5 Books for Fans of Crime Fiction

by MK French

Do you have a spring break trip planned or are having a weekend staycation? Either way, crime fiction is a great genre to curl up with. Whether you want a page-turning who dunnit or a twisty thriller, here are my recommendations. 

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A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

April 2025; Del Rey; 978-0593723821
audio, ebook, print (480 pages); fantasy mystery

Ana Dolabra and her assistant Dinios Kol are called to solve the mystery of a treasury officer who went missing from a locked room within a tower. Ana soon realizes they're looking into a murder and not a disappearance, and the murderer can move around like a ghost. The killer may be targeting the Shroud, the compound where the Empire harvests fallen titans for the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the Empire itself will grind to a halt.

This is book two of the Shadow of the Leviathan series, following The Tainted Cup. This is a world where massive creatures known as leviathans can destroy or recreate things, or corrupt living things. Within the Empire, pieces of leviathan bodies were processed and repurposed to augment humans: memory, senses, reflexes, muscle strength, etc. Within this world, it's difficult to hide a killer from the ones with augmented senses, yet this killer did just that. The locked room mystery quickly gets solved, giving rise to more important questions: who could impersonate the different classes, bypass security measures, and hijack protection to work on Leviathan blood. The region where this takes place also has significant political upheaval, and it complicates the search for the killer further. 

The story drew me in quickly, and the worldbuilding serves the mystery. Din doesn't know the inner workings of the field he's investigating, so we get the explanation right along with him. We pick up on some clues that way as well and see the disquiet and growing apprehension about the highly secretive Shroud. Ana is as prickly and short-tempered as she was in the first novel, a quirky Holmes to Din's Watson. Different cultures and knowledge are fascinating points that flesh out the world and truly help it feel lived in. 

Buy A Drop of Corruption at Amazon

Falls to Pieces by Douglas Corleone

April 2025; Thomas & Mercer; 978-1662522062
audio, ebook, print (285 pages); domestic thriller

Kati Dawes and her daughter Zoe have lived off-grid in Hawaii for two years to hide from her past. When Kati’s fiancé, attorney Eddie Akana, disappears in a Maui national park, everyone is now looking at Katie. Eddie’s law partner, Noah Walker, tries to protect Kati, but then Zoe goes missing as well. Kati isn't the only one with secrets, and she can't predict what will happen next.

Starting with Eddie’s disappearance, we see the world through Kati’s eyes, with occasional glimpses of Zoe's diary. Kati’s scared when park rangers question her about her relationship with Eddie, why they were separated on the hiking trail, and seem to imply she's a person of interest. It doesn't help that she drinks heavily to sleep at night and is on the run; hints at an abusive marriage, a controlling mother-in-law and murder also draw us in to find out more. Kati works with Noah once Zoe is missing, hoping to find her in case her ex is at the bottom of everything. But life is messier than that, with everyone hiding secrets from each other. In true thriller fashion, the final quarter of the book throws mote wrenches into the mix, and the revelations upend everything we think we know about the characters. The ending makes sense and ties off early concerns. I'm not sure how I feel about it, which might be the point. Who are we when stripped back and on the run? How do we find purpose? Some of the characters had that sense of purpose, while others sought it others. They get a fitting end finding answers to their questions. 

You can also check out Susan's review.

Buy Falls to Pieces at Amazon

Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd

April 2025; Atria Books; 978-1668034033
audio, ebook, print (336 pages); cozy mystery

Nora Breen receives letters from a former novitiate regularly. When they stop, she asks to be released from her vows to investigate. Nora arrives at Gulls Nest, a charming hotel in Gore-on-Sea in Kent that had been mentioned in the letters. For many, the town is the perfect place for a new start. Nora hides who she is and pries into the lives of those at the hotel. When the murders start, it soon feels like the past can't be escaped after all.

Nora has a strong connection with Frieda, the novitiate who wrote to her weekly since leaving. The hotel residents have their secrets and seem somewhat amiable enough at first. There's the married couple Stella and Theo, Professor Poppy who has ailing health, photographer Karel, and the former naval cook Bill who is romancing the hotel's owner while disdaining her wild and mute daughter Dinah. The town itself has its characters, in the form of the Ladd family who owns the carnival and a lot of property, the neighboring pastor who likes rabbits more than people, the photographer, and the police officers. Nora asks her questions like the detective novels she favored, barreling through to discover more about others without revealing much about herself. Her sheer proximity to the hotel means that she's present when the body is found, and she is sure that the death is linked to Frieda going missing.

