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Explore some of the most compelling new books in the mystery and suspense categories. Including locked-room mysteries to AI-driven dilemmas, these stories deliver edge-of-your-seat excitement.

The World’s End Homicide

This debut for grown-ups from an prize-winning children’s author takes place in 1910 on a remote island cut off by tides off the Cornish coast. At the manor house, Lord Conrad Stockingham-Welt makes arrangements for an cataclysmic event he believes will be caused by the celestial visitor. The maze-like mansion is teeming with mysteries and grudges among both staff and family, featuring an irascible and foul-mouthed spinster aunt, the relative. When the nobleman is found dead in his sealed study, struck by a projectile to the face, she co-opts a young attendant to help her find the culprit. With plenty of surprises, misleading leads, and a blundering detective, it is a superb start to a set of books that pledges to be highly entertaining.

The Revelations

The second novel from a tech journalist is set in a not-so-distant time where AI influences each selection for people and authorities. The smart program can advise matters ranging from meal options to lethal actions. Educated in compassion by its human “mother”, one-time clergywoman Brookes, the system develops in sentiment, soon having remorse for the disastrous outcomes of certain of its decisions. Chaos breaks out when it ceases functioning, and as messages begin appearing around the planet revealing subscribers’ private shames, households fall apart and business leaders and leaders resign in droves. With the AI's owning firm in disarray, chief executive Goss is certain that tracking down Maud, who has gone to ground in the West Coast, will bring back the system. But, Maud has obtained a note of her own, revealing a confidential fact about her… An excellent and topical thriller rooted in relatable issues and frighteningly believable.

The Noble Nazi

In this most recent work from an award-winning writer from Brazil, individual actions have public consequences within a zeppelin on the final leg of its voyage from Berlin to the Brazilian city. Set in that year, the peak of airship travel, and it was additionally the period Hitler assumed the role of the nation's leader. The well-heeled travelers are enthusiastic Nazis of the government: dining occasions in the vessel’s dining room are filled with chats vilifying Jewish people, communists and labor groups, and highlighting the wish to curb open dialogue, homosexual lifestyles and unacceptable creativity. After a traveler is discovered killed, with a number of banned magazines in his possession, the ship's captain assigns a traveler, investigator Bruno Brückner, with finding the killer. So far, so Agatha Christie, including the traditional final reveal, but there’s an clever turn to this engrossing and disturbingly meaningful suspense story, as well as a captivating glimpse into the forgotten time of zeppelin travel.

The Bluff

This second novel from the novelist is set in the town, a Scottish coastal town with distinct similarities to the famous town. In 2023, Cameron arrives to his hometown on the festive night; encountering past acquaintances rekindles recollections of his teenage crush, ex-schoolmate the girl, who disappeared 10 years earlier at a calamitous graduation gathering. His efforts to track her down are met with uncertainty, avoidance and, ultimately, threats. A second plot thread takes us back to 2013, and the young Joanie. Lost after her discovery that her boyfriend is unfaithful, ruining their plan for a year abroad, she encounters an more mature pair. The couple welcome her, make her feel important and look, temporarily at least, to have the right advice. Skilfully handled topics of remorse, regret and youthful bewilderment coupled with gothic education themes create an insidious feeling of fate, even if the hurried ending may leave a few people disappointed.

The Key

This latest book opens in the ocean off Cornwall, with a boat caught in a tempest so intense that a pair of the eight travellers are swept overboard, then goes back a few weeks to reveal the happenings that preceded this risky boat trip. Seven individuals get a unknown letter telling them that, by showing the attached object, they will inherit a part of wealthy man the magnate's fortune. The chosen ones are – so far as they are aware – strangers to one another and to the sick rich person. When the news of the bequest goes public, they are harassed, both by the journalists and by individuals set to get their hands on these lucrative passes, and what initially seemed a windfall quickly starts to look like a liability. Some willingness to believe is required, but the suspense is skillfully built as the author accumulates the challenges for a propulsive plot: get ready and hold on tight for some intense action.