CRIME FICTION WRAP – FEBRUARY 2026: NEW BOOKS FROM ASHLEY ELSTON, ALICE FEENEY, C. J. BOX, JOHN McMAHON, and DOUGLAS PRESTON & LINCOLN CHILD.

Late January and early February 2026 brings a wealth of very different crime novels by a clutch of always entertaining authors.

Ashley Elston’s Anatomy Of An Alibi, (Headline, 20 January 2026), is one of my favourites in this current batch. Ashley drew considerable praise for her debut novel, First Lie Wins, but she ups the ante even more with Anatomy of An Alibi.

The story revolves around a clever central premise. Camille Bayliss suspects that her husband Ben hides a dark secret. But as he tracks her every move, she cannot prove it. Aubrey Price believes that lawyer Ben Bayliss knows the truth about the night that wrecked her life a decade ago. But she needs a way in. When Camille and Aubrey meet over a misunderstanding, they hatch a plan. For twelve hours, Aubrey will take Camille’s place. Ben will track the wrong woman, Camille can spy on Ben, and both women will get their answers. Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered.

Anatomy of An Alibi starts quickly and Ashley wastes no time in adding twists and turns as the plot weaves its way to an unexpected, and slightly dark, ending. Flashbacks and shifts in the timeline keep the story moving along briskly, and each revelation changes your perspective on what is happening. The story is well supported by nuanced characters, who have enough quirks and flaws to make them interesting.

I thoroughly enjoyed Anatomy of An Alibi, it is a good twisty tale that largely avoids the domestic angst that plagues a lot of domestic suspense. Ashley’s ability to wrong foot the reader and keep them surprised is impressive, and if she keeps it up she will have Harlan Coben looking nervously over his shoulder.

Anatomy of An Alibi was released in Australia on 20 January 2026 and in the United States and the United Kingdom on 13 January 2026.

Also offering plenty of twists and shocking surprises is the latest psychological masterpiece by Alice Feeney, whose His And Hers is currently wowing audiences on Netflix.

My Husband’s Wife, (Macmillan, 28 January 2026), has the sort of intriguing opening we have come to expect from Alice. Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently moved into, Spyglass, an enchanting old house on the Cornish coast, nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that the stranger is his wife.

Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner called Birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But then Birdy stumbles upon a shadowy London clinic that claims to be able to predict a person’s date of death, including her own. Secrets start to unravel, and as the line between truth and lies blurs, Birdy feels compelled to right some old wrongs.

The surprises and twists certainly come thick and fast, and most readers will spend their time trying to guess, unsuccessfully, where the story is going. A host of unreliable narrators and dodgy characters, help to keep things mysterious and the book moves quickly to the final page shock. A willingness to accept a fair few coincidences and connections is needed to maintain the enjoyment, but most people will be too busy turning the pages to care.

My Husband’s Wife was released in Australia on 28 January 2026 and in the United Kingdom on 27 January 2026.

John McMahon’s Head Cases was an enjoyable introduction to the quirky FBI agent Gardner Camden and his team at the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) Unit. It was a good start to the series, but I think that McMahon’s follow-up book, Inside Man (Harper Collins, 28 January 2026), is even better.

Gardner and the team are in pursuit of a militia group intent on stockpiling weapons for some nefarious purpose, when their confidential informant is killed. It soon becomes clear that the militia were not responsible for informant’s death, instead it seems linked to the unsolved killing of a series of women from several years ago. Suddenly the PAR find themselves pursuing the domestic terrorists and a possible serial killer.

At times McMahon seemed to be trying too hard in Head Cases to establish the unusualness of Gardner and his team, but this time around it is more toned down and flows naturally from the storyline. The plot unfolds smoothly, and McMahon’s street smart writing keeps the pace ticking over and the interest level high.

There is a good balance between forensic detail, unexpected developments and straight-out action, and there are some well choreographed scenes of violence. The characters are also nicely fleshed out, and McMahon develops Gardner in a convincing manner.

An addictive and quick reading experience that will keep you entertained from the beginning to the final revelation. I cannot wait for the next book in the series.

Inside Man was released in Australia on 28 January 2026 and in the United States and the United Kingdom on 13 January 2026.

I have been a fan of C. J. Box’s series about Game Warden Joe Pickett from soon after the first one, Open Season, appeared in 2001. My interest has waned slightly in recent years, but I was keen to read The Crossroads, (Putman, 24 February 2026), in which Joe’s daughters take centre stage.

It opens with Marybeth Pickett getting the call she has always dreaded: her husband Joe is in a critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head. He was found in his pickup at Antler Creek Junction, a crossroads connecting three ranches. Each road leads to a dangerous family. Each family with a different bone to pick with the local game warden. Marybeth and the new sheriff assume that Joe was ambushed by one of the families, but they have no idea which one since Joe didn’t say where he was going or why.

With Joe unconscious and fighting for his life, with Marybeth at his side, his daughters, Sheridan, April, and Lucy, split up and investigate each of the families to uncover the truth of what happened to their father.

This is a good entry in the series, with plenty of false leads around which of the families were responsible for Joe’s shooting. The presence of a pair of killers determined to finish Joe off, and anyone helping him, adds some solid tension to the story, and the plot moves along at a decent pace to a well staged conclusion. Box seems to excel in his portrayal of the inhabitants of the sleepy part of Wisconsin in which the action occurs, with their prejudices and lack of concern for the environment, and his descriptions of the natural wilderness are vivid and moving.

The story is engaging, but the attitudes of the secondary characters and the casual corruption and acceptance of killing animals for no purpose, does not sit as well as it used to, given recent events.

Nevertheless, fans will undoubtedly happily devour this latest enjoyable entry.

The Crossroads is released in the United States on 24 February 2026.

Pendergast: The Beginning, (Grand Central Publishing, 27 January 2026), is an origin story for the enigmatic FBI agent A. X. L. Pendergast. Set before the events of Relic, where we first met Pendergast, it goes back to his initial case with the FBI.

New Orleans in the early 1990s, and Special Agent Dwight Chambers’ life is in free fall. First, he lost his partner, and then, tragically, his wife. Returning to work at the New Orleans Field Office, Chambers is drinking too much and is dismayed to find himself saddled with mentoring a brand new FBI agent, the quirky Pendergast. As Chambers tries to pull himself together, his unfathomable and exasperating junior partner pulls an outrageous stunt that gets both of them suspended.

Pendergast welcomes the banishment, because it gives him the opportunity to investigate a peculiar murder in Mississippi that has captured his fancy. Chambers grudgingly goes along. What starts off as a whimsical quest swiftly turns into a terrifying pursuit, as Chambers and his partner uncover a string of grisly, ritualistic killings that defy any known serial killer profile.

I reviewed Pendergast late last year, but in essence it is a very atmospheric and chilling thriller. It starts out as a hunt for a serial killer, but then around the halfway point it unexpectedly turns into something very different. The pacing is good throughout, and there are plenty of misdirections, surprises and gruesome events, and a spectacular final showdown.

A highly entertaining read that will be keenly devoured by fans of the series.

Pendergast: The Beginning is released in the United States on 27 January 2026 and in the United Kingdom on 29 January 2026. It will be released in Australia on 2 June 2026.

Here is the link to my earlier review: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/looking-forward-to-2026-pendergast-by-douglas-preston-lincoln-child-and-paradox-by-douglas-preston-aletheia-preston/
 

Some very good reading for February, which ones appeal the most to you?