Welcome to Match, everyone!
In terms of new releases, January was packed with a ton of great new books. February was even better, and honestly, might just prove to be the best month of the year for can’t-miss new mysteries and thrillers. So, March was always going to have a harder time matching all that firepower, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some notable new releases—and if you love a good mystery, then you’re certainly in luck.
As always, we’ve picked a few titles to highlight, and this month’s Featured Selections are Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner, The Truth About The Devlins by Lisa Scottoline, and How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin. Find out more about those titles, plus everything else hitting bookstores this month, below.
Happy Reading!
Tuesday, March 5th
Every Single Secret by Christina Dodd
rom New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd comes a twisty emotional thriller about a woman’s perilous quest for revenge, perfect for fans of Sandra Brown, Jayne Ann Krentz, and Lisa Jewell.
Never whisper the truth. Never reveal the past.
In an isolated lighthouse on the California coast, Rowan Winterbourne lives a solitary life with only her secrets for company. For she has a mission that drives her—to avenge herself against Gregory Torval, the powerful drug and arms dealer who murdered her mother and vowed to eliminate everyone in her family.
Then Joe Grantham arrives at her door and, for the first time, Rowan lets her guard down—a dangerous mistake when he blackmails her to go with him to Torval’s private island. There Torval’s decadent birthday celebration rages, and while Joe pursues his own agenda, she’ll provide the perfect distraction.
On Raptor Island, Torval’s will is law and Joe, the closest she has to an ally, is an enigma she can’t trust. One false move, one careless word, and Rowan will die. As dark truths are uncovered, one by one, Rowan recognizes her last chance for the revenge has come. But is it worth everything she must sacrifice to get out alive.
The Hunter by Tana French
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Searcher and “one of the greatest crime novelists writing today” (Vox), a spellbinding new novel set in the Irish countryside.
It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.
Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less: he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.
From the writer who is “in a class by herself,” (The New York Times), a nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.
A couple inherits an apartment with a spine-tingling past in this unputdownable thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six.
Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad’s late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the building is the epitome of old New York charm. One would almost never suspect the dark history lurking behind its perfectly maintained facade.
At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn’t feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there’s more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.
Looking for more spine-tingling thrillers? Check out these other titles by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.
Tuesday, March 12th
Watch Where They Hide by Tamron Hall
From Emmy Award winner Tamron Hall comes an edge-of-your-seat thriller featuring journalist Jordan Manning as she delves into the case of a mother in danger and uncovers a dangerous web of secrets that could lead right to the missing woman—or put Jordan in the crosshairs of her abductors.
“With Jordan Manning, Tamron Hall has given us a smart, empathetic heroine to cheer on for years to come.” — Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author
After dropping her child off at preschool, Marla Hancock, a stay-at-home mother, disappears. She had recently left her verbally abusive husband in rural Indiana and moved in with her sister, Shelly, who simply can’t believe that her sister would ever willingly vanish without her children. But with limited support from the town’s police department or media resources, Shelly fears that Marla’s disappearance won’t get the attention it deserves, or worse, will go unsolved. So, several weeks after filing a missing person’s report, she reaches out to TV journalist Jordan Manning for help.
After her investigative and reporting skills helped solve multiple murders, Jordan Manning’s career in the newsroom is on the rise. She has gained a reputation as more than your typical news reporter: a “fixer” with a vigilante edge, dogged and undeterred to seek the truth. But even with this new status, Jordan still feels pressure to prove herself as a young Black professional. When Shelly reaches out, she feels compelled to do all she can to find Marla.
Jordan’s search twists and turns in ways she could never have imagined, illuminating scandals and secrets that place her own life in grave danger.
Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner (Featured Selection)
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner comes a harrowing new thriller: Frankie Elkin is an expert at finding the missing persons that the rest of the world has forgotten, but even she couldn’t have anticipated this latest request—to locate the long-lost sister of a female serial killer facing execution in three weeks’ time.
No man truly fears a woman. Not even one who is her father’s daughter.
The case was sensational. Kaylee Pierson had confessed from the very beginning, waived all appeals. She had called herself “death,” but people called her the devil. Despite the media’s chronicling of her tragic circumstances—the childhood spent with a violent father—no one could find sympathy for “the Beautiful Butcher” who had led eighteen men home from bars before viciously slitting their throats.
