The Rap Sheet

Who’s Ready to Party in Stirling?

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 16:07:00 +0000

Organizers of the international crime-fiction event Bloody Scotland today released their longlist of nominees for the 2026 McIlvanney Prize:

• The Hollow Boys, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• 138 Main Street, by Gavin Bell (Simon & Schuster UK)
• Quite Ugly One Evening, by Chris Brookmyre (Abacus)
• A Bad, Bad Place, by Frances Crawford (Bantam)
• Unknown, by Heather Critchlow (Canelo Crime)
• Solitary Agents, by David Goodman (Headline)
• We Know What You Did, by Kirsty Lockwood (Orion)
• Rat Race, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin Vertigo)
• The Diary of Lies, by Philip Miller (Polygon)
• The Pinnacle, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Viper)
• Liar Thief, by May Rinaldi (Black Spring Crime)

This award is named for novelist William McIlvanney (Laidlaw) and is intended to honor “the best Scottish Crime book of the year.” It’s sponsored by The Glencairn Glass.

The winner will be announced on Friday, September 18, along with this year’s recipient of the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize. There are five contenders for that latter commendation, all penned by women and all but one of them also a candidate for the McIlvanney:

• A Bad, Bad Place, by Frances Crawford (Bantam)
• Original Sins, by Linda Duncan McLaughlin (Into Books)
• We Know What You Did, by Kirsty Lockwood (Orion)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Viper)
• Liar Thief, by May Rinaldi (Black Spring Crime)

These presentations are elements of the schedule for the 2026 Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival, which will take place in Stirling, Scotland, from September 18 to 20.

The Choices Just Keep Coming

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:45:00 +0000

With today marking the start of July, it’s time for an update on the status of The Rap Sheet’s selection of new summer books.

As you know by now, I am in the habit of adding titles to my quarterly picks lists as their period of prime relevancy rolls on. This season’s inventory is no different. The count started above 400, and I’ve expanded it with more than a dozen other works since its posting on June 7. Among the extras: Bone Horn, by Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain (Soft Skull); The Grapevine, by Alexandra Sokoloff and Craig Robertson (Blackstone); The Propaganda Murders, by Lynn Brittney (Iris); Don’t Look Away, by Daniel Kenitz (Scribner); Mr. and Mrs. Dixon Hide a Body, by Jennifer Holdich (Sourcebooks Landmark); Deliverance, by Saima Mir (Point Blank); A Killing in Lagos, by Amen Alonge (Quercus); and Faculty of Liars, by R.L. Heber (Point Blank).

Again, click here to see the full roster.

Dobyns Reaches His Finish Line

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:36:00 +0000

Stephen Dobyns, the New Jersey-born poet, ex-reporter and former English professor, and crime fictionist, died on June 14 at age 85. Among his many books were 11 novels starring Charlie Bradshaw, described by The Thrilling Detective Web Site as a onetime cop and “small-town private eye in Saratoga Springs, New York.” The first entry in that series was Saratoga Longshot, which reached print in 1976. The final Bradshaw yarn appeared in 2017 under the title Saratoga Payback. He also penned standalone works of crime fiction, such as Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? (2015) and The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini (1988).

In a Facebook post this week, editor, critic, and occasional Rap Sheet contributor Jim Thomsen explained that he’d been in the midst of composing an article for Substack about Dobyn’s 1987 noir yarn, A Boat Off the Coast, when he learned of the author’s demise. At the conclusion of that article, he notes:

I’m a big admirer of Stephen Dobyns, though I’m guessing he’s neither the first or even hundred and first name you might think of when you think of a “noir author,” nor was he the type to habituate the hotel bar at a Bouchercon-type conclave and thus gain the slavish admiration of the social-media class.

First, because he’s primarily thought of as a poet (fourteen published volumes of verse since 1972). Second, because his fiction worked in many idioms. His first published novel, A Man of Little Evils (1973), was a John le Carré-like spy novel set in England. And soon after he wrote the first of eleven non-noirish private-detective novels set in Saratoga Springs, New York, and starring the hangdog, sad-sack Charlie Bradshaw. The rest of his novels, while all having elements of crime, defy easy categorization beyond “literary,” and his latter-day efforts had something of a madcap comic bent, as witnessed by his last, Is Fat Bob Dead Yet?

Some of his crime novels are noir-inflected, but only A Boat Off the Coast has the bullet that hits the noir bone.

According to an online obituary, “a memorial service will be held in September” in Connecticut, where Dobyns passed away.

Pünd’s Concluding Chapter

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 16:14:00 +0000

Americans who have wondered lately when the TV adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s third Susan Ryeland mystery, Marble Hall Murders, might finally be aired should be pleased to hear that PBS has scheduled its run to begin on Sunday, September 6.

This six-part presentation of Horowitz’s third and reportedly final Ryeland whodunit will bring back Lesley Manville as the book editor-cum-sleuth, with Tim McMullan again playing fictional detective Atticus Pünd. The story finds Ryeland shepherding into print a novel that relaunches the Atticus Pünd detective series, following the death (in Magpie Murders) of its creator, Alan Conway. This new author is Eliot Chace, troubled heir to the fortune of his grandmother Miriam, a renowned children’s book author. While Miriam’s long-ago death hadn’t appeared at all suspicious, Eliot raises doubts by centering his tale on the murder of a Miriam stand-in. The puzzle’s solution is in Eliot’s book, which imagines a newly retired Pünd called in to solve the slaying of Lady Margaret Chalfont, who had grown frightened of her husband. But before Susan can find the concealed solution, she becomes the prime suspect in another slaying.

A trailer for the coming series can be enjoyed here.

Revealing Fingerprints

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:23:00 +0000

It seems like yesterday—and indeed, it was just a bit over a month ago—that we were announcing the finalists for this year’s Fingerprint Awards, to be presented at London’s 2026 Capital Crime festival. Well, that event has been taking place over the last three days, and we now have the winners of those prizes. They come in eight categories.

Audiobook of the Year:
Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Simon & Schuster Audio)

Also nominated: King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline); We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough (Orion); Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Macmillan); and Artificial Wisdom, by Thomas R. Weaver (Transworld Digital)

True Crime Book of the Year:
Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, by Virginia Roberts-Guiffre (Doubleday)

Also nominated: Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen, by Hallie Rubenhold (Doubleday); Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, by Caroline Fraser (Fleet); A History of Modern Britain in Twenty Murders, by Professor David Wilson (Sphere); and A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children, by Haley Cohen Gilliland (Avid Reader Press)

Debut Crime Book:
Deadline, by Steph McGovern (Macmillan)

Also nominated: Broken, by Jón Atli Jónasson (Corylus); Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall (Michael Joseph); The Day of the Roaring, by Nina Bhadreshwar (Hemlock Press); and This Is Not a Game, by Kelly Mullen (Century)

Genre-Busting Book:
Kill Them with Kindness, by Will Carver (‎Orenda)

Also nominated: Little Red Death, by A.K. Benedict (Simon & Schuster UK); Blood Like Ours, by Stuart Neville (Simon & Schuster UK); Small Fires, by Ronnie Turner (Orenda); and Manhattan Down, by Michael Cordy (Bantam)

Historical Crime Book of the Year:
The Burning Grounds, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill)

Also nominated: The Art of a Lie, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle); The Rush, by Beth Lewis (Viper); Dangerous, by Essie Fox (Orenda); and Marble Hall Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (Century)

Thriller Book of the Year:
Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Century)

Also nominated: The Chemist, by A.A. Dhand (HQ); Human Remains, by Jo Callaghan (Simon & Schuster UK); The Man Made of Smoke, by Alex North (Michael Joseph); and Some of Us Are Liars, by Fiona Cummins (Macmillan)

Overall Crime Book of the Year:
The Final Vow, by M.W. Craven (Constable)

Also nominated: The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper); Quantum of Menace, by Vaseem Khan (Zaffre); The Good Father, by Liam Liam McIlvanney (Zaffre); and We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough (Orion)

Thalia Procter Lifetime Achievement Award: Trisha Jackson, publishing director for fiction at publisher Pan Macmillan

Publishing Crime Book Campaign of the Year: Pan MacMillan, for The Art of a Lie, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Commending the Best of This Genre

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:40:00 +0000

Harrogate International Festivals this morning announced its shortlist of nominees for the 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, which is intended to recognize the “most prestigious crime fiction” published in the UK and Ireland. From an original list of 18 titles, the following six remain:

• The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• The Death of Us, by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press)
• Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Pan Fiction)
• The Frozen People, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Baskerville)
• Quantum of Menace, by Vaseem Khan (Zaffre)

Readers are now invited to choose their favorite from among these books by clicking here. Voting will close on Thursday, July 16, at 23:59 GMT. The winner is to be revealed on Thursday, July 23, the opening night of this year’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.

* * *

Meanwhile, Lambda Literary offers the recipients of its 38th Annual Lambda Awards (the “Lammys”) for excellence in LGBTQ+ books. Taking top honors in the Best LGBTQ+ Mystery category is A Queer Case, by Robert Holtom (Titan). The other finalists were Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter, by Samantha Crewson (Crooked Lane); Girl Falling, by Hayley Scrivenor (Flatiron); Mirage City, by Lev AC Rosen (Minotaur); and The Case of the Missing Maid, by Rob Osler (Kensington).

“Bold and Brave” Win the Day

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:52:00 +0000

Sisters in Crime Australia recently released its longlists of books being considered for the 2026 Davitt Awards, “celebrating excellence in crime writing by Australian women.”

