APRIL ACTION: NEW CRIME AND THRILLER TITLES THAT I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO READING IN APRIL 2025
With a quarter of 2025 almost over, the new crime and thriller releases are beginning to flow through at an overwhelming rate. It is hard to keep up with them all, but it does mean that there is a good selection from across the crime fiction spectrum for readers to choose from in April.
Fans of British crime and detection fiction seem to be particularly well served with major new releases by Anthony Horowitz, C. B. Everett, William Hussey, Catherine Ryan Howard and Jane Casey, on top of late March releases by Kirsten Perrin and Sarah Hornsley. I will shortly be highlighting in another post some forthcoming April releases by Australian authors Shelley Burr, Michelle Prak, James Bradley and Darcy Tindale, but fans of Downunder crime fiction can also look forward in late April to new a Cormac O’Reilly book by Dervla McTiernan. Popular American author David Baldacci also has a new stand-alone novel, set in London during the Blitz, and newcomer Elizabeth Kaufman provides a lively chase thriller featuring a misfit thief.
Here are some of the April 2025 releases that I am most looking forward to reading.
One of the more intriguing titles is The Other People, (Simon & Schuster, 10 April 2025), by C. B. Everett .
Everett is the pen name for popular British author Martyn Waites, and with The Other People he has entered into new territory with an interesting high concept novel:
“Ten strangers.
An old dark house.
A killer picking them off one by one.
And a missing girl who’s running out of time. . .
Ten strangers wake up inside an old, locked house. They have no recollection of how they got there.
In order to escape, they have to solve the disappearance of a young woman.
But a killer also stalks the halls of the house, and soon the body count starts to rise.
Who are these strangers? Why were they chosen? Why would someone want to kill them?
And who – or what – is the Beast in the Cellar?
Forget what you think you know.
Because while you can trust yourself, can you really trust THE OTHER PEOPLE?“
I have started reading The Other People and it certainly starts in a captivating manner.
The Other People is released in Australia and the United Kingdom on 10 April 2025 and in the United States on 25 March 2025. Thanks to the Australian publishers for an early copy of the book.
Anyone who has just finished watching the exquisitely produced Moonflower Murders, will be very keen for the next mystery featuring Susan Ryeland and the ghostly Atticus Pund. Marble Hall Murders (Century) by the always entertaining Anthony Horowitz is scheduled for release on 8 April 2025 and sounds great:
“Susan Ryeland has had enough of murder.
She’s edited two novels about the famous detective, Atticus Pund, and both times she’s come close to being killed. Now she’s back in England and she’s been persuaded to work on a third.
The new ‘continuation’ novel is by Eliot Crace, grandson of Miriam Crace who was the biggest selling children’s author in the world until her death exactly twenty years ago.
Eliot believes that Miriam was deliberately poisoned. And when he tells Susan that he has hidden the identity of Miriam’s killer inside his book, Susan knows she’s in trouble once again.
As Susan works on Pund’s Last Case, a story set in an exotic villa in the South of France, she uncovers more and more parallels between the past and the present, the fictional and the real world – until suddenly she finds that she has become a target herself.
It seems that someone in Eliot’s family doesn’t want the book to be written. And they will do anything to prevent it.”
Again this is another one that I am currently reading and it is great to be re-acquainted with Susan and the witty Atticus Pund.
Marble Hall Murders is released in Australia on 8 April 2025 and in the United Kingdom on 10 April 2025.
Catherine Ryan Howard is an author who seems to fly a little under the radar. I really enjoyed her Run Time from a couple of years ago and thought that The Nothing Man was quite clever. Some of her others have appealed less, but she always write very interesting thrillers.
Her latest, Burn After Reading (Bantam, 10 April 2025), again seems to offer some good twists on the usual thriller tropes:
“A ghostwriter is locked in an interview room with a man who might be a murderer, in this gripping new mystery thriller. The night Jack Smyth ran into flames in a desperate attempt to save his wife from their burning home, he was, tragically, too late – but hailed a hero. Until it emerged that Kate was dead long before the fire began.
Suspicion has stalked him ever since. After all, there’s no smoke without fire.
A year on, he’s signed a book deal. He wants to tell his side of the story, to prove his own innocence in print. He just needs someone to help him write it.
Emily has never ghostwritten anything before, but she knows what it’s like to live with a guilty secret. And she’s about to learn that there are some stories that should never be told.”
Burn After Reading is released in the United Kingdom on 10 April 2025. Release in Australia is staggered, with the Kindle version appearing on 10 April, while the trade paperback edition not out until June 2025.
William Hussey’s first two novels about disgraced former detective Scott Jericho received strong critical acclaim, and he has now brought back the gay Traveller detective for another case.
Burying Jericho, (Zaffre, 10 April 2025), opens with Jericho still recovering from the aftermath of his last investigation but willing to take on another case:
“While Scott Jericho is tasked with investigating the most baffling case of his career, his partner Harry is set upon his own fateful path.
