The idea of reliving an event and perhaps reliving it better the next time, and the time after that, is an interesting branch of metafiction. It can be hilarious too, as our lead book, a debut by CE Hulse, aims to prove. Coming out of this tradition, we understand that Vivian Dies Again will be one of the big crime novels of 2026.
Let’s begin there and once you’re looped in we’ll hit you with five more crime novels for a whole variety of different tastes. Get ready to choose your next read…
Vivian Dies Again by CE Hulse
Welcome to the Groundhog Day of crime novels, where the protagonist is murdered… and murdered… and murdered. That’s the premise of Vivian Dies Again by CE Hulse, out on 29 January. It’s described as “a contemporary, time-looping take on a classic murder mystery” and features Vivian Slade, who has spent too much time in her own company and decides to take up the invitation to a family gathering. But it seems that everyone there hates her, and she’s pushed off a balcony and dies… only to wake up and be killed again… and again. Can Vivian solve her own murder(s)? Only time will tell in this crime debut.
Order now on Amazon
Pendergast: The Beginning by Preston and Child
This should be interesting – an origin story for Pendergast, one of America’s favourite investigators. FBI Special Agent Dwight Chambers’ career is on a downward trajectory and his private life is a mess, so the last thing he needs is to be saddled with a new recruit to mentor. AXL Pendergast is a young man with a complicated past and a penchant for reckless behaviour that leads to suspension for him and Chambers. Prendergast sees it as a chance to investigate a strange murder in Mississippi. With Chambers grudgingly in tow, the pair set to work solving a string of grisly, ritualistic killings that defy any known pattern. But that success comes at a price… Pendergast: The Beginning by Preston and Child is published on 29 January.
Order now on Amazon
***Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Rap Sheet, here***
Make It Out Alive by Allison Brennan
Make It Out Alive is the seventh book in Allison Brennan’s series featuring Detective Kara Quinn and FBI Agent Matt Costa. It’s out on 27 January and finds the pair in the thick of it when three newlywed couples disappear from an exclusive resort in Florida. All of the women bear a strong similarity to Quinn, and soon she and Costa are posing as bait as a newly-married pair on honeymoon. The trap works and the killer is caught – but when Quinn and Costa don’t return to work after a relaxing weekend away it becomes clear that the murderer wasn’t acting alone. They’ve been kidnapped and forced into a twisted escape room where they must fight for their lives – is this the end for Quinn and Costa?
Order now on Amazon
First Act by Rachel Lynch
Rachel Lynch’s First Act is a prequel to the author’s DI Kelly Porter series and is set in London in 2008. Porter is 28 and a newly minted detective when she lands her dream job in the Met’s Major Investigation Team and is immediately thrown in at the deep end. Work on the Olympic Park is underway when human remains are found on Porter’s former Bethnal Green patch. The presence of children’s toys in the grave lead her to seek help from a curator at the Museum of Childhood. What she’s about to uncover will send the investigation off in an unexpected direction. Publication date is 29 January.
Order now on Amazon
Esther is Now Following You by Tanya Sweeney
An obsessed fan goes completely off the rails in Tanya Sweeney’s Esther is Now Following You, arriving on 29 January. Life is never the same for Esther after she spots Ted in the park and their eyes meet for a fraction of a second. It triggers something in her, and soon she knows everything about Canadian actor Ted. After devouring every online interview she can unearth, Esther joins Ted’s fan site online where she and the ‘Tedettes’ stalk his every move. Her next move is a little worrying though – after Ted gets a new celebrity girlfriend, Esther leaves her husband, pockets their life savings and heads to Canada to make him see the error of his ways. Yikes!
Order now on Amazon
The Bombay Boys by Kim Dorton Broad
A family with roots in British India inadvertently end up battling the Krays to be the top criminal gang in London in The Bombay Boys by Kim Dorton Broad, out on 28 January. It’s 1945 and Partition is looming in India as Joe Benedict and his boss’s wife Molly fall in love, decide to head back to London and unwittingly become the founders of one of the most ruthless criminal gangs in the capital. Years later, Joe’s dark past comes back to haunt Nick Benedict and his best friend Subash, suddenly pitting them against some of the biggest names in London’s organised crime hierarchy.
Order now on Amazon
