September brings an outstanding line-up of new crime releases showcasing the breadth of the genre and the variety of talented approaches to the world of crime. With new works from established voices and plenty of debuts, September also provides further proof of an ever-expanding and evolving genre. Whether you’re looking for shocking twists, historical thrillers, or fair-play mysteries, here are twelve new releases perfect for finishing out the summer.
Vera Kurian, Never Saw Me Coming
(Park Row)
Vera Kurian’s extraordinarily entertaining Never Saw Me Coming is one of a few books in a new trend I’m calling “yoga pants noir,” in which hot girls in athleisure wear are no longer the victims—and they might be the killers. College freshman Chloe has carefully cultivated her nonchalant Cool Girl personality, but she has a secret: she’s a psychopath, hell-bent on getting revenge against a boy from her past who’s also attending the same school. The problem is, she’s not the only psychopath on campus—there are at least six others, all part of a long-term study that comes with a scholarship—and some of them have been turning up dead. Will Chloe get her prey, before she goes from hunter to hunted? –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor
Stephen Graham Jones, My Heart Is a Chainsaw
(Saga)
Stephen Graham Jones has written the ultimate summer horror thriller in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, a deliciously self-aware melange of horror criticism, slasher fiction, and social thriller, all tied together with a strong message of female empowerment. A teenage delinquent who’s equally pissed off at her white mother, her Indian father, and her whole darn town, would love it if the bloody legends surrounding the lake nearby were true. She’s sure that the beautiful new girl at school would make a perfect Final Girl. But even the best-laid tropes can’t always go to plan…–Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor
Stuart Neville, The House of Ashes
(Soho Crime)
Stuart Neville seamlessly blends gothic fiction, psychological thriller, and Northern Irish noir in his powerful new novel. Sara Keane, still fragile after a nervous breakdown, isn’t a huge fan of her husband’s decision to move far from her support system to a remote village in Northern Ireland. The house goes from prison to nightmare when Sara begins to discover its bloody secrets, aided by the interwoven memories of a young farm girl from six decades earlier. –MO
Catriona Ward, The Last House on Needless Street
(Tor Nightfire)
In this harrowing and unexpectedly human tale, a lonely man named Ted lives near a lake with his cat and his daughter, the same lake where 6-year-old Lulu disappeared years before. When Lulu’s grown-up sister moves next door, looking for answers, Ted’s life is thrown into disarray, as everything he thinks he knows about his world begins to crumble. –MO
Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle
(Doubleday)
After the soaring success of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad, Whitehead is back this year with a crime novel of profound depth and complexity, set in 1960’s Harlem and focused on the life and ambitions of one Ray Carney, a furniture salesman who also moonlights in some casual fencing of stolen goods. The two activities serve two parts of Ray’s identity, the one respected, law-abiding, and on the rise, socially speaking; the other is his crook side, drawn in by a family of hustlers and himself vulnerable to that special thrill. He eventually falls in with a crew looking to pull a heist in Harlem’s most glamorous hotel, a job that gives Whitehead room to detail the Harlem era in meticulous, meaningful detail, bringing a kind of secret city into spectacular life. –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief
Richard Osman, The Man Who Died Twice
(Pamela Dorman/Viking Books)
Everybody loves The Thursday Murder Club. What is there NOT to love, I ask you? And now, thank HEAVENS, there’s a sequel! This is absolutely just the thing we all need right now. In this delightful new installment, our favorite quartet of clever seniors is back, and this time, they’re investigating a man from Elizabeth’s past. And smuggled diamonds, dangerous gangsters, and murder, of course. –Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads Assistant Editor
Rachel Howzell Hall, These Toxic Things
(Thomas and Mercer)
I’ve been a fan of Rachel Howzell Hall for years, and she just gets better and better with each book. Hall first tried her hand in traditional mystery with 2019’s All Fall Down, a fiery response and urgent retelling of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and These Toxic Things should be just as satisfying to fans of the Golden Age Revival. In her latest, a professional curator of digital scrapbooks is sad to hear of the suicide of a new client, and decides to finish her commission as a way to honor the elderly woman. The problem is, someone else wants to keep her client’s memories in the past, and will do anything to keep the scrapbook from coming together. –MO
Catherine Dang, Nice Girls
(William Morrow)
“Ivy League Mary,” the sullen protagonist of Dang’s Nice Girls, is recently expelled from her elite university and stuck working for minimum wage in her podunk hometown when her ex-friend-turned-it-girl disappears and a city-wide search commences. Another girl from the wrong side of town is also missing, and authorities seem unwilling to explore any connections between the two cases, so it’s up to Mary and her new friends to find out the real story behind the disappearances (that is, if Mary can check her privilege long enough to identify the culprit). –MO
Amanda Jayatissa, My Sweet Girl
(Berkley)
Hot damn this book is good. In Jayatissa’s nail-biter of a thriller, Paloma, adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage, has been given everything to succeed by her wealthy American parents, and yet at 30, she’s floundering, both in her job and her personal life. When her roommate finds out her darkest secret, then shows up dead, things are bad enough. When the body mysteriously disappears, along with all evidence of his existence, Paloma must face her fears and dive deep into her past to understand her present-day dangers. –MO
Denise Mina, Rizzio (Pegasus)
Mina’s latest is a taut, provocative novella dramatizing the events around the brutal 16th century assassination of David Rizzo, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots. Rizzo was stabbed fifty-six times by what was believed to be a group of assassins. Mina reimagines the poisonous atmosphere that led to the killing and offers readers a darkly poetic vision of life at that bloody court. –DM
Alice Feeney, Rock Paper Scissors
(Flatiron)
This one’s already been optioned, but I’d encourage everyone to read it before it heads to the screen. A couple heads to a remote retreat in the Scottish highlands, desperate to reconnect but wary of the lies they’ve told each other. Interspersed with their increasingly nightmarish weekend trip are letters written by a wife to her husband over ten years of marriage. The two dovetail towards an explosive conclusion that leaves us with just enough ambiguity to linger in the reader’s mind long after finishing. –MO
Julia Dahl, The Missing Hours
(Minotaur)
Julia Dahl has crafted a satisfying and thought-provoking revenge thriller in The Missing Hours. Claudia Castro is rich, beautiful, and envied. But when a heinous act is committed against her, her privilege is more of a weapon than a benefit. Who’s going to believe the trust fund party girl? And so, she seeks her brutal vengeance without the aid of police, accompanied by a neighbor with his own agenda. –MO
