2024 Holiday Gift Guide: Mystery & Thriller
If you know someone whose holiday plans include binge-watching Murder, She Wrote, obsessively listening to true crime podcasts, and hosting murder mystery-themed gift exchange parties, these thrilling reads will have you killing the gifting game.
“Our June Reese’s Book Club pick is the perfect summer read!!! The Unwedding by Ally Condie opens with a wedding at a gorgeous resort in Big Sur… but everything begins to fall apart when the main character Ellery discovers a dead body the morning of the ceremony.”
– Reese Witherspoon
The White Lotus meets Agatha Christie in this bold novel from a #1 New York Times bestselling author, “a knife’s-edge whodunit that’s as much a thriller as it is an exquisite meditation on grief and loss.” (Nicola Yoon)
Ellery Wainwright is alone at the edge of the world.
She and her husband, Luke, were supposed to spend their twentieth wedding anniversary together at the luxurious Resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California. Where better to celebrate a marriage, a family, and a life together than at one of the most stunning places on earth?
But now she’s traveling solo.
To add insult to injury, there’s a wedding at Broken Point scheduled during her stay. Ellery remembers how it felt to be on the cusp of everything new and wonderful, with a loved and certain future glimmering just ahead. Now, she isn’t certain of anything except for her love for her kids and her growing realization that this place, though beautiful, is unsettling.
When Ellery discovers the body of the groom floating in the pool in the rain, she realizes that she is not the only one whose future is no longer guaranteed. Before the police can reach Broken Point, a mudslide takes out the road to the resort, leaving the guests trapped. When another guest dies, it’s clear something horrible is brewing.
Everyone at Broken Point has a secret. And everyone has a shadow. Including Ellery.
From a #1 New York Times bestselling author, the 6:20 Man returns, this time sent to the Pacific Northwest to aid in a complicated FBI case—and he’s about to come face-to-face with his nemesis, the girl on the train.
Travis Devine has become a pro at accomplishing any mission he’s given. But this time it’s not his skills that send him to Seattle to aid the FBI in escorting orphaned, twelve-year-old Betsy Odom to a meeting with her uncle, who’s under federal investigation. Instead, he’s hoping to lay low and keep off the radar of an enemy–the girl on the train.
But as Devine gets to know Betsy, questions begin to arise around the death of her parents. Devine digs for answers, and what he finds points to a conspiracy bigger than he could’ve ever imagined.
It might finally be time for Devine and the girl on the train to come face-to-face. Devine is going to find out the difference between his friends and his enemies–and in some cases, they might well be both.
Autopsies can reveal the secrets of the dead.
And this victim is sending Scarpetta a message…
Summoned to an abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr. Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is a man she once had an intense love affair with.
The murder scene is bizarre, with a crop circle of petals around the body, and Giordano’s skin is strangely red. Scarpetta’s niece Lucy believes he was dropped from an unidentified flying craft. Scarpetta knows an autopsy can reveal the dead’s secrets, but she is shocked to find her friend seems to have deliberately left her a clue.
As the investigators are torn between suspicions of otherworldly forces, and of Giordano himself, Scarpetta detects an explanation closer to home that, in her mind, is far more evil…
Jack Lee is a white lawyer from Freeman County, Virginia, who has never done anything to push back against racism—until he decides to represent Jerome Washington, a Black man charged with brutally killing an elderly wealthy white couple. Doubting his decision, Lee fears that his legal skills may not be enough to prevail in a case where the odds are already stacked against both him and his client. He quickly finds himself out of his depth when he realizes that what’s at stake is far greater than the outcome of a murder trial.
Desiree DuBose is a Black lawyer from Chicago who has devoted her life to furthering the causes of justice and equality for all. She enters a fractious and unwieldy partnership with Lee in a legal battle against the best prosecutor in the Commonwealth. Yet DuBose is also aware that powerful outside forces are at work to blunt the victories achieved by the Civil Rights era.
Lee and DuBose could not be more dissimilar. On their own, neither one can stop the prosecution’s deliberate march towards a guilty verdict and the electric chair. But together, the pair fight for what once seemed impossible: a chance for a fair trial and true justice.
Over a decade in the making, A Calamity of Souls breathes richly imagined and detailed life into a bygone era, taking the reader through a world that will seem both foreign and familiar.
Three years ago, sports agent Myron Bolitar gave a eulogy at the funeral of his client, renowned basketball coach Greg Downing. Myron and Greg had history: initially as deeply personal rivals, and later as unexpected business associates. Myron made peace and moved on – until now, when two federal agents walked into his office, demanding to know where Greg Downing is.
According to the agents, Greg is still alive—and has been placed at the scene of a double homicide, making him their main suspect. Shocked, Myron needs answers.
