Crime and Mystery Books

Enter the twisting, turning tunnels of the wonderful world of Crime Fiction and let us help you solve the mystery of what to read next. You might also like to browse our Thriller and Suspense category.

Featured Books

Books of the Month

A Talent for Murder
Andrew Wilson
June 2017 Book of the Month. A fascinating foray into the past, and the intriguing missing period of time so well documented, yet little known about in Agatha Christie’s life. I’ve visited...
Format: Hardback - Released: 18/05/2017

Fierce Kingdom
Gin Phillips
June 2017 Book of the Month. We are in America. Joan takes her four year old son Lincoln to the zoo regularly. She knows the layout, the areas, the animal enclosures and...
Format: Hardback - Released: 15/06/2017

Persons Unknown
Susie Steiner
June 2017 Book of the Month. Manon Bradshaw of Missing, Presumed is back only she is now pregnant, attached to the Cambridgeshire police but working on cold cases until a murder...
Format: Hardback - Released: 29/06/2017

The Boy Who Saw
Simon Toyne
June 2017 Book of the Month and eBook of the Month. Click here to view the page for the KOBO edition of this book. In Solomon Creed we were introduced...
Format: Hardback - Released: 15/06/2017

Rather be the Devil
Ian Rankin
June 2017 Book of the Month. A truly fabulous blast of crime fiction. John Rebus continues to ignore retirement, and an unsolved case haunts his thoughts as he shoulders his way into...
Format: Paperback - Released: 15/06/2017

Other Featured Books this Month

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to the Eagle Has Landed
Mike Ripley
Maxim Jakubowski June 2017 Book of the Month. Following on from Martin Edwards' splendid, award-winning Golden Age of Murder, about Christie and the heyday of the British cozy school of crime...
Format: Hardback - Released: 18/05/2017

The Fourth Monkey
J. D. Barker
Maxim Jakubowski June 2017 Highly Recommended. A humdinger of a serial killer thriller in sheer overdrive, The Fourth Monkey is a winner from the get go, even if some of the explicit, gory violence inevitably scattered...
Format: Hardback - Released: 27/06/2017

Hidden Killers
Lynda La Plante
Prime Suspect lovers are in for a treat for this once again gives us a large slice in the development of Jane Tennison. In the eponymous book published last year we followed Jane as a probationer with the Met in...
Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2017

Wolves in the Dark
Gunnar Staalesen
A ferociously gripping read from a Norwegian writing legend. Private investigator Varg Veum is in serious trouble, child pornography is found on his computer, from prison he starts to pull all the pieces together in a quest to discover who...
Format: Paperback - Released: 15/06/2017

Sidney Chambers and the Persistence of Love
James Runcie
Charming, atmospheric, and compellingly crafted, The Grantchester Mysteries are the very epitome of cosy crime, with a quintessential English detective for a hero. No wonder, then, that this is the sleuthing Archdeacon’s sixth literary outing, and that the TV adaptation...
Format: Hardback - Released: 04/05/2017

The Fireman
Joe Hill
Tales of overwhelming pandemics striking our world are like buses: you wait for ages and all of a sudden, like a plague, they all emerge at the same time. Recent months have witnessed, among others, the Cronin trilogy reach its...
Format: Paperback - Released: 04/05/2017

Troll
D. B. Thorne
A macabre miss-your-tube-stop thriller in which online trolling turns into real-life terror for a young investigative journalist. By day, Sophie works for a celebrity scandal magazine. By night she’s a lifestyle blogger with a dedicated following, including an abusive troll....
Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2017

Nutshell
Ian McEwan
Possibly the most unusual crime book of the year insofar as it follows the story of a crime from the point of view of an unborn child, isolated inside his mother's womb but listening to all manifestations of the world...
Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2017

When the Music's Over The 23rd DCI Banks Mystery
Peter Robinson
The Sunday Times Number One bestseller The new Sunday Times Number One bestselling DCI Banks book by Peter Robinson has the team investigating two highly contemporary crimes - each echoing and illuminating the other.
Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2017

The Lying Game
Ruth Ware
Four friends. One promise. But someone isn't telling the truth. The twisting new mystery from bestselling phenomenon Ruth Ware. The text message arrives in the small hours of the night. It's just three words: I need you. Isa drops everything,...
Format: Hardback - Released: 15/06/2017

