10 New Mystery, Thrillers, True Crime For November 2023 Armchair Sleuthing
A new month means a new flood of new books ready to publish. And if you’re here, you’re all about the mysteries! Who knows what kind of weather we’ll be getting now that it is super unpredictable, but hopefully, even if cuddled-under-blankets-weather arrives later than usual, you’ll at least be afforded endless time to read good books. With that in mind, I’ve got a great selection of books that are releasing in November 2023 that hit a range of genres, sub-genres, and tropes under the crime umbrella.
This month sees two true crime books: one takes you to the Florida Everglades into the world of alligator poaching, and the other to Malta, focusing on corruption and the assassination of the first female newspaper columnist.
We’ve got a snowed-in mansion with past secrets being revealed, a cozy mystery series for food lovers, a YA with blurry memory, a sci-fi-meets-amateur-sleuth full of cheeky humor, a procedural series set in Colorado, and an academic setting with a former detective turned “amateur” sleuth. In world traveling with your detective hat on, you can follow an investigative psychologist in Nigeria and get thrown into a world of assassins in Japan.
There Should Have Been Eight by Nalini Singh
For fans of secrets coming to light amongst old friends snowed in at a mansion!
Seven friends decide to reunite at a mansion in the New Zealand Alps that used to belong to the eighth member of their friend group, Bea. She died almost a decade ago, and while the friends are here to remember her, things take a turn when they’re all snowed in. The longer time passes, the more truths are forced to light, and maybe the true story of Bea’s death has yet to be told…
No One Left but You by Tash McAdam
For fans of YA thrillers mixed with a coming-of-age, before and after chapters, and blurry memory on the night of a murder!
In his small English town, Max, a teen musician, finds a lifeline in Gloss, the new It-girl. Gloss defends Max’s identity — he’s recently come out as trans, and his ex has become his bully — but also throws his life into turmoil as the complete opposite of him. And now she’s in jail following a murder. And Max’s memory of that night is fuzzy…
Chaos Terminal (The Midsolar Murders #2) by Mur Lafferty
For fans of murder mysteries in space and humorous, fun novels!
Mallory Viridian literally left Earth to live in space to avoid being an amateur detective. And that’s working out as well as you’d think it is in a murder-mystery series! Now, a new human arrival has been murdered at the space station, and Mallory once again will have to play detective. This time around, some Earth friends have joined her in space!
If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Station Eternity!
Blood Betrayal (Blackwater Falls #2) by Ausma Zehanat Khan
For fans of police procedural series with complex mysteries.
Two separate incidents involving police shootings, resulting in the murder of a Latine teen and a Black young man, are the timely cases in the sequel to Blackwater Falls. Set in Colorado, the Blackwater Falls community erupts in protests as Lieutenant Waqas Seif and Detective Inaya Rahman have to dig deep into the cases to get to the heart of what really happened.
The Professor by Lauren Nossett
For fans of former detectives turned “amateur” sleuths with academic settings!
The books don’t seem to be linked on sites, but I will note that I’m assuming this is the sequel to The Resemblance since both books have the same investigator, Marlitt Kaplan, and the same setting.
She’s now however no longer working as a detective for the police, having left her job and become a research assistant. But it’s hard not to find herself involved in a case, and soon she’s looking into the case of a college student whose death has been ruled a suicide, and an investigation opened up into one of his professors for a possible affair. Kaplan’s mother, a colleague of the accused professor, wants Kaplan to help, sending her right back into her old life as a detective. Except this time, she’s not supposed to be involved…
Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal (A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery #3) by Raquel V. Reyes
For fans of cozy food mysteries!
Miriam Quiñones didn’t plan to become a popular cooking show host nor an amateur sleuth, but here she is! Now she’s traveling and finding the mysteries and murders following her: in Punta Cana, she tries to solve who is damaging her parents’ rental properties, and in Puerto Rico, there’s a possible stalker and then a missing person! Between hosting her show and solving crime, her calendar is full.
If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Mango, Mambo, and Murder.
The Mantis (Assassins #3) by Kōtarō Isaka, Sam Malissa (Translator)
For fans of Japanese crime series and assassins!
While you don’t have to read these books in order — the sequel was actually translated to English before the first —here is the order in case you care about it: Three Assassins starts the series, Bullet Train is the sequel, which was adapted into a film starring Brad Pitt, and now The Mantis is the third book.
The Doctor gives Kabuto his assignments, but Kabuto no longer wants to be an assassin, a problem for them both. So The Doctor agrees that if Kabuto completes a few last assignments — killing other assassins! — he’ll be released. What could go wrong?!
Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades by Rebecca Renner
For readers of true crime involving illegal operations!
Officer Jeff Babauta, a Florida Fish and Wildlife officer, created Sunshine Alligator Farm in Florida with the goal of protecting the Florida Everglades by infiltrating the world of illegal alligator poachers. But he soon found that when the government established the Everglades as a park, it meant that generations of hunters were suddenly labeled as poachers. Come for the you’ll-never-believe facts and an exploration of man vs. myth. Stay for the history and dive into communities.
A Death in Malta: An Assassination and a Family’s Quest for Justice by Paul Caruana Galizia
For readers of memoir and political true crime.
In the 1990s, Malta had its first female newspaper columnist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, who focused on the corruption among government officials. For years, she and her family faced death threats before her assassination with a car bomb in 2017. Here, her son looks at his mother’s career and his family’s fight for the full answers on their mother’s murder, including who hired those who planted the bomb.
Gaslight (Philip Taiwo #2) by Femi Kayode
For fans of investigative psychologists and murder mysteries!
Philip Taiwo, an investigative psychologist, has been living in the U.S. and recently returned to Nigeria with his family. Then his younger sister asks him to look into a case at the megachurch she attends: the pastor of the church has been charged with his wife’s murder after she disappeared. It’s a sensational case that will challenge Taiwo and put his family in the crosshairs…
If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up Lightseekers.
If you’re all about the mystery and thrillers, we’ve got you covered! As always, you can find a full list of new releases in the magical New Release Index, carefully curated by your favorite Book Riot editors.