Myron and Win, longtime friends and colleagues, set out to find the truth, but the more they discover about Greg, the more dangerous their world becomes. Secrets, lies, and a murderous conspiracy that stretches back into the past churn at the heart of Harlan Coben’s blistering new novel.
Five-year-old Leilani Pierson has been missing for over a decade. Amateur detective Frankie Elkin is an expert at finding missing persons. But this case has unusually high stakes. The request comes from Leilani’s sister Kaylee, a convicted serial killer weeks away from her execution date.
The main suspect in the kidnapping? Kaylee’s ex-boyfriend, a tech billionaire who has hidden himself away on a remote base camp near Hawaii.
Determined to find the missing girl–alive–Frankie embarks on a dangerous mission. Up against a ticking clock and an incoming tropical storm, will Frankie Elkin learn the truth and save Leilani before it’s too late?
From the #1 New York Times bestselling duo, renowned archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson investigate a mystery so enigmatic it may have no solution.
In 2008, nine mountaineers failed to return from a winter backpacking trip in the New Mexico mountains. At their final campsite, searchers found a bizarre scene: something had appeared at the door of their tent so terrifying that it impelled them to slash their way out and flee barefoot to certain death in a blizzard. Despite a diligent search, only six bodies were found, two violently crushed and inexplicably missing their eyes. The case, given the code name “Dead Mountain” by the FBI, was never solved.
Now, two more bodies from the lost expedition are unexpectedly discovered in a cave, one a grisly suicide. Young FBI Agent Corrie Swanson teams up with archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate what really happened on that fateful trip fifteen years ago—and to find the ninth victim. But their search awakens a long-slumbering evil, which pursues Corrie and Nora with a vengeance, determined to prevent the final missing corpse from ever coming to light.
Wrapping up his latest assignment for the Magellan Billet, Luke Daniels receives a surprise visit from the head of a former-CIA operation named Sommerhaus—a failed attempt to assemble an espionage network within the Ukraine on the eve of the Russian invasion. Sommerhaus ranks high on Luke’s list of painful regrets, for it was during this mission that his friend, CIA case officer John Vince, was captured by Russian operatives and supposedly executed.
But Luke is provided some shocking news. Vince is alive, in failing health, locked behind the walls of Russia’s brutal Solovetsky Island prison, and has a critical message he’ll give to no one but Luke. Luke vows to bring Vince home.
However, just as he manages to extract his friend from prison Vince tragically dies and his final words are rambling and incoherent–but enough to plunge Luke into a hunt for something lost since the 15th century. The legendary library of the first Tsar of All Russia, Ivan the Terrible.
Within that priceless collection of rare manuscripts is the key to unraveling a modern-day cipher and stopping a secret Soviet satellite program that still exists. But Luke is not the only one on the trail. Others, both inside and out of Russia, want the library for a totally different reason–to restart the Red Star program and finally unleash its destructive potential. Luke’s mission is clear: find the lost library, solve the puzzle, and prevent Red Star falling.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author and hailed as the most suspenseful and compelling novel in decades, this story brings to life our worst nightmare: that of an ordinary citizen facing conviction for the most terrible of all crimes.
Rusty Sabich, family man and the number-two prosecutor of Kindle County, is handed an explosive case–the brutal murder of a woman who happens to be his former lover. A shocking turn of events suddenly transforms him from the accuser into the accused… and plunges him into a nightmare world where nothing seems real and no one can be PRESUMED INNOCENT.
It’s the stunning portrayal of one man’s all-too-human, all-consuming fatal attraction for a passionate woman who is not his wife, and the story of how his obsession puts everything he loves and values on trial–including his own life. It’s a book that lays bare a shocking world of betrayal and murder, as well as the hidden depths of the human heart. And it will hold you and haunt you…long after you have reached its shattering conclusion.
When a high security prison fails, a down-on-his luck cop and the governor’s daughter must team up if they’re going to escape in this “jaw-dropping, authentic, and absolutely gripping” (Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author) bestselling thriller from Adam Plantinga, whose first nonfiction book Lee Child praised as “truly excellent.”
Kurt Argento, an ex-Detroit street cop who can’t let injustice go—and who has the fighting skills to back up his idealism.
If he sees a young girl being dragged into an alley, he’s going to rescue her and cause some damage.
When he does just that in a small corrupt Missouri town, he’s brutally beaten and thrown into a maximum-security prison.
Julie Wakefield, a grad student who happens to be the governor’s daughter, is about to take a tour of the prison. But when a malfunction in the security system releases a horde of prisoners, a fierce struggle for survival ensues.
Argento must help a small band of staff and civilians, including Julie and her two state trooper handlers, make their way from the bottom floor to the roof to safety.
All that stands in their way are six floors of the most dangerous convicts in Missouri.