21 Mystery & Thriller Books to Get Excited About This Year

Bill Clinton and reigning master of suspense James Patterson have teamed up to pen another unforgettable political thriller. The President's Daughter finds former Navy SEAL and US president trying to live a quiet life in rural New Hampshire with his family. But when he learns about a threat to his daughter, Keating has to draw on every ounce of his SEAL training—because without it, all the presidential power in the world might not be enough to save his daughter.

In Bloodless, the latest installment in Preston & Child's long-running and much-beloved mystery series, FBI Agent Pendergast faces one of the strangest cases of his career. When a gruesome string of murders occurs in Savannah, GA—bodies found drained of all blood—Pendergast heads south to see what he can do. He uncovers some disturbing connections between the present day murders and an unsolved plane hijacking from fifty years before, a discovery that puts his life in danger.

Related: Explore These Popular Writing Pairs in Mystery & Suspense

From a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a woman finally gets her happily-ever-after ending with the man she loves—until a woman on the run shows up on her doorstep with enough secrets to get them all killed.

The Noise explores the aftermath of a devastating explosion and the lives of the only two people to survive it. Sisters Sophie and Tennant Riggin are the lone survivors of a major explosion that destroyed their small Oregon town, perched in the shadow of Mt. Hood. A team of government agents is sent in to determine why these two girls alone survived, but each member of the team has a different motive. As the disaster reverberates across the Pacific Northwest, the sisters, and those sent to study them, are caught in a dangerous web of malice and mystery.

In 21st Birthday, Tara Burke, a young wife and mother, goes missing with her baby. At first, all signs point to her husband Lucas lying to the police to cover up a crime. But then he offers law enforcement one startling piece of evidence that changes the whole case. And if he's not lying, it means that every woman in California is in grave danger.

Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?
How about everything.

Set in 1991, Survive the Night is a fast-paced cat-and-mouse thriller that takes place on a long drive across the country. College student Charlie met Josh on their school's ride share board. Both are looking for company on the long drive to Ohio. Charlie is grieving and guilt-ridden over the murder of her best friend, a victim of the notorious Campus Killer, while Josh is driving home to take care of his sick father. Or so he says. As Charlie becomes more and more convinced that Josh is, in fact, the Campus Killer, her whole world becomes about one thing: surviving the night.

New York Times bestselling astronaut Chris Hadfield is back with an exceptional Cold War thriller from the dark heart of the Space Race. 1973: a final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny module, a quarter of a million miles from home. A quarter of a million miles from help.

Bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child are back with Better Off Dead, another propulsive thriller in their popular Jack Reacher series. Former army major and current traveling detective/amateur sleuth Jack Reacher has never been afraid of a fight, and when a shadowy threat tries to take him down, he responds in his usual manner: by eliminating the threat once and for all.

A new installment in Vince Flynn's bestselling Mitch Rapp series, Enemy at the Gates is as twisty and unputdownable as any Flynn thriller. Top CIA operative Mitch Rapp has his hands full trying to weed out a high-level government mole, while also protecting trillionaire Nicolas Ward. As he fends off more and more attacks on Ward, Rapp is soon caught up in the murky world of power-hungry corporations, and corrupt billionaires who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

Bombay’s first female lawyer, Perveen Mistry, is compelled to bring justice to the family of a murdered female Parsi student just as Bombay’s streets erupt in riots to protest British colonial rule. Sujata Massey is back with this third installment to the Agatha and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning series set in 1920s Bombay. 

Related: The Perfect Recipe For a Cozy Mystery

Bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with another gripping historical thriller. Blind Tiger is set in Prohibition-era Texas and features her signature blend of page-turning action and heartfelt emotion that makes her books so hard to stop reading.

Related: The Best Sandra Brown Thrillers You Can Read Right Now

The Other Black Girl is a smart workplace thriller that combines sharp social commentary, a page-turning plot, and a thoughtful story about the complicated relationship between two Black women in the white-dominated world of publishing. Nell is a 26 year old editorial assistant at Wagner Books. Frustrated and exhausted by workplace racism, she's excited when the company hires another Black woman, Hazel. But soon Hazel rises to the top of the office hierarchy, leaving Nell in the dust. And as Nell spirals deeper and deeper into obsession and despair, she realizes that it's not just her job—but her life itself—that may be at stake.

Laura is used to being judged; others have always called her dangerous. Miriam knows all too well that things aren't always as they seem; just because Laura was at the scene of a horrific murder doesn't mean she's a killer. And Carla's world has just been torn apart by the murder of her nephew. The lives of these three women—guilty or innocent—will change forever in this brand-new thriller from the author of The Girl on the Train.

Has a killer lain dormant for years only to strike again on New Year’s Eve? LAPD Detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch team up to find justice for an innocent victim in the new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly.

In An Ambush of Widows, two women form an unlikely and uneasy bond in the wake of their husbands' deaths. When two businessmen, strangers to each other, are found murdered in a warehouse in Austin, their widows are left reeling. The widows, both with secrets of their own, wade together into their husbands' pasts, desperate to determine what led to this sudden and horrific act of violence. What they find will change not only their futures—but what they thought they knew about their pasts.

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. 

Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

From the "inventive…entertaining and thought-provoking" (Charles Yu) New York Times-bestselling author of Underground Airlines and Golden State, this sweeping legal thriller follows a sixteen-year-old who suffers from a neurological condition that has frozen him in time—and the team of lawyers, doctors, and detectives who are desperate to wake him up. 

Hairpin Bridge is the riveting story of a woman determined to discover the truth behind the death of her estranged twin sister. Three months earlier, Lena Nguyen's twin Cambry jumped to her death from a remote Montana bridge. At least, that's what the police say. But Lena doesn't believe their version of what happened, so she drives Cambry's car to the bridge, seeking answers. She's not prepared for the story she finds—one that brings her sister's life into sharp focus, and puts her own in immediate danger.

Related: Talking Thrillers, Antagonists, and No Exit With Taylor Adams

It was supposed to be the perfect week away . . . 
Imogen and Beck, two sisters who couldn't be more different, have been friends with Tilda since high school. Once inseparable, over two decades the women have grown apart. But after Imogen survives a traumatic attack, Beck suggests they all reunite to hike deep into the Grand Canyon’s backcountry. A week away, secluded in nature . . . surely it’s just what they need.
But as the terrain grows tougher, tensions from their shared past bubble up. And when supplies begin to disappear, it becomes clear secrets aren’t the only thing they’re being stalked by. 

Only two people know that 1930s society man Lamont Cranston has a secret identity as the Shadow, a crusader for justice. One is his greatest love, Margo Lane, and the other is fiercest enemy, Shiwan Khan. When Khan ambushes the couple, they must risk everything for the slimmest chance of survival . . . in the future.

A century and a half later, Lamont awakens in a world both unknown and disturbingly familiar. The first person he meets is Maddy Gomes, a teenager with her own mysterious secrets, including a knowledge of the legend of the Shadow.

Most disturbing, Khan's power continues to be felt over the city and its people. No one in this new world understands the dangers of stopping him better than Lamont Cranston. And only the Shadow knows that he’s the one person who might succeed before more innocent lives are lost.