Laura Wilson

A Guardian roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Chris Bohjalian’s The Amateur is praised as a masterfully executed literary thriller about privilege, guilt and a life derailed by a fatal accident. Bella Mackie’s Claws Out! offers sharp social satire about a suspected serial widow and an inheritance dispute. Minyoung Kang’s Plant Lady follows a traumatised plant-shop owner who takes revenge on abusive men, while Lawrence Osborne’s Children of Wolves depicts wealthy young radicals pursuing political violence in Turkey. Sally Hepworth’s Mad Mabel centres on an elderly former murder convict whose hidden past resurfaces in suburban Melbourne. The reviews are broadly positive, though several books are noted to contain predictable twists or plot developments.

Recent crime and thriller releases range from a suspenseful Cyprus‑set chase in The Runner to Henning Mankell’s newly translated The Madman, which explores postwar political tensions in Sweden. Jane Casey’s Irish mystery follows detectives uncovering a complex disappearance on the Mayo coast, while MJ Robotham’s 1968 espionage tale presents a lighter, character‑driven spy adventure. Akane Araki’s debut blends apocalyptic urgency with a murder investigation as two unlikely partners pursue a killer on the brink of global catastrophe.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Abir Mukherjee’s The Pinnacle follows a murder investigation amid Mumbai’s wealth, celebrity culture and corruption, while Jordan Harper’s A Violent Masterpiece explores greed, crime spectacle and privilege in Los Angeles. Marcie R Rendon’s Murder on the Red River combines a murder case with the systemic abuses faced by Native American communities. Catherine Cho’s The Devoted examines generational trauma, Triad power and women’s constrained agency in Hong Kong. Kate Foster’s The Repentants is an atmospheric 18th-century mystery about two women resisting patriarchal control and indentured labor.

A Guardian roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Imani Thompson’s Honey is praised as a sharp, satirical campus crime story; Chris Brookmyre’s Quite Ugly One Evening combines a cold-case mystery with commentary on culture wars; CB Everett’s The Final Chapter offers a darkly comic metafiction about rivalry and authorship; Tariq Ashkanani’s The Hollow Boys is an atmospheric Appalachian horror novel rooted in poverty, abuse and addiction; and Philippa Perry’s Shrink Solves Murder is an enjoyable cosy mystery featuring a psychotherapist investigating a suspicious death.

A Guardian roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Tana French’s The Keeper is praised for its atmospheric depiction of changing rural Ireland; Emma Garman’s The Kindness of Strangers offers an evocative mystery set in 1950s London; Kang Jiyoung’s Mrs Shim Is a Killer is an unusual contract-killer thriller with some character and cast-management limitations; Amin Ahmad’s A Killer in the Family combines family tension, serial-killer mystery and social satire; and Sarah Hilary’s The Drowning Place launches a promising series focused on trauma, grief and paranormal phenomena.

The roundup reviews five crime and thriller novels. Christie Watson’s Killing Me Softly examines hospital pressures and systemic policy failures; T Kira Madden’s Whidbey explores child sexual abuse, trauma commodification and victim narratives; Sarah Vaughan’s Based on a True Story delivers a tense family psychodrama; Simon Mason’s The Dangerous Stranger combines an Oxford murder investigation with racism, anti-immigrant hostility and deprivation; and Oana Aristide’s Astronaut! uses a surreal thriller set in communist Romania to explore censorship, shortages and dissent. All five books receive broadly positive assessments, with Astronaut! earning the strongest recommendation.

