Welcome to March, thriller fans!
If you love mysteries and thrillers, it’s about to be a busy month because March is packed with tons of great, must-read new titles about to hit bookstores shelves. We have a full list of everything set for release below, but—beginning this year—we’re also offering a more in-depth, premium breakdown of each book over on The Real Book Spy Substack, which is geared more for hardcore thriller & mystery fans. You’ll find more behind-the-scnees stuff, contents, giveaways, and news there.
This month’s Featured Selection is The Beijing Betrayal by Joel C. Rosenberg, the latest (and last) novel in his Marcus Ryker series. Read more about that book, along with everything else set for publication below.
Happy Reading!
(Note: As many of you know already, when I’m not running The Real Book Spy, I’m also an author, and this month my first Alex Hawke novel, Ted Bell’s Monarch, will hit booksotres on March 25th. This is my first offering in the late Ted Bell’s New York Times bestselling series, and I would be so honored if you’d consider checking it out. The story opens with King Charles, who vanishes just days before a controversial vote threatening to tear the United Kingdom apart at the seams. From there, Lord Alexander Hawke has just 72 hours to find the missing Monarch before all hell breaks loose . . . and I promise you, I gave this book everything I’ve got. I hope you all really love it!)
Tuesday, March 4th
Grand Central Publishing
#1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with another gripping thriller where an embittered detective and an ambitious TV show producer are in a race against the clock to prevent another young woman from disappearing before the next blood moon, in this “absolute tour de force!” (Tia Williams)
Detective John Bowie is one misstep away from being fired from the Auclair Police Department in coastal Louisiana. Recently divorced and slightly heavy-handed with his liquor, Bowie does all that he can to cope with the actions taken (or not taken) during the investigation of Crissy Mellin, a teenage girl who disappeared more than three years prior. But now, Crisis Point, a long-running true crime television series, is soon to air an episode documenting the unsolved Mellin case. Bowie has been instructed by his unscrupulous boss to keep to himself his grievances and criticisms over the mishandling of the investigation.
Beth Collins, a senior producer on Crisis Point, knows what classifies as a great story and when there’s something more to be told. After working on the show for seven years researching, fact-checking, and editing dozens of episodes, Collins is convinced that Crissy Mellin’s disappearance was not an isolated incident. A string of disappearances of teenage girls in nearby areas has only one thing in common: They took place on the night of a blood moon. In a last-ditch effort to find out the truth, Beth leaves New York City for Louisiana to enlist Detective Bowie in helping her figure out what happened to Crissy and find the true culprit before he acts on the next blood moon—in four days’ time.
At the risk of their careers, credibility, and very lives, Bowie and Collins band together to identify and capture a canny perpetrator, while fighting an irresistible spark between them that threatens to upend everything.
Don’t Tell Me How To Die by Marshall Karp
Blackstone Publishing, Inc.
I have one thing to do before I die.
And time is running out.
I had it all: a fantastic husband, two great kids, an exciting career. And then, at the age of forty-three, I found out I would be dead before my next birthday.
My mother also died at forty-three. I was seventeen, and she warned me that women would flock to my suddenly single father like stray cats to an overturned milk truck. They did. And one absolutely evil woman practically destroyed his life, mine, and my sister’s.
I am not letting that happen to my family.
I have three months, and I plan to spend every waking minute searching for the perfect woman to take my place as Alex’s wife, and mother to Kevin and Katie.
You’re probably thinking, she’ll never do it. Did I mention that in high school I was voted “Most Likely to Kill Someone to Get What She Wants”?
From thriller writer Marshall Karp (cocreator with James Patterson of the #1 New York Times bestselling NYPD Red series), and rich with Karp’s deft array of three-dimensional characters and his signature biting humor, Don’t Tell Me How to Die has so many twists and turns, you’d swear he wrote it with a corkscrew.
The Vanishing Kind by Alice Henderson
William Morrow
From highly acclaimed author Alice Henderson comes the eagerly anticipated and electrifying fourth book in the Alex Carter series, in which the wildlife biologist encounters anti-immigrant vigilantes, rugged terrain, and threatening intruders in search of a sleek, powerful, and furtive animal—the jaguar.
