The sociopath at the center of Kepnes’s bestselling You series gets a backstory in this addictive thriller. Joe Goldberg is introduced as a 17-year-old runaway working in a New York City bookstore, where he falls in love with nearly every girl he sees. His habitual prowling on Craigslist’s missed connections page proves futile until he comes across a post about an “NYC Bookstore Babe” who matches his description. Joe responds immediately and meets Vail Gunderson, a rom-com-loving production assistant on Sex and the City. To Joe, she’s perfect; the only problem is that she’s 24. Determined to woo her, Joe lies about his age, and then, with the help of a charming barista turned mentor, starts shaping himself into an ideal romantic partner. When Vail needs more convincing, Joe proves just how far he’ll go for love. Though readers of the You novels and admirers of their Netflix adaptations will know where the plot is headed, Kepnes has fun dropping Easter eggs into the narrative and getting creative about the precise details of Joe’s burgeoning criminality. The result is a wicked treat for series fans and newcomers alike. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Hurwitz (the Orphan X series) colors within the lines in this predictable, Black Mirror–esque thriller about a family’s encounter with a sinister technology. Mark and Rebecca Higgins are haunted by Rebecca’s recent miscarriage. When Mark’s boss at a content optimization firm offers the pair access to an unspecified technology that will “see to everything you really want,” they fork over $225,000 to get it. To their surprise, they’re sent a coffin-shaped container that houses a humanlike robot, whom their autistic daughter, Maddy, dubs Mr. Man. Initially, the Higginses are delighted that Mr. Man takes care of their household needs and bonds with Maddy. Eventually, though, acts of violence around the Higgins’s neighborhood force them to consider if the newest member of their family might be more dangerous than he seems. Hurwitz telegraphs where the plot is headed early on, and does little to distinguish this halfhearted cautionary tale from a laundry list of similar titles. Florid prose (a pine tree is described as “pointing straight up like a flagpole, like a rifle, like a Gothic spire aimed at the star-beaded darkness overhead”) doesn’t help. Even Hurwitz’s fans are likely to be underwhelmed. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron M. Priest Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Police surgeon Jack Cuthbert investigates a bizarre double murder in 1920s London in the brilliant first novel from former pathologist Gaw (Trial by Fire: Lessons from the History of Clinical Trials). Cuthbert is called in when a man walking his Labrador spots a bloated hand sticking out of the ground. As Cuthbert excavates the corpse, both he and the police are stunned to find that the body has been placed on top of a second one. The faces of both victims are mangled beyond recognition and there are signs they were tied up before they died. During the autopsy, the state of the corpses reminds Cuthbert of a grisly passage from the Aeneid (“The living and the dead at his command / Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand”), and he offers Scotland Yard his help cracking the case. Flashbacks to Cuthbert’s medical school days and his unrequited infatuation with a male colleague, along with his horrific experiences in the trenches of WWI, deepen the characterization, and Gaw wallops readers with a shocking yet credible twist long after the mystery seems resolved. Fans of Rennie Airth’s moody historical mysteries will love this. Agent: Fiona Brownlee, Brownlee Donald Assoc. (May)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Sims (How Can I Help You) delivers a devilish psychological thriller set in the 1960s and centered on empty-nester Judith Stanley, who’s taking a photography class with professor Paul Sorenson. The novel’s first half is narrated by Judith. At a neighbor’s party, she walks in on what appears to be a rape and flees. The experience triggers her memories of being assaulted as a teen, disbelieved by friends, and blamed by her unfeeling grandmother. Judith’s rapist was never caught, and in the days after her neighbor’s party, she keeps seeing him as a blurry figure in the margins of her photographs. A series of eerie events follow, including some that would spoil the novel to reveal here. Part two is narrated by Sorenson, who submits Judith’s photographs to Harper’s, which publishes them. As Judith’s fame rises, Paul receives hate mail disparaging him for thrusting her work into the spotlight. Both Judith and Paul grapple with their own duality: she is at once a meek housewife and an innovative photographer; he’s a talented teacher and an egotist repressing dark impulses. Sims artfully handles their parallel paranoias, and the novel’s unsettling ending boldly denies readers the comfort of certainty. The result is an appealingly disturbing tale that will linger in readers’ minds. Agent: Chris Clemans, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (July)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Historical mystery novelist Mukherjee’s solid second contemporary (after Hunted) spotlights 50-year-old George Abercrombie, a washed-up American actor living in Mumbai and struggling in the shadow of his younger wife, Bollywood superstar Sweety Sahota. After Sweety abruptly cancels the pair’s joint BBC interview for a late-night meeting with a powerful filmmaker, George drowns his anger in alcohol and wakes up, hungover, to find Sweety dead in their penthouse. Lurching between panic, guilt, and self-preservation, he enlists his agent Sal and Sal’s fixer, Miss Singh, to keep him out of jail. As George scrambles to hide evidence and cobble together an alibi, Gemma Cairns, Sweety’s personal assistant, receives a call from someone threatening to release a sex tape of her and her politician lover, Ashok, unless she hands over Sweety’s laptop and password. While the police investigation deepens and George starts to unravel, Gemma is torn between the blackmailer’s demands, her own secrets, and Ashok’s ambitions. The narrative builds to a tense, surprising climax that smooths over some of the clumsier attempts at social critique that Mukherjee folds into the action. It’s an immersive mystery rich in place and character. Agent: Sam Copeland, RCW Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Mackay’s witty sequel to A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage finds married murderers Hazel “Haze” Matthews and Nathaniel Foxton “Fox” Cabot attempting to blend in with the crowd in bucolic Berkshire, England. Like Dexter Morgan before them, Haze and Fox are principled killers: they only eliminate bad men who abuse women. Their previous killing spree has attracted the attention of Interpol detective Alain Drake and a shadowy crime syndicate known as The Corporation. As a result, they try to lay low with their two children in the affluent English suburbs, but can never stay away from killing for long. Much of the action consists of humorous interludes that chronicle Haze’s attempts to get along with imperious school moms or Fox’s therapy sessions, in which he tries to detail the anxiety his hobby is causing him without revealing that his pastime is murder. The plot ramps up when the couple’s latest activities put them in the crosshairs of some bad actors, leading to the revelation of surprising family secrets. Familiar as the concept may be, Mackay wins the day with exceedingly likable protagonists whom readers can’t help but root for. Unlike Haze and Fox’s targets, this series deserves a long life. Agent: Alice Lutyens, Curtis Brown U.K. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

