17 Best Crime, Mystery, And Thriller Books of April 2023

Our April 2023 list of best crime, mystery and thriller books includes highly-anticipated titles such as Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane, City of Dreams by Don Winslow and Man on the Run by Charles Salzberg as well as fan-favorites like Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Rendition by Joshua Hood.

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.

Dark Angel by John Sandford (April 11)

Letty Davenport, the tough-as-nails adopted daughter of Lucas Davenport, takes on an undercover assignment that brings her across the country and into the crosshairs of a dangerous group of hackers.

Letty Davenport’s days working a desk job at are behind her. Her previous actions at a gunfight in Texas—and her incredible skills with firearms—draw the attention of several branches of the US government, and make her a perfect fit for even more dangerous work. The Department of Homeland Security and the NSA have tasked her with infiltrating a hacker group, known only as Ordinary People, that is intent on wreaking havoc. Letty and her reluctant partner from the NSA pose as free-spirited programmers for hire and embark on a cross country road trip to the group’s California headquarters.

While the two work to make inroads with Ordinary People and uncover their plans, they begin to suspect that the hackers are not their only enemy. Someone within their own circle may have betrayed them, and has ulterior motives that place their mission—and their lives—in grave danger.

Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti (April 4)

There are stories about the woods around Salvation Creek, about the people who have gone missing. Now their friend is one of them. A riveting, fast-paced YA mystery told entirely through first person police interviews of four teens over the course of a few hours.

It was all her idea. They would get away from their parents and spend the weekend camping. Down by Salvation Creek, the five of them would make smores, steal kisses, share secrets. But sometime around midnight, she vanished.

Now the four friends who came back are under suspicion—and they each have a very different story to tell about what happened in the woods. The clock is ticking. What are they hiding? Who is lying? Dark truths must come to light if their friend is to be found…

Told entirely through first-person police interviews, this riveting mystery asks: what really happened that night?

Man on the Run by Charles Salzberg (April 17)

Master burglar Francis Hoyt is on the run. After walking away from his arraignment in a Connecticut courtroom, he’s now a fugitive who has to figure out what he’s going to do with the rest of his life.

And so, he heads west, to Los Angeles, where he meets Dakota, a young true crime podcaster who happens to be doing a series on Hoyt. At the same time, he’s approached by a mysterious attorney who makes Hoyt an offer he can’t refuse: break into a “mob bank,” and liberate the contents.

Where Are the Children Now? by Mary Higgins Clark; Alafair Burke (April 18)

Of the fifty-six bestsellers the “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark published in her lifetime, Where Are the Children? was her biggest, selling millions of copies and forever transforming the genre of suspense fiction. In that story, a young California mother named Nancy Harmon was convicted of murdering her two children.

Though released on a technicality, she was abandoned by her husband and became such a pariah in the media that she was forced to move across the country to Cape Cod, change her identity and appearance, and start a new life. Years later her two children from a second marriage, Mike and Melissa, would go missing, and Nancy yet again became the prime suspect—but this time, Nancy was able to confront the secrets buried in her past and rescue her kids from a dangerous predator.

Now, more than four decades since readers first met Nancy and her children, comes the thrilling sequel to the groundbreaking book that set the stage for future generations of psychological suspense novels. A lawyer turned successful podcaster, Melissa has recently married a man whose first wife died tragically, leaving him and their young daughter, Riley, behind. While Melissa and her brother, Mike, help their mom, Nancy, relocate from Cape Cod to the equally idyllic Hamptons, Melissa’s new stepdaughter goes missing. Drawing on the experience of their own abduction, Melissa and Mike race to find Riley to save her from the trauma they still struggle with—or worse.

Just like the original, Where Are the Children Now? keeps readers guessing and holding their breath until the very last page.

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (April 25)

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River—an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances.

The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.

Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Rendition by Joshua Hood (April 4)

The final days of the American presence in Afghanistan bring Adam Hayes a summons he can’t ignore in the latest electrifying thriller from the world of Robert Ludlum.

Adam Hayes has stepped away from the field for the last time. He’s promised his wife that he won’t put his life on the line any more, and there’s nothing that will make him break a promise to his wife.

Well…almost nothing. With America withdrawing from Afghanistan and the Taliban closing in, Abdul Nassir reached out to his old friend. Ten years ago, he saved the American’s life, and the time has come for repayment. The Afghan is desperate to flee his homeland.

Like most of his countrymen, he is petrified by the Taliban takeover, but he also can’t trust the Americans. He’s the only eyewitness to a massacre committed by a rogue team of CIA contractors. Not only can he identify the butcher who directed the bloodbath, he also has photographic proof. He’ll only be safe when those pictures are made public. Now, there’s just one man he can trust to get him to safety–Adam Hayes.

City of Dreams by Don Winslow (April 18)

Hollywood. The city where dreams are made.

On the losing side of a bloody East Coast crime war, Danny Ryan is now on the run. The Mafia, the cops, the FBI all want him dead or in prison. With his little boy, his elderly father and the tattered remnants of his loyal crew of soldiers, he makes the classic American migration to California to start a new life.

A quiet, peaceful existence. But the Feds track him down and want Danny to do them a favor that could make him a fortune or kill him.

And when Hollywood starts shooting a film based on his former life, Danny demands a piece of the action and begins to rebuild his criminal empire.

Then he falls in love. With a beautiful movie star who has a dark past of her own.

As their worlds collide in an explosion that could destroy them both, Danny Ryan has to fight for his life in a city where dreams are born.

Or where they go to die. From the shores of Rhode Island to the deserts of California where bodies disappear, from the power corridors of Washington where the real criminals operate to the fabled movie studios of Hollywood where the real money is made, City of Dreams is a sweeping saga of family, love, revenge, survival and the fierce reality behind the dream.

*****

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