8 New Mystery, Thriller, and True Crime Adaptations To Watch in March 2025
Hello, mystery fans, welcome to another month of adaptations to watch! Before I dive into this month’s selections, if you missed January and February’s releases — a mix of true crime and mystery novel adaptations including Scam Goddess and Black Warrant — you can catch up here.
I’m going to start with a few adaptations this month that are either a mix of genres, only barely inspired by a book, or are based on a book that has yet to have an English translation.
Disclaimer: Most of the adaptations are from books that are by white authors. This is part of a systemic issue where publishing focuses on the promotion of books by white authors. Hopefully, we’ll see even more adaptations of books by diverse authors in the near future.
- Uzo Aduba and Randall Park star in the Netflix murder mystery series The Residence. It’s set in the White House and only used “Kate Andersen Brower’s The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House as a jumping-off point.” (In The Residence Trailer, Uzo Aduba Is on the Case and in the White House)
- Sundance Now and AMC+ has the adaptation for Liane Moriarty’s The Last Anniversary. It’s been a billion years since I read this and what I remember is it’s contemporary fiction with a mystery/secrets undertone. (‘The Last Anniversary’: Watch Trailer For Dramedy From Writer & Producers Behind ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ & ‘Big Little Lies’)
- Max has a limited Spanish original series, When No One Sees Us, based on Sergio Sarria’s novel Cuando Nadie Nos Ve. (Max’s Spanish Original ‘When No One Sees Us’ Blends Cultural Commentary, Crime Drama and Character Exploration to Subvert Its Procedural Format) Hopefully the show is a hit and the book gets translated to English.
Force of Nature (Aaron Falk, #2) by Jane Harper
Jane Harper has a procedural series (The Dry) and standalone mystery/thrillers (The Lost Man, Exiles), all set in Australia. All her books are worth reading equally for the atmosphere, characters, and mysteries. Her procedural series follows Aaron Falk, a financial crimes detective who keeps finding himself involved in murder investigations.
The first book, The Dry, was adapted into a same-titled film starring Eric Bana where Falk returns to his hometown to solve a past and present murder mystery.
The new film adaptation, Force of Nature, follows the mystery of the second book: Falk has to investigate Alice Russell disappearing on a work retreat in the Giralang Ranges because Alice was assisting his team on a corruption case. And coincidence or not, she’s gone missing on land that a serial killer once lived on!
Force of Nature is now streaming on Hulu, and because streamers are super annoying now The Dry is currently streaming on AMC+, but who knows where it’ll move to in the future.
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Liz Moore is probably most known at the moment for The God of the Woods, which will hopefully have enough name recognition to get viewers interested in this adaptation that is based on her previous novel. My initial review for Long Bright River opened with “If you’re a fan of Tana French’s writing and character driven mysteries that explore a law enforcement character’s job, cases, and personal life, this one is for you.” And it sounds like the series stays pretty close to that.
The adaptation is an eight-episode limited series on Peacock (all dropped at once), starring Amanda Seyfried (Mean Girls; Mamma Mia!) as Mickey, a Philadelphia police officer. In her personal life, Mickey’s sister has disappeared, which starts to bleed into her current work case involving murders in a neighborhood affected by the opioid crisis.
You can watch the trailer here.
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Levon’s Trade (Levon Cade #1) by Chuck Dixon
The new Jason Statham action film (Snatch, The Italian Job, Transporter) is based on a series of vigilante justice books that starts as a “one more job” after having retired. There are ten books in the series, so if the film adaptation is successful it will likely become a franchise.
Levon Cade was a military black ops mercenary but he wanted a quiet, mind his own business life, so now he’s working in construction. That doesn’t last long though: his boss needs his help when his daughter is kidnapped…
Beginning March 28th you can catch A Working Man in theaters. Here’s the trailer.
Dope Thief by Dennis Tafoya
Dennis Tafoya’s 2009 novel follows two friends who met in juvie. Ray and Manny, now adults, pretend to be DEA agents in order to rob low level drug dealers. That is until their theory that “small jobs don’t have a high risk” gets put to the test when they accidentally rob a narcotics operation …
The Apple TV+ crime mini series will be eight episodes, dropping the first two on March 14th and then one a week every Friday. Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta; Bullet Train) and Wagner Moura (Narcos) star as Ray and Manny with additional cast including Ving Rhames, Marin Ireland, Kate Mulgrew, Amir Arison, Kaci Walfall… You can watch the trailer here.
Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer’s Daughter by Melissa G. Moore, M. Bridget Cook
This is inspired by an autobiography (Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer’s Daughter by Melissa G. Moore, M. Bridget Cook) and a podcast (Happy Face by Melissa Moore).
The Paramount+ eight episode season stars Annaleigh Ashford (Masters of Sex) as Melissa Reed, the daughter of the serial killer known as the Happy Face Killer. Melissa finds herself in a terrible position: after having zero contact with her father, he finds a way into her life to confess a crime another man might be put to death for.
The first two episodes will drop on the streamer on March 20th, with one episode dropping every Thursday after. You can watch the trailer here.
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2025 releases, and mysteries from 2024 and 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations! Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Goodreads, Litsy, and Substack.
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