Itβs hard to believe we are already more than halfway through 2021! This year has already delivered truly outstanding crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense books for us to devour, and today I wanted to round up a list of my favorite crime books published in the first half of the year! Whether youβre in the market for a chilling suspense story, a clever locked room mystery, or an edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller, this list has a little something for you. From new releases by returning favorites (Riley Sager, C.J. Tudor, Ragnar Jonasson, and more!) to thrilling debuts and new-to-me authors, 2021 has given me some absolutely incredible crime books to sink my teeth into - and I hope that this list will help you find a new favorite crime book or two for yourself, too! As you can imagine it was very difficult to narrow this list down. When making my selections here, I focused on books that I havenβt been able to stop recommending to others and thinking about myselfβbooks that have had the kind of staying power for me that we all look for in favorite reads. The books included on this list were published from January 1, 2021 through July 6, 2021; stay tuned, because Iβll be rounding up a list of my favorite crime books from the second half of 2021 - plus a definitive list of my favorite crime books of the whole year - when 2021 comes to a close. Without further ado, letβs dig into this rundown of my favorite crime books of 2021 so far!
Read MoreCBTB's Top 10 Crime Books of 2021 (So Far)
CBTBβs Recommended Locked Room Mysteries
Itβs one of crime fictionβs oldest tropes, and one of its most perennially-appealing, too: a group of individuals find themselves locked in a hotel (or on an island, or in a houseβ¦ you get the idea!), a murderer in their midst. Who among them is the killer? The locked room mystery is an unfailingly entertaining crime fiction subgenre. Clever plots, impossible solutions, red herrings a plentyβthere is so much to love about books that fall into this category, and theyβve been a longtime favorite for me ever since I began reading Agatha Christie novels back in the day! With the recent popularity of locked room-style mysteries including THE GUEST LIST by Lucy Foley and THE SANATORIUM by Sarah Pearse, Iβve been receiving more requests than ever for a blog post dedicated to my personal favorite locked room mystery recommendations. Well, the day is finally here! Iβm thrilled to share my list of Recommended Locked Room Mysteries with CBTB readers today. From Nordic mysteries to modern-day twists on the genre to classics and more, I hope that every reader will find a little something to catch their eye in todayβs blog post.
Read MoreBook Review: SHIVER by Allie Reynolds
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of spending my Sunday doing just about nothing aside from reading. My book of choice? SHIVER by Allie Reynolds, a compulsively readable, superbly entertaining locked-room mystery perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley. SHIVER is pure βpopcorn readingβ material: lighter on violence but heavy on entertainment value, this engaging, relentlessly suspenseful mystery begs to be devoured in one or two sittings. In SHIVER, readers travel to the French Alps, where a group of friends are arriving for a reunion. Ten years ago, the group met while training for a snowboarding competition. That fateful winter, things took a tragic turn, and one of their own went missing. Fast forward ten years, and each member of the group has tried to move onβ¦ but this reunion is poised to bring old tensions, rivalries, and secrets back into the light. As the group settles into the resort where their reunion weekend is set to take place, they discover that things arenβt quite right. The resort is abandoned, with not a soul in sight. Then their phones go missing. And when they discover that the person they each believed invited them on this trip didnβt actually plan this getaway, things take a dark and deadly turn. Who called this group together? And who is behind the increasingly sinister events of the trip? Moving between present-day locked room mystery and flashback chapters that illuminate the dynamics and relationships between our central cast of characters, SHIVER is deliciously readable and delightfully chilling mystery fun. This book thoroughly exceeded my expectations and left me wishing it were even longer, just so I could spend more time with its engaging, endearing characters. SHIVER had me, the least-athletic person I know, ready to throw it all away and move to the mountains to take up snowboarding. If thatβs not saying something, I donβt know what is. Readers who love the modern-day locked room mysteries of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley wonβt want to miss Allie Reynoldsβ chilling debut.
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