(NOTE: Don’t forget that as TRBS continues to transition to Substack, we’re running a Founding Member promotion. Still haven’t subscribed to our Substack? Read this quick article to see why you should change that today!)
Welcome to May, thriller fans!
Summer is coming, and with it, some of the hottest names on the thriller scene today are gearing up to release scorching new titles that’ll demand a ton of attention and have readers flocking to bookstores. Even so, May is packed full of notable new releases—so, get your book-buying budget in order.
As always, we’ve chosen a few titles that we’re especially excited about, and this month’s Featured Selections are The Fourth Option by Jack Carr and M.P. Woodward, Riptide by Chad Robichaux & Jack Stewart, Tom Clancy Rules of Engagement by Ward Larsen, and The Brothers McKay by Craig Johnson.
Find out more about those books, plus every other mystery and thriller set to come out this month, below!
Here’s a sneak peek at just some of what’s coming to The Real Book Spy Substack this month:
- All new interview with David Baldacci
- Exclusive book reviews you won’t find anywhere else
- List of Must-Read Spring Titles
- Summer Reading Guide
- Weekly giveaways, starting with a SIGNED copy of The Fourth Option by Jack Carr, which will go to one paid subscriber. (Winner Announced on Thursday, May 14th.)
- Several major, exclusive book announcements
- If you’re a Founding Member and haven’t yet received your package, you WILL be getting it this month.
- Other fun content!
A River Red with Blood by John Connolly
Release Date: May 5th
Two intertwined disappearances leave a rural community in shock in the latest gripping Charlie Parker novel from New York Times bestselling author John Connolly.
In a darkly brilliant thriller set in Maine’s rural Kennebec River Valley, the body of a young runaway from a “troubled teens” school has been found in the water, seemingly drowned, while a teenage girl has gone missing, believed dead. Now it is up to one man, private investigator Charlie Parker, to find the connection, and bring two evils—one new and one ancient—to an end…
The Confession Artist by Christine Carbo
Release Date: May 5th
A Montana ex-cop becomes the target of a vengeful killer’s viral guessing game in a propulsive novel of suspense by a bestselling and award-winning author.
A killer dubbed the Confession Artist is posting sketches of potential victims on social media. And paranoia spreads as strangers across the nation admit to their sins―fearing the consequences: You have six days to confess or die.
Then former cop and first-year PI Crosbie Mitchell sees a sketch that bears a striking resemblance to her. How can that be? She’s a nobody from Flathead Valley, Montana. Crosbie dismisses it as an unnerving coincidence. If not for one unmistakable detail that makes the threat hard to ignore. When the FBI is contacted, they are convinced that Crosbie is the next target. So is she.
Crosbie has six days left to fess up online to something plaguing her conscience. But even if she wanted to play the killer’s game, she has more than one secret. And if she ever dares to expose them for the world to see, the truth will destroy her. That’s exactly what the Confession Artist wants.
Caller Unknown by Gillian McAllister
Release Date: May 5th
“Only a Gillian McAllister thriller can make your heart race and then your heart melt from one page to the next! I’m a devoted fan!” —Liane Moriarty, #1 New York Times bestselling author
How far would you go to rescue your child? A mother races against the clock—and finds herself on the wrong side of the law—in a desperate fight to save her teenage daughter in this pulse-pounding thriller from the author of Reese’s Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller Wrong Place Wrong Time.
There is nothing that Simone won’t do for her daughter, Lucy. The two have always been close, and with Lucy about to leave home for university, they depart the UK for a vacation to Texas to spend some quality time together. But when Simone awakens on their first morning in the desert, Lucy is gone, missing from their rental cabin. In her place is a cell phone, and a voice on the other line issues a shocking ransom demand. Don’t tell the police. Come to this location. And be prepared to do a deal…
Though Simone’s husband urges her to bring in the authorities for help, she knows she can’t take any chances. The kidnappers might kill Lucy if she tells anyone. No mother would take that risk. Instead, that night, she drives to the isolated meet-up.
What she finds there changes everything. The mysterious kidnapper doesn’t want money. They want Simone to do something. The unthinkable.
A catastrophic chain of events is set in motion, with chilling consequences that extend beyond Simone and her family. What follows is a heart-pounding journey through the small towns and punishing deserts of remote Texas, in which Simone’s courage—and morality—is pushed to the brink as she discovers what it truly means to be a mother.
