The shadow of Agatha Christie hovers over more than one major mystery in a season that offers a number of titles focused on authors and books, including Edgar Allan Poe and his self-published debut, Tamerlane.
Top 10
And Now She’s Gone
Rachel Howzell Hall. Forge, Sept. 22 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-75317-5)
Two complicated women engage in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game in this razor-sharp detective novel about how violence and fear can lead one to abandon everything to survive.
The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne
Elsa Hart. Minotaur, Aug. 4 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-14281-8)
With this clever fair play whodunit set in 1703 London centered on the murder of a passionate plant collector, Hart, the author of a mystery series about an 18th-century Chinese librarian, establishes herself as a versatile talent.
Dear Child
Romy Hausmann. Flatiron, Oct. 6 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-76853-7)
This thriller begins where others end: with the escape of a woman held captive for 14 years in a shack in the woods by a man who says he’s been protecting her from the outside world.
The Eighth Detective
Alex Pavesi. Holt, Aug. 4 ($ 26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-75593-3)
Pavesi delivers a cerebral, inventive novel about a mystery writer and the editor who helps him prepare a reprint of his collection of seven perfect detective stories first published 30 years earlier. In our review we called Pavesi a “writer to watch.“
The Forger’s Daughter
Bradford Morrow. Mysterious, Sept. 8 ($26, ISBN 978-0-8021-4925-1)
In this sequel to 2014’s The Forger, reformed forger Will gets ensnared in a plot to counterfeit that supreme rarity of American book collecting, Edgar Allan Poe’s first published work, Tamerlane.
The Killings at Kingfisher Hill: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery
Sophie Hannah. Morrow, Sept. 15 ($27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-279237-2)
In Hannah’s fourth outing for Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective must prove the innocence of a woman who has confessed to murdering her fiance’s brother.
Moonflower Murders
Anthony Horowitz. Harper, Nov. 10 ($28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-295545-6)
Retired book editor Susan Ryeland, the star of 2017’s Magpie Murders, gets involved in another investigation involving the late author Alan Conway and his fictional detective, Atticus Pund.
The Searcher
Tana French. Viking, Oct. 6 ($27, ISBN 978-0-7352-2465-0)
After a bitter divorce, retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper, the hero of this suspense novel, moves to a bucolic Irish village to lead a quiet life. When a local boy whose brother has gone missing persuades Cal to investigate, he uncovers some dangerous secrets.
The Sentinel
Lee and Andrew Child. Delacorte, Oct. 27 ($27, ISBN 978-1-9484-1846-1)
Late one Saturday night, Jack Reacher gets off a Greyhound bus in Nashville. He’s not looking for trouble, but it soon finds him in the form of an angry guy recently fired from his job looking for payback. Lee Child’s thriller writer brother, Andrew Child, collaborates.
Troubled Blood
Robert Galbraith. Mulholland, Sept. 29 ($29, ISBN 978-0-316-49893-7)
Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) further develops the relationship between detectives Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacot in this fifth series entry.
Listings
Agora
A Will to Kill by R.V. Raman (Oct. 20, $26, ISBN 978-1-951709-07-5). Aging Indian patriarch Bhaskar Fernandez knows that his family is waiting for him to die, and to safeguard himself against violence during the house party he’s invited them all to, he prepares two conflicting wills. Which one comes into force depends on how he dies.
Akashic
The Darkest Hearts: A D Hunter Mystery by Nelson George (Aug. 4, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61775-809-6). Former bodyguard D Hunter has moved from New York City to L.A., where he has become a successful talent manager. His past comes back to haunt him when a body discovered off a Brooklyn pier ties him to a retired hit man, and an FBI agent wants to talk with him.
Arcade Crimewise
Forging Fire: A Horseshoer Mystery by Lisa Preston (Sept. 1, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-950691-76-0). Horseshoer Rainy Dale, days before her wedding, decides on impulse to leave Oregon and visit the fabled Black Bluff bull sale in California, where she’s assaulted and her truck is stolen. Rainy later ends up on a ranch where everyone has a dark secret.
