The Best Crime Fiction For February
Witch Trial by Harriet Tyce
The Brief: A provocative courtroom thriller set in Edinburgh, where a teenage murder sparks media hysteria, moral panic and a trial that begins to resemble something far older, and far darker, than modern justice.
The Suspects: Two accused schoolgirls; their murdered classmate; a nation hungry for answers; heart surgeon Matthew Phillips, whose role in the courtroom becomes increasingly unsettling
The Setup: When 18-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in an Edinburgh park, shock quickly gives way to spectacle. Police charge her best friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, and what might once have been a tragic criminal case explodes into a national obsession. Online commentary spirals, tabloids howl for justice, and rumours of bullying mutate into whispers of rituals, obsession and a teenage pact gone catastrophically wrong.
Into this febrile atmosphere steps Matthew Phillips, a respected heart surgeon unexpectedly summoned for jury duty. As evidence is presented and the girls mount a defence that catches both press and public off-guard, Matthew begins to doubt everything: the prosecution’s case, the motives of those involved – even his own capacity for impartial judgement. With questions multiplying rather than resolving, the trial becomes as much about collective fear and storytelling as it is about guilt or innocence.
The Judgement: A slick thriller that pits social-media frenzy against the slow grind of the courtroom. Tyce leans into hysteria, moral panic and ambiguity, promising a darkly playful exploration of how easily modern society can slip into something resembling a witch hunt – and how dangerous that transformation can be.
What Happened That Night by Nicci French
The Brief: A tense psychological thriller about long-buried guilt, fractured friendships and the terrifying possibility that the past has not finished claiming its victims.
The Suspects: Recently released prisoner Tyler Green; his circle of former uni friends; Detective Maud O’Connor, racing to untangle secrets before history repeats itself.
The Setup: After nearly 30 years behind bars for murdering his university friend Leo Bauer, Tyler Green is free. He attempts to reconnect with the group who witnessed the events that destroyed his life, but he is not simply seeking closure – he wants answers about what truly happened that night. When another member of the same group is found dead during their reunion, Tyler’s fragile freedom is immediately placed in jeopardy. Detective Maud O’Connor is called in to investigate, reopening wounds that never healed and forcing everyone present to confront memories they may have rewritten for survival. As suspicion ripples through the group and old loyalties fracture, the truth, once buried, refuses to stay that way.
The Judgement: This is classic Nicci French: morally knotted, psychologically sharp, and driven by the quiet menace of unresolved trauma. With its focus on friendship, memory and the corrosive effects of suspicion, this looks set to be another elegantly constructed slow-burn thriller from one of crime fiction’s most reliable partnerships.
The Weekend by T M Logan
The Brief: A group getaway in the Yorkshire Dales curdles into paranoia after an accidental discovery exposes just how fragile friendship can be.
The Suspects: Six long-time friends on holiday together; a hidden stash of cash; the unravelling loyalties that turn a weekend escape into something far more dangerous.
The Setup: Their trip to a converted farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales is meant to offer rest, fresh air and reconnection for a tight-knit group of friends. But during a storm-lashed hike, they duck into the entrance of an abandoned mine and stumble upon a backpack stuffed with more money than any of them has ever seen. They quickly agree to turn it in at the first chance. But as the storm drags on, doubts creep in. Buried beneath their easy banter are private catastrophes that a sudden windfall could erase overnight. Suspicion seeps into every conversation, and as old bonds buckle under pressure, the group slides towards deception, betrayal and violence.
The Judgement: A compulsively readable moral-dilemma thriller that thrives on escalating tension and shifting allegiances. Logan turns a simple premise into a pressure cooker, delivering a smart, unsettling study of temptation – and how quickly ordinary people can cross catastrophic lines.
Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra
The Brief: A brutal snowbound survival thriller, where a teenage boy must outlast both the wilderness and the men who dangerously underestimate it.
The Suspects: Zach, a boy who understands the land; his swaggering father and their companions on a ski weekend; the unseen threat stalking the slopes; and the darker impulses that surface.
The Setup: High in Colorado’s frozen backcountry, Zach accompanies his father and a group of men on what is meant to be a weekend escape. But from the outset, he senses peril. His mother once taught him how to read the moods of the mountains, knowledge he trusts far more than the bravado of adults who drink, boast and laugh off the worsening conditions. As night falls, something moves in the darkness. By morning, bones lie stripped in the snow. Isolated, exposed and surrounded by men who refuse to listen, Zach is forced to rely on instinct and endurance to survive not only against the lethal environment, but against the humans whose recklessness may prove just as fatal.
The Judgement: An ice-cold pressure cooker of a thriller that marries elemental terror with psychological depth. Sierra leans into toxic group dynamics, raw landscapes and a relentlessly escalating fight for survival, marking this as a visceral, high-altitude shocker with heart as well as teeth.
The Wedding by Cathy Cole
The Brief: A seaside-set whodunnit that combines cosy charm with lethal secrets, as a bride’s perfect day unravels into murder and a mystery no guest saw coming.
The Suspects: Bride-to-be Jenny Hislop; her mysterious husband; wedding guests with hidden motives; and the tight-knit coastal community watching events spiral out of control.
