January Mystery Releases To Know

Laura Coates takes readers into how our justice system is designed to intentionally be unjust for marginalized persons, including Black and Brown communities. She was a prosecutor for the Department of Justice and uses her job’s environment, cases, and experience to show examples of how the system works differently for different people. This one is high on my TBR.

For cozy mystery fans who want to drool over ice cream flavors, Collette is back with the third in this yummy, Ohio-set series. Bronwyn Crewse is enjoying life as an ice cream shop owner and now an ice cream truck owner, but it’s a cozy mystery so of course someone gets poisoned and you know who they’re gonna blame…

If you want to be the detective, this one is for you. The reader only knows that someone was murdered and someone is in prison, but did they do it? You get all the legal documents, post it notes, texts, emails, and crime reports to figure it out—if you’re up for the challenge!

If you like Japanese crime novels, psychological stories, revenge, that feeling of maybe nothing is as it seems, and want a quick read, this one is for you.

This is a reissue with a new introduction by Michael Nava that is the start to a classic mystery series. At the time of its first publishing in the ’70s, it was really rare for the lead character in a mystery to be gay (if you’re interested in the history of sodomy laws)–and sadly this is still rare in the crime genre. We follow Dave Brandstetter, who is an insurance investigator. In the first book he’s tasked with a death claim after a car went off a bridge during a storm. The catch is there is no body, so he must figure out what actually happened… The next two books in the series have also now been reissued: Death Claims and Troublemaker.

(TW past suicidal thoughts, detail/ questions whether main case could be suicide/ fatphobia/ racism/ ableism/ statutory)

This series is for fans of police procedurals, FBI, fictional serial killers, thrillers, and partnerships with potential for romance. It all began when as a child when Ellery Hathaway was rescued from a serial killer by FBI agent Reed Markham. They had no other contact until a boat load of years later when Hathaway is a cop and they team up on a case, which they keep doing. If you like entertaining thrillers that feel like you should make a tub of popcorn to go with them, pick up this series which starts with The Vanishing Season (Review)!

I can’t believe we’re already at #8 in this delicious cozy mystery series. The series started with Lana Lee moving back home and working in her family’s restaurant which quickly lead to her having to solve a murder. Lucky for readers she just attracts all the dead bodies. In this case after agreeing to help host a speed dating contest at the restaurant, it turns out her friend’s match is murdered. Sucks for them, fun for us! If you want to start at the beginning grab Death by Dumpling.

Here’s the start to a new procedural series for fans of fictional serial killers and the trope where the lead character’s life (past) and mystery are going to overlap, and their personal life has got problems—including a brother living with her that she doesn’t get along with. Sergeant Riley Fisher is put on the case of a woman found murdered in a field of corn (Iowa), only to realize she was once friends with the victim…

For fans of Samantha Downing, here’s a dive into two best friend’s lives, exploring a past and recent incident connected to both of them… (Review)

Here’s a crime novel set in the late ’90s that follows a group of strippers, one of their daughters, and the detectives. Samantha is driving home one of the new dancers when an accident leaves one dead and the other missing… You follow the investigation from the detective’s point of view, fellow dancers, and also get to know Samantha.

(TW domestic abuse/ past parent dementia/ past accidental toddler death/ rape/ mentions past accidental dog death)

For fans of fictional true crime authors and multiple storylines: a true crime author who has escaped her life to live in a remote cabin and focus on a case ends up finding a young child out in the snow; a mother and daughter living in one room seemingly always waiting for the patriarch to return; a family of four with two teenagers, the son acting out…

Backpage.com was the world’s largest sex trafficking operation whose ads regularly contained minors and people forced into sex trade. Maggy Krell, the lead prosecutor in taking down the site, tells her life story (part memoir) and the case that took down Backpage (true crime).

For fans of Rachel Caine’s Stillhouse Lake, fictional serial killers, and popcorn thrillers–I inhaled this audiobook. Chloe Davis is a medical psychologist whose father was found guilty of murdering teenage girls when she was a tween. Now as an adult she’s moved herself as far away from that as possible so of course the killing starts again and she has to figure out what is happening…

(TW cutting discussion/ recounts past suicide attempt, detail/ talk of pedophile, no details/ child abuse/ domestic violence/ briefly mentions past miscarriage/ suicidal thoughts, detail)