When wildlife biologist Alex Carter is tasked with locating jaguars on a vast desert preserve in New Mexico, she is ecstatic. While jaguars once roamed throughout the Southwest, they are now endangered, with only a handful remaining, and Alex hopes some of the sleek and elusive creatures have found their way to the protected sanctuary.
Meanwhile, an archaeological team is excavating the gravesite of a sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador on a neighboring piece of land. Curious about the dig, Alex meets the team and, while learning about their discoveries, she encounters a dangerous group of anti-immigrant vigilantes roaming the area, threatening the archaeology team, demanding they leave. And when the militants learn of Alex’s mission, they become bent on stopping her. Because jaguars are federally endangered, the vigilantes worry that if Alex finds them, concessions will be made so that wildlife can cross the border wall. And they want no one crossing it…
And then there are the strange holes that keep appearing on the preserve—Who is digging them, and what are they looking for?
As tensions mount, Alex soon finds herself in a fight for her life against those who would prevent her from restoring jaguars to their historical habitat.
Hang on St. Christopher by Adrian McKinty
Blackstone Publishing, Inc.
New York Times bestselling author Adrian McKinty continues the Edgar Award–winning Sean Duffy series with Hang On St. Christopher.
Rain slicked streets, riots, murder, chaos. It’s July 1992 and the Troubles in Northern Ireland are still grinding on after twenty-five apocalyptic years. Detective Inspector Sean Duffy got his family safely over the water to Scotland, to “Shortbread Land”. Duffy’s a part-timer now, only returning to Belfast six days a month to get his pension. It’s an easy gig, if he can keep his head down.
But then a murder case falls into his lap while his protege is on holiday in Spain. A carjacking gone wrong and the death of a solitary, middle-aged painter. But something’s not right, and as Duffy probes he discovers the painter was an IRA assassin. So, the question becomes: Who hit the hitman and why?
This is Duffy’s most violent and dangerous case yet and the whole future of the burgeoning “peace process” may depend upon it. Based on true events, Duffy must unentangle parallel operations by the CIA, MI5 and Special Branch. Duffy attempts to bring a killer to justice while trying to keep himself and his team alive as everything unravels around them. They might not all make it out of this one.
Broken Fields by Marcie R. Rendon
Soho Crime
Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman and occasional sleuth, is back on the case after a man is found dead on a rural Minnesota farm in the next installment of the acclaimed Native crime series.
Minnesota, 1970s: It’s spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear is doing fieldwork for a local farmer—until she finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the property’s rented farmhouse. The tenant, a Native field laborer, and his wife are nowhere to be found, but Cash discovers their young daughter, Shawnee, cowering under a bed. The girl, a possible witness to the killing, is too terrified to speak.
In the wake of the murder, Cash can’t deny her intuitive abilities: she is suspicious of the farmer’s grieving widow, who offers to take in Shawnee temporarily. While Cash is scouring White Earth Reservation for Shawnee’s missing mother—whom Cash wants to find before the girl is put in the foster system—another body turns up. Concerned by the escalating threat, Cash races against the clock to figure out the truth of what happened in the farmhouse.
Broken Fields is a compelling, atmospheric read woven with details of American Indian life in northern Minnesota, abusive farm labor practices and women’s liberation.
Tuesday, March 11th
The Beijing Betrayal by Joel C. Rosenberg (Featured Selection)
Tyndale Fiction
Can Marcus Ryker and his team of elite operatives stop a secret plot to unleash the most devastating sneak attack on the U.S. and her allies in history—before millions of Americans die?
In the pulse-pounding final installment of the Marcus Ryker series, the leaders of Communist China are secretly plotting to invade Taiwan and challenge American supremacy in the Pacific.
And no one in Washington has any idea what’s coming.
Marcus Ryker has been tasked with hunting down Abu Nakba, the most wanted terrorist in the world. The latest intel sends him and his team to Pakistan. There, they discover a horrifying secret inside a state-of-the-art lab. Marcus orders the lab rigged with explosives, but the plan goes bad, and a massive explosion rocks the city.
News of the blast breaks in Washington just as President Carlos Hernandez is engaged in tense trade negotiations to forge a landmark agreement with China on trade and counterterrorism.
Little does the president realize that Beijing is almost finished preparing its imminent invasion of Taiwan.
Or that a terrifying new virus is about to be released inside the U.S. to kill millions and thwart Washington’s capacity to defend its ally.
