This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
- Black Butler by Yana Toboso returns this month on Crunchyroll and is a blend of action and supernatural, with a vengeance plot. In the new season, the 13-year-old main character and his loyal demon butler leave “the gritty underworld of nineteenth-century England and venture to the south of Germany to investigate a series of mysterious deaths.” (Here’s the Exact Time Black Butler -Emerald Witch Arc- Premieres on Crunchyroll)
- The Dinner Table Detective is a Japanese mystery novel series by Tokuya Higashigawa, illustrated by Yūsuke Nakamura, that was adapted into manga by Aya Kawase. In 2011, there was a Japanese television drama adaptation, and now there is an anime adaptation that will play on Japanese network TV, Noitamina, and Steam on Prime in Asia. I do hope that there ends up being an English translation for the books/manga and that the anime finds its way to US streaming! (The Dinner Table Detective Anime Premieres on April 4)
I will note before going forward that, once again, publishing and studios are continuing to disproportionately focus on white authors, and I couldn’t research my way out of another all white list.
The Amateur by Robert Littell
The 1980s novel stars a cryptographer for the CIA whose fiancée gets murdered by terrorists—if you were watching things in the ‘80s/’90s you know the disposable woman/women in refrigerators trope.
The film adaptation elevates the fiancée to wife status before killing her in a terrorist attack in London which spurs her husband, “a brilliant, but deeply introverted decoder for the CIA,” into action. The film hits theaters April 11th and has an excellent cast, including Rami Malek (Mr. Robot), Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Jon Bernthal (The Punisher), Caitriona Balfe (Outlander), and Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix).
You can watch the trailer here.
Don’t miss an excerpt highlighting the best new poetry collections of 2025 (so far) after these new mystery and thriller adaptations!
Unusual Suspects
Sign up to Unusual Suspects to receive news and recommendations for mystery/thriller readers.
Playdate by Alex Dahl
A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
You by Caroline Kepnes
And finally, I’ll end with the final season for the You series on Netflix. The book and series are for fans of dark, twisty, psychological thrillers that follow the creepy guy.
While the adaptation, starring Penn Badgley, begins pretty faithful to the book series, it definitely veers off, so start from the beginning on either—or both!—and enjoy different surprise twists in each.
You can watch the trailer for season 5 here and you can watch the trailer for season 1 here.
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2025 releases, and mysteries from 2024 and 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations! Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Goodreads, Litsy, and Substack.
If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you or you read it on bookriot.com and you’d like to get it right in your inbox, you can sign up here.
The following comes to you from the Editorial Desk.
This week, we’re highlighting the best new poetry collections of 2025 (so far)! From the from deeply personal to powerfully political, many of these collections reflect the zeitgeist and introduce some fresh voices in poetry. Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.
How is it that we’re already more than a quarter of the way through 2025? I’m ahead of my reading goals and still feel so far behind at the same time. I’ve packed in plenty of poetry, though, finding lots of wonderful and surprising voices emerging. It’s early, but totally time to check in with some of the best new poetry collections of 2025 so far.
It’s funny how timely these collections are. Keep in mind that publishing moves VERY SLOWLY, so books that have been released in the first quarter of 2025 were probably completed in late 2023 or early 2024, only seeing the light of day recently. So, these collections were written in the run-up to last year’s presidential election. Nevertheless, many of these collections feel like guttural reactions to the world right now. Amazing how prescient art and artists can be, huh?
These poetry collections run the gamut from deeply personal to powerfully political. Let’s face it, those two are often the same anyway, particularly when it comes to poetry. Most exciting to me are how many of these best new poetry collections of 2025 so far are fresh voices to the poetic scene. Let’s dig into those collections, shall we?
Sign up to become an All Access member for only $6/month and then click here to read the full, unlocked article. Level up your reading life with All Access membership and explore a full library of exclusive bonus content, including must-reads, deep dives, and reading challenge recommendations.