Adult Fiction:
• At Café 64, by Shaeden Barry (Echo)
• Lyrebird, by Jane Caro (Allen & Unwin)
• Unfinished Business, by Shankari Chandran (Ultimo Press)
• Skull River, by Pip Fioretti (Affirm Press)
• When She Was Gone, by Sara Foster (HarperCollins Australia)
• Revelation Beach, by Susan Francis (Wild Dingo Press)
• Learned Behaviours, by Zeyneb Gamieldien (Ultimo Press)
• Unbury the Dead, by Fiona Hardy (Affirm Press)
• Mad Mabel, by Sally Hepworth (Macmillan Australia)
• The Canvas Killings, by Elise Janes (JETT)
• The Bluff, by Joanna Jenkins (Allen & Unwin)
• Melaleuca, by Angie Faye Martin (HQ Fiction)
• The Wolf Tree, by Laura McCluskey (HarperCollins Australia)
• The Prospect, by Fleur McDonald (HarperCollins Australia)
• Stillwater, by Tanya Scott (Allen & Unwin)
• Nemesis, by Patricia Wolf (Echo)

Non-fiction:
• Groomed, by Sonia Orchard (Simon & Schuster)
• Outrageous Fortunes: The Adventures of Mary Fortune, Crime-writer, and Her Criminal Son, by Megan Brown and Lucy Sussex (Black Inc.)
• The Red House, by Kate Wild (Allen & Unwin)

Young Adult:
• What Have They Done to Liza McLean? by Amy Doak (Penguin Random House Australia)
• A Murder Is Going Down, by Kate Emery (Allen & Unwin)
• We Saw What You Started, by Carla Salmon (Pan Macmillan Australia)

Children’s Books:
• Run, by Sarah Armstrong (Hardie Grant Children’s)
• The Girl and the Ghost, by Jacqueline Harvey (Penguin Random
House Australia)
• Oceanforged: The Wicked Ship, by Amelia Mellor (Simon &
Schuster Australia)
• True South, by Gisela Ervin-Ward (Midnight Sun)
• Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow, by Jessica Townsend (Hachette Children’s)
• Promises and Other Lies, by Sue Whiting (Walker)

Ruth Wykes, who chairs the Davitt Awards judging panel, is quoted as saying these works “were the ones that entertained, challenged, taught us, and stayed with us long after we had read the final chapters. Stories that were bold and brave, or beautifully nuanced.”

This year’s shortlists are to be announced in July, and at that same time, voting will commence for the 2026 Readers’ Choice Award. All of the winners are to be declared in August or September.

The Davitt Awards are named for Ellen Davitt (1812-1879), the author of Australia’s first mystery novel, Force and Fraud (1865).

Revue of Reviewers: 6-15-26

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:08:00 +0000

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

A Mid-Year Assessment

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:39:00 +0000

It’s June, time again for publications to begin issuing their “best books of the year … so far” lists. I don’t know that I shall weigh in on this matter, as I think I have not yet read enough 2026 crime, thriller, and suspense novels to represent a proper sample of what’s available. However, Amazon shows no such hesitation. Its editors just posted their 20 favorites from this genre, released over the last six months:

1. Night Objects, by Eli Raphael (Grand Central)
2. Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke (Knopf)
3. Nothing Tastes as Good, by Luke Dumas (Atria)
4. Five, by Ilona Bannister (Crown)
5. Mad Mabel, by Sally Hepworth (St. Martin’s Press)
6. A Violent Masterpiece, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland)
7. Someone Else’s Husband, by Kimberly McCreight (Knopf)
8. Whidbey, by T Kira Madden (Mariner)
9. The Keeper, by Tana French (Viking)
10. The Best Little Motel in Texas, by Lyla Lane (Harper Perennial)
11. A Bad, Bad Place, by Frances Crawford (Soho Crime)
12. The Adventures of Juan Planchard, by Jonathan Jakubowicz
(Grand Central)
13. This Story Might Save Your Life, by Tiffany Crum (Pine & Cedar)
14. The Take, by Kelly Yang (Berkley)
15. The Drop, by S.R. Masters (Sourcebooks Landmark)
16. It Could Have Been Her, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)
17. A Good Person, by Kirsten King (Putnam)
18. My Grandfather, the Master Detective, by Masateru
Konishi (Putnam)
19. Beth Is Dead, by Katie Bernet (Sarah Barley/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
20. Worse Than a Lie, by Ben Crump (Bantam)

Yesteryear (really a time-travel tale) and Beth Is Dead (a young-adult novel) seem not to belong with the other choices here. But I’ll otherwise refrain from commenting, because I haven’t read most of Amazon’s picks. It will be interesting to see how many of these feature among future “best so far” selections.

Supporting Indie Publishers

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 23:11:00 +0000

There are several dozen category winners in this year’s INDIES Book of the Year Awards program, coordinated by Foreword Reviews and designed to “celebrate outstanding books published in 2025 by small, independent, and university presses.” Four novels have been honored as outstanding examples of adult mystery fiction:

Gold Medal — A Murder in Zion, by Nicole Maggi (Oceanview)
Silver Medal — Garbage Town, by Ravi Gupta (Greenleaf Book Group Press)
Bronze Medal — Killer Tracks, by Mary Keliikoa (Level Best)
Honorable Mention — Dying Cry, by Margaret Mizushima (Crooked Lane)

Four others have won in the adult thriller and suspense division:

Gold Medal — The Mean Ones, by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne (Creature)
Silver Medal — The Art of Greed, by Hans Peter Brunner (Greenleaf Book Group Press)
Bronze Medal — Novel Threat, by Traci Hunter Abramson (Shadow Mountain)
Honorable Mention — The Haunting of Emily Grace, by Elena Taylor (Severn House)

Click here for the full record of this year’s INDIES recipients.

(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

Bullet Points: No AI Content Here Edition

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:25:00 +0000

• Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Kenneth Branagh, David Suchet, Alfred Molina, John Malkovich, even Tony Randall—over the decades, they have all portrayed Agatha Christie’s most famous fictional private detective, Hercule Poirot, on the large or small screens. But now 33-year-old English actor Edward Bluemel (Killing Eve, My Lady Jane, Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials) is stepping into the role of that fastidious, mustachioed Belgian in Hercule, a BBC/Britbox TV reboot set to start filming in Liverpool, England, this summer and expected to premiere with six episodes in the latter half of 2027. Deadline says “there is a three-season commitment to Hercule,” though that has not been confirmed by either of the production partners. The show is being described as “an intimate study of Hercule the man and an epic portrait of Britain between the wars. The series takes a magnifying glass to three of Christie’s most celebrated stories, while also charting Hercule’s burgeoning friendship with Captain Arthur Hastings, his early encounters with Scotland Yard’s James Japp, and introducing him to one particular nemesis.” Deadline adds that “Responsibility for adapting Christie’s work has fallen to Benji Walters, a relatively unknown writer who has credits on BBC series Noughts + Crosses and spent time developing an adaptation of Brideshead Revisited with Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino in 2020.”

• By the way, did you know that Christie’s third and probably most famous Poirot novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, celebrates its centennial this month? The story was serialized as Who Killed Ackroyd? in the London Evening News between July and September 1925, then released in book form by UK publisher Williams Collins, Sons in June of 1926. (An American edition soon followed.) While Ackroyd—with its deliberate subversion of reader expectations—may not be the perfect place to start in exploring Christie’s extensive oeuvre (instead, try And Then There Were None or a later Poirot tale such as Death on the Nile), it is nonetheless acclaimed for its shell-game plotting and final twist. In his well-respected 1941 study of this genre, Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story, American writer-editor Howard Haycraft placed Ackroyd in the 16th spot on his list of “the best and most influential” crime novels in print, right behind Christie’s first Poirot yarn, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920).

• Although the “news” is less than timely, let me just point out that Mike Lawson has won 2026’s Spotted Owl Award for Untouchable (Atlantic Monthly Press ), his 18th novel about Washington, D.C., troubleshooter Joe DeMarco. By my count, this is the third occasion on which Lawson has scored the Owl, an honor handed out annually by the Portland, Oregon-based Friends of Mystery fan organization to what it deems was the Best Pacific Northwest Crime Novel published during the previous year. Also in contention were Marc Cameron’s Deadline, Robert Dugoni’s A Dead Draw, Sam Wiebe’s The Last Exile, Elizabeth George’s A Slowly Dying Cause, James Bryne’s Chain Reaction, Daniel Kalla’s The Deepest Fake, J.A. Jance’s Overkill, Phillip Margolin’s False Witness, and Nolan Chase’s A Lonesome Place for Murder.

• As you have probably heard, Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer will end its run after Season 5, which is due for streaming next year. The concluding 10 episodes are “inspired by” Michael Connelly’s Resurrection Walk (2025), the seventh installment in his series about L.A. defense attorney Mickey Haller, played on the show by Mexican actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo. Netflix supplies this plot description:

Mickey Haller’s world is upended when the half-sister he never knew existed, Emi [Cobie Smulders], comes to him with a plea to help free a wrongfully convicted woman. In a season defined by blood ties and buried secrets, Mickey takes on a grueling habeas petition to overturn a six-year-old murder conviction, but the deeper he digs, the more nefarious the forces arrayed against him become.

Meanwhile, the stakes rise for his trusted team as Lorna [Becki Newton], Izzy [Jazz Raycole], and Cisco [Angus Sampson] step up to tackle high-profile challenges of their own. Having just saved himself from a wrongful conviction in Season 4, Mickey is now determined to set right an enormous miscarriage of justice. But as he unravels a dangerous web of corruption and lies, he must grapple with the fractured legacy of his family—both his chosen family and the family he never knew he had.

Lincoln Lawyer’s departure from its schedule has left Netflix looking for a legal-drama replacement to satisfy viewers. One option might be And Justice for All, a series based on Al Pacino’s powerful, Emmy-nominated 1979 film of that same name. Deadline depicts it as “a gritty look at an idealistic attorney’s flawed life as he struggles to fight a corrupted legal system until he finally snaps.” The program will be scripted by Jeremy Miller and Dan Cohn (That Was Then).

• Concurrently, Lincoln Lawyer creator David E. Kelley is adapting another Connelly work for television, the 2025 novel Nightshade. Deadline says, “The project, titled Welcome to Catalina, is in development at HBO Max under the streamer’s model for drama procedurals intended to return each year with sizable orders and moderate cost. … Written by Kelley, Welcome to Catalina centers on Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell who has been ‘exiled’ to a low-key post policing [Southern California’s] rustic Catalina Island. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor.” There’s no word yet on when Welcome to Catalina might be welcomed to your big-screen set, but if it proves a winner, there’s at least one other Stilwell story to turn into a screenplay: Connelly’s Ironwood, which reached U.S. bookstores only last month.

