Some reads are simply unforgettable, and I guess we all have particular favourites, the kind of books that stay with us. Every year I add a handful of titles to my, now long list, living rent free in my mind.

2025 was another great one for crime fans, the genre continues to be the most popular in fiction, even with romantasy growing exponentially it tops the lists. Among the thousands of new titles there were some great novels. We had new books from Mark Billingham What the Night Brings, Liam McIlvanney The Good Father, Tom Mead The House at Devil’s Neck, John Grisham The Widow, Vaseem Khan The Girl in Cell A, Laura Lippman Murder Takes a Vacation, Scott Turow Presumed Innocent, Paul Vidich The Poet’s Game, SJ Parris Traitor’s Legacy, Laura Shepherd-Robinson The Art of a Lie, Lisa Jewell Don’t Let Him In, Val McDermid The Silent Bones and Antony Horowitz Marble Hall Murders. But it’s not just about the big names and the big publishing houses, we have a lot of Indie presses, and they put out some fantastic books. The Aspects of Crime crew, that’s our partner authors, has drawn by a list of novels they enjoyed this year, and the choices reflect the whole genre. So, there will be something for everyone here, maybe a Christmas gift or a me-time present, enjoy…

Mark Ellis, the author of the DCI Frank Merlin series set in WWII London has eclectic tastes. A Voice in the Night by Simon Mason, (Quercus, Riverrun). This is Number 4 in the DI Ryan Wilkins series and I’ve read and enjoyed them all. Ryan Wilkins is a working-class chav. Not your standard fictional police detective. He is regardless quite brilliant. He works in the Oxford Police headquarters alongside another DI, in contrast a smooth and cultured Oxbridge graduate also called Wilkins (Ray). The two do not always get on. In this book they investigate the stabbing of a security guard and the disappearance of a linguistics professor. A terrific crime novel. Death and the Poet by Fiona Forsyth (Sharpe Books). Forsyth writes mysteries set in classical times. This book is the second in a series featuring the poet Ovid as an amateur detective. In the story, our hero is living in exile in the Black Sea town of Tomis (now the Romanian city of Constanta) having somehow got up the nose of the Roman Emperor Augustus. The proprietor of a market vegetable stall is bludgeoned to death and more violence follows as a story of civic corruption is revealed. Ovid and his friends investigate. Vivid, compelling and engaging. A Death in the Afternoon by Julie Anderson (Hobeck Books). This is first book I have read by Julie Anderson. It is Number 2 in her Clapham Trilogy, which features a young female police officer detective called Faye Smith working in post -war South London. My failure to read the first book in the series did not hamper my enjoyment at all. In the story a nurse falls to her death from a block of flats. Thought initially to be an accident, Faye suspects criminality and investigates. Wonderful period atmosphere, which as the author of a wartime London detective series, I particularly appreciated. A very enjoyable mystery.

Which brings us nicely to Julie Anderson the author of the Clapham Mysteries, which offer real insight into post war London and Clapham in particular. The Cure by Eve Smith, (Orenda Books), the writer of pacey, prescient dystopian crime fiction, asks the question ‘What would you do if you could live healthily, forever?’. In a future world where the lives of individuals are circumscribed and lifespans limited because of rampant over-population and climate change, two women seek revenge on the man whose ruthless pursuit of immortality caused the global crisis. A thought-provoking, cautionary tale, with thrills aplenty. Out of the Dark is the fifth in the Copenhagen-set Jensen series by Heidi Amsinck, (Muswell Press) but is easily read as a standalone novel. Its crime journalist heroine is heavily pregnant and in pursuit of a missing nine-year-old girl alongside DI Henrik Jungerson, her former, married lover (Jensen’s child is not his). Jungerson failed, years before, to find another missing girl and this case is revisited when a possible link between them emerges. Dark and twisty. Death in the Aviary by Victoria Dowd (Datura Books) is an homage to the Golden Age of detective fiction, especially Agatha Christie. Set in 1929 in an ancient family pile on Dartmoor it comes complete with wealthy occupants of various shades of battiness or venality, loyal-to-a-fault retainers, perilous moorland mire, a collection of ravens and a shooting – in a lift. This is a glorious whodunnit, shot through with the continuing emotional fall-out of the Great War. What’s not to like?”

