Top Ten Mystery Thrillers to Read This Year!
Need some more spooky reads recommendations? Of course you do! I’ve put together my top ten most anticipated Mystery/Thriller releases of 2019!
January 8th – FREEFALL – Jessica Barry
This will be Barry’s debut novel about a young woman determined to survive and a Mother trying to find her. Allison Carpenter survives a private plane crash in the Colorado Rockies. Apparently, Allison has been living a secret that men will kill to keep buried. She’s got to make it home safely before they find out she’s survived the plane crash.
Allison’s mother, Maggie, learns that her only child is presumed dead but there’s been no body recovered. But Maggie and Allison haven’t talked in two years so she has no idea what Allison’s life is like now.
Allison attempts to survive a treacherous mountain wilderness and Maggie immerses herself in her daughter’s life. Told from two perspectives this will be a story about two women overcoming unimaginable obstacles to protect themselves and their family.
January 8th – THE WIDOWS – Jess Montgomery
I’m very intrigued by this one even though the synopsis is a little vague. Maryena has just buried her husband, hours after the funeral a stranger appears at her door and wants to speak to him about her missing daughter. Both women realize that the husband, Daniel, was not the man that either of them thought he was. And his murder goes a lot deeper than they thought.
This is inspired by the true story of Ohio’s first female sheriff. And this is also a debut.
January 15th – NO EXIT – Taylor Adams
I love me a story where folks are trapped in a blizzard or a storm and have to either solve a murder or survive a murderer. No Exit is right up my alley. Four strangers, a blizzard, and a kidnapped child. College student Darby Thorne is stuck in a blizzard in Colorado at a remote highway rest stop. There are four strangers trapped there too. Darby goes back out into the storm trying to find a signal to call home and finds a little girl locked in an animal crate in the back of a van.
There’s no reception, no phones, and clearly one of these strangers is a kidnapper. Darby fights to find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape, but who can she trust?
February 5th – THE SILENT PATIENT – Alex Michaelides
Another debut novel on the list – a psychological thriller of one woman and one therapist.
Alice Berenson’s life is great – she’s a famous painter, she’s happily married, and they live in a big ol’ mansion in London. One night her husband returns home late and Alice shoots him five times in the face and then never speaks again.
The public become obsessed with this crime and so does Theo Faber, a criminal psychotherapist who is going to try and unravel the mystery of why Alice killed her husband and why she won’t speak. But this will take Theo down a twisting path as he searches for the truth.
February 5th – THE LOST MAN – Jane Harper
A new novel from Jane Harper set in the outback of Queensland. Two brothers meet at a landmark so old, no one remembers who was originally buried there. Their middle brother is dead and the family is distraught. Something had been troubling him but what caused him to walk to his death? And if it was murder, who was it? This will be an isolating, atmospheric novel set in the outback.
February 12th – THE HUNTING PARTY – Lucy Foley
Another one about a group of people snowed in – this time at a hunting lodge. A group of friends from Oxford bring in the New Year together every year for ten years. This year they’ve chosen an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands. A historic blizzard seals them off and by New Year’s Day one of them is dead.
Secret resentments and more than a decade of friendship causes one of them to snap. But which one?
Sounds very Agatha Christie and I’m really excited to dive into this one and try and find the killer first!
March 26th – MY LOVELY WIFE – Samantha Downing
This story is being called Dexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith. A husband and wife fell in love, had kids, moved to the suburbs and had a perfect life. Then they got bored.
“We look like a normal couple. We're your neighbors, the parents of your kid's friend, the acquaintances you keep meaning to get dinner with.
We all have secrets to keeping a marriage alive.
Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.”
June 1st – I’LL NEVER TELL – Catherine Mckenzie
20 years ago, Amanda washed up on shore with a gash to the head in a rowboat. No one was ever charged. Now all the MacAllister children are grown up and their parents die suddenly. The group returns to Camp Macaw where the body was found and decide what to do with the real estate. One wants to sell, one wants to leave it as, and some just have no clue.
The groundskeeper just hopes he’ll still have a home at the Camp. But when the will is read it turns out the family must unravel the mystery of Amanda before they’re allowed to do anything. Now they’re all suspicious of each other and stuck trying to sort out exactly how this girl wound up dead.
July 2nd – LOCK EVERY DOOR – Riley Sager
Jules has a new job as an apartment sitter at one of Manhattan’s most high-profile buildings. But she’s given terms – no visitors, no nights spent away, and no bothering the other residents. Jules meets another apartment sitter Ingrid who is scared of the dark history of the building.
When Ingrid disappears, Jules has to dig deep into the mysterious building and find the secrets hidden within the walls. She discovers that Ingrid isn’t the first apartment sitter to go missing and so Jules must fight against the clock to save herself and escape this building.
September 5th – THE TURN OF THE KEY – Ruth Ware
I love Ruth Ware and am super excited for this new story! Rowan finds an ad for a live-in nanny with a very generous salary. She takes the job and finds herself in a very luxurious smart home. But Rowan has stepped into a nightmare that ends with a child dead and Rowan in prison awaiting trial for murder.
Writing her lawyer from prison, Rowan tries to explain the unraveling events that led to this moment. She knows she made mistakes and lied and perhaps lost her temper a few times – but she didn’t murder anyone. But who did?
