For anyone who binged on Agatha Christie crime novels as a teenager (or later!), there's something deeply comforting about picking up a cosy crime novel and getting lost in the mystery. The best cosy crime books feature puzzle-like whodunnits with unlikely sleuths, charming settings, and minimal gore. Here are 10 of the best new murder mysteries to read this autumn...
Murder At The Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley
What a treat it is to have a new Miss Marple novel – her first outing in 50 years! The plot is classic Christie: an isolated hotel in the Swiss Alps, a group of people trapped together by a snowstorm and a dead body within the first few pages. It’s a risk to take on such an iconic character, but Foley has pulled it off.
Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley
We Chase Shadows by Richard Osman
Possibly the most anticipated book of 2026 is here. Osman brings back the crime fighting team of former cop Steve, his daughter-in-law Amy and bestselling author Rosie from We Solve Murders for another crazy adventure. This time, they’re hired by a wealthy entrepreneur whose life has been threatened.
Murder On The Royal Crescent by Harriet F Townson
I love this series of Golden Age crime-style murder mysteries from Townson (aka Harriet Evans). In this follow up to D Is For Death - set in 1930s Bath twinkling with Christmas lights - part-time detective Dora Wildwood is summoned to solve a 20 year old mystery.
Murder on the Royal Crescent by Harriet F Townson
The Shadows Of Kensington Gore by Ross Montgomery
This brilliant sequel to The Murder At World’s End sees unlikely sleuths under-butler Stephen and his employer, potty-mouthed octogenarian Miss Decima reunited to investigate the killing of a policeman in 1911 London.
The Shadows of Kensington Gore by Ross Montgomery
The Pie and Mash Detective Agency by J. D. Brinkworth
This brilliant new addition to the cosy crime genre is as funny as it is gripping. The unlikely sleuths are Jane Pye and Simon Mash, a couple who have signed up for a private detective night class on a whim and now find themselves investigating a bizarre case: a woman named Nellie Thorne has disappeared – and she’s the fifth Nellie Thorne in 50 years to do so.
The Pie & Mash Detective Agency by JD Brinkworth
A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz
The latest book in the inventive Hawthorne and Horowitz series transports the reader to a film set, where the first Hawthorne and Horowitz mystery novel, The Word is Murder, is being turned into a film. The whole production has been chaos, with delays and a dwindling budget. Now, the star actor David Caine, who was playing former Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne, is dead and the real Hawthorne – joined by his sidekick Anthony Horowitz – has been called in to investigate.
Pride, Prejudice And Peril by Jessica Bull
Jane Austen reimagined as an amateur deective? Pure delight! In this fun, clever mystery, the author is on the hunt for a serial killer in the spa town of Bath, just as the season kicks off.
Pride, Prejudice and Peril by Jessica Bull
The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett
Hallett returns to Lower Lockwood village's am-dram society, the setting of her best-selling murder mystery The Appeal. The Fairway Players are starting rehearsals for their production of Agatha Christie's The Hollow and, despite petty squabbles, all is going well - but someone won't make it to opening night...
Death Writ Large by Susie Dent
The second book in Dent's Oxford-set crime series is a clever, twisty mystery. When mysterious symbols appear as graffiti around Oxford, lexicographer Martha Thornhill recognises them from an alphabet created by a deceased writer whose papers she once worked on. But this is no publicity stunt, and tensions intensify when further graffiti is found near the body of a university lecturer.
Everyone In This Bank Is A Thief by Benjamin Stevenson
Stevenson's tongue-in-cheek mysteries are as entertaining as they are compelling. The fourth instalment in the Ernest Cunningham mystery series sees the detective on the scene of a bank heist - the doors are chained shut and no one’s coming in or out. Which means that when someone in the bank is murdered, hostages become suspects.
Everyone In This Bank Is A Thief by Benjamin Stevenson
