Crime Books Coming This September
Another month of great crime fiction at your fingertips. We’ve lined up some of the most anticipated mystery, thriller, and true crime books coming to stores this September.
For Lexi, the Pinecrest Estate has become a place of horror. The dilapidated manor house in the Florida Keys, once the site of her teenage movie debut, is now haunted by memories. memories of working on a legendary horror director's most famous film and of the terrible death that propelled them all to infamy. And ever since Lexi fled the Keys, she has vowed to never return.
Until, years later, her daughter escapes to the Pinecrest in search of answers. Right when a Category 4 hurricane hits the southern coast.
Now, Lexi is back on the ravaged island with only a few remaining behind, and soon enough, her life begins to resemble the plot of her most famous film. And this time, she's not sure who will make it out alive.
Although badly scarred and down to his last kidney after the previous caper, Happy Doll is back in business. When a beguiling young woman turns up at his door, it’s Doll’s past that comes knocking. Mary DeAngelo is searching for her estranged mother, Ines Candle—a singular and troubled woman Doll once loved. The last he’d seen her she’d been near-death: arms slit like envelopes. Although she survived the episode, she vanished shortly thereafter. Now, years later, Mary claims Ines is alive and has recently made contact—messaging her on Facebook and calling her from a burner phone—only to disappear once again. Although his psychoanalyst would discourage it, Doll takes the case, desperate to see Ines again. But as the investigation deepens, there are questions he can’t shake. What’s led the flighty Ines to reappear? Is Mary only relaying half the truth? And who is Mary’s strange and mysterious husband?
When the body of a young student is found on the driveway of a local Denton home, a photograph pinned to his collar, Detective Josie Quinn is first on the scene. The house belongs to Gretchen Palmer, a dedicated member of Josie’s team, missing for the last twenty-four hours.
Working around the clock, Josie is stopped in her tracks when Gretchen hands herself in to the police. She knows that there’s no way Gretchen could ever be a killer, so why would she confess to a murder she didn’t commit?
Digging deep into Gretchen’s secretive life, Josie uncovers a link between the boy, the photograph and a devastating case in Gretchen’s past. But just when Josie thinks she has it all figured out, the bodies of a young couple surface on the other side of town. Can Josie get to the truth in time to save her friend from a life in prison or certain death?
In the early hours of July 10, 2016, gunshots rang out and a young man lay fatally wounded on a quiet Washington, DC, street. But who killed Seth Rich? When he was buried in his hometown, his rabbi declared: “There are no answers for a young man gunned down in the prime of his life.” The rabbi was wrong. There were in fact many answers, way too many.
In the absence of an arrest, a howling mob filled the void. Wild speculation and fantastical theories surfaced on social media and gained traction thanks to a high-level cast of provocateurs. But it wasn’t until Fox News took the rumors from the fringes to the mainstream that Seth Rich’s life and death grew into something altogether unexpected—one of the foundational conspiracy theories of modern times.
A Death on W Street unravels this gripping saga of murder, madness, and political chicanery, one that would ensnare Hillary Clinton and Steve Bannon, a popular pizzeria in northwest DC and the most powerful voices in American media. It's the story of an idealistic twenty-seven-year-old political staffer who became a tragic victim of the culture wars, until his family decided that they had no choice but to defend his name and put an end to the cruel deceptions that surrounded his death.
Jane MacGuire is enjoying a period of domestic bliss as she focuses on her art and her partner Seth Caleb uses his unique abilities as an agent for the MI6 intelligence service. But when Seth crosses crime lord Hugh Bohdan, he incurs the wrath of one of the world’s most powerful criminal empires…one whose tentacles reach across the globe and even to the idyllic Scottish retreat where Jane is working.
Soon Jane is on the run, struggling to stay one step ahead of Bohdan’s army and his devastating high-tech weaponry. Even with the assistance of Earl John MacDuff, she finds danger at every turn. But with that peril comes an astonishing discovery: a 200-year-old secret on the brink of becoming lost to history.
Jane and Seth must join forces to unlock the fascinating puzzle, even as they hurtle toward a lethal final confrontation in the Highlands. But before their adventure is over, Jane and Seth will encounter their biggest shock of all…and realize nothing can be the same for them ever again.
Something dark is lurking in the Louisiana bayou: a methodical killer with a penchant for medical experimentation is hard at work completing his most harrowing crime yet, taunting the authorities who desperately try to catch up.
But forensic pathologist Dr. Wren Muller is the best there is. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of historical crimes, and years of experience working in the Medical Examiner's office, she's never encountered a case she couldn't solve. Until now. Case after case is piling up on Wren's examination table, and soon she is sucked into an all-consuming cat-and-mouse chase with a brutal murderer getting more brazen by the day.
It is an ordinary Thursday, and things should finally be returning to normal.
Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A local news legend is on the hunt for a sensational headline, and soon the gang are hot on the trail of two murders, ten years apart.
To make matters worse, Elizabeth is paid a visit in which she’s presented with a deadly mission: kill or be killed…
While Elizabeth grapples with her conscience (and a gun), the gang and their unlikely new friends—including TV stars, money launderers and ex-KGB colonels—unravel a fresh mystery. But can they catch the culprit and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?
Related: A Look at Cozy Mysteries
Virginia, 1943: World War II is raging in Europe and on the Pacific front when Kit Sutherland is recruited to help the war effort as a codebreaker at Arlington Hall, a former girls’ college now serving as the site of a secret US Signal Intelligence facility. But Kit is soon involved in another kind of fight: government girls are being brutally murdered in Washington DC, and when Kit stumbles onto a bloody homicide scene, she is drawn into the hunt for the killer.
To find the man responsible for the gruesome murders and bring him to justice, Kit joins forces with other female codebreakers at Arlington Hall—gossip queen Dottie Crockford, sharp-tongued intelligence maven Moya Kershaw, and cleverly resourceful Violet DuLac from the segregated codebreaking unit. But as the girls begin to work together and develop friendships—and romance—that they never expected, two things begin to come clear: the murderer they’re hunting is closing in on them…and Kit is hiding a dangerous secret.
Related: 7 Horror Books for Young Adults
All sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis wants is everything, but the poverty and hardship that defines her life has kept her from the beautiful and special things she knows she deserves. When she stumbles upon the dead body of thirteen-year-old Ashley James, Georgia teams up with Ashley's older sister Nora, to find the killer before he strikes again, and their investigation throws Georgia into a glittering world of unimaginable privilege and wealth—and all she's ever dreamed. But behind every dream lurks a nightmare, and Georgia must reconcile her heart's desires with what it really takes to survive. As Ashley's killer closes in and their feelings for one another grow, Georgia and Nora will discover when money, power, and beauty rule, it's not always a matter of who is guilty but who is guiltiest—and the only thing that might save them is each other.
US President Keegan Barrett has swept into office on his success as Director of the CIA. Six months into his first term, he devises a clandestine power grab with deadly consequences.
Barrett personally orders CIA agents Liam Grey and Noa Himel to execute his plan, but their loyalties are divided. The CIA serves at the pleasure of the president, yet they’ve sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
When the threat comes directly from the Oval Office, that’s where the blowback begins.
By clicking 'Sign Up,' I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
What to Read Next
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.