In a rundown seaside town, a young man has vanished without a trace. Jericho’s investigation of this disappearance will unravel a diabolical plot and expose a secret long buried. A secret hinted at by the paper men hanging from the trees in a nearby wood, by the ravings of the local ‘wise woman’, and by the eerie waxworks of a defunct fairground attraction.
As fates collide and an impossible murder is executed, a twisted killer from the past is closing in on Harry and Jericho. But is it already too late for Jericho to save himself and the man he loves?“
Burying Jericho is released in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (Kindle only) on 10 April 2025.
Jane Casey’s The Secret Room, (Hemlock Press, 24 April 2025), is the twelfth book in her Maeve Kerrigan series and maintains the good quality of the earlier entries. I have already reviewed The Secret Room and it is well worth putting on your ‘to get’ list: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/looking-forward-friday-the-secret-room-by-jane-casey/
I am really looking forward to Dervla McTiernan’s The Unquiet Grave, (Harper Collins, 30 April 2025 ). After some success with her American based thrillers, The Murder Game and What Happened to Nina?, Dervla has returned to her popular Irish detective Cormac Reilly:
“For years the boglands of Northern Europe have given up bodies of the long-deceased. Bodies that are thousands of years old, uncannily preserved. Bodies with strange injuries that suggest ritual torture and human sacrifice.
When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, Cormac Reilly assumes the find is historical. But closer examination reveals a more recent story. The dead man is Thaddeus Grey, a local secondary school principal who disappeared two years prior.
There’s nothing in Grey’s past that would explain why he was murdered, or why his body was mutilated in a ritual manner. At first, progress on the case is frustratingly slow and Cormac struggles to keep his mind on the job. His ex-girlfriend, Emma Sweeney, is in trouble, and she’s reached out to him for help – Emma’s new husband has gone missing in Paris, and the French police are refusing to open an investigation into his disappearance.
Cormac is sure that he has found Grey’s killer, and is within hours of an arrest, when another mutilated body is discovered on the other side of the country. Two days later, a third body is found. Press attention is intense. Is there a serial killer at work in Ireland? Has Cormac been on the wrong trail? And if so, can he find the murderer before they strike again?”
I am a huge fan of the Cormac Reilly series and will be reading The Unquiet Grave as soon as I get a copy.
The Unquiet Grave is released in Australia on 30 April 2025. Release dates for the United Kingdom are not yet available
David Baldacci is well known for his contemporary international thrillers, but with his latest book, Strangers In Time (Macmillan, 25 March 2025), he is trying something a bit different:
“Charlie Matters’ life has always been a fight for survival. Orphaned with no prospects, Charlie steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he can enlist in the battle against the Germans. He miraculously emerges unscathed from the Blitz, but there’s no telling when the next bomb will fall, and whether it will be the one to end his life.
Molly Wakefield’s dreams of a joyful homecoming are all she’s had to hold on to after being evacuated to the countryside via ‘Operation Pied Piper’ five years before. But when she finally returns to the city, Molly faces a London changed beyond recognition, and the devastating news that neither of her parents are there.
Charlie and Molly’s paths converge when they both seek solace at ‘The Book Keep’, where they find an unexpected ally and protector in the bookshop’s owner, widower Ignatius Oliver. But the trio’s newfound peace is jeopardized as past secrets catch up with them: Charlie’s illicit activities have not gone unnoticed, an ominous shadow has trailed Molly since her return, and Ignatius is burdened by a secret that contributed to his wife’s death. Can they help one another survive this turbulent time? Or will they be ripped apart from the last people they hold dear?”
Strangers In Time is released in Australia on 25 March 2025 and the United Kingdom on 10 April and in the United States on 15 April. Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the book for review.
Finally, Elizabeth Kaufman’s debut(?) crime novel Ruth Run, (Penguin, 10 April 2025), introduces an interesting new character in the form of a young female data thief:
“Cybercrime leads to a cross-country pursuit as an ambitious, misfit young thief exploits a hacked microchip to rob banks, and learns too late that the wrong people have been watching her
Twenty-six-year-old Ruth excels at microchip design but decides to get rich the old-fashioned way: robbing banks. She becomes a cybercriminal and devotes five years to siphoning more than $250 million out of the banking system using a hacked firewall chip that she created and only she knows how to access. Then one night an alarm goes off and she realizes she’s been discovered.
Five hours later she’s on the run, chased across California and the West by a slew of government agents who see her as both a high-level national security threat and a potential intelligence asset. They’ll catch her dead or alive—whatever it takes to make sure no one else discovers what she knows. Each of these men is obsessed with the woman he’s hunting, certain he knows what makes her tick. But Ruth, always a step ahead, armed with her ironic wit and a reluctant dog, eludes their understanding; can she elude their capture, too?
A nonstop oddball thriller for the age of digital theft.”
It sounds very intriguing and it is one of the next books that I will be reading.
Ruth Run is released in the United Kingdom and the United States on 15 April 2025. There are no release dates for Australia yet. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book.
So a real mix of books for April. Which ones appeal to you?
Here is a link to my preview of March 2025 books, which includes forthcoming novels by Sarah Hornsley, Chris Chibnall and Kristen Perrin: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/march-mayhem-exciting-new-releases-for-march-2025/