THE BEST OF THE BEST 2025 CRIME NOVELS

Each year George Easter from Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine does a mammoth job in collating the various best mystery, crime fiction and thriller lists from around the world and seeing what they tell us about the year’s best books.

In 2025 he found 86 ‘best lists’. There is a strong American flavour to the lists, but it also includes some from Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada.

After gathering all the lists, George checked to see which books were the most popular (ie got the most mentions) across the various lists. He found that 27 got 8 or more mentions and these are his ‘Best Of The Best’.

This year the clear winner was S A Cosby’s King Of Ashes, which received 32 mentions. Cosby’s books are always very well received, and mix sharp social and political observations with searing storylines. It is no surprise to see King Of Ashes at the top of the list. King Of Ashes was followed by the ever popular Richard Osman with The Impossible Fortune, with 24 mentions. Filling out the top ten entries were Mick Herron’s Clown Town (18), Lisa Jewell’s Don’t Let Him In (17), Amity Gaige’s Heartwood (15), Louise Hegarty’s debut novel Fair Play (14), Holly Jackson’s Not Quite Dead Yet (14), Lou Berney’s Crooks (13), Belinda Bauer’s The Impossible Thing (13) and Louise Penny’s The Black Wolf (13).

For the full list see George’s article at: http://new.deadlypleasures.com/2026/01/13/deadly-pleasures-best-of-the-best-2025/. He will also provide more detail and analysis in the forthcoming issue of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.

I thought that the list was more widely spread than in previous years, with less of a literary bias to it. It was not surprising that authors such as Osman, Herron and Jewell found their way into the top ten, as their books tend to appeal to both critics and readers. Further down the list are also books by Michael Connelly (two of them), Dan Brown and Anthony Horowitz, all of whom also have wide commercial appeal, as well as critical acclaim. I also liked how the Ten Top encompassed a range of criminal styles from hardboiled to spy novels to domestic suspense to comedic crime to literary novel and more traditional mystery.

As George has pointed out previously, the lists and the rankings merely reflect what the critics have read. Which means that the reading preferences of the critics largely influences what appears on the lists. If they are only reading more literary novels, or books from a particular sub-genre, then this is what is going to appear on the lists. As I mentioned above, there is a strong American flavour to the list, although British authors also do well. Unfortunately there are no books by Australian authors on the list, although Tanya Scott’s debut Stillwater nearly scraped in with 7 mentions.

I read 10 of the 27 titles listed, including three from the top ten, and I am currently reading Cosby’s King Of Ashes. I am surprised that a couple of them appeared on the list, but this is just a personal reflection. Some of the books only received limited or no release in Australia and I am planning on chasing up the books by Lou Berney (Crooks) and Louise Hegarty (Play Fair). Only four of my favourite books of 2025 appeared in the list – Mick Herron’s Clown Town, Anthony Horowitz’s Marble Hall Murders, Michael Connelly’s The Proving Ground and Jakob Kerr’s impressive debut Dead Money. I was surprised that a couple of books that I struggled to enjoy appeared on the consolidated list, while others, such as Michael Robotham’s The White Crow, Paul Vidich’s The Poet’s Game (which appeared on a number Best Spy Novel lists) and Adrian McKinty’s Hang On St. Christopher, did not appear at all. My Favourite Books of 2025 included a number of novels by Australian authors, which only limited release, or no release, overseas. Which is a shame, as I think the books by Michael Robotham, Garry Disher (Mischance Creek) and Fiona Hardy (Unbury The Dead) were easily the match of the ones on the list.

Like always it is a fascinating exercise and provides many suggestions for further reading. Many thanks to George for his great efforts in pulling this together.

Here are links to my favourite books of 2025 https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/the-years-best-my-favourite-crime-novels-and-thrillers-of-2025/ and debuts: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/best-debut-crime-novels-of-2025/