R.N. Morris is the author of several historical novels, but his latest Cover Story (Sharpe Books) is a contemporary spy thriller. Set during the Second World War, Andrew Taylor’s A Schooling in Murder (Hemlock Press) has an intriguing premise: the narrator is a ghost. Taylor excels in the interplay between characters, the shifts and nuances of their relationships. He assembles a gloriously oddball cast, each with secrets in their past which make them candidates for Annabel’s murderer. There are various levels of power dynamic at play, between and within the different groups that make up the school, pupils, teachers, non-teaching staff and even a semi-orphaned boy who lives there, the cook’s nephew whose prickliness betokens his outsider status. But as always with this author, the greatest pleasure is the quality of the writing. T.M. Stretton’s Diamond Boulevard (Sharpe Books) is a satisfyingly tense and twisty tale revolving around, drugs, diamonds and deceit. There are sleazy bars, noir-soaked back streets, Russian gangsters, violent henchmen, tenacious cops and a duplicitous love interest. There’s the added enjoyment of Barcelona at Christmas – making it the perfect crime read for the festive season – a 5-carat heist thriller laced with wit, action and surprises. Death and the Poet, the second of Fiona Forsyth’s historical crime novels featuring the exiled poet Ovid, is an absorbing tale of friendship, corruption and murder, shot through with humanity and deep emotion. The remote imperial outpost of Tomis is vividly recreated and Fiona Forsyth’s portrait of Ovid, now joined by his formidable wife Fabia, is a triumph.

Tim Stretton is the author of Diamond Boulevard, the final part of the Barcelona trilogy, Nick Harkaway‘s Sleeper Beach (Corsair) is the second in the Titanium Noir series. Hard-boiled noir meets science fiction in a world where the ultra-wealthy take a drug that makes them literally titanic. Detective Cal Sounder—now a Titan himself—investigates a murder while grappling with what he’s become. It’s Philip Marlowe by way of Philip K. Dick, and Harkaway never compromises on either the existential weight of the premise or the satisfying mechanics of the case. RN Morris‘s Cover Story (Sharpe Books) follows failed writer Col Newton, hired by MI6 to ghostwrite a novel for an undercover agent’s cover story. Freed from publication pressure, Col produces his best work—which he can never claim as his own. When mysterious deaths pile up, the stakes escalate beyond literary reputation. Morris channels Eric Ambler with a nod to Mick Herron, creating a memorably self-aware protagonist navigating London’s seedier corners. A brilliant meta-fictional premise executed with sharp wit and genuine tension. Chris Offutt‘s The Reluctant Sheriff (No Exit Press) continues his Mick Hardin series with prose that’s both spare and lyrical. His ex-Army investigator, now unwillingly filling in as sheriff in eastern Kentucky, tracks criminals while wrestling with his own past traumas. Offutt writes about Appalachia with an insider’s authenticity and a poet’s eye, creating a protagonist whose internal battles are as compelling as the cases he solves. This is crime fiction that understands landscape shapes character as much as action does.

Peter Tonkin has a long and varied career as a writer, his current series features sixteenth century spy Robert Poley, The Shadow of a Queen is the latest. Two of my choices are set during ‘hot’ wars and the third is set in the ‘Cold War’ that followed them. Alec Marsh’s brilliant Cut and Run (Sharpe Books) is set in France, 1916. Invalided officer Frank Campion is called to investigate the murder of a prostitute employed at a ‘blue lamp’ brothel specifically for officers of the Allied forces. The dogged Campion follows a twisting and gripping trail that leads not only to the hell of the trenches where the common soldiers live and die but also to the comparative heaven of the great chateaux where the high command meet to indulge their every whim. Mark Ellis, in his much-lauded Death of an Officer, (Headline) takes us to London in 1943 two years after the Blitz, where a doctor of Indian heritage and an American officer both lie dead – one in his bedroom and the other on a bombsite. Ellis presents us with a perfectly constructed ‘police procedural’ as his irresistible, inimitable detective, DCI Frank Merlin, solves the murders. In Karla’s Choice, Nick Harkaway (Penguin) takes us to Cold War Europe, soon after the death of secret agent Alec Lemas on his way out of ‘the cold’ East Berlin. It recounts how George Smiley and his associates at the Circus, still reeling from this tragedy, become further involved with the Russian masterspy Karla in a series of encounters which serve to characterise Smiley while also explaining the origins of the duel that will run through Le Carre’s ‘Smiley’ novels. Utterly absorbing.