The Setup: Jenny returns to her Irish hometown for what should be the happiest day of her life, followed by a reception at a lighthouse overlooking the sea. The town still carries painful memories of the parents she lost, but for once she is determined to focus on joy. That fragile happiness shatters when she discovers a dead body on the cliffs – who looks exactly like her husband. Certain the man she just married is alive and well, Jenny is forced to confront an impossible question: who is the stranger, and why does he look so much like her new spouse?
As suspicion spreads through the celebrations, Jenny realises those closest to her are hiding devastating truths, and what began as a dream wedding threatens to become a nightmare none of the guests will forget.
The Judgement: A playful, atmosphere-rich mystery that blends scenic Irish coastal settings with escalating body counts and classic misdirection. Cole promises cosy-crime pleasures sharpened by a macabre hook delivering a wedding-day whodunnit for fans of setting-led murder puzzles.
The House Of Fallen Sisters by Louise Hare
The Brief: A richly atmospheric historical thriller set in Georgian London, where survival inside Covent Garden’s brothels demands courage, cunning and an appetite for risk.
The Suspects: Sukey Maynard, a frightened young woman forced back into captivity; the unseen forces operating behind the house of fallen sisters; the predators who profit from the city’s shadows; and a rigid society determined to keep women powerless.
The Setup: In December 1765, Sukey Maynard flees her home in a Covent Garden brothel after learning her virginity is about to be sold to the highest bidder. Captured and dragged back, she is given a terrible choice: submit to her fate or attempt escape once more. Choosing to survive, Sukey begins navigating the secretive rules of the house and the dangerous underworld it inhabits. She soon realises both she and the other women are under threat from powerful figures who operate in the margins of eighteenth-century society. To stay alive, Sukey must learn when to submit, when to scheme and how to play a game designed to destroy her.
The Judgement: A sumptuous, shadow-soaked novel that blends social critique with propulsive suspense. Hare looks set to deliver a gripping exploration of female resilience inside a merciless world, with atmosphere and moral urgency in equal measure.
A Sociopath’s Guide To A Successful Marriage by M. K. Oliver
The Brief: A darkly comic thriller about ambition, marriage and motherhood, where one impeccably put-together mum is willing to do absolutely anything to protect the perfect life she’s built.
The Suspects: Mum Lalla Rook; the man lying dead in her living room; and the ambitious, competitive social circle orbiting school gates, status and domestic perfection.
The Setup: Lalla has it all – a husband, a daughter, a carefully curated North London life and plans for an even grander future. The only problem is the corpse in her living room, stabbed by Lalla herself. As she calmly juggles school admissions, property dreams and social expectations, she sets about covering her tracks, convinced that maintaining the illusion of the perfect marriage is worth any cost, however extreme.
The Judgement: Wickedly funny and sharply satirical, this debut blends domestic noir with biting social comedy, offering a gleefully amoral heroine and a slick, stylish exploration of the ruthless ambitions that can lurk beneath aspirational middle-class life.
The Cursed Road by Laura McCluskey
The Brief: A brooding Highland mystery where a young woman’s death on a remote road unearths decades-old feuds, buried crimes and a chilling sense that the land itself remembers.
The Suspects: DI Georgina Lennox and DI Richard Stewart, former friends now forced back into uneasy partnership; tight-lipped Highland locals; families bound by generations of grudges; and anyone connected to an earlier unsolved case now resurfacing in violent form.
The Setup: When a young woman’s body is found on a lonely dirt road in the Scottish Highlands, her death is initially ruled an accident until investigators discover words carved into her arm that connect to a long-unsolved case. DI Georgina Lennox and DI Richard Stewart must navigate hostile locals, entrenched family rivalries and the ominous legacy of the so-called cursed road, where old secrets refuse to stay buried.
The Judgement: Steeped in folklore and slow-burning menace, this atmospheric Highland mystery blends procedural tension with a creeping sense of place, delivering a richly layered investigation where landscape, history and motive intertwine to unsettling effect.
The Killing Time by Elly Griffiths
The Brief: A genre-bending crime thriller in which a cold case detective with the ability to time travel is drawn into a death that may be linked to a dangerous psychic and a past that refuses to stay buried.
The Suspects: Psychic medium Barry Power; the enigmatic Cain Templeton; the vanished tech expert Jones; and the shadows of Victorian London itself.
The Setup: Ali Dawson leads a cold case unit that once solved crimes by travelling into the past, until a mission went catastrophically wrong and left their colleague Jones stranded in Victorian London. Now confined to present-day cases, Ali becomes obsessed with the apparent suicide of a young man who believed he could fly, a belief seeded by charismatic medium Barry Power. When Power claims he is in contact with Jones, Ali takes a reckless step back through time only to find herself trapped once again in Victorian London, face to face with old allies, old enemies, and unfinished business that could prove fatal.
The Judgement: Smart, playful and intriguingly high-concept, this second Ali Dawson mystery blends classic whodunnit structure with an imaginative time-travel twist, delivering a clever, atmospheric crime novel that balances wit, suspense and emotional stakes with confident ease.