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Happy National Book Lover’s Day, everyone!
I know there’s a holiday for everything nowadays, but this is one that I can get fully behind. And let’s be honest, there’s no better way to celebrate National Book Lovers Day than by diving headfirst into a story that refuses to let you go.
So, whether you crave heart-pounding thrills or a mind-bending mystery that’ll leave you stunned, unable to tell up from down—my goal is to help you find what you’re looking for.
Below is my list—a mix of recently released titles and some all-time greats—of mysteries and thrillers that’ll keep you turning pages late into the night, and remind you exactly why you fell in love with reading in the first place.
Happy reading!
All-Time Great Mysteries & Thrillers
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Don’t miss Magpie Murders on PBS’s MASTERPIECE Mystery!
“A double puzzle for puzzle fans, who don’t often get the classicism they want from contemporary thrillers.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times
New York Times Bestseller | Winner of the Macavity Award for Best Novel | NPR Best Book of the Year | Washington Post Best Book of the Year | Esquire Best Book of the Year
From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery.
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.
Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder.
Masterful, clever, and relentlessly suspenseful, Magpie Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction in which the reader becomes the detective.
My Review: Listen (or, well, read) carefully . . . Magpie Murders isn’t just a great mystery—it’s an epic, genre-defining masterpiece and one of the best books I’ve ever read. Anthony Horowitz delivers a brilliantly constructed puzzle within a puzzle, blending a pitch-perfect homage to golden-age whodunits with a razor-sharp modern thriller. Every twist is ingenious, every clue meticulously placed, and the result is a reading experience that’s as addictive as it is unforgettable. This is the kind of book that reminds you why you fell in love with mysteries in the first place. Just brilliant. A must-read for anyone who claims to be a fan of the genre.
“The Force is mesmerizing, a triumph. Think The Godfather, only with cops. It’s that good.”
— Stephen King
The acclaimed, award-winning, bestselling author of The Cartel—voted one of the Best Books of the Year by more than sixty publications, including the New York Times—returns with a cinematic epic as explosive, powerful, and unforgettable as Mystic River and The Wire.
Our ends know our beginnings, but the reverse isn’t true . . .
All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop.
He is “the King of Manhattan North,” a, highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the real leader of “Da Force.” Malone and his crew are the smartest, the toughest, the quickest, the bravest, and the baddest, an elite special unit given unrestricted authority to wage war on gangs, drugs and guns. Every day and every night for the eighteen years he’s spent on the Job, Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps. He’s done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean—including Malone himself.
What only a few know is that Denny Malone is dirty: he and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash in the wake of the biggest heroin bust in the city’s history. Now Malone is caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive, body and soul, while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all.
Based on years of research inside the NYPD, this is the great cop novel of our time and a book only Don Winslow could write: a haunting and heartbreaking story of greed and violence, inequality and race, crime and injustice, retribution and redemption that reveals the seemingly insurmountable tensions between the police and the diverse citizens they serve. A searing portrait of a city and a courageous, heroic, and deeply flawed man who stands at the edge of its abyss, The Force is a masterpiece of urban living full of shocking and surprising twists, leavened by flashes of dark humor, a morally complex and utterly riveting dissection of modern American society and the controversial issues confronting and dividing us today.
My Review: Mind-blowing fiction of the highest order, and unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I reviewed this book back in 2017, and yet I still remember the story as if I read it yesterday. How do I even describe how epic this book is? Well, for starters, Don Winslow—who might just be the greatest crime writer of our time—penned a blistering, unflinching masterpiece with The Force. This book crackles with authenticity, immersing you in a world where the lines between red and blue, right and wrong, blur until disappearing altogether. Explosive, heartbreaking, and sure to leave your jaw on the floor, this is the definitive cop novel of our time, and it ain’t close.
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case by Agatha Christie
In this exclusive authorized edition from the Queen of Mystery, the legendary detective saves his best for last as he races to apprehend a five-time killer before the final curtain descends – the last book Agatha Christie published before her death.
The crime-fighting careers of Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings have come full circle—they are back once again in the rambling country house in which they solved their first murder together.
Both Hercule Poirot and Great Styles have seen better days—but, despite being crippled with arthritis, there is nothing wrong with the great detective and his “little gray cells.” However, when Poirot brands one of the seemingly harmless guests a five-time murderer, some people have their doubts. But Poirot alone knows he must prevent a sixth murder before the curtain falls.