Fiona Forsyth as we know from two lists above writes about murder and the poet Ovid, in exile. David Wishart Dead in the Water (self-published) If you haven’t met Wishart’s foul-mouthed aristocratic Roman detective Corvinus and his wife Perilla, you are in for a treat. Imagine the setting as “I, Claudius” with proper murders as opposed to Livia just poisoning anyone who displeases her. I’ve watched Corvinus grow up – as much as he ever will – through many books and he is my favourite Roman sleuth. Knows his wines too. Here he is on the island of Corsica, investigating the mysterious death of a harmless ship’s captain. Cover Story RN Morris (Sharpe Books) One for Mick Herron fans here – so funny I haven’t laughed like this since my last Terry Pratchett. The portrayal of writing as a (non) career is absolutely wicked and the main character Col is exceptionally well-drawn, not nearly as much of a loser as he thinks he is. Entangled in an intelligence scheme he does not understand, Col gets progressively more paranoid and, intriguingly, more confident in his abilities as a writer. The Killer Question Janice Hallett (Viper). I’ll admit it – I used to be a ferociously competitive pub quizzer and the teams in the book were immediately recognizable, which absolutely made the book real for me. Janice Hallett is very good at describing inward-facing groups of people such as artists, Am-Dram luvvies or quizzers, and I admire the discipline she shows in her immaculate storytelling. It’s all done through unusual means such as emails and WhatsApp messages, and it works.

GJ Williams writes the intriguing historical novels known as the Tudor Rose mysteries, the latest is The Cygnet Prince. Banquet of Beggars Chris Lloyd (Orion) When detective Eddie Giral wakes up in a dark, dank cellar with a feeling of impending threat, the atmosphere is set for the latest instalment of Chris Lloyd’s historical crime series set in German occupied Paris.  This brilliantly researched novel takes us into the murky and corrupt underworld of the French black market of World War II in which occupiers and the occupied compete and collaborate to survive in a system riddled with corruption. The story takes a sinister twist when the investigation into the murder of a black-marketeer is complicated by the killing of a German trader. The inevitable outcome will be revenge of the authorities upon the subjugated and starving people of Paris, unless Eddie can find the killer in time. This flawed but determined detective finds himself treading a very fine line between seeking justice, living with the enemy and then living with himself. A brilliant read from an author who never fails to immerse you in their world and every page confirms why Chris Lloyd is a winner of the HWA Gold Crown for best historical fiction. The Hunters Club. Alis Hawkins (Canelo) It seems so simple – a young shop girl imprisoned by the Vice Chancellor’s Court. It is not so strange in Oxford of the Victorian era when the rich had power and the poor had none. But this girl seeks the help of a woman of her own class who is breaking open the shackles of class limitation – Non Vaughan. This brilliant unofficial detective is feisty, determined and blind to the social expectation that she should ‘know her place’ as the daughter of a Welsh sea trader which is very different to the affluent, entitled male students around her. But Non has come to Oxford to learn and when faced with injustice, she refuses to turn away. Meanwhile, Non’s friend and co- investigator, Basil Rice has been charged with investigating attacks on undergraduates found beaten, bound, gagged and hooded in outside their colleges. When a student dies, Non and Basil find themselves in the dark world of a secret society and they have to tread a difficult path – navigating hidden powers, the machinery of a university that wants no challenge, and the dangerous territory of sexual purity in which Basil has to hide his own private life. Another class read from Alis Hawkins and evidence of why she is consistently shortlisted for historical crime awards. Murder Most Foul. Guy Jenkin (Legend Press) This is historical crime with a difference – it makes you laugh. In fact, it makes you laugh so much it has been listed for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse comedy prize. Written by acclaimed script-writer Guy Jenkin, this is a pacy crime mystery set in London of 1593.  It starts with the grisly murder of Christopher Marlowe, London’s leading playwright. As infamous in death as he was in life – the rumours about Marlowe, his circle and the circumstances of his death start to swirl. Of course, rumours become reasoning and soon his greatest competitor – William Shakespeare – is named as the murderer. Desperate to clear his name, Shakespeare teams up with Marlow’s sister, the larger than life, Ann who happens to not only share a name with his wife but also a romantic connection with him. Together, they uncover a dark world of treachery, corruption, plotting and murder. True to character, Shakespeare not only thrives in a high-stakes drama but delights in collecting characters for his plays along the way. A perfect blend of history and humour.

