Back To Sleuthing: 11 New Mystery & Thrillers for September 2024
Welcome to September! As we prepare to smell less sunscreen and more sharpened pencils (Here’s looking at you, Kathleen Kelly), publishing has kindly, once again, stacked the month full of new mystery and thriller releases.
I hope that during this moment between seasons, you are able to set aside some reading time, because this is an excellent month to be a mystery and thriller reader! Attica Locke has completed her excellent trilogy starring Texas Ranger Darren Mathews, the author of The Thursday Murder Club has a new book, and PI Jackson Brodie is back—just to kick things off. Fictional serial killer fans have a fun mystery with a murder tour host at the center, there’s a missing person case set on a reservation, and a murder mystery surrounding a sorority with a reunion.
YA fans have an elite school-set murder mystery and a Prohibition-era set murder mystery, while middle grade fans have a missing person case in an apartment building. And for armchair traveling sleuths, there’s a PI in Ghana with a murder mystery case and an Icelandic thriller with a decades-old cold case. There’s so much to choose from that it’s best to just dive in!
Guide Me Home (Highway 59 #3) by Attica Locke
For fans of procedurals, social thrillers, family drama, and completed trilogies!
Texas Ranger Darren Mathews would like to live a peaceful, retired life on his farm, hopefully with his girlfriend. But life has a funny way of coming for your plans: the past he can’t shake is looming over his head in the form of a potential indictment, and the mother he hates drops a case in his lap. She cleans a sorority house, and the only Black girl has disappeared. The other sorority girls swear she just moved out, but her belongings are out by the trash. Mathews doesn’t want to get roped into this; he’s not even technically allowed to investigate it, and he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with his mom. Yet, here he is, once again poking into a case the equivalent of poking a beehive which starts to upend the peace he was aiming for…
You can start here and not be lost but this is one of the best crime trilogies so if you want all the goodness (and twists) start with Bluebird, Bluebird and have Heaven, My Home on standby!
If you’re a fan of standalone novels, pick up The Cutting Season, and if you want a duology with a lawyer lead, pick up Black Water Rising.
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
For fans of murder mysteries on remote islands and family crime-solving duos!
Amy Wheeler works private security as a bodyguard and is currently working for a famous author on a private island when a murder occurs on a nearby yacht. The problem is that every job Amy has taken has had a nearby murder and now it can’t be a coincidence. So she reaches out to her father-in-law, Steve Wheeler, a widow and retired cop who does light PI work.
If you want to read Osman’s series set in a retirement community, start with The Thursday Murder Club.
Where They Last Saw Her by Marcie R. Rendon
For fans of missing person cases, amateur sleuths, and mysteries set on a reservation!
Quill and her family live in Minnesota on the Red Pine reservation. While out for a run, training for a marathon, Quill hears screaming in the woods. She doesn’t find the source of the scream but does see tire tracks and an earring which starts her obsession with the missing woman case…
If you want to read Rendon’s historical mystery series, start with Murder on the Red River.
The Whitewashed Tombs (Emma Djan Investigation #4) by Kwei Quartey
For fans of PIs, Ghana settings, murder mysteries, and undercover work!
Emma, a PI with the Sowah Private Investigators Agency, has a new case: a young LGBTQ activist was murdered. This time around, Emma can’t work with her favorite colleague because he was dating the victim, so Emma is forced to work with a colleague she does not get along with. Adding to the stress of the case, an organization is trying to criminalize homosexuality in African countries, and the already vulnerable queer community needs Emma to find the killer immediately.
If you want to start at the beginning pick up The Missing American, and if you’re a fan of completed backseries and procedurals pick up Wife of the Gods!
Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie Series 6) by Kate Atkinson
For fans of PIs, small English towns, art theft, homages to the mystery genre, and snowed-in murder mysteries!
This is the kind of snowed-in murder mystery that sounds like the beginning of a joke: “a vicar, an army major…” but it’s not, it’s the setting for a new Jackson Brodie case! Brodie is on a case regarding a stolen painting and attends a murder-mystery weekend, which he is not at all amused by while linking multiple cases only to be snowed in with no cell service…
If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Case Histories! And if you’re a fan of adaptations, there’s a two-season series of Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. (As of me writing this, it’s streaming on Peacock)
Death at the Sanatorium by Ragnar Jónasson
For fans of Icelandic thrillers, procedurals, and revisiting cold cases!
In the early ’80s, a nurse in a hospital ward was murdered, and then the top doctor fell to his death. In 2012, Helgi Reykadi is working on his criminology dissertation focusing on the case but when he learns the nurse who gave false evidence at the time has now died, he decides to track down former hospital employees. Except no one wants to talk…
Backlist readers can pick up the procedural series starter, The Darkness!
Zetas Till We Die by Amber and Danielle Brown
For fans of murder mystery, college reunion, and a killer just released from prison!
The Zeta Phi Zeta class of 2012 had their graduation alongside a murder investigation for one of their own, Lupe. A decade later, a celebration is once again marred when Lupe’s killer is released from prison on a technicality. The sorority sister’s still go ahead with their ten-year reunion celebration, which is a success until they realize they didn’t all make it back home…
Backlist readers can pick up the sister writing duo’s standalone mysteries, Perfect Little Lives and Someone Had To Do It!
This Book Kills by Ravena Guron
For fans of YA thrillers, elite school settings, and murder mystery!
Jess Choudhary is attending an elite high school on scholarship, and her goal is simple: go unnoticed and get through. She does not accomplish this because a popular kid dies the exact same way she just wrote about in a short story. Guess that makes her suspect number one!
Everything Glittered by Robin Talley
For fans of prohibition-era settings and YA murder mysteries!
Gertrude, Clara, and Milly sneak out of Washington Female Seminary for some fun at a speakeasy except when they return they find Mrs. Rose, their headmistress, has been murdered. Time for these girls to put on their sleuthing caps and solve a murder!
The Queen of Ocean Parkway by Sarvenaz Tash
For fans of middle grade mysteries, podcasters, and apartment building settings!
Aspiring reporter Roya is the daughter of her apartment building’s superintendent and the host of a secret podcast. When a fortune-telling machine at Coney Island is connected to a resident’s disappearance, Roya and a new resident friend jump at the opportunity to solve the mystery!
The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco by Michelle Chouinard
For fans of fictional serial killers and murder tours!
Capri Sanzio’s grandfather is a serial killer—though she’s always believed he’s innocent—and she runs a business giving murder tours in San Francisco. When her mother-in-law cuts off her daughter’s tuition and then is murdered in a copycat situation, Capri really has to prove not only her grandfather’s innocence but her own!
Love all things mystery and thrillers? We got you covered with posts for all the subgenres and tropes!
