Thriller

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

Upcoming: REVENGE PREY by John Sandford (G. P. Putnam’s Sons)

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Next year, Lucas Davenport returns in Revenge Prey, the 36th novel in John Sandford‘s Prey series, which has long been one of my favourite series — I’ve been reading and thoroughly enjoying Sandford’s novels since 2004, and recently started re-reading some of his earlier novels (for example, the Kidd series and Dead Watch). This is easily one of my most-anticipated 2026 novels. Here’s the synopsis:

Lucas Davenport must track down a ruthless Russian hit team…

Leonard Summers — not his real name — is on the run. A former high-ranking Russian intelligence officer who defected to the U.S. after providing critical information about Russian spies in U.S. government service, Leonard,  his wife Martha, and son Bernard have spent the past year holed up in a CIA facility near Washington. After the CIA makes a deal with the U.S. Marshal Service’s Witness Protection Program (WPP), Leonard’s family is transported to Minneapolis. The plan is to hide them in a wooded Minneapolis suburb that resembles their former home and dacha near Moscow.

The Summers are received at their destination by Lucas Davenport and fellow marshal Shelly White. Unbeknownst to them, the WPP group has been tracked by a Russian hit team. And while nobody in the WPP has ever been attacked… Leonard might be the first victim. As shots are fired and enemies dodged, Lucas must move quickly to uncover where the leak is coming from, before the hit team can strike again.

John Sandford’s Revenge Prey is due to be published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in North America on April 7th, 2026. (No UK publisher at the time of writing — perhaps Simon & Schuster, who have published most of the previous Prey novels to date.) The publisher has kindly already sent me a DRC of the novel, so I’ll be reading it very soon.

Also on CR: Reviews of Phantom Prey, Wicked Prey, Storm Prey, Buried Prey, Stolen Prey, Silken Prey, Field of Prey, Golden Prey, Neon Prey, Masked Prey, Righteous Prey Judgement Prey, Toxic Prey, Lethal Prey, Dark of the Moon, The Investigator, and Dark Angel

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Upcoming: WE WILL SEE YOU BLEED by Ron Currie (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

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The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne was the first novel by Ron Currie that I read, and it was an excellent introduction to his work: it was a gripping mystery overlying sharp and empathetic social commentary, populated by engaging and three-dimensional characters. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to learn that the author is returning to the setting, Little Canada, in his next novel: We Will See You Bleed, due out next summer. Definitely one of my now-most-anticipated novels of 2026. Here’s the synopsis:

It’s late summer 1984, and Babs Dionne’s hometown of Waterville, Maine is on the verge of collapse. A strike at the paper mill has dragged on for a year, pitting neighbor against neighbor, leaving everyone broke and exhausted. 

As head of the union local, Babs has presided over Little Canada’s decline. She’s sworn off violence since killing a man when she was a teenager, and has stuck to this vow even as it’s become clear that only violence can save their community. When Babs’ best friend Rita returns home after five years away, she is shocked by the state of things. And as the strike comes to a head, Rita notices something else: the men may be broken, but the women are furious, ready to do whatever necessary to take back Little Canada. 

They just need Babs to be the fearless woman who emerged from the woods fifteen years ago, drenched in blood. They need Babs to face what she already knows: that the only way to fix things is to assume control. Completely. Mercilessly.

Ron Currie’s We Will See You Bleed is due to be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in North America, on July 7th, 2026. (No UK publisher at the time of writing, but the first book was published by Atlantic Books.)

Also on CR: Review of The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads

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 →

Excerpt: THE HEIST OF HOLLOW LONDON by Eddie Robson (Tor Books)

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Next month, Tor Books are due to publish The Heist of Hollow London, the latest novel from Eddie Robson; a twisty dystopia that blends Severance with Ocean’s Eleven. The publisher has kindly provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers.

First, though, here’s the synopsis:

In games of betrayal everyone loses.

Arlo and Drienne are ‘mades’—clones of company executives, deemed important enough to be saved should their health fail. Mades work around the clock to pay off the debt incurred by their creation, though most are Reaped—killed and harvested for organs when their corporate counterparts are in medical need.

But when the impossible happens and the too-big-to-fail company that owns them collapses, Arlo and Drienne find themselves purchased by a scientist who has a job for them.

The reward: Debt paid off, freedom from servitude, and enough cash to last a lifetime.

The job: Infiltrate a highly secure corporate reclamation facility in the heart of dead London and steal a data drive.

They’re going to need a team.

Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE ASSET by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Crime)

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In February, Atlantic Crime will publish The Asset, the 19th novel in Mike Lawson‘s Joe DeMarco series. I’ve been a fan of the series ever since stumbling across the first book, The Inside Ring, at Waterstones in Durham back in 2006 (I think). After that, and while still in the UK, finding additional DeMarco novels was something of a challenge — not all of them were published in a timely fashion. But, luckily, I spent a lot of time over the next couple of decades in New York and then in Canada, and have been able to keep up-to-date easily. Lawson is one of my favourite authors, and each new book of his is a must-read. Here’s the synopsis for The Asset:

Backchannel intel points Joe DeMarco in the direction of a possible double agent in the latest pulse-pounding thriller from Edgar and Barry Award finalist Mike Lawson starring his beloved Washington DC troubleshooter.