Now, with only twenty-one days left to live, Pierson has finally received a lead on the whereabouts of the sister who was kidnapped over a decade ago, and she needs Frankie’s help to find her. The Beautiful Butcher’s offer:
When was the last time your search ended with finding the living?
Unable to resist the chance for a rescue, Frankie takes on Pierson’s request. Twelve years ago, five-year old Leilani went missing in Hawaii. The main suspect? Pierson’s tech mogul ex-boyfriend, Sanders MacManus. Now, on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific—the site of MacManus’s latest vanity project—fresh evidence has appeared. In order to learn the truth and possibly save a young woman’s life, Frankie must go undercover at the isolated base camp. Her challenge: A dozen strangers. Countless dangerous secrets. Zero means of calling for help. And then the storm rolls in . . .
Black Wolf by Juan Gomez-Jurado
International bestselling sensation Antonia Scott, along with Jon Gutierrez, return in the much anticipated sequel to Red Queen.
Antonia Scott has an unusually gifted mind, able to see what others miss, able to solve the crimes that baffle all others. The only thing she fears is herself.
Antonia is the lynchpin of the Red Queen project, created to work behind the scenes to solve the most devious and dangerous crimes. But she is unwilling to move past the last case, convinced it’s related to a personal tragedy, until a series of deadly events pulls her back in. In southern Spain, in the Costa del Sol, a key mafia figure is found brutally murdered in his villa, his pregnant wife, Lola Moreno, barely escapes an attempt to kill her in a shopping mall and is on the run. A shipping container from St. Petersburg arrives in port in Spain containing the corpses of nine woman, all who suffocated. Now Antonia, with the help of her helper and protector, Jon Gutierrez, must track down this missing Lola. But they aren’t the only ones on Lola’s trail – a dangerous contract killer, known as the Black Wolf, is also on her trail. And Antonia Scott, still plagued by her personal demons, must outwit, out-maneuver, and, ultimately, face this terrible, mysterious rival.
Dark DiveA Wall Street Journal bestselling series.
Searching for a missing diver takes a Florida detective on a deep-diving adventure in a gripping thriller by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of Sea Castle.
After the Underwater Investigation Unit’s disbandment, public outcry ushers Sloan McPherson and her partner, former navy diver Scott Hughes, back into the depths of crime solving. But Sloan’s return comes with a personal case.
Longtime family friend Fred Stafford has disappeared. Left behind: his abandoned truck in the vicinity of an unmarked sinkhole and new findings that have Sloan second-guessing everything she thought she knew about the man. There are his gambling debts, his association with a treasure-hunting band of underwater cavern junkies called the Dive Rats, and most alarming of all, a discovery in Stafford’s storage shed that raises the stakes even higher and plunges Sloan into an unfathomable mystery.
As Sloan’s investigation unfolds, a tragic Florida cold case, local superstitions, and a shocking conspiracy collide. For Sloan, finding Stafford and uncovering the buried secrets of the past soon drag her deeper into the dark unknown than she feared.
Hard Power―the follow-up to the electric Hard Exit―is a riveting new thriller from bestselling author J. B. Turner.
When Amy Chang, partner of NSA hacker Trevelle Williams―a friend of Jon Reznick―is found dead on a Manhattan subway, everyone says it was a suicide. But Trevelle knows that someone had been watching Amy’s every move, and he isn’t about to let them slip away.
Trevelle calls on Jon Reznick to help him uncover what happened to Amy and protect Amy’s brother, Kevin Chang, a Hong Kong student-activist living in New York. Before long, two government organizations are hunting them, forcing the trio to go on the run. Will Reznick be able to pull himself out of another mess, or have things finally gone too far?
As his pursuers close in, Reznick reaches out to Martha Meyerstein, FBI assistant director, for help―but with so many political forces at play, people are not always who they seem to be. With friends’ lives on the line, Reznick will have to summon all his black-ops skills, tradecraft, and killer instincts to keep both Trevelle and Kevin alive…but he might have to sacrifice his own life to do it.
Escaping online is easy. In real life it won’t be so simple.
