What We’re Reading this October 2026
The sun never sets on justice, but it may finally be setting on the beloved crime fighting duo of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. The two opposites—brothers from another mother—have called the detecting business quits, but when a prop plane holding the bodies of several kidnapped women crashes into their favorite watering hole, the boys know they’re in for one last effort. With the help of a victim’s sister, they learn that a network of men has stolen vulnerable young women on behalf of a horrifying, charismatic villain known as The Artist, a sculptor of living things, including his own body, and protected by the elite of the South. But the Artist refuses to be found, and every lead brings Hap and Leonard into the crosshairs of something even more dangerous. Finding The Artist is a long shot, and getting out alive is even less likely.Perhaps the darkest, funniest, and most intense of the Hap & Leonard mysteries, Petrified Dreams concludes the revered series as audaciously as one would expect from the mojo master of Southern crime and wit.
When Sam, the hottest dad in the neighborhood, is stabbed to death in a leafy local playground, no one in tony Larchwood can imagine who would want him dead. No one except the mom he snubbed, the dad he laughed at, the outsider he humiliated. Oh, and don’t forget his lover. Or his wife. This page-turning story is told by four women—each distinct, and not all reliable. There’s gorgeous Lucy, who’s ready to blow up her marriage; anxious Rachel, a classic overachiever; polished, powerhouse-lawyer Grace, who’s deeply unhappy; and real estate agent Carmen, an outsider, who’d do anything to fit in. When one woman disappears from the neighborhood soon after the murder, and then another, fear takes hold in Larchwood. Meanwhile, questions begin to arise about another suspicious death, one that took place years before. No one would think to link these events. No one except the killer …
A dying gangster’s plea sends Joe King Oliver on a quest for a missing woman across America’s coasts—unraveling a dark and violent family history along the way—in this engrossing new novel from one of the most celebrated and acclaimed crime writers at work today.
Joe King Oliver is the big man you call to solve the most delicate and dangerous of problems. Fresh off unraveling the mystery of his own parents’ fates, King finds himself accepting (again at his grandmother’s request) a case from Arman Babylon, a powerful Los Angeles gangster now dying from cancer.
Babylon’s granddaughter, Twyla Mann, has been missing for years, and he’s desperate to find her before he passes. The search pulls King into the Babylons’ stained past and the cold case of Dalia Shorts, a torch singer who vanished without a trace and whom Arman was once suspected of killing.
As King follows her trail from L.A. to New York and back, he’ll realize nothing is what it seems as he uncovers a pattern of violence that has targeted the women around Babylon for decades. How much will King be willing to risk to finally set things right?
Morello is a nobody: a homeless orphan and starving artist with nothing but impossible dreams of escaping obscurity. Then Florence appears—dazzling, dangerous, and offering Morello a way out, on one chilling condition: each year, they must hunt and kill one of the art world’s predatory men. In return, Morello will inherit a life of privilege and promise.
Together, they transform revenge into twisted performance art, staging each murder with meticulous, theatrical flair. But when Morello falls for Jude, a wealthy art student who offers her a glimpse of a life sans murder, her carefully curated reality begins to unravel, and she’s one lie away from losing everything she’s killed for. With the body count rising and anonymous threats closing in, Morello must finally ask herself: Is the cost of vengeance ever truly paid? And after a life shaped by violence and manipulation, will she ever become the artist of her own fate, or will she remain forever someone else’s muse?
Compulsive and deviant, My Violent Muse is a razor-sharp thriller about revenge, exploitation, obsession, and the dangerous bargains we strike for power, survival, and love.
