Out in Front of the Field

It’s only April, but already George Easter, the editor of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, is busy compiling an extensive list of 2024’s best crime, mystery, and thriller novels. Those picks are based on recommendations from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers’ Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and of course DP.

While Easter already proclaims Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark—due out from Crown in late June—to be his “favorite novel of the year so far (having read 46 crime and thriller novels this year),” there are so many more new and forthcoming titles included in DP’s inventory. They range from Simon Mason’s Lost and Never Found (Riverrun UK), Mark Billingham’s The Wrong Hands (Atlantic Monthly Press), and Tana French’s The Hunter (Viking) to Thomas Mullen’s The Rumor Game (Minotaur), Michelle Prak’s The Rush, Tom Baragwanath’s Paper Cage (Knopf), Kim Hays’ A Fondness for Truth (Seventh Street), and Matthew Richardson’s The Scarlet Papers (Penguin).

Disappointingly, one of my own favorite reads this year, C.B. Bernard’s Ordinary Bear (Blackstone), isn’t featured. I can only hope that novel will gain a following and touch readers’ hearts as powerfully as it did mine in time to win mention on others’ best-of-the-year lists.

Go here to see Easter’s evolving roll of 2024’s top choices.