The 20 best new crime thrillers to read this summer
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Think Twice ★★★★☆
by Harlan Coben
Century, £22
After a “break” – in which he has produced several other novels and collaborated with Netflix, for whom he has a staggering 14 projects ongoing – Coben returns to his most popular character, sports agent Myron Bolitar. In this, the 12th novel in the series, Mylar faces a couple of FBI agents who’re keen to speak to his client Greg Downing on suspicion of murder. The only problem is, Downing died three years ago, and Mylar even gave the eulogy at his funeral. The story becomes just as twisty as you would expect. Terry Ramsey
Murder at the Monastery ★★★★☆
by Richard Coles
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £22
In his most recent novel, the Rev Richard Coles reserved for his final sentence a surprise that devastated cleric-cum-sleuth Daniel Clement, and the thousands of readers who have come to adore him. This third outing for Clement sees him taking a recuperative break at the abbey in which he trained half a lifetime ago, only to find a hotbed of enmities leading to one brother being jammed into the workings of the monastery’s power turbine. Coles’s feline wit and infectious enthusiasm for ecclesiastical trivia make for a very moreish read despite the familiarity of the monkish murder set-up. Jake Kerridge
The Sleepwalkers ★★★★★
by Scarlett Thomas
Scribner, £16.99
Much of Scarlett Thomas’s 14th novel comprises a letter from a newlywed to her husband, explaining why she has chosen to abandon their honeymoon. It’s not just that Evelyn and Richard are absurdly ill-suited: danger lurks at the exclusive Greek island resort at which they’re staying, where another couple apparently sleepwalked into the sea and drowned the year before. One of our most consistently surprising and inventive novelists, Thomas fashions here an ambiguous chiller worthy of Patricia Highsmith or Daphne du Maurier, with added comic bite. JK
Hunted ★★★★☆
by Abir Mukherjee
Harvill Secker, £14.99
Best known for historical mysteries set in British India, Abir Mukherjee enters into the world of contemporary thrillers with a bang: Hunted opens with a terrorist attack on a Los Angeles shopping mall. Among those subsequently haring around the States to prevent further atrocities are the no-nonsense FBI agent Shreya Mistry and Sajid Khan, a British Muslim whose daughter has joined the terrorist cell. Mukherjee writes with clear-eyed clarity about the political mess the world is in, while his narrative drive and cunning twists make the novel a buoyant read. JK
Close to Death ★★★★★
by Anthony Horowitz
Century, £22
This is the fifth book in the unashamedly clever-clever Hawthorne and Horowitz series, in which the author appears alongside his unconventional detective Daniel Hawthorne. It’s set in the well-to-do Riverside Close in Richmond, south-west London, where brash Giles Kenworthy arrives with his noisy children, loud parties and plans for a swimming pool. When he’s shot with a crossbow, it seems as though all the suspects have the same motive… As you would expect from Horowitz, the mystery is inventive, elegant and smart – some might say, overly so. TR
The Mercy Chair ★★★★☆
by MW Craven
Constable, £8.99
The oddball pairing of cynical DS Washington Poe and geeky forensic pathologist Tilly Bradshaw makes a welcome return for a sixth novel in MW Craven’s darkly entertaining Cumbrian series. This time, the story unfolds in the unlikely setting of Poe trying to unburden himself to a therapist (something of an uphill struggle). The case that has sent him to this extreme started with a tattooed man found tied to a tree and stoned to death. It seems that the tattoos may hold a vital code, but can even the canny Bradshaw work it out? TR
The Wild Swimmers ★★★★★
by William Shaw
Riverrun, £20
William Shaw now rivals Ann Cleeves in the art of combining compelling mysteries with evocations of Britain’s landscape, although his stamping ground is further south than Cleeves’s Shetland: the haunting coast around Dungeness. This fifth novel to feature DS Alexandra Cupidi finds her joining a wild-swimming club after one of their number drowns in odd circumstances. Apart from wanting to box Shaw’s ears when he placed one of my favourite characters from the series in danger, I spent most of the book applauding his artistry. JK
The Kitchen ★★★★★
by Simone Buchholz
Orenda, £9.99
German author Buchholz won the CWA award for best crime novel in translation in 2022, and this, the second book in her “Chastity Riley Reloaded” series, is a dark treat. When male body parts are found in Hamburg’s river, but no torsos, public prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues are baffled. But as Chastity wanders the city, eating, smoking and drinking – and seething with anger at the rape of her best friend, Carla – the story slowly comes into focus. It’s memorable modern noir, and a fascinating portrait of seedy life in Hamburg. TR
The Chamber ★★★★☆
by Will Dean
Hodder & Stoughton, £20
In a departure from the expansive rural Swedish landscape of his Tuva Moodyson novels – soon to be on TV, and starring Rose Ayling-Ellis – Will Dean’s new standalone book has the most confined setting imaginable: a bariatric chamber in which six divers are living while repairing North Sea oil pipes. One of them is found inexplicably dead in his bunk, and the remaining crew have to wait for four days until decompression is complete before they can emerge, leaving plenty of time for further sinister events. Although it lacks some of the pleasing idiosyncrasy of Dean’s other work, this is a first-class suspense thriller that robbed me of both sleep and fingernails. JK
The Midnight Feast ★★★☆☆
by Lucy Foley
HarperCollins, £18.99
It’s midsummer, and Dorset’s newest luxury hotel, The Manor, is holding its opening party, which features a sparkling guest-list of the wealthy and obnoxious, mostly down from London. But out in the woods, something sinister is afoot and tragedy looms… With its theme of locals vs wealthy outsiders, and its allusions to ancient rituals and costumes, there’s more than a whiff of Midsomer Murders about all this. But the bestselling Foley is able to transform The Midnight Feast into a far more high-octane tale, with a growing sense of unease throughout, and some flashes of dark humour to boot. TR
The Shame Archive ★★★★★