• Sherlock Holmes’ arch-rival, Professor James Moriarty, is finally getting a TV series of his own, in which he will demonstrate his previously undisplayed array of sleuthing skills.

• Are these really the 20 greatest film sleuths of all time?

• It’s always great to see Donald E. Westlake’s storytelling mastery recognized, as The Daily Telegraph’s Jake Kerridge does in this recent essay reprinted by MSN. But how fragile is fame, that the headline labels Westlake—who just died back in 2009 (see our tributes here and here)—“The greatest crime novelist you have probably never heard of.”

• And the crime-fiction community has seen other deaths of late. Actress-turned-writer Sheila Keating (née Mitchell), who for almost six decades was wife to the English crime novelist H.R.F. Keating (creator of the Inspector Ganesh Ghote series), passed away on June 4 just short of her 101st birthday. Canadian fictionist Alan Bradley, the author of a dozen books in the Flavia de Luce mystery series (beginning with 2009’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) died on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea on May 18 at age of 87. Finally, Dennis McMillan, a San Francisco small-press publisher of “the hard-boiled, the noir, and the strikingly unusual,” met his end on May 5 in a Phoenix, Arizona, hospital. Among the authors McMillan published over the years were Kent Anderson, Michael Connelly, Fredric Brown, Leigh Brackett, James Crumley, and Rick DeMarinis.

(Hat tips to In Reference to Murder and Mark Coggins.)

Stocking the Shelves for Summer

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:47:00 +0000

Well, after severe time pressures this last spring compelled me to limit my list of forthcoming crime, mystery, and thriller works to U.S.-published titles alone, I’m finally back with a fresh assortment of both American and British works due out over the next three months. And what a seasonal selection it is: more than 400 books long!

I’ve tried to include something to satisfy most reading tastes within this genre. Everything from James Ellroy’s Red Sheet, his latest criminal roller-coaster ride for corrupt Los Angeles private investigator Freddy Otash, to Jess Kidd’s Murder at the Spirit Lodge, which brings back feisty former nun Nora Breen (introduced in last year’s Murder at Gull’s Nest); from Jurica Pavičić’s Mother of Sorrows, a striking story of war, murder, and their respective consequences in Croatia, to Karen Odden’s An Artful Dodge, about a notorious all-female gang of thieves in 1870s London, one member of which hopes to foil the machinations of her vengeful ringleader; and from Abir Mukherjee’s new standalone thriller, The Pinnacle, giving us a past-his-prime American actor struggling to escape blame for the slaying of his Bollywood-star spouse, to Hilary Davidson’s Every Lie I Told, the head-spinning tale of a public-relations fixer determined to protect her younger sister from blame in the deaths of sexually abusive men. Gary Phillips earns a place in this rundown with a heist thriller, The Haul, said to be his homage to Donald E. Westlake’s famous Parker series. UK actress and author Catherine Steadman shows up with her psychological suspense novel Nine Lives (that title acknowledging how a Persian cat kicks off her plot). Donna Moore makes the cut with Knit One, Heist One, just the first of several compelling stories here that involve gray-haired protagonists. And Linwood Barclay delivers a “chilling” yarn, Not a Word, built around a guy who discovers his aged parents dead in their bed, possible murder-suicide victims … but probably not.

Oh, and I should not forget to highlight a Cold War-era nail-biter, Skring Water, begun by Louis L-Amour (yes, that Louis L’Amour) in the late 1950s and completed more recently by his son, Beau.

Literary Hub predicts that horror fiction will make the biggest publishing splash this summer, but crime has at least as much to offer. Clare Mackintosh, Martin Edwards, Isabella Maldonado, Freida McFadden, Lee Goldberg, and John Connolly all have novels appearing between now and September 1, as do Daniel Silva, Jennifer Hillier, Steve Cavanagh, Lindsey Davis, Chris Chibnall, Sophie Hannah, Rory Clements, and Shari Lapena. Keep an eye peeled as well for the debut of Charles Cumming’s Icarus 7, the fourth installment in his Box 88 series; George Pelecanos’ The Blue Flame, the long-awaited sixth case for Washington, D.C., gumshoe Derek Strange; Asia Mackay’s “rollicking” Self-Help for Serial Killers; Ron Currie’s We Will See You Bleed, his sequel to 2025’s The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne; Dervla McTiernan’s Three Reasons for Revenge, focusing on ostensibly unrelated people endangered by someone possessing secrets from their pasts; Killer Art, a whodunit featuring academics determined to solve a fellow professor’s murder, penned by “Jon St. Denis” (aka J. Sydney Jones); and The Tailor, Tim Sullivan’s eighth outing for that brilliant but autistic Bristol police detective, George Cross. Even several wordsmiths not commonly associated with this field have mysteries in the offing, notably Emily St. John Mandel, Richard Russo, and Amy Bloom.

In addition to its deluge of brand-new tales, the list below mentions a variety of reprints worth your time by authors such as Phoebe Atwood Taylor, Stanley Ellin, and the sadly forgotten French writer Hélène Bessette. Plus, I’ve included some works of crime non-fiction (identified with asterisks), one of them a biography of 20th-century “mob accountant” Meyer Lansky, put together in part by his grandson.

