Each new reading year brings its own surprises – some more macabre than others – and 2025 has distinguished itself with an exceptional range of crime fiction. From richly researched historical intrigue to inventive cosy crime, from epistolary puzzles to genre-blurring psychological mysteries, my top five novels challenge, transport and unsettle in equal measure.
5 – The King’s Agent by Rosemary Hayes
Set in November 1808, Rosemary Hayes’ The King’s Agent follows disgraced former Captain Will Fraser as he returns from the Peninsula War to deliver news of his brother’s death and reveal his recruitment into the Alien Office, where he is tasked with infiltrating Napoleon’s inner circle and pursuing the treacherous Vicomte de Menou, his brother’s killer. Before undertaking this larger mission, Fraser reunites with his former sergeant, Duncan Armstrong, to carry out a covert assignment: slipping into France via Jersey to rescue compromised royalists, locate the missing British spymaster Gaston and assess the reach of Joseph Fouché’s fearsome police force.
Hayes provides ample background to Fraser and Armstrong’s earlier entanglements, while their induction into British intelligence allows for a vivid depiction of Regency-era espionage, from codes and ciphers to disguises and the tense decision for Armstrong to feign muteness due to his weak French. Blending meticulous research with engaging characterisation, Hayes integrates real historical figures such as Reeves and Fouché to heighten authenticity and danger, while the minor characters underscore how Napoleonic France’s climate of suspicion affects every stratum of society. Notably, Hayes crafts female characters who are as resilient and fully realised as their male counterparts, reflecting the harsh truths of post-Revolution life. Read the full review here.
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4 – Murder at the Black Cat Café by Seishi Yokomizo
Seishi Yokomizo’s Murder at the Black Cat Cafe, translated by Bryan Karetnyk, presents two ingeniously crafted post-war mysteries solved by the brilliant but elusive Kosuke Kindaichi, each steeped in atmospheric tension, impossible-crime puzzles and the lingering devastation of World War II. The title novella opens in 1947 Tokyo’s dilapidated Pink Labyrinth, where a patrolman discovers a monk exhuming a disfigured woman’s corpse – and that of a black cat – on the grounds of a once-prosperous brothel, now abandoned but still inhabited by its namesake feline. As questions of identity, motive and an inexplicable second cat multiply, Yokomizo heightens the eerie, almost supernatural, tone while playfully inserting himself into the narrative as Kindaichi’s unofficial chronicler, using letters and reports to reveal the truth.
The second novella, Why Did the Well Wheel Creak?, shifts to rural Japan and adopts an epistolary form to trace the Honiden family’s tragedies after blinded veteran Daisuke returns home in 1946, his arrival unleashing a chain of uncanny events rooted in buried resentments and generational guilt. Again, Kindaichi surfaces late to resolve a mystery that seems insoluble, his deductions clarifying a haunting puzzle framed by faceless corpses, misdirection and psychological scars of conflict. Across both stories, Yokomizo blends classic Golden Age plotting with narrative experimentation, creating mysteries that are surprising yet meticulously fair, enriched by settings that function not as backdrops but as active forces shaping every deception, motive and revelation. Read the full review here.
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3 – Helle’s Hound by Oskar Jensen
Oskar Jensen’s Helle’s Hound follows enthusiastic but often hapless Danish academic-turned-sleuth Torben Helle as he investigates the suspicious death of Dame Charlotte Lazerton – eminent art historian, Cold War-era spy and his former mentor – whose sudden demise is dismissed as an accident. Torben becomes convinced foul play is involved, especially given her growing paranoia, her prediction of imminent danger and the peculiar behaviour of attendees at her funeral. When her will grants him access to her Bloomsbury home and memoir in progress, Torben discovers clues he believes point toward one of five prominent suspects.
Jensen broadens the scope from the first novel’s country house setting to a vividly sketched pocket of London, with an excursion to Dorset, offering a wider field of suspects while preserving his affection for Golden Age conventions. Torben’s improvised methods provide much of the humour, complemented by the return of his friends: barrister and on-again/off-again romantic interest Leyla Moradi, who shares narrative duties and devises outlandish theories of her own; police officer Ruth Thompson and theatrical podcaster Wilson Ho, whose true crime show supplies additional comic relief. Torben’s Danish outbursts and frequent cultural misunderstandings further enliven his interactions, particularly with Detective Gary Bassett, a Nordic noir enthusiast eager to assist so long as Torben dresses the part. Read the full review here.
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2 – The Killer Question by Janice Hallett
Janice Hallett’s The Killer Question is a clever, slow-burning epistolary mystery framed by Dominic Eastwood’s attempt to sell Netflix a documentary. His proposal is a show based on the strange events that befell his aunt and uncle, Sue and Mal Eastwood, retired police officers who left the force to run a Hertfordshire pub rejuvenated by their lively quiz nights. All seemed well until the arrival of a seemingly unbeatable team called the Shadow Knights sparked tensions that spiralled into jealousy, suspicion and the discovery of a body in the river behind the pub.
Through WhatsApp chats, emails, quiz sheets, text exchanges and Dominic’s commentary, Hallett constructs an immersive puzzle where meaning emerges through inference rather than narration, gradually revealing why the Eastwoods withdrew from public life and what buried truths shaped the quiz season from hell. The pub setting proves fertile ground for Hallett’s interest in how ordinary rituals mask deeper currents: pub quizzes become battlegrounds for status, identity and unspoken rules, and when those rules are broken, the tight-knit community frays. Janice Hallett excels at layering the mundane with the macabre, probing how stories are shaped by bias and how danger hides in familiar places. Read the full review here.
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1 – Strange Pictures by Uketsu
Uketsu’s Strange Pictures, translated by Jim Rion, is a haunting, genre-blurring fusion of mystery and psychological horror that unfolds through a series of interconnected stories spanning two decades, each anchored by eerie illustrations whose meanings the reader must decipher. The novel begins with a chilling drawing made by an 11-year-old girl arrested for matricide, setting the tone for a narrative in which interpreting images becomes essential to unravelling the truth. Each chapter introduces new characters and a self-contained puzzle – ranging from a student obsessed with a cryptic blog to a grieving boy and an art teacher murdered on a camping trip – all of which gradually weave into a larger tapestry of hidden connections and revelations.
Uketsu uses drawings, blog posts, diagrams and floorplans as integral narrative components rather than embellishments, making the reading experience interactive and placing the reader in the role of investigator, especially given the absence of a central detective figure. The pervasive sense of dread, enhanced by the sinister artwork, transforms the everyday into something uncanny, situating the mysteries within an atmosphere of creeping unease. The novel offers sharp social commentary on motherhood, mental health stigma, coercive control, post-bubble economic pressures and the quiet violence embedded in ordinary lives. Its shifting timelines and abrupt transitions initially disorient but ultimately heighten the immersion, reinforcing themes of memory, dislocation and the dangerous pull of the past. Read the full review here.