Atlantic Monthly
Still Life: A Karen Pirie Novel by Val McDermid (Oct. 6, $26, ISBN 978-0-8021-5744-7). Det. Chief Insp. Karen Pirie investigates after a dead body is found in Scotland’s Firth of Forth. She soon discovers that the case involves a historic disappearance, art forgery, and secret identities—and centers on a painter who can mimic anyone from Holbein to Hockney.
Atria
Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell (Oct. 13, $28, ISBN 978-1-982137-33-5). Geography teacher Owen Pick, a virgin in his 30s living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, is suspended from his job after he’s accused of sexual misconduct. Then a young woman who’s a former patient of the psychologist across the street disappears—and Owen is the last person to have seen her alive.
Ballantine
We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin (Aug. 11, $27, ISBN 978-0-525-62167-6). Texas cop Odette Tucker tries to solve the mystery of a mute girl abandoned on the side of a road—and what may be the related disappearance of cheerleader Trumannell Branson, who left only a bloody handprint behind, a decade earlier.
Bantam
Bryant & May: Oranges and Lemons: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery by Christopher Fowler (Dec. 8, $28, ISBN 978-0-525-48592-6). When the Speaker of the House of Commons is accidentally killed by a van unloading oranges and lemons, Arthur Bryant and John May resurrect London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit to investigate. The bizarre case is not as simple as it seems.
Berkley
Blood World by Chris Mooney (Aug. 18, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-19763-9). In the near future, the LAPD has formed a Blood Crimes Unit to stop criminals from abducting carriers of blood with a special rejuvenating power and selling their blood to the rich. Officer Ellie Batista winds up taking on a madman who has found a way to increase the blood’s potency.
Blackstone
Funeral for a Friend: A Jonathan Stride Novel by Brian Freeman (Sept. 22, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-982663-72-8). Jonathan Stride’s best friend, Steve Garske, confesses on his deathbed that he protected Stride by covering up a murder. When the police later dig up a body in Steve’s yard, Stride is pretty sure it’s an out-of-town reporter who disappeared seven years ago. But did Stride kill him?
Bloomsbury
Murder by Milk Bottle by Lynne Truss (Nov. 10, $27, ISBN 978-1-63557-596-5). In the summer of 1957, Constable Twitten and his colleagues find three bodies, all murdered with the same unusual weapon—a milk bottle. But what connects the three victims: a hard-working patrolman, a would-be beauty queen, and a BBC radio personality?
Brash
Chasing Jack by Parnell Hall (Sept. 1, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-7343480-6-4). Two killers are leaving a trail of bodies across Manhattan. They’re after a man with a name so common, they may never run out of victims.
Catalyst
Divine Justice: A Rae Valentine Thriller by Joanne Hichens (Jan. 12, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-946395-42-9). In Cape Town, South Africa, PI Rae Valentine is looking for a set of missing uncut diamonds when she falls prey to a gang of men intent on destroying her. In the fight for her life, Rae discovers that the missing diamonds are linked to the gang’s illicit dealings.
Crooked Lane
Murder in Hotel 1911: An Ivy Nichols Mystery by Audrey Keown (Aug. 11, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-64385-496-0). Ivy Nichols takes the job of night clerk at a period-themed hotel that was once the estate of her long-missing mother’s wealthy Chattanooga, Tenn., family. When a loud, unpleasant guest dies of an allergic reaction at dinner, the police suspect the hotel chef, Ivy’s best friend.
Doubleday
Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood (Oct. 27, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-3855-4655-3). In 1945 New York City, PI Lillian Pentecost and her assistant, Willowjean “Will” Parker, investigate a case involving a murdered millionaire, a blackmailing spiritualist, and a tight-lipped butler.
Dutton
Fool Me Twice by Jeff Lindsay (Dec. 1, $27, ISBN 978-1-5247-4397-0). An international arms dealer wants thief extraordinaire Riley Wolfe to steal a fresco, The Liberation of St. Peter, which is in the Vatican and is a literal wall. Riley has no choice but to accept. Another arms dealer later gives Riley a second impossible mission.
Ecco
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Aug. 25, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-296894-4). Virgil Wounded Horse, who often metes out vigilante justice on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, is dismayed to discover that his nephew is on heroin. Virgil heads to Denver to seek the source of the drug and stop its flow.
