22 Best Crime, Mystery And Thriller Books of September 2023

Our September 2023 list of best crime, mystery and thriller books includes highly-anticipated titles such as Scandinavian title Reykjavík by Ragnar Jónasson; Katrín Jakobsdóttir, the new Longmire novel The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson, as well as fan-favorites like The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves.

Note: Mystery Tribune’s Reading Lists include the best crime and thriller books of each month as well as our picks for different sub-genres: Check them out here.

Call the Dark by J. Todd Scott (September 19)

A small white plane hurtles from the sky, vanishing into the wilderness. Hiker Maggie Roby watches its final descent, certain that no one could have survived.

But to her shock, a fifteen-year-old girl emerges from the wreckage, wounded but miraculously, impossibly alive. Maggie approaches with trepidation; she has secrets of her own, a past she can’t escape. Saving the girl means risking her future, but she can’t just abandon her, can she?

With the young survivor, Maggie embarks on a dangerous trek through the remote Appalachian backcountry, joining up with two veterans from the local sheriff’s department who know the land better than anyone.

But even as Maggie charts their course through the mountains, she can sense someone―or something―else watching and waiting.

Their journey is about more than enduring the elements. It’s about escaping a sinister presence that makes a vast wilderness feel like it’s closing in.

The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson (September 5)

Sheriff Walt Longmire uncovers a cold case that hits very close to home and forces him to put his life on the line with implications that some people would kill to keep buried forever

Sheriff Walt Longmire and Dog are called on a routine search and rescue to Wyoming’s Big­horn Mountains, where Walt finds himself on a rock outcropping remembering when his father told him about the first time he saw a man die. In the late forties, Bill Sutherland was shot but the investigation was stymied because no mem­ber of the elk camp—where he was found—was carrying the caliber rifle that killed the state accountant.

When Dog discovers the miss­ing weapon, the sheriff of Absaroka County is plunged headfirst into a cold case. His inves­tigation quickly finds ties to a hidden mineral fund that someone is willing to kill to keep secret. The embodiment of the fair-minded detective, Walt is pushed to his ethical bound­aries. In his relentless pursuit of the truth, he discovers the rifle in question belonged to none other than Walt’s infamous and uncompromis­ing grandfather, Lloyd Longmire.

Reykjavík by Ragnar Jónasson; Katrín Jakobsdóttir (September 5)

With over four million copies sold worldwide, Ragnar Jónasson, along with Katrín Jakobsdóttir, brings us a gripping and chilling new thriller, Reykjavík.

What happened to Lára? Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there?

Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára’s case. But as he draws closer to discovering the secret, and with the eyes of Reykjavík upon him, it soon becomes clear that Lára’s disappearance is a mystery that someone will stop at nothing to keep unsolved.

Remi Bone by William L. Myers (September 19)

Single father Remi Bone knows that his daughter’s Ivy League education will cost an arm and a leg . . . or a few bodies

Remi Bone is a good guy. He’s a hardworking mechanic, a single father raising his late wife’s daughter, and now, he’s dying of heart failure. But his daughter Kayla was just admitted to the college of her dreams. How will she afford college with two dead parents?

Before he dies, Remi decides to stockpile as much money as possible for Kayla’s future. When a chance to participate in a lucrative gun-for-hire scheme arises, Remi, out of desperation, agrees to execute a hit on a shady Philadelphia drug dealer.

This becomes only the first of several murders Remi is hired for, and soon, Remi’s the most sought-after hitman in town—both by his clients and by the police. He leaves investigators little to work with, but ear witnesses identify him by the phrase he recites before each killing: “Tick tock says the clock, time’s up . . .”With the police catching on to the “Tick Tock Killer,” Remi has to work quickly to earn enough money for Kayla’s school—all while ensuring he dies with a clean record. Tick tock.

The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves (September 5)

Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—returns with The Raging Storm, the extraordinary third installment in the Matthew Venn series.

Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions. When Jem Rosco—sailor, adventurer, and legend—blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.

This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Venn finds his judgment clouded.

As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets.

The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret by Nev March (September 12)

Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Lady Diana Framji are embarking to England in the summer of 1894. Jim is hopeful the cruise will help Diana open up to him. Something is troubling her, and Jim is concerned.

On their first evening, Jim meets an intriguing Spaniard, a fellow soldier with whom he finds an instant kinship. But within twenty-four hours, Don Juan Nepomuceno is murdered, his body discovered shortly after he asks rather urgently to see Jim.

When the captain discovers that Jim is an investigator, he pleads with Jim to find the killer before they dock in Liverpool in six days, or there could be international consequences. Aboard the beleaguered luxury liner are a thousand suspects, but no witnesses to the locked-cabin crime. Jim would prefer to keep Diana safely out of his investigation, but he’s doubled over, seasick. Plus, Jim knows Diana can navigate the high society world of the ship’s first-class passengers in ways he cannot.

Together, using the tricks gleaned from their favorite fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, Jim and Diana must learn why one man’s life came to a murderous end.

*****

Other titles in our list of best crime, mystery and thriller books of September 2023 include the following: