21
Lisa Jewell shines bright at the top of our McFadden-less thriller chart
Has Freida McFadden’s success had a halo effect? Publishers are wondering
so far in 2026 the 59 books in NielsenIQ’s data credited to McFadden have earned £2.8m – 124.4% more than the equivalent period 12 months ago and enough to make her the biggest author of the year across all categories, even beating picture-book power- house Julia Donaldson.
T
In the Spotlight
Mark Edwards The Wasp Trap Penguin, £9.99, 9781405971485
If this week’s already-edited Top 50 were edited even further to remove the blockbuster brand authors, it would be more or less empty. Even Edwards, who comes onto the list in 13th position with The Wasp Trap, is a prolific author having more than 20 books to his name, including several co-written with Louise Voss. The paperback edition of The Wasp Trap has sold more than 1,000 copies each week since its 29th January release, in part thanks to its selection as Waterstones’ Thriller of the Month, and is the only one of his solo titles to ever break the four-digit mark in any given week.
13,255 TCM copies sold
he question being a sked through gritted teeth by publishers and other crime writers
is this: is McFadden’s success having a halo effect on other books in the category? The entire category is worth
£17m so far this year, £2m more than at this point in 2025. McFadden’s sales have grown £1.5m in the same time, so the headline signs suggest the cate- gory, excluding its biggest star, is experiencing healthy sales. McFadden has 12 titles in
the category’s Top 20 of the year (up from eight in 2025), but exclud- ing her reveals 20 titles, mostly from big-brand authors that have amassed £2.7m – an increase of 16.1% compared with the equiva- lent set of books from this time last year, thanks in part to the £368,993 delivered by Lisa Jewell’s Don’t Let Him In, which tops the Freida-free list with 62,059 copies
sold. That is significantly more than the 29,938 units that took Claire Douglas’ The Wrong Sister to the top of the same list in 2025. It takes Jewell’s total for
2026 to £544,646. But, despite that impressive number, she is not the biggest contender to McFadden’s crown: the £580,798 that Richard Osman has earned from his murder mysteries puts him second on the author ranking, a 3.6% increase on the same period. For Jewell, third place is a rise
of 13 places up the ranking, with her sales having jumped 226.9% in that time. It is Dan Brown, though, who has the biggest increase: his sales so far in 2026 have totalled £322,710 – jumping a stonking 2,561% from the £12,126 his books made in January and February in 2025. Neither Jewell nor Brown
had new books on sale in the early part of 2025. Stripping those two authors out, alongside McFadden, gives us a truer picture of what is going on with the category, one that shows sales are down 1.5%. So far in 2026, 20 titles – exclud-
ing McFadden – have sold more than 10,000 units in the Crime, Thriller & Adventure category, down from 30 in the same period last year. Readers might be gather- ing around the big tent-pole authors, but there is still work to be done to ensure it translates into sales for the rest of the market.
REPORTING Alex Call 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
Rogue Lawyer John Grisham Hodder, 9781399740319
Holy Island LJ Ross Penguin (Cornerstone), 9781804960158
The Hard Way Lee Child Bantam, 9780857500137
Strangers in Time David Baldacci Pan, 9781035015801
The Naming of the Dead Ian Rankin Orion, 9781398729339
The Lucky Winners KL Slater Penguin, 9781405962513
Another Man’s Poison Ann Cleeves Pan, 9781529073485
The Chemist AA Dhand HQ, 9780008645816
9,931 9,879 9,453 9,410 9,387 9,125 8,688 8,573
This House of Burning Bones Stuart MacBride Pan Books, 9781035064878
Then She Was Gone Lisa Jewell Arrow, 9781784756253
8,514 8,301
The Mysterious Affair of Judith… R Thorogood HQ, 9780008567415
The Silent Patient Alex Michaelides Orion, 9781409181637
Like Mother, Like Daughter K McCreight Penguin, 9781405966443
8,195 7,839 7,654
All the Colours of the Dark Chris Whitaker Orion, 9781398707672
7,571
The Thursday Murder Club Richard Osman Penguin, 9780241988268
In Too Deep Lee and Andrew Child Penguin (Transworld), 9781804993675
The Ice Angels Caroline Mitchell Penguin (Cornerstone), 9781804955284
7,282 7,231 7,038
Murder at the Black Cat Cafe Seishi Yokomizo Pushkin Vertigo, 9781805335511
Cross and Sampson J Patterson, B Sitts Century, 9781529978476
The Blue Hour Paula Hawkins Penguin (Transworld), 9781804995334
The Hallmarked Man Robert Galbraith Sphere, 9781408723784
Sleepyhead Mark Billingham Sphere, 9781408736173
The Last Devil To Die Richard Osman Penguin, 9780241992401
Appeal Lynda La Plante Zaffre, 9781804189498
Verity Colleen Hoover Sphere, 9781408726600
Death in the Arctic Tom Hindle Penguin (Cornerstone), 9781804949412
Beautiful Ugly Alice Feeney Pan, 9781035053827
The Widow John Grisham Hodder, 9781399703413
The Persian David McCloskey Swift Press, 9781800754027
6,772 6,719 6,632 6,432 6,229 6,150 6,095 6,083 5,965 5,899 5,736 5,735
The Man Who Died Twice Richard Osman Penguin, 9780241988244
5,680 35
ANDREW WHITTON
MIRA WHITING
Charts Market Spotlight
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