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 of 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 we can't wait to read in 2026. 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 mystery-thriller novels, best romance novels, and best fiction of 2025.)
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 put a stop to 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 form 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: 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, exactly, 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 have extremely high hopes for this one. (No pressure, Gillian!). 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.