In the riveting conclusion to the bestselling series, Ryker and his team must race to stop Beijing and the Kairos terror network before they unleash a catastrophe that brings the superpowers to the brink of nuclear war.
- A thrilling, fast-paced suspense novel for fans of Jack Carr, Ryan Steck, and Kyle Mills
- Perfect for fans of high-stakes geopolitical thrillers full of heart-racing action
- The last book in the Marcus Ryker series by New York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg
All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman
G.P. Putnam’s
“The missing boy is 10-year-old Alfie Risby, and to be perfectly honest with you, he’s a little shit.”
Florence Grimes is a thirty-one-year-old party girl who always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect. Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: She’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name, or risk losing Dylan forever.
The only problem? Florence has no useful skills, let alone investigative ones, and all the other school moms hate her. Oh, and Florence has a reason to suspect Dylan might not be as innocent as she’d like to believe…
Hilarious and twisted, propulsive and furious, All the Other Mothers Hate Me is the must-read book of 2025.
A Mother’s Love by Sara Blaedel
Dutton
Detective Louise Rick uncovers dark secrets swirling around an inn in a seemingly idyllic tourist town in this propulsive new crime novel from #1 Danish bestselling sensation Sara Blaedel.
When innkeeper Dorthe Hyllested is found murdered, the police are surprised and puzzled to discover a concealed nursery in her upstairs apartment. As far as her friends and family knew, the recently widowed Dorthe was childless—so who lived in this secret toy-strewn room? And more importantly, where is the child now?
Detective Louise Rick has just taken on a challenging new job as head of the freshly created Mobile Task Unit, which is charged with solving the most difficult cases all over Denmark. With Dorthe’s murder as her first investigation and the clock ticking to find the missing child, Louise is dismayed to learn that none of her handpicked group of seasoned investigators have been approved for transfer to her new unit. Instead, she must cobble together a brand-new, unproven team from a group of officers she’s never met. Worst of all, the case will necessitate collaborating with the Missing Persons Department—which will mean working closely with Louise’s former fiancé, Eik, who abruptly broke things off last year, leaving her devastated.
Could the mystery of Dorthe’s murder and the hidden child have something to do with the cabin in the woods behind the inn where men are often seen coming and going at all hours? With no witnesses to Dorthe’s murder and no real leads, and an unproven and potentially untrustworthy team behind her, Louise finds herself grasping at unlikely connections—but the twisted story she begins to uncover turns out to be darker and more dangerous than she ever imagined. . . .
Girl Anonymous by Christina Dodd
Canary Street Press
The Godfather meets West Side Story in this twisty, darkly romantic thriller from New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd. A dangerous blast sends a girl into hiding to escape a deadly family feud…
As a child, Maarja Daire saw her mother ignite an explosion that killed vengeful mob boss Benoit Arundel—and herself—to save Maarja’s life. Maarja’s been on the run ever since…fleeing from intimacy, from love, from consequences.
Now an adult, Maarja hides in plain sight as a fine arts mover, transporting priceless belongings. Work for a new client brings her to the mansion where the fateful blast from her childhood occurred. There she meets Dante, the ruthless, scarred and brooding Arundel family boss. He watches her with dark intent…but does he remember her? Will he use her to take revenge for his father’s death? A chance turn of events earns her his trust, when she courageously leaps into flames to rescue his mother. And what happens between them in the darkness sets their worlds on fire, as Maarja recklessly abandons her lifelong caution and self-imposed isolation.
Dante calls the urgency between them Fate. Maarja denies him, struggles against his domination and fights the slow erosion of her resistance. When he vows to end the ancient feud, his hidden enemies seize the opportunity to destroy him and the woman he will do anything to protect. Bound together by destruction, passion and destiny, Dante and Maarja must navigate uncharted depths of betrayal and loss, to create a new beginning…before the flames of the vendetta consume them.
Torch Press
“Rogue Agent is an exceptional series debut…” BestThrillers
This ‘Agent’ series opener follows Tom Wiseman’s Criminal Investigative Division investigation into a missing UN Helicopter, as it spirals into territory where dark, secretive, and powerful forces collude. Pitted against brutal contract killers and a lethal double agent from his past, Tom quickly discovers that going rogue and uncovering the truth at all cost, is a death sentence.
