Keeping in line with the top-notch quality of hard-hitting thrillers we’ve seen come out already this year, October is another scary-good month for new releases. Cheesy pub aside, this really is a strong month for new books—with the latest Bosch and Ballard novel from Michael Connelly leading the way.
John Sandford, A.J. Tata, John le Carre, and Lee Child round out my Top Five books of the month, with several other noteworthy writers (like John Grisham and Nelson DeMille) just missing the cut.
Read more about these titles below and, as always, get ready for a new list of must-read thrillers in the coming weeks . . . spoiler alert: there are a few huge November titles that I am really excited about. Happy reading!
Bloody Genius by John Sandford
Release Date: October 1
When a murder goes down at the local college, Virgil Cole is sent to find the killer . . . but as always, things aren’t as straightforward as they first seem in the latest offering from bestseller John Sandford.
Professor Barthelemy Quill is by all accounts a brilliant man. He’s also a grade-A D-bag, with three ex-wives and no shortage of people who can’t stand him or his self-serving ways. That list includes fellow professors too, so when Quill turns up dead in the university’s library—after someone beat him to death with a high-end laptop—it seems plausible that the murderer may also be linked to the school.
However, two weeks after the crime, Minneapolis PD Detective Margaret Trane is still short on tangible evidence, prompting Quill’s rich sister to pull some strings within the governor’s office and have Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent Virgil Flowers assigned to the case.
Almost immediately, Flowers turns up new evidence, but as he follows the DNA of a mysterious hair recovered at the murder scene, Virgil can’t help but take note of just how many potential suspects there are to consider. Quill, a nerve expert who specializes in spinal cord injuries, had made enemies both within and outside of the university. In-house, there’s Katherine Green, an academic rival who has on more than one occasion attempted to disprove Quill’s theories. Outside, there’s the wife of a man who died after a risky procedure featuring Quill’s research, a pompous patent-pirate who steals other people’s work, and, of course, several ex-wives to consider.
Complicating matters more is the fact that Detective Trane is none too happy about Virgil invading her turf, even if his being there is the result of a wealthy campaign donor calling in favors, as opposed to him wanting to take over. Eventually, the two cops figure out how to work together, and when they uncover a potentially damning new piece of evidence, both are forced to reconsider everything they thought they knew about Quill, his death, and why someone may have wanted to kill him . . .
Sandford has had an extraordinary career, and even after fifty books, he appears to have no shortage of story ideas. More impressively, he continues to execute them brilliantly. That’s certainly the case here, as Sandford reverts back to a true murder mystery after straying slightly from that formula his last few times out. Flowers, who’s expecting twins with his live-in girlfriend, Frankie, is as sharp as ever, and while there are some familiar faces, the bulk of the cast is made up of new characters whom Sandford develops as the story unfolds. The plot itself is pretty linear for the first half, but deeper in, Sandford presents several new threads and characters who help bring the final picture into focus. And even without a slam-dunk twist (there is a solid one, but it won’t shock everyone), there’s enough misdirection to keep readers intrigued from the first page to the last.
John Sandford dials up another dazzling whodunit with Bloody Genius, and even if you’re able to crack the case before the final twist is revealed, it’s still a lot of fun to follow “that f—ing Flowers” around while he does his thing.
The Night Fire by Michael Connelly
Release Date: October 22
Connelly opens his latest novel with Harry Bosch walking across the soft cemetery grounds, his cane—aiding him during his recovery from a recent knee operation following the events of last year’s Dark Sacred Night—sinking into the grass as he approached the final resting spot of John Jack Thompson.
Back in the day, as a young detective, Bosch was trained by John Jack, who specialized in bringing young investigators along and showing them the ropes. Now, after a long and distinguished career with the LAPD, John Jack is dead—but he left one final case for his former protégé to crack.
Back at Thompson’s house following the funeral, John Jack’s widow instructs Harry to have a look around his office. There, he finds a murder book that Thompson had taken with him when he left the force more than twenty years prior. The cold case in question involves the unsolved murder of ex-con John Hilton, who was shot and killed while sitting in his parked car behind an alleyway known for drugs and trouble. Intrigued, Bosch is ready to get to work, but there’s just one problem. Having retired from the LAPD himself, Harry no longer has access to the files and resources he needs for the job—prompting him to reach out to Detective Renee Ballard for help.