The Dry
Jane Harper
Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn't rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke...
Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2017

Shepherds and Butchers
Chris Marnewick
South Africa, 1987. Apartheid. When Leon, a white 19-year-old prison guard working on death row commits an inexplicable act of violence, killing seven black men in a hail of bullets, the outcome of the trial - and the court's sentence...
Format: Paperback - Released: 20/04/2017

Himself
Jess Kidd
June 2017 Debut of the Month. Longlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2017. Dublin-wise, orphaned young man goes in search of his birth mother. He has a photograph with a note on the...
Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2017

Marked for Life
Emelie Schepp
A dramatic, sinister and deeply tense tale set in Sweden. Prosecutor Jana Berzelius works with police investigators after a man is found murdered in his home. He is the head of a department dealing with asylum cases, and when a...
Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2017

The Girl Who Ran
Nikki Owen
June 2017 eBook of the Month. The final book in the ‘Project Trilogy’ and it’s an absolute belter as the story surges to a fittingly dramatic conclusion. In the present day Maria finds herself back at...
Format: Ebook - Released: 15/06/2017

Rebus Anniversary Box Set
Ian Rankin
A must for collectors, a beautifully designed collector's hardback set of Knots & Crosses, Black and Blue and Exit Music with exclusive extra material only available in this box set.
Format: Multiple copy pack - Released: 22/06/2017

Last Month's Featured Books

Faithless
Kjell Ola Dahl
An assured, chilling, and intense piece of crime fiction set in Oslo. Detectives Frolich and Gunnarstranda investigate the murder of a woman who has been found scalded and wrapped in...

Zodiac
Sam Wilson
An excellently twisting thriller where cop tracks killer through a turbulent city. Prejudice is rife and violence is in the air. In Sam Wilson's world it is not religion or...

Crimson Lake
Candice Fox
May 2017 Debut of the Month. Sharp, clever Australian crime thriller constructed around the compelling set-up of Detective Ted Conkaffey being accused - but not convicted...

The Owl Always Hunts at Night
Samuel Bjork
May 2017 Book of the Month. A chilling, stimulating, intensely dark tale set in Norway. A young woman is found dead in...

Block 46
Johana Gustawsson
Maxim Jakubowski's May 2017 Book of the Month. May 2017 Debut of the Month. A truly stunning debut...

Don't Let Go
Michel Bussi
May 2017 Book of the Month. A captivating, fiendishly puzzling crime drama with an exotic, fascinating backdrop. Martial, Liane, and their daughter...

What Alice Knew
TA Cotterell
May 2017 Debut of the Month. What Alice Knew is enough to devastate anyone. Admittedly I would not always have acted as she did but OMG...

Before the Fall
Noah Hawley
May 2017 Book of the Month. A striking thriller from an established US author and Golden Globe award winner of the Fargo TV series scriptwriter. When...

The Cardinal's Court A Hugh Mac Egan Mystery
Cora Harrison
An entirely captivating and readable historical mystery. Hugh Mac Egan finds himself in the middle of deviously twisted plot, attempting to solve the riddle of who killed one of Cardinal...

A Dark So Deadly
Stuart MacBride
May 2017 Book of the Month. Author famous for his excellent Logan McRae series presents a new police constable, one DC Callum...

The Killer on the Wall
Emma Kavanagh
May 2017 Book of the Month. What a fabulously thrilling and penetrating tale this is. In 1996 Isla Bell found the bodies...

Night Market
Daniel Pembrey
Another commanding, powerhouse of a read from Daniel Pembrey. Night Market continues on from the first in the series, diving straight into part IV, and while you could enjoy this...

Domina
L. S. Hilton
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. Not that reviews have much of an influence on the bestseller lists, but the critics went to war with Hilton's debut...

Sweetpea
C. J. Skuse
May 2017 Book of the Month. A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. The first adult novel by an acclaimed...

Blood Sisters
Julie Shaw
A tense, vivid, standalone tale set in the early 1980’s from the author of ‘The Tales of the Notorious Hudson Family’ series. Vicky and Lucy are best friends, when...

