Top 10 Most Anticipated Crime & Thriller Releases: Spring & Summer 2024
At the start of a new year, one of my favourite things to do is look back on my Storygraph tracker for the year just gone and have a think about my favourite book of the year. My second favourite thing is to look ahead to the upcoming year and revel in the delights that are to come our way. 2024 holds new releases from Lisa Jewell, Jack Jordan, Ruth Ware and a whole host of other Crime Royalty.
Here, I give you a rundown of the ones I'm most anticipating...
The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas (14/03)
This book just came out in March, and I was lucky enough to join in on the Tandem Readalong for the release. I am a huge Claire Douglas fan and I feel like she crept up on me; appeared out of nowhere with these brilliantly atmospheric, plot-driven crime thrillers. I celebrated The Girls Who Disappeared on our YouTube Channel, when I chatted about Podcast thrillers, so I won't talk too much about that one but it is the one that cemented my love for Claire's writing. The Wrong Sister, not to be confused with her 2015 release The Sisters, is freshly out on the shelves and centers on Tasha and her older sister Alice - they may look alike but they couldn't be more different and yet each would trust the other with their life. So what happens when Alice and her husband are brutally attacked - Alice is in intensive care - and Tasha recieves a note... "It was supposed to be you." I won't say too much on this one, as I've already read it, but I can confirm it was one of my most anticipated reads for the year and it didn't disappoint.
You can check out even more of the content from The Wrong Sister readalong here.
Remain Silent by Robyn Gigl (14/03)
This book also just came out, but judging by it's predecessors I HAVE to read it. I first discovered Robyn Gigl when I read her first book in the her series By Way of Sorrow which features a transwoman; a lawyer - written by a transwoman, who is also a lawyer. With that level of own voice awareness, and the poor representation across the rest of the crime genre, I knew I had to read this one and I was SO thrilled with it. Remain Sillent is Book Three in the series following Erin McCabe, our criminal defense attorney, and this time - she's in the hot seat. The victim's time of death is estimated to be during Erin's one and only consultation with him. So now what? I can't wait to get into this one.
The Kill List by Nadine Matheson (09/05)
Out in May we have the long-awaited third book in the Anjelica Henley series. The first book in this series was The Jigsaw Man which was also Nadine's debut thriller - and it was exceptional! One of my favourite things about this series is the relationship between Inspector Henley and her partner Ramouter and just the endless twisty darkness of it all. The Kill List features Henley having to reopen and reinvestigate some of the original cases closed by her old boss DCI Harry Rhimes. Now that Rhimes is no longer around to defend himself, and people are pointing the fingers with whisperings of corrupt police officers, Henley has to put her feelings aside and dive back into the brutal murders of five young people. This book is going to be a careful balance of the emotion behind the job, and the commitment to getting it done with twists and turns along the way and I, for one, am stoked.
The Family Experiment by John Marrs (09/05)
I will admit, I've been late to the John Marrs hype. However, after working on our marathon of three John Marrs titles (The Stranger In Her House, Keep It In The Family and What Lies Between Us) it's safe to say he's an autobuy author. If I'm not ordeirng his books for urgent delivery, I'm listening to them on Libby. The Family Experiment falls under the more 'speculative' crime and thriller fiction that John writes, think more The One than The Stranger In Her House. In the version of today's world that John presents the world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families let alone raise them. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality tv show.Potentially inspired by the very real-life issues of the cost of living, and the rising trend in publishing on writing about reality TV, I'm going to be pre-ordering this John Marrs title and adding to my TBR immediatley.
THE CHAMBER - Out on 6th June!
If you’ve been hanging out on North Sea TikTok, then this is one for you.
You have not been scrolling hard enough on TikTok if you've managed to avoid 'North Sea' TikTok and that ominous sound. You know exactly which one I'm referring to. Deep in North Sea TikTok, I said to a friend how much I needed a moden North Sea thriller, and here Will Dean comes to save the day. In a very timely North Sea x Submarine Disaster turn of events, Will Dean's upcoming release see's main character Ellen Brooke readying herself to spend almost a month locked inside a hyperbaric chamber alongside five other divers. They are all being paid handsomely for this work - to be lowered each day inside a diving bell to the sea bed, taking it in turns to dive down and repair oil pipes that lie in the dark waters. It is a close knit team and it has to be: any error or loss of trust could be catastrophic.
All is going to plan until one of the divers is found unresponsive in his bunk. He hadn't left the chamber. It will take four more days of decompression, locked away together, before the hatch can be opened. Four more days of bare steel, intrusive thoughts, and the constant struggle not to give way to panic. Mind games, exhaustion, suspicion, and, most of all, pressure. And if someone does unlock the door, everyone dies...
It's being described as AND THEN THERE WERE NONE meets THE LAST BREATH, and I'm sensing a touch of VIGIL in there too, which has me totally sold. I also can't even begin to understand the amount of research that Will Dean must have done to get this ambitious concept right. I can't wait to read this one.
Jack Jordan’s next release REDEMPTION is out on 20th June.
Would you just look at that cover?
Introduced to Jack by the wonderful team at Simon & Schuster when we were lucky enough to work on DO NO HARM, I have sold my soul to this man. DO NO HARM is described as Sophie's Choice x Grey's Anatomy and his subsequent release CONVICTION is Sophie's Choice x How To Get Away With Murder (if we're sticking with Shondaland references) complete with scenes at The Old Bailey and some of the most adept twists. His release for 2024, is REDEMPTION. And you will have seen *that* cover reveal all over social media. In REDEMPTION we meet Aaron Alexander, who's just been released from prison after an eleven year stint for a hit-and-run. He's got his heart set on freedome and peace. However, the mother of the man he killed has other feelings at play. Consumed by grief and rage, she has been waiting for Aaron’s release, counting down the days until she can exact the revenge he deserves. And now that time has come.
But as Evelyn and her husband Tobias embark on a road trip to track Aaron down, they find themselves caught on two different sides of a gripping game of cat-and-mouse. Because Tobias knows what Evelyn is planning, and he will do anything to save her from herself. Even if it means protecting the man who killed their son.
Will it all end in Redemption or retribution?Jack is absolutely the master of the moral dilemma and he's had me identifying with all kinds of people in past books, so I am excited to go on this road trip with Evelyn and Tobias; I feel an emotional rollercoaster afoot with this one.
A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson (04/07)
Peter Swanson writes duplicitous relationships so deliciously darkly, and so brilliantly, that when I heard there was going to be a 2024 release for Swanson, I knew it would be high up on my 'most anticipated' list. Peter Swanson - the man who wrote Lily Kintner in both THE KIND WORTH SAVING and THE KIND WORTH KILLING, is releasing A TALENT FOR MURDER. In this book our main character Martha, a quiet librarian, sees her husbands mask slip and it's then she realises he is a complete and utter stranger to her. As she delves deeper into the mystery of the man she married she unearths a string of dead women, and unsure of her own instincts, Martha turns to an old friend (and a Peter Swanson favourite) Lily Kintner. Anyone who's read a previous novel starring Lily Kintner will know that she has her own dark side and Martha might just be biting off more than she'd hoped for. I'm ready for my next installment of Lily Kintner black widow darkness - sign me up!
Breaking The Dark by Lisa Jewell (04/07)
In a similar vein to some of the authors I've mentioned previously, there's nothing that Lisa Jewell writes that I won't read. I was floored by NONE OF THIS IS TRUE, which was the 2023 release, which we were lucky enough to support with a companion podcast, and knowing this was right around the corner has been intriguing me ever since. Now here's the thing, I'm not a Marvel fan. I'm not NOT a Marvel fan, but I'm also not that fussed either. I could give or take. So what happens when you put an auto-buy author, writing in a world that's never really interested you before? Well, you assume you've been wrong this whole time, and you pre-order the book. Obviously. Lisa's take on Jessica Jones introduces the character to a new audience; Jessica is a private investigator based out of Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan - she's a hard living, rough talking, loner. Oh, and she also happens to be a retired super hero. The description online tells us that 'nothing is certain in Lisa's gripping and most imaginative novel yet' which follows Jessica investigating two children, recently returned to the Upper East Side after spending the summer in the UK. They're different somehow. They have unnaturally perfect skin for teenagers and have lost all the tics and habits that made them who they were. So what happened to Lark and Fox, whilst they were in Essex? Jessica discovers evil geniuses playing a dangerous game with technology under the guise of 'making the world a better place' and takes readers along for the ride.
The premise is giving an ever so slight nod to HAVEN'T THEY GROWN by Sophie Hannah which I loved - so I'm stoked to read this one. Whilst I'm unsure about the Marvel-world, anything that Lisa Jewell writes has a thrill to it.
As Yet Untitled by Gillian McAllister (16/07)
What does it say about my commitment to certain authors that there's no blurb, title, or cover revealed for this and yet's it's made the 'most anticipated' list? Coming from the author of Wrong Place, Wrong Time - I’d read a shopping list, if she wrote it.
One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware (18/07)
I'm a huge retro-Ruth Ware superfan. I loved THE TURN OF THE KEY and I loved THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 - it's those books that made her an autobuy author for me. So, of course, I'm hassling our friends at S&S to slide me a copy of ONE PERFECT COUPLE because I cannot wait any longer for a brand new Ruth Ware to sink my teeth into. This one has taken inspiration from The Traitors (TV Show) and And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, which sounds like a VERY interesting concept. According to the blurb - There will be sun, sea, laughs and plenty of flirting. What could possibly go wrong? Well, what indeed... A huge tropical storm cuts them off from everything, the group must band together. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, our main character Lyla realises that someone is playing this game for real – and they'll stop at nothing to win. Ten might have arrived, but who will survive to the end?
What are your most anticipated reads for Spring / Summer of 2024? You can find more detail on my recommendations here by checking out our YouTube Channel and following us on Instagram - for even more recommendations!
Let me know in the comments below which book from the above is top of your list! 🧡