Ballard, who was first introduced as the protagonist in The Late Show before teaming up with Bosch in last year’s novel, is still working the night shift when readers meet back up with her here. Heading up the crime scene of a fire that killed Eddie, a homeless man living out of a tent, Renee suspects foul play. More importantly, she’s perhaps the only officer on scene who seems to care about the dead man, and is genuinely driven to find out what, exactly, happened to him—a trait that is very much in line with Bosch’s own “everybody matters or nobody matters” code of honor.
Agreeing to help Harry on the side, Renee and Bosch once again join forces and begin following leads and mining for clues. But as their investigation gets underway, the duo continuously find themselves wandering down one dead-end after another, before finally catching a break that might link Hilton’s murder to another killer. Still, in the back of Bosch’s mind, one concerning thought lingers. Why did John Jack steal this particular murder book . . . to try and solve it, or to make sure nobody ever could?
The introduction of Renee Ballard has certainly freshened up Bosch’s world, but while lots of things have changed, one thing remains the same: Connelly continues to deliver winner after winner, year in and year out. Harry is still the star, but Ballard continues to hold her own, and perhaps the best compliment of all is that her chapters (Connelly alternates chapters between their POVs) are just as riveting as when the camera stays tight on Bosch. There’s never a feeling or desire to rush through Renee’s pages to get back to Bosch, and as a team, Ballard is definitely in the running for Harry’s best partner, even though their relationship is a tad unconventional and only two book in the making.
Along with Bosch and Ballard, longtime fans will recognize a bunch of other faces too, including Harry’s half-brother, attorney Mickey Haller. One storyline follows Haller as he attempts to defend a man accused of killing a Superior Court judge, and as always, the Lincoln Lawyer steals every scene that he’s in.
Connelly continues to cement his legacy as one of the greatest crime writers of all time, and reading one of his books is an experience unlike anything else the genre has to offer.
Agent Running in the Field by John le Carré
Release Date: October 22
In his first spy thriller set during the Trump era, iconic spy novelist John le Carré delivers another page-turner, though maybe not quite to the level his readers have come to expect.
After a long career in the field, twenty-five-year MI6 veteran Nat is none too thrilled about the possibility of being pulled from the job that he loves. Though his career has kept him from his family over the years—including his wife, Prue, a lawyer, and their children—Nat has loved his day-to-day work life, much of which has been spent focusing on Russia in the name of national security.
But now, as he nears the age of fifty, Nat finds himself being called into headquarters—a summons he suspects will play out with him receiving his walking papers. Instead, he’s offered a new position. Though he’ll have to exit the field, Nat is offered the chance to run the Haven, a London-based intelligence substation that’s known to be a mess. Unsure if he’s supposed to actually fix the problems that be at Haven or just help run it into the ground, Nat accepts the new position and gets to work.
Straightaway, the typically uneventful office is buzzing with drama, including one of Nat’s top aids quitting due to the cancelation of a project she’d been working on, followed by one of MI6’s top Russian assets being contacted by a former colleague—a woman who, given the circumstances, cannot be trusted. And then there’s Ed—a fiery young researcher who plays badminton with Nat at their mutual country club—who, when he isn’t scratching his competitive itch, can normally be found at the pub drinking pints and spewing his take on current world events such as Brexit, Trump, and the rise of neo-Nazism in America.
Eventually, as threads begin to merge, Nat finds himself being dragged down a dangerous pathway—and to figure out what, exactly, is going on, he realizes that he might have to step back into his former life one last time . .
It’s no secret that John le Carré is one of the greatest writers the genre has ever known. That said, whereas his last novel, A Legacy of Spies, earned rave reviews and played somewhat on readers’ nostalgia after bringing back iconic characters from earlier books, his latest falls just short as the author misses his mark ever so slightly. As always, the writing is top-notch, and the plotting is mostly spectacular, with at least one major twist that lands solidly—but then brings more questions than answers.
And that’s sort of the problem with this book. There’s a lot done right, that is really good, until it isn’t. Like the abrupt ending. Or the paper-thin characters. Maybe not Nat himself, but others sure are flat, including his wife, who goes from supportive to somewhat irritated or annoyed, but is ultimately too caught up in her own career as an attorney to take a vested interest in what Nat is doing. Likewise, it’s fascinating to see le Carré’s take on the Trump era, et cetera, but, certainly, there are a large number of people who won’t agree with the political leanings of this book, which could result in fewer people actually enjoying the story—which, for the most part, is really good.
