The Best Mystery and Thrillers of February

Cold weather reading continues, meaning it’s the perfect time to curl up with a book. February delivers a sharp lineup of mysteries and thrillers that will keep you up at night. If you’re craving secret societies, classic whodunits, and heart-pounding chases, these are the best mystery and thrillers February has to offer.
When practical, unassuming second-year student Emma Curran wins an exciting research fellowship, she is ushered into the glittering debauchery of the University elite. There, she falls for the devastating, aristocratic Jasper Balfour, leader of the all-male Turnbull Club: a shadowy secret society that has created centuries of Britain’s leaders, power brokers and history-makers.
One night, the Turnbulls propose a sinister little game: a fox hunt. The women run. The men chase. And Emma finds herself fleeing for her life through the streets, hunted by the boy she loves.
From the cobbled streets of Stockholm with its placid waterways and picturesque islands, to the hostile skies over the Baltic Sea, and finally onto a fabled 16th century Swedish warship, Cotton and Cassiopeia come face-to-face with the unthinkable—changing both of their lives forever.
Finding a human connection online has become impossible. Enter Liv: a dating app that matches people with dead bodies. Somehow, it has taken the world by storm. Millions of users are convinced that life with a corpse presents a better alternative to conventional relationships.
Humanity might not want to connect with other living, breathing people anymore, but they do want to connect with something. What could go wrong?
This clever, whip-smart, locked-room mystery from internationally bestselling author Arturo Pérez-Reverte is a love letter to golden-age detective novels. The Final Problem delights in exploring the tension between an investigator and his suspects, as well as a writer and his reader, delivering a revelatory twist that will shock even the sharpest of mystery fans.
In Washington, DC …
Metro PD detective John Sampson stands in a crater in the middle of a DC street, calling in the bomb squad. “Dispatch, this is Sampson. Contact the FBI and the ATF. We’ve got a suspected terrorist attack here.”
In Chapel Hill, NC …
Alex Cross searches the apartment of a missing psychology grad student—his own son Damon. Has following in his famous father’s footsteps made Damon a target?
From FBI headquarters, in police stations, on airplanes, and at murder scenes, the detectives track crimes committed hundreds of miles apart. It will take more than distance to weaken the partnership of Sampson & Cross.
The guest list includes not one, but two women from his own romantic past! And Hamish isn’t the only one disrupted by the arrival of the wedding party. The groom—the supposedly suave and sophisticated Darius Palmerston—is involved in a series of incidents in the local pub. Tensions between guests and villagers escalate until, shortly after the lavish wedding ceremony, a body is found in the hotel dining room.
The gruesome killing means Hamish suddenly has a murder investigation on his hands, one with a very long list of suspects.
Perfect for fans of Parasite and The Menu—enticing as a starter, meaty as a main dish, and full of satisfying just-desserts—Greedy is a suspenseful poison-pen note to classism and an ode to Japanese cuisine, a horror-tinged thriller unsuitable for vegetarians but full of shocking delights for every reader.
With their increasing isolation, personal challenges become harder to ignore, even as they desperately try to break toxic generational patterns. But when Drew’s gaslighting becomes too much for Peggy to take, it sets off a catastrophic series of events.
Part bingeable mystery, part character-driven tale of a woman discovering her own strength in a system built by and for men, The Jills is a page-turning novel that brims with wit and heart while reminding us of the healing power of sisterhood.