“Fast-paced and packed with hard-hitting action, Dan J. Ford mixes conspiracies and suspense to serve up a fun, unique reading experience that hits all the right notes. Strap in for this one!” — Ryan Steck, The Real Book Spy and author of OUT FOR BLOOD.
Tuesday, March 18th
The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen
Thomas & Mercer
From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a chilling follow-up to The Spy Coast, plunging the Martini Club into the search for a missing teen—with a startling connection to their own pasts.
When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything.
Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance.
After a teenager vanishes—and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect—she joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. But the girl’s wealthy family pushes for an arrest. And when authorities discover a long-dead corpse in a nearby pond, the case becomes doubly complicated, with unthinkable ties to long-buried secrets.
As Jo grapples with two unexplained mysteries, the Martini Club races to uncover the truth behind shadowy secrets…before more lives are lost.
The Writer by James Patterson & J. D. Barker
Little, Brown and Company
“Consider blocking out a few hours of uninterrupted reading time” for The Writer, #1 New York Times bestselling author James Patterson’s “Excellent… perfectly executed … genuinely suspenseful” (Booklist) thriller about a true-crime author swept up in a murder plot.
“Entertaining…one gonzo plot twist follows the next…loads of fun.” (Publishers Weekly)
NYPD Detective Declan Shaw gets a call: How fast can you get to the Beresford building on Central Park West?
In the tower apartment, Shaw finds a woman waiting for him. She’s covered in blood. A body is lying dead on the floor of the luxurious living room.
Every book in the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling shelves is by the same author: bestselling true-crime writer Denise Morrow.
“This is you?” Shaw asks the woman. “You’re a writer?”
Only one person knows the ending to this story. Is it the victim or the killer?
First Wife’s Shadow by Adele Parks
MIRA
“Adele just gets better and better and First Wife’s Shadow had me in a chokehold from beginning to end. The twists and the tension-building were spellbinding and masterfully done. A true five-star read.” —Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of None of This is True
An exhilarating psychological crime thriller that will have you racing to the finish!
HIS FIRST WIFE DIED. NOW THERE’S A VACANCY…
When Emma meets Matthew, a kind, handsome widower, he seems to be just what she needs.
Yet as their relationship moves fast, Emma’s friends worry she might be exploited. She’s a rich woman after all.
Emma doesn’t care Matthew has no money. But as the memory of his perfect first wife hangs over them, Emma does have one tiny doubt.
If Matthew’s wife hadn’t died, he wouldn’t be with her. And Emma wonders if she’s second best. Can she ever fill the dead woman’s shoes?
As jealousy and suspicion blossom between Emma and Matthew, events take a darker, dangerous turn.
Suddenly Emma doesn’t know who she can trust. Her friends? Her husband? Or even herself…?
Murder, She Wrote: Snowy with a Chance of Murder by Jessica Fletcher & Barbara Early
Berkley
In a nod to Rear Window, this newest entry in the USA Today bestselling Murder, She Wrote series finds Jessica Fletcher coping with an injury that leaves her homebound—and a murder just outside her window!
Jessica Fletcher has taken a nasty spill on the ice, leaving her in a wheelchair for several weeks. She tries to work on her latest manuscript but finds herself distracted by a new neighbor moving in across the street. There’s good reason for her to be distracted, because soon after unpacking his sparse belongings, Mr. Rymer is out in the front yard, building somewhat risqué (read: naked) snow sculptures.
While Cabot Cove debates whether the sculptures are a protected form of art or a public display of lewdness, someone starts destroying them at night. Rymer doesn’t seem upset. He just makes new ones. No need to get the police involved over a little snow, he says. Especially when there’s plenty more of it and a blizzard in the forecast.
The morning after the storm, Jessica looks out the window to see a new sculpture across the street—and the body of Mr. Rymer half-buried in the snow. Can Jessica catch a cold-blooded killer from her chair by the window?
Death at Porthcurno Cove by Sally Rigby
Storm Publishing
Golden sunlight bathes the rugged cliffs casting long shadows across Porthcurno’s sandy beach. Within a cove, lying on a blanket, are two bodies. Their limbs are twisted at unnatural angles, vacant eyes staring blankly at the sky. Beside them is an empty Prosecco bottle and a note with one chilling word written in black ink: Sorry.
