Badass Beach-Reading for Summer 2025
We’re almost two-thirds of the way through 2025, and there have been some really interesting thrillers published this year. Here are my thoughts on my reading from this year’s crop (including one from 2024).
S.A. Cosby
His best yet? It could be, but it would be a lofty claim given the excellence of Cosby’s writing. Including his breakout novel Blacktop Wasteland in 2020, Cosby has produced four consecutive novels that are simply outstanding. Written with an earthy toughness, Cosby’s novels tell of African-Americans breaking or enforcing the law in the mid-Atlantic states – beautifully gritty novels that are a thrill to read.
In his 2025 offering, King of Ashes, Atlanta-based financial adviser Roman Carruthers has to return home to Jefferson Run, Virginia, to sort out family problems. His father is in a coma after a hit-and-run, and his brother Dante owes money to ruthless gangsters. It’s Roman’s job to clean up this mess regardless of the collateral damage.
As a thriller, King of Ashes is on a par with his most recent novels – which means it’s outstanding. What sets it apart is that Cosby is writing with more literary flair than in his previous novels. He infuses this novel with a singular symbol of ashes, fire, or anything to do with combustion. And in my first reading I noticed the book was an allegory of Italian/Roman heritage. (The names Roman and Dante aren’t coincidences.) Cosby adds these literary flourishes with such a deft touch that they don’t interfere with his larger purpose: to produce an absolutely kick-ass thriller. This mission he carries out flawlessly.
Michael Connelly
Let’s get the difficult part out of the way at the outset: Detective Stilwell isn’t Harry Bosch. He isn’t now, and he never will be. If you’re looking for a hero as great as Bosch, look somewhere else. (And good luck with that.)
While Nightshade and the series that will likely grow out of it fall short of the early Bosch novels, this is still a pretty darn good novel.
Stilwell (Like Colin Dexter’s Morse, we’re never told the first name.) does have one thing in common with Bosch: he runs afoul of his bosses. In this case, it’s the brass at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and they banish the troublesome detective to the bucolic Catalina Island offshore from L.A. This low-crime-low-excitement existence is interrupted when a young woman’s body is found in the harbor. It sparks an investigation that unveils the dark secrets of this peaceful community.
Connelly plans to turn this into a new series, which will be a great addition to his collection of novels.
[You can read my full review of Nightshade here.]
Scott Turow
This book shows the strengths and weaknesses of Turow's work. His knowledge of trial law and the legal establishment are unrivaled, and his character development is great. But this book could have been a lot shorter without losing anything. And you never get the feeling that the defendant in a Turow novel is going to lose his case and do time. Every step of the trial is a win for the defense, robbing the story of some tension.
The hero of the story once again is Rusty Sabich (who I still imagine as Harrison Ford with a nerdy haircut, thanks to the movie Presumed Innocent). Now retired, he’s settling into a relaxing rural life with his fiancée Bea, but their plans are shot to hell when Bea’s son Aaron is charged with the murder of his former girlfriend. Aaron, an adopted African-American, needs to be defended by a lawyer he can trust, and who better than Rusty Sabich?
It's a good tale that could have been better.
Amity Gaige
The Boston Globe named Heartwood “the best thriller of 2025.” While that’s a stretch, it’s a superb novel packed with fascinating characters.
Reminiscent of Peter Heller or Cheryl Strayed, Amity Gaige’s latest novel tells the story of the search in the Maine woods for an Appalachian Trail hiker who has mysteriously disappeared 200 miles from her destination. Valerie Gillis, 42, is allegedly an experienced hiker (who for some reason has never learned how to light a fire in the wild) and strays from the trail near a mysterious military base.
Her saviors are two people who don’t even know each other. Lieut. Beverly Miller is a dogged Maine State Game Warden who leads the search. And Lena Kucharski is a 76-year-old resident of a retirement home who follows the search and rescue mission online, coming up with key information.
“Thriller” is not the best term to describe this novel, but it is a wonderful tale of strong women confronting their challenges and overcoming them. An altogether engrossing novel.
Chris Whitaker
The striking feature of this novel (published last year) is its wild originality. Its eccentric characters wind up in unexpected situations and surprise the reader at every turn.
In the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, Joseph "Patch" Macauley, the one-eyed son of a troubled single mother, is trying to get by in a world that looks down on him. His only friend is a girl called Saint Brown, whose fascination with honey bees is as strong as Patch’s obsession with pirates.
Their world is rocked when Patch saves Misty Meyer, the beautiful daughter of the town’s leading businessman, from a ruthless predator. Patch ends up kidnapped by the predator, imprisoned in a totally dark room with a girl called Grace. Eventually freed, he spends his life searching for Grace.
Chris Whitaker has produced a thriller unlike any I’ve ever read, a thoroughly enjoyable yarn of abduction, murder, love, prison and unending devotion. The characters make the novel great, always surprising the reader and never descending into cliché.
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Peter Moreira is the author of The Haight Mystery Series — retro mystery novels set in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Go to my home page to join my mailing list and receive a free prequel novella.
