Hillary Rodham Clinton makes her fiction debut this season with a political thriller coauthored with Louise Penny, and a number of veteran genre authors also have big books, including Megan Abbott, Paula Hawkins, and Stephen King.
Top 10
All Her Little Secrets
Wanda M. Morris. Morrow, Nov. 2 ($16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-308246-5)
One morning, Black corporate attorney Ellice Littlejohn arrives at her Atlanta law firm to find her white boss, Michael, shot dead in his office. That the two were having an affair is only one reason why Ellice decides to walk away and keep a low profile.
Better Off Dead: A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child and Andrew Child. Delacorte, Oct. 26 ($28.99, ISBN 978-1-9848-1850-8)
In an unnamed town along the Texas-Mexico border, criminals decide to pick a fight with Jack Reacher. They soon learn they made a big mistake.
Billy Summers
Stephen King. Scribner, Aug. 3 ($30, ISBN 978-1-9821-7361-6)
Hired killer Billy Summer, an ace sniper who targets only bad guys, is ready to get out of the business. He agrees to one last hit but soon has cause to regret that decision.
Flicker in the Dark
Stacy Willingham. Minotaur, Jan. 11 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-80382-5)
Psychologist Chloe Davis treats troubled teens in Baton Rouge, La. Then teenage girls start to go missing, bringing back memories of 20 years earlier when she was 12 and six girls disappeared in Chloe’s small Louisiana town. Her father was arrested and accused of being a serial killer.
The Last Mona Lisa
Jonathan Santlofer. Sourcebooks Landmark, Aug. 17 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-7282-4398-6)
In 1911, a museum workman stole Mona Lisa from the Louvre. In 2019, a descendant of the workman tries to determine whether the famed painting was replaced with a forgery.
Mrs. March
Virginia Feito. Liveright, Aug. 10 ($26, ISBN 978-1-63149-861-9)
An Upper East Side housewife is proud that her husband’s latest novel is a success. Then a shopkeeper she knows tells her that the book’s protagonist, a prostitute, is based on herself.
Rock Paper Scissors
Alice Feeney. Flatiron, Sept. 7 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-26610-1)
Adam and Amelia, a couple with marital problems, win a weekend away in the Scottish Highlands. The tension between Adam and Amelia builds as they get caught in a snowstorm.
A Slow Fire Burning
Paula Hawkins. Riverhead, Aug. 31 ($28, ISBN 978-0-7352-1123-0)
The murder of a 23-year-old man on a London houseboat spells trouble for three women linked to the victim, all of whom have reasons to seek revenge.
State of Terror
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny. St. Martin’s, Oct. 12 ($30, ISBN 978-1-9821-7367-8)
A newly appointed secretary of state, who has joined the administration of a U.S. president who was once her rival, must deal with a series of terrorist attacks that threaten the global order.
The Turnout
Megan Abbott. Putnam, Aug. 3 ($27, ISBN 978-0-593-08490-8)
Dara and Marie Durant, who have been dancers since a young age, run a dance school founded by their late mother. A suspicious accident, shortly before the school’s annual performance of The Nutcracker, threatens the sisters’ delicate balancing act.
Mysteries & Thrillers Listings
Agora
Arya Winters and the Tiramisu of Death by Amita Murray (Oct. 26, $26, ISBN 978-1-951709-47-1). Arya Winters, a baker who lives in an English village, avoids her nosy neighbors because she’s socially anxious. But when a neighbor turns up dead, she must overcome her fears to find a murderer.
Akashic
The Reluctant King by K’wan (Sept. 14, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-6361-4014-8). New York City Council member Chancellor King and his socialite wife are regarded as modern-day royalty, but King’s ambition to rise in the political world is threatened by an unambitious son and some dark family secrets.
Arcade crimewise
Double Solitaire by Craig Nova (Sept. 7, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-950691-22-7). L.A. fixer Quinn Farrell gets paid well to clean up the messes of rich people. But then he falls in love with a new neighbor, who works with terminally ill teens, and the moral framework that allows him to live with himself starts to fall apart.
Atlantic Monthly
1979 by Val McDermid (Oct. 5, $26, ISBN 978-0-8021-5902-1). In the troubled year of 1979, Glasgow investigative journalist Allie Burns starts to do more serious assignments than the “women’s stories” she’s always assigned—first on international tax fraud, then on a potential Scottish terrorist group—to her peril.