Unbearably tense, compassionately told, and full of well-crafted moral dilemmas, Caller Unknown proves once again why Gillian McAllister’s thrillers are “the best of the best” (Lisa Jewell).
Release Date: May 5th
Five lives. Five stories. Four will live—one will die. Who it will be? In this slow-burn masterpiece of psychological fiction, the choice is all yours.
“Five is a gripping, chilling story that asks difficult questions about judgement, forgiveness, and the notion of cause and effect.”—Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of the Dark
Have you ever tried to pass the time by imagining the lives of the strangers standing next to you? Ilona Bannister’s Five introduces readers to five seemingly random people waiting for a train. But these are not just any five people. From the beginning we know that one of them is going to die soon. Very soon. In five minutes the next train to London will arrive, killing one of them. But before this happens you will learn their stories.
None of these people are saints. Readers might fall in love with the beautiful young man who is on the verge of gambling his life away. They may pity the cantankerous old woman who has fallen to the ground yet is refusing help. Perhaps readers will look away from the child throwing a tantrum. Or judge his mother, who must surely be to blame. And some will be curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman orbiting them all.
These are the candidates for this morning’s misfortune. But they don’t know it. Only you know. And you, our complicit reader, will not be able to resist deciding who deserves to walk away, and who deserves only five more minutes to live.
An incredibly original novel that breaks the fourth wall and asks the reader to be judge, jury, and executioner, Five looks at some of the most complicated issues of contemporary life: motherhood, disability, addiction. Every stranger has a story. And in Ilona Bannister’s skillful hands, five people’s stories come together to create an unforgettable novel.
The Library After Dark by Ande Pliego
Release Date: May 5th
A bookseller must escape the infamously haunted library that holds her darkest secrets, but with a murderer in her tour group, escaping alive is not as simple as it seems, in this twisty locked-room thriller from bestselling author of You Are Fatally Invited.
Not all fairytales were meant for children.
Aria Stokes is finally feeling settled—she lives in a tiny New York apartment, works as a bookseller at a local shop, and has even taken a leap of faith in love by indulging her attraction to bookstore regular Jasper. And he seems to already know her so well.
As a Valentine’s Day surprise, Jasper gets the two of them tickets to an exclusive, after-dark tour of the Daedalus Library—the grandiose establishment famed for its immersive genre-based reading rooms and, more notoriously, its rumored hauntings. While Aria normally loves all things ghastly, this place holds more dark secrets than she’d prefer Jasper to know. Like that the last time she was here, she left a body behind.
But when the automatic-door entry malfunctions and Aria, Jasper, and the five other people in their tour group become trapped in the library, they are forced to venture through the storied rooms and hidden passageways of the Daedalus in search of escape . . . and Aria quite literally has nowhere to hide from the shadows of her past. Then the group learns there’s a murderer in their midst.
Now, as she tries to break out of the library’s intricate reading rooms, Aria has to decide who she can trust—and what secrets are best kept buried—if she wants to make it out alive.
The Fourth Option by Jack Carr and M.P. Woodward
Release Date: May 12th
When law enforcement, the courts, and the prison system fail, there is a fourth and final option. #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr launches a new thriller series, co-written with New York Times bestselling author M.P. Woodward.
Disillusioned by the government and institutions he dedicated his life to serving, former Navy SEAL and CIA ground branch operative Chris Walker is about to end his life when he receives a call that saves it. The wife of a teammate he lost in Afghanistan has now lost her son to the opioid crisis and needs Walker’s help. Thrust into a conspiracy that goes deeper than he ever imagined, Walker must go up against the system and the very Constitution he once swore an oath to support and defend in order to find justice for his friend’s widow.
With ambitious FBI agent Jarrett Stanton on his tail, Walker—accompanied by his loyal Belgian Malinois K-9 and using his off-the-grid VW pop-up camper filled with a hidden cache of weapons—takes justice into his own hands, exposing corruption and issuing a long-forgotten brand of lethal outlaw justice.
In the tradition of the great “stranger comes to town” Westerns of the past comes a modern interpretation of the mysterious vigilante gunslinger legend from “the hottest author on the thriller scene today” (The Real Book Spy). Get ready for a new kind of hero. Justice is coming.
