in Malmö, by Torquil MacLeod (McNidder and Grace)
• A Most Intriguing Lady, by Sarah Ferguson (Avon)
• Mothered, by Zoje Stage (Thomas & Mercer)
• Murder in Postscript, by Mary Winters (Berkley)
• The Murder of Madison Garcia, by Marcy McCreary (CamCat)
• Murder Under a Red Moon, by Harini Nagendra (Pegasus Crime)
• Never Seen Again, by Paul Finch (Orion)
• Never Sleep, by Fred Van Lente (Blackstone)
• The New One, by Evie Green (Berkley)
• Night Flight to Paris, by Cara Black (Soho Crime)
• Not So Perfect Strangers, by L.S. Stratton (Union Square)
• Now You See Us, by Balli Kaur Jaswal (Morrow)
• One Extra Corpse, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)
• Philanthropists: Inspector Mislan and the Executioners, by Rozlan Mohd Noor (Arcade Crimewise)
• Play the Fool, by Lina Chern (Bantam)
• A Praying Mantis, by R.V. Raman (Agora)
• The Protégé, by Jody Gehrman (Crooked Lane)
• The Raven Thief, by Gigi Pandian (Minotaur)
• Red as Blood, by Lilja Sigurdardóttir (Orenda)
• Red London, by Alma Katsu (Putnam)
• Red Queen, by Juan Gómez-Jurado (Minotaur)
• The Refusal Camp, by James R. Benn (Soho Crime)
• The Running Girls, by Matt Brolly (Thomas & Mercer)
• Satellite Boy: The International Manhunt for a Master Thief That Launched the Modern Communications Age, by Andrew Amelinckx (Counterpoint)*
• The Schoolhouse, by Sophie Ward (Vintage)
• Sell Us the Rope, by Stephen May (Bloomsbury)
• Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy, by Alex Mar (Penguin Press)*
• The Shoemaker’s Magician, by Cynthia Pelayo (Agora)
• A Sinister Revenge, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
• So Close, by Sylvia Day (Ronin House)
• So Shall You Reap, by Donna Leon (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Speak for the Dead, by Amy Tector (Keylight)
• Standing Dead, by Margaret Mizushima (Crooked Lane)
• Sunset Empire, by Josh Weiss (Grand Central)
• The Syndicate Spy, by Brittany Butler (Greenleaf)
• A Tempest at Sea, by Sherry Thomas (Berkley)
• Those Empty Eyes, by Charlie Donlea (Kensington)
• Tina, Mafia Soldier, by Maria Rosa Cutrufelli (Soho Crime)
• Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession, and the Birth of the Lie Detector, by Amit Katwala (Crooked Lane)*
• Unfinished Business, by Leye Adenle (Cassava Republic Press)
• Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Berkley)
• What Have We Done, by Alex
Finlay (Minotaur)
• White Fox, by Owen Matthews (Doubleday)
• The White Lady, by Jacqueline
Winspear (Harper)
• Wolf Trap, by Connor Sullivan (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• Woman of the Year, by Darcey Bell (Atria/Emily Bestler)

MARCH (UK):
• The Anniversary, by Stephanie Bishop (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Because She Looked Away, by Alison Bruce (Constable)
• A Bitter Remedy, by Alis Hawkins (Canelo)
• The Black Spectacles, by John Dickson Carr (British Library
Crime Classics)
• The Boys, by Kimberley Chambers (HarperCollins)
• By Way of Sorrow, by Robyn Gigl (Verve)
• The Close, by Jane Casey (HarperCollins)
• The Company, by J.M. Varese (Baskerville)
• Death Comes to the Costa del Sol, by M.H. Eccleston
(Head of Zeus/Aries)
• Dirty Laundry, by Disha Bose (Viking)
• The Dying Place, by Charly Cox (Canelo Hera)
• Eleven Liars, by Robert Gold (Sphere)
• End of Story, by Louise Swanson (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Favour, by Nicci French (Simon & Schuster)
• Freeze, by Kate Simants (Viper)
• The Girl by the Bridge, by Arnaldur Indridason (Harvill Secker)
• The Institution, by Helen Fields (Avon)
• The Last Highway, by R.J. Ellory (Orion)
• Mother’s Day, by Abigail Burdess (Wildfire)
• Murder at Home: How Our Safest Space Is Where We’re Most in Danger, by David Wilson (Sphere)*
• Murder at Waldenmere Lake, by Michelle Salter (Boldwood)
• On the Savage Side, by Tiffany McDaniel (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Operation Chiffon: The Secret Story of MI5 and MI6 and the Road to Peace in Ireland, by Peter Taylor (Bloomsbury)*
• Pay the Price, by Sam Tobin (Hodder Paperbacks)