ECW
Cradle of the Deep by Dietrich Kalteis (Nov. 3, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77041-526-3). Bobbi Ricci, who wants to escape her boyfriend, aging gangster “Maddog” Palmieri, and Denny, Maddog’s ex-driver, who has a grudge against the gangster, help themselves to the gangster’s secret money stash and slip out of town. An enraged Maddog puts stone-cold killer Lee Trane on their trail.
Gordian Knot
Murder Old & New by Laurie and Chet Williamson (Aug. 18, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-951510-37-4). Nostalgia shop owner Livy Crowe is dismayed to discover a batch of old black-and-white photos in an envelope among her late father’s effects showing a hanged man. What was ruled a suicide in 1935 turns out to be murder.
Grand Central
The Scorpion’s Tail by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston (Jan. 12, $28, ISBN 978-1-5387-4727-8). FBI agent Corrie Swanson takes on a case involving a mummified corpse discovered in a New Mexico ghost town. Corrie realizes she needs the help of her foe-turned-ally, archaeologist Nora Kelly, who soon learns that the deceased was poisoned and died clutching a priceless artifact. 250,000-copy announced first printing.
Hanover Square
Snow by John Banville (Oct. 6, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-335-23000-3). In 1957 Ireland, Det. Insp. St. John Strafford investigates the murder of a parish priest found dead in the family seat of the aristocratic Osborne family. Strafford, a Protestant, who faces obstruction at every turn from the Catholic community, soon learns the Osbornes are not at all what they seem.
Hard Case Crime
Skim Deep by Max Allan Collins (Nov. 10, $10.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78909-139-7). Former world-class thief Nolan has gone straight, but he gets into trouble on his Vegas honeymoon after a security camera at a casino spots him, and it looks as if he’s casing the joint. Nolan is soon roped into a scheme to heist the casino’s weekly skim haul.
Head of Zeus
Spoils of the Dead by Dana Stabenow (Jan. 1, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-78854-915-8). Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell, exiled to a tiny wilderness town in disgrace following a mistake that cost a family of five their lives, has various crimes to deal with, including the murder of an archaeologist who claimed to be on the verge of a big discovery.
Kensington
Every Kind of Wicked by Lisa Black (Aug. 25, $26, ISBN 978-1-4967-2238-6). Cleveland crime scene investigator Maggie Gardiner and homicide detective Jack Renner dive into the seedy world of fraud—including medical fraud, money laundering, and phone scammers.
Knopf
Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen (Sept. 29, $28.95, ISBN 978-1-5247-3345-2). A Palm Beach, Fla., society matron, who’s a big supporter of the president, goes missing from a party. Meanwhile, the body of a wealthy dowager is found in a concrete grave, and a resourceful wildlife wrangler must deal with a mysterious influx of giant pythons. 300,000-copy announced first printing.
Little, Brown
Untitled New Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly (Nov. 10, $29, ISBN 978-0-316-48562-3). When the police pull over L.A. defense attorney Mickey Haller, they find the body of a client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Mickey decides to defend himself on the subsequent murder charge.
MCD X
Prefecture D: Four Novellas by Hideo Yokoyama, trans. by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies (Oct. 6, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-374-23704-2). Set in 1998 Japan in the world of the author’s novel Six Four, these four novellas explore themes of obsession, saving face, office politics, and interdepartmental conflicts as police officers strive to solve perplexing mysteries.
Mira
When I Was You by Amber Garza (Aug. 25, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7783-6104-6). Lonely Kelly Medina, whose grown son is off at college, learns by chance that there’s another woman in town with the same name, who has a baby son. Kelly meets the other Kelly, a single mother, but their friendship soon develops into a dangerous obsession.
Mobius
The Turning Tide by Catriona McPherson (Nov. 10, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-4736-8238-2). In the summer of 1936, aristocratic sleuth Dandy Silver looks into the strange case of Scottish ferrywoman Vesper Kemp, who claims she murdered a young man who fell into the Firth of Forth. Some local residents are sure Vesper is innocent, but others have their suspicions.
New York Review Books
No Room at the Morgue by Jean-Patrick Manchette, trans. by Alyson Waters (Aug. 11, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68137-418-5). Memphis Charles turns to Paris PI Eugène Tarpon for help after finding her roommate’s bloody body. Tarpon first says no to the attractive Memphis, but he eventually gets on a trail that leads deep into the porn industry.