The relentless latest from MWA Grand Master Ellroy (The Enchanters) immerses readers in 1962 L.A. in the fraught aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. When Attorney General Robert Kennedy launches a sweeping anti-communist crackdown, Freddy Otash, a drug-addicted LAPD officer, is thrust into the heart of the storm. Otash’s initial inquiry focuses on the Creative Trade Workers Alliance, a communist-affiliated union mired in corruption, drug trafficking, and political violence, and soon intersects with the racially charged battle over California’s Rumford Fair Housing Act, which disallows discrimination in public housing. Along the way, Otash crosses paths with real-life figures including civil rights leader Tom Bradley and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, as well as fictional union bosses who blur the boundaries between crime and politics. The brutal murder of a communist courier and a string of unsolved homicides deepen the intrigue as Otash navigates betrayals and ideological rifts within the LAPD and beyond, culminating in a tense showdown involving secret safe houses and a shadowy organization known as the Indigenous Cell. Ellroy’s dense, slang-laced prose paints a brooding portrait of a city awash in Cold War anxiety. It’s a rewarding ride for noir fans. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (June)

Correction: An earlier verison of ths review referred to the lead character by the wrong name.

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Tully’s tightly plotted sequel to The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant finds 26-year-old Olivia Blunt 10 months into her new job as assistant to Aubrey Merritt, the most distinguished PI in America. When an invitation to a reunion of Audrey’s sorority chapter arrives at the gumshoe’s Gramercy Park mansion, she promptly drops it in the trash; why would she want to spend a weekend at a ranch in New Mexico with a gaggle of women she hasn’t seen in 40 years? Then a visit from John Fitzroy, husband of former brigadier general Joan Battersea, who is hosting the event, reveals that Joan has received a death threat ahead of the festivities, and Audrey changes her mind. Soon, she and Olivia are off to New Mexico to smoke out a potential murderer. Long-simmering rivalries, unhealed wounds, and snide remarks put a damper on the proceedings immediately and provide a plethora of suspects, motives, and red herrings. Readers will enjoy watching Olivia’s investigative skills evolve and appreciate the interplay between her and her imperious mentor. With all the clues cleverly hidden in plain sight, this is a treat for fair-play mystery fans. Agent: Chris Bucci, Aevitas Creative Management. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Holtom’s shimmering sequel to A Queer Case effectively grounds a historical whodunit in the social prejudices of its era. In 1930 England, homosexuality is illegal, forcing gay Brits such as bank clerk Selby Bigge and his aristocratic friend Theodora Smythe into fake relationships. Selby and Theo’s ruse is put to the test when they’re invited to dine at the home of doctor Hector Fortescue, who believes he can cure “homosexualists,” and his wife Helena, a eugenicist who considers homosexuality a moral blight that must be stamped out for the good of society. Their son Lancelot is supposedly one of Hector’s “successes,” but Selby and Theo soon discover that he remains as “fruity as a pineapple.” When a member of the Fortescue household is bludgeoned to death during a servants’ ball that Selby and Theo attend shortly after their dinner with the family, the pair once again turn to sleuthing. Holtom’s Wodehousian prose (“The reasons for our presence were as convoluted as the sentences preceding this one but, for now, my task was to eat without dribbling”) provides levity to a story that’s tragic at its core. It’s clear that this series has staying power. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Navy pilot–turned–land surveyor Ethan Cain tangles with a sinister Chinese businessman in Pote’s solid if familiar sequel to Blood and Treasure. Ethan’s company, Pathfinder Survey Systems, is mapping the sediment of Vietnam’s Mekong River when an explosion almost kills him and uncovers the hull of an ancient Chinese sailboat. Meanwhile, wealthy Chinese construction CEO Shan Zhang is busy stealing the world’s supply of river sand to make concrete to sell. (In an aside that illustrates Pote’s preoccupation with facts and figures, he notes that the illicit sand trade tops $700 billion worldwide, with demand increasing by 50 billion metric tons per year.) Plotwise, Zhang’s river operations are just the tip of the sand dune, as Ethan’s girlfriend, investigative journalist Lana Foster, discovers when she travels to Antarctica to interview Zhang at his icy, modernist lair. Zhang is planning on killing her because she knows too much about his crooked business—and because he’s a madman with a plan to destroy the world. As in the previous book, Pote is working in the old-school vein of Clive Cussler, and he proves an effective emulator. What this lacks in originality it makes up for in sheer swashbuckling. Agent: Mark Tavani, David Black Agency. (June)

Reviewed on 03/27/2026 | Details & Permalink