The P.I. Sam That G.I. Joes Missed

During World War II, roughly 122 million lightweight paperback books were distributed to members of the U.S. military in an “audacious and revolutionary” campaign to bring entertainment and knowledge to U.S. soldiers stationed abroad. The publication of those compact, horizontally formatted Armed Services Editions of more than 1,200 works—fiction and non-fiction, biographies, poetry, and more—“became one of the Army’s best morale boosters,” Literary Hub recalled a couple of years back, “offering a bit of light during those dark days. It also helped shepherd in an era of paperback supremacy and create millions of voracious readers in the process.”

The books’ size made it handy for soldiers to “tuck them away somewhere and hopefully finish a book at a later time,” says Book Riot. “Books were shared amongst soldiers, and they were so popular that many men began requesting specific titles and genres.”

Authors well represented in the ASE collection included Robert Benchley, Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zane Grey, Jack London, H.P. Lovecraft, John O’Hara, W. Somerset Maugham, Edgar Allan Poe, Luke Short, George R. Stewart, Bram Stoker, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, and H.G. Wells. Also made available were mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner, Frances and Richard Lockridge, John P. Marquand, Ngaio Marsh, Craig Rice, and others.

(Above) Field Notes’ edition of Hammett’s classic detective yarn.

One talented fictionist who did not make the cut, despite the popularity of his short stories and novels, was Dashiell Hammett. Could the volunteer advisory panel charged with selecting the works for servicemen have been squeamish about Hammett’s membership in the Communist Party? Whatever the reason, his was a notable exclusion.

But that wrong is finally being righted by American notebook maker Field Notes, which has lately brought to market an ASE-style edition of Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, featuring “the original text … as serialized in Black Mask magazine” in 1929. It even carries the promise on its front cover so familiar from the wartime releases: “This Is the Complete Book—Not a Digest.” Modern writer Kevin Guilfoile contributes an introduction to this edition. As the company’s Web site explains, “It’s the first new ASE since the program was ended in 1947.”

Field Notes is currently selling its pocket-size Maltese Falcon separately, for $18.95 (plus shipping), or as a bonus atop its newest three-pack seasonal offering of notebooks. Click here to order.

Between the issuance of Max Allan Collins’ Return of the Maltese Falcon and Poltroon Press’ handsome hardcover version of Hammett’s single Sam Spade novel—both coming out in early January—plus this new Armed Services Edition of Falcon, the occasion of Hammett’s best-known private eye tale falling into the public domain on January 1, 2026, is certainly being well celebrated!

Wilson and She Reads Take Their Stands

Author and Guardian book Laura Wilson has released her own choices of the 10 “best” crime and thriller works released in 2025:

• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (Baskerville)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Harvill Secker)
• The Confessions, by Paul Bradley Carr (Faber & Faber)
• The Winter Warriors, by Olivier Norek (Open Borders)
• The Ghosts of Rome, by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)
• The Bureau, by Eoin McNamee (Riverrun)
• The Death of Us, by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press)
• The Impossible Thing, by Belinda Bauer (Bantam)
• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Picador)
• Strange Pictures, by Uketsu (Pushkin Vertigo)

* * *

Concurrently, the Web site and digital magazine She Reads has announced the winners of its best books of 2025 awards, chosen by readers. There are 17 categories of recipients, but the most important of those (at least for Rap Sheet readers) might be Mystery, Thriller & Suspense. Top honors there go to King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar).

Also nominated in that same division were Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron); Count My Lies, by Sophie Stava (Gallery/Scout Press); Culpability, by Bruce Holsinger (Spiegel & Grau); Fog and Fury, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Thomas & Mercer); Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster); Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam); The Compound, by Aisling Rawle (Random House); and We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow).

To review the results in all 17 categories, click here.

My, How It’s Grown!

I’ve been compiling seasonal inventories of forthcoming crime, mystery, and thriller novels for many years now, but until recently, I hadn’t kept track of the number of additions I made to those lists after their initial publication in The Rap Sheet.

When I posted my fall-winter 2025 rundown in mid-September, for instance, I touted it as featuring “more than 425 works.” Another eight found their way onto the rolls by the end of that same month, books I did not know were coming when I produced my guide originally. In October, I bumped the count up by 34. And by the close of November, the tally had gained 62 more titles bound for store and home shelves on both sides of the Atlantic—everything from Eric Heisserer’s Simultaneous, Corey Lynn Fayman’s The Deadly Stingaree, Marisa Kashino’s Best Offer Wins, and Mia P. Manansala’s Death and Dinuguan to Donna Freitas’ Her One Regret, Mark Edwards’ The Christmas Magpie, Terry Shames’ The Curious Poisoning of Jewel Barnes, Christoffer Carlsson’s The Living and the Dead, and Only Way Out, by Tod Goldberg. So now, the number of fresh releases mentioned in that fall-winter catalogue exceeds 550!

