Are you ready to talk about September book releases? I’ve already read some terrific books that will be out that month, and there are some other ones you might like as well. Let me know what September books you’re looking forward to reading. Don’t forget to check the additional titles at the bottom of the post.

What would you consider the crime of the century? In Jeffrey Archer’s Traitors Gate, it would be the heist of the Crown Jewels right under the noses of Scotland Yard. William Warwick’s team is responsible for their safety as they’re transported to and from the Tower of London before the Queen’s speech for the opening of Parliament. Warwick’s archenemy has an inside man, and plans to embarrass Scotland Yard by stealing the Crown Jewels. (release date is Sept. 26.)

While I don’t read sewing mysteries, Maggie Bailey’s Seams Deadly is a debut mystery, so I wanted to mention it. Lydia Barnes is excited for a fresh start when she moves to the quaint mountain town of Peridot, Georgia. Her friend, Fran, offers her a job at the Measure Twice fabric store and even sets her up on a date with the handsome Brandon Ivey, who also happens to be Lydia’s new next-door neighbor. Finally, things are looking up. But after a disaster first date that ends with a fist bump instead of a kiss, Lydia doesn’t think her night can get any worse. She’s soon proven wrong when she later stumbles upon Brandon’s dead body. (Release date is Sept. 5.)

Alice Bell’s Grave Expectations is also a debut crime novel. A fast-paced and hilarious debut crime novel, in which a burnt-out Millennial medium must utilize her ability to see ghosts and team-up with a band of oddball investigators to figure out which member(s) of a posh English family are guilty of murder. Almost-authentic medium Claire and her best friend, Sophie, agree to take on a seemingly simple job at a crumbling old manor in the English countryside: performing a seance for the family matriarch’s 80th birthday. The pair have been friends since before Sophie went missing when they were seventeen. Everyone else is convinced Sophie simply ran away, but Claire knows the truth. Claire knows Sophie was murdered because Sophie has been haunting her ever since. Despite this traumatic past, Claire and Sophie are still unprepared for what they encounter when they arrive at the manor: a ghost, tragic and unrecognizable, and clearly the spirit of someone killed in a rage at the previous year’s party. Given her obsession with crime shows—not to mention Sophie’s ability to walk through walls—Claire decides they’re the best people to solve the case. And with the help of the only obviously not-guilty members of their host family—sexy ex-policeman Sebastian and far-too-cool non-binary teen Alex—they launch an investigation into which of last year’s guests never escaped the manor’s grounds. (Release date is Sept. 5.)

Lou Berney’s November Road came out in 2018. Five years later, we have Dark Ride. Twenty-one-year-old Hardy “Hardly” Reed—good-natured, easygoing, usually stoned—is drifting through life. A minimum-wage scare actor at an amusement park, he avoids unnecessary effort and unrealistic ambitions. Then one day he notices two children, around six or seven, sitting all alone on a bench. Hardly checks if they’re okay and sees injuries on both children. Someone is hurting these kids. He reports the incident to Child Protective Service. That should be the end of it. After all, Hardly’s not even good at looking out for himself so the last thing he wants to do is look out for anyone else. But he’s haunted by the two kids, his heart breaking for them. And the more research he does the less he trusts that Child Protective Services —understaffed and overworked—will do anything about it. That leaves…Hardly. He is probably the last person you’d ever want to count on. But those two kids have nobody else but him. Hardly has to do what’s right and help them. (Release date is Sept. 19.)

You might remember that Amy Chua was known as “Tiger Mom”. The Golden Gate is her fiction debut. In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs. A rich industrialist with enemies among the anarchist factions on the far left, Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of groups. But strangely, Sullivan’s investigation brings up the specter of another tragedy at the Claremont, ten years earlier: the death of seven-year-old Iris Stafford, a member of the Bainbridge family, one of the wealthiest in all of San Francisco. Some say she haunts the Claremont still. The many threads of the case keep leading Sullivan back to the three remaining Bainbridge heiresses, now adults: Iris’s sister, Isabella, and her cousins Cassie and Nicole. Determined not to let anything distract him from the truth—not the powerful influence of Bainbridges’ grandmother, or the political aspirations of Berkeley’s district attorney, or the interest of China’s First Lady Madame Chiang Kai-Shek in his findings—Sullivan follows his investigation to its devastating conclusion. (Release date is Sept. 19.)

Detective Matthew Venn is back in The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves. When Jem Rosco—sailor, adventurer, and legend—blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own. This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Venn finds his judgment clouded. (Release date is Sept. 5.)

