Mystery

Quick Review: SPIES AND OTHER GODS by James Wolff (Atlantic Crime)

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The hunt for an assassin, an internal scandal, and a leader losing a step…

The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he’ll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations.

To make matters worse, when parliamentary researcher Aphra McQueen is brought in to investigate an internal complaint, she discovers something horrifying: the murder of nine Iranian dissidents. The elusive assassin, nicknamed CASPIAN, kills across borders, forcing intelligence services throughout Europe into an alliance. Their only lead? An unsuspecting dentist in the UK.

Aphra McQueen seems to know more about the operation than she is letting on. What will she uncover? What is she really up to? And can she survive the unexpected events that will bounce her from London to Birmingham to Paris to Lausanne?

What happens when the head of British Intelligence starts to lose a step? This is in many ways the linchpin upon which the novel hangs, and offers some very interesting opportunities. A complaint issued by an anonymous whistleblower has put British Intelligence’s leadership on edge, launching an unwelcome and uncomfortable investigation into certain recent missions. What follows is a cat-and-mouse hunt for the truth and an assassin. Despite some minor quibbles regarding pacing, I enjoyed this.
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Upcoming: McKENNA’S GUY by Mike Lawson (Blackstone)

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As a long-time fan of Mike Lawson‘s novels, I’m always on the look-out for his next book. I’ve already been lucky enough to read and review the latest Joe DeMarco novel, The Asset. Until today, however, I wasn’t aware of his other novel coming this year: McKenna’s Guy, which is due to be published by Blackstone on July 7th. Looks like it’s the first in a potential new series, starring DC detective Grace Lillinthal. Here’s the synopsis:

A fast-paced thriller full of secrets, lies, and betrayal.

When an intruder with murderous intent breaks into Roger Smith’s modest home one night, the big brute gets more than he bargained for, ending up a bloody corpse staining Roger’s carpet.

Washington, DC, Detective Grace Lillinthal is summoned to the crime scene and marvels at the outcome. Why would anyone want to kill gray-haired Roger Smith? He’s the picture of respectability-a widower devoted to his family, an amateur painter, and a civil servant who works at the Government Printing Office. When asked why he’d be a target, a clearly shaken Roger claims to be baffled.

But instinct tells Grace there’s more to Roger’s story, and when she learns that Roger-after killing his home invader and before calling the police-phoned John McKenna, she knows she’s onto something. John McKenna is a disreputable character of the first order. He’s the gregarious, larger-than-life owner of a local bar that’s a notorious den of thieves.

After one hired assassin fails, another’s bound to show up. The clock is ticking for Roger and McKenna to find out who wants Roger dead and why-and suspects abound. Stubborn Grace is as determined to dig up Roger’s secrets as he is to keep them hidden, and soon the investigation becomes a relentless game of cat and mouse. Even if Roger doesn’t consider himself a criminal, as chaos takes hold of his world, survival requires that he think like one.

Mike Lawson’s McKenna’s Guy is due to be published by Blackstone Publishing in North America, on July 7th.

Also on CR: Reviews of Dead on Arrival, House Secrets, House Justice, House Divided, House Blood, House Reckoning, House Rivals, and House Arrest

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads

Upcoming: ICARUS 17 by Charles Cumming (Mysterious Press / Hemlock Press)

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Great news: Icarus 17, the fourth novel in Charles Cumming‘s Box 88 series, is due out this summer! Also, unlike many of the author’s other novels, it’ll be getting a simultaneous release in the UK and North America.

I’ve been a fan of Cumming’s novels since Typhoon (2009), which I definitely recommend to all fans of the genre. This latest series, following the missions of Lachlan Kite has been particularly good — each of the novels so far has been excellent, exploring the long-term consequences of past missions and decisions. Must-reads, in my opinion, for all fans of espionage fiction.

Here’s the synopsis for Icarus 17:

Master spy Lachlan Kite heads to Athens, Greece, after an old flame asks for help locating her missing son.

A threat to the lives of his wife and daughter in London forces elite intelligence agent Lachlan Kite to move his family to safety. Meanwhile Kite’s former girlfriend, Martha Raine, comes to him with a plea for help. Her twenty-year-old son, Max, has vanished without trace in Greece. Can Kite help to find him?

Analysts at Anglo-American intelligence agency BOX 88 discover that Max was in a relationship with an Israeli woman, Jessica Morrow, who has links to the Mossad. Morrow is being hunted by a ruthless criminal gang. Fearing the worst, Kite and Martha set out for Athens in a desperate attempt to locate Max and Jessica.

This is easily one of my most-anticipated novels of the year.

Charles Cumming’s Icarus 17 is due to be published by Mysterious Press in North America (July 7th) and Hemlock Press in the UK (July 2nd).