JUNE (U.S.):
• The Abduction of Rosalind Thorne, by Darcie Wilde (Kensington)
• The Adventures of Juan Planchard, by Jonathan Jakubowicz
(Grand Central)
• An Artful Dodge, by Karen Odden (Soho Crime)
• The Au Pair, by Teddy Wayne (Harper)
• Backstabbers, by Eliza Jabore (Bantam)
• Based on a True Story, by Sarah Vaughan (Harper)
• Beach Thriller, by Jamie Day (St. Martin’s Press)
• Big Money, Small Town, by Thomas E. Ricks (Pegasus Crime)
• Birds of Prey: New Crime Stories, edited by Harlan Coben and C.J. Box (Mysterious Press)
• A Bitter Cut, by Anna Lee Huber (Berkley)
• Blood on Old Stones, by Alex Gray (Sphere)
• Blood River Witch, by T.J. Martinson (Counterpoint)
• Blunt Instrument, by Amy Blood (Mysterious Press)
• Bone Horn, by Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain (Soft Skull)
• The Bone Stalker, by Victor Methos (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Bookseller, by Tim Sullivan (Atlantic Crime)
• A Botanist’s Guide to Tradition and Treachery, by Kate Khavari (Crooked Lane)
• The Break-Up Retreat, by Camilla Sten (Minotaur)
• The Butler, by Clare Mackintosh (Podium)
• But Not Foreclosed, by BJ Bourg (Death Shadow Press)
• Cause of Death: Rock and Roll, by Big Boy Pete (Stark House Press)
• Choke Point, by Brad Thor (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Clock House Murders, by Yukito Ayatsuji (Pushkin Vertigo)
• The Confession Artist, by Christine Carbo (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Dangerous Stranger, by Simon Mason (Hachette Mobius)
• Death at the Castle Gates, by Nick Oldham (Severn House)
• Death Do Us, by Ruthy Mason (Union Square)
• Death on the Lanai, by Rachel Ekstrom Courage (Hyperion Avenue)
• Death Was Not on the Guest List, by Jenni L. Walsh
(Thomas & Mercer)
• Declan, by Anne Emery (ECW Press)
• The Disaster Gay Detective Agency, by Lev AC Rosen
(Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Dogwalkers’ Detective Agency, by Michael Hogan (Pegasus Crime)
• The Driftwood Bones, by Peter Colt (Thomas & Mercer)
• An Ending on Elliott Bay, by D.D. Black (Independently published)
• Every Lie I Told, by Hilary Davidson (Blackstone)
• Exit Wound, by Isabella Maldonado (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Fatal Unpleasantness at Netherfield, by Claudia Gray (Vintage)
• Fear the Reaper, by David Housewright (Minotaur)
• Feast, by Catherine Kurtz (Berkley)
• The Fervent Whites, by De’Shawn Charles Winslow (One World)
• The Fire Agent, by David Baerwald (Spiegel & Grau)
• The Forty-Year Grudge, by Liza Tully (Berkley)
• The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Debutante Detective, by
Bruce Rule (Titan)
• The Further Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes III, by Caiden Cooper Myles (MX)
• The Girl on the Beach, by Carol Snow (Crooked Lane)
• The Grapevine, by Alexandra Sokoloff and Craig Robertson (Blackstone)
• Great White, by Richard Helms
(Barbadoes Hall)
• Heather, by Caitlin Mullen (Celadon)
• Hemlock Bay, by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press)
• It’s About Time, by Carol J. Perry (Kensington Cozies)
• The Last Boundary, by Dave Stanton (Vinci)
• Her Last Breath, by M.J. Arlidge and Alex Khan (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• The Housemaid’s Wedding, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Housewife, by Natalie Barelli (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Hysteria, by LJ Ross (Poisoned Pen Press)
• I Did a Bad Thing, by Louise Jensen (HQ)
• The Inconvenient Corpse / Murder in Haste, by Elizabeth Fenwick (Stark House Press)
• It Could Have Been Her, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)
• Keep Them Close, by David Ellis (Putnam)
• Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution, by Katherine Grandjean (Random House)*
• The Last Time We Drowned, by Saratoga Schaefer (Cosmo Reads)
• The Last Time We Saw Her, by Jaclyn Goldis (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Long Con, by Jenna Voris (Dial Press)
• Lovers XXX, by Allie Rowbottom (Soho Press)
• Man of My Dreams, by Olivia Worley (Minotaur)
• The Man Who Led a Dream Life, by David Handler (Mysterious Press)
• The Man Who Stole the Gods: A True Story of War, Obsession, and a Global Art Conspiracy, by Matthew Campbell (Portfolio)*
• Marion, by Leah Rowan (St. Martin’s Press)
• Midnight Patriots, by Paul Levine (Nittany Valley)
• Midnight Ridge, by Rita Herron (Bookouture)
• Missing in Soho, by Holly Stars (Berkley)
• A Morbid Passion, by Robert Holtom (Titan)
• Murder and Mayheim, by Ronica Black and Toni Logan (Bold Strokes)
• Murder and the Missing Treasure, by C.J. Archer (C.J. Archer)
• Murder at the Spirit Lounge, by Jess Kidd (Atria)
• Murder by Design, by Lee Goldberg (Thomas & Mercer)
• A Murder in Springtime, by Martin Walker (Knopf)
• The Mysterious Poisoning of Charles Bravo, by Angela Buckley (Shad Thames Press)*
• My Twin the Murderer, by Lindsay Kent (BookBaby)
• Names Have Been Changed, by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
(Tiny Reparations)
• Nasty Little Secrets, by Gabbie Hanks (Zando)
• The Neighbors Are Watching, by Aggie Blum Thompson (Minotaur)
• Nine Lives, by Catherine Steadman (Bantam)
• No Solace for the Wicked, by Nancy Herriman (Beyond the Page)
• Obstetrix, by Naomi Kritzer (Tordotcom)
• 138 Main, by Gavin Bell (Gallery/Scout Press)
• Our Marriage Is Murder, by Carol Goodman (Morrow Paperbacks)
• The Pact, by Lisa Walker (HQ Digital)
• A Pair of Aces, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher
Murray (Berkley)
• The Pinnacle, by Abir Mukherjee (Little, Brown)
• Played to Death, by Mike Ripley (Severn House)
• Poppy Montgomery Gets Even, by Gordon Jack (Mysterious Press)
• Pour Choices, by Adrian Andover (Chestnut Avenue Press)
• The Probability of Murder, by J.D. Barker and Patrick Logan (Hampton Creek Press)
• A Rage of Desire, by Clayton Matthews (Stark House Press)
• Reaper, by Vanda Symon (Orenda)
• Red Sheet, by James Ellroy (Knopf)
• Rescue Me, by Andrew Welsh-Huggins (Swallow Press)
• Restless Bones, by Gillian French (Minotaur)
• A River Red With Blood, by John Connolly (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• Road Longer Than Memory, by Melanie McCabe (Oceanview)
• Rocket’s Red Glare, by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann (Little, Brown)
• Rules for Aging and Larceny, by Julia London (Kensington)
• Sandbar Sinister, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Penzler/American Mystery Classics)
• Scandalize My Name, by Fiona Sinclair (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Secret Attic, by Chelsea Conradt (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Secret Thread, by Eve Chase (Ballantine)
• Self-Help for Serial Killers, by Asia Mackay (Bantam)
• Sex on Murder Island, by Jo Firestone (Bantam)
• The Shark, by Emma Styles (Pegasus Crime)
• She Walks at Night, by Seishi Yokomizo (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Skyring Water, by Louis L'Amour and Beau L'Amour (Bantam)
• Somebody Worth Killing, by Jessica Payne (Berkley)
• Someone Else’s Husband, by Kimberly McCreight (Knopf)
• Some Sort of Justice, by Peter Grainger (Union Square)
• The Spin, by Faith Gardner (Mirror House Press)
• Staged, by Caitlin Rother (Thomas & Mercer)
• Storm Tide, by Paul Doiron (Minotaur)
• Strangers Behind Closed Doors, by Catherine Adel West (Park Row)
• Stuart Woods’ Deep Water, by Brett Battles (Putnam)
• Summer’s Never Over, by Darby Bozeman (Berkley)
• Sweet Spot, by Kemper Donovan (John Scognamiglio)
• Teach the Torches to Burn, by Christina Dodd (John Scognamiglio)
• Tell Your Friends, by Lauren Wilson (Pine & Cedar)
• There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood, by Rasheed Newson (Flatiron)
• Three Hitmen and a Baby, by Rob Hart (Putnam)
• A Twist in the River, by Stig Abell (Harper Perennial)
• Two Missing Girls, by Kerry Wilkinson (Bookouture)
• Vale of Tears, by David Mark (Severn House)
• Valley of the Moms, by Hannah Selinger (Little, Brown)
• Wait and See, by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen (Grand Central)
• What Goes Around, by Debra Webb (Thomas & Mercer)
• What the World Needs Now: Mystery Stories Inspired by the Music of Burt Bacharach, edited by Martin Edwards (Level Short)
• While We Were Silent, by Alex Myers (Severn House)
• Whisper Creek, by Allison Brennan (Minotaur)
• Wish Upon a Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales, edited by Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson (Level Short)
• The Writers Retreat, by Victoria Brownlee (Affirm Press)
• You First, by Caroline Kepnes (Random House)
• You Girls Play Nice, by K.D. Aldyn (Poisoned Pen Press)

JUNE (UK):
• Actually, I’m a Corpse, by Terry Deary (Constable)
• Against the Tide, by G.D. Wright (Avon)
• All of Them Lied, by Gill Perdue (Sandycove)
• Bad Deeds, by Andrew Hunter Murray (Hutchinson Heinemann)
• Bad Influence, by Will Carver (Orenda)
• Blood Root, by Jill Johnson (Black & White)
• The Case of the Christie Wedding Affair, by Kelly Oliver (Boldwood)
• A Dangerous Justice, by John Pilkington (Boldwood)
• Darling Bud, by C.J. Skuse (HQ Digital)
• Death and Déjà Vu, by Ian Moore (Farrago)
• Death by Noir, by Olly Smith (Baskerville)
• Death on the Pearl River, by A.E. Goldin (Pushkin Vertigo)
• The Death Row Club, by V.A. Vazquez (Simon & Schuster UK)
• Deception, by Jack Jordan (Simon & Schuster UK)
• The Defence, by Rob Rinder (Century)
• Dirt Road Dead, by TG Reid (Glass Work Press)
• Fake Out Make Out, by Kate Williams (Ink Road)
• Fellow Creatures, by Emma Lowther (Quercus)
• The Gardens, by Emma Babbington (HQ Digital)
• The Girl on Floor 29, by D.E. White (Boldwood)
• A Girl’s Girl, by Emma Robertson (Zaffre)
• Grave Intent, by Sarah Ward (Canelo Crime)
• Keep You Safe, by Rona Halsall (Boldwood)
• A Killer Plot, by E.C. Nevin (Zaffre)
• The Kill Switch, by Robert Peston (Zaffre)
• Liar Liar, by Luca Veste (Avon)
• The Long Isle, by Andrew Raymond (Vinci)
• The Mayan Betrayal, by Lex Faulkner (Boldwood)
• Mother of Sorrows, by Jurica Pavičić (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Murder at Canterbury Cathedral, by Jim Eldridge (Allison & Busby)
• Murder at St. Alfred’s, by Julie
Wassmer (Constable)
• Murder on the Red River, by Marcie
Rendon (Viper)
• Murder on the Upper East Side, by Gigi Waldorf (Simon & Schuster UK)
• My Sister’s Secret, by Jane Corry (Penguin)
• No Way Out, by Max Connor (HQ Digital)
• One of the Family, by Mark Edwards (Michael Joseph)
• The Pinnacle, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill)
• The Propaganda Murders, by Lynn Brittney (Iris)
• Puzzles of the Parish: Short Tales of Ministers, Murder and Mystery, edited by Martin Edwards (British Library)
• Relatively Guilty, by William McIntyre (Vinci)
• Rich Little Liars, by A.J. Carter (Boldwood)
• Run for Your Life, by Jackie Kabler (One More Chapter)
• Sherlock Holmes and the Aeronauts, by Linda Stratmann (Sapere)
• Solitary Agents, by David Goodman (Headline)
• The Teacher’s Pet, by M.A. Hunter (Boldwood)
• The Tembusu Tree Mystery, by Ovidia Yu (Constable)
• Two Little Liars, by Michelle Harrison (No Exit Press)
• Veil of Secrets, by Rachel McLean (Ackroyd)
• We Know What You Did, by Kirsty Lockwood (Orion)