• A Pen Dipped in Poison, by J.M. Hall (Avon)
• Private Lessons, by Bernard O’Keeffe (Muswell Press)
• Pure Evil, by Lynda La Plante (Zaffre)
• The Running Club, by Ali Lowe (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Shadowside, by Neil Root (Dime Crime)
• The Shadows of London, by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins)
• Sinister Spring, by Agatha Christie (HarperCollins)
• The Sins of Our Fathers, by Åsa Larsson (MacLehose Press)
• The Spy Across the Water, by James Naughtie (Head of Zeus/Aries)
• Strange Sally Diamond, by Liz Nugent (Sandycove)
• Tomás Nevinson, by Javier Marías (Hamish Hamilton)
• The Translator, by Harriet Crawley (Bitter Lemon Press)
• The Ugly Truth, by L.C. North (Bantam Press)
• Until Proven Innocent, by Nicola Williams (Hamish Hamilton)
• What the Shadows Hide, by M.J. Lee (Canelo)
• Where the Guilty Hide, by Annette Dashofy (One More Chapter)
• The Wrecker’s Curse, by Jo Silva (One More Chapter)
• The Wrong Mother, by Charlotte Duckworth (Quercus)

APRIL (U.S.):
• After He’s Gone, by Katherine Bolger Hyde (Severn House)
• The Alarm of the Black Cat, by Dolores Hitchens (American
Mystery Classics)
• An American in Scotland, by Lucy Connelly (Crooked Lane)
• Before We Were Innocent, by Ella Berman (Berkley)
• Blind Spots, by Thomas Mullen (Minotaur)
• The Body by the Sea, by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)
• The Chateau, by Jaclyn Goldis (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• City of Dreams, by Don Winslow (Morrow)
• City Walls, by Loren D. Estleman (Forge)
• Crimeucopia: Strictly Off the Record, edited by John Connor (Murderous Ink Press)
• Cursed Bread, by Sophie Mackintosh (Doubleday)
• Dark Angel, by John Sandford (Putnam)
• The Darkest Game, by Joseph Schneider (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Dead in the Water, by Mark Ellis (Headline Accent)
• The Dead of Night, by Elaine Viets (Severn House)
• Death in the Dark, by Kitty Murphy (Thomas & Mercer)
• Death of a Bookseller, by Alice Slater (Scarlet)
• Dirty Laundry, by Disha Bose (Ballantine)
• Double Exposure, by Colin Campbell (Down & Out)
• Double or Nothing, by Kim Sherwood (Morrow)
• Downfall, by Mark Rubinstein (Oceanview)
• Eat, Drink and Drop Dead, by T.C. LoTempio (Severn House)
• The Eden Test, by Adam Sternbergh (Flatiron)
• A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, by Timothy
Egan (Viking)*
• Follow Me to Hell: McNelly’s Texas Rangers and the Rise of Frontier Justice, by Tom Clavin (St. Martin’s Press)*
• The Forgetting, by Hannah Beckerman (Lake Union)
• For You and Only You, by Caroline Kepnes (Random House)
• The Fourth Enemy, by Anne Perry (Ballantine)
• Games for Dead Girls, by Jen Williams (Crooked Lane)
• Going Zero, by Anthony McCarten (Harper)
• The Golden Doves, by Martha Hall Kelly (Ballantine)
• The Grave Singer, by Victor Methos (Thomas & Mercer)
• Green for Danger, by Christianna Brand (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Guns, Dames and Private Eyes: The Rivals of Philip Marlowe,
edited by Nick Rennison (No Exit)
• Gutter Road / You Can’t Stop Me, by Robert Silverberg
(Stark House Press)
• Halifax: Transgression, by Roger Simpson (Blackstone)
• Hard Rain, by Samantha Jayne Allen (Minotaur)
• Haunting Pasts, by Trevor Wiltzen (Independently published)
• Heart of the Nile, by Will Thomas (Minotaur)
• Hollow Beasts, by Alisa Lynn Valdés (Thomas & Mercer)
• Hollow Man, by David Mar (Austin Macauley)
• Homecoming, by Kate Morton (Mariner)
• The Housemate, by Sarah Bailey (Polis)
• I’ll Stop the World, by Lauren Thoman (Mindy’s Book Studio)
• Inspector French: Fear Comes to Chalfont, by Freeman Wills Crofts (Collins Crime Club)
• Inspector French: James Tarrant, Adventurer, by Freeman Wills Crofts (Collins Crime Club)
• The Last Heir to Blackwood Library, by Hester Fox (Graydon House)
• The Last Remains, by Elly Griffiths (Mariner)
• Lost in Paris, by Betty Webb (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Mad Money, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)
• Mastering the Art of French Murder, by Colleen Cambridge (Kensington)
