At the start of every month, CrimeReads staff members look over all the great crime novels, thrillers, and mysteries coming out in the weeks ahead and make recommendations based on what they’re reading and what they can’t wait to read. Check back over the course of the month for more suggestions for feeding your crime habit.
Wendy Heard, The Kill Club (MIRA)
Heard is one of the rising stars of the crime world, and her new thriller has a chilling and provocative premise: victims of abuse and violence, bound together in a nationwide network of vengeance that seeks to distance each of its members by having them kill a stranger on another’s behalf. It’s Strangers on a Train taken to the extreme, and Heard handles it with the usual emotional insight and incisive prose. The Kill Club is going to be the book this winter that launches plenty of conversation. (Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads managing editor)
Val McDermid, How the Dead Speak (Atlantic Monthly Press)
After the explosive events of the previous book, it’s time for a shattered Tony and Carol to grimly face their new realities. Tony’s behind bars and finds his professional expertise of surprising use to his fellow prisoners, while Carol is officially out of the police force, but still hungry for justice. When a long-ago atrocity comes to the fore, will Tony and Carol be able to resist the impulse to solve it? You’ll have to pick this one up to find out! (Molly Odintz, CrimeReads associate editor)
J.T. Ellison, Good Girls Lie (MIRA)
Ellison’s novel is set at the Goode School, an idyllic and prestigious prep school situated on the top of a hill in a small town in Virginia. An all-girls school, the daughters of the rich and powerful attend Goode, which is known for turning awkward teenagers into Ivy League material. But there is a subculture beneath the studious reputation of Goode: there are multiple secret societies which are allowed to flourish as long as they remain secret. So when a popular student is found dead, and the secret societies are forced to account for some of their activities, the Goode School does not seem so great anymore. (Lisa Levy, CrimeReads contributing editor)
Jeff Lindsay, Just Watch Me (Dutton)
Jeff Lindsay returns—this time, with a brand-new antihero. Just Watch Me is a classic heist thriller, introducing Riley Wolfe, a not-so-gentlemanly burglar who’s ready to use whatever’s in his arsenal in his quest to steal the Iranian Crown Jewels. Just Watch Me heralds a major new series, and shows that the Dexter author has plenty of tricks left up his sleeve when it comes to crafting crime fiction. (MO)
Tom Rosenstiel, Oppo (Ecco)
Rosenstiel delivers another finely crafted political thriller in the Peter Rena series, which follows the high-stakes work of a well-connected D.C. fixer. In the latest installment, Rena is charged with digging into the past of a senator being offered the vice-presidential candidate slot by both major parties. It’s a clever scenario laid out by Rosenstiel, one that lets him explore the many contradictions and backroom deals that make up everyday life in the nation’s capital, and one that lets Rena show off his full bag of tricks as one of the city’s ultimate operators. For those who have a political junkie in their lives, or who are looking to ease into the big campaign year ahead of us, Oppo is the perfect novel to get you in the right (really pretty dark) state of mind. (DM)
Alice Blanchard, Trace of Evil (Minotaur)
Alice Blanchard’s eerily evocative novel of small town secrets in upstate New York is not to be missed. While investigating a number of disappearances in a claustrophobic community, Blanchard’s detective protagonist finds her memories of her murdered sister rising up once again. Are the cases connected? What’s the town hiding? We can’t wait to dive into this creepy thriller. (MO)
Sara Shepard, Reputation (Dutton)
The author of the wildly popular Pretty Little Liars series (now also a long-running TV show), Shepard is an expert in the complexities of female friendship. Reputation is set at Aldrich University, an elite college with all of the trappings of wealth: excellent academics, prestigious staff, the brightest students, and enthusiastic (and rich) alumni. But when a hacker strikes and puts the records of the students, faculty, and alums onto a public server, it exposes dark secrets. Then when a man is murdered after the leak, the truth hidden for so long slowly begins to emerge. (LL)
Emily Littlejohn, Shatter the Night (Minotaur)
I’m fond of Littlejohn’s Detective Gemma Monroe series, which I did not expect to enjoy at all as series set in small towns often feel contrived to me (why are all of those people hanging around Cabot Cove when Jessica Fletcher needs murders to solve?). Littlejohn’s strength is in her characters, especially the tough but sensitive Monroe. Set in a bucolic town in Colorado, the series also makes the most of its mountain setting in previous books. But in this one it’s Halloween night, and the murder of an ex-judge forces Monroe to stop a killing spree. Even worse, as she investigates she finds these kinds of murders have happened before. (LL)
Nalini Singh, A Madness of Sunshine (Berkley)
Life in Golden Cove, a picturesque town on the West Coast of New Zealand, is perfect—until one summer, when several people vanish, and the town’s residents run cold with fear and distrust. There are rumors of what has happened, but everyone moves on in silence, refusing to confront the mysterious tragedy and insisting on pretending it never happened. But eight years later, it happens again. And the residents begin to wonder who their silence has been protecting, for all these years. (Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads editorial fellow)