Scared to Death
Kate Medina
May 2017 Book of the Month and eBook of the Month. Another wonderfully twisty and chilling case in the ‘Jessie Flynn Crime...

You Don't Know Me
Imran Mahmood
May 2017 eBook of the Month. At once a captivating courtroom drama, and a poignant personal story that explores social disadvantage and London gang culture from...

Wilde Lake
Laura Lippman
Having achieved a full sweep of most of the crime genre's major awards, Lippman has recently also entered the US bestseller list on a regular basis, but has undeservedly not...

The Second Sister
Claire Kendal
A sublimely intense, and heart-pumping psychological thriller. Ten years on from the disappearance of her older sister, Ella begins to uncover some potential leads, yet she feels that someone is...

Amnesia
Michael Ridpath
Clemence is contacted by her French great aunt in the States to care for an elderly man, Alastair, suffering amnesia after an accident in Scotland. Can she hold the fort...

The Choice
Samantha King
The Choice is a high-concept, hypnotic suspense debut from a remarkable new talent and explores every parent's worst nightmare: What if you had to choose between your children?

Into the Water
Paula Hawkins
With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train,...

The Trophy Child
Paula Daly
“How far would a mother go to achieve perfection?” the publisher’s shout line asks. Well how far indeed? Personally I find the line deceptive but I’m not telling you why. ...

Small Great Things
Jodi Picoult
Just incredible… this punchy, beautiful, readable story vibrates with a powerful energy. After Turk Bauer accuses nurse Ruth Jefferson of murdering his new born son, Kennedy McQuarrie defends Ruth in...

A Divided Spy
Charles Cumming
Simply fabulous. ‘A Divided Spy’ slices through theatrics and pierces the essential heart of a spy thriller. This is the third in the ‘Thomas Kell’ series, yet my first, and...

End of Watch
Stephen King
A wonderfully sinister and mind-bending end to the ‘Hodges trilogy’. Yes, ‘End of Watch’ can easily be read as a standalone novel, however I really do recommend starting with ‘

French Concession
Xiao Bai
A rare example of contemporary Chinese crime and thriller fiction. Based in Shanghai in 1931 it provides us with an invaluable historical perspective and sense of period on both Chinese...

Precious and Grace
Alexander McCall Smith
Precious and Grace is a book steeped with addictive charm, wit and intelligent sleuthing. In the heat of summer in Botswana, co-directors of the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Mma Ramotswe...

Razor Girl
Carl Hiaasen
Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2017 for Comic Fiction. Shortlisted for the Last Laugh Award at the CrimeFest Awards 2017. A return to Hiaasen land is always welcome...

Dead Letters
Caite Dolan-Leach
May 2017 Debut of the Month. A dramatic and oh so readable family tale, with enough tension playing through the pages to sink a battleship. Two...

Heretics
Leonardo Padura
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. An epic, ambitious novel by the prominent Cuban thriller writer Leonardo Padura which brings back his eponymous hero Mario Conde but...

Lola
Melissa Scrivner Love
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. A superlative debut by a US author, set in the underbelly of gangland Los Angeles, with all the hallmarks of a...

Since We Fell
Dennis Lehane
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. A stand alone psychological thriller by the author of the Gennaro and Kenzie novels, Mystic River and Shutter Island, this represents...

Snatch
Gregory McDonald
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. A reissue of two thrillers by the creator of that wonderful criminal rascal Fletch (and if you think of him as...

A Game of Ghosts
John Connolly
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. How time flies: already the fifteenth Charlie Parker novel from Irish author John Connolly! And they keep on getting better and...

The Two O'Clock Boy
Mark Hill
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. A strong first novel by a new British author about the troubling events that occurred in a children's home some years...

Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation
James Runcie
The village of Grantchester is not as peaceful as it seems...From the theft of an heirloom to an ominous case of blackmail, Sidney is once again rushed off his feet...

Sidney Chambers and the Forgiveness of Sins
James Runcie
Loveable full-time priest and part-time detective Canon Sidney Chambers is back, continuing his investigations. A mysterious stranger seeks sanctuary in Grantchester's church; a shooting weekend in the country has a...

Need You Dead
Peter James
A humdinger of a read, the authenticity shines throughout this thrilling tale. Set in Brighton and the surrounding area over two weeks, Detective Superintendent Grace finds himself in the middle...