Certainly not one of his best outings, but Agent Running in the Field flashes some of the qualities that have made John le Carré one of the most successful spy novelists in the history of the genre, and fans of his work will likely enjoy seeing him in action again.
Blue Moon by Lee Child
Release Date: October 29
After another stop in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Jack Reacher ones again finds himself surrounded by danger . . . and sets out to protect the innocent people caught up in a deadly turf war between rival gangs.
For Reacher, the trouble started on a Greyhound bus when he noticed an elderly man named Aaron Shevick carrying a thick envelope flush with cash. Realizing he’s an obvious target, Reacher stays close to the man, and eventually thwarts a mugging attempt before escorting Mr. Shevick home. There, Reacher learns that Aaron and his wife are in deep with a loan shark who lent them money, and now wants it back. With interest. A lot of interest.
Moved, in part, by the reason for their actions—the Shevicks borrowed the money to help pay for their fifty-something-year-old daughter’s medical bills following an expensive treatment that saved her life—Reacher decides to help them out. Posing as Aaron Shevick, he heads to the dive bar where the loan shark, Fisnik, is waiting for his money. Claiming to be Aaron, Reacher intends to square away the couple’s debt but instead finds himself face-to-face with one of Fisnik’s Ukrainian gang bangers.
Things go about the way they typically do whenever Reacher strolls into town and is met by trouble—he throws the bad guys a beating, then uncovers a bigger problem lurking in the shadows. This time, it involves a bloody war between rival Ukrainian and Albanian gangs, and Reacher goes full wrecking-ball mode in hopes of protecting the innocent people who are inadvertently caught up in the middle of it all . . .
Lee Child has finally shaken up the formulaic approach that he’s used so many times over the course of twenty-three previous books. While the setup might sound familiar—Reacher stops in a little town with big problems—and parts of it have shades of Killing Floor sewn in there, Child’s latest is far more action-packed than anything else he’s written this decade. Normally, any slow-moving parts of a Reacher story are dedicated to fleshing out characters and establishing the conflict. But here, Child ramps things up much quicker, and instead of down moments to develop the cast, the pages are filled with gunfights, explosions, and justice-seeking violence.
That, of course, is not to say that the characters are thin, as they are decidedly not. The elderly couple early on is relatable and readers will no doubt feel sympathetic to their predicament. Likewise, Reacher’s love interest is a scene-stealer, and for the first time in a while (ever?) longtime fans might actually find themselves wishing he’d settle down a bit and enter a serious relationship. Also, whereas recent entries have been a tad lighter in tone, that isn’t the case here. There’s more violence in this one than any other Reacher book I can recall, and it’s all done so, so well. All in all, this is Lee Child at his best, and one of his darkest novels to date.
Double Crossfire by Anthony J. Tata
Release Date: October 29
In the latest thriller from former Brigadier General Anthony J Tata, Jake Mahegan is charged with protecting the most important man in the world . . . the president of the United States of America.
America as we know it is under attack. Following an incredibly divisive election, which saw business mogul Jack Smart win the Oval Office—beating out Jamie Carter, who was primed to become the first female commander-in-chief before her unthinkable loss—the county is more divided than ever. Looking for an extreme solution to the current problem, a group known as “the Resistance” soon forms a murderous plot to steal back the White House. Their plan hinges on Carter being elevated to Pro Tem of the US Senate, and then killing everyone else in the line of succession— the Speaker of the House, the VP, and then the president—clearing the way for her to be sworn into office. There’s just one problem.
Mahegan.
Jake, who is protecting the CIA director when an assassin tries to take him out, thwarts the attack and, as the story unfolds, begins to unravel the conspiracy piece by piece. But with the clock running and a group of killers gunning for him, Jake must once again figure out how to beat the impossible odds and save the day before it’s too late.
Whereas past books have focused on Mahegan as the sure-fire protagonist, Tata changes gears a bit here by giving Jake’s partner, former Army Ranger Cassie Bagwell, more screen time. In her newly elevated role, Cassie shines, and her storyline—which follows her recovery from the events of the last book before she begins working as an adviser to Carter—tie into Jake’s, as they once again find themselves up against it with everything on the line.
Anthony J. Tata continues to churn out some of the most authentic action sequences in print today, and his latest well-laid-out plot takes this series to a whole new level . . . fans of Ben Coes’ Trap the Devil will especially want to check this one out right away.
