This season, classical musician Brendan Slocumb debuts with The Violin Conspiracy, about a Black violinist and a stolen violin. Other notable books dealing with racial issues include Greg Iles’s Southern Man and Daniel’s Nieh’s Take No Names.

Top 10

The Berlin Exchange

Joseph Kanon. Scribner, Feb. 22 ($28, ISBN 978-1-9821-5865-1)

In 1963 Berlin, Martin Keller, an American physicist who was arrested after he spied for the KGB, returns to East Berlin in a border swap. Keller wonders who orchestrated the exchange and why.

Dark Horse: An Orphan X Novel

Gregg Hurwitz. Minotaur, Feb. 8 ($28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-25230-2)

The former government assassin known as Orphan X heads to Mexico to rescue a Texas drug kingpin’s daughter who’s been kidnapped by a vicious cartel leader.

Every Cloak Rolled in Blood

James Lee Burke. Simon & Schuster, May 17 ($27, ISBN 978-1-9821-9659-2)

The supernatural and a father-daughter relationship drive this installment of the Holland family saga, which culminates in a battle between ghosts and men.

The It Girl

Ruth Ware. Scout, July 12 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-9821-5526-1)

An Oxford University porter convicted of murdering a student dies in prison 10 years after the crime. A journalist discovers evidence that he may have been innocent.

The Rust Country

Natasha Pulley. Bloomsbury, July 26 ($26, ISBN 978-1-63557-327-5)

In 1963, a former nuclear specialist is transferred from a Siberian gulag to a city housing nuclear reactors, where he’s to serve out his term studying the effects of radiation on local animals.

Southern Man

Greg Iles. Morrow, May 24 ($28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-282469-1

When an arsonist starts torching antebellum plantation houses in Natchez and another Mississippi River city, an unknown Black radical group claims responsibility. Penn Cage, still recovering from the events in the Natchez Burning trilogy, suspects a false flag operation.

A Sunlit Weapon

Jacqueline Winspear. Harper, Mar. 22 ($27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-314226-8)

In 1942 Britain, investigator Maisie Dobbs looks into attacks on planes flown by women ferry pilots. A visit from first lady Eleanor Roosevelt adds complications.

Take No Names

Daniel Nieh. Ecco, July 5 ($26.95, ISBN 978-0-06-288667-5)

Victor Li, who’s employed to break into the storage units of those recently deported, discovers a valuable gem in one such unit. Dare he try to sell it?

The Violin Conspiracy

Brendan Slocumb. Anchor, Feb. 1 ($28, ISBN 978-0-593-31541-5)

When a family heirloom violin is stolen from Ray McMillian, a Black classical musician, just before a major international competition, Ray must contend with the claim of the descendants of the man who enslaved his great-grandfather that the violin belongs to them.

What Happened to the Bennetts

Lisa Scottoline. Putnam, Mar. 29 ($28, ISBN 978-0-525-53967-4)

On the orders of the FBI, court reporter Jason Bennett and his family go into the witness protection program after a violent encounter with carjackers who have organized crime connections.

Mysteries & Thrillers Listings

Agora

The Red Canoe by Wayne Johnson (Feb. 15, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-951709-72-3). Buck, a carpenter, spends his days alone, until 15-year-old Lucy shows up. Buck senses Lucy, who lives in a trailer with her widowed father, is in trouble and sets out to help her.

Akashic

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms: Stories and Essays by Tim McLoughlin (Mar. 1, $23.95, ISBN 978-1-61775-984-0). The six stories and seven essays in this collection draw on the author’s 30 years working in the criminal justice system. In one story, an opioid-addicted cat-sitter learns devastating things when he eavesdrops on his neighbors.

Atlantic Monthly

Give Unto Others by Donna Leon (Mar. 15, $27, ISBN 978-0-8021-5940-3). Venetian police inspector Guido Brunetti looks into a matter for a woman whose son-in-law has confessed their family might be in danger because of something he’s involved with. Brunetti soon uncovers the dark side of a venerable Italian institution.

Atria

The Bounty by Janet Evanovich and Steve Hamilton (Feb. 15, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-9821-5714-2). FBI agent Kate O’Hare and international criminal Nick Fox take on the Brotherhood, a shadowy organization seeking a lost train loaded with $30 billion in Nazi gold somewhere in the mountains of Eastern Europe.

