Our list of best crime, mystery and thriller books of September 2022 includes highly-anticipated titles such as Robert B. Parker’s Fallout by Mike Lupica and Scandinavian favorite The Shadow Murders (A Department Q Novel) by Jussi Adler-Olsen as well as Seams Like Murder by Dorothy Howell. These 11 mystery and thriller books will surely bring joy to avid crime fiction and mystery readers.
Kingdom of Spies
Bevan G. Roberts
An ambush on Australian intelligence officer Jordan Carter signals a warning: Operation ANVIL, the Indonesian-Australian campaign of subversion against the Islamists of North Maluku, has failed. As the intelligence services point the finger of blame, Carter ruthlessly hunts down a new enemy. His recklessness draws the attention of Ana Kovacevic, the journalist who has revealed the spiralling violence to the world. To confront a spy that will stop at nothing, she must venture into the heart of Indonesia’s extremist underworld, a labyrinth of deceit and violence where the most powerful weapon, and the greatest sacrifice, will be truth.
Release Date: September 1, 2022
Robert B. Parker’s Fallout
Mike Lupica
The small town of Paradise is devastated when a star high-school baseball player is found dead at the bottom of a bluff just a day after winning the team’s biggest game.
For Jesse, the loss is doubly difficult—the teen was the nephew of his colleague, Suitcase Simpson, and Jesse had been coaching the young shortstop. As he searches for answers about how the boy died and why, he is stonewalled at every turn, and it seems that someone is determined to keep him from digging further.
Release Date: September 6, 2022
Clive Cussler’s Hellburner
Mike Maden
When Juan Cabrillo fails to capture the leader of Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartel and loses an Oregon crew member in the process, he’s determined to get revenge. Little does he know that the explosion he just narrowly escaped was merely the latest flash of violence from a machine of war that has existed for decades, dating from the bloodiest episode in Armenia’s history. Cabrillo’s Corporation of mercenaries may have finally met its match in The Pipeline—a criminal syndicate passed down from father to son across generations.
Release Date: September 6, 2022
The Shadow Murders
Jussi Adler-Olsen
On her sixtieth birthday, a woman takes her own life. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck’s desk, he can’t imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold cases division since the cause of death seems apparent. However, his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.
At Marcus’s behest, Carl and the Department Q gang—Rose, Assad, and Gordon—reluctantly begin to investigate. And they quickly discover that Marcus is onto something: Every two years for the past three decades.
Release Date: September 27, 2022
Seams Like Murder
Dorothy Howell
Abbey has barely arrived in the quaint, quiet town of Hideaway Grove before things turn from blissful to bloody—as the new librarian is mowed down by a car. The only witness on the scene isn’t much help, aside from handing Abbey the bag of books dropped by the victim. Even worse, the sheriff’s office seizes Abbey’s car because of a suspicious dent in the right front fender.
While she waits for the problem to be sorted out, Abbey is drawn into a charity sewing project—even though she can’t tell a bobbin from a seam ripper. Before she knows it, she’s graduating from pillowcase dresses to aprons.
Release Date: September 27, 2022
Treasure State
C. J. Box
Private Investigator Cassie Dewell’s business is thriving, and her latest case puts her on the hunt for a slippery con man who’s disappeared somewhere in the “treasure state”. A wealthy Florida widow has accused him of absconding with her fortune, and wants Cassie to find him and get it back. The trail takes Cassie to Anaconda, Montana, a quirky former copper mining town that’s the perfect place to reinvent yourself. As the case develops, Cassie begins to wonder if her client is telling her everything.
On top of that, Cassie is also working what’s easily one of her strangest assignments ever.
Release Date: September 27, 2022
The Girl in White
Lindsay Currie
Mallory hasn’t quite adapted to life in her new town of Eastport yet. Maybe it’s because everyone is obsessed with keeping the town’s reputation as the most cursed town in the US.
And thanks to the nightmares she’s had since arriving, Mallory hardly sleeps. Combined with the unsettling sensation of being watched, she’s quickly becoming convinced there’s more to her town. Something darker.
When Mallory has a terrifying encounter with the same old woman from her dreams, she knows she has to do something.
Release Date: September 6, 2022
Blowback
James Patterson & Brendan Dubois
US President Keegan Barrett has swept into office on his success as Director of the CIA. Six months into his first term, he devises a clandestine power grab with deadly consequences.
Barrett personally orders CIA agents Liam Grey and Noa Himel to execute his plan, but their loyalties are divided. The CIA serves at the pleasure of the president, yet they’ve sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
When the threat comes directly from the Oval Office, that’s where the blowback begins.
Release Date: September 12, 2022
An Affair of Spies
Ronald H. Balson
Nathan Silverman grew up in Berlin in the 1920s, the son of a homemaker and a theoretical physicist.
His idyllic childhood was soon marred by increasing levels of bigotry against his family and the rest of the Jewish community, and after his uncle is arrested on Kristallnacht, he leaves Germany for New York City with only his mother’s wedding ring to sell for survival.
While attending an evening course at Columbia in 1942, Nathan notices a recruitment poster on a university wall and decides to enlist in the military and help fight the Nazi regime.
Release Date: September 13, 2022
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Amanda Flower
January 1855 Willa Noble knew it was bad luck when it was pouring rain on the day of her ever-important job interview at the Dickinson home in Amherst, Massachusetts. When she arrived late, disheveled with her skirts sodden and filthy, she’d lost all hope of being hired for the position. As the housekeeper politely told her they’d be in touch, Willa started toward the door of the stately home only to be called back by the soft but strong voice of Emily Dickinson. What begins as tenuous employment turns to friendship as the reclusive poet takes Willa under her wing.
Release Date: September 20, 2022
Fall Guy
Archer Mayor
A high-end stolen car is discovered in Vermont. A car filled with stolen items from a far-flung two stage burglary spree. But it’s what is in the trunk that brings Joe Gunther and his team from the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. In the trunk is the body of burglar in question – one Don Kalfus. Complicating matters, while the body was found in Vermont, it appears he was probably killed in the next state over, New Hampshire. The task force charged with finding out why Kalfus is murdered soon faces another problem. Within the pile of stolen cell phones found in the car is evidence of a notorious unsolved child abduction case from years earlier.
Release Date: September 27, 2022