8 Must-Read International Mystery and Thriller Books

Irish writer Fitzgerald has lived in Rome for decades, and his intimate knowledge of the city’s back alleys and political skulduggery underpins his compelling Commissario Alec Blume series. Blume is the orphaned child of American art historians who had made their lives in Italy, giving him an outsider’s view of La Dolce Vita. 

In the second book in the series, Blume and his new assistant, Caterina, investigate the fatal mugging of an Irish painter. It’s plain from the start that there’s more to the killing than the authorities want made public, but the attempts of local police and politicians to sideline Blume only make our tenacious hero more determined to uncover the truth.

Parker Bilal was born in London and brought up in Khartoum. His dogged PI, Makana, is an exiled Sudanese detective who makes his living on the tough streets of 21st-century Cairo. In this, the third of Bilal’s high-quality series, the horrors of 9/11 and its aftermath hang over the Middle East.

 Our exiled and grieving gumshoe is hired for what seems like a routine surveillance job, but ends up coming across the horrific murder of a teenage girl. His pursuit of the killers leads him deep into the Sahara desert to the oasis town of Siwa, where the sand-blasted streets are filled with danger, and law and order come from the barrel of a gun.

Lotte and Soren Hammer are Danish crime-writing siblings who published their first collaborative work of Scandi-Noir in 2010. Many of the books feature Detective Chief Superintendent Konrad Simonsen, head of the Copenhagen Murder Squad.

 In this, the fourth of the series, the sharp-witted Simonsen investigates the brutal torture and slaying of a young African sex-worker whose body had been found in an isolated lake. 

The investigation sets the cops on the trail of a gang of human traffickers and into a savagely amoral world that’s disturbing even to veteran police officers. A great read, especially for fans of Danish TV series such as The Killing and The Bridge.

Singapore-based Indian author Sardana hit the bestseller lists at home and abroad with his serial-killer novel set in modern India, The Girl in the Glass Case. 

In the second book in the series, his tough, driven, yet troubled protagonist, detective Simone Singh of the CBI (the Indian equivalent of the FBI), returns for another troubling case. This time she’s tasked with connecting the dots in a series of nationwide teenage deaths. 

All of them look like suicides, but discrepancies point to something more sinister. Sardana’s combination of classic “locked room mysteries” and psychological thriller is a genuine page-turner.

Japanese thriller writer Isaka leaped to international fame when his zany thriller about hitmen who’ve been set up to kill each other on the Tokyo Express was filmed as Bullet Train in 2022. 

Hotel Lucky Seven features one of the most memorable characters from that fast-paced and highly entertaining caper, the “world’s unluckiest hitman”, codename: Ladybird. 

This time, the comically unfortunate killer is given the simple task of delivering a portrait painting to a guest at a Tokyo Hotel. What can possibly go wrong? Well, with Ladybird involved, just about everything, it seems. 

A brilliantly constructed comic mystery filled with weird and wonderful characters that rockets along like, well, Shinkansen.

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro—famous for its carnival, beach soccer, and samba—makes a memorable backdrop to this excellent series of police procedurals featuring the philosophical cop Chief Inspector Espinosa of Rio’s 12^th Precinct. 

In this, the veteran cop’s seventh and final outing, he finds himself investigating the death of an elderly lady who seems to have been pushed in front of a bus by an unknown assailant. 

A suspect is soon identified as the meek loner Hugo Breno. But what is his connection to the old lady, and, more disturbingly, why has he started to follow Espinosa? A chilling and suspenseful end to a fine series.

New Zealand author Sussman picked up the prestigious Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel for this riveting 2017 mystery that begins in a remote farmstead in the New Zealand countryside. 

Carla and Kevin Reid are celebrating their wedding anniversary, but an evening of eating and drinking is interrupted by a couple of aspiring local Maori gang members who invade their home with robbery in mind. 

The aftermath of the crime, and the interweaving of the lives of victim and criminal, are brilliantly realized in a thriller brimming over with intelligence and empathy.

Inspector Chen is a poetry-loving Shanghai police detective trying to navigate the complexities of modern China in this exciting and enlightening series, now running to 14 titles. 

In the opener, we are back in the 1990s. The cautious Chen is tasked with investigating the death of a prominent local communist, a heroine of Mao’s revolution. 

The problem for Chen is not only finding the killer but working out just how far his bosses actually want him to go in the investigation. In a world of constantly shifting power, unmasking the killer could earn our hero promotion or a prison sentence. A truly intriguing opening to a superb series.