JULY (U.S.):
• Agatha Christie: The Mother of the Cozy Mystery, by Nancy West (Adams Media)*
• All Aboard for Murder, by Ellen Byron (Kensington Cozies)
• Backtrack, by Marc Cameron (Kensington)
• Beach Blonde Betrayal, by Elaine Viets (Severn House)
• The Beginning of Everything, by Charles Salzberg (Regalo Press)
• Buyer Beware, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Simon & Schuster)
• Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast, by Pamela Colloff (Knopf)*
• City of Promises, by Victoria Thompson (Berkley)
• The Cloak and Dagger Club, by Jackie McMahon (Berkley)
• Cloudthief, by Nathaniel Rich (MCD)
• Cool Machine, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
• Country Christie: Country Tales from the Queen of Mystery, by Agatha Christie (Morrow Paperbacks)
• The Country Road Murders, by James Patterson and Mike
Lupica (Little, Brown)
• Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die, by Mallory Arnold (Poisoned
Pen Press)
• Cyanide in the Sun: And Other Stories of Summertime Crime, edited by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press)
• A Dark Path and Other Kate Burkholder Short Stories, by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)
• The Date, by T.H. Murdock (Thomas & Mercer)
• Deadly Does It, by Abbi Waxman (Berkley)
• Dead Men Don’t Play Fetch, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)
• Death at King’s Cross, by Rosanne Limoncelli (Crooked Lane)
• A Death in the Deluge, by Brian Thiem (Severn River)
• The Death Row Club, by V.A. Vazquez (Gallery/Scout Press)
• The Delivery, by Gregg Hurwitz (Thomas & Mercer)
• Desert Heist, by Alex Dekker (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• Don’t Look Away, by Daniel Kenitz (Scribner)
• Exit Party, by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf)
• Furious Violet, by Sarai Walker (Harper)
• Get Lost, by Justin Halpern (Cardinal)
• Getting Away with Murder, by Shari Lapena (Pamela Dorman)
• Golden Age Suspense Stories, edited by Otto Penzler (Penzler/American Mystery Classics)
• The Haul, by Gary Phillips (Soho Crime)
• Helpless, by Jessica Knoll (Scribner)
• Hidden Strangers, by Minka Kent (Thomas & Mercer)
• Hot Girl Murder Club, by Ashley Winstead (Minotaur)
• Houdini: The Man Who Died Twice, by Larrian Gillespie
(Cipher House)*
• How to Kill a Crime Writer, by Sarah Lotz (Berkley)
• Icarus 17, by Charles Cumming (Mysterious Press)
• If Books Could Kill, by Kate Eberle (Penguin)
• The Intrigue, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
• The Intruder, by Adriane Leigh (Podium)
• January and July, by Jeff Abbott (Blackstone)
• Killer Vibes, by Jack Friday (Minotaur)
• Lady X, by Molly Fader (Ballantine)
• The Lansky Legacy: The Life and Letters of Meyer Lansky, by Meyer Lansky II and S.J. Peddie (Citadel)*
• Last Night Was Killer, by Mary Pauline Lowry (Morrow)
• The Last to Drown, by Noelle Ihli (Dynamite)
• The Man, by Laura Sims (Putnam)
• The Masala Chai Mystery Club, by MJ Soni (Crooked Lane)
• McKenna’s Guy, by Mike Lawson (Blackstone)
• The Mortal Enemy Murder Club, by Gloria Chao (Park Row)
• The Mortons, by Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld (Pamela Dorman)
• Mr. and Mrs. Dixon Hide a Body, by Jennifer Holdich (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Murder in Purple and Gold, by Lindsey Davis (Severn House)
• Murder in the Crooked House, by Soji Shimada (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Murder on Devil’s Ridge, by Irina
Shapiro (Storm)
• The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts, by Robert Thorogood
(Poisoned Pen Press)
• A Neighbor’s Guide to Murder, by Louise Candlish (Grand Central)
• The Next Lie, by Camden Baird (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Night Hunter, by Natalie Moss (Berkley)
• The Novel Detective, by Teresa Dovalpage (Soho Crime)
• One Bad Deed, by T.M. Payne (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Paris Chase, by David Lewis (John Scognamiglio)
• The Parisian Heist, by Jo Piazza (Dutton)
• Perfect Life, by Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores (Bantam)
• A Quiet Place, by Seichō Matsumoto (Modern Library)
• Ransom, by Daniel Silva (Harper)
• Savvy Summers and the Po’boy Perils, by Sandra Jackson-
Opoku (Minotaur)
• The Season of Sinking, by Daphne Woolsoncroft (Grand Central)
• The Shadow Step, by Mark Billingham (Atlantic Crime)
• Shrink Solves Murder, by Philippa Perry (Crown)
• The Spy and the Snake, by M.J. Robotham (Aria)
• Street of the Lost, by David Goodis (Stark House Press)
• Sweet and Deadly, by Verne Chute (Stark House Press)
• Sycamore Gap, by LJ Ross (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Talking Bone, by Rene Denfeld (Harper)
• Tenderness, by Rowan Beaird (Flatiron)
• This Changes Everything, by Lisa Scottoline (Grand Central)
• Three Crime Novels by Anthony Bourdain: Bone in the Throat, Gone Bamboo, and The Bobby Gold Stories, by Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsbury)
• Three Reasons for Revenge, by Dervla McTiernan (Morrow)
• Throw Away the Key, by Jason M. Hough (Crooked Lane)
• Traitors, by Robert B. McCaw (Norton)
• Twenty Minutes of Silence, by Hélène Bessette (New Directions)
• Unreliable Narrator, by Araminta Hall (Putnam)
• A Voice in the Dark, by Barbara Nickless (Thomas & Mercer)
• We Will See You Bleed, by Ron Currie (Putnam)
• What Happens in the Dark, by Kia Abdullah (HQ)
• Wisdom Corner, by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Ecco)

JULY (UK):
• All Killers Aboard, by David Fennell (Orion)
• Better the Devil, by JD Kirk (Canelo Crime)
• Blood Caste, by Shylashri Shankar (Canelo Crime)
• Blood Enemy, by Douglas Jackson (Canelo)
• Broken Ranks, by Andrew Raymond (Vinci)
• The Burning Fears, by Katy Massey (Sphere)
• The Burning Tide, by William Shaw (Hemlock Press)
• The Child, by Mandasue Heller (Orion)
• The Cliff’s Edge Murders, by Priscilla Masters (Joffe)
• The Cornish Honeymoon Murder, by Fiona Leitch (One More Chapter)
• Death on a Lively Sea, by Katy Watson (Constable)
• Deception, by Alan Parks (Baskerville)
• Deliverance, by Saima Mir (Point Blank)
• The Depths, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Eden Falls, by Ajay Chowdhury (Harvill)
• Everything She Didn’t Say, by Jane Casey (Hemlock Press)
• The Eyewitness, by Naomi Williams (Headline)
• The Family Break, by Ruth Irons (Zaffre)
• A Fatal Legacy, by Charlotte Vassell
(Faber & Faber)
• From Murder with Love, by M.R.G.
Davies (One More Chapter)
• From the Shadows, by G.R. Halliday
(Point Blank)
• Hide and Seek, by Chris Carter (Simon & Schuster UK)
• The Hotel Manager’s Guide to Murder,
by Erlendur Arason (Blekverk)
• In Deep Water, by Elle Blair (HQ Digital)
• A Killing in Lagos, by Amen Alonge (Quercus)
• The Kingpin, by A.A. Dhand (HQ)
• The Llanelli Town Murders, by Stephen Puleston
(Independently published)
• Mad Mabel, by Sally Hepworth (Macmillan)
• The Madman, by Henning Mankell (Mountain Leopard Press)
• The Magic-Lantern Murders, by Carter Dickson (British Library)
• The Mermaid’s Cry, by Kate Rhodes (Orenda)
• Miss Hortense and the Last Rites, by Mel Pennant (Baskerville)
• The Missing Dead, by J.M. Dalgliesh (Penguin)
• Never to Be Found, by Jo Spain (Zaffre)
• The Night Stairs, by Erin Kelly (Harvill)
• One Dark Summer, by Sarah Hornsley (Hodder & Stoughton)
• One of Us Is Guilty, by Steve Cavanagh (Headline)
• Out of the Ashes, by M.J. Arlidge (Orion)
• The Outsider, by Valerie Keogh (Boldwood)
• The Parkwood Murders, by Chris Chibnall (Michael Joseph)
• The Saffron Thief, by T.L. Mogford (HarperCollins)
• Shadow of Madness, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan)
• The Summer We Lied, by Rebecca Hardy (Raven)
• Then She Lied, by Alice Leigh (Canelo Crime)
• A Tiny Speck of Black and Then Nothing, by Emily Midorikawa
(Manilla Press)
• Vanished, by Ruby Speechley (Boldwood)
• The Venetian Redemption, by Philip Gwynne Jones (Constable)
• A Very French Corpse, by Ian Moore (Duckworth)
• The Violent Hour, by James Oswald (Wildfire)
• What the Dying See, by MJ Lee (Canelo Crime)
• When You Looked Away, by S.M. Govett (Michael Joseph)
• The Woman Who Wasn’t There, by William Hussey (Zaffre)

AUGUST (U.S.):
• All We Hide, by Robyn Gigl (Soho Crime)
• The Amateur, by Chris Bohjalian (Doubleday)
• And Then There Were Bun, by Vivien Chien (Minotaur)
• Bad Intentions, by Iliana Xander (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Black Shield: An American Memoir of Family and Power, by Wilbert L. Cooper (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)*
• Blood and Fame: The Intersecting Lives of Roman Polanski & Charles Manson, by Peter Rowe (Crime Ink)*
• Blood, Rust, and Steel, by Stuart MacBride (Macmillan UK)
• The Blue Flame, by George Pelecanos (Cardinal)
• The Bravest Hour, by Anna Lee Huber (Kensington)
• Brimstone Hollow, by Archer Sullivan (Minotaur)
• The Butcher Legacy, by Alaina Urquhart (Zando)
• The Castle in the Glen, by Rhys Bowen (Lake Union)
• The Camino, by Anya Niewierra
(Simon & Schuster)
• Cat and Mouse: A Mystery in Wales, by Christianna Brand (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Children of Wolves, by Lawrence Osborne (S&S/Summit)
• Crescendo, by Robert J. Harris
(Pegasus Crime)
• The Crying Killer, by Jess Lourey
(Thomas & Mercer)
• Dark Harbor, by Bruce Robert Coffin (Severn River)
• Death at a Scottish Halloween, by Lucy Connelly (Crooked Lane)
• Deceptions, by Jeffery Deaver (Putnam)
• Delusional, by James Patterson and James O. Born (Little, Brown)
• The Enigma Challenge, by S.C. Godfrey (Pamela Dorman)
• The Five of Us, by Sian Gilbert (Blackstone)
• For Services Rendered, by Will Thomas (Minotaur)
• Freight, by Ryan Lowell (Little, Brown)
• Fruit Fly, by Josh Silver (Crooked Lane)
• God’s Country, by William Kent Krueger (Atria)
• Heart of Glass, by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur)
• Illicit Still, by William McIntyre (Vinci)
• The Interpreter’s Secret, by Andrew Rosenheim (No Exit Press)
• Killer Art, by Jon St. Denis (Crooked Lane)
• Kill Zone, by Dan Ames (Independently published)
• Liars in Paradise, by Olesya Lyuzna (Mysterious Press)
• Miss Morton Takes the Waters, by Catherine Lloyd (Kensington)
• Murder at Rosecliff, by Alyssa Maxwell (Kensington)
• Murder in Blackfriars, by Jennifer Ashley (Berkley)
• My Inner Child Wants to Kill, by Karsten Dusse (Soho Crime)
• My Sister Is Going to Kill Me, by Nina Simon (Morrow)
• Nearshore, by Steve Hawk (Viking)
• No Higher Ground, by Nicole Brooks (Blackstone)
• No Rest for the Wicked, by Kat Anderson (Koehler)
• Not a Word, by Linwood Barclay (Morrow)
• One Good Eye, by Kevin Wade (Celadon)
• The One Who Walked Away, by Karen Rose (Berkley)
• The Opposite of Murder, by Sophie Hannah (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Probable Caws, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur)
• The Queen of Florida, by Jeff Bercuson (ECW Press)
• The Secret Dinner, by Raphael Montes (Celadon)
• The Secrets We Hide, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)
• The Shadow Friends, by Tess Gerritsen (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Silent Appeal, by Janice Hallett (Atria)
• Sisters at an Exhibition, by Claudia Hagadus Long (Sibylline Press)
• A Stranger in Corfu, by Alex Preston (Pegasus Crime)
• The Strangers, by Ryan David Jahn (Blackstone)
• Strip Rules, by Martin Limón (Soho Crime)
• Surviving the Lie, by James Queally (Counterpoint)
• The Tailor, by Tim Sullivan (Atlantic Crime)
• A Taste for Murder, by Matt Baker (Crooked Lane)
• They Say a Girl Died Here, by Sarah Pinborough (Pine & Cedar)
• A Thief’s Folly, by Jeanne M. Dams (Severn House)
• Time to Burn, by Ellery Lloyd (Harper)
• To All the Men I’ve Killed Before, by Katy Brent (HQ Digital)
• Toulouse Noir, edited by Charles-Henri Lavielle (Akashic)
• The Tragedy of Y, by Ellery Queen (Penzler/American
Mystery Classics)
• Under the Falls, by Richard Russo (Knopf)
• The Unknown, by Riley Sager (Dutton)
• Virgin Islands Noir, edited by Tiphanie Yanique and Richard
Georges (Akashic)
• The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die Quietly, by Katarina Bivald
(Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Women in White, by Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s Press)
• You Know Why, by J.T. Ellison (Thomas & Mercer)
• You’ll Be Sorry, by Lisa Gardner (Grand Central)

AUGUST (UK):
• Agrippa, by Robert Harris (Hutchinson Heinemann)
• The Best of Enemies, by Julie Mae Cohen (Zaffre)
• Bookish, Volume II, by Matthew Sweet (Quercus)
• The British Agent, by Simon Conway (Michael Joseph)
• The Chapel of Bones, by Kate Ellis (Constable)
• City of Traitors, by Alex Gerlis (Canelo)
• Claws Out! by Bella Mackie (Borough Press)
• Codename: 61, by Alex Shaw (Boldwood)
• Death Writ Large, by Susie Dent (Zaffre)
• Eyes on You, by Adele Parks (HQ)
• Faculty of Liars, by R.L. Heber
(Point Blank)
• The Farmhouse Killings, by Wes Markin (Boldwood)
• A Fatal Love, by Louisa Treger (Bloomsbury)
• Freyja, by Margrét Ann Thors (Zaffre)
• Ghost Notes, by Doug Johnstone (Orenda)
• The Husband I Buried, by Maryann Webb (Embla)
• I Know What I Saw, by Kathryn Croft (Headline)
• Invitation from a Dictator, by Rory Clements (Viking)
• The Killer’s Mark, by M.W. Craven (Constable)
• Knit One, Heist One, by Donna Moore (No Exit Press)
• Maybe Tomorrow, by Michael Wood (One More Chapter)
• The Millionaire Waltz, by Anthony Quinn (Abacus)
• Murder at Clover Farm, by Jane Bettany (HQ Digital)
• The New Wife, by Gemma Rogers (Boldwood)
• The Party at No. 5, by Shelley Smith (British Library)
• Robert B. Parker’s Big Shot, by Christopher Farnsworth
(No Exit Press)
• The Samurai Detectives: The Man in the Mist, by Shotaro
Ikenami (Penguin)
• A Shroud of Snow, by Sarah Hawkswood (Allison & Busby)
• We Tell Lies, by K.L. Slater (Michael Joseph)

I should note, as I traditionally do with these lists, that this is not a comprehensive collection of crime, mystery, and thriller works reaching print this season. It is representative of what will become available on both sides of the Atlantic. If you know of other superior releases I have missed, I encourage you to mention them in this post’s Comments section. It’s hardly unheard of for me to lengthen these compilations, if I learn later about other books of interest.

Troubles in “Paradise”

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 14:56:00 +0000

Brilliant but bungling Humphrey Goodman is back, and not a moment too soon! Viewers in the States haven’t seen him or the rest of the Beyond Paradise cast since that lighthearted TV mystery series aired its latest Christmas special here in early 2026. But the show, spun off in 2023 from BBC One’s Death in Paradise, returns to Britbox with its fourth-season opener this coming Tuesday, June 9.

As we rejoin Detective Inspector Goodman (played by Kris Marshall) and his extraordinarily patient restaurateur wife, Martha (Sally Bretton), we find that problems with their houseboat are driving them to locate fresh digs in Shipton Abbott, their small fictional town on England’s Devon coast. Meanwhile, Goodman’s police colleague, Detective Sergeant Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi), faces shifts in her own domestic situation, which may finally overcome her tendency to push people away, and lead her to reunite with local vineyard owner Archie Hughes (Jamie Bamber). And Goodman’s new boss, Chief Superintendent James Smith (Vincent Franklin), is demanding budget cuts be made in the Shipton Abbott squad room that might only be satisfied by cutting someone from the team—an eventuality over which Goodman is destined to agonize throughout the season.

Amidst it all, Goodman, Williams, and the other members of their team (Dylan Llewellyn’s earnest Constable Kelby Hartford and Felicity Montagu’s habitually cranky Margo Martins) must contend with unusual cases involving mermaids, a missing treasure map, and more. Goodman’s mother in law, Anne Lloyd (Barbara Flynn), even gets to demonstrate her amateur sleuthing skills along the way.

There will be half a dozen weekly episodes in Season 4, which ran on British TV earlier this spring. Click here to watch a preview.

Yap Seizes the Bland Prize

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:04:00 +0000

A cozy, Manila-set young-adult mystery titled “Isabelle Gomez Is Innocent, She Swears!” has won the 2026 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color award. Its author is Jackie Yap, who calls herself a “neurodivergent Australian-born, Malaysian-Chinese-Filipina emerging writer on Gadigal Country (Sydney), Australia.”

Administered by the worldwide organization Sisters in Crime, this annual commendation is intended to promote “an emerging female or male writer of color.” It was established in 2014 and named for Eleanor Taylor Bland, the much-acclaimed Black author of the police detective Marti McAllister series. In addition to any psychological boost it can give an aspiring fictionist, this prize includes a $2,000 grant to further the recipient’s writing career.

Yap’s victorious tale is described as “part-murder mystery, part-fish-out-of-water, part coming-of-age—with universal themes of humor, heart, and belonging.” In a press release, she goes on to say it’s a “love letter to diaspora kids everywhere—to those who live in the liminal space between worlds, still discovering who they are, where they fit, and what ‘home’ truly means. I hope for Izzy Gomez to become a fresh, modern-day Filipina-Aussie Nancy Drew for readers everywhere, offering a protagonist who reflects their experiences against the backdrop of a (cozy) YA murder mystery.”

In addition to Yap, Sisters in Crime named five other would-be crime writers as runners-up in this contest. They are Uju Asika of London, England; Billie Hanson-Dupree of Oakland, California; Nina Michiko Tam of Houston, Texas; D.S. Mori of Orange County, California; and DeAnna Yvette of Chicago, Illinois.

Congratulations to all participants in this year’s competition!

Prevailing Canucks

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Fri, 29 May 2026 17:33:00 +0000

We now know which authors and books have won the 2026 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing.

Peter Robinson Award for Best Crime Novel:
The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Also nominated: The Retirement Plan, by Sue Hincenbergs (HarperCollins); The Hunger We Pass Down, by Jen Sookfong Lee (McClelland & Stewart); Into the Fall, by Tamara L. Miller (Thomas & Mercer); and The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, by Eddy Boudel Tan (Viking Canada)

Best Crime First Novel:
The Beltane Massacre, by Ray Critch (Breakwater)

Also nominated: Yesterday’s Lies, by Jan Field (La Cloche); The Broken Detective, by Joel Nedecky (Run Amok Crime); A Painting to Die For, by David L. Tucker (Otter & Osprey Press); and Too Dark for the Light, by A.L. Wahdel (Butterfly 80)

Best Crime Novel Set in Canada:
Salt on Her Tongue, by C.S. Porter (Vagrant Press)

Also nominated: That Other Family, by Lis Angus (Next Chapter); Every Fall, by Angela Douglas (Rising Action); Detective Aunty, by Uzma Jalaluddin (HarperCollins); and The Hitchhikers, by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s Press)

The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery:
The Cost of a Hostage, by Iona Whishaw (TouchWood Editions)

Also nominated: The Engineer’s Nemesis, by Shelley Adina (Moonshell); Stella Ryman and the Search for Thelma Hu, by Mel Anastasiou (Pulp Literature Press); A Dark Death, by Alice Fitzpatrick (Stonehouse); and Some Justice, by Laury Silvers (Independently published)

Best Crime Short Story:
“Polly Wants a Freakin’ Cracker,” by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (from Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Michael Bracken, and Carla Coupe; Wildside Press)

Also nominated: “Under the Circumstances,” by Lis Angus (from A Capital Mystery Anthology, edited by Bernadette Cox and Mike Martin (Ottawa Press); “The Lost Diner,” by Madeleine Harris Callway (Pulp Literature, Summer 2025); “Cold Shock,” by Barbara Fradkin (from A Capital Mystery Anthology); and “The Headache,” by Billie Livingstone (Dark Yonder, November 2025)

Best French Language Crime Book:
Une nuit d’été à Littlebrook, by Maureen Martineau (Héliotrope)

Also nominated: Le regard des autres, by Chrystine Brouillet (Druide); Jeux d’ombres, by André Jacques (Druide); La mémoire du labyrinthe, by Steve Laflamme (Libre Expression); and Delta Zéro, by Martin Michaud (Libre Expression)

Best Juvenile/YA Crime Book:
The Mystery of the Haunted Dance Hall, by Charis Cotter (Tundra)

Also nominated: Death by Whoopee Cushion, by Vicki Grant (Tundra); A Skeleton in the Closet, by Claire Hatcher-Smith (Tundra); The City of Lost Cats, by Tanya Lloyd Kyi (Tundra); and Bark Twice for Murder, by John Lekich (Orca)

The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Non-fiction Crime Book: Hitman: The Untold Story of Canada’s Deadliest Assassin, by Julian Sher and Lisa Fitterman (HarperCollins)

Also nominated: The Many Names of Robert Cree: How a First Nations Chief, Brought Ancient Wisdom to Big Business and Prosperity to His People, by Robert Cree with Therese Greenwood (ECW Press); Acts of Darkness: Notorious Criminals, Their Defenders, Prosecutors, and Jailers, by John L. Hill (Durvile & UpRoute); Arctic Predator: The Crimes of Edward Horne Against Children in Canada’s North, by Kathleen Lippa (Dundurn Press); and On the Lam: Great (and Not So Great) Escapes from Prison, by Lorna Poplak (Dundurn Press)

Best Unpublished Crime Novel (manuscript written by an unpublished author): Val’s Story, by Anne Burlakoff

Also nominated: The Less You Know, by William Hall; Lens Flare, by Francis K. Lalumière; Death Scent, by Barbara Stokes; and Blistered, by Isabelle Zimmermann

In addition, Ontario-born crime and thriller author Rick Mofina has been given this year’s Grand Master Award. “This prestigious biennial honor,” says the CWC, “recognizes a Canadian crime writer with a substantial body of work who has garnered significant national and international acclaim while demonstrating a steadfast commitment to the crime-writing community. CWC selected Mofina for this distinction based on his prolific output, professional integrity, and years of dedicated service to both the organization and the genre.”

Cutting Down the Daggers

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:12:00 +0000

Six weeks after releasing its longlists of nominees for the 2026 Dagger Awards, in 12 categories, Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association has announced its shortlisted contenders.

KAA Gold Dagger:
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)
• The Death of Us, by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Michael Joseph)
• The Girl in Cell A, by Vaseem Khan (Hodder Fiction)
• The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon (River Swift Press)
• The Art of a Lie, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:
• The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)
• The Big Empty, by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster UK)
• A Sting in Her Tale, by Mark Ezra (No Exit Press)
• Such Quiet Girls, by Noelle Ihli (Pan)
• The Good Father, by Liam McIlvanney (Zaffre)
• We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (HarperCollins)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction:
• Shadow of the Bridge: The Delphi Murders and the Dark Side of the American Heartland, by Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee (Pegasus Crime)
• The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB, by Gordon Corera (William Collins)
• The Murder Game, by John Curran (HarperCollins/Collins Crime Club)
• Murderland, by Caroline Fraser (Fleet)
• That Dark Spring, by Susannah Stapleton (Picador)
• The Illegals, by Shaun Walker (Profile)

Historical Dagger:
• A Granite Silence, by Nina Allan (Riverrun)
• Barvick Falls, by Rob McInroy (Tippermuir)
• The Devil’s Draper, by Donna Moor (Fly on the Wall Press)
• Gunner, by Alan Parks (Baskerville)
• The Art of a Lie, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle)
• A Case of Life and Limb, by Sally Smith (Raven)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger:
• Murder Mindfully, by Karsten Dusse,
translated by Florian Duijsens (Faber & Faber)
• The Lake, by Jørn Lier Horst,
translated by Anne Bruce (Penguin Random House)
• Red Water, by Jurica Pavičić,
translated by Matt Robinson (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Big Bad Wool, by Leonie Swann,
translated by Amy Bojang (Allison & Busby)
• The Winter Job, by Antti Tuomainen,
translated by David Hackston (Orenda)
• Strange Pictures, by Uketsu,
translated by Jim Rion (Pushkin Press)

Whodunnit Dagger (for “cosy crime, traditional mysteries, and Golden Age crime” stories):
• The Christmas Cracker Killer, by Alexandra Benedict (Simon & Schuster UK)
• Little Secrets, by Victoria Goldman (Three Crowns Publishing UK)
• Etiquette for Lovers and Killers, by Anna Fitzgerald Healy (Fleet)
• A Queer Case, by Robert Holtom (Titan)
• A Murder for Miss Hortense, by Mel Pennant (Baskerville)
• Bad Influence, by C.J. Wray (Orion)

Twisted Dagger (for “psychological and suspense thrillers”):
• What Happens in the Dark, by Kia Abdullah (HQ Fiction)
• Her Many Faces, by Nicci Cloke (Harvill Secker)
• Some of Us Are Liars, by Fiona Cummins (Macmillan)
• Scenes from a Tragedy, by Carole Hailey (Corvus)
• The Bodies, by Sam Lloyd (Bantam)
• We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough (Orion)

ILP John Creasey (First Novel) Dagger:
• The Peak, by Sam Guthrie (HarperCollins)
• The Lost Detective, by Elspeth Latimer (Story Machine)
• The Wolf Tree, by Laura McCluskey (Hemlock Press)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Viper)
• Coram House, by Bailey Seybolt (Raven)
• Holy City, by Henry Wise (No Exit Press)

Short Story Dagger:
• “Split Your Silver Tongue,” by S.A. Cosby (from Birds, Strangers and Psychos: New Stories Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, edited by Maxim Jakubowski; No Exit Press)
• “The Karpman Drama Triangle,” by Denise Mina (from Birds, Strangers and Psychos)
• “Full Circle,” by Abir Mukherjee (from Playing Dead: Short Stories in Honour of Simon Brett by Members of the Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards; Severn House)
• “The Apple Falls Not Far,” by Ambrose Perry (Canongate)
• “Strangers on a School Bus,” by Peter Swanson (from Birds, Strangers and Psychos)
• “Waiting,” by Michael Wood (from Criminal Pursuits: This Is Me, edited by Samantha Lee Howe; Telos)

Emerging Author (for unpublished novels):
• Ill Met by Murder, by Rod Cookson
• The Man Who Fit the Case, by Sophia Georghiou
• Just a Simple Wedding, by Kate Koester
• The Fixer, by Lorna Mathew
• The Madam of Morningside, by Rebecca McFarland
• Blind Side of the Sun, by Michael Nikitin
• The Pattern of Absence, by Melisssa Tonkin

Dagger in the Library (“for a body of work by an established crime writer that has long been popular with borrowers from libraries”):
• Paula Hawkins
• J.D. Kirk
• Clare Mackintosh
• Freida McFadden
• Abir Mukherjee
• Tim Sullivan

Publishers’ Dagger (“awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year”):
• Bitter Lemon Press
• Faber & Faber
• No Exit Press (Bedford Square)
• Pan Macmillan
• Simon & Schuster
• Viper (Profile)

All of the winners will be declared during a CWA gala dinner n July.

Revue of Reviewers: 5-24-26

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Sun, 24 May 2026 13:20:00 +0000

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

Particularly Promising Premieres

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Sat, 23 May 2026 14:48:00 +0000

I spent the better part of this week entertaining a friend who’d flown in from Minneapolis, so I wasn’t exactly on top of the crime-fiction news. That meant I missed alerting readers to the half-dozen nominees for the 2026 McDermid Debut Award. They are:

• A Bad, Bad Place, by Frances Crawford (Penguin Random House)
• The Exes, by Leodora Darlington (Michael Joseph)
• Innocent Guilt, by Remi Kone (Quercus)
• The Quiet, by Barnaby Martin (Pan Macmillan)
• A Murder for Miss Hortense, by Mel Pennant (John Murray)
• How to Get Away With Murder, by Rebecca Philipson (Penguin Random House)

According to a news release, “The shortlist for this year’s McDermid Debut Award, named in recognition of world-famous crime writer Val McDermid, showcases ‘original and assured’ new voices writing across a broad range of subgenres … Now in its third year, the award has established a successful track record for discovering emerging talent, with the two previous winning books, Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney (2024) and A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman (2025), going on to become bestsellers.”

The latest prize recipient is set to be announced on Thursday, July 23, which is opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England.

The Blog in Young Adulthood

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Fri, 22 May 2026 23:39:00 +0000

Today marks two decades—a full 20 years, folks!—since I began posting here in The Rap Sheet. If we consider this (generously) as a job, then it’s the longest one I’ve ever held down. It’s also the one that has brought me the smallest amount of remuneration. But of course I didn’t set out to become rich by blogging about crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. My intention was to celebrate the depth and breadth of this genre, and to express my enduring appreciation for its growth and evolution. I hope I have accomplished that so far.

On the blog’s 10th birthday, I traced my history as a book critic and how it led me to launch The Rap Sheet. So I won’t readdress all of that today. I had once imagined making a big deal of this anniversary (with T-shirts and special postings and more), but decided in the end that, all I really wanted to do was send out my appreciation to the blog’s readers for sticking with it for so long and saying such nice things about it along the way. This journey has presented occasional difficulties, yet it has been predominately rewarding, and I hope to continue writing and editing The Rap Sheet for many years to come.

Thank you, one and all!

How Nice for “Mice”

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Thu, 14 May 2026 16:01:00 +0000

The 2026 British Book Awards—aka the “Nibbies”—were handed out this week in 17 categories. Sally Smith’s A Case of Mice and Murder (Raven, 2024) took top honors in the Crime & Thriller division, with judges calling it “exquisitely written” and labeling its protagonist, Edwardian barrister Gabriel Ward KC, a “memorable sleuth.”

Smith’s novel beat out four others to claim that prize. They were: Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall (Michael Joseph); The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (Borough Press); The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Viking); The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown (Bantam); and The Tenant, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press).

The British Book Awards are administered by The Bookseller.