Atria
Enemy at the Gates by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills (Sept. 14, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-9821-6488-1). CIA operative Mitch Rapp must contend with an autocratic U.S. president with no respect for America’s institutions and protect the world’s first trillionaire, who appears to be the target of a mole within the agency.
Ballantine
A Darker Reality: An Elena Standish Novel by Anne Perry (Sept. 21, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-15936-1). In the late 1930s, MI6 spy Elena Standish travels to Washington, D.C., where she attends a party hosted by her American grandfather. After a guest is run over by a car, Elena’s grandfather is arrested for murder.
Bantam
London Bridge Is Falling Down: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery by Christopher Fowler (Dec. 7, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-593-35621-0). Arthur Bryant and John May, of London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit, investigate the apparently innocuous death of a 91-year-old woman, a former government security expert. Of course, it’s a case of murder.
Berkley
My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa (Sept. 14, $26, ISBN 978-0-593-33508-6). Thirty-year-old Paloma, who was adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage as a child, decides to sublet a room in her San Francisco apartment to Arun, who recently moved from India. Murder follows after Arun discovers a secret from Paloma’s past.
Blackstone
Felonious Monk by William Kotzwinkle (Aug. 31, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-0940-0925-4). Tommy Martini, a monk with anger management issues, takes medicine for his condition. Then he has to deal with cartel hit men, Mafia bill collectors, and women intrigued by his vow of chastity. The hit men present fewer problems than the women.
crooked lane
Striking Range: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima (Sept. 7, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-6438-5746-6). Deputy Mattie Cobb finally gets the chance to interview the number one suspect in her father’s murder 30 years earlier. Then the man turns up dead in his Colorado prison cell.
Doubleday
Hyde by Craig Russell (Sept. 28, $27, ISBN 978-0-385-54444-3). Edward Hyde, the chief detective of Victorian Edinburgh, is prone to epileptic seizures that cause him to forget long stretches of time. When Hyde finds himself at a murder scene, with no idea of how he got there, he really starts to worry.
Dundurn
The Devil to Pay: An Inspector Green Mystery by Barbara Fradkin (Nov. 16, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4597-4384-7). Insp. Michael Green’s daughter, Hannah, a rookie patrol officer, digs into a domestic disturbance at his urging. When the husband disappears and a body later turns up, Hannah fears her actions could have led to the murder.
Ecco
The Days to Come by Tom Rosenstiel (Nov. 23, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-289264-5). Washington, D.C., fixers Peter Rena and Randi Brooks get involved in foreign espionage and a risky plan to solve the climate crisis when a billionaire entrepreneur with an ambitious agenda becomes the president of the U.S.
ECW
The Keening: A Mystery of Gaelic Ireland by Anne Emery (Sept. 21, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-77041-584-3). In the present, a dig on the land of a 16th-century Irish castle uncovers the 400-year-old body of a bogman, along with a sheaf of prophecies. Flashbacks to the 1500s reveal what led to the murder of Sorcha the prophetess.
Forge
Her Perfect Life by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Sept. 14, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-25888-5). TV reporter Lily Atwood has achieved fame and fortune, thanks largely to an anonymous source who feeds her story tips. When the source begins relaying information to Lily about her own life, she worries someone is out to destroy her.
Gallery
Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Aug. 17, $28, ISBN 978-1-9821-7516-0). In the summer of 1988, when the bodies of several missing girls turn up in a Maryland town, it appears a serial killer is on the loose. Recent college graduate Richard Chizmar writes a personal account of the crimes at his peril.
Grand Central
Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown (Aug. 3, $28, ISBN 978-1-5387-5196-1). WWI vet Thatcher Hutton, a former ranch hand, winds up in a small Texas town, where he hopes to find a job and earn enough money to get home. When a local woman disappears that same day, Thatcher becomes the prime suspect.
Graydon House
Such a Good Wife by Seraphina Nova Glass (Aug. 10, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5258-9601-9). Melanie Hale, a devoted mother and loving wife, is feeling unfulfilled when she begins an affair with Luke, an author she meets through a writer’s group. When Mel later finds Luke’s dead body, she realizes she’s in trouble.
Hanover Square
April in Spain by John Banville (Oct. 5, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-335-47140-6). In a bar while on vacation in Spain, Dublin pathologist Quirke spots a woman who was supposedly murdered years before. At Quirke’s request, an Irish police detective is dispatched to Spain to investigate. But a hit man is also en route.