As the sun rises over a picturesque Cornish beach, Detective Lauren Pengelly makes a grim discovery while walking her border collies. A newly engaged couple lie dead in the sand. At first glance, it appears to be a tragic double suicide. But something doesn’t add up.
The victims – popular university students Jasmine and Finley – seemed to have it all. But as Lauren digs deeper, she and her partner Matt Price unravel a complex web of secrets and lies. Finley’s gambling addiction was threatening to ruin everything, and Jasmine had an unwanted admirer. With a double murder to solve and suspects mounting, Lauren and Matt must navigate the close-knit community to find the answers.
An empty ring box and traces of silk fibres found at the crime scene could be vital clues to cracking the case but when another life is on the line, have Lauren and Matt run out of time to catch the killer?
A completely gripping mystery that will have you turning the pages late into the night. Death at Porthcurno Cove will have fans of LJ Ross, Ann Cleeves and Joy Ellis hooked.
The Library Game by Gigi Pandian
Minotaur Books
In The Library Game, Tempest Raj and Secret Staircase Construction are renovating a classic detective fiction library that just got its first real-life mystery.
Tempest Raj couldn’t be happier that the family business, Secret Staircase Construction, is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Known for enchanting architectural features like sliding bookshelves and secret passageways, the company is now taking on a dream project: transforming a home into a public library that celebrates history’s greatest fictional detectives.
Though the work is far from done, Gray House Library’s new owner is eager to host a murder mystery dinner and literary themed escape room. But when a rehearsal ends with an actor murdered and the body vanishes, Tempest is witness to a seemingly impossible crime. Fueled by her grandfather’s Scottish and Indian meals, Tempest and the rest of the crew must figure out who is making beloved classic mystery plots come to life in a deadly game.
Multiple award winning author Gigi Pandian masterfully weaves wit and warmth in the Secret Staircase Mysteries. Readers will delight in the surprises Secret Staircase Construction uncovers behind the next locked door.
Friends Helping Friends by Patrick Hoffman
Atlantic Monthly Press
A young man must infiltrate his own family’s white nationalist group, or go to prison himself— written with critically acclaimed author Patrick Hoffman’s “crisp pace and superb timing” (Wall Street Journal)
Bunny Simpson grew up poor in Grand Junction, Colorado. Now in his twenties, working in Denver, he has simple dreams: He wants to help his uncle pay rent, save a little money, maybe start a business one day. His best friend Jerry LeClair fantasizes about moving to California. The problem is, they don’t have any prospects. Enter: Helen McCalla, an attorney with an ax to grind against her ex-husband, who happens to be a judge in the local court. She offers the boys a deal: scare the man, rough him up a little, and she’ll give them a few thousand dollars. It’s simple—just friends helping friends, right?
Part crime novel, part portrait of friendship, extremism, and inherited trauma, celebrated novelist Patrick Hoffman is at his brilliant best in these pages. Bunny never wanted any trouble. So how the hell did he end up at a white supremacist compound in rural Colorado? Fast-paced, suspenseful, and by turns funny and terrifying, Friends Helping Friends is an electrifying thriller that moves at a breakneck pace, examining the vulnerability of our destinies—and how friendship can survive it all.
Tuesday, March 25th
Ted Bell’s Monarch by Ryan Steck (AKA The Real Book Spy)
Berkley
“Monarch is that rarity in thrillers: first-class writing, wit, and suspense. This is one of the best Alex Hawke thrillers, and I’ve read all of them — James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling Author
“Hawke has never flown higher!” — Nelson DeMille, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Blood lines
Ted Bell’s New York Times bestselling series returns with Lord Alexander Hawke facing his greatest challenge yet—to find the missing king of Britain.
Following a successful but costly mission to destroy an enemy outpost in Antarctica, Alex Hawke is looking forward to some quiet time at Teakettle Cottage, his home in Bermuda, along with his family. But he’s not a man who can avoid trouble.
Former Chief Inspector of Scottland Yard Ambrose Congreve calls him with stunning news. Just days away from a controversial vote threatening to tear the United Kingdom apart at the seams, King Charles has disappeared while vacationing at Balmoral Castle. The prime minister believes she can keep the news quiet for no more than 72 hours. After that, Britain will be plunged into chaos.