My Review: Agatha Christie’s Curtain is a triumphant and poignant farewell to the greatest detective in literary history. (Sorry, Sherlock, but for my money, Poirot is the GOAT.) In his final case, Hercule Poirot—older, frailer, but as brilliant as ever—returns to the very place where it all began, reuniting with Captain Hastings for one last, breathtaking puzzle of murder and motive. Expertly plotted and overflowing with misdirection, Christie’s final Poirot novel features one of her most shocking endings, proving yet again why she will forever be the Queen of Crime.
Curtain isn’t just a novel—it’s a masterclass in crime fiction, and a mystery that’s entirely worthy of her legendary sleuth . . . providing an unforgettable curtain call for the world’s most beloved detective and his magical, magnificent little grey cells.
There will never be another writer like her—or another character like Poirot.
Raw emotion, nonstop action, and relentless pacing make Backlash another one-night read from Brad Thor” — The Real Book Spy
#1 New York Times, #1 Wall Street Journal, and #1 Publishers Weekly bestselling author Brad Thor is back with his most gripping thriller yet!
In ancient texts, there are stories about men who struck from the shadows, seemingly beyond the reach of death itself. These men were considered part angel, part demon. Their loyalty was to their families, their friends, and their kings. You crossed these men at your peril. And once crossed, there was no crossing back.
They were fearless; men of honor who have been known throughout history by different names: Spartan, Viking, Samurai.
Today, men like these still strike from the shadows. They are highly prized intelligence agents, military operatives, and assassins.
One man is all three.
Two days ago, that man was crossed–badly. Now, far from home and surrounded by his enemy, Scot Harvath must battle his way out. With no support, no cavalry coming, and no one even aware of where he is, it will take everything he has ever learned to survive. But survival isn’t enough. Harvath wants revenge.
In the most explosive novel Brad Thor has ever written, page after captivating page of action, intrigue, loyalty, and betrayal will keep you hooked until the very last sentence.
My Review: Brad Thor’s Backlash is a white-knuckle, heart-in-your-throat thriller that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Vince Flynn’s legendary Consent to Kill as one of the genre’s most intense, high-stakes tales of cold-blooded revenge. Stripped of backup, cut off from civilization, and hunted deep behind enemy lines, Scot Harvath is at his most dangerous—driven by pure survival and an unshakable need for payback. Expect plenty of brutal action sequences, nonstop suspense, and a hero pushed to his absolute limits. It’s not just one of Brad Thor’s best—it’s a modern classic in the revenge thriller genre, the kind of book you’ll devour in one sitting and think about long after you turn the last page.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
“If you’re one of the few who haven’t experienced the genius of Agatha Christie, this novel is a stellar starting point.” — DAVID BALDACCI, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
An exclusive authorized edition of the most famous and beloved stories from the Queen of Mystery.
Ten people, each with something to hide and something to fear, are invited to an isolated mansion on Indian Island by a host who, surprisingly, fails to appear. On the island they are cut off from everything but each other and the inescapable shadows of their own past lives. One by one, the guests share the darkest secrets of their wicked pasts. And one by one, they die…
Which among them is the killer and will any of them survive?
“Agatha Christie is the gateway drug to crime fiction both for readers and for writers. . . . Just one book is never enough.” — VAL MCDERMID, Internationally Bestselling Author.
Navy SEAL James Reece faces a devastating global conspiracy in this high-adrenaline thriller ripped from the headlines—by the “seriously good” (Lee Child) #1 New York Times bestselling author, Jack Carr.
In 1980, a freshman congressman was gunned down in Rhode Island, sending shockwaves through Washington that are still reverberating over four decades later.
Now, with the world on the brink of war and a weakened United States facing rampant inflation, political division, and shocking assassinations, a secret cabal of global elites is ready to assume control. And with the world’s most dangerous man locked in solitary confinement, the conspirators believe the final obstacle to complete domination has been eliminated. They’re wrong.
From the firms of Wall Street to the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and Moscow, secrets from the past have the uncanny ability to rise to the surface in the present.
With the odds stacked against him, James Reece is on a mission generations in the making. Unfortunately for his enemies, the former SEAL is not concerned with odds. He is on the warpath. And when James Reece picks up his tomahawk and sniper rifle, no one is out of range.