• More Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties, edited by Michael Bracken (Down & Out)
• Moscow Exile, by John Lawton (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Murder on Bedford Street, by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)
• No Man’s Ghost, by Jason Powell (Agora)
• Not of This World, by Simon R. Green (Severn House)
• Not the Ones Dead, by Dana Stabenow (Head of Zeus)
• The Only Survivors, by Megan Miranda (S&S/Marysue Rucci)
• Ozark Dogs, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)
• Panther Gap, by James A. McLaughlin (Flatiron)
• The Partisan, by Patrick Worrall (Union Square)
• The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China, by James M. Zimmerman (PublicAffairs)*
• Private Destiny, by Jonathan Gabel (Independently published)
• Red Team Blues, by Cory Doctorow (Tor)
• The Rescue, by T. Jefferson Parker (Forge)
• The Rewards of Treachery, by Rosemary Rowe (Severn House)
• The Rise and Fall of Ava Arcana, by Jennifer Banash (Lake Union)
• The Secret Service of Tea and Treason, by India Holton (Berkley)
• See It End, by Brianna Labuskes (Thomas & Mercer)
• Seven Girls Gone, by Allison Brennan (Mira)
• Shadow of Death, by Heather Graham (Mira)
• Sherlock Holmes and the Unmasking of the Whitechapel Horror, by Frank Emerson (MX)
• Simply Lies, by David Baldacci
(Grand Central)
• Sisters of the Lost Nation, by Nick
Medina (Berkley)
• Small Mercies, by Dennis Lehane (Harper)
• Sons and Brothers, by Kim Hays
(Seventh Street)
• The Soulmate, by Sally Hepworth
(St. Martin’s Press)
• A Spoonful of Murder, by J.M. Hall (Avon)
• Spider, by Azma Dar (Datura)
• Standing in the Shadows, by Peter Robinson (Morrow)
• Sunset and Jericho, by Sam Wiebe (Harbour)
• Symphony of Secrets, by Brendan Slocumb (Anchor)
• There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History, by Rory Carroll (Putnam)*
• This Rancid Mill, by Kyle Decker (PM Press)
• The Tip Line, by Vanessa Cuti (Crooked Lane)
• To Track a Traitor, by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Editions)
• A Truth for a Truth, by Carol Wyer (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, by David
Grann (Doubleday)*
• The Way of the Bear, by Anne Hillerman (Harper)
• We Love to Entertain, by Sarah Strohmeyer (Harper)
• Where Are the Children Now? by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke (Simon & Schuster)
• Who Cries for the Lost, by C.S. Harris (Berkley)
• With My Little Eye, by Joshilyn Jackson (Morrow)
• You Know Her, by Meagan Jennett (MCD)
• You Should Have Known, by Rebecca A. Keller (Crooked Lane)
• You Shouldn’t Have Come Here, by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone)

APRIL (UK):
• The Acapulco, by Simone Buchholz (Orenda)
• The Birthday Girl, by Sarah Ward (Canelo)
• Blood Runs Cold, by Neil Lancaster (HQ)
• Cast a Cold Eye, by Robbie Morrison (Macmillan)
• The Consultant, by Im Seong-sun (Raven)
• Crow Moon, by Suzy Aspley (Orenda)
• Dark Mode, by Ashley Kalagian Blunt (Ultimo Press)
• Date with Evil, by Julia Chapman (Pan)
• Death at the Terminus, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)
• Death Under a Little Sky, by Stig Abell (HarperCollins)
• The Detective, by Ajay Chowdhury (Harvill Secker)
• The Fall, by Louise Jensen (HQ)
• Fatal Legacy, by Lindsey Davis (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Her Sweet Revenge, by Sarah Bonner (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Hike, by Lucy Clarke (HarperCollins)
• The House in the Woods, by Mark Dawson (Welbeck)
• The House of Whispers, by Anna Mazzola (Orion)
• If We Were Villains (Illustrated Edition), by M.L. Rio (Titan)
• I Know Who You Were, by Nick Curran (Constable)
• A Killer in the Family, by Gytha Lodge (Michael Joseph)
• Killing Jericho, by William Hussey (Zaffre)
• Leave No Trace, by M.J. White (Canelo Hera)
• Looking Glass Sound, by Catriona
Ward (Viper)
• Lost Women, by Neil Humphreys
(Muswell Press)
• The Midnight Conspiracy, by David Leadbeater (Avon)
• The Monk, by Tim Sullivan
(Head of Zeus/Aries)
