Sophie Roell

If you enjoy crime fiction, there can be a bewildering array of books to choose from. Fortunately, the UK has the Dagger Awards, awarded by the Crime Writers’ Association to standout books in the genre. The ‘Gold Dagger’ is given for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality, originally written in English and first published in the UK. Five Books editor Sophie Roell runs us through the six books that made this year’s shortlist.

The Edgar Award for Best Novel is one of the most prestigious prizes in the mystery and crime fiction genre, and an excellent starting point if you’re looking for a flavour of what kind of books are out there. As we start our list of the best mystery books of 2026, Five Books editor Sophie Roell runs us through this year’s shortlist, from Dickensian London to the wilds of the Southern Ocean.

It’s a golden age for nonfiction, with books on a range of important topics written in an accessible way. As 2025 draws to a close, Five Books editor Sophie Roell takes us through some of the books that won prestigious nonfiction book prizes this year, and what they can tell us about the world we live in.

From police procedurals and traditional mystery books to thrillers that take us to a dystopian future, our editor, Sophie Roell,  talks us through some of her favorite crime novels of the past year.

Welcome to our running list of the best mystery books of 2025, which we’ll continue to update through the end of the year. On this list, we also include books that have been nominated for prestigious awards, like the Edgars in the US and the Dagger Awards in the UK. Bear in mind that these are the best books of the previous year, rather than the very latest—with the advantage that they’re already likely to be in paperback.  

We love books here at Five Books, and OK, we might be a bit snooty at times and insist that a book is always better than the movie based on it. And yet…there are many beloved books we wouldn’t have read if they hadn’t hit the big screen. In honour of Robert Redford (1936-2025), a list of some of the books recommended on our site that he starred in the film versions of. One of them changed my life.

It’s a golden age for historical writing, as well-researched and sometimes quite specialist books by historians are written in an engaging style for a broad audience. History books out in recent months range from ancient Assyria to the CIA in the 21st century.

From the death of Stalin and the career of Putin’s chef to shaministic rituals on the Indonesian island of Siberut, Five Books editor Sophie Roell gives an overview of some of the excellent new nonfiction books that have appeared since April.

As March draws to a close, Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books, looks at some of the nonfiction books that have come out in the first three months of 2025, from the biography of one of the world’s great female leaders to better ways to measure a country’s economy.

If you’re looking for a murder set in a pleasant environment—often an English village—with a charming sleuth and minimal bloodshed, cozy mysteries could be the genre for you. Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books and a keen mystery reader, introduces some of her favourites—from classics of the genre to more recent bestsellers.