Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2024, as chosen by the Amazon Editors
Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher books, once told an interviewer, “All books are suspenseful, even the driest nonfiction. It's about asking a question and making the reader wait until the end for the answer.” He added, “The very act of asking a question makes people want to stick around and find out the answer. The power of asking a question is enormous.”
Which raises a question: “How do the Amazon Editors assemble the Best Books of the Year list?” Answer: “With a delicate combination of genre-blending, murder, millionaire malfeasance, and espionage.” Oh wait, those are the selling points of our picks from the year’s crime fiction treats. The real answer is that we read, read, read, and then argue (a little) before hitting on the list of books that wowed us.
Read on for a selection of the Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2024—novels that asked questions which compelled us to ignore work, postpone social events, and stay up late so we could arrive at the answer. And check back soon for a closer look at Best Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense—New and Continuing Series.
Like her best-selling Long Bright River, Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods is both a missing person story and a genre-transcending family saga. Set in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, the Van Laar estate is a system of opposites: blue collar versus blue blood, the natural order versus the synthetic rules of man, dynastic privilege versus the handicap of class. When 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar goes missing from the sleep camp on the grounds—her older brother also disappeared from the estate years before—the door to the Van Laar family’s gilded cage is forced open. One of the marvels of this novel is Moore’s sure-footed control of her complex plot and her fully-realized character portraits. Like a Swiss watch, The God of the Woods is both a triumph of engineering and a thing of beauty, which is why the Amazon Editors selected it as top mystery of 2024 and the #2 book overall. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Once upon a time, a beekeeper met a pirate…and though they were only children, they recognized each other as two sides of one coin, creating an unbreakable bond of friendship. All the Colors of the Dark begins with a kidnapping that changes their lives forever, as a serial killer leaves a trail of missing girls in his wake. Patch (the pirate in this story) and Saint (the beekeeper of long ago) get caught up in this mystery that takes years and many detours to solve, because Patch's obsession with finding a particular girl does not wane with time. Chris Whitaker’s vivid storytelling had me laughing one minute, tears rolling down my cheeks the next, and I could picture everything as clearly as if I were living alongside these characters. A novel of love so powerful it hurts, family, sacrifice, survival, and devotion—I couldn’t stop turning the pages and when I reached the end, I wanted to begin again. —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
Widower Frank Szatowski’s driving record is unblemished at UPS, but parenting has proven more challenging; he's been estranged from his daughter Maggie for years, and fears that he'll never speak to her again. So he's relieved—and surprised—when she calls to invite him to her wedding. Determined not to blow this chance to be back in her life, he keeps his misgivings to himself after meeting her standoffish fiancé, Aidan, but when he arrives at the lavish private estate of Aidan’s tech billionaire father for the actual wedding, things go from bad to downright scary. Rekulak does a brilliant job of tying one hand behind his lead character’s back as Frank’s fear of pushing his daughter away permanently forces him to tread carefully. But it’s the tightrope walk between comedy and suspense that will hook readers as Frank deals with his plus one, his social worker sister, while navigating the wealthy but alarming family Maggie is about to join. Funny, suspenseful, with a killer twist, Rekulak hits it out of the park again. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Those who are aware of our love of books like Killers of a Certain Age and The Spy Coast know that we love stories about more ‘mature’ people upending assumptions about their abilities by kicking you-know-what with their courage and skills. So, you can imagine our delight at seeing a book described as “The Rose Code meets Killers of a Certain Age.” Josephine and Penny—both in their late ‘90s—are two of Britain’s most beloved World War II veterans. But a trip to Paris with their unsuspecting nephew Archie sees the Williamson sisters settle some scores in this delightfully sassy heist tale. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Let’s be honest: supernatural stories are not everyone’s cup of tea. Luckily, by the time the supernatural kicks in in Lost Man’s Lane, readers will already be so taken with the writing—evocative, funny, surprisingly philosophical and insightful—and the plot: a winning mix of ‘90s nostalgia, dispatches from inside the head of a teenage boy, and darkness on the edge of town, that they’ll happily opened up and said “aah” for the spooky denouement. Carson’s writing is simply several cuts above, Marshall Miller is a compelling character (and narrator), and I ended up devouring this coming-of-age, trial-by-terror tale in a single afternoon. I highly recommend you do the same. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
This book is one of the most twisty books I’ve read since Gone Girl, which means it fills some pretty big literary pants (if you’ll forgive me the weird metaphor). And while I want to breathlessly tell you the whole plot, I’ll refrain, because it’s just so good you need to let it unfold yourself. What I can say is that our protagonist is Evie Porter, a young Southern woman about to move into her perfect boyfriend’s beautiful home. But Evie Porter doesn’t exist—she was given the identity from her boss, Mr. Smith, whose identity even she doesn’t know. All she knows is the person she is there to track and learn more about is Ryan Sumner…her boyfriend. I was on the edge of my reading chair for every moment of this cat and mouse thriller. —Sarah Gelman, Amazon Editor
Black River is a debut (it also appears on our Best Debut Fiction Books of 2024) and a startlingly good murder mystery set in a small, remote village, hours away from Delhi. It opens with two shocking murders, the second the more devastating because the victim is an eight-year-old child, Munia, who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Likewise, Mansoor, an itinerant Muslim man whose presence in a mostly Hindu village is enough to make him the prime suspect. Can the understaffed, under-resourced local Sub-Inspector Ombir Singh deal with officials from Delhi and solve the case before the enraged town lynches the only suspect? Religious intolerance, the tensions of city versus country, and mob rule versus cool heads, add layers of suspenseful nuance to a clever plot which combines commentary on modern-day India with a must-read mystery. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Two things drive Lucy back to the small Texas town she left in a hurry five years ago: an invitation from her grandmother and the realization that the secrets revealed by a muckraking true crime podcaster have made Lucy’s boyfriend afraid of her. She ran away to LA after being accused of murdering her best friend Savvy, though she has no memory of the night in question. Is she a murderer or innocent? An unreliable (though hilarious) narrator or a trauma victim? Whose version of the truth—Lucy’s or the town’s—is actually true? Tintera’s excellent novel is a character-driven triumph, an unputdownable mix of dark humor and darker themes that stays in high gear until the last page. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
We loved Steve Cavanagh’s Eddie Flynn books, but this standalone story is a stunningly impressive change of gear for the Irish author. First, he lulls readers into a false sense of security with what appears to be a fresh spin on the Strangers on a Train plotline. Here, though, the protagonists are two grieving mothers who have both lost children to murder, and they meet in a bereavement group, where one thing leads to another and they make a pact: each will kill the man who murdered the other’s child. And from there, things go from bad to worse to omg. A tight-as-a-drum plot running on pure adrenaline, this one-sitting read may be the read of the summer. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
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