This month’s latest entries in the crime fiction canon lean heavily toward multi-POV mysteries and high-concept thrillers, with some historical gothics and horror crossovers thrown into the mix. As always, all blurbs are by me, unless otherwise stated. Enjoy!
Ilona Bannister, Five
(Crown)
The Five is a deeply emotional novel with a thriller’s bones. Here’s the set-up: five people are waiting for a train in the London Underground. By the time the train arrives, one will be dead. Bannister ratchets up the tension through interactions between characters, pausing to tease out each backstory, and dropping small reveals of the near future, for a surprisingly sweet puzzler of a novel that feels a bit like George Elliott took on a Reacher novel (in the best way). For those who return to this list after finishing the novel: so glad the woman in the girdle eventually managed to get out of her restrictive underwear and embrace a new life of freedom and easily climbing stairs.
Vincent Yu, Seek Immediate Shelter
(Flatiron)
Another multi-POV drama, Seek Immediate Shelter takes us into the heart of a close-knit Asian-American suburb, where an emergency alert sparks a wide variety of reactions, upending each character’s expectations of their own behavior. Yu has crafted a thoughtful, fast-paced thriller that also works a deep character study and a crystalline portrait of a community in flux.
Tiffany Hanssen, My Name Was Gerry Sass
(Atlantic Crime)
Tiffany Hanssen’s noir tale of the afterlife features the titular Gerry struggling through purgatory and trying to keep his daughter from repeating his mistakes. Before his untimely demise, Gerry was a doting father, a solid neighbor, and sometimes, a contract killer, and his daughter’s quest for vengeance seems sure to have her headed down the same path, unless he can intervene from the great beyond. This book hit just the right balance between pacy and contemplative, for a novel with plenty of attitude and even more heart.
Sarah Gailey, Make Me Better
(Tor)
Another excellent entry into the growing genre of wellness horror! This one’s from horror writer extraordinaire Sarah Gailey, whose career I have been eagerly following ever since I read their sophomore novel, The Echo Wife. Make Me Better lives up to Gailey’s stellar reputation from the get-go, with a sternly worded dedication warning of the futility of side-stepping grief. And yet that is exactly the intent of Gailey’s terribly avoidant characters, who’ve marooned themselves on an island promising the unpromiseable, with predictably dire results.
Mary Berman, Until Death
(Mulholland Books)
The wedding industry is, obviously, the perfect venue for horror, and this tongue-in-cheek take on the nightmare of planning a memorable union makes the most of this natural affinity. I won’t spoil the novel’s many delicious surprises, but rest assured, this one makes for incredibly satisfying reading.
Ray Nayler, Palaces of the Crow
(MCD)
So, I never thought “crows in a Polish forest saving children from the Nazis” would be on my 2026 bingo, but here we are, and trust me: this book is exactly the anti-fascist narrative of mutual aid that you need this year. It’s beautiful. It’s haunting. It’s full of crows. What more could you want?
Quick warning: this book will make you sob. The ending is, as it should be, devastating. But it’s also hopeful, in a way I don’t usually find acceptable in WWII settings. Perhaps that’s because the idea of divorcing from humanity through mutual aid with forest creatures is so damn appealing, and so representative of the forms of caretaking we most need in the contemporary world.
Choi Jin-Young, Hunger
Translated by Soje
(Europa Editions)
In this instant cult classic from South Korea, a woman loses her lover to sudden death in the street, then begins to slowly consume his body to preserve their connection. The novel alternates perspectives between living and dead, survivor and decedent, as they reach for an unholy reunion through uniting flesh and spirit.
Camilla Bruce, The Temptation of Charlotte North
(Del Rey)
In this moody gothic historical, set on a remote and windswept island with a tragic past, a loosed spirit becomes a sinister ally to a repressed teenage girl as she yearns for her melancholy preacher. Camilla Bruce is one of the most consistent and insightful authors of psychological thrillers writing today, and The Temptation of Charlotte North easily lives up to that reputation. What draws me most to Bruce’s work is the skillful blending of setting and character, how the two feed off each other to reveal a stranger, darker picture, on full display in this latest. –MO
Bindu Bansinath, Men Like Ours
(Bloomsbury)
Men Like Ours is a wonderful debut, a witty narrative following an amateur murder investigation in a South Asian enclave in New Jersey. On Willow Road, a group of women band together to solve the murder of a friend, and wade into a world of generational feuds, friendly backstabbings, and, possibly, an even deeper sense of community. Possibly. –Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads editor
Paul Rudnick, The Tuxedo Society
(Atria)
I suspect that Paul Rudnick’s hysterical spy thriller about a very gay secret espionage society is the book I will be giving as gifts the most, this year. –OR