Paige Crutcher has another book about a witch, What Became of Magic. Aline Weir, a witch who can talk to ghosts, has kept her talents hidden ever since a disastrous middle school slumber party, choosing to be invisible and use her powers in secret to help lost souls reunite with the keys to send them home. All the while, she finds solace in a bookstore and the three mysterious women who run it… until Aline discovers the book of Mischief, and her powers are enhanced. Living a solitary life until the age of thirty, Aline’s life takes an unexpected turn when the wrong (or perhaps right) person witnesses her using her powers and she is invited to a town that doesn’t exist on any map. Arriving in Matchstick, Aline learns of a lost magic that desperately needs to be found and only her unique powers can do it. But what she’s not told is that Magic is a person. One that is dangerous and seductive and has been waiting for a witch with a power like hers for centuries. (Release date is Sept. 26.)

Of course you want to think about Vicki Delany’s Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas in September. In the sixth Year-Round Christmas mystery, It’s the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America’s Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, a gift and décor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it’s not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production. Tensions come to a head when a member of the group is found dead shortly after a shopping excursion to Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Was someone looking to cut out the competition? Everyone in the cast and crew is a potential suspect, including Aline, Merry’s mother, and Merry’s shop assistant Jackie O’Reilly, who was desperate for a starring role. (Release date is Sept. 19.)

The Secret Hours is a standalone spy thriller from Mick Herron. Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating “historical over-reaching” by the British Secret Service. Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so.  But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn. Now the administration that created Monochrome has been ousted, the investigation is a total bust—and Griselda and Malcolm are stuck watching as their career prospects are washed away by the pounding London rain. Until the eve of Monochrome’s shuttering, when an MI5 case file appears without explanation. It is the buried history of a classified operation in 1994 Berlin—an operation that ended in tragedy and scandal, whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history. (Release date is Sept. 12.)

The fourth Mrs. Claus mystery by Liz Ireland, Mrs. Claus and the Trouble with Turkeys introduces Thanksgiving and turkeys to the North Pole. At Castle Kringle, the elves are excitedly arranging their first ever Thanksgiving day feast. April’s husband, Nick—the real Santa—has some misgivings, since it’s tough to get ready for Christmas when everyone is obsessed with helium balloons and pie recipes. Chaos erupts when Gobbles, the live turkey imported for the castle feast, is bird-napped. That crime is quickly overshadowed at a pre-Thanksgiving potluck when Nick’s cousin, Elspeth, face-plants into her mashed potatoes—dead. (Release date is Sept. 26.)

Jess Lourey’s crime novels often deal with childhood secrets. Now, she introduces two detectives in The Taken Ones. Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out, dead silent, her memory gone. The mystery of the Taken Ones captures the nation. Summer 2022: Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicide—a woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace belonging to one of the vanished girls. Van follows her gut. Harry trusts in facts. They’re both desperate to catch a killer before he kills again. They have something else in common: each has ties to the original case in ways they’re reluctant to share.

As Van and Harry connect the crimes of the past and the present, Van struggles with memories of her own nightmarish childhood—and the fear that uncovering the truth of the Taken Ones will lead her down a path from which she, too, may never return. (Release date is Sept. 19.)

The fourth Tita Rosie’s Kitchen mystery is Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala. Lila Macapagal’s godmothers April, Mae, and June—AKA the Calendar Crew—are celebrating the opening of their latest joint business venture, a new laundromat, to much fanfare (and controversy). However, what should’ve been a joyous occasion quickly turns into a tragedy when they discover the building has been vandalized—and the body of Ninang April’s niece, recently arrived from the Philippines, next to a chilling message painted on the floor. The question is, was the message aimed at the victim or Lila’s gossipy godmothers, who have not-so-squeaky-clean reputations? (Release date is Sept. 19.)

Although I hadn’t read the earlier mysteries in Mary Miley’s Roaring Twenties Mystery series, it didn’t matter. Murder Off Stage combines Hollywood, Broadway and a historical mystery. New York, 1926. It’s not like Jessie Beckett goes around looking for murders to solve, but the vaudeville star turned movie script girl has a natural talent for it. After a lifetime on stage, she’s sensitive to details that other people miss. So when leading theater star Allen Crenshaw is shot live on stage during a performance of hit Broadway show Rules of Engagement – a horrified Jessie watching from the second row – she knows she has to act fast before Allen’s co-star, the beautiful Norah Rose, goes down for murder. After all, it was Norah who fired the fateful bullet . . . even if the shooting was all part of the show. Jessie investigates those closest to Allen – the presence of her theater companion, the superstar Adele Astaire, opening doors wherever they go – and finds only enemies. With the suspects for the disliked actor so numerous, can she uncover the truth in time to save Norah – or will the killer silence her too? (Release date is Sept. 5.)

How many of you are waiting for the next Thursday Murder Club mystery? That’s The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman. It’s rarely a quiet day for the Thursday Murder Club. Shocking news reaches them—an old friend has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing. The gang’s search leads them into the antiques business, where the tricks of the trade are as old as the objects themselves. As they encounter drug dealers, art forgers, and online fraudsters—as well as heartache close to home—Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim have no idea whom to trust. I’ve read this one. It’s sad and touching, and just as good as the previous books. (Release date is Sept. 19.)