Richard Foreman is the author of several historical, spy and crime thrillers. Appointment In Paris by Jane Thynne (Quercus) is the latest novel in the Fox and Fry series. As with its predecessor, Midnight In Vienna, the book is a gripping fusion of WW2 espionage and murder mystery. Thynne is comfortable and accomplished in relation to both the period and genre. There is even a wonderfully memorable cameo from Noel Coward. Clown Town by Mick Herron (Baskerville) I must confess that I stopped reading the Slough House series a couple of books ago. The latest TV instalment compelled me to buy the most recent release, however. Clown Town is pacier than the other novels, I warrant, and the plot is all the better for it. Jackson Lamb is as engaging – and scabrously funny – as ever. The Predicament by William Boyd (Viking) The follow-up to Gabriel’s Moon (which won the SpyMaster Book of the Year) doesn’t disappoint. Boyd’s writing is full of style, intrigue and sly humour. The period detail is spot-on, and we can’t help but like and enjoy spending time in the company of the novel’s protagonist.

Paul Durston, author of the Charlie Quinlan trilogy, If We Were Guilty is the latest. Sting of the Nettle Colin Bostock-Smith (Diamond Crime) 1952, Devon. PC Derek Martin is the local Bobby for the sleepy village of North Tawe. The coroner pronounces a farmer’s suicide ‘accidental death’ but PC Martin can’t quell a niggle. He investigates, upsetting his seniors, local villains, local aristocracy and… his wife. Characters and setting are spot on – my parents were that age and from Plymouth. For example, PC Martin loves his junket. My dad loved it too. Must be a generation thing – for me, junket tastes the same going down as it does coming up. Death by Intent Jacqueline Harrett (Diamond Crime) DI Mandy Wilde is a protagonist whose professional and private lives have collided – head on. She investigates a woman’s death which may or may not be suspicious. The victim was an obnoxious woman with a lifetime of enemies. Mandy’s boss is her former fiancé. Mandy’s also been left with parental responsibilities for her teenage niece. While her investigation uncovers several suspects, the covers are peeled back from her private life too. Kit’s War Stephen Timmins (Diamond Books) For Kit Dobson, the First World War is just one of her battles. She solves aerodynamic problems with ease and contributes to the design and build of the Sopwith Camel, a biplane that influenced the outcome of WWI. Her other battles include male chauvinism, class, spies, secrets, bribery, illness… Kit is a feisty woman who, as well as knowing how to handle herself, can handle a Sopwith Camel – in a dog-fight – keep your head down.