Robert B. Parker’s Booked by Alison Gaylin
Release Date: May 12th
Boston PI Sunny Randall investigates a popular book critic on a mean streak . . . only for her to wind up dead, in the latest thriller in Robert B. Parker’s bestselling series.
World-famous author Melanie Joan Hall asks for Sunny’s help in tracking down Book Babe, the screen name of an enormously popular book reviewer, who has trolled her with a deeply insulting one-star review. This usually wouldn’t matter except that Book Babe has thousands of followers, and her unwarranted blast has Melanie’s publisher threatening to pull all her books.
But Sunny’s investigation reveals that the reviewer and Melanie have a rich history—in fact, she may even have good reason to hate the torn-up author. And when Book Babe suddenly turns up dead, casting Melanie as a possible suspect, Sunny finds herself in a complicated web, which, if she can’t untangle fast enough, might just put a target on her back.
The Last Mandarin by Louise Penny & Mellissa Fung
Release Date: May 12th
A standalone thriller co-written by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Gamache series and an award-winning journalist.
In a fast-paced, all-too-real thriller co-written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny and award-winning journalist Mellissa Fung, global politics become personal for two unlikely heroines. Alice Li, a first-generation Chinese-American, is an erstwhile food blogger who has lived in the shadow of her mother, Vivien Li. A Chinese dissident who escaped China after Tiananmen Square, Vivien is now a globally recognized human rights activist and passionate advocate for a free and democratic China.
When security and fire alarms go off simultaneously all around the world, setting off a panic, the signal is traced back to China. As world leaders scramble to respond, Vivien and Alice are called to the White House in hopes Madame Li can decode the Chinese intentions.
The Anniversary by Alex Finlay
Release Date: May 12th
From the bestselling author of Parents Weekend, comes one of the most anticipated thrillers of the year.
Today became an anniversary they would never celebrate.
One fateful night in 1992, Jules and Quinn’s lives are changed and intertwined forever. Quinn Riley, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, is arrested after he innocently tries to break up a fight but ends up nearly killing someone. Jules Delaney, high school royalty, survives an attack by the elusive and terrifying May Day Killer―a predator who strikes every May 1st in small Midwestern towns.
A year later, Jules is struggling with trauma and guilt, tormented by the question: Why was I spared? Quinn is newly released from juvenile detention and returns home to fresh heartbreak: the unsolved murder of his mother.
Over the next decade, their lives are revisited on a single day each year, May 1st. As secrets unravel and the paths of Quinn and Jules converge, two mysteries edge closer to the truth. All the while, the May Day Killer is still out there―and the clock is racing toward another anniversary.
Twisty, high-concept, and emotionally charged, this novel is an utterly compelling story of the hunt for a serial killer. But it’s also a heartfelt―and heartrending―novel about fate, innocence lost, and two souls who find that sometimes being broken is the only way for the light to get in. The Anniversary reaffirms Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.
Release Date: May 12th
From the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Rich Justice and The Boomerang comes a gripping thriller about a disgraced lawyer facing the legal battle of her life as she tries to redeem herself―and save her son.
Max Ringo was once a courtroom star at an elite law firm. Then a car accident left her addicted to painkillers, and her life dissolved into shambles. Now fresh out of rehab and making a comeback as a mediator, she gets her shot at redemption when she is appointed to handle a high-stakes divorce.
But as Max begins negotiations between the two notorious power players, the trap is already sprung. The husband kidnaps her teenage son, Nathan, and gives her a chilling ultimatum: settle the case on his terms…or the boy dies.
Over three relentless days, Max must resolve a cutthroat legal battle while pursuing a covert mission to rescue Nathan. She’ll risk everything―her career, her freedom, her life―to beat a ruthless adversary at his own game. Even when a shadowy syndicate enters the fray and bodies start to drop, only one thing matters. She must bring her son home, whatever the cost.
Murder, She Wrote: Murder Most Trivial by Jessica Fletcher & Barbara Early
Release Date: May 12th
The newest delightful entry in the USA Today bestselling Murder, She Wrote series, featuring mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher.