That would be an awful lot of books for any single person to digest in three months, and it doesn’t include all of those I thought weren’t worth mentioning or that have somehow still eluded my radar.

Surely, there’s something among those picks for every crime-fiction fan on your holiday gift list. Explore the possibilities here.

Verdicts Without Agreement

Now we have The Times of London making its opinions known as to what the “best books of 2025” might be. Among the categories included is Crime Fiction. Critics Joan Smith and Mark Sanderson do the choosing there—four titles each, with Smith’s picks listed first here:

• Red Water, by Jurica Pavičić, translated by Matt Robinson
(Bitter Lemon)
• The Dead Husband Cookbook, by Danielle Valentine (Viper)
• The Token, by Sharon Bolton (Orion)
• The Day of the Roaring, by Nina Bhadreshwar (Hemlock Press)

• Murder Mindfully, by Karsten Dusse, translated by Florian
Duijsens (Faber & Faber)
• A Voice in the Night, by Simon Mason (Riverrun)
• Paperboy, by Callum McSorley (Pushkin Vertigo)
• A Schooling in Murder, by Andrew Taylor (Hemlock Press)

Meanwhile, reviewers James Owen and John Dugdale put together the Times’ selections from this year’s Thrillers. Owen’s top three are mentioned first, followed by Dugdale’s favorites:

• Clown Town, by Mick Herron (John Murray)
• Red Star Down, by D.B. John (Harvill Secker)
• The Seventh Floor, by David McCloskey (Swift Press)

• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Michael Joseph)
• The Death of Us, by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press)
• Presumed Guilty, by Scott Turow (Swift Press)

For Rap Sheet readers, it should be noted too that Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress and Doctor Crippen (Doubleday), Hallie Rubenhold’s excellent account of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen’s 1910 slaying of his music-hall-performer wife, found a place on the Times’ top-20 roster of History releases.

* * *

For their part, Katie Russell and Joanne Finney, from the crime-fiction Web site Dead Good, recommend “15 of the best crime books” published in Great Britain over the last 12 months:

• Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Penguin)
• The New Neighbours, by Claire Douglas (Penguin)
• Marble Hall Murders, by Anthony Horowitz (Penguin)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Viking)
• She Didn’t See It Coming, by Shari Lapena (Bantam)
• Exit Strategy, by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Bantam)
• It Should Have Been You, by Andrew Mara (Bantam)
• Nobody’s Fool, by Harlan Coben (Century)
• Nemesis, by Gregg Hurwitz (Michael Joseph)
• Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall (Michael Joseph)
• The Summer Guests, by Tess Gerritsen (Bantam)
• The Cleaner, by Mary Watson (Bantam)
• The Inheritance, by Trisha Sakhlecha (Penguin)
• Famous Last Words, by Gillian McAllister (Michael Joseph)
• Murder for Busy People, by Tony Parsons (Century)

* * *

And Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter brings us the “best thrillers” picks from Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper:

• A Schooling in Murder, by Andrew Taylor (Hemlock Press)
• Detective Aunty, by Uzma Jalaluddin (HarperCollins)
• Karla’s Choice, by Nick Harkaway (Penguin Canada)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Leo, by Deon Meyer (Atlantic Crime)
• Nightshade, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• The Arizona Triangle, by Sydney Graves (Harper Paperbacks)
• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• The Drowned, by John Banville (Hanover Square Press)
• The Hitchhikers, by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s Press)

The Globe and Mail’s full “100 best books of 2025” roll can be found here, but it’s tucked behind a paywall.

READ MORE: “Daily Mail’s Best Crime Fiction 2025,” by George Easter (Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine).

Revue of Reviewers: 11-28-25

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.

Cogdill Chimes In

Continuing the rollout of this year’s critics’ picks, Oline H. Cogdill of the South Florida Sun Sentinel today delivers her “Best Mystery Novels of 2025” list. Novels, short story compilations, and even one biography are included—22 works in all.