The only nonfiction book I’m annotating is Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. From historian and author of the popular daily newsletter LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN, a vital narrative that explains how America, once  a beacon of democracy, now teeters on the brink of autocracy — and how we can turn back.

In the midst of the impeachment crisis of 2019, Heather Cox Richardson launched a daily Facebook essay providing the historical background of the daily torrent of news. It soon turned into a newsletter and its readership ballooned to more than 2 million dedicated readers who rely on her plainspoken and informed take on the present and past in America. In Democracy Awakening, Richardson crafts a compelling and original narrative, explaining how, over the decades, a small group of wealthy people have made war on American ideals. By weaponizing language and promoting false history they have led us into authoritarianism — creating a disaffected population and then promising to recreate an imagined past where those people could feel important again. She argues that taking our country back starts by remembering the elements of the nation’s true history that marginalized Americans have always upheld. Their dedication to the principles on which this nation was founded has enabled us to renew and expand our commitment to democracy in the past. Richardson sees this history as a roadmap for the nation’s future. (Release date is Sept. 26.)

Payback in Death is the latest Eve Dallas novel by J.D. Robb. Lt. Eve Dallas is just home from a long overdue vacation when she responds to a call of an unattended death. The victim is Martin Greenleaf, retired Internal Affairs Captain. At first glance, the scene appears to be suicide, but the closer Eve examines the body, the more suspicious she becomes. An unlocked open window, a loving wife and family, a too-perfect suicide note—Eve’s gut says it’s a homicide. After all, Greenleaf put a lot of dirty cops away during his forty-seven years in Internal Affairs. It could very well be payback—and she will not rest until the case is closed. (Release date is Sept. 5.)

Katharine Schellman’s fourth Lily Adler mystery is Murder at Midnight. Regency widow Lily Adler is looking forward to a quiet Christmastide away from the schemes and secrets she witnessed daily in London. Not only will she be visiting the family of her late husband; she will be reunited with Captain Jack Hartley, her friend and confidante, finally returned after a long voyage at sea. But secrets aren’t only found in London. Jack’s younger sister, Amelia, is the center of neighborhood scandal and gossip. She refuses to tell anyone what really happened, even when an unexpected snowstorm strands the neighborhood families together after a Christmas ball. Stuck until the snow stops, the Adlers, Hartleys, and their neighbors settle in for the night, only to be awakened in the morning by the scream of a maid who has just discovered a dead body. The victim was the well-to-do son of a local gentleman—the same man whose name has become so scandalously linked to Amelia’s. (Release date is Sept. 19.)

Check out these titles as well.

Christmas Mittens Murder by Lee Hollis, Lynn Cahoon and Maddie Day. (9/26)
Elliott, Alicia – And Then She Fell (9/26)
Enoch, Suzanne – Every Duke Has His Day (9/19)
Erickson, Alex – Death by Peppermint Cappuccino (9/26)
Evans, Jon – Exadelic (9/5)
Falco, Michael – Murder in an Italian Village (9/26)
Gagnon, Jilly – Scenes of the Crime (9/5)
Goldbeck, Kate – You, Again (9/12)
Golding, Melanie – The Sight (9/5)
Grecian, Alex – Red Rabbit (9/19)
Hill, Nathan – Wellness (9/19)
Howell, Dorothy – Hanging by a Thread (9/26)
Jonasson, Ragnar and Katrin Jakobsdottir – Reykjavik (9/5)
Kass, Linda – Bessie (9/12)
Kelly, Lee – With Regrets (9/5)
Klein, Naomi – Doppelganger (9/12)
Lamar, Jake – Viper’s Dream (9/19)
Lane, Tim – The Neighbors We Want (9/5)
Leeds, Scott – Schrader’s Chord (9/5)
Maher, Kerri – All You Have to Do Is Call (9/19)
Matlin, Lisa M. The Stranger Upstairs (9/12)
McKanagh, Kristen – Snowball Unwrapped (9/26)
Morgyn, Ava – The Witches of Bone Hill (9/26)
Orlando, Carissa – The September House (9/5)
Penrose, Andrea – Murder at the Merton Library (9/26)
Perry, Carol J. – Now You See It (9/26)
Redmond, Heather – Death and the Sisters (9/26)
Reid, Rachel – Time to Shine (9/26)
Rothschild, Mike – Jewish Space Lasers (9/19)
Rue, Gretchen – Death by a Thousand Sips (9/5)
Schwab, V.E. – The Fragile Threads of Power (9/26)
Shane, Scott – Flee North (9/19)
Stone, Emily – Love, Holly (9/26)
Wilsner, Meryl – Cleat Cute (9/19)