Maybe 2025 has you feeling some kind of way, and time travel sounds like something you wish were a real option. If that’s the case, I have three 2025 mystery novels that center on time travel or a time loop. The latter might not be as satisfying for getting out of the current hellscape, but it is beneficial if you’re trying to solve a murder and need more time. Is that how looking on the positive side works? Anyways, onto the books!
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The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa, Jesse Kirkwood (Translator)
For fans of Japanese mysteries, time loops, and inheritance and family reunion tropes!
As a child, Hisataro figured out he had a strange ability: randomly, one day of his life would start a time loop, and that day would repeat itself for nine days before continuing in real time. Only he can change the course of events in this time loop, but he can manipulate others into changing things, and they have no clue that they are in a time loop. That’s an interesting ability to have when you’re summoned to a family reunion over a sizable family inheritance!
So when his grandfather dies—with one person set to inherit everything— Hisataro realizes the day of his grandfather’s death starts a time loop for him. Naturally, he must figure out what happened by eavesdropping, sleuthing, and slyly talking to all his family members to see not who had motive (because all of them do), but who actually may have gone through with a murder.
You get a murder mystery and rich family drama with secrets revealed!
The Frozen People (Ali Dawson #1) by Elly Griffiths
For fans of cold cases, British mysteries, secret organizations, and time travel!
You might know Elly Griffiths from her Ruth Galloway series (starring an archaeologist!), her historical mystery Brighton Mysteries series, and her Harbinder Kaur series, where the books are standalones loosely tied together by a detective (The Postscript Murders is a great comp for The Thursday Murder Club). Now she has a fourth series, this time centering on a time-traveling secret agency working on cold cases!
In The Frozen People, Ali Dawson is divorced with an adult son and working in London on cold cases. But her unit has a secret: they can travel back in time, which gives them an advantage in solving old crimes. Her new assignment sends her back to the 1850s, but the job goes sideways and she gets stuck there. As if that wasn’t a giant enough problem, in the present, her son is accused of murdering his boss. So you get two murder mysteries in one, plus modern-day and mid-Victorian London settings!
Death at a Highland Wedding (A Rip Through Time #4) by Kelley Armstrong
For fans of time travel, murder mystery, detectives, and Victorian Scotland settings!
Kelley Armstrong has a lot of series across genres, including her Haven’s Rock spinoff from her Rockton series, which are murder mysteries set in remote/secret societies! In 2022, she started her time-traveling historical mystery series with A Rip Through Time, in which Mallory, a Vancouver homicide detective visiting her grandmother in Edinburgh, ends up getting ripped through time after being attacked and wakes up in 1869 as housemaid Catriona Mitchell.
Now that we’re on the fourth book in the series, Mallory has been forced to settle into living as Catriona and has found a way to assist Dr. Duncan Gray, the undertaker, and Detective Hugh McCreadie on cases. While all three are attending the detective’s sister’s wedding, they not only find it strange that endangered Scottish wildcats’ injuries don’t match the traps set, but they also find themselves with a murdered guest! Good thing there’s a modern detective along with an undertaker and an 1860s detective on hand!
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Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf and see upcoming 2025 releases. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations! Until next time, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Goodreads, Litsy, and Multitudes Contained.
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