Archives de catégorie : Crime & Thrillers

THROW AWAY THE KEY de Jason M. Hough

A former CIA locksmith turned glorified janitor is haunted by a botched Cold War operation with ramifications that extend to the present day. New York Times bestselling author Jason M. Hough pens a fast-paced thriller packed full of action, perfect for fans of Alma Katsu and David McCloskey.

THROW AWAY THE KEY
by Jason M. Hough
Crooked Lane, July 2026
(via Megibow Literary)

Lars Bergman is no ordinary janitor. He’s the CIA’s locksmith.

Formerly part of the CIA’s infamous Surreptitious Entry Team, Lars is now responsible for every padlock, safe, and secure door across the CIA headquarters. He’s never met a lock he couldn’t pick…except one, which he tried and failed to open during a botched mission in Warsaw at the end of the Cold War.

Cruising toward retirement, Lars’s life is upended when a senior CIA official dies and he’s called upon to open the safe in her office. Inside the safe is a clue only Lars would notice, left by someone he’d worked with in his heyday. As he investigates, Lars soon realizes that his failed Warsaw operation has come back to haunt him and perhaps give him another chance at picking the one lock that’s ever eluded him.

What Lars doesn’t realize is that what the lock is protecting could have dire ramifications for the organization he has spent his whole adult life safekeeping.

Jason M. Hough (pronounced « Huff ») is the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, including The Dire Earth Cycle, Instinct, and the near-future spy thriller Zero World, which Publishers Weekly called « a thrilling action rampage that confirms Hough as an important new voice in genre fiction.” In a former life, Jason was a 3-D artist, animator, and game designer (Metal Fatigue, Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction, and many others). He has worked in the fields of high-performance cluster computing and mobile user interfaces and is named as coinventor on three patents related to mobile content and licensing. He lives near Seattle, Washington, with his family. When not writing, reading, or hanging out with his kids, he spends his time chasing espresso perfection (with mixed results) and taking long road trips in his electric car.

DEAD WEIGHT de Hildur Knútsdóttir

An Icelandic night may hide secrets and affairs – or even bodies – in this gruesomely cathartic horror thriller from the author of The Night Guest.

DEAD WEIGHT
by Hildur Knútsdóttir
Tor Nightfire, May 2026
(via The Gernert Company)

Unnur was living a normal, if lonely, life until a black cat showed up at her door.

When she tracks down the cat’s wayward owner, she finds a young woman just as lost and in need of help. Like a gust of cold air in a Reykjavík night, Ásta and her pet slip into Unnur’s life.

It’s unexpected, but welcome. Unnur likes the company, and she begins to rely on Ásta in turn. But like a black cat, trouble has been tailing her new friend, and Unnur is the only one there for Ásta when things take a violent turn.

The two women quickly learn: nothing tests a friendship like blood on your hands.

Hildur Knútsdóttir was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1984. She has lived in Spain, Germany, and Taiwan and studied literature and creative writing at The University of Iceland. She writes fiction both for adults and teenagers, as well as short fiction, plays, and screenplays. Hildur is known for her evocative fantastical fiction and spine-chilling horror. The Night Guest is her first book translated into English. She lives in Reykjavík with her husband, their two daughters, and a puppy called Uggi.

I’M NOT HERE TO HUNT RABBITS de Josh Kendall

This debut is a raw, tantalizing love story wrapped in a thriller that contains as much psychological intrigue as there is action – from one of the most acclaimed editors of the genre.

I’M NOT HERE TO HUNT RABBITS: A Novel
by Josh Kendall
Putnam, Spring 2027
(via The Gernert Company)

Smith thought he had left it all behind: the intense, dangerous work in Afghanistan; the grueling training; the vast reach of his former employer – the mysterious organization Cornerstone; and most of all Helen – the woman he loved and who was now gone forever. Better to start new in a place where no one knows him – Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Security for a local kingpin named Sabadi and his family. A job he could do in his sleep.

But something is off about the whole assignment. The previous security detail seems to know more than they are letting on about the nature of the job and what Sabadi is planning in Ethiopia. Smith is left in the dark, and for the first time in his life, he is not sure where the threats are coming from. The only things he is certain of are that Cornerstone knows he is here and he will have to confront his past with Helen to make it out of Addis Ababa alive.

A different kind of thriller, one in which the tension comes as much from what’s unsaid as what is left in, from an acclaimed editor of the genre, I’m Not Here to Hunt Rabbits is an existential suspense novel of a life on a knife’s edge.

Josh Kendall was VP and Executive Editor at Little, Brown, and Editorial Director of Mulholland Books where he worked with Walter Mosley, Attica Locke, Robert Galbraith, JJ Abrams, and Tana French among others. He’s worked in various editorial positions at Viking, Picador, and Scribner, and has also taught creative writing at Brooklyn College, University of Iowa, and The New School.

THE LINEUP de Nicholas Timms

Set against the backdrop of the iconic Byron Bay, this debut thriller dives into the hostile and sometimes violent world of competitive surfing.

THE LINEUP
by Nicholas Timms
PRH Australia, July 2026
(via The Pilkington Agency)

A killer on the loose. A surfer out of his depth…

Bo Curren was once a champion surfer. Now, at twenty-eight, he’s all washed up – unable even to set foot near the ocean.

Instead, he spends his days alone in his apartment, drowning his sorrows in whiskey and watching surfers on his laptop via the 24-hour surf webcam.

Then one day he sees something he shouldn’t. A camera trained on a deserted Byron Bay beach picks up a murder right there on the sand.

The police dismiss his report, and no bodies are found. Yet Bo knows what he saw.

And he has a clue: the murderer’s distinctive surfboard. If he can track that down, he’ll catch the killer.

But is he ready to dive back into a world where the rules are unspoken, outsiders aren’t welcome, and where secrets can be as dangerous as the waves?

A word from the editor, Bev Cousins: « I’m thrilled to be publishing Nicholas Timms’ sensational debut thriller, THE LINEUP. As a publisher of crime fiction for over thirty years both in the UK and Australia, it takes a very special book now to catch my eye – but I fell for this one hook, line and sinker. With heart-stopping ocean set-pieces amid tense detective scenes, Nicholas Timms masterfully balances the thrills of surfing with the twists and turns of the best crime fiction.’

‘The Lineup reads like a riptide.  Once you’re in it it won’t let you go.’ — Michael Brissenden, bestselling author of Dust

‘The Lineup crashes into the Australian crime scene with the force of a perfect wave — a tense debut that drags you under and doesn’t let you surface until it’s done. Highly recommend.’ — R.W.R. McDonald, author of The Nancys

‘The kind of book that grabs you and doesn’t let go, The Lineup will sweep you away in an adrenaline rush of action and intrigue, all the while exploring a poignant thread about trauma and grief.’ — Jess Kitching, author of The Life Experiment

Nicholas Timms is a writer and former competitive surfer based in Sydney. Now working as a copywriter for a globally recognised advertising agency, he has been the creative mind behind several award-winning campaigns.

WHITEOUT de Carola Lovering

Carola Lovering has become known for her keen psychological suspense and portrayal of obsession and complicated relationships. In this new novel, she explores the complexities of marriage, sisterhood, and the capricious relationship between what is true and how the truth is remembered.

WHITEOUT
by Carola Lovering
St. Martin’s Press, March 2027

June Lyons has built a beautiful life in Aspen, Colorado, where she lives with her husband Shep and their young daughter Ivy. Shep is a bestselling author whose skyrocketing career has put June’s own ambitions on the backburner, but it’s a small price to pay. She has a gorgeous, mountainside home, and her sister Penny—her closest friend and confidante—lives just across town. But when June loses her second pregnancy in a tragic ski accident just weeks before her due date, the family’s world is immediately shattered, and everything that she thought she knew about her life is thrown into question.

In the months that follow June’s devastating loss, what exacerbates her despair is the fact that she can’t remember anything about the crash. Why was she on skis, so late in her pregnancy? Why wasn’t Shep with her? And what if it wasn’t actually an accident? Determined to find the answers that no one can seem to provide, June begins to piece together what happened that day, intent on unveiling the truth at any cost—even if it reveals something about herself, or her marriage, that she’d rather not face.

Brimming with secrets and twists and including a past timeline that follows June and Penny through their early years in Aspen, Whiteout excavates the thin line between fact and fiction, memory and reality, as it explores the complexities of marriage, sisterhood, motherhood, and grief.

Carola Lovering is the bestselling author of the novels Tell Me Lies, Too Good to Be True, Can’t Look Away, and Bye, Baby. She is a graduate of Colorado College, and her work has appeared in Vogue, New York Magazine, W Magazine, National Geographic, Marie Claire, and Yoga Journal, among other publications. Her novel Tell Me Lies is now a television series for Hulu. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two young children.