Must-read female crime & thriller authors

Ann Cleeves is the author of more than thirty-five critically acclaimed novels. She is the creator of popular detectives Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez and Matthew Venn, who can be found on television in ITV’s Vera, BBC One’s Shetland and ITV's The Long Call respectively. The Raging Storm is her latest book and part of the Two Rivers series. It follows DI Matthew Venn as he and his team become embroiled in a dangerous investigation amidst swirling gossip and superstition in an isolated village. One of the most successful crime and thriller authors of our generation, Ann Cleeves does detective books like no other. 

Araminta Hall has written an exciting, controversial and unputdownable feminist thriller. Meet Cole, the perfect husband. He is romantic, supportive of his wife and keen to be a hands-on dad. He is a good guy. So when Mel leaves him, he's floored. Craving solitude, he accepts a job on the coast and quickly settles into his new life where he meets reclusive artist Lennie. But things soon unravel as two young women go missing and Cole finds himself at the heart of a police investigation and media frenzy. This is what happens when women have had enough, written by one of the most exciting voices of the genre.

Since the success of her second novel, Luckiest Girl Alive, and its subsequent Netflix adaptation, Jessica Knoll continues to wow the crime and thriller genre by storm with Bright Young Women. In 1978, sorority president Pamela Schumacher witnesses a horrific crime in Tallahassee. Across the country, Tina Cannon's friend goes missing in Seattle. Convinced they share the same perpetrator, Tina travels to Florida, dovetailing her journey with Pamela's. Their paths intersect, not only with each other but also the realization that another tragedy looms. They are driven by a hope to expose the truth and bring a dangerous man to justice . . . 

Jane Harper has a reputation as ‘the Queen of Outback Noir’, and her most recent release, Exiles, only strengthens this acclaim. After a mother disappears from a festival, leaving her baby alone in the pram, federal investigator Aaron Falk is called. But deep in the South Australian wine country, all is not as it seems. Between Falk’s closest friend, a woman he’s drawn to and the missing mother, long-held secrets emerge. With her characteristically atmospheric settings and troubled pasts, this is Jane Harper at her finest.

Known for her bestselling series featuring forensic scientist Dr Rhona MacLeod, Lin Anderson has become a stalwart of Scottish crime. The Wild Coast is a chilling thriller set on a remote shoreline in the northwest of Scotland. When Rhona MacLeod is brought in to analyse a shallow grave she is disturbed by a bundle of twigs crafted into a stickman and left in the victim’s mouth. Then, a young woman is reported missing from a nearby campsite with another sinister figurine left in her van. Meanwhile, rumours of sexual assault offences by serving police officers are circling in Glasgow. Rhona must untangle these accusations before it's too late . . . 

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Gold Dagger Award and The Guardian's Not the Booker Prize, not much could follow Emma Flint's debut, Little Deaths. Yet her second novel, Other Women, a Guardian Best Thriller Novel of 2023, does not disappoint. London, 1923. Beatrice Cade is trying to build a life for herself. When charismatic visiting salesman Tom Ryan directs his attention at her, Bea falls hard for him. But Ryan is married with a child and his wife, Kate, has worked to create a happy domestic life. When Bea is found dead and Tom Ryan is in the frame for her murder, it looks like Kate will do anything to protect her family . . .

Sarah Hilary, Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year winner and author of Fragile, returns with Black Thorn, another compulsive psychological thriller that questions how much you know about the people who live next to you. Blackthorn Ashes, designed as a haven for six families overlooking the Cornish sea, quickly becomes a tragedy; six inhabitants are dead, and the new development is abandoned with deadly secrets lurking. But among the survivors is Agnes Gale, and she is determined to find out the truth about what happened. A Guardian Best Thriller Novel of 2023, Black Thorn is not to be missed.

Yvvette Edwards' first book, A Cupboard Full of Coats was nominated for the 2011 Booker Prize. Chosen by Bernardine Evaristo as one of her Top 20 Books by Black British Womxn Writers, her second novel, The Mother, is equally compelling. Marcia Williams thought she knew her son. She was wrong. Today, Marcia is heading to the Old Bailey to attend the trial of the boy accused of her son's murder. She's not meant to be that woman; Ryan, her son, wasn't that kind of boy. But Tyson Manley is that kind of a boy and, as his trial unfolds, it becomes clear that it's his girlfriend Sweetie who has the answers Marcia so badly needs. 

Fiona Cummins' latest novel, All of Us Are Broken, is packed full of the suspense and adrenaline the author has become known for. After a year they want to forget, the Hardwicke family set out to the Scottish Highlands for a much needed holiday. Little do they know, they are about to cross paths with a violent and dangerous young couple hell-bent on infamy, their love story etched in blood and a dark past which must be uncovered. As the clock ticks down, Detective Saul Anguish is on the hunt to find the couple before more lives are lost, but it is the mother who will be forced to make an impossible decision . . .