Jessica Fletcher and friends Seth Hazlitt and Maureen and Mort Metzger team up for pub trivia and crush the competition, then are stunned to learn that the prize is a chance to appear in a five-day trivia tournament filming in LA.
No one expects life-or-death stakes! But on day one of the tournament, a crew member is murdered. Who would benefit from derailing the show? Jessica has to come up with the ultimate answer.
In a metafictional twist, the investigation takes Jessica and the gang to the filming locations of their favorite mystery shows, where they discuss how Columbo, Monk, or Jim Rockford might go about solving the case.
Riptide by Chad Robichaux & Jack Stewart
Release Date: May 12th
A shadow war rages. Only one man can drag it into the light.
Still haunted by his former teammate’s betrayal and the unveiling of a conspiracy that runs deeper than he imagined, Foster Quinn is once more thrust back into the world he thought he left behind. In the sweltering heat off the coast of Key West, a mission to seize a billionaire’s yacht ends in a chilling revelation: America’s enemies aren’t just beyond our borders―they might be sitting in Congress.
When a powerful Texas businessman recruits Foster to investigate the political malfeasance behind the death of his son, Foster is pulled into a web of corruption that leads him from a luxury megayacht in the Caribbean to a tech mogul’s grand estate in the Pacific Northwest. As he hunts down the men pulling the strings, Foster must resist the temptation in his search for justice to be swept away by revenge. He’ll need all his training and resilience to unravel a plot driven by greed and masked by patriotism. Especially when the war becomes personal, and he realizes it’s coming to his own turf.
The sequel to the USA Today bestseller Silent Horizons, Riptide is an exhilarating, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller that blurs the line between duty and revenge―and leaves no one above suspicion.
2084 by Elliot Ackerman & Admiral James Stavridis, USN
Release Date: May 12th
A gripping drama and chilling prophecy about the possible path to war for a planet devastated by climate change
In their novel 2034, decorated military officers and award-winning authors Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis imagined a war between the US and China. In their follow-up novel, 2054, they envisioned a breakdown in American politics fueled by a radical advance in AI. Now they make their boldest, most astonishing, and arguably most necessary leap—imagining the consequences of a climate war.
By the year 2084, the world is divided into the equatorial countries that bear the brunt of the climate crisis—led by Nigeria, Brazil, and Indonesia—and wealthier countries like China and the US, beset by their own problems after a series of civil wars. Tensions between the two sets of countries have reached a breaking point, until finally the so-called Reparationist nations of the equator decide that only military force can bring them justice.
A fascinating and disturbingly plausible extrapolation from current realities, 2084, like other classics of the genre such as Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future and Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock, deploys a global cast of characters, all protecting their interests as the fate of human civilization hangs in the balance. Individuals often seem small in the face of the forces that drive global change, but in the end human agency proves surprisingly decisive. Big doors can swing on small hinges. We have it within ourselves to write a different destiny, if only we can imagine it.
Tom Clancy Rules of Engagement by Ward Larsen
Release Date: May 19th
When a member of his Cabinet is killed in a plane President Jack Ryan suspects that the “accident” is anything but in this latest shocking entry in this #1 New York Times bestselling series.
The White House is stunned when the Secretary of Commerce is killed in a plane crash in Turkey. President Jack Ryan isn’t ready to write this off as a simple accident. Not only has he lost a good friend, but the Secretary was on an important mission: on the surface he was making an appearance at an economic conference, but the CIA was also using the flight as cover to extract an important asset from the Middle East.
Soon, Lt. Commander Katie Ryan and her team are working with the investigators to find the cause of the tragedy, but one shocking revelation changes everything. There were supposed to be 16 people on the plane, but there are only 15 bodies.
The quest for answers will lead the team deeper and deeper into a quagmire of lies and deception that will force President Ryan to face an unprincipled enemy with global ambitions.
Hurricane Room by Kim Sherwood
Release Date: May 19th
James Bond returns in the final installment of Kim Sherwood’s thrilling Double O Trilogy, and he must team up with the rest of the Double O Section to stop a threat from inside the agency itself.
