Early next year, William Morrow will publish Trust No One, a new stand-alone thriller by James Rollins — author of the internationally-bestselling Sigma Force series, among others. As a long-time fan of the author’s work (since the second Sigma novel: 2005’s Map of Bones), I’m always looking forward to a new book from him — even though I have, unfortunately, fallen a bit behind!
In this latest thriller, which follows a group of university students on a treacherous race across Europe after they are falsely accused of murder. Here’s the full synopsis:
Knowledge can be magic — until it falls into the wrong hands.
The ritualistic murder of a British professor at the University of Exeter points to a startling cast of suspects: his own students. All are enrolled in a postgraduate program covering the history of witchcraft, folklore, and spiritualism.
All evidence points to Sharyn Karr — an American student. Prior to the professor’s death, he had thrust a centuries-old book upon her. It appears to be the handwritten and encrypted diary of an eighteenth-century mystic and occultist, the Comte de Saint-Germain. The professor begged her to keep the text safe, ending with a warning.
Trust no one.
Such a responsibility forces her into cooperation with Duncan Maxwell, a fellow postgrad and the sixteenth in line to the British Crown. Already, Duncan has proven himself a savant with encryptions. Unfortunately, the pair clash at every level, but they both need one another. Especially when they discover the book’s opening words: Herein lies the secret to my immortality. Come find me, if you dare.
As dark forces close upon the pair, she and her friends are forced to flee, pursued by law enforcement and hunted by a powerful cabal. In an explosive chase across Europe — from the Tower of London to Parisian chateaus to a fortress in the Italian Alps — Sharyn must learn the true secret hidden in Saint-Germain’s text. It will send her and the others across history and deep into the heart of one of the world’s greatest mysteries, a secret buried at the roots of Western Civilization, a discovery that could topple empires and change humanity forever.
For what lies at the end of Saint-Germain’s diary is as shocking as its opening words.
James Rollins’s Trust No One is due to be published by William Morrow in North America and in the UK, on February 24th, 2026.
Also on CR: Reviews of The Judas Strain, The Last Oracle, The Doomsday Key, The Devil Colony, and The 6th Extinction
Travis Devine gets an unusual babysitting assignment, which (of course) ends up being far more dangerous than expected…
I’ve been a big fan of Kyle Mills‘s novels since I stumbled across his Mark Beamon series in, I think, 2002 (I’ve decided to re-read these over the summer, too). At the time, I lived in the UK and his books were strangely difficult to find in stores — I still preferred buying from stores, rather than online, and because I was splitting my time between Cambridge and Durham, I had so very many bookshops to choose from, all within a 10-30 minute walks. I think the events of 9/11 briefly increased British readers’ interest in US political thrillers and, as a result, Mills’s and some others’ books became a little more widely available (e.g., Vince Flynn, Brad Thor). The Beamon novels were gripping, so whenever I popped over the Atlantic to the US, I’d pick up any new novel(s) he’d written.
Next week (July 17th), 
Later this year, readers will get a new book from Don Winslow! The Final Score is a collection of six never-before-published, all-new short novels. Learning about this book was a very nice surprise, because I had been under the impression that Winslow had retired from writing, after the publication of his 
I hadn’t heard about the second novel from Mason Coile, Exiles, until the publisher reached out about it a couple of weeks ago. Coile is a pseudonym for acclaimed, best-selling Canadian horror author 
Today we have an excerpt from the latest thriller by best-selling author Dean Koontz: Going Home in the Dark. Due to be published in May, the publisher has let CR share the first chapter. First, though, here’s the synopsis:
Today we have an excerpt from The Exclusion Zone by Alexis von Konigslow. Due to be published by 
A novella with an interesting twist on haunting, and an amusing satire on “reality” TV
In March 2025, readers will be able to get their hands on The Summer Guests, the second novel in Tess Gerritsen‘s Martini Club series. The Spy Coast was, somewhat surprisingly, the first of Gerritsen’s novels that I read, and it left me very keen to read more. As I finished it, the sequel had already been announced by Thomas & Mercer (North American publisher), and yesterday I noticed that the cover artwork had been unveiled for both the UK and North American editions. One of my most-anticipated reads of next year, here’s the synopsis:
After a teenager vanishes — and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect — she joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. But the girl’s wealthy family pushes for an arrest. And when authorities discover a long-dead corpse in a nearby pond, the case becomes doubly complicated, with unthinkable ties to long-buried secrets.
Civilian Reader 