With the fate of the kingdom hanging in the balance, it’s up to Lord Hawke to find and rescue the missing monarch before it’s too late.
I Would Die for You by Sandie Jones
Minotaur Books
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick The Other Woman and The Guilt Trip comes an electrifying next novel.
California, 2011: Nicole Forbes lives a quiet life in the small seaside town of Coronado with her husband and daughter. She is not expecting a writer to knock on her door asking for her personal insight into the downfall of the biggest British band of the 1980s—unveiling the threads of a life she left behind years ago. The same day, her daughter goes missing and the school claims her aunt picked her up . . . but she doesn’t have an aunt. Convinced of a link between the two, Nicole is forced to revisit long-abandoned memories from her past to protect everything she now holds dear.
London, 1986: Sixteen-year-old Cassie is obsessed with Secret Oktober, the hottest band of the moment. Harboring an intense crush on the leading man, Ben Edwards, she will do anything she can to capture his attention among the throngs of groupies at the band’s scandalous backstage parties. But when Ben discovers her older sister Nicole singing at a local bar one night, he can’t help but feel drawn to her, setting in motion a collision course that could tear their family apart.
Infused with the sounds of the 80s, this thrilling novel from the inimitable Sandie Jones explores the chaos that the frenzy of fandom can provoke.
Grand Central Publishing
In this stunningly twisty thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben, a secret from former Detective Sami Kierce’s college days comes back to haunt him. His memory is clear, but all these years later, the facts don’t add up…which is something he cannot ignore.
Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs.
Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makes eye contact with her, she bolts. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day.
His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past—and prove, after all this time, he’s nobody’s fool.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers join forces to track down a ruthless killer who will do whatever it takes to keep the past buried, in this latest thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford.
Doris Grandfelt, an employee at an accounting firm, was brutally stabbed to death . . . but nobody knew exactly where the crime took place. Her body was found the next night, dumped among a dense thicket of trees along the edge of an urban park, eight miles east of St. Paul, Minnesota. Despite her twin sister Lara Grandfelt’s persistent calls to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the killer was never found.
Twenty years later, Lara has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Confronted with the possibility of her own death, she’s determined to find Doris’s killer once and for all. Finally taking matters into her own hands, she dumps the entire investigative file on every true-crime site in the world and offers a $5 million reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest. Dozens of true-crime bloggers show up looking for both new evidence and “clicks,” and Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are called in to review anything that might be a new lead.
When one of the bloggers locates the murder weapon, Lucas and Virgil begin to uncover vital details about the killer’s identity. But what they don’t know is the killer lurks in plain sight, and with the true-crime bloggers blasting every clue online, the killer can keep one step ahead. As the nation maneuvers the detectives closer to the truth, Lucas and Virgil will find that digging up Doris’s harrowing past might just get them buried instead.
The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
“Literary thrillers just don’t come any better than Ron Currie’s The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne. It’s profoundly serious and terrifying in equal measure.” –Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Somebody’s Fool
A mythic, propulsive novel about the tangled fates of a matriarchal crime family in Maine.
Your ancestors breathe through you. Sometimes, they call for vengeance.
Babs Dionne, proud Franco-American, doting grandmother, and vicious crime matriarch, rules her small town of Waterville, Maine, with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into Little Canada with the help of her loyal lieutenants, girlfriends since they were teenagers, and her eldest daughter, Lori, a Marine vet struggling with addiction.
When a drug kingpin discovers that his numbers are down in the upper northeast, he sends a malevolent force, known only as The Man, to investigate. At the same time, Babs’s youngest daughter, Sis, has gone missing, which doesn’t seem at all like a coincidence. In twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will seek shelter from Babs’s wrath.
The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne is a crime saga like no other, with a ferocious matriarch at its bruised, beating heart. With sharp wit and profound empathy, award-winning author Ron Currie, delivers an unforgettable novel exploring love, retribution, and the ancestral roots that both nurture and trap us.
The Other People by C. B. Everett
Atria Books
A group of strangers gathered at a mysterious country house are in a race against time to stop a serial killer in this twisty, high-concept thriller that combines Agatha Christie with Shutter Island.
Ten strangers.
An old dark house.
A killer picking them off one by one.
And a missing girl who’s running out of time…
And then there was one.
