Bethanne Patrick

These new books will take you from murder in present-day Texas to cryptography in Cold War Berlin to an online community that might hold the solution to a missing-person case.

It's almost Halloween — and, anyway, fall is always a great time for mysteries and thrillers. Here are a few we recommend.

Ottessa Moshfegh's latest isn't exactly a murder mystery, though there seems to be a mysterious murder. It's more a portrait of a woman gradually losing her mind, using the mystery to try to hang on.

Ivy Pochoda keeps up her focus on the overlooked and forgotten in her new novel. Here, it's a group of sex workers and club dancers whose lives are connected — and imperiled — by a serial killer.

C.J. Tudor's latest follows a man obsessed with proving his young daughter — supposedly killed in an accident — is still alive. It's atmospheric, but slightly shakier than Tudor's past books.

Johannes Anyuru's unusual speculative mystery They Will Drown in Their Mothers' Tears follows two seemingly ordinary (at first) Swedish citizens dealing with the aftermath of a shooting.

Le Carré's latest novel presents an aging, embittered spy dealing with multiple claims on his loyalties — and a challenger to his supremacy at badminton, a sport le Carré himself played and loves.

Attica Locke returns to the world of Highway 59 in Heaven, My Home, which finds Texas Ranger Darren Mathews dealing with the disappearance of the young son of an imprisoned white supremacist leader.

In Jeremy Finley's followup to The Darkest Time of Night, too many plot threads tangle the story — but his strong, well-realized women are a welcome presence in this supernatural thriller.

In Howard Norman's new novel, a recently deceased man finds himself haunting his former home and observing the new owners, an academic and a private investigator who's searching for a missing child.