Amazing! This marks the 10th time in a row that The Rap Sheet has showcased its contributors’ favorite crime, mystery, and thriller releases of the year. And the job never gets easier! Choosing favorites means revisiting everything we’ve read over the last 12 months, accepting the fact that there are other (usually many other) books we should have tackled but never quite got around to, and picking those works that struck us as the most well-plotted, most character-rich, and most memorably written that we enjoyed between January and December. We call these our “favorites,” rather than the “best of the year,” because we make no pretense of having read everything. Even if we had, these lists would still just express our opinions.
For many Americans at least, 2025 was a year we would prefer to forget. It brought with it inflated food and energy costs, crimes committed in our names (dehumanizing round-ups of immigrants, the murders of alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea), political incompetence and corruption in the nation’s capital, the undermining of U.S. democracy and the concentration of greater authority in the presidency, right-wing attacks on affordable health care coverage, and a short-sighted effort to distance the United States from its historic and cooperative involvement in world affairs. To name only a few things that bode ill for the future.
We don’t even want to think about skyrocketing printing costs, publishing consolidations, the negative affects artificial intelligence might have on the quality of literature to come and the ability of authors to make money from their writing, and declines in the media’s coverage of books—which seem destined to make it harder for customers to learn about new and noteworthy titles.
After weathering so much bad news, we’re tired. Which made it difficult to summon energies enough to champion books we loved in 2025. Yet there were certainly many works in this genre deserving of our applause—even if we could only mention them, without the thoughtful commentary we’ve offered in the past.
Some of those books will be highlighted in a series of posts from veteran Rap Sheet critics, set to roll out over the course of this week. (Expect the first to appear on this page at 1 p.m. today!) If you’ve read any of them, we hope our endorsement will confirm your outstanding taste. From among those with which you are less familiar, we hope you’ll find ideas for yourself or for gift giving this holiday season. Let us know what you think about our picks, and feel free to suggest other 2025 crime and thriller yarns you think also merit acclamation.
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