Hard Case Crime
Five Decembers by James Kestrel (Oct. 19, $22.99, ISBN 978-1-78909-611-8). In December 1941, Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady investigates a homicide case that will take him across the Pacific, far from the woman he loves. Meanwhile, a Japanese fleet is heading toward Pearl Harbor.
Harper
A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz (Oct. 19, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-293816-9). Daniel Hawthorne, a former detective inspector, and a friend, author Anthony Horowitz, attend a literary festival on Alderney, where a prominent local dies under mysterious circumstances. The pair are soon locked down on the island with an unknown killer.
Kensington
Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge (Oct. 26, $26, ISBN 978-1-4967-3244-6). When a dead body turns up during a house party at the home of Agatha Christie in 1930, the author’s housekeeper, Phyllida Bright, an avid fan of detective fiction, must emulate Hercule Poirot to identify a killer.
Knopf
The Guide by Peter Heller (Aug. 24, $27, ISBN 978-0-525-65776-7). A job at an elite fishing lodge in Colorado offers Jack, who has a traumatic past, a second chance at a normal life. After an assignment to guide a celebrity singer goes awry, Jack realizes something sinister is going on at the lodge.
Little, Brown
The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly (Nov. 9, $29, ISBN 978-0-316-48564-7). In Hollywood on New Year’s Eve, LAPD Det. Renée Ballard is called to the scene of a fatal shooting during a street party. Ballard’s investigation leads her to another murder case that her colleague, Det. Harry Bosch, once worked on.
Mariner
The Midnight Hour by Elly Griffiths (Nov. 23, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-358-41863-4). Retired music-hall star Verity Malone hires PI Emma Holmes to find out who poisoned her theater impresario husband. Since the Brighton, England, police are already on the case, Emma is directly competing with her police superintendent husband.
Melville House
The Bloodless Boy by Robert J. Lloyd (Nov. 2, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-61219-939-9). In Restoration London, Robert Hooke, the Royal Society’s curator of experiments, joins the inquiry into the case of a boy found drained of his blood. Hooke must determine the motive for the boy’s murder.
Mira
Where I Left Her by Amber Garza (Aug. 24, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7783-3206-0). Whitney feels uneasy dropping off her teenage daughter, Amelia, at Lauren’s house for a sleepover without meeting Lauren’s parents. When Whitney returns the next day, an elderly couple answer the door and tell her she has the wrong house.
Mobius
The Mirror Dance by Catriona McPherson (Nov. 23, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-5293-3792-1). When the body of a puppeteer is found behind his Punch and Judy stand in Dundee, Scotland, amateur sleuth Dandy Gilver investigates and discovers the murder is connected with a publisher of comic books.
Mulholland
The Last Guests by J.P. Pomare (Aug. 31, $28, ISBN 978-0-316-46298-3). Newlyweds Lina and Cain decide to rent out their lakeside vacation home on weekends and make some extra money. After strange things start to happen on their property, Lina becomes convinced someone is out to get her.
Mysterious
Observations by Gaslight: Stories from the World of Sherlock Holmes by Lyndsay Faye (Dec. 7, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-61316-261-3). The stories and novellas in this collection portray Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson from the perspectives of such supporting characters as Irene Adler, Inspector Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson.
Norton
Damascus Station by David McCloskey (Oct. 5, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-393-88104-2). After CIA case officer Sam Joseph recruits Syrian official Mariam Haddad in Paris, they travel to Damascus in search of the culprit behind an American spy’s disappearance. That their relationship becomes intimate complicates their already dangerous mission.
Oceanview
Last Redemption by Matt Coyle (Nov. 30, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-60809-424-0). PI Rick Cahill’s best friend, Moira MacFarlane, persuades Rick to keep an eye on her grown son, Luke, who’s violated a restraining order. When Luke goes missing, Rick gets on a trail that leads him to some sadistic killers.
Orenda
The Assistant by Kjell Ola Dahl, trans. by Don Bartlett (Oct. 1, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-913193-65-2). In 1938 Oslo, PI Ludvig Paaske and his assistant, former drug-smuggler Jack Rivers, investigate what appears to be a straightforward case of marital infidelity. But soon Jack is accused of murder.
Overlook
Brooklyn Supreme by Robert Reuland (Nov. 2, $27, ISBN 978-1-4197-5065-6). The job of NYPD officer Will Way is to get cops out of trouble, like the inexperienced officer who fatally shot an African American teenager after he robbed a Brooklyn bodega. That the teen may have been unarmed causes a publicity storm.
