December 2025 list by S. Ward |
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The Birdwatcher
by Jacquelyn Mitchard
When she is convicted of a double murder, Felicity Wild, a brilliant grad student turned high-priced escort, declares, I may not be innocent, but I'm innocent of this. A jury may have given Felicity a life sentence, but Reenie knows that her childhood best friend is not capable of murder. She decides to use her deep connections to Felicity's past to unravel the truth.
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Closing Time
by Michael Ledwidge
It's springtime in Key West, and Michael Gannon is busy supporting his son's dreams of making it in minor league baseball. But a late-night encounter with a seemingly harmless Australian at a dive bar turns deadly when Gannon unwittingly becomes the prime suspect in a convenience store shoot-out. Seeking the mysterious Australian to clear his name, Gannon uncovers a deadly conspiracy involving a global banker on the run.
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The Day I Lost You
by Ruth Mancini
All Lauren wants is a new life in Spain. She's suffered an unimaginable loss, but at last she has found a home in the pretty seaside town of Mantilla de Mar. Hope has everything: an interesting career as a therapist, an attractive husband, a dream home in the countryside - and, finally, the baby she always longed for. Sam. But Sam has gone missing. So when the police tell her that a woman has been found in Spain with a child matching Sam's description, Hope thinks that her nightmare might be over. But Lauren insists Sam is her baby.
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Dead Ringer
by Chris Hauty
Set in present-day, a disgraced former Secret Service officer and a Jesuit professor join forces to delve into the mysteries surrounding the events of November 22, 1963. Fixated on deciphering the conspiracies behind the history-changing assassination, they are oblivious to the fact that the cabal is still active--and may face an end as bloody as the carnage in Dealey Plaza.
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Everybody Wants to Rule the World
by Ace Atkins
It's 1985 and fourteen-year-old Peter Bennett is convinced his mom's new boyfriend is a Russian agent. 'Gary' isn't in the phone book, has an unidentifiable European accent, and keeps a gun in the glove box of his convertible Porsche. Peter thinks Gary only wants to get close to his mom because she works at Scientific Atlanta, a lab with big government contracts. But who is going to believe him?
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The House Guests
by Amber And Danielle Brown
One year ago, Iris's world turned upside down. Haunted by nightmares of her mother's traumatic death she jumps at the chance to get away for a relaxing week with her partner and his close-knit group of friends. But after she arrives at the remote lake house, things take a dark turn. Iris sees a blood-covered man burying something--in the mud. But the daylight reveals nothing and her fellow house guests refuse to take anything she has to say seriously.
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Huguette
by Cara Black
Seventeen-year-old Huguette Faure is a survivor. The war has taken everything from her-both her parents and her sense of safety. Now, pregnant and on the lam, she cannot return to her childhood home in Paris. Forced to reinvent herself, she must outrun her father's enemies, who want her dead.
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The Italian Secret
by Tara Moss
Plunged into a perilous search that will take her onto the first postwar luxury passenger ship to sail across the ocean to Italy, Billie finds herself up against a dangerous adversary—someone with a mysterious grudge against her family—as she races to uncover the secrets her father left behind. And as the trail leads her towards two women whose histories may be entwined with her own.
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The Library of Fates
by Margot Harrison
When its librarian keeper mysteriously dies, two former classmates must race to locate a rare book from their college years that can foretell your future if you confess a secret from your past—but someone is intent on protecting what’s hidden inside. It can write the story of your future... and hide the secrets of your past.
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The Quiet Mother
by Arnaldur Indridason
A woman is found murdered in her Reykjavik home, her apartment ransacked. On her desk lies a note with retired detective Konrad's phone number. Days earlier, she had begged him to find the child she gave up nearly fifty years ago. But Konrad, reluctant to reopen old wounds, turned her away. Now, haunted by guilt, he vows to uncover the truth-for her and for himself. As Konrad digs into her tragic past, he is drawn into a web of secrets, lies, and betrayal.
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Only Way Out
by Tod Goldberg
Failed lawyer Robert Green has such a good plan: Crack three hundred safe-deposit boxes and sail off to South America with his brilliant, morally flexible sister, Penny. If it weren't for the damned freezing rain. In the dying resort town of Granite Shores, cop Jack Biddle is self-appointed king--mostly of bad decisions. Jack's looking for a way out. Then he spots a van spinning off a mountain road into the valley below. In the wreckage, Jack finds a very dead Robert, millions in heisted loot...and opportunity. All Jack has to do is clean up the mess.
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Silent Bones
by Val McDermid
When torrential winter rain causes a landslide on a motorway, it dislodges more than mud and asphalt--it reveals a skeleton, concealed when the road was built eleven years prior. Sam Nimmo, an investigative journalist who'd been poking his nose into the murky politics of the Scottish independence referendum, had become the prime suspect in the brutal murder of his girlfriend when he vanished. Now he's reappeared, buried under the motorway. It's the perfect cold case for DCI Karen Pirie, chief of Police Scotland's Historic Cases Unit.
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Spasm
by Robin Cook
When Laurie Montgomery temporarily steps down from her position as Chief Medical Examiner, she and Jack find themselves uncharacteristically free for a couple of weeks. The timing couldn't be better when they receive a call from Jack's former classmate, Robert Neilson. He is serving as the Hamilton County coroner and trying to explain the sudden death of a young, healthy pest control worker on top of an outbreak of rapidly progressive Alzheimer's-like cases. He pleads with Jack and Laurie to come lend a hand.
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Stuart Woods' Blown Away
by Brett Battles
Teddy Fay whisks away to join Peter and Hattie Barrington in Palm Springs. But his hope for a relaxing vacation vanishes when he attends a prominent actor's annual birthday party, where he witnesses a heated squabble between two women. One of them turns up dead the next day. Teddy investigates who might be lurking in the shadows and uncovers a web of intrigue involving a sinister plan to take over a cutting-edge energy company.
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Watch Us Fall
by Christina Kovac
Lucy and her three best friends share a glamorous but decaying house in the heart of Georgetown. They call themselves “the Sweeties” and live an idyllic post-grad lifestyle. But when Addie, the group’s queen bee, discovers that her ex-boyfriend Josh has gone missing, her world is turned upside down. In the days leading up to his disappearance, Josh, a star investigative journalist, was behaving erratically and Lucy is determined to find out why.
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W. E. B. Griffin Direct Action
by Jack Stewart
Charley Castillo, the original Presidential Agent is in Virginia Beach to visit his son when two gunmen appear. Charley is able to thwart a deadly mass shooting, but he is hit and badly injured. Meanwhile Pick McCoy is at the Naval Academy catching up with some old friends. When the news of the attack reaches him, he senses that this is no random event. While Charley clings to life, Pick searches for the men responsible and in the process uncovers a deadly plot.
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White Wolf
by Eric Van Lustbader
Evan Ryder races against time in a landscape where secrets can no longer hide behind digital walls. Ilona Shokova, the elusive, deadly assassin White Wolf, holds the key to mastering this unhackable method. Two powerful, deadly women, one quest. Will either one of them survive?
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