My Review: If there was any question prior to this book, Jack Carr’s Only the Dead officially cemented his place as a modern-day Tom Clancy—blending authentic tradecraft, geopolitical intrigue, and blood-soaked action in a way nobody else can match. Here, Navy SEAL James Reece takes on his most high-stakes mission yet, going to war with a shadowy cabal of global elites hellbent on seizing control of a fractured world. Only the Dead isn’t just a must-read—it’s proof that Jack Carr has taken the torch and is carrying the political thriller into a new golden age.
Transfer of Power by Vince Flynn
This “roller-coaster, edge-of-your-seat thriller” (Star-Tribune, Minneapolis) in the #1 New York Times bestselling Mitch Rapp series follows the CIA’s top operative as he must stop a massacre in Washington, DC, and save the president before terrorists reach the White House.
The stately calm of a Washington morning is shattered when a group of terrorists descends, killing dozens and taking nearly one hundred hostages as they try to infiltrate the White House. The Secret Service immediately evacuates the president to an underground bunker—and while officials argue over how best to negotiate with the enemy, Mitch Rapp, the CIA’s top counterterrorism operative, moves stealthily among the hidden corridors and secret passageways of the nation’s capital to save the hostages before the terrorists reach the president. But there’s someone waiting in the wings, someone within the Washington elite, who is determined to see Rapp’s rescue mission fail.
With heart-pounding thrills and feverish pacing, Transfer of Power “mixes in a spicy broth of brutal terrorists, heroic commandos, and enough secret-agent hijinks to keep the confrontation bubbling until its flag-raising end” (Publishers Weekly).
Don’t miss the JOE PICKETT series—now streaming on Paramount+
It’s elk season in the Rockies, but a different kind of hunter is stalking prey in this novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Joe Pickett series.
Game wardens have found a man dead at a mountain camp—strung up, gutted, and flayed as if he were the elk he’d been hunting. Is the murder the work of a deranged anti-hunting activist or of a lone psychopath with a personal vendetta? Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is the man to track the murderer and stop him, before someone declares open season on humans…
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
From the New York Times bestselling author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Our Kind of Traitor; and The Night Manager, now a television series starring Tom Hiddleston.
The 50th-anniversary edition of the bestselling novel that launched John le Carré’s career worldwide
In the shadow of the newly erected Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas watches as his last agent is shot dead by East German sentries. For Leamas, the head of Berlin Station, the Cold War is over. As he faces the prospect of retirement or worse—a desk job—Control offers him a unique opportunity for revenge. Assuming the guise of an embittered and dissolute ex-agent, Leamas is set up to trap Mundt, the deputy director of the East German Intelligence Service—with himself as the bait. In the background is George Smiley, ready to make the game play out just as Control wants.
Setting a standard that has never been surpassed, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a devastating tale of duplicity and espionage.
Must-Read Recent Releases
Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, race to find a terrifying, unidentified killer in this twisting, unpredictable thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais.
Traci Beller was thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. Now, ten years later, Traci is a high-profile influencer with millions of followers and the money to hire the best detective she can find: Elvis Cole.
Elvis heads to Rancha where an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, might have a line on the missing man. But when Elvis finds himself shadowed by a gang of vicious criminals, the missing persons cold case becomes far more sinister.
Elvis calls his ex-Marine friend, Joe Pike, for help, and they follow Tommy Beller’s trail into the depths of a monstrous, hidden evil. The case flips on its head, victims become predators, predators become prey, and the question becomes: Can Elvis Cole save them all from this nightmare?
My Review: With his sharp prose, well-drawn characters, and a wicked twist that’ll nearly take your head off, Robert Crais has crafted another masterpiece, delivering a story that is both a gripping page-turner and a profound exploration of hidden evils in The Big Empty, a must for anyone in search of an edge-of-your-seat reading experience that’ll stay with you long after turning the final page.
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
“Her best book yet.” ―Harlan Coben
The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . . and revenge.
Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.
Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.
A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible—a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.
In this gripping installment of the Edgar Award-winning series, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates a brutal double murder that takes her into the dark underbelly of society and exposes the dangers of Amish lives gone wrong.
Summer has arrived with a vengeance in Painters Mill, and a macabre discovery by three Amish children brings the quiet to a grinding halt. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on scene to find the dismembered body of 21-year-old Samuel Yutzy, a local Amish man who owned a successful landscaping business. What twisted individual murdered him in such a sadistic way?
The investigation has barely begun when, miles away, a second body is found, stuffed into a barrel and dumped in a ravine. The deceased is 21-year-old Aaron Shetler, Samuel Yutzy’s best friend. What could these two young Amish men have been involved in that led to such violent ends?
