Time To Sleuth: 14 New Mystery, Thriller, and True Crime Books for June 2024

For fans of middle grade mysteries, best friends, and baking competitions!

Laila and Lucy have been best friends since kindergarten— thanks to a cupcake! But now that they’ll be entering eighth grade, they learn that their addresses have split them into going to different schools. Laila thinks the solution is the Golden Cookie competition, for which the prize is a full-ride scholarship that will cover both the girls’ passions of cooking and journalism. Problem? Laila’s food is the last thing a celebrity judge eats before collapsing. Thanks to a storm, it’s up to Laila and Lucy to solve this mystery to clear Laila’s name! Have cookies on hand while reading.

For fans of remote mysteries, twists, secrets, multiple POVs, and folk horror!

Married couple Francesca Meadows and Owen Dacre have put to use Francesca’s childhood summering in Tome and Owen’s famed architect status to build a retreat. Who cares if the locals are angry by its harm to the woodlands and the folklore creatures. The Manor is opening to celebrate summer solstice and nothing will stop the celebration. Well, except maybe the dead body found the next morning. Is it time to believe in the folklore or is one of them a killer?

For fans of long-running PI series, historical mysteries, missing persons, and the mob!

You can always count on Mosley for a deep dive into characters with a solid mystery case investigated from beginning to end. This time around L.A. PI Easy Rawlins—in his 50s, during the 1970s— takes on Amethystine Stoller’s case. Her ex-husband is missing, and it should be a simple case, but her ex-husband is found dead after an involvement with a casino and mobsters, and the only in Rawlins has at the LAPD is currently in hiding…

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up the classic Devil in a Blue Dress. If you’re looking for a newer series set in the present, pick up Down the River Unto the Sea.

For fans of cat and mouse thrillers and retired assassins!

Mark has seen the error in his ways and left his killing life behind him, going so far as to join a 12-step program for “reformed killers.” But as Mark will discover, you can’t go from being an assassin one day to not the next without any complications. He’s brutally attacked and not knowing who the attempted killer is, he’s forced on the run, traveling the world trying to identify the person after him while also trying to stay alive. He does all of this while following his new life code: not killing anyone.

For fans of YA murder mysteries with humor, a romance, featuring a queer lead with IBS!

Gigi Ricci was close with her math teacher and absolutely does not believe that he died from a fall while hanging a punny cat poster—he hated both things, and Gigi knows this! And so Gigi, who has refused to join the Mystery and Thriller Literary Scholars, finds herself needing the two members’ help investigating her math teacher’s death and now agrees to join. There will be plenty of obstacles including a mysterious email, Gigi’s crush, and an archenemy!

For backlist readers, definitely pick up the fun murder mystery Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything.

For fans of historical mysteries, gender-swapped Sherlock, and funny dialogue!

The start of this series, A Study in Scarlet Women, introduces us to Charlotte Holmes who refuses to play by society’s rules and blows up her life to ensure she’ll get a life where she’s in control: cue her solving mysteries while pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. Of course she has a Watson, and there’s a Moriarty—but you’ll have to read the series for all the fun. In this latest entry, Charlotte is the one under the microscope being interrogated as a murder suspect, while she and her family and friends, as usual, are solving crimes and playing a game of chess with villains…(A lot happens in this series, with fun intricate plots, so definitely read the books in order.)

For fans of atmospheric suspense, and missing person cases!

Emlyn Anthony is a fishing and hunting guide in Idaho, which basically means she babysits tourists. She’s pretty much a loner right now, being that she had a falling out with her college best friend Janessa, and she ended on bad terms with her ex-boyfriend Tyler. So she’s conflicted when Tyler shows up saying Janessa is missing: the cops aren’t concerned, but Janessa stopped posting on social media so Tyler knows something is very wrong. Emlyn finally agrees to search for her former friend across the country with Tyler, ultimately forcing her to face her past while having no idea what she may find in the present.

Backlist readers should definitely pick up the suspenseful, atmospheric, and remote crime novel These Silent Woods and the small-town missing person mystery Fallen Mountains.