• Murder at Down Street Station, by Jim Eldridge (Allison & Busby)
• #Panic, by Luke Jennings (John Murray)
• Portrait of a Murder, by Michael Jecks (Severn House)
• The Red Bird Sings, by Aoife Fitzpatrick (Virago)
• The Red Hotel: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Disinformation War,
by Alan Philips (Headline)*
• Rivers of Treason, by K.J. Maitland (Headline Review)
• A Score to Settle, by Caz Finlay (One More Chapter)
• The Sinner’s Mark, by S.W. Perry (Corvus)
• Subject: Murder, by Clifford Witting (Galileo)
• There’s Something I Have to Tell You, by Michelle McDonagh (Hachette Ireland)
• A Traitor Among Us, by Anne Perry (Headline)
• The Trip, by Rebecca Ley (Orion)
• Twice Around the Clock, by Billie Houston (British Library Crime Classics)
• Twin Truths, by Jacqueline Sutherland (Point Blank)
• Viper’s Dream, by Jake Lamar (No Exit Press)
• The Warlock Effect, by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman
(Hodder & Stoughton)
• Web of Lies, by Paul Gitsham (HQ)

MAY (U.S.):
• The Art of Ron Lesser Volume 1: Deadly Dames and Sexy Sirens, edited by Bob Deis, Bill Cunningham, and J. Kingston Pierce (Independently published)*
• Austin Noir, edited by Hopeton Hay, Scott Montgomery,
and Molly Odintz (Akashic)
• Back to the Dirt, by Frank Bill (FSG)
• Bad, Bad Seymour Brown, by Susan Isaacs (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Bad Summer People, by Emma Rosenblum (Flatiron)
• Between Two Strangers, by Kate White (Harper)
• Beware the Woman, by Megan Abbott (Putnam)
• The Body in the Web, by Katherine Hall Page (Morrow)
• Broken Light, by Joanne Harris (Pegasus Crime)
• The Cargo from Neira, by Alys Clare (Severn House)
• Central Park West, by James Comey (Mysterious Press)
• Chasing the Black Eagle, by Bruce Geddes (Dundurn Press)
• Citizen Orlov, by Jonathan Payne (CamCat)
• Death of a Stray Cat / An Affair of the Heart, by Jean Potts (Stark House Press)
• The Devil You Know, by Chris Hauty (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• Drowning, by T.J. Newman (Avid
Reader Press)
• Fire with Fire, by Candice Fox (Forge)
• Fixit, by Joe Ide (Mulholland)
• Get Up Offa That Thing: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of James Brown, edited by Gary Phillips (Down & Out)
• The Girl on the Bridge, by Arnaldur Indridason (Minotaur)
• A Hobby of Murder, by E.X. Ferrars (Felony & Mayhem Press)
• The Ice Cream Man, by Big Boy Pete (Stark House Press)
• Independence Square, by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster)
• Inspector French: The Affair of Little Wokeham, by Freeman Wills Crofts (Collins Crime Club)
• Inspector French: A Losing Game, by Freeman Wills Crofts
(Collins Crime Club)
• Keep Her Secret, by Mark Edwards (Thomas & Mercer)
• Killing Me, by Michelle Gagnon (Putnam)
• Killing Moon, by Jo Nesbø (Knopf)
• The Last Songbird, by Daniel Weizmann (Melville House)
• The Late Mrs. Willoughby, by Claudia Gray (Vintage)
• The Lie Maker, by Linwood Barclay (Morrow)
• A Line in the Sand, by Kevin Powers (Little, Brown)
• The Lock-Up, by John Banville (Hanover Square Press)
• Love Betrayal Murder, by Adam Mitzner (Blackstone)
• Midsummer Mysteries: Tales from the Queen of Mystery, by Agatha Christie (Morrow)
• The Midnight News, by Jo Baker (Knopf)
• The Mill House Murders, by Yukito Ayatsuji (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Mother’s Instinct, by Barbara Abel (HarperVia)
• Murder at the Bookstore, by Sue Minix (Avon)
• The Nigerwife, by Vanessa Walters (Atria)
• The Nightingale Affair, by Tim Mason (Algonquin)
• Nightwork, by Joseph Hansen (Soho Syndicate)
• Nonna Maria and the Case of the Stolen Necklace, by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Bantam)
• No One Needs to Know, by Lindsay Cameron (Bantam)
• Obelists at Sea, by C. Daly King (American Mystery Classics)
• Only the Dead, by Jack Carr (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• Out of the Ashes, by Kara Thomas (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Overnights, by Ian K. Smith (Amistad)
• The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S.