Ballantine

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart (Feb. 22, $28, ISBN 978-1-9848-2064-8). January Cole runs security at the Paradox Hotel, where time-traveling guests await “flights” to the past. January’s job gets a lot more complicated when a body only she can see turns up and an invisible killer starts stalking the guests.

Bantam

Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride by Lorenzo Carcaterra (May 3, $26, ISBN 978-0-399-17762-0). When a recently engaged woman confesses that she’s afraid her fiancé might not be who he seems, Nonna Maria, a nosy, elderly widow who lives on the island of Ischia, helps the woman disappear.

Berkley

Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton (June 21, $27, ISBN 978-1-9848-0304-7). Police detective Elise King investigates after a man disappears the first night of a music festival in the seaside town of Ebbing, England, where the locals and weekenders are at odds with each other.

Bitter Lemon

Silver Pebbles by Hansjörg Schneider, trans. by Mike Mitchell (Feb. 22, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-913394-62-2). At the Basel, Switzerland, train station, police inspector Peter Hunkeler is waiting for a courier carrying diamonds. Complications ensue when the courier flushes the stones down the station toilet.

Blackstone

The World of Pondside by Mary Helen Stefaniak (Apr. 19, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-7999-0971-2). At Pondside Manor, Robert Kallman creates a video game that allows the nursing home’s residents to virtually relive blissful moments from their pasts. Then Robert is found dead, submerged in Pondside’s pond.

CamCat

Fool Her Once by Joanna Elm (Mar. 1, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-7443-0493-0). When Jenna Sinclair’s former lover is assaulted, Jenna fears that Denny Dennison, a serial killer’s illegitimate son whom she outed decades earlier when she was a rookie tabloid reporter, has inherited his father’s psychopath gene and is out for revenge.

Celadon

The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green (July 5, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-76744-8). In present-day Savannah, Ga., rumors circulate of African American soldiers who fought for the British during the Revolutionary War. They later formed a secret community. Meanwhile, a powerful few are determined to keep this history hidden.

Counterpoint

The Houseboat by Dane Bahr (Feb. 1, $26, ISBN 978-1-64009-508-3). In this 1960s noir, a girl found on a small Iowa town roadside claims her boyfriend was murdered. Suspicion falls on an outcast who lives in squalor on a dilapidated houseboat moored on the Mississippi River.

CROOKED LANE

Front Page Murder by Joyce St. Anthony (Mar. 8, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-64385-898-2). In this WWII-era historical, Irene Ingram’s becoming editor-in-chief of her father’s small-town newspaper displeases the men in the newsroom. Then the paper’s crime reporter turns up dead.

Doubleday

The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian (May 10, $28, ISBN 978-0-385-54482-5). In 1964, an A-list actor and her new husband invite some Hollywood friends to join them on their honeymoon in the Serengeti. Instead of civilized adventure, they find themselves captives of Russian mercenaries.

Dundurn

Umboi Island: A Creature X Mystery by J.J. Dupuis (Apr. 5, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4597-4651-0). Cryptozoologist Laura Reagan and her team travel to an island off Papua New Guinea to investigate sightings of a surviving pterosaur. A human body that turns up in their camp complicates the quest.

Dutton

A Harmless Lie by Sara Blaedel (Mar. 22, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-33094-4). Danish police detective Louise Rick returns home from an overseas vacation upon learning her brother, Mikkel, attempted suicide days after his wife, Trine, left him and disappeared. Louise comes to wonder whether Trine really meant to leave Mikkel.

ECW

Fifty-Four Pigs: A Dr. Bannerman Vet Mystery by Philipp Schott (Apr. 19, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77041-614-7). Manitoba veterinarian Peter Bannerman feels compelled to investigate after a friend of his becomes the prime suspect in a murder related to an explosion in a swine barn.

Felony & Mayhem

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace by Olga Wojtas (June 20, $26, ISBN 978-1-63194-249-5). Intrepid school librarian Shona McMonagle time-travels to 19th-century France to help out a village menaced by a mysterious killer. A certain count from Transylvania is at risk of underestimating her.

Flatiron

Secret Identity by Alex Segura (Mar. 15, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-80174-6). In 1975, Carmen Valdez, an assistant at Triumph Comics, helps one of the company’s writers create a new character, Triumph’s first female hero. When her colleague is found dead, Carmen is keen to find out what happened to him.

Forge

The Chase by Candice Fox (Mar. 8, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-79883-1). The mass breakout of violent prisoners from a prison into the Nevada Desert gives one of the escapees, John Kradle, the chance to prove his innocence 26 years after his wife and child were murdered.