Norton
Head Wounds: A Kevin Kerney Novel by Michael McGarrity (Nov. 10, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-324-00285-7). When a couple are found in a Las Cruces, N.Mex., hotel with their throats cut, Det. Clayton Istee suspects that the murders are drug related. Dirty federal officials on both sides of the Rio Grande dog Clayton as he searches for answers.
Oceanview
The President’s Dossier by James A. Scott (Oct. 6, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-60809-413-4). After Russia expert Max Geller is fired from the CIA for bias against the U.S. president, he gets a chance to redeem his reputation when he’s hired to investigate the president’s possibly criminal ties to Moscow.
Overlook
Comrade Koba by Robert Littell (Nov. 10, $22, ISBN 978-1-4197-4832-5). After the sudden death of young Leon Rozental’s nuclear physicist father and the arrest of his mother during the Stalinist purge of Jewish doctors, Leon meets Koba, a high-ranking Soviet officer with troubling insight into the thoughts and machinations of Stalin.
Pantheon
How to Raise an Elephant by Alexander McCall Smith (Oct. 6, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-5247-4936-1). Precious Ramotswe, the head of Botswana’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, lands an unusual case that leaves her caring for a baby elephant.
Park Row
Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger (Oct. 6, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7783-1015-0). On a stalled commuter train, Selena Murphy meets a stranger who introduces herself as Martha. Martha says she’s stuck in an affair with her boss; Selena confesses she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. Days after the two women part, Selena’s nanny disappears.
Pegasus Crime
The Art of Violence: A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel by S.J. Rozan (Dec. 1, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-64313-531-1). Sam Tabor, a talented painter with memory issues, fears he has recently killed two women. PI partners Bill Smith and Lydia Chin set out to prove Sam is no serial killer.
Penguin
The Sicilian Method by Andrea Camilleri (Oct. 6, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-14-313497-8). Inspector Montalbano
investigates the murder of stage director Carmelo Catalanotti, who kept notes and comments on all the actors he worked with, as well as notebooks full of figures, dates, and names. Montalbano assiduously searches all these written materials for clues.
Penzler
The Widening Stain by W. Bolingbroke Johnson (Aug. 4, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61316-171-5). After a reception at the home of the university president, French instructor Lucie Coindreau visits the university library, where she falls over a gallery railing to her death. A second death soon after suggests that Lucie’s was no accident.
Permanent Press
The Snow Raven: A Josie Corsino Mystery by Connie Dial (Sept. 30, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-57962-589-4). An informant tells LAPD narcotics detective Josie Corsino that a Hollywood cop is selling cocaine. The search for the culprit puts Josie in the middle of a drug war involving an organized crime family.
Poisoned Pen
Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards (Sept. 22, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4642-1405-9). In 1930, at a remote house on the English coast, an eccentric female criminologist hosts a party whose guests have all narrowly escaped the consequences of miscarriages of justice. Tragedy ensues when a body is found beneath the crumbling cliffs.
Polis
The Lakehouse by Joe Clifford (Sept. 15, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-951709-10-5). After Todd Norman is cleared of his wife’s murder, he returns to his wife’s small Connecticut hometown in order to finish building their dream house by the lake. His efforts to restart his life are dashed when a young woman’s body washes up on the beach next door.
Prospect Park
Reason to Kill: An Amos Parisman Mystery by Andy Weinberger (Sept. 22, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-945551-86-4). L.A. booking agent Pinky Bleistiff hires PI Amos Parisman to find singer Risa Barsky, who’s disappeared. The investigation gets complicated after Pinky is murdered and Risa remains missing.
Pushkin Vertigo
The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo, trans. by Yumiko Yamakazi (Aug. 18, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78227-503-9). When the wealthy head of the Inugami clan dies, his family members eagerly await the reading of his will. Det. Kosuke Kindaichi investigates the series of gruesome murders that follows the revelation of the will’s strange details.
Putnam
Then She Vanished by T. Jefferson Parker (Aug. 11, $27, ISBN 978-0-525-53767-0). San Diego, Calif., PI Roland Ford takes on the case of a state legislator whose wife has disappeared in the midst of a challenging reelection campaign. Meanwhile, the San Diego area is rocked by increasingly deadly terrorist attacks aimed at California’s elected officials.