Kevin Joseph is the author of a high concept, thought provoking thriller Perpetuity. Thomas Dann’s debut, Midnight in Memphis, (Crooked Lane Books) is the rare crime novel that gets everything right. Set in 1955 Memphis, it’s a riveting murder mystery with fully realized characters and an authentic feel for the Deep South. Detective Burdette, the rare honest cop in a corrupt department, and Eustace, his newly assigned Black partner in the hunt for a serial killer seeking revenge for past lynchings, have a compelling chemistry that propels the tense narrative. The Award, by Matthew Pearl, (Harper) blends satirical elements into a suspenseful crime caper—an addictive concoction that you just can’t put down. David’s a struggling author, suffering from imposter syndrome in Boston’s elitist writing community. His big break comes in the form of a literary award for his debut novel. Later, he’s told the award was mistaken and that he must prepare for the announcement of the actual winner. But David won’t let his dreams die so easily. Despite serious character flaws, I couldn’t help rooting for this antihero and against the pompous gatekeepers of literary elitism. The Doorman (Head of Zeus) is slow-burning suspense at its finest, and Chris Pavone’s writing rivals the best literary fiction. Chicky Diaz, doorman at a ritzy Manhattan co-op, where he ensures that the building’s entitled residents are never threatened or inconvenienced, is a likeable everyman hero.  By its explosive murder scene, Pavone has painted an incendiary picture of New York’s socioeconomic, political, and racial landscape. The ending is truly memorable, featuring heroic moments and nifty twists that are both unexpected and believable.

Thomas Waugh is the author of the Daniel Ambler spy thrillers. Shadow of a Queen by Peter Tonkin (Sharpe Books). Peter Tonkin is adept at writing in more than one genre or period. His latest novel, Shadow of a Queen, is one of his best yet, mixing espionage with history. Tonkin skilfully blends fact with fiction, focusing on the story of Mary Queen of Scots. A triumph. The Oligarch’s Daughter by Joseph Finder (Head of Zeus). We get two stories in one, as we deal with the backstory of its hero – as well as his current peril. Finder builds character and plot, with pace and precision, better than most thriller writers. The novel is a great window into the world of wealth and finance in New York. An education – and escapism. Boom Time by Mark Ellis A short, fun hit of true crime – based upon the work of the author’s bestselling Frank Merlin series. The book covers the shadier parts of London during WW2. There were people in it for themselves, rather than all in it together, in terms of the black-market during the war. A perfect stocking filler for those interested in true crime and the home front.

Paul Burke is editor of Aspects of Crime. Blood Rival by Jake Arnott (Datura Press) is the first in a while from the author of The Long Firm. A Kent crime lord is murdered in a road rage incident but is there more to it than that? Riffing on Greek tragedy, this psychological drama explores family, obsession, desire, ambition and grief. A neo-noir with a wry sense of humour that says a lot about the modern world and does so in thrilling style. Anthony Horowitz Marble Hall Murders, (Penguin) I’m not a lover of metafiction but Horowitz does it with such style, wit and brilliantly engaging storytelling it is impossible not to be charmed. This is the latest novel to include book editor Susan Ryeland and book-within-a-book detective Atticus Pund. The grandson of famous children’s author Miriam Crace believes she was murdered and that the clues lie in a manuscript. Fortress of Evil by Javier Cercas, translated by Anne McLean (Maclehose Press). The third part of a political murder mystery series from Spain. The Terra Alta Investigations are elegantly written thrillers with real heart. Melchor’s life is thrown into turmoil when his seventeen year old daughter discovers he has been lying about her mother’s death, (spoiler he killed the culprit). Angry Cosette takes off for Mallorca but goes missing. Melchor follows her trail to Swedish American billionaire Rafael Mattson. Sharp, involving, clever. My kind of crime story loaded with social critique.

Aspects of Crime has only been up and running a couple of months but so far things have gone better than we could have hoped, the reaction of readers has been very encouraging. Don’t take my word for it, check out the rest of our website, and don’t forget our podcast, which Laura Lippman, Ann Cleeves, Louise Penny, Vaseem Khan and Ambrose Parry kicked off in style. Our bi-monthly magazine is available for just £/$9.99 a year! A bargain surely? Perhaps a subscription might make a nice Christmas present for a crime fan?

Merry Christmas from all of us at Aspects of Crime, we look forward to a big year in 2026.

Paul