Grand Central

Diablo Mesa by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Feb. 15, $29, ISBN 978-1-5387-3675-3). When an eccentric billionaire uses a hefty donation to persuade the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute to excavate the 1947 Roswell Incident site, archaeologist Nora Kelly uncovers, instead of evidence of a crashed UFO, two unknown murder victims.

Graydon House

An Honest Lie by Tarryn Fisher (Apr. 26, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5258-1157-9). Rainy has a disturbing past she wants to forget. During a girls’ weekend in Vegas she reluctantly attends, one of her friends is kidnapped. But Rainy is who the culprits really want, and Rainy knows why.

Hanover Square

Beach Wedding by Michael Ledwidge (Feb. 15, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-335-42575-1). Terry Rourke, at the wedding of his hedge fund manager brother in the Hamptons, can’t help taking another look at a sensational, decades-old murder trial that affected his family. As Terry soon learns, he does so at his peril.

Kensington

The Secrets We Share by Edwin Hill (Mar. 29, $26, ISBN 978-1-4967-3541-6). Two very different sisters are haunted by the murder of their father nearly 20 years earlier, possibly by a neighbor with whom he was having an affair. The discovery of a body in an abandoned building in the present may be related to the crime.

Knopf

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman (July 12, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-32160-7). One morning after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Stasi colonel Emil Grimm discovers the body of a fellow intelligence officer. Emil joins forces with CIA agent Claire Saylor to delve into the world of the murdered officer.

Mariner

The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths (June 28, $27, ISBN 978-0-358-67139-8). As Covid-19 locks down Norfolk, England, forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway, who’s feeling isolated from everyone but a new neighbor, gets a visit from her friend Det. Chief Insp. Harry Nelson, who’s investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides.

MCD

Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone (May 24, $28, ISBN 978-0-374-60476-9). Ariel Price wakes up in a Lisbon hotel room to find her new husband gone, leaving Ariel to answer such questions as what exactly is he doing in Lisbon, why would he drag her along on his business trip, and who would want to harm him?

Melville House

Goering’s Gold by Richard O’Rawe (May 24, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61219-965-8). Ex-IRA soldier James “Ructions” O’Hare goes in search of plundered gold bullion that Nazi leader Hermann Goering hid in Ireland during WWII. Ructions must outwit, outgun, and outrun the IRA and others hunting for the treasure.

Mira

Crimson Summer by Heather Graham (Apr. 5, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7783-1182-9). When Florida law enforcement special agent Amy Larson discovers a small horse figurine after a gang massacre in the Everglades, she recognizes it as the calling card of the apocalypse cult that she and her FBI partner have been investigating.

Mulholland

The Goodbye Coast: A Philip Marlowe Novel by Joe Ide (Feb. 1, $28, ISBN 978-0-316-45927-3). Ide puts Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in present-day L.A., where the PI pursues the case of a British child stolen from his mother by his father. Marlowe’s troubled relationship with his own father complicates matters.

MYSTERIOUS

The Lady in the Silver Cloud: A Stewart Hoag Mystery by David Handler (Feb. 1, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-61316-291-0). When wealthy Muriel Cantrell is murdered, Lt. Romaine Very of the NYPD turns for help to his writer friend, Stewart Hoag. Aided by his basset hound, Lulu, Stewart uncovers some dark secrets in Muriel’s past.

Norton

Captain Grey’s Gambit by J.H. Gelernter (Apr. 5, $25.95, ISBN 978-0-393-86706-0). In 1803, a disaffected adviser to Napoleon aims to defect to London at a chess tournament in Frankfurt, Germany. British naval intelligence sends its top man and best chess player, Capt. Thomas Grey, to orchestrate the adviser’s escape.

Orenda

The Quiet People by Paul Cleave (Mar. 1, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-913193-94-2). Crime writers Cameron and Lisa Murdoch joke that no one knows how to get away with crime like they do. When their seven-year-old son goes missing, the police wonder whether they have finally decided to prove they can commit the perfect crime.

Other Press

The Confessions of Matthew Strong by Ousmane Power-Greene (May 10, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-63542-208-5). Allegra Douglass, a philosophy professor at a prestigious New York university, tells her version of what happened when she was stalked and kidnapped by a white supremacist, Matthew Strong.