Jaleesa, Kai, Ilya and Dani are online best friends, and superfans of the hit TV show City Of Night. Fantasising about the show in their chatroom, they find an escape from their troubled small-town lives. Everything changes when Chloe, make-up artist to the show’s star Alice Temple, enters the chat.
When Chloe tells them Alice is in danger the four resolve to save her, and make their way to California. But fantasy is quickly overtaken by reality. Alice’s troubles, they discover, will shine the spotlight on all of them. And not in a good way. On the run across the American South with one of the most famous actresses in the world, the fans must evade the police, the Russian mafia and the Legion, an absurd but terrifying new far-right movement. Can they keep running for long enough to uncover the truth about Alice, and discover themselves in the process?
#PANIC is a thriller, a love letter to fandom, and an empowering tale of young adults embracing their identities and fighting back in a world that has always tried to marginalize them.
‘A richly imagined, character-driven thriller’ Bookseller
‘Luke Jennings might just have another cult hit on his hands’ Shots Mag
Tuesday, March 19th
From the internationally bestselling author of I Am Not Who You Think I Am—a New York Times Thriller of the Year—comes Lilith, an incendiary powerhouse of a novel that strikes straight at the wounded heart of America.
Mother. Hero. Villain. Killer.
After her son Lydan suffers traumatic injuries in a school shooting, single mom Elisabeth Ross grows enraged at men in power. If they won’t do anything to help end this epidemic of violence, she will. Believing it’s her destiny, she sets out to awaken the world to the cowards these men are and commits her own shocking act of violence.
Going by the name Lilith—the first wife of Adam who fled Eden rather than serve a man—she posts a video of her crime that reverberates throughout society.
Praised by some, demonized by others, and hunted by the FBI and vigilantes alike, Elisabeth must keep her identity a secret as she tries to care for her son.
As events take startling twists, Elisabeth begins to question her act of violence and the very roots and mythology of violence itself. Was her act justified or has she become the monster that the original Lilith was accused of being?
As the FBI draws closer, and Lydan starts to display odd, terrifying behavior, Elisabeth plots to avoid capture and keep her son safe at all costs, fearing she’ll never escape what she’s done without losing her son forever.
Written with Rickstad’s singular command of language, human insight, and unnerving suspense, Lilith is a tale of our times. Tragic and profound, it echoes in the mind and lingers in the blood.
The #1 Lawyer by James Patterson and Nancy Allen
Move over, John Grisham! Biloxi’s best criminal defense attorney has never lost a case. Then his wife is murdered, and he becomes the nation’s #1 suspect.
Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi’s #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity.
Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career.
That’s when Penney makes a bold decision. He stops trading on his power-lawyer identity and creates a new one: lawyer lifeguard. Moonlighting at the beach, showing up to court in flip-flops, mentoring a law student, the new Penney is at first unrecognizable.
It’s said that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But when Penney’s accused of murder, the #1 Lawyer will find a way to triumph.
Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? By Nicci French
A nerve-tingling and atmospheric thriller from master of suspense Nicci French about two families shattered by tragedy and the secrets that have been waiting decades to be revealed.
On the day of Alec Salter’s fiftieth birthday party, his wife, Charlotte, vanishes. Most of the small English village of Glensted is at the party for hours before anyone realizes she is missing. While Alec brushes off her disappearance, their four children—especially fifteen-year-old Etty—grow increasingly anxious as the cold winter hours become days and she doesn’t return. Then Etty and her friend Morgan find the body of Morgan’s father—and the Salters’ neighbor— Duncan Ackerley, floating in the river. The police conclude that Duncan and Charlotte were having an affair before he killed her and committed suicide.
Thirty years later, Morgan Ackerley returns to Glensted with his older brother to make a podcast based on their shared tragedy with the Salters. Alec, stricken with dementia, is entering an elder care facility while Etty helps put his affairs in order. But when the Ackerleys ask to interview the Salters, the entire town gets caught up in the unresolved cases.
Allegations fly, secrets come to light, and a suspicious fire leads to a murder. With the podcast making national news, London sends Detective Inspector Maud O’Connor to Glensted to take over the investigation. She will stop at nothing to uncover the truth as a new and terrifying picture of what really happened to Charlotte Salter and Duncan Ackerley emerges.
