Scotland Yarder Ian Rutledge’s promotion to chief inspector is disrupted by a difficult case in Todd’s brilliant latest historical mystery featuring the tortured investigator (after A Christmas Witness). In 1921, Rutledge’s boss, Chief Superintendent Markum, orders him to travel to Northumberland to investigate the death of Oswin Dunn, a pilot whose body washed ashore near Lindisfarne, “the cradle of Christianity in England.” The location makes the drowning a concern for the Church of England, which is worried that Dunn’s death on the sacred island could stir up bad press. Aware that he must tread carefully, Rutledge begins searching for a murderer after an autopsy reveals that Dunn was fatally bludgeoned before entering the water. The chief inspector pursues two possible motives for the killing: anti-German prejudice directed against Dunn for having a German brother-in-law, and anger over Dunn’s investigation of the sinking of the British Royal Navy’s HMS Ascot just before the 1918 armistice. As usual, Rutledge is haunted throughout by the ghost of a man he killed in WWI, and Todd expertly balances a moving depiction of Rutledge’s torment with a masterful whodunit plot. The author is in fine form. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore & Co. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Swinson’s moody regional mystery (after Sweet Things) works better as a character study than a police procedural. Three years after the death of his wife, workaholic D.C. homicide detective Graham Sanderson has left the force and returned to his hometown in Upstate New York. There, he reunites with his younger brother Tommy, who suffers from PTSD and agoraphobia stemming from emotional abuse the boys’ mother inflicted on them when they were young. Graham’s hopes to leave detective work behind him are dashed when the local police chief, family friend William Finn, calls upon his expertise to help solve two baffling murders. Both bodies, one of which belonged to the chief’s nephew, were found with four stab wounds made by a “tri-edged cylindrical instrument,” possibly a dagger. The victims were both members of Narcotics Anonymous, but as more bodies pile up, Finn and Graham become less and less sure of the killer’s motive. Swinson convincingly evokes his gloomy setting and shades Graham, Tommy, and Finn with care, but the core mystery resolves in disappointingly formulaic fashion. This starts out promising but ends with a whimper. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Head-knocking courier Mercury Carter gets tangled in overlapping criminal conspiracies in Welsh-Huggins’s solid sequel to The Mailman. Carter, a former U.S. Postal Service cop, now makes a living delivering sensitive goods. The novel opens on a delivery run to Rhode Island, when he stops to help a woman who’s been in a car accident. After an armed man threatens the woman, Carter chases him off, then continues on his way, only to discover that the woman slipped him an envelope containing a ring and a business card for a Pawtucket banker. The ring, Carter learns, belonged to Terri Watkins, a missing woman with a drug habit and a history of prostitution. After assuring Watkins’s parents that he’ll help find her, Carter discovers that her pimp has been drugging clients with fentanyl, and a few of them have died. One victim is a key figure in a massive data theft scam engineered by a sleazy, money-hungry New England couple. Carter’s tenacity and physical durability help support Welsh-Huggins’s propulsive set pieces. Occasionally, though, the proceedings get bogged down by needless plot contortions. Still, fans of the first book will find this diverting enough. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Messenger follows up his memoir The Twenty-Ninth Day with a ponderous novel about a Minnesota man contemplating his failures as he tries to survive a blizzard on Lake Superior. Hugh McLaren has been estranged from his children since his wife died in a car accident decades earlier and he shrunk at the prospect of being a single parent. A terminal cancer diagnosis—the same prognosis that killed Hugh’s emotionally neglectful father—spurs him to examine his regrets and embark on a solo ice fishing trip on Lake Superior. As Hugh dreams up ways to reconnect with his adult children, a blizzard lashes the lake, and the patch of ice he’s stationed on breaks away and becomes a floe. Though the setup has the trappings of a survival thriller, Messenger opts for something more spiritual, neglecting all but the most basic narrative intrigue while banking too hard that readers will invest in Hugh’s long-winded reckoning with his own mortality. A contrived third-act resolution doesn’t help. This is a letdown. Agent: Philip Turner, Philip Turner Book Productions. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

