Lovers of twisty, tangly mystery-thriller books will have their work cut out for them in 2026, as the year’s slate of new releases includes a seemingly endless list of whodunits and psychological thrillers just begging to be solved before the final page. There are debuts from up-and-coming writers who just might be poised to pick up Agatha Christie’s crown and new installments from genre royalty like Alice Feeney and Gillian McAllister, plus a new novel co-written by The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue author V.E. Schwab, in her first foray outside the fantasy genre.
So, sharpen your deductive reasoning skills and summon your inner Sherlock Holmes. To kick things off, we’ve lined up the best mystery-thriller books of 2026 (so far). And be sure to return to the scene of the crime—or, you know, this page—regularly, since we’ll be updating the list throughout the year with the twistiest, must-read novels still to come. (If you need even more reading recommendations, be sure to check out our lists of the best romance novels of 2026 and the best mystery-thriller novels of 2025.)
The Best Mystery-Thriller Novels of 2026 So Far
Release date: January 20
Truly, what mystery-thriller roundup is complete without an Alice Feeney entry? Her latest psychological thriller starts with an artist returning home to find another woman suddenly living in her house and claiming to be married to her husband. From there, the novel is an unputdownable sprint to figure out what’s real, who’s lying, and what’s actually going on.
Release date: January 20
Mack and Hailey Evans find their seemingly normal suburban lives taking a sinister turn. After they accept a series of mysterious checks that randomly begin arriving in the mail one day, the couple gets caught in a shocking plot. It's a must-read that ultimately begs the question of just how far any of us would go to hang onto the so-called American Dream.
Release date: January 27
Barely a month into his perfect-seeming marriage, Tash’s in-laws’s home goes up in flames, and his wife is stuck in a coma. The incident dredges up the past that Tash has been attempting to run away from, in which a string of women he’s loved have all ended up dead. This time, at least, it wasn’t his fault, and his own investigation into the crime slowly begins to uncover some dark secrets about his new wife’s family.
Release date: February 3
Leodora Darlington’s debut novel explores the power dynamics of modern romance while also delving into the secrets we keep even from ourselves—putting a new spin on the classic unreliable narrator. All of Natalie’s exes have met unfortunate ends, so when she falls in love with James, she’s determined to stop that trend. Doing so forces her to confront whether she’s actually responsible for those past misdeeds or if she’s been manipulated by some nefarious other force.
Release date: February 3
Bestselling author Mary Kubica’s latest is sure to get your heart pumping. It centers on Courtney, who wakes up while on a family vacation in a secluded lakeside resort to discover that her brother and sister-in-law are dead, while their son is still asleep and unharmed. Their daughter, meanwhile, is nowhere to be found, leaving Courtney and the police to wonder whether she had something to do with the shocking crime—and uncovering some chilling family secrets as they attempt to get to the bottom of it all.
Release date: February 10
Cab driver and true-crime podcast junkie Siri finds herself swept up in a mystery of her own after she discovers one of her passengers has been murdered. As the most likely suspect and with only five days until her court date, it’s a race against time as Siri finds herself criss-crossing all over N.Y.C. to track down the truth about what really happened to the passenger and clear her name.
Release date: March 3
A trio of women forms a friendship in 1960s California, bonding over their convicted killer ex-husbands and their shared attempts to shake off the shame of their partners’s terrible misdeeds to forge their own paths forward. Sounds to me like the perfect squad to solve the mystery of an emerging serial killer in town!
Release date: March 31
One of my personal favorite reads of the year so far, this debut novel from Kirsten King will have you simultaneously cracking up and gasping in horror at the inner monologue and antics of narcissistic, probably sociopathic narrator Lillian. She’s rapidly unraveling after her situationship ends up dead the morning after she cast a hex on him as punishment for calling things off—and you’ll be left guessing until the very end exactly how involved she was in his death.
Release date: April 7
Prolific fantasy writer V.E. Schwab and YA author-turned-screenwriter Cat Clarke teamed up to create the Evelyn Clarke persona. Their first novel under the pseudonym is a mystery—and a send-up of the publishing industry itself—in which six authors are summoned to a private island and tasked with writing the ending to the final book from a bestselling author after his untimely death. As you can expect, this sets up a delightfully twisty locked-room mystery full of quirky characters.
Release date: April 7
This debut novel blends satire and psychological thriller as it follows Natalie, a modern influencer alternately loved and hated for her so-called tradwife lifestyle, as she’s suddenly thrust back into the actual life of a tradwife: that is, a farm in 1855. The brutal awakening sends Natalie spiraling about how she ended up there, and searching for any possible escape from her decidedly not #aesthetic new life. You'll want to read this one ASAP: A book-to-movie adaptation has already been picked up, with Anne Hathaway set to star.
Release date: May 5
Gillian McAllister has written some of my favorite, most shockingly twisty mystery-thrillers of the last few years, so I had extremely high hopes for this one. It centers on Simone, who wakes up on the first day of a trip to Texas to find her teenage daughter missing. After receiving a ransom call, Simone shows up at the specified time and is asked not for money, but to carry out a shocking act, forcing her into the moral dilemma of discovering just how far a mother will go to protect her child.
Release date: May 5
This darkly funny thriller follows Yrsa, a Ph.D. student who accidentally stumbles upon a surefire way to shake up the monotony of her life: killing problematic, sexist men, of course! Suddenly, she has a newfound purpose, making good use of all the feminist and racial theory she’s been studying—at least, until it all starts to catch up with her.
The Best Mystery-Thriller Books Coming Soon
Release date: June 23
During lockdown in 2020, an anonymous podcaster begins confessing to a twisty, years-long tale of increasingly high-stakes crimes and life on the run. Though a stylish crime thriller on the surface, Yu-Mei Balasingamchow’s debut novel is an even more profound exploration of identity, immigration, and the irresistible pull of home.
Release date: August 25
We’d be remiss not to include thriller queen Liane Moriarty’s next novel, which just so happens to be a sequel—her first-ever follow-up—to one of the novels that revitalized the mystery-thriller genre a decade ago. Big Little Truths picks up 10 years after the sordid events of Big Little Lies, showing that our favorite group of Australian moms is still tangled in a complicated web of lies and juicy interpersonal drama. (Bonus: You can bet this will serve as inspiration for the long-awaited BLL season 3.)