Also on CR: Reviews of Box 88, Judas 62, Kennedy 35, Typhoon, The Trinity Six, A Foreign Country, A Colder War, and The Man Between

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram

Excerpt: A GRAVE DECEPTION by Connie Berry (Crooked Lane)

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Next week, Crooked Lane Books will publish A Grave Deception by Connie Berry, the sixth novel in the Kate Hamilton Mysteries series. To mark the occasion, and give readers a taste of the book, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, here’s the synopsis:

Antiques expert Kate Hamilton dives into the past to solve a fourteenth-century mystery with disturbing similarities to a modern-day murder in the sixth installment of the Kate Hamilton mystery series.

Kate Hamilton and her husband, Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, have settled into married life in Long Barston. When archaeologists excavating the ruins of a nearby plague village discover the miraculously preserved body of a fourteenth-century woman, Kate and her colleague, Ivor Tweedy, are asked to appraise the grave goods, including a valuable pearl. When tests reveal the woman was pregnant and murdered, the owner of the estate on which the body was found, an amateur historian, asks Kate to identify her and, if possible, her killer. Surprised, Kate agrees to try.

Meanwhile, tensions within the archaeological team erupt when the body of the lead archaeologist turns up at the dig site with fake pearls in his mouth and stomach. Then a third body is found in the excavations. Meanwhile, Kate’s husband Tom is tracking the movements of a killer of his own.

With the help of 700-year-old documents and the unpublished research of a deceased historian, Kate must piece together the past before the grave count reaches four.

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Upcoming: INDIE DARLING by Lauren Nossett (Flatiron)

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Next year, Flatiron Books are due to publish Indie Darling, the next novel from Lauren Nossett — “a mystery set in Nashville, where a Dolly Parton–loving private detective is drawn into the disappearance of an enigmatic pop star.” I very much enjoyed the author’s first two novels, The Resemblance and The Professor, both of which I would definitely recommend to all fans of crime fiction: well-written, interesting setting (they’re sort-of campus crime), and engaging characters. The author’s new novel looks equally interesting, as well as a little bit different. Here’s the synopsis:

Nashville is a city of two faces, where the glitter often masks the grit.

Kelly Williams helps women. Sisters in search of lost siblings. Wives determined to uncover affairs. Daughters haunted by men lingering outside their windows. Clients trust her because she listens, she believes them, and over the years she’s honed a specialized skill set.

Kelly is a Dolly Parton–loving, sports-car-driving private investigator in Nashville, Tennessee. Her latest client, Sarah-Faith Owens, comes to her after receiving threatening messages. Something about the woman feels familiar, and Kelly realizes she’s Seraph, the magnetic, polarizing lead singer of the indie music sensation The Garden Snakes. With feminist anthems, cryptic lyric easter eggs, and an electrifying stage presence, Seraph has built a fiercely loyal following ― and attracted a number of critics. At that level of fame, her stalker could be anyone.

Then, in the middle of a Nashville performance, Seraph is shot on stage ― and the ambulance carrying her disappears. As the city reels and conspiracy theories swirl, Kelly is pulled into a dangerous web of secrets involving Seraph’s bandmates, her troubled past, and the high cost of stardom.

Lauren Nossett’s Indie Darling is due to be published by Flatiron Books in North America, on July 28th, 2026.

Also on CR: Review of The Resemblance

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram

Excerpt: THE WONDER LANDS WAR by Peter Darbyshire (Poplar Press)

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Today we have an excerpt from The Wonder Lands War, the fourth book in Peter Darbyshire‘s The Books of Cross series — readers may recall that we have shared excerpts from the three previous novels in the series, too (see below for links). It’s is out now, published by Poplar Press. Here’s the synopsis:

I would take the whole world apart to find her.

The immortal Cross is back in a wild new adventure – a desperate hunt to find the enigmatic Alice from the Wonderland tales. Alice has helped Cross save the world countless times over since she stepped out of the pages of her book, but now she is the one that needs rescue after vanishing during an apocalyptic battle. Aided by the faerie queen Morgana and her court, Cross journeys to mystical islands populated with murderous immortals and into famous libraries with powerful librarians and magical texts until they reach the chaotic and terrifying Wonder Lands, the dangerous inspiration for the original Alice tales. But they are not the only ones looking for Alice – a rogue group of angels are also hunting her for mysterious reasons of their own. The very fate of the world may rest upon who finds Alice first.

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Upcoming: CHILDREN OF STRIFE and GREEN CITY WARS by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Adrian Tchaikovsky has to be one of the hardest-working authors in SFF. Not only that, his novels are consistently excellent and varied — he writes across seemingly all speculative genres, offering up many twists and original takes on classic and new tropes. I wanted to quickly spotlight two of his novels coming out in 2026, highlighting just a bit of this breadth of interest and imagination.

CHILDREN OF STRIFE (Tor UK / Orbit)

The far-future. After Earth fell, ark ships had hunted for a new home. They sought lost worlds terraformed in Earth’s forgotten past. A ship crewed by maverick humans, spiders and a spectacularly punchy mantis shrimp captain is about to rediscover one such world, and an ark.

Then human crewmate Alis wakes to discover that she, her captain and the ship’s intelligence are the only ones left on their ship. But what happened to those who left to explore the ark . . . and the world below?

