2025 looks set to be a great year for crime novels. With exciting new releases from bestselling authors like Lisa Jewell, Richard Osman and Stephen King, this upcoming year promises plenty of gripping thrillers to keep you hooked.
Here are some of the most highly anticipated crime books of 2025.
Disclosure: This post may include affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
From the author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder comes Holly Jackson’s first adult thriller.
Jet Mason, the 27-year-old daughter of a wealthy family, is attacked on Halloween night and left with a fatal head injury, giving her just seven days to live.
With time running out and only her childhood friend Billy to rely on, Jet is determined to uncover the truth about her own murder before it’s too late.
Stephen King’s Never Flinch sees the return of beloved character Holly Gibney and features two gripping storylines: a killer seeking revenge with a plan to kill “thirteen innocents and one guilty,” and a vigilante targeting feminist activist Kate McKay.
Detective Izzy Jaynes enlists Holly Gibney to investigate the chilling threats, while Holly also takes on the challenge of protecting Kate from a relentless adversary driven by rage and righteousness.
In A Death on Location, the latest in Reverend Richard Coles’ bestselling cosy crime series, Canon Daniel Clement returns to Champton in the spring of 1990.
The village is abuzz as a glamorous movie production takes over, but filming is halted by an ingenious murder. With tensions rising between Daniel and his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo, solving the mystery proves more challenging than ever.
In this latest Marlow Murder Club mystery, Judith Potts and her sleuthing friends leap into action when Verity Beresford’s husband, Oliver, goes missing after a party aboard The Marlow Belle.
The next day, Oliver’s body is found in the Thames with two bullet holes, and suspicion turns to the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, where Oliver had plenty of enemies.
As Judith, Suzie, and Becks dig deeper, they uncover secrets and rivalries, realizing this case is far more complicated than it first seemed.
Don’t Let Him In is a psychological thriller about secrets, deception, and betrayal.
After Paddy Swann’s tragic death, his wife Nina and daughter Ash are drawn into the orbit of Nick Radcliffe, an old friend whose presence feels unsettling. Meanwhile, florist Martha struggles with financial strain and an absent husband, Al, whose constant travels raise questions.
As their lives intertwine, the women uncover chilling truths about Nick and Al, leading to a shocking conclusion that will leave them wishing they’d heeded the warning: don’t let him in.
In Other People’s Houses, the third book in Clare Mackintosh’s DC Ffion Morgan series, two cases collide in unexpected ways.
On Cheshire’s exclusive Hill, DS Leo Brady investigates a string of break-ins that seem targeted, while over the Welsh border, DC Ffion Morgan uncovers the body of an estate agent in the lake.
As they dig deeper, Ffion and Leo uncover dark secrets and dangerous motives, proving that even the most luxurious homes can hide deadly truths.
In The New Neighbours by Claire Douglas Lena accidentally records her elderly neighbours, the Morgans, discussing what she believes to be a criminal plot. Everyone dismisses her concerns, pointing to the couple’s impeccable reputation, but Lena can’t let it go.
Haunted by her own past, she becomes determined to uncover the truth, even if it means risking everything to stop a crime that may or may not exist.
Death in the Arctic is the latest cosy crime novel by Tom Hindle, where an idyllic journey to the North Pole takes a deadly turn.
Aspiring travel writer Chloé Campbell is thrilled to board a luxury airship, but when a passenger is found dead, the group assumes it’s a tragic accident.
Trapped in the frozen wilderness, suspicion grows, and tensions escalate as it becomes clear: the killer is among them.
In this first instalment of a new time-travel mystery series, a cold cases investigator must solve a murder in Victorian London.
Ali Dawson, known for her sharp wit and fiery red hair, is tasked with clearing the name of Cain Templeton, a Victorian figure linked to a sinister secret society.
Using a groundbreaking time-travel technique, Ali steps back to 1850 but is greeted by a dead body and a city gripped by frost and danger.
As she delves deeper into the past, Ali faces life-threatening peril and a chilling realisation – she might not make it back to the present.
In Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister, Camilla’s first day back at work turns into a nightmare when her husband, Luke, disappears, leaving only an unfinished note.
As breaking news reveals a hostage situation in London, Camilla is horrified to learn Luke isn’t a victim, he’s the gunman.
Now, with the police closing in, Camilla holds the key to unravelling the truth through the cryptic note he left behind, but what she does next could change everything.
In Crucified, the latest Detective Jack Warr thriller by Lynda La Plante, Jack is struggling with the aftermath of a harrowing case and his own personal demons. Rejecting help from the Met, he turns to an old friend, the enigmatic artist and forger Adam Border.
When a body is found gruesomely nailed to a cross in a framer’s shop, Jack feels inexplicably drawn to the case. But as he delves deeper, the line between detective and witness becomes dangerously blurred.
In Nobody’s Fool, the sequel to Fool Me Once, former detective Sami Kierce is confronted by a shocking reappearance from his past.
A decade-old mystery from his college days resurfaces when he recognises the face of a woman, Anna, whom he believed to be dead.
Back in 2000, while backpacking in Spain, Sami woke up covered in blood next to Anna’s lifeless body. Now, in 2025, Sami is determined to uncover the truth, but his investigation leads him to dangerous secrets that might be better left buried.
In the third book in Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders series, editor Susan Ryeland finds herself drawn into another dangerous mystery.
After editing two novels about the famous detective Atticus Pünd, she’s reluctantly persuaded to work on a third, a continuation novel by Eliot Crace, grandson of a renowned children’s author, Miriam Crace.
Eliot believes his grandmother was poisoned, and he claims to have hidden the killer’s identity within the book. As Susan delves deeper into the story, she uncovers eerie parallels between fiction and reality, and soon finds herself a target, caught in a deadly web of secrets.
