The renaissance of the traditional mystery continued in full bloom in 2025, with a special focus on the meta-fictions. Here are our choices for the year’s best in the subgenre.
Fair Play, Louise Hegarty
(Harper)
In Hegarty’s ingenious and deeply felt mystery, a group of friends has gathered at an AirBnb to celebrate, but after a fractious evening, the birthday boy is found dead, casting a group of friends as the closed circle of suspects. The traditional mystery genre is paid its due as a detective arrives, along with a butler and a gardiner, appropriate enough since the friends were celebrating by playing a murder mystery game themselves. The result is a layered meta-fiction that plays out to a surprising and well-earned finish, one of the strongest mysteries start to finish to come around in years.
Murder Takes a Vacation, Laura Lippman
(William Morrow)
Stalwart mystery author Lippman takes up the Agatha Christie mantle in her newest novel, Murder Takes a Vacation, in which Tess Monaghan’s longtime sidekick, Mrs. Blossom, gets her turn in the spotlight. The action sees Blossom head to France for a once-in-a-lifetime cruise; her interest is sparked by a man on board, but, naturally, the man soon turns up dead in Paris, and the ship begins looking more like a vipers’ nest, as Blossom unspools a mystery among the passengers. The new novel adds a welcome layer of depth to the character and constructs a worthy mystery for her to solve, all set against the splendors of a voyager’s France.
The Impossible Fortune, Richard Osman
(Viking/Pamela Dorman Books)
The Thursday Murder Club series keeps delivering stellar installment after stellar installment, and this year’s The Impossible Fortune is no exception. Osman’s latest is a classic puzzle mystery, with the added fun of a wedding unfolding around everyone’s favorite senior sleuths. The character dynamics are as intricate and enjoyable as ever, and Osman delivers just the right twists and turns for readers racing to the book’s clever conclusion.
Marble Hall Murders, Anthony Horowitz
(Harper)
Horowitz is quite simply the most masterful plotter of complex mysteries at work today, and the latest in his Susan Ryeland series is a worthy display of his talents. In Marble Hall Murders, Ryeland leaves Greece behind for a return to England, and a return to publishing, now a freelance editor working on a new Pünd mystery. And in case the meta-fictional layers aren’t sufficiently deep, the new author she’s working with is himself the grandson of a famous author who died mysteriously, with clues as to the real cause of her death folded into the manuscript Ryeland is supposed to be editing. It makes for a dizzying ride, though Horowitz is an ever steady hand, with impeccable pacing and all his ingenuity poured into a highly satisfying conclusion. Horowitz perfectly balances modern fun with the riches of the golden age.
In Deadly Company, L.S. Stratton
(Union Square)
An executive assistant reckons with a birthday weekend gone fatally wrong in this clever new mystery. The high-profile murder at the center of the story becomes even more complicated once Hollywood comes knocking for the inevitable screen adaptation, and soon the rumors and accusations begin flying around again. Stratton has devised a taut, smart page-turner that’s also dripping in atmospherics.