Random House
Fire in the Blood by Perry O’Brien (Aug. 11, $27, ISBN 978-0-8129-8858-1). Coop, a U.S. Army paratrooper serving in Afghanistan, heads to New York City after learning his wife has died in an accident. Once home, Coop decides to go AWOL and investigate the suspicious circumstances of her death.
Redhook
Call of Vultures by Kate Kessler (Dec. 1, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-45426-1). Ex-con Killian Delaney seeks to rescue two sisters from a commune that looks much like a cult. The only problem is one sister doesn’t want to leave.
Scout
One by One by Ruth Ware (Sept. 8, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-5011-8881-7). When a rustic mountain chalet, the site of a company weekend retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration, is hit by an avalanche, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. How many participants will make it to Monday is unclear.
Severn House
Mr. Campion’s Seance by Mike Ripley (Aug. 4, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-7278-8961-4). The crime at the heart of Evadne Childe’s new mystery, The Bottle Party Murder, bears striking similarities to a very real, recent, and unsolved murder at a London club. Evadne wrote the book before the murder occurred, yet predicts it accurately—a coincidence, or are paranormal forces at work?
Simon & Schuster
Piece of My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke (Nov. 17, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-982132-54-5). TV producer Laurie Moran and her fiancée, Alex Buckley, the former host of her investigative TV show, are just days away from their wedding when Alex’s seven-year-old nephew, Johnny, vanishes. Laurie and Alex must put all their investigative skills into finding Johnny fast.
Soho Crime
Sleep Well, My Lady by Kwei Quartey (Jan. 12, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-64129-207-8). When the cops pin the bludgeoning murder of Ghanaian fashion figure Lady Araba on her driver, PI Emma Djan believes the driver is being scapgoated. She’s certain the real killer lies within Araba’s social circle, but every suspect has a convenient alibi for the night of the murder.
Sourcebooks Landmark
The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton (Oct. 6, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-72820-602-8). In 1634, English detective Samuel Pipps is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime of which he may be innocent. Aboard the ship, a twice-dead leper stalks the decks and strange symbols appear on the sails. Then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.
St. Martin’s
The Night Swim by Megan Goldin (Aug. 4, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-21968-8). Rachel Krall, the producer of a popular true crime podcast, covers the high-profile trial of an Olympic swimming contender accused of raping a 16-year-old girl in a small North Carolina town. Rachel also looks into the 25-year-old accidental drowning of a 16-year-old girl whose surviving sister claims she was murdered.
THOMAS & MERCER
Blood Victory by Christopher Rice (Aug. 18, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-5420-1472-4). Charlotte “Charley” Rowe, who works for an organization that goes after serial killers, poses as the next potential victim of long-haul trucker Cyrus Mattingly. What Charley doesn’t know about Cyrus, an atypical serial killer, makes him an unusually formidable foe.
Three rooms
Scavenger by Christopher Chambers (Oct. 13, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-941110-94-2). In Washington, D.C., a black homeless man turns amateur detective when a wealthy former government official makes a deal with him to find a missing woman using the network of the streets and the underground world of undocumented immigrants.
Titan
Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons by James Lovegrove (Sept. 22, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-78909-469-5). A fiendish creature once again targets the Baskerville family in this thriller set five years after the events of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sir Henry Baskerville summons Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to investigate.
Turner
Cover Your Tracks by Daco Auffenorde (Oct. 20, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68442-550-1). An avalanche in an isolated area of the Rockies destroys a passenger train, and only pregnant Margo Fletcher and former Army Ranger Nick Eliot survive. Margo and Nick are stranded in a snowstorm without food, water, or heat. Will rescuers arrive in time?
World Noir
The Intrusions by Stav Sherez (Nov. 17, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-60945-620-7). A young woman shows up at a London police station claiming her friend has been abducted, and that the man threatened to return and “claim her next.” Det. Insp. Jack Carrigan and Det. Sgt. Geneva Miller are drawn into the terrifying new world of cyberstalking as they investigate.
This article has been updated with new metadata for some titles.