A Guardian review roundup assesses five recent crime and thriller novels. Jennie Godfrey’s The Barbecue at No 9 is praised as a nostalgic, slow-burning story of family secrets set during Live Aid; MK Oliver’s A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage is an entertaining, twist-filled satire of privilege and manipulation; and Frances Crawford’s A Bad, Bad Place is commended for its suspenseful portrayal of trauma and poverty in 1970s Glasgow. Lee Heejoo’s Holy Boy offers a tense premise about obsessive K-pop fandom and a kidnapping, though its English translation is criticized. Alex Preston’s A Stranger in Corfu, an MI6 espionage story involving betrayal and communist ideology, is judged compelling and humane.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Louise Welsh’s The Cut Up follows Glaswegian auctioneer Rilke as he investigates a murder linked to a reform school. David McCloskey’s The Persian centers on a Jewish Iranian dentist recruited by Mossad for a covert mission in Tehran, exploring hypocrisy and the cycle of violence between Iran and Israel. Anna Maloney’s The 10:12 follows a passenger who fights back during a train hijacking and is later judged in the court of public opinion. Lauren Schott’s Very Slowly All at Once examines financial strain, legal wrongdoing and paranoia within a suburban family. CE Hulse’s Vivian Dies Again is a comic time-loop murder mystery in which the protagonist repeatedly relives her death while uncovering uncomfortable truths.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore combines climate catastrophe, family secrets and survival on a remote research island; Rebecca Hannigan’s Darkrooms explores guilt and generational trauma surrounding a decades-old disappearance in Ireland; and RWR McDonald’s The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace turns a suspicious death into a funny, touching young-detective mystery. Marisa Kashino’s Best Offer Wins satirizes housing scarcity and millennial ideas of success through an increasingly unstable protagonist, while Sam Blake’s Your Every Move follows a stalked London estate agent amid luxury property dealings and murder. The reviews are broadly positive, emphasizing suspense, emotional depth and entertaining treatments of social anxieties.

A selection of notable 2025 crime and thriller fiction spans spy satire, psychological crime, artificial intelligence, historical conflict, political violence and experimental mystery. Highlights include Mick Herron’s Clown Town, Denise Mina’s The Good Liar, Olivier Norek’s account of the Soviet invasion of Finland, Joseph O’Connor’s The Ghosts of Rome, Belinda Bauer’s The Impossible Thing and Uketsu’s visually driven Strange Pictures. The collection emphasizes the genre’s continuing versatility, combining conventional crime tropes with explorations of scientific accountability, grief, trauma, morality and human resilience.

A review roundup assesses five recent crime and thriller novels. Ross Montgomery’s locked-room mystery The Murder at World’s End is praised for its twists and comic energy, while Paul Bradley Carr’s AI thriller The Confessions is presented as timely and disturbingly plausible. Samir Machado de Machado’s The Good Nazi combines a zeppelin murder mystery with a critique of rising Nazism. Francine Toon’s Bluff offers an atmospheric story of guilt, regret and dark academia but has a rushed conclusion. Sharon Bolton’s The Token delivers expertly constructed suspense around strangers competing for a billionaire’s fortune, although it requires some suspension of disbelief.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Vaseem Khan’s James Bond spin-off follows Major Boothroyd investigating a scientist’s suspicious death; Ann Cleeves returns to Jimmy Perez for an Orkney murder mystery; Bob Mortimer offers a surreal, relationship-centered crime story; Graeme Macrae Burnet reconstructs a 19th-century family murder in the Outer Hebrides; and Olivier Norek dramatizes Finland’s 1939 Winter War, centering on sniper Simo Häyhä. The reviews are broadly positive, while noting that Mortimer’s comic absurdity may divide readers.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. William Boyd’s The Predicament follows accidental spy Gabriel Dax through Cold War intrigue in Guatemala and West Berlin; Janice Hallett’s The Killer Question turns a pub quiz and suspected cheating into a murder mystery; Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune sends the Thursday Murder Club after a cryptocurrency fortune; Holly Seddon’s 59 Minutes depicts social collapse after a nuclear-strike warning; and Kate Rhodes’s Deadman’s Pool investigates human trafficking and an abandoned baby in the Isles of Scilly. All five books receive broadly positive assessments, with particular praise for their plotting, atmosphere and memorable characters.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Adam Kay's A Particularly Nasty Case combines an NHS hospital setting, dark humour and a troubled doctor investigating a suspicious death. Laura Lippman's Murder Takes a Vacation is praised as a light, sharply plotted holiday mystery, while MW Craven's The Final Vow delivers action and familiar characters despite an overly explanatory ending. Danielle Valentine's The Dead Husband Cookbook offers an atmospheric thriller centered on a celebrity chef, her missing husband and unsettling family secrets. Yasuhiko Nishizawa's translated Japanese mystery The Man Who Died Seven Times uses recurring time loops to explore murder, chance and inheritance.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Holly Jackson’s Not Quite Dead Yet follows a young woman racing to solve her own murder; Peter Swanson’s Kill Your Darlings unfolds a marriage and planned murder in reverse; Denise Mina’s The Good Liar examines forensic science, privilege and complicity; Hye-Young Pyun’s The Hole explores isolation, cruelty and unreliable narration; and Alan Parks’s Gunner combines wartime conspiracy, gang conflict and personal trauma during the 1941 Clydebank Blitz. All five books receive broadly positive assessments, with particular praise for suspense, atmosphere and intricate plotting.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox is praised for its immersive depiction of predation, complicity and betrayal; Andrew Taylor’s A Schooling in Murder combines a postwar school story with ghost and mystery elements; Eliza Reid’s Death of a Diplomat uses an isolated Icelandic island and diplomatic tensions to build a closed-world murder mystery; Terry Deary’s Actually, I’m a Murderer is a witty, multi-timeline crime novel that addresses misogyny; and Antony Johnston’s Can You Solve the Murder? offers an intricate choose-your-own-adventure investigation. All five receive broadly favorable assessments.

