New Mysteries for a New Year

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The culprits in these intriguing murder mysteries can’t stay hidden for long, not with indomitable detectives on the case. Whether you like your tales cozy or hard-boiled, set in the city or the country, incorporating tough social issues or just offering up escapist fun, you’re bound to find a hero or heroine to cheer in this perfect collection of winter reads. Curl up, throw another log on the fire, and get ready for some page-by-page sleuthing.

Glory Be, by Danielle Arceneaux

Glory Broussard is the unforgettable heroine of this cozy, feel-good crime novel set in Lafayette, Louisiana. On the outside, Glory appears as durable as her favorite Swarovski crystal brooch. On the inside, she’s mourning her mother’s death, her divorce, and the aches that remind her she’s growing old. Not too old, though— she’s running an illegal gambling operation out of the local coffee shop. When her best friend’s death is declared a suicide, she gathers all the crime-solving skills she’s gleaned from watching The Wire and sets out to prove that Sister Amity Gay was murdered. Meanwhile, someone is scheming to have her evicted from her home and one of her car tires is slashed. The relatable Glory ferrets out the truth, clearing all obstacles in her way with her witty banter and the cloak of invisibility that she’s afforded because she’s a Black woman of a certain age. The first book in a delightful new series.

The Mystery Guest, by Nita Prose

The Maid was a smash hit in 2022, with readers falling hard for Molly Gray, the neurodivergent crime solver/housekeeper extraordinaire whose charm and big heart made her irresistible. In this equally wonderful sequel, Molly, now head maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, is again thrust into a murder investigation when a famous mystery author drops dead in the boutique hotel’s tearoom. The aptly named J.D. Grimthorpe was about to make a major announcement when he met his demise. Who would want to kill him, and why? Prose gives her story extra emotional heft by alternating chapters about the murder investigation with a story line set in the past, when the differently abled Molly is a child, struggling to fit in, with only her gran to guide and love her. Molly, a reluctant sleuth who wants to be left alone to dust and change linens—“I am a cleaner, not a killer”—solves the murder in record time because “they always blame the maid,” and she has rooms to tidy.

A Traitor in Whitehall, by Julia Kelly

If you like to mix history with your mystery, then this propulsive novel set in World War II London should be on your TBR list. The Germans are raining bombs on the British capital, but below ground, in the bunkers serving as Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s cabinet war rooms, an attack of a different kind is taking place, and it could change the course of the war. Someone is passing secret documents to the Nazis, and 22-year-old Evelyne Redfern, who appears to be “just” a typist, is one of the agents searching for the traitor. The fearless and relentlessly curious Evelyne is also looking into who killed Jean Plinkton, another typist, and whether there’s a link between her murder and the mole. This is a superbly constructed whodunit that pays homage to Agatha Christie’s locked-room mysteries.

The Wharton Plot, by Mariah Fredericks

If you can’t get enough of the cosseted and corseted high-society women showcased in Max’s The Gilded Age, this mystery, set in 1911, when this era of opulent wealth and waste was in its death throes, will have you yearning for a time machine. In The Lindbergh Nanny, a previous historical novel, Fredericks reimagined the kidnapping of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s son from his nanny’s point of view. This time, the murder of author David Graham Phillips outside New York’s prestigious Princeton Club is the spark that sets fire to the plot. More famous than Phillips is the woman who decides to track down his killer. She’s the renowned novelist Edith Wharton, author of The Age of Innocence and other novels that chronicled New York high society’s glamour and decay. When Phillips’s sister claims he was killed because of a book he wrote, Wharton decides to investigate. Come to this novel for the engrossing mystery, stay for the cinematic portrait of an aging woman who fears her popularity is waning and whose marriage is dissolving, even as she’s struggling with feeling obsolete in a modernizing world.

The Expectant Detectives, by Kat Ailes

A book title this precious comes with the unspoken promise that what you’re about to read is as cozy as an episode of Midsomer Murders and as charming as Call the Midwife. Ailes delivers on that promise with humor and the kind of mystery Miss Marple loved to solve. Expectant parents Alice and Joe move to a village in the Cotswolds, where they plan to lead a quiet life away from the bustle of London. Just days into their move, they attend a prenatal class where, to everyone’s shock, one woman gives birth, while in the apothecary shop below, the owner is found dead. Alice should be deciding whether to have her baby in a birthing yurt at the local commune or in a gong bath surrounded by wind chimes. Instead, she and fellow moms-to-be are bent on catching the shopkeeper’s killer. Could it be the local Master of the Hounds? The pot-smoking high priestess of the gong? A fresh and fun take on the mystery genre perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Helen Fielding.

Resurrection Walk, by Michael Connelly

Some of the most popular crime dramas now streaming—The Lincoln Lawyer and Bosch—are based on the novels by Michael Connelly, one of today’s best crime and mystery writers. His latest is billed as a Lincoln Lawyer novel, but Harry Bosch, the maverick, now-retired LAPD detective and star of his own book series, is an intrinsic part of this dynamic courtroom drama. Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, conducts his law practice from the backseat of his Lincoln SUV. He and Bosch team up to prove that Lucinda Sanz, imprisoned five years ago for killing her husband, is innocent. This is a gritty and well-researched borderline thriller that incorporates police corruption, gang violence, tainted evidence, and lawyerly fancy footwork all in the name of securing a “resurrection walk” for Lucinda—a chance to leave prison and begin living again.

Blood Betrayal, by Ausma Zehanat Khan

Denver police detective Inaya Rahman is the moral center of this gripping story that walks the line between mystery and social novel. Rahman and fellow officers are faced with solving what appear to be two racially charged murders. Duante Young, a promising artist, is shot by a veteran police officer who swears he thought the can of spray paint Young was holding was a gun. Teenager Mateo Ruiz is shot dead during a drug raid. The cop being investigated in his death admits his gun was used in the shooting, but his partner swears he never unholstered it. The killings are the foundation for this dark and intense story, but the novel’s framework is a diorama filled with the most relevant issues in contemporary life: racism, anti-gay sentiment, police corruption, and how men, women, and children of all colors strive for balance in their lives. Inaya, Khan’s most complicated character, is a devout Muslim and a dedicated cop always struggling to reconcile the two.

Only If You’re Lucky, by Stacy Willingham

“If you knew you could get away with murder, would you do it?” That’s the tantalizing question that keeps popping up in this atmospheric mystery perfect for fans of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. College freshman Margot is introverted, depressed, and emotionally frozen, unable to get over the death of her best friend, Eliza, who died shortly after high school graduation. Out of the blue, the enigmatic Lucy, a fellow student at the South Carolina liberal arts college where this Southern Gothic is set, invites Margot to live off-campus with her and two other party girls. Lucy has a dangerous and magnetic personality that sucks Margot into her destructive lifestyle, but after a member of a fraternity dies and Lucy goes missing, Margot must ferret out Lucy’s secrets and face the truth about her own past. The explosive revelations rolled out at the novel’s end will satisfy even the most jaded readers.

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