Thrillers and Suspense April 2026 |
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| Evil Genius by Claire OshetskyIn 1970s San Francisco, 19-year-old Celia Dent chafes under an abusive marriage while working at a telephone company. When a coworker is murdered, she begins testing boundaries, exploring danger and desire. Surreal, darkly comic, and noir-tinged, this tense debut charts Celia’s bold, often unsettling journey toward freedom and self-discovery. |
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| This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany CrumBenny Abbott and Joy Moore, beloved hosts of a hit survival podcast, are used to sharing others’ near-death stories -- but when Joy and her husband vanish, their own lives become the mystery. With police suspecting Benny and only Joy’s unfinished memoir as a clue, he must unravel hidden secrets, unspoken love, and dangerous truths before it’s too late. |
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| How to Get Away with Murder by Rebecca PhilipsonIn Rebecca Philipson’s taut debut, DI Samantha Hansen probes the strangulation of 14-year-old Charlotte Mathers while unraveling Denver Brady’s sinister self-published guide on “how to get away with murder.” Blending police procedural with psychological intrigue, the novel will keep you guessing whether the killings are Brady’s work, a copycat’s, or an elaborate distraction. |
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| Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief by Benjamin StevensonErnest Cunningham, former mystery author turned amateur sleuth, faces his trickiest puzzle yet in this 4th outing. Trapped in a Huxley bank with a masked robber and a room full of thieves, Ernest must untangle overlapping heists -- and a murder -- before the police arrive. This latest series installment is clever, twisty, and delightfully fiendish. |
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The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives: A GMA Book Club Pick
by Elizabeth Arnott
A remarkable trio whose lives have been cracked wide open by their husbands' crimes unite to catch a serial killer in this dazzlingly captivating novel. Beverley, Elsie, and Margot are not your average housewives. They are all wives of convicted killers. During the sun-drenched summer of 1966, the three women form an unlikely friendship after the discoveries of their husbands' brutal crimes. With their exes--some of California's most infamous murderers--dead or behind bars, they are attempting to forge a new future for themselves. Headstrong Beverley tries compulsively to maintain control of everything around her, all while raising two children. Bookish Elsie fights to make a name for herself in the newsroom, working among men who sneer at her career goals. Glamorous Margot prefers partying to homemaking and devotes all her energy to upholding the appearance that everything is fine--anything to quell the shame from her husband's deceit. They know people look at them and think only one thing: How could they not have known what their husbands were doing? How much are they to blame? And yet when a string of local killings hits the news, the three women--underestimated, overlooked, shrewd--decide to get to work. After all, who better to catch a killer than those who have shared their lives and homes with one? At once a riveting portrayal of shattered trust and a story of gripping suspense, The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives is a testament to the intricacies of women's lives and how the deep bonds of female friendship can empower, uplift, and lead us to endure.
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| Nowhere Burning by Catriona WardRiley and her brother Oliver escape their abusive home under cover of night, heading for Nowhere, an abandoned ranch once owned by the murderous Leaf Winham, now a refuge for runaway children. As investigative journalists arrive to expose the ranch’s secrets, the siblings must confront hidden dangers and the deadly cost of sanctuary.
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Killing Me Softly
by Sandie Jones
Charlie and Freya used to be the picture-perfect couple. Happy and in love, Freya enjoyed a rewarding job heading up a charity's fundraising efforts, and Charlie was fast becoming one-to-watch on the London culinary scene--if you couldn't be them, you wanted to be with them. They had it all . . . until one night a devastating accident tears their lives apart, and they're awoken by police at their door, asking whether they are aware that their car had been involved in a hit and run. Torn apart by accusations and guilt, the trust that Freya and Charlie once shared is shattered as they turn on each other, looking for someone to blame for the fallout. Told from both Freya and Charlie's perspectives, a cat and mouse game ensues, both of them desperate to have someone to point the finger at. But is it more important to be right, or to win? Can Freya stay one step ahead of the man who knows her best? Or will Charlie's stoic conviction to get what he wants be the death of her? Sandie Jones's next addictive novel is a wickedly twisty tale of obsession, and the deadly consequences of loving someone too much.
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The Girls Before
by Kate Alice Marshall
is a girl in a basement. The door has stopped opening. The light is gone. Stranger is trapped in the dark, with only her imagination and the scribbles on the wall left by long-dead girls to keep her company. Nearly out of food and water, she makes one last attempt to escape. But if the door opens at last, will it mean salvation, or only the beginning of her fight to survive? Audrey is a search and rescue expert who never stopped looking for her ex-best friend, Janie, who disappeared when they were teenagers. Janie used to love the local legend of a forest witch who saves girls from bad men, but Audrey knows now that for every one saved, there's always another one lost. When she stumbles upon evidence in the forest that a teenage runaway might have actually been kidnapped from land belonging to the town's most prominent family, she will have to dig through decades of secrets to reveal the biggest one of all: what happened to the girls before.
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Missing Sister
by Joshilyn Jackson
Born three minutes apart, Penny and Nix Albright grew up doing everything together, close as only twins can be. But when Nix dies in a tragic accident soon after college, she leaves behind a cryptic voicemail that has Penny guilt-ridden and desperate for justice. Five years later, Penny has found new purpose as a rookie cop. She's working to fulfill Nix's dream of making the world a safer place, but following that dream becomes a nightmare when she's called to her first murder scene. When she sees the victim, she knows him instantly. It's Danny Bowery--one of three men she's long blamed for Nix's death--splayed in a pool of blood outside a posh Atlanta shopping center, almost as if she'd wished it so.Stunned, Penny steps away to catch her breath and discovers a blonde in blood-drenched clothes gripping a box cutter. Before Penny can arrest her, the woman reveals that Bowery's murder is part of a larger story that is far from over. A story about sisters. And with that, the killer disappears. Now, Penny will stop at nothing to pursue this dangerous woman and learn why she's avenging Nix's death. The deeper she dives into the mystery, the less clear it becomes who is hunting whom in this captivating page-turner of hidden motives and deadly consequences.
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Whidbey
by T. Kira Madden
Birdie Chang didn't know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She's a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend's eyes--and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who's now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution and plan for revenge.But Birdie isn't the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There's also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book's spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin's loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.Calvin's death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that's sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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