Novels:
• El Dorado Drive, by Megan Abbott (Putnam)
• The Proving Ground, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• Too Old for This, by Samantha Downing (Berkley)
• The Bone Thief, by Vanessa Lillie (Berkley)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• The Trouble Up North, by Travis Mulhauser (Grand Central)
• The Girl in the Green Dress, by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
• The Oligarch’s Daughter, by Joseph Finder (Harper)
• The Note, by Alafair Burke (Knopf)
• Low April Sun, by Constance E. Squires (University of
Oklahoma Press)
• Mississippi Blue 42, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)
• Head Cases, by John McMahon (Minotaur)

Best Debuts:
• We Don’t Talk About Carol, by Kristen L. Berry (Bantam)
• Florida Palms, by Joe Pan (Simon & Schuster)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Berkley)

Short Story Anthologies:
• Crime Ink: Iconic, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater)
• Double Crossing Van Dine, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor (Crippen & Landru)
• Every Day a Little Death, edited by Josh Pachter (Level Best)
• Hollywood Kills: An Anthology, edited by Andrew Meyer and Alan Orloff (Level Best)
• Best of The Strand Magazine, edited by Andrew F. Gulli and Lamia J. Gulli (Blackstone)

Non-fiction:
Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard, by C.M. Kushins (Mariner)

Oline is an incisive, award-winning reviewer who has been at this game longer than I have, and whose taste I very much respect. So her reading recommendations have a greater impact on me than some others might. I’ve tackled a number of the works listed here, though not all. I’m pleased to see The Girl in the Green Dress make the cut, as Oline and I discussed its merits during our appearance on a panel together at this year’s Bouchercon. And I could kick myself for not yet having cracked open either Crooks or The Trouble Up North. I’ll definitely have to get to those before year’s end.

Holding Us Over

While we wait for New York Times critics to issue their lists of favorite crime, mystery, and thriller novels published over the last dozen months (their 2024 picks were released after December 1), we at least can take in that newspaper’s “100 Notable Books of 2025” feature. A few works from this genre won mention on it, among them:

• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• The Feeling of Iron, by Giaime Alonge (Europa Editions)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (Mulholland)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• Hollow Spaces, by Victor Suthammanont (Counterpoint)
• Shadow Ticket, by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press)
• Venetian Vespers, by John Banville (Knopf)
• Victorian Psycho, by Virginia Feito (Liveright)

Meanwhile, Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine brings us other top choices from National Public Radio, The New Zealand Listener, India’s English-language Times Now TV channel, and elsewhere.

Riot Recommends

You can now add Book Riot to the roster of online literary sources declaring they have identified the “best” mystery and thriller releases of 2025. Only four titles are given, two of which are young-adult publications and one of which is both horror and crime:

• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Salt Bones, by Jennifer Givhan (Little, Brown)
• The Scammer, by Tiffany D. Jackson (Quill Tree)
• This Place Kills Me, by Mariko Tamaki (Harry N. Abrams)

Book Riot also names its favorite works in 11 more categories, from Comics and Fantasy to Non-fiction and Science Fiction. All of those lists should be accessible right here.

Piling on With Plaudits

BookPage has chimed in with its own “Best Mystery & Suspense of 2025” list, comprising 10 works released over the last year:

• All of Us Murderers, by K.J. Charles (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Flashout, by Alexis Soloski (Flatiron)
• Hot Wax, by M.L. Rio (Simon & Schuster)
• Listen, by Sacha Bronwasser (Penguin)
• Salty, by Kate Myers (HarperVia)
• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Man Who Died Seven Times, by Yasuhiko Nishizawa
(Pushkin Vertigo)
• The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective, by Jo Nichols (Minotaur)
• The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne, by Ron Currie (Putnam)
• The Wolf Tree, by Laura McCluskey (Putnam)

It’s nice to see some unique choices being made here, though a couple of these books managed to miss my radar entirely.

Note, too, that Currie’s The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne also made the cut as one of BookPage’s “10 Best Books of 2025.”

* * *

Among the New York Public Library’s new “Best Books of 2025” selections are 50 works for adults, four of them pulled straight out of the Crime, Mystery, and Thriller stacks:

• Fair Play, by Louise Hegarty (Harper)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Vantage Point, by Sara Sligar (MCD)

* * *

Meanwhile, just yesterday Britain’s Historical Writers Association announced the three winners of its 2025 HWA Crown Awards, “celebrating the best in recent historical writing, fiction and non-fiction.” They include the Debut Crown Award recipient: A Poisoner’s Tale, by Cathryn Kemp (Bantam), described as “a gothic and spellbinding historical novel about the first female serial killer.”

