Queer Crime Writers Presents: LGBTQIA+ Crime Fiction to Check Out This Fall

Presented by Queer Crime Writers, an organization advocating for LGBTQIA+ authors.

Where would you like to go this autumn? Sydney during the Depression? New York City at the turn of the century? How about the plains of Canada, or deep in its wilderness? A bucolic American seaside town, or England in the 1920s? You can take trips to all these places and more from the comfort of your fireside chair as you read this exciting collection of queer crime fiction out this fall. From a pair of older women fleeing across the country to the worst of the mean streets, there’s a story that will capture you. Fall is the time we return to serious reading, and by that we mean seriously enjoying the variety and richness of this season’s suggested reads.

Cathy Pegau, A Deadly Entanglement
September 15, 2026
(Minotaur Books)

In A Deadly Entanglement, the follow-up novel to A Murderous Business, Margot Baxter Harriman has just survived her deadliest scandal as President of B&H Foods. In the aftermath, she is organizing a fundraiser for the crowded, overworked city charity hospital, where she hopes to do good and give back–until a nurse’s body falls past a second-floor window. Dubious of the supposed suicide, which isn’t the first suspicious death in the hospital, Margot works undercover with another nurse and her live-in partner, investigator Rett Mancini, to expose the killer. When a friend of Margot’s checks into a luxury clinic but doesn’t make it out alive, the circumstances are similar to the other death. The death toll is mounting. As Margot and Rett zoom in on the killer, the price grows higher for their loved ones.

Missouri Vaun and VK Powell, Sunny Side Up
September 15, 2026
(Bold Strokes Books)

Retirement looked good to Sunny Eldrige. She was ready after spending years as a police officer in Merit Bay. But her vision of peace and quiet is destroyed by the return of Nicole Lacy. Nicole is on the run from her brother’s dangerous world and hopes Merit Bay will give her refuge. Soon she begins receiving anonymous threats. The business with her brother isn’t over. Sunny knows in her gut that trouble is afoot. She calls on friends and townspeople to help her solve a mystery that has become deeply personal.

Garrick Jones, Boomerang Street
September 15, 2026
(GRJ Press)

Sydney, 1932. In the depths of the Great Depression, Joe Ing takes a job waiting tables at an exclusive private party to support his struggling family. But when his best friend, a sex worker in the city’s shadowy streets, suddenly disappears, Joe is drawn into a dangerous search for answers. Following a trail through Sydney’s criminal underworld, he uncovers secrets that powerful people would prefer to keep buried. As the investigation threatens his safety and offers unexpected opportunities, Joe must discover what happened to his friend before he, too, vanishes into the city’s shadows.

Anthony Bidulka, Quant
September 30, 2026
(Bon Vivant Books)

When a beloved local resident is found dead at the bottom of a gorge in Howell, Saskatchewan, the evidence points to suicide. But private investigator Russell Quant isn’t convinced. Returning to his hometown, Russell begins uncovering secrets beneath the community’s peaceful surface, where greed, deception, and old grudges threaten generations of family legacy. His investigation takes him from the Canadian prairie to the Caribbean as he searches for the truth. The deeper Russell digs, the clearer it becomes that someone is determined to keep this death from being investigated.

Sandy Bailey, She’s On to Something
October 13, 2026
(Bywater Books)

Millions are being stolen from working-class families in a church-based investment scam. SEC prosecutor Jaye Brannigan follows the money from Boston to New Mexico and uncovers a dangerous web of religious patriarchy, financial fraud, and offshore secrets. Out and proud, Jaye faces threats from a hostile administration that has targeted her for her outspoken behavior. She also faces temptation in the form of a magnetic woman pulling her close as if she were metal shavings. Through it all, Jaye refuses to be quiet in an atmosphere meant to silence her.

Elizabeth Hand, Unspeakable Things
October 13, 2026
(Little, Brown and Co.)

In this Gothic thriller set in 1920s England, rebellious working-class Tamsin arrives at Kerrith Manor to be tutored alongside Olivia. Their shared lessons give way to a love affair that becomes an obsession. When an unexpected visitor and an unexplained death shatter their seclusion, the women flee to Ledges, the estate of wealthy Rex de Voil. His house attracts bohemian “bright young things” seeking escape from London’s scrutiny, and Olivia and Tamsin embrace the chance to explore their desires. Their refuge, however, brings dangers of its own as their obsession leads to more deaths.

Joelle Circé, The Profiler’s Shadow
November 3, 2026
(Dark Winter Press)

This Canadian psychological thriller follows Mary Dubois, a former profiler, who now guards her life as a writer living in seclusion. The Sûreté du Québec arrives to tell her about a killer who is staging gruesome tableaux in the wilderness. He’s left a message that the only person he’ll talk to is Mary. Goodbye quiet life. She teams with her ex-lover to engage in psychological warfare that hints at her own violent past.

Rae Wilde, Happily Ever After the Murders
November 3, 2026
(Legacy Lit)

In late-1990s Rockaway, New York, retirees Ida and Jean have spent decades hiding a deadly secret: the bodies of their late husbands are buried beneath their backyard rosebushes. When an electrical company announces plans to dig up the property, the women’s carefully concealed crime is suddenly at risk of being exposed. Their desperate attempt to prevent the excavation turns deadly, forcing them to flee across the country to San Francisco, with the law close behind. As a determined detective follows their trail, Ida and Jean must outwit the investigation, protect their secret, and stay one step ahead of justice.

MB Austin, Independent Study in Revenge
November 10, 2026
(Bywater Books)

After losing her job and marriage, and gaining an orphaned niece, Toni Crane returns to Grace Harbour to start a new life in a place she thought she was well rid of. She finds a job at her alma mater only to learn that one professor has been murdered and another targeted. Fear spreads across campus and Toni joins the hunt for the killer. Enter NJ, her new neighbor and a colleague at the college. She has no time for falling in love, not when she has to protect her niece and fight off a relentless killer.

Sarah McCarry, Possession Island
December 1, 2026
(Saturday Books)

Angela grew up on a remote Pacific Northwest island that became the setting for her mother’s best-selling vampire novel. After college, she returns to the island, only to learn that her estranged best friend Mo has been murdered. Angela’s high school nemesis Sally still lives on the island, and the last person she wants returning there is Angela. Despite their enmity, they team up to search for their friend’s killer and keep Angela out of the crosshairs of the police investigation. They soon learn that the deep secrets they keep from one another won’t stay secret for long.

Kevin Jagernauth, The Longest Death
December 1, 2026
(Soho Crime)

For Richard Cobson, skimming money from his employer offers some relief from life in Riverton, USA. Falling for Marlon Montgomery gives him a reason to attempt a larger theft. In this heist novel steeped in midcentury noir, the lovers plan to empty the Eddy & Dowd Safe Deposit Company’s vault and build a life in the Big City. But a coworker demands a share, a disgraced cop pursues redemption, and the company’s owner nurses his paranoia. Their competing ambitions threaten to turn Richard and Marlon’s escape into a trap, with their love and their lives bound up in the score.