After the bloodshed in Fenton, Arizona, former Detroit cop Kurt Argento had to disappear. He reemerges in the small town of Barton, South Dakota, working under an assumed name as a church handyman. It’s a serene existence of tending to the church grounds and avoiding questions. Until he meets seventeen-year-old Majed, a Syrian refugee trying to build a life in Barton with his single mother, as he’s running for his life.Two men with hard eyes are close behind. Argento steps in, and Majed’s pursuers retreat with a thin excuse about a stolen wallet. It’s a story Argento doesn’t buy for a second. Digging deeper, he uncovers something far more lethal than a street-level shakedown. Majed isn’t just in trouble—he’s a target. And the hunters are closing in.To safeguard Majed, Argento hits the road with the boy, pushing west. And along the way it becomes clear that whatever Majed knows—or carries—someone powerful wants it and will kill to get it. But Argento can’t let that happen. Because he’s made a promise. Protect the boy. Or die trying.
Seven ballerinas. One fallen primadonna. The audition of a lifetime. And a mysterious house that swallows the weakest one by one …
There is no performance art as punishing as ballet—and no top-tier ballerina is as punished as Eden. While others practice their steps over and over, Eden waits, knowing her body can perform only so many times before it breaks. But Eden will need to be perfect—or even better—at Deveraux Manor, secluded amid snowy mountains, where she and six other hopefuls are sequestered in a month-long audition for the mysterious, alluring, tragic former ballerina Leanora Karagianni.
Only one finalist will join Leanora’s company and dance the lead. Eden wants it more than anything, but not more than anyone. Her competitors will take every advantage they can. And the cursed house twisting around them will push each ballerina to the bloody edge—and over it. As Eden fights her attraction to the seductive Leonora and the stakes turn lethal, she’ll discover that only the dancer who pays the house’s terrible price can become the finalist.
A hilarious and heartwarming cozy mystery ?following an octogenarian who covers a dastardly plot inside his nursing home, perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Only Murders in the Building.
They might be over the hill but they’re far from six feet under and now there’s a murder to solve! Meet Martin Maxwell. As a former government operative, at eighty-four-years young he always pictured a retirement sipping shaken-not-stirred martinis on a far-flung island. But in need of some care after a new hip, he finds himself at Twilight Lodge on the decidedly cloudy English coast.
From the outside, it’s a picture-perfect place to recuperate. But when popular resident Elsie dies unexpectedly, Martin suspects foul play. She’s the third death in less than two weeks and always had a clean bill of health. Armed with a walking stick and his trusty notebook and pen, Martin decides to investigate. While nobody believes him—death is an inevitable part of care home life after all—Martin is convinced something sinister is afoot.
With his wheelchair-using sidekick and former nemesis Albie in tow, they begin questioning the residents. Soon they learn that there are several suspects in the frame. When they discover Albie’s love interest Barbara is in the killer’s sights, Martin knows time is running out. Will Albie’s heart be broken forever, or can they battle the effects of old age and each other, outwitting a murderer before it’s too late?
A Hitchcock movie screening turns fatal when a recent transplant to New England discovers a dead body on opening night of the movie palace she’s just inherited. A thrilling first entry in a cozy mystery series by Turner Classic Movies host Alicia Malone.
When Audrey Sullivan moves to Pine Island to take over her family’s theater, the Starlight Movie Palace, following the death of her grandmother, not everyone is thrilled with her arrival. A mysterious note is left at her doorstep telling her to return to L.A. While she’s a little spooked, Audrey is all the more determined to make opening night a success. But when the movie ends and the lights go on, there’s more than popcorn to clean up …
Liam Ross, a wealthy and ruthless real estate developer, is found dead in the theater. The local police insist on shutting down the Starlight until they complete their investigation. With the theater’s future on the line, Audrey takes it upon herself to solve Liam’s murder. But in a town where everyone is a suspect, where does she begin?
