What to Read Next: New Mystery Book Recommendations

🔎 Ready for your next whodunit? Let’s talk about mysteries arriving in early 2026. 

Join me as I dive into the most exciting upcoming classic-style whodunits releasing from January to March 2026—think locked rooms, closed circles, clever clues, and satisfying reveals that echo the Golden Age greats.

Get a curated preview of fresh releases and rediscovered gems, including debuts like The Murder at World’s End and A Field Guide to Murder, British Library Crime Classics reprints, a meta-Holmes homage in The Final Problem, and my own Murder on the S.S. Cleopatra, which is perfect historical if you want a Golden Age travel whodunit.

🕵️‍♀️ 📦 Cozy Books Corner Subscription Box (affiliate code), a book box curated for cozy mystery readers.

➡️ Use code SaraR5 and get 15% off! ⬅️

Transcript

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Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast. I'm Mystery Author Sarah Rosette. This is season 7, Episode 2, and it's all about new releases in the mystery genre. Since I've done a lot of episodes lately looking back at classic mystery authors and classic mystery books, I thought now would be a good time to look forward to some new releases that are coming out in 2026 in the mystery genre. So this is a book roundup. It's a mix of new releases. We've got debuts, historical settings, and just these classic style mysteries. These are all very strong Who-Dunnits. So hopefully this will give you some books to add to your to be read list. Alright, so first up is the one that I thought was very intriguing. It's called Murder at World's End. There are several books that have similar titles to this. It's not Murder at the End of the World, which I think is also a TV show as well. This one, the book is titled The Murder at World's End. The author is Ross Montgomery, and this came out in January 2026. And it is a locked room mystery set in 1910. And it has this detective duo, the underbutler and an a matrix, I believe she's 80 years old, and they team up to solve a murder that occurs in this country house where they live. The person is found dead in a sealed study during preparations for Haley's Comet. So I love that the Haley's Comet is included in this story. I like that set in 1910. I haven't read many books, many mysteries set in 1910. I tend to hang out in the 20s and 30s. So this will be interesting. Um, let's see. I have a few details here about the author. He writes picture books and children's books. And from his website, he says, I live in London with my wife, a cat called Fun Bobby, and a cactus on every available surface. And he says he once fainted in front of the queen. And his writing heroes are Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Wilson. And this is, I believe, his first adult mystery. Yeah, it says it's his debut adult mystery series. All right, next up is another one that came out in January called Murder by the Book. And the author is MRG Davies. Now, this one caught my attention because I live in Houston and there is a bookstore here called Murder by the Book, which I love because the selection is awesome. And if you have a certain book that you like, but you want something similar to it, they're so knowledgeable in the mystery world that they can say, oh, then you might like this book. They can really curate a reading list for you. Okay, so back to this actual book called Murder by the Book. Here is a definition from the publisher. When the manager of a quaint bookshop is found slumped between the shelves, four members of the shop's reading group decide to put into action all the skills they've picked up from their favorite fictional detectives. If anyone knows how to solve a crime, it's a team of murder mystery super fans. So that sounds fun and interesting. And it sounds a little bit like the setup of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club series, uh, where you have uh an ensemble cast instead of a single sleuth. So I always enjoy those. A bit about the author. He switched from a successful newspaper career to become a fiction writer. He completed Desmond Bagley's thriller, Domino Island, after the author passed away. And he has written two sequels to that. He's also a playwright, and he's had short stories and poetry published and commissioned, and he writes regular essays for theater programs. Next up is A Field Guide to Murder by Michelle L. Cullen, and it also released in January. So this one says a cranky widower and his spirited caregiver team up to solve his neighbor's murder in this charming and original mystery. Harry was once a globe-trotting anthropologist and is now certain all his grand adventures are behind him. Recently widowed and suffering from a fractured hip, he spends his days and nights behind a pair of binoculars, nose deep in his neighbor's affairs. His millennial caregiver Emma is determined to get him out of the armchair and back into the world. Fate intervenes when Harry's mysterious neighbor Sue phones, pleading for help. Oh, I think we'll stop there. The next paragraph gives away some details about the actual story, and I don't want to do that. But I really like the setup of the age gap between the two sleuths. I think that will be interesting and hopefully will provide some humor and