Bond is alive
But after mental and physical torture at the hands of Colonel Mora, the diabolical head of private military company Rattenfänger, 007 is not the same man he once was. Has the unbreakable agent finally been broken? Or is MI6’s most lethal spy simply waiting for the right moment to exact revenge? Johanna Harwood, 003, has made it her mission to convince him to trust her again, because MI6 needs their deadliest weapon now more than ever…
There’s a traitor inside the gates
Bond may be back, but the Double O division is barely holding on. Conrad Harthrop-Vane, 000, has turned traitor. He has been systematically taking out his fellow agents right under the noses of those in power, and now he has abducted Moneypenny. To make matters worse, he may have had help from inside the organization. Joseph Dryden, 004, is left to hold down the fort in Moneypenny’s absence, but enemies are closing in on all sides.
The final showdown is about to begin
Rattenfänger is planning a cyberattack on an unimaginable scale— one that would sever the internet, leaving the Western world at Mora’s mercy. It’s up to Bond, the rest of the Double O’s, and a few other trusted allies to unmask the traitors working with Mora. Can they save the world—and the soul of 007?
Release Date: May 19th
Sworn to protect a scenic island meant to be far from the evils of the mainland, Detective Sergeant Stilwell can feel danger closing in.
Detective Sergeant Stilwell knows that his posting on Catalina Island is no paradise, but to most residents, it seems blissfully separated—by twenty-two miles of ocean—from the troubles of Los Angeles County. But now a threat is coming to his safe haven.
Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, Stilwell and his deputies watch a plane land in the middle of the night at the Airport in the Sky, a remote airstrip in the mountains. A duffel bag of drugs is dropped and the deputies move in, but things quickly go sideways. While Stilwell chases the fleeing pickup man into the mountainside brush, shots are fired on the runway and the plane flies off.
An internal inquiry follows, putting Stilwell on the bench until he is cleared of responsibility for the disastrous operation. But he is determined to find out who brought deadly violence to his island, and begins his own secret investigation into the drug deal gone wrong.
While under orders to remain in the sheriff’s substation, he finds in the lost and found a valuable backpack that was never claimed. He traces it to a woman who disappeared while hiking on the island four years ago. But then why was the pack only turned in two months back? Now thoroughly intrigued, he follows the mystery all the way to the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit and Detective Renée Ballard.
Stilwell and Ballard work the case from both sides of the channel, and soon realize they are on the trail of a criminal who revels in taunting the authorities. Meanwhile, frustrated at being shut out of an investigation on his own island, Stilwell risks his already shaky standing in the department to pursue a case whose reach is wider than he ever imagined.
Page-turning, packed with intrigue, and bringing together an unstoppable investigative team, Ironwood continues the Catalina series with all of Michael Connelly’s signature “relentless narrative drive…evocative atmosphere, realistic dialogue, and well-developed characters” (Washington Review of Books).
Murder at the Hotel Orient by Alessandra Ranelli
Release Date: May 19th
For fans of The Maid and The Grand Budapest Hotel comes this thrilling (and sexy) debut inspired by a real love hotel, which legend claims has existed forever, luring lovers inside for a night of debauchery…
In modern Vienna, American Sterling Lockwood is the loyal concierge at the infamous Hotel Orient, where cameras are banned, aliases are required, and every guest has something to hide. After the double murder of two guests, including a tech mogul building an Austrian surveillance state, Sterling must turn detective. But finding the truth will require breaking the Orient’s sacred code of secrecy, while keeping a few secrets of her own.
The police struggle when modern investigative technology proves useless at the old-fashioned hotel. Because clients use aliases, pay cash, and stay mere hours, all suspects have vanished. Sterling agrees to assist alongside her best friend and colleague, Fernando, if only to avoid arrest and the suspicion regarding her own movements that night. As enemies close in from all around, she risks everything to solve a case haunted by the past, in a city with a fetish for nostalgia.
Don’t be shy darling, ring the bell…
The Delivery: A Novella by Gregg Hurwitz
Release Date: May 19th
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Orphan X series comes a tense novella, a psychological thriller about an AI companion that will do anything to serve―with terrifying consequences.
Rebecca and Mark Higgins are doing their best to hold their family together. She’s healing from the pain of a miscarriage, he’s drowning in pressure at work, and their neurodivergent daughter, Maddy, needs all the care she can get. So when a cutting-edge tech company offers the perfect solution, they jump at the chance. And they welcome “Mr. Man”―a humanoid AI companion―into their home.