Berry (Atria)
• Playing It Safe, by Ashley Weaver (Minotaur)
• The Private Lives of Spies and The Exquisite Art of Getting Even, by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon)
• Red Dirt Road, by S.R. White (Headline)
• Remain Silent, by Robyn Gigl (Kensington)
• Rogue Justice, by Stacey Abrams (Doubleday)
• The Rope Artist, by Fuminori Nakamura (Soho Crime)
• The Senator’s Wife, by Liv Constantine (Bantam)
• Sing Her Down, by Ivy Pochoda (MCD)
• The Sins of Our Fathers, by Åsa Larsson (Mobius)
• Six Ostriches, by Philipp Schott (ECW)
• Something Bad Wrong, by Eryk Pruitt (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Terror in the Emerald City, by D.D. Black
(Independently published)
• Titanium Noir, by Nick Harkaway (Knopf)
• Tomás Nevinson, by Javier Marías (Knopf)
• The Tumbling Girl, by Bridget Walsh (Gallic)
• The Twenty, by Sam Holland (Crooked Lane)
• The Vanishing Hour, by Seraphina Nova Glass (Graydon House)
• Viviana Valentine Goes Up the River, by Emily J. Edwards
(Crooked Lane)
• Where They Lie, by Joe Hart (Thomas & Mercer)

MAY (UK):
• Blotto, Twinks and the Conquistadors’ Gold, by Simon Brett (Constable)
• Children of the Sun, by Beth Lewis (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Coffee and Cigarettes: Scenes from a Crime Writer’s Life, by Ferdinand von Schirach (Baskerville)*
• Cold Fire, by Matt Hilton (Severn House)
• Cult, by Camilla Lackberg and Henrik Fexeus (HarperCollins)
• Don’t Look Back, by Jo Spain (Quercus)
• Double Illusion, by Barbara Nadel (Headline)
• The End of the Game, by Holly Watt (Raven)
• Endeavour: The Complete Series: An Unauthorized Guide to Endeavour, 2012-2023, by Chris Sullivan (Independently published)*
• The Fall, by Gilly Macmillan (Century)
• The Fallen, by John Sutherland (Orion)
• A Game of Deceit, by Tim Glister (Point Blank)
• The Girls of Summer, by Katie Bishop (Bantam Press)
• Grave Expectations, by Alice Bell (Corvus)
• The Guest Room, by Tasha Sylva (Welbeck)
• The Last Dance, by Mark Billingham (Sphere)
• The Last Passenger, by Will Dean
(Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Lazarus Solution, by Kjell Ola Dahl (Orenda)
• The Lost Wife, by Georgina Lees
(One More Chapter)
• The Man in the Corduroy Suit, by
James Wolff (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Medusa and the Devil, by Simon Marlowe (Cranthorpe Millner)
• Murder by Natural Causes, by Helen Erichsen (Muswell Press)
• No One Saw a Thing, by Andrea Mara (Bantam Press)
• Now You See Us, by Balli Kaur Jaswal (HarperCollins)
• Obsessed, by Liza North (Constable)
• On His Majesty’s Secret Service, by Charlie Higson (Ian Fleming Publications)
• Outback, by Michael Davies (Collins Crime Club)
• Salvage This World, by Michael Farris Smith (No Exit Press)
• The Scarlet Papers, by Matthew Richardson (Michael Joseph)
• Sepulchre Street, by Martin Edwards (Head of Zeus/Aries)
• The Serial Killer’s Sister, by Alice Hunter (Avon)
• Sherlock Holmes: The Monster of the Mere, by Philip Purser-
Hallard (Titan)
• Skin Deep, by Antonia Lassa (Corylus)
• The Summer Party, by Rebecca Heath (Head of Zeus/Aries)
• A Thief’s Justice, by Douglas Skelton (Canelo Adventure)
• Thirty Days of Darkness, by Jenny Lund Madsen (Orenda)
• To Die in June, by Alan Parks (Canongate)
• Unsolved, by Heather Critchlow (Canelo)
• The Vanishing of Class 3B, by Jackie Kabler (One More Chapter)
• Welsh Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards (British Library
Crime Classics)

I’ll do here what I typically do at the conclusion of these seasonal book lists, which is to solicit additional suggestions of must-read crime, mystery, and thriller titles due out over the next three months. This isn’t an invitation to publicists to hit me up with their clients’ underrecognized releases, but rather a call on my fellow genre readers to let me know what they’re looking forward to buying between now and summer. Please drop any further recommendations into the Comments section below.