March 2025 Reading Guide

A full breakdown of every mystery and thriller hitting bookstores this month

If you love mysteries and thrillers, get your book-buying budget in order because March is stacked with must-read new titles.

First, though, if you’re new here, welcome!

Whereas the flagship Book Spy website offers free content, my goal with TRBS Substack was always to provide a more in-depth experience to better serve superfans and diehard readers. So, one thing that I’m doing this year is offering a more comprehensive breakdown of each monthly reading guide.

NOTE: You can still find the free version without any of my thoughts on each title at TheRealBookSpy.com — but I’ll be sharing each Reading Guide here first, with bonus content and regular giveaways, too.

Browse every book set to hit store shelves in March below, complete with thoughts from me, listed in order of publication.

Happy reading!

Tuesday, March 4th

Blood Moon by Sandra Brown

Grand Central Publishing

#1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with another gripping thriller where an embittered detective and an ambitious TV show producer are in a race against the clock to prevent another young woman from disappearing before the next blood moon, in this “absolute tour de force!” (Tia Williams)

Detective John Bowie is one misstep away from being fired from the Auclair Police Department in coastal Louisiana. Recently divorced and slightly heavy-handed with his liquor, Bowie does all that he can to cope with the actions taken (or not taken) during the investigation of Crissy Mellin, a teenage girl who disappeared more than three years prior. But now, Crisis Point, a long-running true crime television series, is soon to air an episode documenting the unsolved Mellin case. Bowie has been instructed by his unscrupulous boss to keep to himself his grievances and criticisms over the mishandling of the investigation.

Beth Collins, a senior producer on Crisis Point, knows what classifies as a great story and when there’s something more to be told. After working on the show for seven years researching, fact-checking, and editing dozens of episodes, Collins is convinced that Crissy Mellin’s disappearance was not an isolated incident. A string of disappearances of teenage girls in nearby areas has only one thing in common: They took place on the night of a blood moon. In a last-ditch effort to find out the truth, Beth leaves New York City for Louisiana to enlist Detective Bowie in helping her figure out what happened to Crissy and find the true culprit before he acts on the next blood moon—in four days’ time.

At the risk of their careers, credibility, and very lives, Bowie and Collins band together to identify and capture a canny perpetrator, while fighting an irresistible spark between them that threatens to upend everything.

MY TAKE: Sandra Brown is about as steady as they come. Year in and year out, you know what you’re getting with one of her books—and she delivers the good here, too. BLOOD MOOD has a little of everything. There’s some romance, some thrills, plenty of suspense, and a really great cast of characters. Brown doesn’t reinvent the wheel with this one, but then again, she really doesn’t need to. She stays in her lane, but it’s a good lane to be in. Fans of her books will really enjoy this one.

Don't Tell Me How To Die by Marshall Karp

Blackstone Publishing, Inc.

I have one thing to do before I die.

And time is running out.

I had it all: a fantastic husband, two great kids, an exciting career. And then, at the age of forty-three, I found out I would be dead before my next birthday.

My mother also died at forty-three. I was seventeen, and she warned me that women would flock to my suddenly single father like stray cats to an overturned milk truck. They did. And one absolutely evil woman practically destroyed his life, mine, and my sister’s.

I am not letting that happen to my family.

I have three months, and I plan to spend every waking minute searching for the perfect woman to take my place as Alex’s wife, and mother to Kevin and Katie.

You’re probably thinking, she’ll never do it. Did I mention that in high school I was voted “Most Likely to Kill Someone to Get What She Wants”?

From thriller writer Marshall Karp (cocreator with James Patterson of the #1 New York Times bestselling NYPD Red series), and rich with Karp’s deft array of three-dimensional characters and his signature biting humor, Don’t Tell Me How to Die has so many twists and turns, you’d swear he wrote it with a corkscrew.

MY TAKE: Karp made a name for himself as one of James Patterson’s main co-writers after the two teamed up for a number of books, including the NYPD Red series. Look, teaming with the world’s most famous author is no doubt a sweet gig, but it’s fun to see Karp’s own style on full display. While the quick pacing will be familiar to Patterson fans—so too will the twists and misdirection sewn in to keep you guessing—there are definitely some things you wouldn’t normally find in a Patterson title. Altogether, I found this book to be solid but not spectacular.