With a heat wave bearing down, Kate learns quickly that, for reasons she doesn’t understand, no one is willing to talk about what happened to the men. Just as she begins to fear the case may be hopeless, a mystery woman comes forward and reveals that fun-loving Aaron and Samuel had recently befriended some very unsavory characters—individuals who may have ties to a larger, more sinister, black market.
To solve the case, Kate must delve into the most sordid corners of her community, but when she gets too close, the killers target Kate herself. Will the secrets simmering beneath the surface of Painters Mill take another life before she can expose the truth? Or will Kate be the final victim?
My Review: Relentlessly tense and skillfully plotted, this latest Kate Burkholder novel plunges readers into the shadowy side of Amish country, where secrets run deep and danger lurks on every page. From the grisly opening to the pulse-pounding finale, Linda Castillo delivers another epic thriller, blending small-town atmosphere with breakneck pacing. I’m a huge fan of this lights-out series.
Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A MOST ANTICIPATED SUMMER READ from People, USA TODAY, theSkimm, E! News, Forbes, New York Post, CrimeReads, and many more!
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell, three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.
He’s the perfect man. It’s a perfect lie.
Nina Swann is intrigued when she receives a condolence card from Nick Radcliffe, an old friend of her late husband, who is looking to connect after her husband’s unexpected death. Nick is a man of substance and good taste. He has a smile that could melt the coldest heart and a knack for putting others at ease. But to Nina’s adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too slick, too polished, too good to be true. Without telling her mother, Ash begins digging into Nick’s past. What she finds is more than unsettling…
Martha is a florist living in a neighboring town with her infant daughter and her devoted husband, Alistair. But lately, Alistair has been traveling more and more frequently for work, disappearing for days at a time. When Martha questions him about his frequent absences, he always has a legitimate explanation, but Martha can’t share the feeling that something isn’t right.
Nina, Martha, and Ash are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is far darker than anyone could have imagined. And all three are about to wish they had heeded the same warning: Don’t let him in. But the past won’t stay buried forever.
“Propulsive and powerful. . . A gripping roller coaster ride of escalating danger.” —New York Times Book Review
“Pick up the novel everyone will be talking about.” —The Atlantic
“Dark, riveting, and accomplished.” —Washington Post
Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.
When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.
Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills.
Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.
Because everything burns.
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.
Agent Michael Walker returns when multiple deaths at Glacier Bay National Park are just the first steps in a potential global disaster.
National Park Service investigator Michael Walker is battling smugglers stealing priceless artifacts when he’s dispatched to Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, where, in the first stage of a potential global disaster, a team of scientists has gone missing.
Meanwhile, in Florida’s Everglades National Park, FBI special investigator Gina Delgado traces the murder of an environmental science intern back to another U.S. Geological Survey team’s ongoing experiments that are decimating the fragile ecosystem. That is before she’s dispatched to the scene of a sunken U.S. nuclear submarine, the entire crew of which has inexplicably been killed.
The connection between these disparate investigations lies in a deadly prehistoric organism, frozen for thousands of years in the ice until global warming brings it back to life in what could mean the death of all life on Earth. An organism that a rogue billionaire sees as the ultimate fuel source and a Russian strongman views as the ultimate weapon that can shift the global balance of power forever. Against that backdrop, Walker and Delgado find themselves desperately doing battle across multiple fronts against an ancient, unstoppable enemy.
Tom Clancy Line of Demarcation by M.P. Woodward
The discovery of an oil field off the coast of Guyana plunges Jack Ryan, Jr into a cauldron of lies in the latest entry in this New York Times bestselling series.
It starts with the destruction of a US Coast Guard cutter and the loss of her entire crew. But the USCG Claiborne was on an innocuous mission to open a sea lane between an oil field off the coast of South America and the refineries of southern Louisiana. The destruction of the ship, tragic as it is, won’t stop that mission from continuing.
So who would sacrifice twenty-two men and women just to slow down the plan? That’s the question plaguing Jack Ryan Jr. He’s in Guyana to work a deal to get his company, Hendley Associates, in on the ground floor of this new discovery, but Russia’s Wagner Group and a pack of Venezuelan narco-terrorists have other ideas—and will risk war with the United States to see them through. It’s up to Jack to identify the killers before they draw a bead on him, but how can he do that when the line of demarcation between friend and foe is constantly shifting?
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, GONE DARK, and TED BELL’S MONARCH. For more information, follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and BookBub. For even more content and book news, subscribe to The Real Book Spy Substack!