The Best Crime Fiction and Nonfiction Coming in April
Spring is here, and the weather is getting warmer. But if you’re still looking to get the chills, April is your month, because new crime thrillers and mystery suspense books are on the horizon. Add these must-read mystery and crime books to your TBR for the month of April, and you’ll be on the edge of your seat all month long.
Josephine Baker was a glamourous music hall diva and the most highly-paid female performer in Europe. But when the Nazis seized Paris during World War II, Baker, along with all “negroes and Jews,” were banned from performing. But rather than giving up, Baker became a spy in the war, determined to take the Nazis down. Agent Josephine is Baker’s incredible story, from her rise to fame to how she became a war hero in multiple countries.
Dream Town marks a return to David Baldacci’s unforgettable character: World War II veteran and private investigator Aloysius Archer. Los Angeles, 1953: Archer is celebrating the New Year with an old friend, aspiring actress Liberty Callahan, when screenwriter Eleanor Lamb interrupts their partying, claiming her life is in danger. Eleanor wants to hire Archer to investigate the matter, but Archer suspects this woman knows more than she’s letting on.
Sarah Pinborough’s latest thriller Insomnia is filled with shocking twists and turns. It follows the story of Emma, a successful, high-powered lawyer who has two wonderful children and a stay-at-home husband whom she loves. But her life wasn’t always this perfect. When Emma’s mother turned forty, she suffered from debilitating insomnia that lead to a horrific incident. As a result, Emma and her sister were put into the foster care system. Now, as her fortieth birthday approaches, Emma is experiencing symptoms like her mother’s, and she worries she is doomed to play out a similar fate.
Lauren Van Rensburg’s Nobody But Us is an exciting new locked room mystery thriller novel that readers won’t want to put down. Ellie and her boyfriend Steven are taking their first trip together. But what starts as a romantic getaway for a new couple turns more sinister when a snowstorm strands them in the house. And they both begin to realize that neither of them is quite who they say they are.
In bestselling author James Patterson’s latest collaboration with JD Barker, Death of the Black Widow, we follow the story of Walter O’Brien, who is haunted by a murder scene he investigated on his first night with the Detroit PD. A twenty-year-old bludgeoned her kidnapper and then fled from the police. Now Walter has been promoted to detective, but he can’t forget the missing, gray-eyed woman. And he’s not the only one.
Blood Will Tell is an unforgettable mystery suspense story about the bond between two sisters. Frankie has always been fiercely protective of her younger sister Izzy. But Izzy’s wild choices have often tested Frankie’s loyalty. Now one terrifying incident will test their sisterly bond as nothing else has done before, as Frankie will have to decide how far she’ll go for family when a child is abducted.
Related: Psychological and Domestic Thrillers Coming This Year
Bestselling crime thriller author John Sanford has written over twenty novels following Lucas Davenport. Now, in The Investigator, Lucas’s adopted daughter Letty Davenport takes the investigative reins. A recent Stanford grad with a master’s in economics, Letty finds herself restless and bored in a desk job for U.S. Senator Colles. But just when she’s thinking of quitting, she’s offered an interesting assignment: investigative work with the Department of Homeland Security.
Grace D. Li’s mystery thriller debut is Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell. Inspired by a true story, Portrait of a Thief is a story that explores the colonization of art and the complexity of the Chinese American experience. Across the Western world, museums display pieces of art looted from other countries, taken through war and colonialism. Now Will Chen, a senior at Harvard, plans to steal them back.
An ancient mystery resurfaces with ramifications for the present day in this gripping chapter in the Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series from New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman.
Sergeant Jim Chee’s vacation to beautiful Antelope Canyon and Lake Powell has a deeper purpose. He’s on a quest to unravel a sacred mystery his mentor, the Legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, stumbled across decades earlier.
Chee’s journey takes a deadly turn when, after a prayerful visit to the sacred Rainbow Bridge, he spots a body floating in the lake. The dead man, a Navajo with a passion for the canyon’s ancient rock art, lived a life filled with many secrets. Discovering why he died and who was responsible involves Chee in an investigation that puts his own life at risk.
Back in Shiprock, Officer Bernadette Manuelito is driving home when she witnesses an expensive sedan purposely kill a hitchhiker. The search to find the killer leads her to uncover a dangerous chain of interconnected revelations involving a Navajo Nation cannabis enterprise.
But the evil that is unleashed jeopardizes her mother and sister Darleen, and puts Bernie in the deadliest situation of her law enforcement career.
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Emily Martin has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi. She’s a contributing editor at Book Riot and blogs/podcasts at Book Squad Goals.