some heart to the story. And I like the idea, the description of him living his life behind his binoculars. That makes me think of Rear Window and Jimmy Stewart. So hopefully there's a little bit of that flavor in this too. A little bit about the author, Michelle L. Cullen. Her bio says she's traveled all over the world, working as a bilingual secretary in Paris to backpacking around Europe, Central America, and South Africa. And she's helped rebuild communities after war in Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific. She has a master's degree in anthropology and her PhD in sociology. She has a black belt in Taekwondo and currently lives in Annapolis, Maryland, where she's either doing yoga, playing outside, or plotting murder. I understand that. All right, next up I had British Library Crime Classics reprints. So the British Library has books that they bring out every so often that are older books. They are republished in, they put a new cover on them, put a new introduction in them, and they re-release them because a lot of these are very difficult to find. This one is called Tea on Sunday, and the author is, we would say Latisse Cooper. I believe in England they would say Lettuce Cooper. This book is being re-released February 2026, and the description says, Alberta Mainsbridge has invited eight people to have tea. Her doctor, her administrator, two proteges of a dubious personality, an old friend, and a nephew, but none of those guests managed to get the door open. When the police force entry, they find Alberta sitting at her desk dead. The intricate investigation helps the author to probe the mysterious channels of human behavior. So I always enjoy checking out these older books, and I think this one sounds like a setup that I would enjoy. Some information about the author. She was born in 1897. She graduated from Oxford in 1918, and she returned home to work in her family's engineering firm and wrote her first novel, The Lighte Room, in 1925. She was one of the founding authors of Writer's Action Group and received the Order of the British Empire for her work in public lending rights. So she has quite a long list of books that she's published. I won't go through them all. I've never read anything by her, so this will be interesting to check out. Here's part of the blurb. It's 1890. The New Mexico Territory is a lawless frontier where criminals steal money and land alike with impunity. Everyone wears a six-gun and is always ready and willing to draw it. A business magnet's empire is threatened by robberies plugging his newest Harvey House restaurant. To get justice, he needs a skilled detective to go undercover and find answers to questions the law will not ask. The assignment falls to Claire, a young Pinkerton agent, disguised as one of Harvey's famous hostesses, Claire travels west where she risks being exposed at every step of her investigation. Another setting that we're don't see quite as often. Let me give you a little bit of information about the author. Dennis Stabnell was born in Anchorage and raised on a 75-foot fish tinder in the Gulf of Alaska. Her first science fiction novel, Second War, sank without a trace. This is from the Amazon bio, by the way. Her first crime novel, A Cold Day for Murder, when an Edgar Award in her first thriller blindfolded game hit the New York Times bestseller list. She's at work on her 21st novel in the series that is set in Alaska. And then we have the final book, which has an appropriate title, The Final Problem. The author is Otoro Perez Reverte. I hope. I hope I got close on that pronunciation. And it is set in the 1960s. It is a locked room mystery about a washed-up actor named Ormond Basil, who once played Sherlock Holmes and is pressured by other stranded guests on a Greek island to solve a murder that looks like a suicide. And the killer is staging clues like a literary game. So this sounds like this is right up my alley. It's got so many mystery elements that I enjoy. And the setting sounds great too: The Greek Island. A little bit about the author. He worked as a war correspondent for 21 years from 1973 to 1994. His first novel, set during the Napoleonic Wars, was published in 1986. So this is all from Wikipedia. He's well known outside of Spain for his series of adventure novels. And this one, let's see, this was published in February 2026. I don't think I said that earlier. So that is my list. And also don't forget Murder on the SS Cleopatra, my own book, which came out in October 2025. It is a historical mystery set in 1924. Lady Traveler Blix going down the Nile on a steamer cruise, which of course has a murder mystery unfold. There's several books for your to be red list. I'll run through them again really quickly. The Murder at World's End, Murder by the Book, The Field Guide, or A Field Guide to Murder, Tea on Sunday, The Harvey Girl, The Final Problem, and Murder on the SS Cleopatra. So I hope this podcast has given you some new possibilities for your to be red pile. If you've enjoyed it, I hope you'll tell a fellow mystery reader. And if you can't get enough of 1920s Who Doneits, check out my High Society related detective series or my 1920s Lady Traveler in Egypt series. Those are available in ebook, audio, or print at serversetbooks.com. Happy sleeping, and I'll see you next time.