While there is murder and the threat of danger hanging over the residents in the hotel, it feels more cozy of a mystery. It's not high tension and the death by poisoning means there isn't the intense death that bloody attacks leave in their wake. Nora asks a lot of her fellow residents, the owner, the housekeeper and maid, and even Dinah through drawings and notes. She looks for clues not just for Frieda's disappearance, but for the murderer, sure that they're linked. Along the way, she recalls her own early history, and we see the traumas that occurred in her life prior to becoming a nun. While the first half started off slowly as we got to know Nora and her fellow tenants, the second half picked up speed and really drew me in. The postwar era is full of people recovering from various kinds of trauma, trying to connect and find their place in the world. As much as Nora isn't sure she belongs in Kent, this would be the great start of a series of novels investigating the countryside.

Buy Murder at Gulls Nest at Amazon

Senseless by Ronald Malfi 

April 2025; Titan Books; 978-1803365664
audio, ebook, print (432 pages); thriller

A mutilated body found in the desert outside LA reminds people of a murder that occurred a year ago. The detective leading the case is tied to the husband of the first victim. Maureen is engaged to a Hollywood producer and is convinced that his unsettling son invading her life is involved with the recent murder. On top of this, Toby is obsessed with a woman that might not be human. These three lives are about to converge in horrific ways.

At first, it's not clear how the three stories converge. The detective is of course tracking down leads for the body found, and it brings him back to the husband of the first victim. We soon learn that the grief they both had at the time caused him to be looser with information than he normally would have been, which led to extremely bad consequences. In Maureen's thread, her idyllic life is quickly shattered by the son who hates her very existence because she makes his father happy. He has a scrapbook in his possession with pictures of the murder victim, so she fears what he's capable of. And Toby considers himself a fly inside of human skin, with his mother as a spider within human skin. He wants to metamorphosize himself into something more and feels that the woman he meets at various dingy clubs is a vampire, and hopes that he can become one, too.

We don't see how the threads between their lives intertwine until the last third of the book. At that point, it starts to make a little sense, and especially as more information continues to filter out. At first, I found the story compelling because they are all such flawed characters, and I wanted to see how their individual stories played out, as well as how they would eventually hook together. Once they did, it was so well done, and I stared at the page in surprise. While we have a few questions at the end, it's nothing that takes away from the surprise or the settled feeling of the ending. The suspense kept me turning pages quickly, and I'm sure you'll be just as hooked.

Buy Senseless at Amazon

Underscore: The Vinyl Detective by Andrew Cartmel

April 2025; Titan Books; 978-1803367989
audio, ebook, print (416 pages); cozy mystery

Vinyl music has always been big, but the greatest Vinyl music coming out of Italy are soundtracks, especially for lurid thrillers known as Giallo. Loretto Loconsole is one of these composers but might have also been a murderer. His mistress was killed in 1969 while filming a giallo, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict him at the time. Even so, he died in disgrace, the shadow of murder following him. Now his granddaughter has hired the Vinyl Detective to find a copy of that soundtrack and clear his name. But someone wants the truth to stay buried, no matter what it takes. 

This is the eighth book in the series, but it was easy enough to figure out the relationships between the detective, his girlfriend Nevada, and best friends Tinker and Agatha along the way. There's so much fun banter between the detective and Nevada, as well as with Tinker and other friends as they try to track down a pristine copy of the soundtrack. The book follows twists and turns as various copies of the soundtrack are tracked down in order to make a master copy for re-release. The music scene isn't that large in London, after all, so musicians and vinyl aficionados are a relatively small circle. Odd things occur, which mirror aspects of the movie that had been made, including getting shot at.

The novel is a lovely look at the Vinyl collection scene, as well as how an amateur would be able to solve a murder from sixty years ago. It's asking questions about the time period, the music scene, and how things were recorded. It was great fun to read and see how it all came together at the end.

Buy Underscore at Amazon

Born and raised in New York City, M.K. French started writing stories when very young, dreaming of different worlds and places to visit. She always had an interest in folklore, fairy tales, and the macabre, which has definitely influenced her work. She currently lives in the Midwest with her husband, three young children, and a golden retriever.

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