15 Best Crime, Mystery And Thriller Books of July 2023

Our July 2023 list of best crime, mystery and thriller books includes highly-anticipated titles such as Sleepless City by Reed Farrel Coleman and Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Defiance by Brian Freeman, as well as excellent reads like The Screaming Child by Scott Adlerberg and Scandinavian novel The Spider by Lars Kepler.

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.

Flop Dead Gorgeous by David Rosenfelt (July 4)

Lights, camera, action in bestselling author David Rosenfelt’s Flop Dead Gorgeous, as Andy Carpenter goes bicoastal to prove an old friend’s innocence.

Retired lawyer Andy Carpenter remembers every dog that’s come through the Tara Foundation’s doors, but the most well-known alum of the dog rescue organization that Andy founded in Paterson, New Jersey, may be Mamie. Adopted by famous actress Jenny Nichols—Andy’s high school girlfriend—the miniature French poodle is now practically a starlet in her own right.

Andy doesn’t hold it against his friend. In fact, he and his wife, Laurie, have dinner with Jenny while she’s in town filming her next big hit. But after an eventful meal, there’s a plot twist the next morning that none of them see coming: Jenny’s costar is found dead, a knife in his back. It’s not long before Jenny is arrested for the murder and finds herself in need of Andy’s legal services.

While Mamie becomes reacquainted with Tara, Andy’s golden retriever, Andy digs into the lives of the rich and famous.

The Man Trapped by Shadows by Pete Zacharias (July 11)

Rooker Lindström is a reluctant consultant for the Minnesota PD. He can provide a window into evil. His horrifying past gives him the edge. When the body of a woman—missing for eight years—is pulled from the lake, evil comes knocking again. This time with a note meant just for Rooker: Won’t you come out and play?

A request from the police. A dare from a killer. And now a plea from a distraught mother whose daughter has suddenly vanished too. If only Rooker could say no. Instead, partnered with Millie Langston, his friend turned private investigator, he’s compelled to find a connection between the missing and the dead. It’s drawing them into the dark web, conspiracy theories, and an unsolved mystery reaching back thirty years.

The deeper into the investigation Rooker and Millie go, the more exposed they are to a dormant serial killer whose motives—and next moves—are unlike anything Rooker has ever encountered.

Sleepless City by Reed Farrel Coleman (July 11)

When you’re in trouble, you call 911. When cops are in trouble, they call Nick Ryan. Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. In fact, they don’t talk about him at all.

He doesn’t wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York. Nick Ryan can find a criminal who’s vanished. Or he can make a key witness disappear. He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city.

He’s the mayor’s private cop, the fixer, the first call when the men and women who protect and serve are in trouble and need protection themselves. With conflicted loyalties and a divided soul, he’s a veteran cop still fighting his own private war. He’s a soldier of the streets with his own personal code.

But what happens when the man who knows all the city’s secrets becomes a threat to both sides of the law?

Come November by Scott Lord (July 18)

November 1947: Jeanne and John, two newspaper journalists, fall in young love as they travel from Chicago to New York to witness the momentous vote of the United Nations to partition Palestine and create the State of Israel. When they discover an assassination plot meant to swing the outcome, they must put their personal lives on hold and race the clock to stop it, uncovering elaborate details of international politics along the way.

Fifty years later, having gone their separate ways, the two reconnect in Italy. Set against a stunning pastoral backdrop, Jeanne and John relive those turbulent days together and explore whether their love has stood the test of time.

International thriller meets operatic Italian romance in this intricate tale of love, politics, and misunderstandings. Come November is a celebration of history, family bonds, redemption, and second-chance love sure to please fans of thrillers and romance alike.

The Screaming Child by Scott Adlerberg (July 11)

Scott Adlerberg’s The Screaming Child is a mystery horror novel told by a grieving woman working on a book about an explorer who was murdered in a remote wilderness region, only to get caught up in a dangerous journey after hearing the distant screams from her own vanished child somewhere in the woods.

Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Defiance by Brian Freeman (July 25)

Someone’s killing Treadstone agents and Jason Bourne may be next on the list in this latest electrifying entry in Robert Ludlum’s #1 New York Times bestselling series.

From the glacial waters of Alaska to a sexy nightclub in the Bahamas, Treadstone agents are being hunted down and murdered. Someone high up in the U.S. government will stop at nothing to cover up a secret Treadstone mission from the past known as Defiance.

With a team of killers hot on his trail, Jason Bourne chases the mystery of Defiance around the world. But as he closes in on the shocking truth, Bourne realizes that one man holds the key—his archenemy, the assassin known as Lennon.  The Russian hitman has been at the heart of Defiance from the very beginning, and his next target will put Bourne —and the woman he loves—in the cross-hairs.

As Bourne races to stop the ruthless conspiracy behind Defiance, he must come face to face with Lennon one last time—and the stage is set for a final violent showdown.

*****

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