Kill For Me, Kill For You by Steve Cavanaugh
For fans of The Silent Patient and Gone Girl, a razor-sharp and Hitchcock-inspired psychological thriller about two ordinary women who make a dangerous pact to take revenge for each other after being pushed to the brink.
One dark evening on New York City’s Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect plan: if you kill for me, I’ll kill for you.
In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her husband, Scott, is invaded. She’s attacked by a man with piercing blue eyes, who disappears into the night. Will she ever be able to feel safe again while the blue-eyed stranger is out there?
Intricate, heart-racing, and from an author who “is the real deal” (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Kill for Me, Kill for You will keep you breathless until the final page.
Cape RageDanny Barrett is caught between a family of criminals and the psychopath who is tracking them in the latest novel of the series the New York Times calls, “Dynamite.”
The FBI has a hundred undercover agents who can work in the city, but Danny Barrett is the one they call when they need someone to investigate crimes in the wilderness.
This case is a particularly difficult one. For more than a century the Danby family have ruled as kings in their corner of the Pacific Northwest. The Feds were mostly willing to look the other way while the family smuggled everything from liquor to cigarettes across the border, but lately things have taken a darker turn.
A recent bank robbery in Seattle looks like it may have been committed by the Danbys, but there’s no way the FBI can get any locals to turn against them. Only Danny Barrett has what it takes to get inside the organization and shut them down.
But before Danny can do that he’s going to have to contend with Henry Carter, a former in-law and current psychopath. The Danbys thought they left Henry for dead in the deepest part of the woods, but he’s coming back. He’ll go to hell to get his revenge, and he’s willing to take the whole family with him.
Tuesday, March 26th
Sleeping Giants by Rene Denfeld
“Rene Denfeld reminds us that storytelling remains one of the most powerful means we have of confronting our darkest human impulses, and sometimes overcoming them.”—Washington Post
From the bestselling author of The Child Finder and The Enchanted, a compelling and poignant story of sibling bonds, monsters masquerading as caretakers, terrifying secrets, and the power of love to right even the most egregious wrongs.
Twenty years ago, a nine-year-old boy was swept away by powerful waves on a remote Oregon beach, his body lost to the sea. Only a stone memorial remains to mark his tragic death.
For most of her life, Amanda Dufresne had no idea she had an older brother named Dennis Owens, or that he had died. Adopted as a baby, she learned about him while looking into her late birth mother, and is curious to know more about this lost sibling. A solitary young woman, Amanda has always felt distanced from the world around her. Her brain works differently from others, leaving her feeling set apart. Her one true companion is the orphaned polar bear she cares for working at the zoo. By getting to know her birth family, she hopes to understand more about herself.
Retired police officer Larry Palmer is a widower with nothing but time and in need of a purpose. He offers to help Amanda find answers. The search leads to shocking and heartbreaking discoveries. Dennis Owen had been a forgotten foster child abandoned to a home for disturbed boys off the coast. As Amanda and Larry dig deeper into the past, the two stumble upon decades of cruelty and hidden crimes—including a barbaric treatment still used today.
Told in Rene Denfeld’s inimitable style, Sleeping Giants is an enthralling and heartbreaking novel that burrows deep in the heart and will leave no reader untouched.
A shocking murder leaves an affluent retirement community reeling in this riveting, high-stakes second installment of the San Diego Case Files, from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Karen Rose.
Death is not an unfamiliar visitor to Shady Oaks Retirement Village, which provides San Diego with premier elderly support from independent retiree housing to full-time hospice care. But when a resident’s body is found brutally stabbed and his apartment ransacked, it’s clear there’s someone deadly in their community. Detective Katherine “Kit” McKittrick quickly discovers that Shady Oaks is full of skeleton-riddled closets, and most tenants prefer to keep their doors firmly closed to the SDPD.
A longtime volunteer at the retirement facility, Dr. Sam Reeves honors his late grandfather’s memory by playing the piano for the residents regularly. So it shouldn’t be such a surprise when Kit crosses paths with him during her investigation, after she’d avoided the criminal psychologist—and the emotions he evokes—for the last six months.
Sam’s rapport within the retirement village proves vital to the case, and the pair find themselves working together once again—much to Kit’s dismay. But she is determined to apprehend the shadow of death lurking around Shady Oaks…and equally determined to ignore the feelings she’s developing for a certain psychologist.