Ten strangers wake up inside an old, locked house. They have no recollection of how they got there. In order to escape, they have to solve the disappearance of a young woman. But a killer also stalks the halls of the house and soon the body count starts to rise. Who are these strangers? Why were they chosen? Why would someone want to kill them? And who—or what—lurks in the cellar?
Forget what you think you know.
Because while you can trust yourself, can you really trust The Other People?
To Steal from Thieves by M.K. Lobb
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
In this high-stakes heist novel, an alchemologist and a con man team up to steal a rare necklace—but complicated feelings of attraction and deception threaten to destroy everything and everyone they love—for fans of Alexandra Bracken and Judy I. Lin.
Within the dazzling halls of London’s Crystal Palace, the event of the season has arrived: The Great Exhibition. An opportunity for the greatest minds of the century to come together under one roof in an unprecedented display of art and invention. And for two unlikely partners in crime, it’s about to become the score of a lifetime.
Charming con man Kane Durante works alone—or on occasion with his best friend, Fletcher. But when his boss, the infamous Kingpin of London’s magical dark market, gives him the impossible task of stealing a priceless artifact from the Great Exhibition, he knows it’s a job he can’t pull off alone. Enter Zaria Mendoza, daughter of one of London’s greatest alchemologists. Ever since her father’s death, Zaria’s been struggling to keep her underground business afloat, and impatient clients are becoming violent. When the infuriatingly handsome Kane offers her the promise of enough money to get out of debt and leave London entirely, she knows she can’t walk away from this dangerous partnership.
But robbing one of the most public, heavily-guarded buildings in London isn’t going to be easy, especially when love and betrayal threaten to ruin everything they’ve worked so hard for.
The Unlucky Ones A Black Harbor Novel by Hannah Morrissey
Minotaur Books
A police transcriber-turned-novelist returns to Black Harbor to help solve the case of her ex-husband’s murder in the next riveting Black Harbor, featuring the return of characters from Hannah Morrissey’s breakout debut, Hello, Transcriber.
Black Harbor is a tinderbox. Temperatures and violent crime have both risen to all-time highs, a new drug razes the city, and the scene to which Sergeant Nikolai Kole responds is anything but a rote homicide. In the back of a clubhouse lies a body wrapped in garbage bags and doused in bleach.
It isn’t just any body. Tommy Greenlee, the ex-husband of Kole’s former lover, Hazel, has been shot several times and left for dead. What’s more…the killer left what appears to be a calling card.
Elsewhere, Hazel is haunted by her memories of Black Harbor. Lured there after eight years, she returns to find out who killed Tommy and why. Now back in Kole’s orbit, their love affair can hardly pick up where it left off. They both used each other to their own ends before, which begs the question: would they do it again?
With the atmosphere growing more volatile by the second, Hazel and Kole call a truce, and as they work together to solve this murder, they will not only unearth Black Harbor’s deepest, darkest secrets—they’ll each have to face their own.
Harper
A beautiful con artist insinuates herself into a wealthy socialite’s life . . . with deadly consequences, in this serpentine thriller about identity and obsession, from actress, director and bestselling author Krysten Ritter.
Liz Dawson weaves through a crowd with the ease of a tropical breeze, moving seamlessly through elite circles, sparking instant connections and making every new acquaintance feel like an intimate friend. She’s clever, smooth, and confident—qualities that make her a brilliant serial con artist.
Isabelle Beresford is strikingly beautiful, obscenely wealthy, and the new owner of Casa Esmerelda, a fabulous villa on the Mexican coast—attributes that make her the perfect mark. When she offers Liz a job handling the installation of a piece of art in her otherwise vacant home, Liz can’t resist the allure of a beach retreat. She longs for a reset, a chance to finally shed the grip of her addiction to the conning game.
But when Liz, with her lush dark hair and intense green eyes, is mistaken for Isabelle herself, Liz can’t help effortlessly slipping into the socialite’s identity. The transition is so easeful, it almost feels like fate. But just who is Isabelle Beresford really, and why does she seem to have abandoned this stunning life of hers?
As Liz insinuates herself deeper into the dazzling—and deceptive—world of the Punta Mita resort community, she draws closer to the dangers surrounding the real Isabelle. Dangers that may have already ensnared Liz, too. This might not be the con of her life—but the con that ends it.