Fingered for Favor

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Mon, 11 May 2026 17:57:00 +0000

Organizers of this year’s Capital Crime festival in London, England, have announced their finalists for the 2026 Fingerprint Awards. These prizes are said to “champion the very best in crime writing from the past year across the globe, as voted for by readers.”

There are seven categories of contenders for the Fingerprints, but below are three of the most interesting.

Overall Crime Book of the Year:
• The Midnight King, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• The Final Vow, by M.W. Craven (Constable)
• Quantum of Menace, by Vaseem Khan (Zaffre)
• The Good Father, by Liam Liam McIlvanney (Zaffre)
• We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough (Orion)

Debut Crime Book:
• Broken, by Jón Atli Jónasson (Corylus)
• Deadline, by Steph McGovern (Macmillan)
• Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall (Michael Joseph)
• The Day of the Roaring, by Nina Bhadreshwar (Hemlock Press)
• This Is Not a Game, by Kelly Mullen (Century)

True Crime Book of the Year:
• Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen, by Hallie Rubenhold (Doubleday)
• Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, by Virginia Roberts-Guiffre (Doubleday)
• Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers,
by Caroline Fraser (Fleet)
• A History of Modern Britain in Twenty Murders, by Professor
David Wilson (Sphere)
• A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children, by Haley Cohen Gilliland (Avid Reader Press)

Click right here to see the shortlists of nominees in all seven Fingerprint Award divisions for 2026. Between now and Saturday, May 30, readers are invited to vote online for their favorites. The winners will be revealed during a special presentation on Capital Crime’s opening night, Thursday, June 18.

Set to Consider in Calgary

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Sun, 10 May 2026 18:15:00 +0000

While we’re on the subject of crime-fiction commendations, today also brings news of which stories and authors have been chosen as finalists for the 2026 Anthony Awards “for excellence in crime fiction.”

Best Hardcover Novel:
• All This Could Be Yours, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Minotaur)
• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• Death of an Ex, by Delia Pitts (Minotaur)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Pine
and Cedar)

Best First Novel:
• History Lessons, by Zoe B. Wallbrook
(Soho Crime)
• Julie Chan Is Dead, by Liann Zhang (Atria)
• Mask of the Deer Woman, by Laurie L. Dove (Berkley)
• The Retirement Plan, by Sue Hincenbergs (Morrow)
• Voices of the Elysian Fields, by Michael Rigg (Level Best)
• Whiskey Business, by Adrian Andover (Chestnut Avenue Press)

Best Paperback Original/E-Book/Audiobook Original Novel:
• Crimson Thaw, by Bruce Robert Coffin (Severn River)
• Edge, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)
• River of Lies, by James L'Etoile (Oceanview)
• This Violent Heart, by Heather Levy (Montlake)
• Tricks of Fortune, by Lina Chern (Bantam)

Best Short Story:
• “AITA for Using My Husband’s Hobby to Teach Him a Lesson,” by Mindy Carlson (from Myopic Duplicity: Do the Ends Ever Justify the Means? edited by Jeff Circle; Kindle/Audible)
• “Brotherly Love,” by Cheryl A. Head (from Every Day a Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter; Level Short)
• “Finding Jimmy Baldwin,” by Cheryl A. Head (from Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West; Bywater)
• “Hollywood Prometheus,” by Christa Faust (from Crime Ink: Iconic)
• “Six-Armed Robbery,” by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier (from Donna Andrews Presents Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Michael Bracken, and Carla Coupe; Wildside Press)
• “The Skies Are Red,” by Richie Narvaez (from On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology, edited by Curtis Ippolito; Rock and a Hard Place Press)

Best Juvenile or YA:
• Death in the Cards, by Mia P. Manansala (Delacorte Press)
• Miles in Time, by Lee Matthew Goldberg (Wise Wolf)
• Risky Pursuit, by Nancy G. West, (Fire & Ice Young Adult Books)
• The Scammer, by Tiffany D. Jackson
(Quill Tree)
• Well-Behaved Children Seldom Make History, by Chris Chan (Level Best)

Best Critical or Non-fiction Work:
• Bone Valley: A True Story of Injustice and Redemption in the Heart of Florida, by Gilbert King (Flatiron)
• L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood, by Anne Soon Choi
(Third State)
• Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, by Caroline Fraser (Penguin Press)
• The Secret History of the Rape Kit: A True Crime Story, by
Pagan Kennedy (Vintage)
• Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover’s Travel Guide to New England, by Dawn M. Barclay, Level Tru)

Best Anthology or Collection:
• Blood on the Bayou: Case Closed: Bouchercon Anthology, edited by Don Bruns (Down & Out)
• Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater)
• Hollywood Kills: An Anthology, edited by Adam Meyer and Alan Orloff (Level Short)
• On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology, edited by Curtis Ippolito (Rock and a Hard Place Press)
• Whatever Kills the Pain, by C.W. Blackwell (Rock and a Hard Place)

The winners in each of these seven categories will be chosen by attendees at this year’s Bouchercon in Calgary, Alberta, and announced during a ceremony on October 24.

Thrill Seeking Rewarded

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Sun, 10 May 2026 15:26:00 +0000

Southern California crime-fictionist Robert Crais has been enjoying a great deal of good news lately. The Big Empty (2025), the 20th installment in his long-running series about Los Angeles private eye Elvis Cole, recently won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. Now it has also picked up a 2026 Thriller Award.

That news was trumpeted just last night during Thrillerfest XXI in New York City. Here are all six of the authors who carried off prizes from the International Thriller Writers (ITW) organization:

Best Standalone Novel: Cross My Heart, by Megan Collins (Atria)

Also nominated: Zigzag Girl, by Ruth Knafo Setton (Black Spring Press); The Burning Library, by Gilly Macmillan (Morrow); The Locked Ward, by Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s Press); and So Happy Together, by Olivia Worley (Minotaur)

Best Series Novel: The Big Empty, by Robert Crais (Putnam)

Also nominated: Chain Reaction, by James Byrne (Minotaur); Head Cases, by John McMahon (Minotaur); The Tourists, by Christopher Reich (Thomas & Mercer); and Terminal Moonlight, by Vincent Zandri
(Down & Out)

Best First Novel: Party of Liars, by Kelsey Cox (Minotaur)

Also nominated: Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall (Pamela Dorman); Count My Lies, by Sophie Stava (Scout Press); History Lessons, by Zoe B. Wallbrook (Soho Crime); and Julie Chan Is Dead, by Liann Zhang (Atria)

Best Audiobook: The White Crow, by Michael Robotham; narrated by Katy Sobey (Simon & Schuster)

Also nominated: King of Ashes, by S. A. Cosby; narrated by Adam Lazarre-White (Macmillan); The Wasp Trap, by Mark Edwards; narrated by John Hopkins and Anna Burnett (Simon & Schuster); Best Offer Wins, by Marisa Kashino; narrated by Cia Court (Macmillan); When Devils Sing, by Xan Kaur; narrated by Michael Crouch, Anjali Kunapaneni, Jennifer Pickens, and Landon Woodson (Macmillan); and The Cheaters Wife, by C.N. Mabry and N’Dia Rae; narrated by Ruffin Prentiss and Machelle Williams (Simon Maverick)

Best Young Adult Novel: The Silenced, by Diana Rodriguez
Wallach (Delacorte Press)

Also nominated: Murder Between Friends, by Liz Lawson (Delacorte Press); This Stays Between Us, by Margot McGovern (Penguin Young Readers); Shiny Happy People, by Clay McLeod Chapman (Delacorte Press); and The Thrashers, by Julie Soto (Wednesday)

Best Short Story: “The Violent Season,” by Jessica Van Dessel (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2025)

Also nominated: “Level Up,” by Katrina Carrasco (from Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater); “The Seduction of Dr. Dimension,” by Scott William Carter (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November/December 2025); “Eleven Numbers,” by Lee Child (Amazon Original Stories); and “False Note,” by David Lagercrantz (Amazon Original Stories)

In addition, an ITW news release says the following people received “special recognition” during the convention’s awards banquet:

• 2026 ThrillerMaster, Lisa Scottoline
• 2026 ThrillerMaster, Harlan Coben
• 2026 Silver Bullet Award, Douglas Preston
• 2026 Spotlight Guest, Rachel Howzell Hall
• 2026 Spotlight Guest, Luis Alberto Urrea
• 2026 Thriller Legend, Barbara Peters
• 2026 ThrillerFan, Jordon Moblo
• 2026 Thriller Volunteer of the Year, James L'Etoile

Revue of Reviewers: 5-7-26

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Thu, 07 May 2026 23:44:00 +0000

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

“Ghost” Rises to Claim Crown

noreply@blogger.com (J. Kingston Pierce) — Wed, 06 May 2026 00:33:00 +0000

Here’s something I missed: Along with the announcement last week of which authors won this year’s Edgar Awards, Minotaur Books and Mystery Writers of America revealed the victor in their 2026 First Crime Novel Competition. It’s Ghost of a Clue, by Maryland attorney Sharon Roth, who also writes as “Shannon Taft.”

A post in Shotsmag Confidential explains that

Roth has written over twenty published short stories, including a Derringer Award finalist and a story that appeared in Best American Mystery and Suspense. Her debut novel, Ghost of a Clue, is a cozy mystery featuring a protagonist named Lexi, who as a child witnessed the killing of her mother and sister. As a result of the attack, Lexi hears her sister’s voice in her head. Now an adult, Lexi is trying to put the past behind her and buy a B&B in the Poconos. But when the true-crime journalist intent on bringing all of Lexi’s secrets into the open is murdered, Lexi is the prime suspect.

We’re told Ghost of a Clue will be released in the fall of 2027.

This annual competition for authors who have not previously published novels dates back to 2008. Winners receive a one-book, $10,000 Minotaur contract. The first recipient of said honor was Stefanie Pintoff, who went on to publish historical mysteries (among them the 2010 Edgar Award-winning In the Shadow of Gotham) as well as modern thrillers. Additional winners are showcased here.