Ayo Onatade, chair of the Debut Crown judges (and an editor at Shots), said Kemp’s novel, set in 17th-century Italy, “not only evoked a profound sense of place and intrigue but the geography, local culture, and historical period all intertwined to produce this well-written and inseparable tragedy based on a true crime.”

(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)

Good to See That Many Mentioned

Time recently released its list of what editors and critics at that magazine say are “The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025,” and unless I’ve overlooked something, only five works from the crime, mystery, and thriller end of the literary spectrum found places on it. They are:

• Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Other People’s Houses, by Clare Mackintosh (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Shadow Ticket, by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press)
• Victorian Psycho, by Virginia Feito (Liveright)

You’ll find all of Time’s must-read choices by clicking here.

Post Toasts and Times Tributes

What with high-profile resignations, financial pressures, turmoil provoked by shifts of direction in its editorial section, and consequent subscriber cancellations, 2025 has been a trying year for The Washington Post. But at least that newspaper has maintained its tradition of publishing “best books of the year” lists. Two of particular pertinence have been released over the last couple of days.

First up we have critic and former librarian Karen MacPherson’s choices of “The 10 Best Mystery Novels of 2025”:

• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Bone Thief, by Vanessa Lillie (Berkley)
• Detective Aunty, by Uzma Jalaluddin (Harper Perennial)
• The Dentist, by Tim Sullivan
(Atlantic Crime)
• The Game Is Afoot, by Elise Bryant (Berkley)
• Guilty By Definition, by Susie Dent (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Hidden City, by Charles Finch (Minotaur)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• The Killing Stones, by Ann Cleeves (Minotaur)
• Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)

Then today brought us the Post’s “10 Best Thrillers of 2025” picks:

• The Ascent, by Allison Buccola (Random House)
• Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam)
• The Note, by Alafair Burke (Knopf)
• A Thousand Natural Shocks, by Omar Hussain (Blackstone)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Berkley)
• We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• What Kind of Paradise, by Janelle Brown (Random House)

Additionally, three crime/mystery titles feature among the Post’s “10 Best Audiobooks of 2025”: Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Simon & Schuster Audio); The Impossible Thing, by Belinda Bauer (Dreamscape); and The Queens of Crime, by Marie Benedict (Macmillan Audio).

* * *

Also this week, Britain’s daily Financial Times has delivered two shorter selections of works from this genre. Seemingly ubiquitous authority Barry Forshaw named his five favorite crime reads:

• The Burning Grounds, by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker)
• The Good Liar, by Denise Mina
(Harvill Secker)
• Kill Your Darlings, by Peter Swanson
(Faber & Faber)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Headline)
• Making a Killing, by Cara Hunter (Hemlock Press)

And Adam Lebor applauded these five thrillers:

• Appointment in Paris, by Jane Thynne (Quercus)
• The Protocols of Spying, by Merle Nygate (No Exit Press)
• Moscow Underground, by Catherine Merridale (Fontana)
• The Poet’s Game, by Paul Vidich (No Exit Press)
• Red Water, by Jurica Pavičić (Bitter Lemon)

* * *

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, which has been keeping a watchful eye on the release of this year’s “bests” rolls, points us as well to mystery- and thriller-fiction lists compiled by both the Chicago Public Library and the online audiobook retailer Audible.

She Reads’ Divine Nine

The book review site Goodreads is already busily soliciting votes to determine the recipients of its 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards. But now the Web site and digital magazine She Reads has also begun inviting book lovers to choose their favorite works from this year, in 17 categories—Mystery, Thriller & Suspense among them.

There are nine nominees in that division, by men as well as women:

• Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)
• Count My Lies, by Sophie Stava (Gallery/Scout Press)
• Culpability, by Bruce Holsinger (Spiegel & Grau)
• Fog and Fury, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Thomas & Mercer)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam)
• The Compound, by Aisling Rawle (Random House)
• We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)

Click here to register your preference among these novels, but be sure to do so by Sunday, November 30. The winner in this and other She Reads categories will be revealed on December 3.

PaperBack: “Murder with Love”

Part of a series honoring the late author and blogger Bill Crider.