It is Christmas Eve, 1943, when Anthony and Elva Pratt arrive at a snowy English country house to host a murder mystery game, but instead find themselves solving a real murder. The Pratts had planned on a festive game to liven up the dreary wartime atmosphere, where guests using prop weapons as clues would explore the house to solve the whodunnit. It is all fun and games until Anthony discovers the cook’s sister Miss Silver beaten to death, leaving the sleuthy couple to solve an all-too-real murder. The hotel manager Mr. Browning is trying to keep calm, but the guests are agitated, Colonel Colman seizes the opportunity to take over the hotel for the war effort—and the enigmatic Mrs. Threadgold’s whereabouts remain a mystery. Snowed-in with a murderer in their midst, the Pratts must investigate the novel’s colorful cast. But can they solve this Christmas mystery before someone else is killed?
Dartrine Beaumont believes her mother’s sudden death has left her alone in the world–until she learns of long-lost wealthy relatives living in Florida. Confused but delighted by the possibility of extended family, Dart travels to her grandmother’s stately Gilded Age mansion on Amelia Island for answers, just in time to stake a claim on an unusual inheritance: an alligator farming empire.
Her arrival at Greer House isn’t everything she hoped. Without warning, Dart finds herself in fierce competition with her grandmother’s arrogant heir apparent, and tensions rise as threats escalate on one of the farms. More unsettling is her hostile grandmother’s fanatical belief that the danger stems from a curse; according to legend, a larger-than-life alligator hunted down by a bloodthirsty ancestor haunts the family. Yet Dart can’t deny that the farm’s alligators hiss only at Greers, or that a shadowy figure creeps through the mansion’s halls.
As Dart uncovers the truth about her violent birthright, she faces a terrible choice: accept her place in her family’s grim legacy or forge a new path by slaying a different beast entirely.
Rattle, rattle in the dark…
The mountain’s bones seek out a heart.
Jane has not spoken to her brother Thomas since the accident that nearly killed them both. Their drive from college through the North Georgia mountains is uncomfortably silent, until they stop at a roadside convenience store, where a man stumbles in with a mutilated body, claiming to have been attacked by a monster.
At first, no one believes the man’s ravings, but when the next person to leave the store is brutally killed, they fear that local legend might be true:
There’s a beast in these mountains who feasts on guilty hearts… and someone among them has lured it out of hiding.
Jane and Thomas each harbor secrets, but so do the other patrons, and as the monster claims more hearts, the survivors turn on each other, desperate to save themselves by uncovering the guiltiest among them.
If the siblings can’t overcome the rift between them, they’ll surely become the monster’s next victims…or worse, become monsters themselves.
In this award-winning horror novel from Latin America, a community of women and children–and one man–fight for survival in a harsh and terrifying Cuban rainforest where the gods require appeasement through brutal sacrifice.
The forest is a terrifying, hungry god with harsh rules and a ravenous appetite that must be fed. In this ruthless world mothers raise their children as food, a cannibalistic system of offerings and retribution from which there is no escape. For women, survival depends on becoming mothers. They must reproduce even as their children grow up trapped between life and death, heaven and hell. Such is life on the hacienda.
To ensure the forest’s protection, its inhabitants must renounce their rights and any trace of hope. Among them is Benedicta, a cruel and prolific “whelp” producer, now past her prime. The timid Lazaro, the community’s only man, fears the forest, Benedicta, and the memory of his mother. Benedicta’s daughter, Ifigenia, lives on borrowed time as she anticipates the forest’s call. She loathes everyone, including the feral “she-dog” Ananda, whose fury has given way to madness. And then there’s Romina, a hardened newcomer to the forest who may just break the cycle.
A Caribbean-flavored novel of gothic horror from one of Latin America’s most exciting young writers, What the Forest Devours is a macabre examination of what women must sacrifice to survive in a society with the power to destroy them at any turn. With its spine-tingling allegories, impressive imaginative vision, and a dazzling translation courtesy of acclaimed translator Kevin Gerry Dunn, English language readers can experience the dazzling masterpiece that has swallowed the Spanish literary world whole.
Final Destination meets The Cabin at the End of the World in this supernatural horror from New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong, in which a series of car accidents traps a group of strangers at a dive bar.