Pantheon
The Joy and Light Bus Company by Alexander McCall Smith (Oct. 26, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-593-31573-6). Precious Ramotswe, of Botswana’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, has a particularly tricky case on her hands. She must also contend with the foibles of her assistant Charlie, who has recently married.
Park Row
The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf (Jan. 25, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7783-1193-5). True crime writer Wylie Lark is content to be snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s working on her new book. Suddenly, Wylie has lots to worry about after a small child turns up outside her door.
Pegasus Crime
In the Crypt with a Candlestick by Daisy Waugh (Oct. 5, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-64313-805-3). With the death of 93-year-old Sir Ecgbert Tode, Tode Hall, his imposing manor house, passes to a distant relative. Soon after the heir and his wife move in, Lady Tode turns up dead in the family mausoleum.
Penguin Books
The Night Singer by Johanna Mo (Aug. 3, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-14-313668-2). Swedish police detective Hannah Duncker returns to the island of Öland, which she left years before after her father was convicted of murder. A murder investigation into a 15-year-old boy’s death resurrects ghosts from Hannah’s past.
Poisoned pen
Farewell Blues by Maggie Robinson (Sept. 14, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-4642-1519-3). When Lady Adelaide Compton’s mother, Constance, the Dowager Marchioness of Broughton, is accused of murdering her lover, Addie must turn for help to her friend Det. Insp. Devenand Hunter, about whom she has mixed feelings.
Polis
The Killing Look by J.D. Rhoades (Aug. 24, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-951709-49-5). Civil War veteran L.D. Cade is glad to get a job as a bodyguard to a real estate speculator in 1870s San Francisco, but he soon runs up against intolerance and greed as he faces some sadistic enemies.
Pushkin Vertigo
The Village of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo, trans. by Bryan Karetnyk (Nov. 30, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78227-745-3). Investigator Kosuke Kindaichi looks into the case of a young man who appears to be connected to a spate of poisonings in the Village of Eight Graves, where eight samurai were murdered in the 16th century.
Scarlet
Five Strangers by E.V. Adamson (Oct. 5, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-61316-242-2). One sunny day on London’s Hampstead Heath, five strangers witness a lovers’ quarrel that leads to murder and suicide. One of the five, disgraced journalist Jen Hunter, has doubts about what she saw, however, and investigates.
Severn house
Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly (Sept. 7, $27, ISBN 978-0-7278-9038-2). In 1924, British widow Emma Blackstone is grateful for a job assisting Hollywood movie star Kitty Flint. When Kitty’s first husband turns up dead in her dressing room, with a threatening letter from her in his pocket, Emma must prove Kitty’s innocence.
Simon & Schuster
Another Kind of Eden by James Lee Burke (Aug. 17, $27, ISBN 978-1-9821-5171-3). Aspiring novelist Aaron Holland Broussard, who has found work on a farm outside Denver, falls for college student Joanne McDuffy, a gifted painter. Their budding romance is complicated by Joanne’s involvement with a professor associated with a cult.
Soho Crime
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara (Aug. 3, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-64129-249-8). In 1944, Rose Ito, a Japanese American, settles in Chicago after her release from a California internment camp. When Rose’s parents and younger sister later arrive in Chicago, they’re dismayed to discover she’s been killed by a subway train. The death was ruled a suicide, but Rose’s sister sets out to prove it was murder.
Thomas & Mercer
These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall (Sept. 1, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-5420-2747-2). Mickie Lambert, who creates “digital scrapbooks” for clients, honors the last wish of curio shop owner Nadia Denham by working with 12 mementos of hers. Then Mickie starts receiving threatening messages telling her to leave Nadia’s past alone.
Viking/Dorman
The Man Who Died Twice: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery by Richard Osman (Sept. 28, $26, ISBN 978-1-9848-8099-4). Elizabeth and the three other members of the Thursday Murder Club get a surprise visitor at their English retirement village. An old pal of Elizabeth’s is fleeing some nasty people who believe he stole some diamonds from them.
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler (Oct. 19, $26 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-31102-8). The stories in this massive anthology range in settings from the soot-covered streets of London to countryside manor houses. Authors include Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, and Charles Dickens.
World Noir
The April Dead by Alan Parks (Aug. 3, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-60945-687-0). Glasgow police detective Harry McCoy goes looking for a missing American sailor from a local navy base. Then a wave of bombings hits Glasgow, and McCoy realizes the sailor may be part of a larger conspiracy.
This article has been updated with new bibliographic information for some titles.