Overlook

A Change of Circumstance: A Simon Serrailler Case by Susan Hill (Mar. 29, $27, ISBN 978-1-4197-5964-2). British police inspector Simon Serrailler looks into the murder of a 22-year-old drug addict, a case that points to a drug-running operation that pushes narcotics out from the cities into the suburbs and villages.

Park Row

Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose by T.A. Willberg (Feb. 1, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7783-1194-2). In 1959, a killer the newspapers call the Florist, because of the rose he brands on his victims, haunts London. Marion Lane, one of the mysterious Inquirers at Miss Brickett’s, helps investigate.

Pegasus Crime

The Unquiet Dead by Stacie Murphy (Apr. 5, $26, ISBN 978-1-64313-893-0). In Gilded Age New York, Amelia Matthew, who can communicate with the dead, uses her talents to investigate the murder of a young girl whose death has scandalized the city.

Poisoned Pen

The Girl They All Forgot by Martin Edwards (June 7, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4642-1552-0). Det. Chief Insp. Hannah Scarlett and her team pursue a 21-year-old cold case—the disappearance of Ramona Smith, who was presumably murdered. As the body count rises, old scores threaten those dearest to Hannah.

Polis

Find Him by Jake Hinkson (Mar. 22, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-951709-75-4). Lily, a preacher’s daughter, is dismayed when her fiancé goes missing. But when she sets out to find him, she uncovers a plot far more sinister than anything she or her church community imagined.

Prospect Park

An Eternal Lei: A Leilani Santiago Hawai’i Mystery by Naomi Hirahara (Mar. 22, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68442-796-3). An unknown woman wearing an unusual lei almost drowns in Waimea Bay. Leilani Santiago is thrust into the middle of a murder investigation when the lei is traced to her best friend.

Random House

Little Sister by Gytha Lodge (May 31, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-24291-9). Det. Jonah Sheens sees a blood-covered teenage girl emerge from the woods. The girl says she’s fine, but her missing sister isn’t. Jonah is sure she knows where her sister is, but the girl has a story to tell him first.

scarlet

The Rising Tide by Sam Lloyd (Mar. 1, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-61316-271-2). Lucy Locke and her husband, Daniel, lead a happy life in a picturesque Devon fishing village where they have successful businesses. After a big storm, the family yacht is found empty far out to sea—and Daniel is missing.

Severn House

Death and Hard Cider by Barbara Hambly (June 7, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-7278-5074-4). In September 1840, a beautiful, well-to-do white woman turns up dead the day after a political rally in New Orleans. Benjamin January, musician, sleuth, and free man of color, helps defend the chief suspect, a Black woman.

Soho Crime

Bad Actors by Mick Herron (May 10, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-64129-337-2). Claude Whelan, the one-time head of MI5’s Regent’s Park, is tasked with tracking down a key member of a British government think tank who’s gone missing, but the trail leads straight back to the Park itself.

Sourcebooks Landmark

The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark (June 21, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-7282-4759-5). Kat Roberts is determined to expose Meg Williams, the con woman who upended her life 10 years earlier, now that Meg has resurfaced. But as the two women grow closer, Kat has second thoughts.

St. Martin’s

The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen (Mar. 8, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-27320-8). Marissa and Mathew Bishop, who seem like the golden couple, seek out maverick therapist Avery Chambers after Marissa cheats on Mathew. Once Marissa reveals her infidelity in therapy, all three are set on a collision course.

Thomas & Mercer

We Lie Here by Rachel Howzell Hall (July 12, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-6625-0032-9). An L.A. TV writer returns home to plan her parents’ 20th wedding anniversary. As she searches for pictures and mementos of them, she uncovers a tragic story that threatens to change her life.

Viking/Dorman

The Retreat by Sarah Pearse (July 19, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-48942-0). At an eco-wellness retreat on an English island, a young woman’s body is found on the rocks below the yoga pavilion, the apparent victim of a tragic fall. A guest’s drowning the next day suggests to Det. Elin Warner these deaths were no accident.

Vintage

The Verifiers by Jane Pek (Feb. 22, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-31379-4). When lifelong mystery reader Claudia Lin is recruited by an online-dating detective agency, she believes she’s landed her ideal job. The trouble begins after a client goes missing, and Claudia breaks protocol to investigate.

World Noir

Bread by Maurizio de Giovanni, trans. by Antony Shugaar (July 19, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-60945-689-4). When the murder of a baker rattles Naples, officers of the special antimob branch believe the local Mafia is responsible, but the police, known as the Bastards of Pizzofalcone, aren’t so sure.

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