A forested road at night, slick from the pounding rain and eerily illuminated by flashes of lightning. Just before midnight, a car swerves to avoid something–or someone–mysteriously standing in the road, only to slam into a fallen tree instead. In the pitch black, four more cars follow in a pileup no one can seem to avoid.
Stumbling out of the wreckage, soaked from the rain and nursing various injuries, five strangers find themselves in a backwoods dive bar, waiting for daybreak and hoping for cell service. But as tensions rise and the storm rages on outside, the occupants of the dive bar start to notice that not everything is as it seems. Time is moving differently, and they quickly learn that going outside–whether to assist another accident victim or to hike for help–is a very bad idea.
There’s something in the woods, something that isn’t natural. Could the figure in the road have been a warning? Or something more sinister? None of this is normal, and they’ll need to work together to figure out what’s happening if they have any hope of surviving the night.
From Bram Stoker Award finalist KC Jones comes House Haunters, a fast-paced thrill ride perfect for fans of How to Sell a Haunted House and Play Nice, in which a skeptical reality TV show producer and a misanthropic ghosthunter must team up to survive a shoot from hell.
Grace Wonderly needs a hit show, or her career is dead.
But saving her job might just kill her.
With her studio relying on AI to greenlight new projects, finding the next breakout series is Grace’s only shot to save her job. And her sanity.
Her solution may be Frank Pendleton: a brilliant but abrasive – and admittedly handsome – ghost hunter who claims he can’t feel fear, making him uniquely attuned to the paranormal.
Frank is either a fraud or the real deal. Skeptical, but hoping for TV gold, Grace assembles a crew to shoot a proof of concept.
But when the production descends into a nightmare, Grace is forced to face the impossible: ghosts are real, and though cold and distant, Frank may be their only chance of getting out alive.
Also by KC Jones:
White Line Fever
Black Tide
Fear comes before the fall.
In the winding, perilous corridors of Jurgen Leitner’s private library, you never know what you’ll find. A starving cookbook. An ancient scroll that casts cool, predatory breezes. A cloth-bound hardback that compels you to DIG, DIG, DIG, DIG.
Free, these books are more than simply unnerving–they’re deadly. But the library keeps their dangers in check and their would-be readers safe. . . .
Or so Leitner claims.
For two of his employees, the risks are worth it. Hugh Franklin, research assistant, has finally found a place he belongs, where his skill in translation is valued, even if his employer is a bit odd. Sebastian Everett, acquisition specialist, can indulge his arcane ambitions, even if it means pretending to care about Leitner’s mission.
Though their tenures at the library were years apart, Hugh and Sebastian’s stories unfold in parallel, and their footsteps echo down the same eerie aisles, caught in a web spun long before either ever heard the name “Jurgen Leitner.”
Will they find a way out . . . or will the library consume them before it’s too late?
A chance meeting on a windswept English moor sparks an obsessive—and soon deadly—love affair between two lonely young women in this clever inversion of the Gothic classics, with a fresh spin that could only come from the award-winning author of A Haunting on the Hill. It’s the 1920s and the English countryside is quiet—which suits Olivia and Tamsin, two young women happy to be overlooked by society. Their relationship is complicated: unruly, working-class Tamsin was brought to Kerrith Manor to be tutored at Olivia’s side, but the two quickly have found something more than friendship—a bone-deep recognition that ignites an endless passion.But an unexpected visitor and an unexplained death disrupt their idyll, sending both women on the run. They find harbor at Ledges, the dazzling estate of ruthlessly wealthy and mysterious Rex de Voil—and a favorite hang-out for the bohemian “bright young things” eager to cut loose far from London’s prying eyes. Olivia and Tamsin revel in their newfound freedom…until they learn that nothing in Rex’s world is without cost. Richly evoking a vibrant time in queer history, Unspeakable Things is a seductive historical thriller that explores the haunting bond between two women coming into their power even as it unspools their obsession to its deadly end.
