Welcome to a new month of armchair sleuthing with March mystery and thriller releases! Whether you enjoy spring indoors with a book or outdoors with a book, I’m here to give you great options to choose from if you like reading in the world of crime books.
Let’s start with it being a big month for series, seeing as a bunch of the best current mystery series have new entries this month. These include a former magician turned amateur sleuth, a writer partnered with her kid’s babysitter who always seem to find themselves running from criminal activity, an Irish set character-driven crime series following an ex-Chicago cop, a fun historical grumpy and sunshine detective pairing, a meddling family comedy of errors series, a TV journalist sleuth, a cozy set in an artistic circus world, and a sleuthing nun!
For fans of standalone mystery and thriller novels, we have one set in Las Vegas about obsession and crime, a dark academia with a missing roommate, an aspiring author whose mentor is murdered, and a book that made it into my list of “Danger: The Threat Is In These Book Titles!”
There are a lot of great titles here. Bonus: if you’re a fan of backlists or any of these have a long wait at the library, I listed great previous releases from the author that you should also dive into. Happy criminal reading!
A Midnight Puzzle (Secret Staircase Mystery #3) by Gigi Pandian
For fans of amateur sleuths and puzzle mysteries!
Tempest Raj used to be a performing magician with a Las Vegas show until she lost her career and moved back home with her father and grandparents. Now she works for her dad’s business, which involves building secret nooks and rooms in people’s homes. But really, her job is as an amateur sleuth since she keeps finding dead bodies. This time, an ex-client blamed Tempest’s home renovation project as the cause of almost killing his wife…
If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Under Lock & Skeleton Key, and if you’re a fantasy reader, pick up Pandian’s fantasy mystery series starter The Accidental Alchemist.
Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
For fans of dark academia!
Sade has just been dropped off at a boarding school after a life of homeschooling. She has a lot to adjust to, so her roommate immediately going missing after her arrival has Sade joining with another student to ask questions. But Sade herself seems to be hiding something from her past…
For Àbíké-Íyímídé’s previous dark academia mystery, pick up Ace of Spades!
A Grave Robbery (Veronica Speedwell #9) by Deanna Raybourn
For fans of historical mysteries with humor and grumpy and sunshine detective pairings!
In the late 1800s England, Veronica Speedwell, a lepidopterist, and Stoker, a natural historian, keep finding themselves solving mysteries. This time, the wax figure Stoker is asked to add a mechanism to turns out to be a real preserved dead woman. So that’s a hell of a mystery for them to solve!
If you want to start at the beginning, pick up A Curious Beginning, and if you like assassins, pick up Raybourn’s other series starter, Killers of a Certain Age.
The Hunter (Cal Hooper #2) by Tana French
For fans of retired cops in small villages (Ireland) and character-driven mysteries!
Cal Hooper is happy with his decision to have retired from being a Chicago cop and his move to Ireland. He’s since been renovating the home he’s living in, found a stable relationship with Lena, and been mentoring a local teen, Trey. This new quiet life is about to be tested though: Trey’s father arrives looking for gold along with an English millionaire, and Trey is set on revenge.
If you want to start at the beginning, pick up The Searcher, and if you want to read French’s Dublin procedural series, pick up In the Woods.
The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties (Aunties #3) by Jesse Q. Sutanto
For fans of funny mysteries, meddling families, and comedy of errors crime!
After their honeymoon, Meddy Chan and Nathan are planning on spending time in Jakarta for the Chinese New Year with Chan’s extended family. Which is where everything goes wrong—of course!—after an aunt’s ex-beau tries to rekindle the flame with gifts and accidentally gives them a gift that had been meant for a business rival. Naturally, Chan’s family’s plan to just return said gift pits them in a decades-long war and places them in danger. This forces Meddy and her Aunties on a mission!
If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Dial A For Aunties, and if you’re a fan of standalone thrillers, pick up The Obsession and I’m Not Done with You Yet.
Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice (Finlay Donovan #4) by Elle Cosimano
For fans of funny crime novels, amateur women partners, and accidentally getting involved in crime.
Finlay Donovan is always on deadline with whatever manuscript she owes her agent. She is also dealing with her annoying ex-husband, wrangling her two young kids, and finding herself mixed into criminal activity she’s gotta get herself out of. Thankfully at this point, she’s at least got a partner in crime: her kid’s babysitter Vero. This time the women are way over their heads going on a trip to Atlantic City that they’re pretending is a girl’s weekend—ex-husband and mother in toe—but which is really cover for rescuing a man from Vero’s childhood, finding a stolen car, and outsmarting a loan shark. What could go wrong?!
If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up Finlay Donovan Is Killing It.
The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill
For fans of murder mysteries, main characters who are writers, and the literary world!
Theodosia Benton drops out of law school with plans of being an author, which means she has to convince her brother to let her move in with him. That sounds stressful enough, but she’s about to find herself in a lot more chaos: her writing mentor is murdered, and her brother becomes the prime suspect…
If you’re a fan of historical mystery series, pick up Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men, which follows a wealthy Australian artist as the sleuth, and if you like a story inside a story, pick up the murder mystery The Woman in the Library.
The Princess of Las Vegas by Chris Bohjalian
For fans of estranged sisters, obsession, and organized crime!
Crissy Dowling is living a strange and downward spiraling life: she has a one-woman show in Las Vegas playing Diana Spencer. While the fans may adore her, her addiction and life-blurring identity aren’t the healthiest. It’s only about to get worse when one of the owners of the casino is murdered, her estranged sister shows up with a boyfriend and teenage kid, her boyfriend—a separated-from-his-wife Senator— goes back to his wife, and she’s asked by the other casino owner to do a dangerous favor…
If you like reading books adapted into hit TV series, pick up Bohjalian’s The Flight Attendant. If you like twisty thrillers I also recommend from his backlist The Guest Room and The Red Lotus.
Watch Where They Hide (Jordan Manning #2) by Tamron Hall
For fans of TV journalists solving crimes on the side!
Jordan Manning is a TV reporter seeing her popularity go up after solving a murder mystery. It’s why Shelly reaches out after filling a missing person’s report when her sister—recently having left an abusive husband—disappeared after dropping her kid off at school. Jordan will, of course, take the case, but she’ll once again be putting her own life in danger.
If you want to start at the beginning of the series, pick up As the Wicked Watch.
Blessed Water (Sister Holiday Mystery #2) by Margot Douaihy
For fans of nun sleuths and amateur-turned-PI!
Sister Holiday isn’t the nun that usually comes to mind being that she has a gold tooth, smokes, and is covered in tattoos. She’s also now an apprentice certified PI working for a detective agency run by a former fire inspector. Current case? A cheating husband that leads to finding a dead priest…
If you’d like to start at the beginning of the series, pick up Scorched Grace.
The Best Way to Bury Your Husband by Alexia Casale
For fans of dark comedies, women uniting, revenge, and “you had me at the title” crime novels!
After 20 years of being married to an awful man, Sally killed her husband. What is a woman to do next? Join a self-help group with other women who murdered their husbands and need help disposing of the bodies! Their only concern is not getting caught.
Cirque du Slay (Hayden & Friends #2) by Rob Osler
For fans of quozy mysteries (that is, cozy mysteries featuring an LGBTQ+ main character/s) and the circus!
Hayden McCall is a gay dating advice blogger and school teacher in Seattle who joins forces to solve a murder mystery with his best friend Hollister. The case? The celebrity performer at a fundraiser named Kennedy Osaka—director of an artistic circus show— is found dead, and Hayden and Hollister don’t think the accused is the culprit.
Love to stay in the know for all things mystery, thriller, and true crime? We got you!