FBI Special Agent Garrett Mann tries to rebuild his secret task force and fend off longtime foes in Konkoly’s overstuffed sequel to A Hired Kill. Paralyzed after leaping from a helicopter in the previous installment, series villain Harrison Greely remains in control of a dangerous secret data device. Meanwhile, True America—a political party who’s a client of the evil AXIOM organization and backed by dirty Russian money—is threatening to win the next U.S. presidential election. In response, Mann seeks replacements for the four colleagues who died on his last mission. The new crew’s first mission is a raid of AXIOM’s Montana hideout. Though Mann expects little opposition, the team is ambushed, resulting in significant bloodshed. Afterward, they’re suspended and must continue to fight Greely and AXIOM without government resources. The narrative culminates in the takedown of an enemy yacht during a hurricane, which feels curiously robbed of its stakes by an epilogue that puts Mann right back where he began: resting and readying himself to take on new enemies. Konkoly provides plenty of pulse-pounding action, but the plot’s momentum is frequently stalled by leaden backstory. In a crowded field, this fails to stand out. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Choctaw historian Mihesuah (The Bone Picker) tracks the search for a missing Indigenous woman in this intense procedural. After competing in a traditional horse relay, Dels Billy disappears from the abandoned truck stop she pulls into when her vehicle gives out. Detective Perry Antelope of the Oklahoma City PD is determined to find Del at all costs, working with her partner Sophia Burns and members of the Seminole and Choctaw tribal police. As they analyze video recordings of the race and dig into Del’s family tensions, an anonymous attacker makes multiple attempts on Perry’s life. Mihesuah paints an optimistic picture of the cooperation required to solve the book’s “jurisdictional shit storm” of a crime, which crosses state and tribal nation lines, while also highlighting conflicts in Native communities that stem from the legacy of the land allotments doled out by the U.S. government in 1887. The author’s depiction of Native life is full of distinctive personalities who will hold readers’ attention, and her visceral fight scenes have a grittier, more lived-in edge than those in the average cop novel. The result is a satisfying, deeply felt, and uncomfortably relevant crime story. Agent: Jacqueline Lipton, Tobias Literary. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Pseudonymous romance author Lane (Rent to Be) makes her mystery debut with this quirky tale of small-town gossip turned deadly. At the outset, Dallas librarian Cordelia West learns she’s inherited the Chickadee Motel from a great-aunt she never knew. Unfortunately, the motel is located in Cordelia’s hometown of Sarsaparilla Falls, Tex., where she returns as infrequently as possible. If Cordelia refuses to take over the business, her untrustworthy mother will inherit it, so she reluctantly accepts. She soon discovers that the Chickadee is actually a brothel with a surprisingly sunny local reputation. Its residents include three “chicks”: Daisy, Arline, and Belinda Sue, all prostitutes in their golden years. One night, Daisy pounds on Cordelia’s door, panicked that she may have accidentally killed her client, Pastor James Reed-Smythe. Hoping to avoid scandal, the four women sneak the pastor’s body into his church. When an autopsy reveals that the pastor died from poisoning, his son, Archer—Cordelia’s childhood nemesis turned dashing FBI agent—suspects the chicks. As they seek to clear their name, Cordelia and the chicks develop a heartwarming bond, but Lane stumbles with her overuse of Southern idioms and a far-fetched conclusion. Still, this is an entertaining cozy with an edge. Agent: Rebecca Podos, Neighborhood Literary. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Katz’s eerie sophomore novel (after A Good Man) centers a new mother who starts to fear her husband’s company is a cult. Caroline wants nothing more than to put her and her husband Adam’s financial struggles behind them. When prestigious tech company Corridor offers Adam a job, the couple’s fortunes quickly change. Their debt vanishes, their bank account swells, and Caroline gets pregnant with their first child. But after the baby is born, Adam’s long hours on a top secret project leave Caroline alone to care for the infant. When Adam suggests they join his coworkers on an exclusive island owned and operated by Corridor, Caroline hopes the vacation will bring the family closer. The locals aren’t especially welcoming, however, and as Caroline learns the history of the island, she realizes many of them resent the company for transforming their home. Rumors of rituals and cultish behavior among Corridor employees make her even more uncomfortable. After she wakes up one morning to find her baby missing, she spirals, eventually stumbling on a secret that Corridor’s elites will do anything to keep hidden. Tight plotting and smooth narrative sleight-of-hand set the table for a walloping final few pages. This dark glimpse into maternal anxiety and tech oligarchy enthralls. Agent: Julia Kenny, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

A 12-year-old girl makes a horrifying discovery in this haunting debut set in 1979 Glasgow, Scotland. The action opens with young Janey Devine following her dog into a side street, where she comes across the mutilated remains of Samantha Watson, the 22-year-old daughter of a local crime boss. Janey reports her find to police and tries to return to normal life in the hardscrabble Glasgow neighborhood of Possilpark, but anxiety about the killer is never far from her mind. The police, who are confounded by the crime, offer little help, leaving it up to Janey’s lone family member, Grandma Maggie, to help her move on. Janey, however, has a secret: she knows something about the murder that she kept from police, a detail that eats at her and fuels her desire for justice. Crawford shrewdly toggles between Janey’s viewpoint and her grandmother’s as the hunt for the killer slowly unfolds, capturing the fading innocence of a young girl and the complex social dynamics of a struggling but close-knit community. This marks the arrival of a promising new voice. Agents: Euan Thorneycroft and Oli Munson, A.M. Heath & Co. (Mar.)

Correction: An earlier version of this review referred to the character Samantha Watson by the wrong last name.

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

The apparent suicide of a young woman with a bright future tears apart the bucolic Irish village of Ardnakelty—as well as the painstakingly constructed new life of Chicago transplant Cal Hooper—in French’s atmospheric but sluggish final suspense novel featuring the ex-policeman (after The Hunter). Still regarded as an outsider despite living in Ardnakelty for three years and being engaged to local widow Lena Dunne, Cal has little desire to dust off his detective skills. However, with Lena feeling guilty about missing any warning signs when Rachel Holohan dropped by hours before her death, and Cal’s teenage foster daughter, Trey Reddy, convinced there was foul play, he gets sucked in anyway. He’s stunned when his discreet inquiries into Rachel’s life,­ beyond the well-known details of her imminent engagement to wealthy Ardnakelty heir Eugene Moynihan, ignite a dangerous firestorm. As dense with detail as the November drizzle that shrouds the Irish landscape, French’s plot doesn’t rev up until the halfway point. Though the serpentine final 100 pages are nail-biting, this will be best enjoyed by readers already familiar with Ardnakelty and its quirky cast of characters. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink