The Best Crime Novels and Thrillers of 2024

A wealthy teen vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, setting off a panicked search in this literary suspense novel which NPR compared to the author's previous Long Bright River, but called this one "something weirder and stranger and unforgettable."

On a remote island off the coast of Scotland, there’s just one house and a solitary inhabitant. But following a shocking discovery at a London art gallery, the island’s long-buried secrets emerge in a “potent brew of head-spinning deceptions, manipulations, and misdirections,” according to the Boston Globe. “The Blue Hour is a taut, slow-burning thriller that offers real-life apprehensions quietly tucked in amid all of its cunning malevolence."

Written by the Titanium Noir author Nicholas Cornwell (under a pseudonym) as an homage to his legendary father John le Carré, this highly anticipated cold war thriller takes place in the missing decade between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The Guardian called it a “loving tribute to a complicated father (as Harkaway's dedication seems to acknowledge) as well as an excellent novel in its own right."

Fans of female sleuths will delight in this crafty whodunnit written by three bestselling female novelists working together as a team, in which three American novelists become prime suspects following a literary star’s murder on a remote Scottish island.

In another surefire hit from the megaselling crime writer of Resurrection Walk and the beloved Lincoln Lawyer series, the veteran LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a serial rapist whose trail has gone cold with the help of Harry Bosch’s daughter Maddie. “White-hot suspense guaranteed to please his fans,” hailed Publishers Weekly in its starred review. “This ranks with Connelly's best."

In this “short, deftly written novel” the Young Skins author takes us to a small Irish town where an abduction has gone terribly wrong. "The kidnapping serves as a binding device, bringing together a small, carefully drawn cast of characters under unusual, high-pressure circumstances...The release of that pressure is sometimes violent, but it is also revelatory," noted The New Yorker.

In this “unforgettable tour through the life and mind of a homicidal protagonist," a dead novelist’s cold-blooded widow becomes enmeshed in a web of literary deception that the Wall Street Journal praised for mixing “dark wit with coldblooded suspense.”

In the bestselling Australian author’s latest pageturner, the passengers of an otherwise unremarkable flight discover their true destinies in a “fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions,” according to Kirkus, who remarked: “Cannot wait for the TV series.”

The Agatha Award is one of the most prestigious prizes for mystery writers, and this Canadian author took home the prize a record nine times! In this latest installment of her bestselling Inspector Gamache series, the eponymous Chief Inspector faces an ominous threat much more sinister than any one murder or any one case in what Publishers Weekly called "one of the series' best."

Former Chicago cop Cal Hooper returns but this time he's settled into a quiet life after retiring in rural Ireland, where he's taken a teenager named Trey under his wing. But when the kid's father reappears in town looking for gold, things take a dark turn.