“A gripping examination of a community devastated by a school shooting and the “truthers” who deny it ever happened. Within that story is a girl who’s hiding what she knows about what happened that day. A chilling, thought-provoking read. Brilliant.”
—Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of Everyone Here is Lying and The Couple Next Door
A village hall, a primary school play, a beautiful Lake District town in England. Into this idyllic scene steps a lone gunman whose actions set off a train of events that will have devastating consequences for the close-knit community of Stonesmere.
In the weeks following the cataclysm, conspiracy theorists start questioning what happened. Two young people find themselves at the epicenter of the uproar: Marty, the town’s golden girl and daughter of a teacher killed that day, and Trent, whose memories of his brief time trying to fit into Stonesmere fuel his attachment to the conspiracies.
But what really happened at the Day One assembly? What secrets is Marty keeping and what blindspots does Trent miss? In this world where news travels fast, and videos and gossip travel faster, how does a community move forward together?
Opening with a gripping moment of terror, and then jumping forward in time to show how secrets, trauma, miscommunications, and unrequited feelings reverberate over a lifetime, Abigail Dean once again delivers, “a riveting page-turner, full of hope in the face of despair.” (Sophie Hannah, The Guardian).
The Truth About the Devlins by Lisa Scottoline (Featured Selection)
Lisa Scottoline, the #1 bestselling author of What Happened to the Bennetts, presents another pulse-pounding domestic thriller about family, justice, and the lies that tear us apart.
TJ Devlin is the charming disappointment in the prominent Devlin family, all of whom are lawyers at their highly successful firm—except him. After a stint in prison and rehab for alcoholism, TJ can’t get hired anywhere except at the firm, in a make-work job with the title of investigator.
But one night, TJ’s world turns upside down after his older brother John confesses that he murdered one of their clients, an accountant he’d confronted with proof of embezzlement. It seems impossible coming from John, the firstborn son and Most Valuable Devlin.
TJ plunges into the investigation, seizing the chance to prove his worth and save his brother. But in no time, TJ and John find themselves entangled in a lethal web of deception and murder. TJ will fight to save his family, but what he learns might break them first.
How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristin Perrin (Featured Selection)
“Readers’ 63 Most Anticipated Books of 2024” Goodreads | “The Big Upcoming Mysteries Readers Can’t Wait to Crack” Goodreads | “The Most Anticipated 2024 Book Releases” The Nerd Daily | “Most Anticipated Books of 2024″ Shelf Reflection | “Our Most Anticipated Crime Fiction Novels of 2024” Novel Suspects | “24 Books to Read in 2024″ Borrow Read Repeat | Most Anticipated Books of Winter” The Everygirl
For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate…. Now it’s up to her great-niece to catch the killer.
It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.
In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?
As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.
Lost Man’s Lane by Scott Carson
A teenager explores the darkness hidden within his hometown in this spellbinding supernatural thriller from bestselling author Scott Carson.
For a sixteen-year-old, a summer internship working for a private investigator seems like a dream come true—particularly since the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana, in decades. A local woman has vanished, and the last time anyone saw her, she was in the backseat of a police car driven by a man impersonating an officer.
Marshall Miller’s internship puts him at the center of the action, a position he relishes until a terrifying moment that turns public praise for his sharp observations and uncanny memory into accusations of lying and imperiling the case. His detective mentor withdraws, friends and family worry and whisper, and Marshall alone understands that the darkness visiting his town this summer goes far beyond a single crime. Now his task is to explain it—and himself.
Lost Man’s Lane is a coming-of-age tale of terror that proves why its author has been hailed as “a master” by Stephen King and one who consistently offers “eerie, gripping storytelling” by Dean Koontz.
Praised as “One of the hardest working, most thoughtful, and fairest reviewers out there” by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, Ryan Steck has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance editor and is building a growing community on Twitch. His debut thriller, FIELDS OF FIRE, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr says “will leave you speechless and begging for more,” is now available. His second novel, LETHAL RANGE, is also in bookstores, and his third book, OUT FOR BLOOD, comes out on June 4th. For more information, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. To interact with other readers and talk about your favorite books and authors, join The Real Book Spy’s Discord server.