Hot off the heels of our enormous summer reading list, it’s time to turn to June! You’ll find a wide variety of crime books in the list below, and that feels like the whole point of our website: a book for every reader, and a reader for every book. June brings plenty of new releases from old favorites, rising stars, and debut novelists, for a fascinating cross-section of the genre today. Enjoy!
I used a few more blurbs than normal from my colleague Dwyer Murphy, so each blurb is attributed t0 either me (MO) or Dwyer (DM). Enjoy!
Caroline Kepnes, You First
(Random House)
We already know a fair amount about Joe Goldberg’s backstory, but Caroline Kepnes’ latest, a prequel, should fill in the blanks when it comes to his earliest romances; how they began, how they influenced (and were influenced by) his growing delusions, and most especially, how they ended. An excellent addition to an already-legendary series, this one is sure to please long-time readers and those looking for an easy entry point to the character’s exploits. –MO
Abir Mukherjee, The Pinnacle
(Little Brown)
Mukherjee has been rising in the ranks of international thrillers in recent years, and The Pinnacle will surely win him droves of new readers, as he spins out a propulsive mystery around a vanished Bollywood darling, her washed up American actor husband, and the many lives that intersect with theirs in the underbelly of the Indian film industry. Mukherjee is a top-notch thriller talent. –DM
James Ellroy, Red Sheet
(Knopf)
Ellroy takes us on a wild ride through a funhouse mirror view of the early 1960s, as a dope-fiend criminal who also happens to be the LAPD’s most effective fixer stumbles upon a shocking communist conspiracy with Nixon at its center. Could Tricky Dick have been a Soviet spy? Was there a secret breeding program to create the perfect party assassin? Could a cop who does that many drugs even hold a conversation, much less lead a covert investigation? These are the kind of questions that pop up throughout Ellroy’s latest, not one of them a question that anyone has bothered to ask before (except the drug one) and yet the novel’s bizarre collection of hallucinatory ramblings and deep state conspiracies is also the best thing Ellroy has written since LA Confidential, and quite probably one of the best books of the year. As long as no one thinks it’s based on actual history. –MO
Emma Garman, The Kindness of Strangers
(Summit Books)
The longtime residents of a London boarding house come together to protect their own when a stranger moves in and destabilizes their delicate balance of live-and-let-live. Garman skillfully crafts complex and intersecting character arcs with fully realized backstories, for a richly detailed portrait of post-war England and a sensitive take on the long shadows of historical trauma. –MO
Jess Kidd, Murder at the Spirit Lounge
(Atria)
A medium, a series of supernatural deaths, a former nun investigating…Jess Kidd’s new novel, the second installment in the Nora Breen Investigates series, has it all, and Kidd brings it all together with an intricate, elegantly executed plot. –DM
Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms
(Mulholland)
Hannah Selinger, known for her food writing, sets her sights on a world even more vicious, competitive, and high-stakes: suburban motherhood. In Valley of the Moms, a parent is incensed to learn that her daughter’s public school does not provide equal access to all events, but instead has a paid tier system that privileges wealthier attendees. One year later, that parent is dead, her partner faces accusations of murder, and the school’s PTA seems more in charge than ever. How did Selinger’s fiercely protective heroine end up dead over an issue both widely publicized and unbearably mundane? That’s for me to know and you to find out (by reading the book). Read it! It’s great! –MO
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, The Heirs
(Feiwel and Friends)
The Heirs is pure delight in the package of a mystery novel. In this YA locked-room mystery perfect for fans of Umbrella Academy, the six adopted children of an eccentric billionaire reunite at their father’s palatial abode for annual party celebrating his widely-publicized talent for raising prodigies. Too bad he hasn’t succeeded: his kids are burnouts, his parenting is a joke, and by the end of the celebration, his life will be over. An impeccably crafted locked-room mystery that should please adults and teens alike! –MO
Caitlin Mullen, Heather
(Celadon)
Mullen’s new novel has tension and atmosphere to burn, unfolding a dark family mystery against the utter eeriness of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens region.–DM
Naomi Kritzer, Obstetrix
(Tordotcom)
Obstetrix is one of several upcoming thrillers to examine compulsory reproduction in the post-Roe era. In Obstetrix, the last ob-gyn to perform an abortion in South Dakota is kidnapped after her acquittal and forced to play midwife to a cult. If you like this book, check out Carrying, by Samantha Josephs, in which a trans woman so stealth her family doesn’t even know finds herself impossibly pregnant, and Fallow, by Sarah Anderson, in which a company hires an in-house surrogate to eliminate a need for executive maternity leave. –MO
Karen Odden, An Artful Dodge
(Soho Crime)
Odden’s latest is an enthralling tale of an all-women thieving ring in Victorian London. We’re following Kit Jimeson, the most talented in the ring, who dreams of getting out of the life but has to bring her considerable talents to bear on at least the proverbial ‘one last job’ if she’s going to get herself and her sister into new lives. An Artful Dodge is lush with detail and populated by characters you won’t soon forget. –DM
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Green City Wars
(Tor)
Animals solving mysteries? You might be forgiven for considering that image cute, given the new film featuring Hugh Jackman and a bunch of sheep, but the animals in Green City Wars live Hobbesian lives: nasty, brutish, and short. They’ve been bioengineered as “little helpers” to keep the future’s green cities functioning properly and looking pristine, an easy enough set of tasks to accomplish with the brain juice boosters that activate their genetically modified intelligence.
There’s a whole lot of animals competing for very few resources, including tightly controlled access to the medicine that keeps them (for lack of a better word) human, and every interstitial space in the city is alive with conflict between the gangs of armed critters ready to kill for resources, pride, and politics. The parrots are, of course, anarchists. And there’s a mouse on the loose with some very dangerous chemical equations that could blow the whole shebang to smithereens…And one tough little PI raccoon ready to do whatever it takes to stop him. This book is so adorable. And so murderous. Just like nature. –MO
E.L. Chen, Slasher Summer
(Crown)
It’s a great year for snappy, fast-paced stories featuring multiple POVs, and this locked-room ode to slasher cinema is one of the standouts. In Chen’s horror thriller, seven former classmates reunite for one last blowout at their old cabin haunt, a famed film location turned infamous party spot. With old dramas resurfacing, and old rivalries resuming, the party’s off to a miserable start—a slasher imitating their favorite film is just the icing on a very bad cake. At least the screaming is less awkward than the silence! –MO