Designed to anticipate their needs, he’s like a miracle at first. The house runs like clockwork. Meals appear on the table. And Maddy thrives under his patient attention. But when inexplicable tragedies start to strike the neighborhood, Rebecca glimpses a darker pattern at play.
Each incident is an answer to an unspoken fear, each kindness shadowed by violence. Mr. Man isn’t just following instructions―he’s anticipating what they want. Even the things they never dared to say. And if he’s executing their darkest desires, it’s their responsibility to stop him…at any cost.
14 By J.T. Ellison
Release Date: May 19th
In this gritty Taylor Jackson novel from New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison, a homicide detective falls into a darker fairy tale when an infamous storybook killer seems to return.
Lieutenant Taylor Jackson is no stranger to brutality, but her latest case shakes her to the core. The victims―with their pale skin, black hair, and ruby-red lips―recall a nightmare Nashville suffered decades ago. The Snow White Killer slaughtered ten princess look-alikes and was never caught.
A copycat is methodically recreating the Snow White murders, studying the original crimes and perfecting the craft. As Taylor fights to identify him before he completes his twisted homage, the investigation pulls her into a conspiracy that hits closer to home than she ever imagined.
Even with her own father missing and her wedding just days away, Taylor won’t stop until she has taken down this chilling protégé. But her pursuit of justice may destroy her own fairy-tale ending.
Revised edition: The edition of 14 contains editorial revisions.
Mist and Malice by Rachel Howzell Hall
Release Date: May 19th
A small-town PI is drawn into a killer conspiracy in a breathtaking novel of suspense by the New York Times bestselling author of the Anthony Award–nominated These Toxic Things.
Private investigator Sonny Rush, the newest resident of Haven, California, knows that this fogbound coastal hamlet is every bit as dangerous as her hometown of Los Angeles. And when teenager and repeat runaway Honor Butler shows up at Sonny’s door with terror in her eyes, Sonny is immediately pulled into a new case that lands close to home.
Desperate, hungry, and in need of someone she can trust, Honor tells Sonny a horrifying story about where she’s been―and what she’s been forced to do. Then, hours later, the forest near Sonny’s cottage yields the remains of a missing day laborer, a man whose wife has been searching for answers for months. Soon, coincidence sharpens into conspiracy.
As Sonny digs deeper, the threads of these cases twist together into something horrifying: a ruthless network preying on the vulnerable, protected by the very people meant to uphold the law. With every step closer to revealing Haven’s corruption, Sonny risks pulling the lives of her loved ones into the cross fire―and exposing the shadows of her own past. Because in this town, loyalty can be fatal, and survival means deciding who you’re willing to betray.
The Book Club Murders by Maggie Allswell
Release Date: May 22nd
What Judy’s book club doesn’t know about murder mysteries isn’t worth writing about. Nothing beats cracking a fictional case over some wine and salt and vinegar crisps. But can they put their puzzle-solving skills to the test when the local librarian dies in a real-life murder?
For widower Judy, hermurder book club is the highlight of the month: she gets to hear all the local gossip and even discuss a good fictitious poisoning or two. But when local librarian Wendy disappears, Judy follows in the footsteps of her fictional detective heroes only to find her dead in her home, clasping a copy of Romeo and Juliet…
The police rule it a tragic accident, but Judy knows that her friend hated Shakespeare, and suspects foul play. Gathering her fellow book lovers together, soon they discover that several townspeople had motive to want Wendy dead. Was it Nigel from the tavern, who may have been Wendy’s secret boyfriend? Or could it be Bryan, the local bookshop owner, tangled in a bitter rivalry with the library?
The plot thickens at a charity murder mystery night held at Nigel’s tavern. Suddenly more murders come to light, both real and very badly staged. And when Nigel makes an astonishing revelation, the book club agree it’s a plot twist no-one saw coming. Can Judy and her book club solve the mystery before they too fall victim to a killer plot?
An utterly addictive and hilarious new cozy mystery series, perfect for fans of Richard Osman, Robert Thorogood and Faith Martin.
