Summer is the most delightfully slow season, from long beach (or pool) days to nice alfresco drinks after sunset. that’s why it pairs so well with thrillers and mysteries: they move along at such a fast pace, and you often have more time to read, which is like a summer reading wormhole.
That’s why we’ve spaced out these exciting and riveting summer reads; some are already available, while others will be waiting for you as the season progresses. and the thrills vary, from serial killers to child stars and fake purse rings to art heists (all shenanigans!) and secret adventures to mistaken identity rideshares. some (Portrait of a Thief and Forgery) already have TV deals in the works, but these books are so cinematic on their own, you won’t want to miss them.
You are reading: Best thriller books 2022
portrait of a thief by grace d.
release date: April 5th from dutton
remember those tongue-in-cheek tweets about how oscar isaac should play a rebooted indiana jones whose archeology missions are to return museum artifacts to the cultures they were stolen from? While the internet was debating whether or not an existing franchise could pull off such an ambitious reversal, Ella Li was writing an original heist about a team of Chinese-American students stealing what the West took while considering their own dual identities complicated.
However, there is a moment in their dynamic debut where the quintet of self-taught art thieves sit down to watch ocean’s eleven and take notes – the kind of self-awareness I love to see in stories like these.
i’ll be you by janelle brown
release date: April 26 from random house
the premise of janelle brown’s latest thriller sounds like especially juicy celebrity gossip, or the kind of plot you’d hear on a deep podcast: identical twins samantha and elli spend their childhood and adolescence on the television screen, at often occupying the same role until they are basically one person. But after drug addiction through a failed career (Sam) and decision to walk away from Hollywood (Elli) drives a wedge between them in adulthood, the only thing that could possibly bring them together is Elli’s strange disappearance. .
After the would-be golden twin elopes to a spa in Ojai but leaves behind her newly adopted two-year-old daughter, a year sober Sam must step out of her twin’s shadow…and, I hope, to fulfill the title with some nostalgic imitation. At the very least, each twin tells half of her shared life story, telling it better than any journalist or podcaster.
the hacienda of isabelle cañas
release date: May 10 from berkley
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I’ve been trying to get rid of the mexican goth itch ever since I finished silvia moreno-garcia’s take on goth horror, but what delights me about la hacienda is how also riffs on another distinctive classic of the subgenre. set in the aftermath of mexico’s war of independence, cañas’s debut has ghostly echoes of daphne du maurier’s rebecca, as half-mestiza beatriz hernandez seeks a husband to marry outside her lower caste and support his widowed mother.
But despite the charming widower Don Rodolfo Solórzano, Beatriz finds that her new husband’s house is less in love with her: eerie sounds and mysterious happenings plague her nightmares and waking hours. the same goes for her disdainful domestic staff, with the exception of mestizo father andrés, the only one willing to help her get rid of this haunted house by way of exorcism. Like Mexican Gothic, the supernatural seems to take second place to the horrors of colonialism and racism.
my summer sweethearts by may cobb
release date: May 17 from berkley
may cobb continues her dark debut the hunting wives with another brilliant tale of intrigue in a northeast texas neighborhood, this time through a trio of friends and a shared obsession. Jen is back in her teenage neighborhood after a nasty divorce; Cynthia flounders in her seemingly perfect marriage; And Kitty is too busy with her own secrets to be there for others. But when handsome Will Harding moves into the neighborhood’s most legendary house belonging to an elderly widower, the young bachelor ignites desire among the three soon-to-be-forty-year-old wives and mothers.
But while each of the women would no doubt toast a mid-life crisis fling, when all three want the same man it’s more a matter of manipulation than celebration, as many secrets begin to trickle down to the surface. service.
forged by kirstin chen
release date: June 3 by william morrow
Forgery is one of those books I’ve been dying to get my hands on ever since I saw the publisher’s market ad with the irresistible premise: 40-something-year-old Chinese-American attorney Ava Wong Struggling both in her career and her marriage and her role as a mother, she is dazzled when Winnie Fang, her old college roommate, reappears in her life, nerd turned jet-setting sophisticate.
his secret? A counterfeit luxury handbag scheme that needs someone as seemingly groomed as Ava on the western side of things. But when Winnie disappears and leaves Ava holding the bag, was she cheating on her? On the other hand, wait until you read Winnie’s story halfway and find out what’s real about Ava and what’s a convincing fake.
the it girl by ruth ware
release date: July 12 from gallery books
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ruth ware’s taut crime novels range in setting from luxury cruise ships and ski chalets to creaky old houses, but the recurring theme throughout her work is the dark knots that bind even the seemingly closest of friendships. The eponymous It Girl in the latest version of Ella is April Clarke-Cliveden, a magnetic student who attracts shy Hannah Jones during her first term at Oxford. but she also attracts the wrong attention and ends up being killed before the year is out.
It’s not until a decade later, when hannah and one of her oxford cronies are expecting their first child, that april’s would-be killer dies in prison… and a journalist comes up with a shocking theory that april may didn’t kill her after all. you know where this is going, it sounds like a dark scholarly history of a group of schoolmates who might know more than they are telling about the tragic fate of one of their own. on the other hand though, being a mystery of merchandise, we really don’t know what corners it will take, especially talking about a popular subgenre.
come home by sarah gailey
release date: July 19 from tor books
sarah gailey has deftly weaved suspense into science fiction and fantasy, from her magic school-set murder mystery liar magic to last year’s clone thriller the echo wife. her last deepest touches on that open vein of family trauma through another heroine who would rather exhume her skeletons than put them in a closet. But Vera has perhaps the last reason to fear returning to the crowd house, her childhood home: her father was a serial killer whose bodies literally formed the basis of her lives. What’s worse, a performance artist with an inexplicable claim to her father’s dark legacy has moved into the boarding house and is retelling her her story.
When her father’s handwritten notes turn up around the house, Vera isn’t sure if it’s worse to imagine the artist embodying her father or the alternative. I love suspense novels that tie into the current true crime craze, especially when it draws readers’ attention to our morbid fascination.
are you sara? by s.c. lali
release date: august 9 by william morrow
We’ve all gotten (drunk or impatient) into the wrong Uber or Lyft, but the worst consequence in real life is a brief embarrassment for inadvertently stealing someone else’s carpool. but in s.c. lalli’s latest thriller, when saraswati “sara” badhuri accidentally traps sarah ellis in the rich part of town, her return to her humbler side of the tracks reveals the lifeless body of her new friend and twin .
Sara, a law student and part-time waitress, has no idea which one of them was the supposed target, but alternating chapters narrated by the dead sarah will gradually reveal if their encounter was completely random or if they have something going on. more in common than just a name. she’ll make you think twice the next time a car pulls up to take you from a day of drinking to your next summer adventure.
natalie zutter is a brooklyn-based playwright and pop culture critic whose work has appeared on tor.com, npr books, den of geek, and elsewhere. find her on twitter @nataliezutter.
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