Murder with Love, by “Vechel Howard,” aka Howard Rigsby (Gold Medal, 1959). This was the first of two novels Rigsby (1909-1975) penned starring Johnny Church, described by The Thrilling Detective Web Site as a 30-something, “medium-boiled P.I. who works for the Gerard Agency, which has offices in New York, Kansas City and San Francisco ...” Its sequel, Murder On Her Mind, was also published by Gold Medal in 1959. Cover art by Charles Binger.

Saving “Face”?

This is one of the weirder TV switcheroos, ranking right up there with actor Dick Sargent suddenly replacing Dick York as husband Darrin Stephens on the 1964-1972 hit series Bewitched.

Viewers were informed late last week that the streaming service Peacock had chosen not to renew its critically applauded crime comedy-drama Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne as a quirky human lie detector, for a third season. At the same time, reports were that the show’s creator, Rian Johnson, was busy shopping it around to some other small-screen broadcaster willing to give Poker Face a two-season commitment. Oh, and there was another wrinkle: Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) would replace Lyonne as Charlie Cale.

Lyonne, who does double duty as an executive producer of this mystery series, has apparently endorsed the changes. A joint statement from her and Johnson says, “We’ve been germinating this next move together since writing the season two finale. We love our Poker Face and this is the perfect way to keep it rolling. Give us a beat and we may just see Charlie Cale again down that open highway.”

CrimeReads’ Olivia Rutigliano jokes that Poker Face is “Doctor Who-ing itself,” leaving us to wonder whether, every couple of TV seasons, we should expect to see “an entirely new incarnation of a particular character.” The rest of us are simply confused. Can we call the betting odds on Poker Face’s future better than 50-50?

Amazon Decides, Goodreads Deliberates

Two thousand twenty-five’s “best crime fiction of the year” pronouncements seemed to dribble out at first, but now their pace of delivery is accelerating. Giant online retailer Amazon, for instance, came out with its editors’ top-20 mystery, thriller, and suspense picks:

• The Intruder, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• What a Way to Go, by Bella Mackie (Harper Perennial)
• Dead Money, by Jakob Kerr (Bantam)
• Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests, by K.J. Whittle (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)
• The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
• The Oligarch’s Daughter, by Joseph Finder (Harper)
• The Hallmarked Man, by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland)
• Gone Before Goodbye, by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben (Grand Central)
• She Didn’t See It Coming, by Shari Lapena (Pamela Dorman)
• Fever Beach, by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)
• The Doorman, by Chris Pavone (MCD)
• Strangers in Time, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
• Guilty by Definition, by Susie Dent (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Never Flinch, by Stephen King (Scribner)
• No Body No Crime, by Tess Sharpe (MCD)

Both The Intruder and King of Ashes also appear among Amazon’s foremost general favorites of 2025.

This is certainly not a bad list; I’ve read several of the titles here, and enjoyed them greatly. My sole disappointment is that it holds no surprises—with the possible exception of Mackie’s What a Way to Go. With its worldwide Web presence, Amazon has an oversize impact on book sales. Rather than merely endorse what is already flying off the shelves, wouldn’t it be wonderful if its editors championed a few standout yarns that have enjoyed less publicity, giving their authors the sort of encouragement needed to dream bigger?

Or is that just terribly naïve of me?

* * *

At the same time, the social cataloguing site Goodreads (another Amazon property, by the way) has opened its initial round for public voting in the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards competition. In the Mystery and Thriller category, the 20 nominees are:

• We Are All Guilty Here, by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)
• Don’t Let Him In, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)
• The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
• The Ghostwriter, by Julie Clark (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron/Pine & Cedar)
• The Intruder, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Gone Before Goodbye, by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben (Grand Central)
• The Tenant, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man), by Jesse Q.
Sutanto (Berkley)
• Heartwood, by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster)
• The Crash, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Bantam)
• The Missing Half, by Ashley Flowers (Bantam)
• Forget Me Not, by Stacy Willingham (Minotaur)
• You Killed Me First, by John Marrs (Thomas & Mercer)
• Famous Last Words, by Gilliam McAllister (Morrow)
• The Perfect Divorce, by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone)
• The Widow, by John Grisham (Doubleday)
• Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney (Flatiron)

There’s rather more novelty in this mix, but also a pretty serious over-representation by pseudonymous author Freida McFadden.

If you’d like to participate in selecting this year’s Mystery and Thriller winner, go here by Sunday, November 23, to vote for your favorite candidate. The second and final round of balloting will take place from November 25 to 30, with the winner in this and other Goodreads categories to be declared on Thursday, December 4.

Revue of Reviewers: 11-12-25

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.