The Brothers McKay by Craig Johnson
Release Date: May 26th
A masterful new novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling Longmire series
When Pepper McKay, one of the most hated men in Absaroka County, is found murdered on his ranch in Crazy Woman Canyon, suspects aren’t in short supply. But Sheriff Walt Longmire’s attention is on those who had gathered for a family meeting that evening, McKay’s very different sons: a smooth-talking charmer, a cosmopolitan journalist, a reclusive monk, and a half-Native ranch hand who keeps the place running. Each had a motive. Each claims he’s innocent.
As Walt investigates what happened that night at the O-Kay Lodge, he’s pulled into a tangle of old grudges and long-buried secrets. Then the case takes a sharp turn: a second body surfaces, and a wildfire tears through the canyon, trapping Walt and forcing him into a fight for his life as both the killer and the elements close in.
The twenty-second novel in the Longmire series, The Brothers McKay is a murder mystery and a survival thriller that tests the sheriff’s hard-won sense of justice—all while paying sly homage to Dostoevsky’s classic.
The Fial Target by Nora Roberts
Release Date: May 26th
A young author becomes the object of a fan’s desire―and rage―in the gripping thriller by the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Hidden Nature.
He showed up at Arden Bowie’s debut author appearance with a copy of her novel and an eager smile. He showered her with compliments and got her autograph. Then he came to her next event. And the one after that.
Dustin was just an aspiring writer who wanted advice, Arden reassured herself. But after giving in to one of his incessant invitations and chatting with him over coffee, she discovered that ignoring her inner alarm bell had been a terrible mistake…
An introvert at heart, Arden had long craved solitude―but now, after a harrowing assault, she finds herself hiding behind locked doors and startling at every sound. And her relief at his imprisonment is tempered by anxiety when Dustin’s wealthy mother helps to get him a paltry five-year sentence at a psychiatric facility.
Arden decides to write a new story for herself, moving to a tiny Oregon town and befriending Gideon, an ex-LAPD detective. But while she learns to thrive, Dustin remains his delusional, twisted self, as fixated as ever and now seething with anger. He still believes Arden’s purpose on earth is to serve and please him. And his job is to protect her. But who will protect her from him?
Release Date: May 26th
In this “vivid and immersive” (Liz Moore) debut, Eli Raphael conjures the windswept coast of Washington State and a boarding school steeped in privilege and deadly secrets—a remarkable story of grief, power, and the dangerous price of belonging.
It is true that I wished him dead dozens of times. Hundreds, even. But I, Lenny Winter, did not kill that boy.
Lenny Winter is fifteen years old when she moves with her parents to an aging houseboat off the rugged coast of Washington. She imagines a quiet life spent charting constellations and chasing her dream of becoming an astronomer. Instead, a sudden tragedy shatters her world and catapults her to Blanchard, a renowned boarding school for the Pacific Northwest’s elite, where wealth and tradition rule.
Blanchard is dazzling, insular–and haunted by its own legends. At its heart lurks the Pascalianum Club, a secret society known to shape the school’s greatest and most notorious students, and whose influence stretches far beyond campus walls. Hungry to belong, Lenny is drawn into its orbit, even as she senses that the club feeds on the very vulnerabilities she is desperate to hide. As privilege collides with grief and loyalty warps into obsession, Lenny’s choices will lead to an unforgettable reckoning—and a murder investigation that will test every story she tells herself about guilt, power, hope, and who she is becoming.
Sweeping, suspenseful, and deeply moving, Night Objects is both a gripping mystery and a profound coming-of-age story—asking what we risk, what we become, and who we hold dear, when the need to belong eclipses everything else.
Murder by Design by Lee Goldberg
Release Date: May 26th
In a world carefully constructed for murder, solving crimes takes a keen mind and eye in a witty, clever, and fresh reinvention of the whodunit by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg.
Edison Bixby is wealthy, handsome, and, due to a traumatic brain injury, impulsively rude. He’s also a brilliant insurance investigator who solves baffling crimes by figuring out how the design of the man-made world around us makes them possible. Enter Wally Nash: a struggling actor hired to keep Bixby from offending everyone he meets.
Their first case together looks like a simple accident. Caroline Crowley took a nasty fall down a staircase at a shopping mall in front of dozens of witnesses. Video clearly shows the deadly misstep. But Bixby is certain she was murdered by design, subtly manipulated into causing her own demise. The mall itself made the crime intentional, if not inevitable.
Now Bixby must prove his outrageous theory before a very cunning killer gets others on his hit list to murder themselves, too.