The Month Before's Featured Books

Deep Down Dead
Steph Broadribb
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. Yet another assured British thriller debut, again set overseas, this time in deepest America where Lori Anderson, a young woman with...

Sometimes I Lie
Alice Feeney
A novel to meddle with your reasoning and taunt your gut instincts… Amber is in hospital in a coma, her thoughts are knocking at the door of her awareness as...

Blood Ties
Jenny Francis
Following on from Silent Passage, Blood Ties is the second in a series of easy to read whodunits featuring the cases of rule-breaker DI Charlie Moon, set in Birmingham...

Beyond All Doubt
Paige Elizabeth Turner
Beyond All Doubt by Paige Elizabeth Turner opens with a murder - but will the murderer be caught? An absorbing and realistic crime ‘will they catch' whodunit with a juicy...

The House of Fame
Oliver Harris
Nick Belsey, from Hampstead CID, is a crooked cop, or at any rate a cop who bends the rules as far as they can be bent. Although, by hook or...

Black Water Lilies
Michel Bussi
April 2017 Book of the Month. Simply superb, ’Black Water Lilies’ has leapt straight into my heart and soul. Thirteen days in the heart of Claude...

Arrowood
Mick Finlay
April 2017 Debut of the Month. London 1895, gloriously brought to life in all its grizzly glory. Arrowood is a weathered Private Investigator with a soft...

A Dangerous Crossing
Rachel Rhys
April 2017 Debut of the Month. All aboard for an Agatha Christie-esque mystery set on a ship bound for the distant shores of Australia in 1939....

Well of the Winds
Denzil Meyrick
A stimulating, fascinating and so very readable addition to the ‘D.C.I. Daley Series’. The past is haunting the present as murder visits an island off the coast of Kintyre. Denzil...

The Cutaway
Christina Kovac
April 2017 Debut of the Month. A compelling and stylish psychological thriller from a fine new voice in crime fiction. Indomitable Virginia Knightly is a TV...

Quicksand
Malin Persson Giolito
April 2017 Debut of the Month. Provocative and compelling, this mind and heart-breaking tale really shouldn't be missed. After a school shooting, 18 year old Maja...

Rather Be the Devil
Ian Rankin
A truly fabulous blast of crime fiction. John Rebus continues to ignore retirement, and an unsolved case haunts his thoughts as he shoulders his way into the middle of a...

Blue Light Yokohama
Nicolas Obregon
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. A beautifully plotted police procedural set in Japan by a new British author, this wonderfully crafted suspense sees a pair of...

Good as Gone
Amy Gentry
April 2017 Debut of the Month. A clever, convincing, and unexpected tale. 13 year old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom eight years ago, her...

Deadly Game
Matt Johnson
An enthralling and credible police thriller, this is the second in the ‘Robert Finlay’ series, and another humdinger of a read. Finlay is on a new team investigating the sex-slave...

Watching Edie
Camilla Way
In alternating chapters headed “Before” and “After” and narrated by both Heather and Edie, this is one truly compulsive read. Menace hangs over the whole thing. “Before” was seventeen years...

The Fourteenth Letter
Claire Evans
London 1881. A bride is murdered on at her engagement party, setting in chain a twisting, riveting mystery full of memorable characters in Claire Evans' dramatic debut novel perfect for...

Dangerous Lady
Martina Cole
Dangerous Lady is the iconic first novel by Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Martina Cole which catapulted her to fame and made her the 'undisputed queen of crime writing' (Guardian). This...

Blood Tide
Claire McGowan
Forensic psychologist Paula Maguire returns in Blood Tide, the fifth novel in Claire McGowan's series. Paula is sent to investigate the disappearance of a couple from a remote island off...

Bryant & May - Wild Chamber
Christopher Fowler
Tells a story that begins at the end of an investigation, as the members of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit race to catch a killer near London Bridge Station in the...

Die of Shame
Mark Billingham
From number one bestseller Mark Billingham - author of Time of Death and In the Dark, both soon to be major BBC series - comes the year's most...

Gone Without A Trace: Her Boyfriend Has Vanished. Now Someone is Watching Her.
Mary Torjussen
An addictive, twisty thriller for fans of C.L. Taylor and Clare Mackintosh about a woman who returns home from work to discover her partner has vanished without a...

The Ice Beneath Her
Camilla Grebe
A debut solo novel for a leading Swedish crime author who had, until now, collaborated with other writers on various series. A young woman is found beheaded inside the house...

The Crow Girl
Erik Axl Sund
If you thought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the epitome of Nordic noir's savage darkness, think again. Graphic, violent and weaving a thread of evil with the...

Sunset City
Melissa Ginsburg
Longlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2017. A wonderful portrait of a self-destructive woman at odds with the world and herself. Set in Houston, Texas, the tale...

The Beautiful Dead
Belinda Bauer
Oh my, this is a clever, chilling, and penetrating read. 29 year old TV crime reporter Eve Singer looks for murder and mayhem, but she needs to watch out, as...

The Butchers of Berlin
Chris Petit
This is a tough, violent thriller which illustrates the chaos in Germany in 1943. Suffering setbacks in the war and severe shortages, Berlin is in the middle of a rushed...

Closed Casket The New Hercule Poirot Mystery
Sophie Hannah, Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot is back for his second outing under the fabulous guiding hand of Sophie Hannah. 70 year old children’s author Lady Athelinda Playford changes her will, causing the mayhem...

Fire Damage
Kate Medina
Captivating from the outset, this is the first in the ‘Jessie Flynn Investigation’ series, and what a fabulously readable and dramatic story it is too. 29 year old Dr Jessie...

Murderabilia
Craig Robertson
If Ian Rankin controls the crime scene in Edinburgh, it's becoming clear that Craig Robertson has a firm grip on matters murderous in Glasgow and this outstanding and disturbing stand...

The One Man
Andrew Gross
Something of a departure for erstwhile James Patterson collaborator Andrew Gross, and a powerful, breathless thriller with a difference. It's 1944 and the American nuclear programme is stalling and the...

Sirens
Joseph Knox
Longlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2017. Justifiably already highly-praised, this debut by a young Manchester author deserves all the generous encomiums and more lavished on it....

The Pictures
Guy Bolton
Longlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2017. Yet another British beginner with a tale set overseas, in this case in Hollywood in 1939 at the time The...

Written in Bones
James Oswald
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. Scottish farmer and writer James Oswald is definitely prolific, to say the least, as this is already his seventh Detective Inspector...

Tall Oaks
Chris Whitaker
Longlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2017. Shortlisted for the Last Laugh Award at the CrimeFest Awards 2017. A first British crime novel, albeit set in a...

What You Don't Know
JoAnn Chaney
Longlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2017. Serial killer novels come and go, mostly exploitative as well as repetitive, but this American debut rings the differences with...

Boundary
Andree Michaud
A chilling thriller as compulsive as Emma Cline's The Girls. Zaza Mulligan and Sissy Morgan, with their long, tanned legs and silky hair, relish their growing reputation as the...

I See You
Clare Mackintosh
Lose yourself in the twisty, gripping number one bestseller from Richard & Judy Book Club winner, Clare Mackintosh, author of I Let You Go - you won't be able to...

The Moth Catcher
Ann Cleeves
'This case was different from anything Vera had ever worked before. Two bodies, connected but not lying together. And nothing made her feel as alive as murder.' The Moth Catcher...

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From the suave to the sleazy, the saint to the sinner; from the sensitive to the sanguine, the sexy to the squalid, we just can’t resist a good sleuth. Here you’ll find immersive crime stories to feed your fascination for conspiracy, your love for psychological sorcery, to make your hairs stand up on the back of your neck, to make your blood run cold and adrenaline fill your nervous system. Whether you’re after a classic like; Poirot (Agatha Christie), Rebus (Rankin) or Morse (Colin Dexter); or a more contemporary crime confrontation from the likes of, Michael Connelly, Gillian Flynn or J.A Lance, there’s something here to float the most demanding of boats. Have a look at our Books of the Month from this and previous months for a head start to a great next read.

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A selection of authors who will feature in this Lovereading category include:

P D James

Ian Rankin

Mark Mills

C J Sansom

Christopher Brookmyre

Robert Goddard