by Oliver Harris
Abacus, £20
Here’s a novel to make the great and the good quake: it posits that MI6 keeps a “shame archive” of the sensitive secrets it has accumulated about our senior politicians, business leaders, and so on. Oliver Harris’s regular hero, tough spook Elliot Kane, investigates when the material falls into a blackmailer’s hands – as does one of the victims, a cabinet minister’s wife who is determined to keep the lid on her past. Harris writes with compassion or satirical glee, depending on which his characters deserve, and this third Kane novel puts him firmly in the Mick Herron class. JK
Westport ★★★★★
by James Comey
Head of Zeus, £20
Lawyer Nora Carleton left her high-pressure job in the US attorney’s office in New York for a quieter (and more highly-paid) life with a hedge fund in Westport, Connecticut. But when a canoe is found abandoned with the body of a woman in it, Nora finds herself as the chief suspect, and suddenly the lawyer is the one facing trial. This is the second novel by James Comey, former head of the FBI – and antagonist of Donald Trump – and it drips with authenticity (which you might expect) and quality writing (which you might not). A gripping read. TR
The Kill List ★★★★☆
by Nadine Matheson
HQ, £16.99
The most invigoratingly grisly new crime writer on the block, Nadine Matheson proves three decades on from Thomas Harris’s heyday that there is still life in the serial killer yarn. This third case for DI Anjelica Henley of London’s Serial Crimes Unit begins with lawyers - a criminal lawyer herself, Matheson writes sharply about the breed - arguing that an imprisoned serial murderer’s conviction is unsafe because the investigating officer, Henley’s old mentor, was corrupt. The patsy exonerated, the real killer starts to resume his or her old activities. Matheson writes with a light, witty touch very welcome in the often humourless gorefest genre. JK
Truth Truth Lie ★★★★☆
by Claire McGowan
Thomas & Mercer, £8.99
My takeaway from much recent British crime fiction is that if you’re planning to go away with a group of old friends, you’ll be safer staying at home playing Russian roulette. In her 15th crime novel Claire McGowan dispatches a group of pals to an isolated Scottish island for a 40th-birthday get-together, only for a game of “Two Truths and a Lie” to stir up old tensions. There follows the spilling in alarming quantities of both secrets and blood, McGowan ratcheting up the tension with the merciless skill of a professional torturer. JK
You Know What You Did ★★★☆☆
by KT Nguyen
Dutton, £25
Annie, the daughter of a US Vietnamese refugee, is a rising artist married to an award-winning journalist. But when Annie’s mother dies, it hits her harder than she admits, causes a rift with her teenage daughter and leaves her crippled by obsessive compulsive disorder. Plus, she finds herself strangely drawn to a man she meets at a school fair. After a slow start, this debut turns into an unsettling domestic thriller very much in the sub-genre of “a seemingly successful family turns out to have serious problems”. TR
Missing White Woman ★★★★☆
by Kellye Garrett
Simon & Schuster, £16.99
When Breanna’s new boyfriend invites her for a romantic break in New York, she jumps at the chance. But then she wakes up in their Airbnb and finds he has gone - and there’s the body of a blonde woman at the foot of the stairs. To make matters worse, the dead woman is Janelle, whose disappearance days before has become an internet obsession. What follows is the gripping and entertaining story of Breanna’s investigation using social media and the web, which also reveals what it feels like to be a black woman in modern America. TR
Farewell, Amethystine ★★★☆☆
by Walter Mosley
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £25
When Walter Mosley introduced private eye Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins in Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), he was a contemporary of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in 1940s LA. Now, 16 books on, Easy has survived into the 1970s, but although life is a little easier for a black PI than it once was, he still has a talent for getting into trouble, his latest missing person case seeing him tangle with mobsters and corrupt cops. The plot’s convolutions have to fight for attention with Easy’s wistful reminiscences about his early life, but even at his most meandering Mosley is still a spellbinder. JK
The Suspect ★★★★☆
by Rob Rinder
Century, £20
Jessica Holby is the darling of daytime TV, so when she suddenly clutches her throat and dies live on air, it is big news. And the national intrigue grows as her colleague, celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks, emerges as chief suspect (he had served her wild boar ragu beforehand, you see). Author Rob Rinder is a barrister turned TV presenter, so it’s a smart move to combine his two areas of expertise in this second outing for talented junior barrister Adam Green. The result is a pacy and engaging story, laced with an insider’s knowledge of both the law and TV. TR
The Cuckoo ★★★☆☆
by Camilla Läckberg
Hemlock, £22
This is the 11th novel Camilla Läckberg has set in her tiny hometown, Fjällbacka on the west coast of Sweden; by now she has probably killed off more people than actually live there. The book follows the usual pattern: Detective Patrik Hedström unravels a murder - in this instance, of a high-end photographer - while his wife, true-crime writer Erica Falck, delves into a cold case that will eventually tie in satisfyingly with Patrik’s investigation. Tackling the topical subject of changing attitudes to trans people, it boasts Läckberg’s customary appealing blend of darkness and warm-heartedness. JK
Bonehead ★★★★☆
by Mo Hayder
Hodder & Stoughton, £22
This posthumous novel by the bestselling Hayder, who died in 2021, may not be as gruesomely shocking as some of her earlier books, but it is a disturbing and compelling farewell. Alex Mullins, a police officer in the Cotswold village of Eastonbirt, is haunted by the coach crash on her school reunion trip that left her injured and several ex-classmates dead. Could the skeletal vision she thinks she saw at the crash be the unlucky local legend “Bonehead”? Alex is trying to escape this nightmare when she meets someone who was actually there that night – and knows what happened… TR
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