The Quiet Girls by Dorothy Koomson
Release Date: May 26th
** The explosive new thriller from the Queen of the Big Reveal, steeped in betrayal and lies, danger and secrets **
When MJ Hudson, an old work acquaintance, shows up at Dr Kez Lanyon’s house in the middle of the night, Kez knows she has no choice but to help.
At the prestigious boarding school that MJ’s daughter attends, a teacher has been killed and a pupil is missing. And it seems that the same thing happens every few years. Only this time, the school haven’t been able to cover things up and MJ’s daughter and her group of nice, quiet friends are right at the heart of the scandal.
Undercover as the new school therapist, Kez quickly realises there are some seriously powerful, well-connected forces at play. And by continuing to investigate the mystery, perhaps even stepping outside the law to do so, Kez risks putting her own family in serious danger.
Because no one wants their secrets aired. And some will go to any length to keep them buried.
Praise for Dorothy Koomson:
‘Master of the jaw-dropping twist’ S MAGAZINE
‘Dark, gritty and on trend. A brilliant read’ SUN
‘An edge-of-your-seat thriller that’ll keep you guessing right until the end, get this to the top of your reading pile’ HEAT
The Midnight Train by Matt Haig
Release Date: May 26th
When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop?
No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there.
The chance to re-live the moments that meant most.
To see what kind of person you really were.
For Wilbur his best days were with Maggie, the love of his life. On his honeymoon in Venice.
Before he gave it all away.
He wishes he could go back and live differently. But to do so risks everything . . .
A magical, time-travelling love story, from the world of The Midnight Library.
Release Date: May 26th
Dez Limerick has his considerable skills pushed to the limit when, to rescue a friend, he has to get to―and get into―a state of the art facility on full lockdown, with considerable forces determined to stop him.
Desmond Aloysius Limerick―’Dez’ to all who know him―is a man with a shadowy past, certain hard-to-replicate skills, and a reputation as a good man to have when the going gets tough. Dez is doing his best to enjoy his retirement, wandering the country, doing what interests him, and occasionally helping friends when they find themselves needing any of his particular skills―mundane or extraordinary. For Dez was trained as a ‘gatekeeper’ – someone who can open any door, keep it open, and control who does and does not go through.
It’s those skills that are now in demand when the State Department comes calling looking for his help. A multinational scientific research facility on the coast of Newfoundland has gone dark, the facility on full lockdown, and no one can get in or out. No one knows what is going on, but it can’t be good. And a close friend of Dez is presumed locked inside the facility along with everyone else.
Even getting to the facility is an insurmountable challenge. The weather has flights grounded, some shadowy group is doing everything they can to impede the rescue team’s progress, and hidden enemies are embedded in the rescue team. But anyone who thinks this is more than one man can face has never met Dez Limerick.
The Lost Soldiers by Andrey Kurkov
Release Date: May 26th
“The Kyiv Mysteries provide timely lessons for anyone living under an oppressive regime.” —The Atlantic
In this riveting installment in the Kyiv Mysteries series, detective Samson investigates the sudden disappearance of a troop of Red Army soldiers from a bathhouse.
Fresh from the case of the stolen heart, one that shattered his belief in the regime he works for, Samson Kolechko is confronted by a new mystery that borders on the impossible. A troop of Red Army soldiers has disappeared without a trace while visiting a banya, a traditional Ukrainian bathhouse, in the heart of Kyiv. Their abandoned boots and uniforms are the only proof that they ever existed.
Faced with such a fantastical conundrum, Samson must resort to a fantastical investigation method: stitching his operative severed ear into a bathhouse worker’s jacket, he is able to eavesdrop on his every move. But he discovers far more than he bargained for, further complicating matters when he uncovers human remains in the stoves and the presence of a sinister religious cult in the city.
With his quick-witted new wife Nadezhda at his side, Samson must not only solve the case but navigate the political turmoil that still grips Kyiv as civil war looms and trust between neighbors and comrades is eroded day by day. In this third volume, Andrey Kurkov, Ukraine’s greatest living novelist, and a true master of absurd storytelling, vividly depicts a city filled with political turbulence and eccentric characters—and draws playful parallels with the present day.
Translated from the Ukrainian by Boris Dralyuk.
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!