The roundup assesses five recent crime and thriller novels. Stephen King’s Never Flinch is praised for its chilling atmosphere and interwoven plots; Emma Stonex’s The Sunshine Man for its perceptive account of how misunderstandings and decisions produce tragedy; and Amity Gaige’s Heartwood for its emotional exploration of a missing hiker, despite an unfocused mystery. Kate Foster’s The Mourning Necklace offers a vivid historical account of Maggie Dickson and exposes institutional misogyny, gender-based violence and medical ignorance. Foday Mannah’s The Search for Othella Savage examines religious and political corruption, exploitation within an expatriate community and the pressures of diaspora obligations.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Louise Hegarty’s Fair Play is praised for combining a golden-age murder mystery with a naturalistic account of grief; Sarah Harman’s All the Other Mothers Hate Me offers a fast, satirical amateur-sleuth story set among wealthy west London parents; and Kelly Mullen’s This Is Not a Game delivers playful, Cluedo-style entertainment on Michigan’s Mackinac Island. Ron Currie’s The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne explores generational trauma, drug control and family loyalty in Maine, while Veronika Dapunt’s Death and Other Occupational Hazards blends crime, fantasy, metaphysical bureaucracy and romance. The overall assessment is strongly positive, with Fair Play singled out as the most original novel in the selection.

The roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Eoin McNamee’s The Bureau is praised for its powerful depiction of 1980s Newry and the moral ambiguity surrounding organized crime and sectarianism. Anthony Quinn’s The Mouthless Dead reimagines the unsolved 1931 murder of Julia Wallace, while Hannah Deitch’s Killer Potential follows two women fleeing across the United States after a double murder. Kate Kemp’s The Grapevine explores how a Canberra community responds to murder while exposing misogyny, homophobia and racism. Chris Chibnall’s Death at the White Hart launches a projected detective series set in Dorset, where an under-resourced detective investigates a ritualistic killing. All five books receive broadly favorable assessments, with some reservations about plausibility.

A roundup reviews five recent crime and thriller novels. Belinda Bauer’s The Impossible Thing is praised for its inventive time-slip mystery involving illegal bird-egg collecting; Elly Griffiths’s The Frozen People combines police procedural fiction with time travel; Virginia Feito’s Victorian Psycho delivers grotesque Gothic horror; Trisha Sakhlecha’s The Inheritance builds tension around a wealthy family’s secrets and financial disputes; and David F Ross’s The Weekenders is commended as a researched historical mystery involving a murder cover-up, wartime connections and Glasgow society.