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?

If you’re a fan of US political thrillers, then I’d highly recommend Lawson’s novels. The Asset is due to be published by Atlantic Crime on February 3rd, 2026.

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: TRUST NO ONE by James Rollins (William Morrow)

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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

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram

Very Quick Review: TO DIE FOR by David Baldacci (Grand Central)

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Travis Devine gets an unusual babysitting assignment, which (of course) ends up being far more dangerous than expected…

The 6:20 Man returns, this time sent to the Pacific Northwest to aid in a complicated FBI case—and he’s about to come face-to-face with his nemesis.

Travis Devine has become a pro at accomplishing any mission he’s given. But this time it’s not his skills that send him to Seattle to aid the FBI in escorting orphaned, twelve-year-old Betsy Odom to a meeting with her uncle, who’s under federal investigation. Instead, he’s hoping to lay low and keep off the radar of an enemy—the girl on the train.

But as Devine gets to know Betsy, questions begin to arise around the death of her parents. Devine digs for answers, and what he finds points to a conspiracy bigger than he could’ve ever imagined.

It might finally be time for Devine and the girl on the train to come face-to-face. Devine is going to find out the difference between his friends and his enemies—and in some cases, they might well be both.

In the third novel starring Travis Devine, the accidental intelligence operative is sent to Seattle to babysit an orphaned girl with connections to a sprawling federal investigation. Naturally, Devine’s plans to keep this assignment quiet and easy (while simultaneously not really wanting to do it) go awry as the scope of the investigation and Betsy’s importance become clearer. In many ways, this novel is classic Baldacci. Continue reading →

Upcoming: FADE IN by Kyle Mills (Authors Equity)

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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.

In 2005, this included the excellent Fade, which introduced readers to Salam al-Fayed (a.k.a. “Fade”), a former Navy SEAL and intelligence asset. It was, I believe, planned as a stand-alone, but in a couple of weeks (July 29th), the author will publish a long-awaited sequel: Fade In. I, for one, can’t wait to read it. Here’s the synopsis:

When ex-navy SEAL Salam al-Fayed–Fade to his friends–steps in front of a sniper’s bullet, he assumes all his problems are solved. Having already been declared clinically dead twice in his career, he’s hoping the third time will be the charm.

Instead, he wakes in a hospital having gone from being one of the deadliest operatives in US history to a man incapable of even standing without assistance. Alone and wanted by authorities, he’s destined to spend the rest of his life lying in a prison infirmary.

So, when a shadowy organization offers him a new identity and next-generation medical care, he has no choice but to agree. Nothing’s free, though. After a gruelling rehabilitation, he’s drafted into an elite paramilitary unit. But who’s in charge?

When a dire threat explodes out of China, his question is quickly A select group of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people has decided that governments are no longer capable of controlling the chaos erupting around the globe. It’s a power vacuum that poses a mortal danger to all humanity and one they intend to fill.

With panic rising, the leaders of both democracies and dictatorships prove equally willing to destroy anything and anyone to save themselves. Forced into action before he’s fully ready, Fade finds himself at the sharp end of a mission to stop a menace unlike any faced before. If he fails, the consequences will be unimaginable. But what if he succeeds?

No one elected the people he’s working for. And God sure as hell didn’t ordain them. Has he signed on to save the human race or to help quietly enslave it?

Kyle Mills’s Fade In is due to be published by Authors Equity in North America and in the UK, on July 29th.

Also on CR: Reviews of Darkness Falls, The Survivor, Order to Kill, Enemy of the State, and Lethal Agent

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram

Excerpt: THE COMING FIRE by Greg Mosse (Moonflower)

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Next week (July 17th), Moonflower Books are due to publish the third book in Greg Mosse‘s Coming Darkness series: The Coming Fire. To mark the release, and give readers a taste, they have provided CR with a short excerpt to share. First, here’s the synopsis:

First came the darkness.
Then the storm.
Now Alex has no choice: it’s time to face the fire.

Following a fighter jet crash in the Haitian hinterland, special agent Alex Lamarque is taken captive by a violent, drug-addled gang, the only authority in this lawless territory.

Unknown to Alex, his lover Mariam Jordane has escaped the deadly flood of her home valley in the Pyrenees. But Mariam, along with Alex’s mother Gloria, is trapped on the wrong side of the world, facing a crescendo of dangers: the AI viruses crippling the digital state; the breakdown of law and order; and unexpected, terrifying news from a Paris observatory.

Four thousand kilometres to the south, in the remote Sahara, the consequences of the cataclysmic events at the Aswan dam continue to reverberate throughout the world.

With the woman he loves presumed dead, his mother in danger, and no hope of rescue, Alex must tackle his greatest challenge yet: break free from the gang, uncover the truth, and finally face the perpetrators of the global conspiracy that’s seemingly hellbent on destroying the world. Can he – and the people he loves – escape the coming fire?

Continue reading →