Homicide in the Indian Hills by Erica Ruth Neubauer
Kensington
Intrepid American newlywed Jane Wunderly learns that tigers aren’t the only dangers lurking in 1920s India, when a murder in a popular resort town threatens to destabilize the local government and undermine the resistance movement for Indian self-rule . . .
Ooty, 1927: Accompanying Mr. Redvers on an assignment to Ootycamund to quell revolutionary rumblings, Jane finds there’s more than meets the eye to India’s Queen of Hill Stations. Ooty’s lush tea plantations and tranquil gardens barely conceal its secrets–scandalous affairs, political sabotage, and a mounting anti-colonial movement. Even Redvers intends to subvert his official mission in Ooty, by arranging a series of clandestine meetings with local resistance leaders. But it’s not until the shocking death of a British national that Jane and Redvers are truly drawn into Ooty’s deepest shadows.
Jane’s suspicions that the death is more than a tragic accident are soon confirmed, but word of a murder could stoke Ooty’s simmering tensions into a full boil. Navigating corrupt local officials, festering personal vendettas, and a complicated network of bureaucratic entanglements that lead to the top tiers of government, Jane and Redvers edge closer to the truth…and its deadly consequences. Someone is willing to spill blood to protect their interests, will Jane become just another of Ooty’s darkest secrets?
Bridal Shower Murder by Leslie Meier
Kensington Cozies
When her daughter gets engaged in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, reporter Lucy Stone finds herself feeling like a steamed lobster while dealing with her future son-in-law’s family—and a summer bridal shower that leads to murder . .
Lucy Stone is thrilled about her youngest daughter Zoe’s engagement to Chad, a rising minor league baseball player with dreamy eyes and plenty of Southern charm. Yet there’s no denying the whirlwind romance has turned Lucy’s life upside down in more ways than one—especially when she learns about Chad’s complicated background and close ties to Tinker’s Cove. The secrets and rumors are enough to send her investigative reporting instincts into overdrive . . .
Trouble really crashes in the moment Lucy meets her in-laws-to-be, Penny and Nate Nettleton. Persuasive Penny proves to be intent on taking over wedding preparations, even arranging a Tuscan-themed bridal shower before Zoe publicly announces her engagement. It’s a shock when the event goes off without a hitch. But the real shock comes when prominent guest Hetty Furness, the head of the Tinker’s Cove Historical Society, goes missing—only to be found dead, the victim of a brutal murder . . .
Lucy is determined to reveal who committed the vicious crime as she navigates her new reality with the Nettletons. Racing to determine if Hetty’s extensive knowledge of local history—and hidden scandals—led to her demise, Lucy soon realizes she’ll need to put her sleuthing talents to work like never before to guarantee wedding bells to ring for Zoe and Chad . . . and that she survives to see her daughter walk down the aisle!
Atria Books
This riveting psychological thriller from master of twists Steve Cavanagh, author of the “unguessable and unputdownable” (Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Kill For Me, Kill for You, asks: What if the witness was more twisted than the killer?
Something is wrong with Ruby Johnson.
A former resident of the ultra-elite Manhattan upper class, Ruby now works as a maid in the type of houses she used to live in. Unassuming, she sees everyone’s dirty secrets from the inside of their beautiful, renovated brownstones. But when Ruby witnesses a murder, she has wicked plans in mind that don’t involve telling the authorities the truth.
Eddie Flynn, streetwise ex con-artist-turned-defense attorney, is the only lawyer in New York City willing to take on hopeless cases. And none is more hopeless than John Jackson’s—the gun that killed his neighbor found, with Jackson’s DNA, in his own home. Flynn and his unconventional team will need to use every trick they know to keep an innocent man from being locked up. But to save his client’s life, Eddie must first protect his own, as the scariest organized criminals in the city are out for his head.
Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Megan Miranda, Witness 8 is a fresh knockout page-turner from an author who is “the real deal” (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author).
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 in addition to running TRBS. He is the author of FIELDS OF FIRE, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr says “will leave you speechless and begging for more,” LETHAL RANGE, OUT FOR BLOOD, and TED BELL’S MONARCH. For more information, follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and BookBub. To interact with other readers and talk about your favorite books and authors, join The Real Book Spy’s Discord server.