30 Thrilling Books to Look Out for This Year
As an avid reader, I always have the same feelings about the end of the year: I hate to watch it go, but I love to watch it leave. One minute, all the “best books” lists come out and remind me of all the books I didn’t get to read, but then the next minute, I am distracted by all the lists of amazing upcoming books in the new year! You can’t really lose as a reader—it’s pretty great.
One of my favorite genres to read is crime books. Give me all your thrilling suspense novels! I love crime thrillers with lots of twists and turns and unreliable narrators, and crime novels with tried and true heroes, and cozy mysteries with punny titles set in sleepy towns. Spoiler: I love them all! Which is why I am excited about this list, because it highlights some of the biggest mystery and suspense releases of 2021.
On this list, you’ll find stand-alone mysteries, political thrillers, domestic suspense books, cozy mysteries, and more! Some are from debut authors and others are from the biggest names in the business. Several of these books are continuations in a series, which is doubly exciting, because it means you have the pleasure of jumping into a series headfirst or starting from the beginning. Just talking about these books is making me want to stop writing and go pick one up, so let’s get started!
Archaeologist Nora Kelly and rookie FBI Agent Corrie Swanson team up again, this time to make sense of a mummy found in an abandoned New Mexico building. The key to its identity could lie in a 16th-century Spanish gold cross found hidden on the body, but it could also reveal a terrifying historic secret of epic proportions.
In Michael Bennett’s 13th adventure, the NYPD detective’s impending nuptials to his long-time love are waylaid when a vicious killer carries out a series of grisly murders around the city. As Bennett and his new partner race to uncover the killer’s identity, they discover they may be dealing with the most prolific and coldblooded murderer the country has ever seen. And he’s thinking of inviting himself to the wedding...
Walter Mosley, who recently received the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, has brought his most beloved character back for another case. Hardboiled Los Angeles detective Easy Rawlins knows a big gamble when he hears one, which is why he knows he shouldn’t help a white man who claims to have protected a white woman from a Black man. But Easy didn’t get his nickname from taking easy cases, and something about the Vietnam veteran’s story compels him to help.
New York Times bestselling mother-and-son team Iris and Roy Johansen have brought the brilliant investigator Kendra Michaels back for her eighth case. When a popular pop singer is kidnapped in plain sight from the Hollywood Bowl, Kendra, the singer’s bodyguard, and a special agent, must work to find her location before it is too late. But this case might mean curtains for everyone.
New York Time's bestselling author Harlan Coben, fresh off the success of Netflix's adaptation of The Stranger, spins a thrilling new tale of crimes old and new. When a recluse is found murdered in his apartment, two items are recovered that are linked to the decades-old unsolved abduction of Win Lockwood's cousin. But searching for the final answer to the cold case may cause Win to lose.
James Patterson's highest-rated stand-alone thriller ever now has a sequel! Detective Billy Harney, the newest member of Chicago PD's elite strike force, Special Operations Section (SOS), will have to discover the political motivations and culprits behind a drive-by shooting on Chicago's west side. But his search leads him somewhere he'd rather not visit: his own past.
SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer and Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas team up to help a distraught mother find her young daughter and granddaughter as Boxer's own daughter gets ready to celebrate her birthday.
In the thrilling sequel to New York Times bestseller The Hellfire Club, CNN's Jake Tapper brings back Charlie and Margaret, two rising stars in 1960s Washington DC. This time they've agreed to help their old pal Robert Kennedy with a matter of national security, which requires rubbing elbows with the rich and famous in Los Angeles.
Just when forensic sculptor Eve Duncan thinks she's finally going to get to settle down with the man she loves, his ex-wife shows up and drags them into a dangerous web of secrets that might get them all killed.
Ambulance-chasing lawyer Jay Shenk is surprised when he is hired to defend the father of a man he had helped sue a hospital a decade earlier. The victim? The star witness of the first trial. Meanwhile, Shenk's quiet son thinks he has what it takes to solve what really happened.
In David Swinson's thrilling new stand-alone, a young American boy lives with his parents an exclusive community of ex-patriots in 1972 Beirut, Lebanon. Over the summer, he will learn the truth about his father, a rising foreign service attache.
Bestselling author James Patterson and former president Bill Clinton are back with a story about a fictional former President of the United States! The old commander-in-chief, relocated to rural New Hampshire, learns his daughter is the target of an assassin and must fight to stop her from coming to harm.
Gaslight goes high-tech in USA Today bestselling author Cate Holahan’s new standalone thriller in which a family must determine who the real enemy is after a brutal home invasion breaks their trust in each other.
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Liberty Hardy is a Book Riot senior contributing editor, co-host of All the Books, and above all else, a ravenous reader. She resides in Maine with her cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, who hate to read.
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