Spring into these 4 new and upcoming thrillers

The Plot Thickens

Ah, spring forward — the annual tradition where we willingly steal an hour from our sleep and spend the next week wondering why we feel jet-lagged in our own time zone. But hey, spring is creeping in, the days are getting longer, and what better way to celebrate the extra evening light than with a thriller that will keep you up way past bedtime anyway?

Imagine waking up in the wrong body, on a spaceship where death is usually just a minor inconvenience — only to find out someone has figured out how to make it permanent. That’s the setup for Seattle author Olivia Waite’s novella, “Murder by Memory” (Tordotcom, $21.99), a delightfully oddball mix of cozy mystery and sci-fi, where the biggest crime isn’t just murder — it’s erasing minds from existence.

Dorothy Gentleman, the ship’s detective and certified no-nonsense auntie, is the kind of investigator who gets things done with a sharp eye and sharper wit. She’s not exactly thrilled to be thrust into a case mid-body swap. Still, when someone starts tampering with the ship’s supposedly indestructible memory archives, she dusts off her detective hat (metaphorically speaking — though I wouldn’t put it past her to own one).

The real star of “Murder by Memory” is its imaginative world-building: cocktails made from memories, a possibly tipsy sentient ship and a society where true love means sharing a memory shelf. The mystery itself is intriguing, if not the most twisty, but the charm of the setting and Dorothy’s dry humor make up for it.

A little Miss Marple in space, a little “Black Mirror” but make it comfy, “Murder by Memory” is a quirky, clever and thoroughly enjoyable read. Maybe stay away from the memory cocktails, though, if you’re prone to bad decisions. 

Colum McCann, renowned for “Let the Great World Spin” and “Apeirogon,” has built a career on expansive, poetic storytelling that delves into the depths of human resilience. With his latest, “Twist” (Random House, $28), he once again reaffirms his place as one of today’s most compelling literary voices.

A novel that resists easy classification, “Twist” navigates between literary fiction, adventure and philosophical inquiry. At its core, it follows Anthony Fennell, a disillusioned Irish writer whose career and life feel adrift. What starts as a routine assignment profiling a deep-sea cable repair crew quickly spirals into something far deeper — literally and figuratively. Fennell dives headfirst into the hidden world of underwater infrastructure, where the fragile cables keeping humanity connected mirror the tangled, fraying threads of his own life. As the journey unfolds, fixing what’s broken becomes more than just a job — it’s a reckoning with loss, connection and the messy business of trying to hold it all together.

McCann’s prose is, as always, luminous and precise. His ability to blend the tactile and the poetic makes “Twist” an immersive experience, whether he’s detailing the mechanics of underwater repair or the existential weight Fennell carries. Though the mystery at its heart doesn’t unravel in a traditional way, its deeper questions linger: Can broken things truly be mended? Can disconnection ever be undone? McCann doesn’t provide easy answers, but his novel ensures we keep searching.

Constantly crafting finely honed thrillers such as “Midnight Is the Darkest Hour” and “The Last Housewife,” Ashley Winstead continues the trend with “This Book Will Bury Me” (Sourcebooks Landmark, $27.99), an unsettling dive into the dark underbelly of true crime obsession. Merging the cerebral allure of dark academia, the moral complexities of online sleuthing and a profoundly introspective study of grief, this novel is both intellectually riveting and emotionally unsettling.

College student Jane Sharp copes with her father’s sudden death by immersing herself in amateur detective work. She joins an elite online group determined to solve the infamous Delphine, Idaho, murders. But when digital theories collide with real-world consequences, Jane and her fellow sleuths quickly find themselves in over their heads. Told through unreliable narration, footnotes and narrative gaps, the book unfolds like a true crime documentary unraveling in real time.

Winstead’s signature wit and psychological depth make “This Book Will Bury Me” more than just another thriller — it’s a sharp critique of the voyeuristic nature of true crime fandom. At what point does the pursuit of justice become an obsession, and when does fascination with tragedy cross an ethical line?

Sarah Harman’s “All the Other Mothers Hate Me” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $29) is a darkly comic thriller that dismantles the polished image of motherhood, exposing the power struggles and quiet betrayals beneath. (Imagine “Big Little Lies” after one too many glasses of wine, stumbling into a whodunit.) Florence Grimes, a single mother barely holding her life together, is thrown into chaos when her son’s class bully, Alfie, disappears — and suspicion lands squarely on her child. To clear his name, she embarks on an amateur investigation that forces her into the cutthroat world of privileged parenting, where reputations matter more than truth.

Florence is the kind of protagonist who captivates despite — or perhaps because of — her flaws. She’s reckless, often self-serving, yet fiercely devoted to her son, making her an unpredictable but deeply compelling guide through this winding mystery. Harman’s writing is razor-sharp, blending biting, dark humor with genuine tension as she unpacks the intersection of class, privilege, performative motherhood and the masks people wear to fit in. Astute and disquieting.