This is the fourth novel in the Children series, which started with the Clarke Award-winning Children of Time. I’ve read the first two books in the series, and loved both. Hopefully, I’ll manage to get around to reading Children of Memory before Strife is published. Really looking forward to this. Children of Strife is due to be published by Tor Books in the UK (March 12th) and Orbit in North America (March 17th)

Also on CR: Review of Children of Ruin

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GREEN CITY WARS (Tor Books)

Down these mean streets a beast must walk…

Meet Skotch. Racoon, P.I.―Yours for a few buttons as long as the job isn’t too illegal, whatever that means.

A mouse has gone missing. Normally this wouldn’t raise any hackles, nor any alarms, but this mouse has something that everyone seems to want, though nobody appears particularly eager to say what that something is.

The fee is good―perhaps too good. Certainly not something Skotch can easily turn down.

If only Skotch can work out where the mouse is hiding, what he’s hiding, and why his secrets are upsetting a lot of animals caught up in the Green City wars.

This upcoming noir novel has a fantastic pitch: “Philip Marlowe meets Redwall.” The cover for the North American edition, featured above, is pretty great, but it’s that pitch that cemented my interest in reading this. Really looking forward to this one. Green City Wars is due to be published by Tor Books in North America (June 23rd, 2026) and in the UK (June 25th).

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, BlueSky

Quick Review: NASH FALLS by David Baldacci (Grand Central)

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A high-flying financier learns he’s working for crooks. Everything goes wrong. Eventually.

When Walter Nash is recruited by the FBI to help bring down a global crime network his life is turned completely upside down…

Walter Nash is a sensitive, intelligent and kindhearted man. He has a wife and a daughter and a very high-level position at Sybaritic Investments, where his innate skills and dogged tenacity have carried him to the top of the pyramid in his business career. Despite never going on grand adventures, and always working too many hours, he has a happy and upscale life with his family.

However, following his estranged Vietnam-veteran father’s funeral, Nash is unexpectedly approached by the FBI in the middle of the night. They have an important request: become their inside man to expose an enterprise that is laundering large sums of money through Sybaritic. At the top of this illegal operation is Victoria Steers, an international criminal mastermind that the FBI has been trying to bring down for years.

Nash has little choice but to accept the FBI’s demands and try to bring Steers and her partners to justice. But when Steers discovers that Nash is working with the FBI, she turns the tables on him in a way he never could have contemplated. And that forces Nash to take the ultimate step both to survive and to take his revenge: He must become the exact opposite of who he has always been.

And even that may not be enough.

In his latest novel, David Baldacci introduces readers to another new protagonist: Walter Nash, financier extraordinaire. With an intriguing premise, I jumped in with my usual expectations for Baldacci’s work. However, it was also nowhere near the author’s best. Continue reading →

Quick Review: NOBODY’S BABY by Olivia Waite (TorDotCom)

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Detective Dorothy Gentleman investigates the surprising (impossible?) appearance of a baby on the Fairweather…

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

A wild baby appears! Dorothy Gentleman, ship’s detective, is put to the test once again when an infant is mysteriously left on her nephew’s doorstep. Fertility is supposed to be on pause during the Fairweather’s journey across the stars — but humans have a way of breaking any rule you set them. Who produced this child, and why did they then abandon him? And as her nephew and his partner get more and more attached, how can Dorothy prevent her colleague and rival detective, Leloup, a stickler for law and order, from classifying the baby as a stowaway or a piece of luggage?

This is the second novella starring Dorothy Gentleman, a ship’s detective on the HMS Fairweather, an interstellar passenger liner transporting people to a new life on a new planet. Gently paced, well-written and engaging, it’s another very good read from Waite, and fans of the first are sure to enjoy this. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE ASSET by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Crime)

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Another solid addition to the Joe DeMarco series, involving blackmail with potentially international repercussions…

In the middle of the night, on a winding road in a suburb outside of Washington D.C., a homeless veteran is killed in a hit-and-run — a tragedy that barely catches the attention of the media and police.

Days later, John Mahoney, the former Speaker of the House, is confronted by Diane Lake, an ex-CIA agent turned political researcher with a knack for digging up unsavory intelligence on some of D.C.’s biggest players. Diane is there with a gift for Mahoney: the news that Lydia Chang, the wife of one of his biggest rivals, might be working undercover as a Chinese agent.

Knowing it’s too early to get the FBI involved, Mahoney does the only thing left to do. He calls in Joe DeMarco.

DeMarco might not have the title of political researcher, but he’s no stranger to digging up dirt either. As DeMarco starts his investigation, he soon learns there’s a lot more going on than Mahoney suspected, and instead of answers, all he finds are more questions. Who’s the mysterious man Lydia Chang has been meeting in the park? Does Diane Lake have an ulterior motive? And why does everything point back to a random hit-and-run?

The Asset is the 19th novel in Lawson’s excellent and acclaimed Joe DeMarco series. I’ve been a fan since the very beginning (2005’s The Inner Circle), and each new novel is a must-read for me. I started reading this new novel as soon as I received the review copy, and I zipped through it. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →