“The Comfort of Ghosts,” by Jacqueline Winspear.

There’s a world of trouble in these new thrillers, with locations ranging from rural England to blood-spattered Madrid and deceit-filled China.

‘The Comfort of Ghosts,’ Jacqueline Winspear

It’s already been announced so this is not a spoiler: The 18th Maisie Dobbs adventure is also the last. In a foreword, Winspear says she’s done everything she intended with the English psychologist/sleuth, whose first appearance was around the time of World War I and whom Winspear has steered through peacetime, another world war, two marriages, widowhood, adopting a daughter, coming into a title and inheriting a pile of dough.

After the end of World War II, Maisie is trying to solve the murder of a wealthy Nazi sympathizer and figure out how to help four children left homeless by the Blitz who happen to have suspicious knowledge of wartime tactics. Fans of the series (I’ve read ‘em all) will have to be patient with Winspear’s frequent recaps, which make “Comfort” work as a stand-alone but occasionally bog it down.

‘Shanghai,’ Joseph Kanon

Ever since his debut, “Los Alamos,” Kanon has written about shadowy men on the margins of pivotal moments in 20th-century espionage, whether it’s the development of the atom bomb, intrigue on both sides of the Berlin Wall or, in this case, Japan-occupied China in 1939. Our hero, Daniel Lohr (if that’s his real name), is a Jewish man who flees Germany, headed on a ship to Shanghai, where he’ll end up with a couple of suspect jobs: helping his crooked uncle run a casino and keeping his ear open for gossip items to supply a creepy newspaper columnist. It sounds like a recipe to get shot at, and Daniel does.

‘Black Wolf,’ Juan Gómez-Jurado

You might want to catch up with the first in this trilogy-or-more before cracking “Black Wolf,” which is the middle book. (“The Red Queen” was first and “The White King,” already out in Spain, should be available here next year.) Gómez-Jurado’s crime novels move like crazy between violent gangsters, duplicitous cops and a female criminal mastermind who could be pulling all of their strings. The real lure of the series, though, is a pair of memorable main characters: detective Jon Gutiérrez, who is gay, sardonic, obsessed with his weight and always on the outs with his bosses on the Bilboa police force. And Antonia Scott, who is brilliant, haunted by tragedy and increasingly dependent on a mysterious pill she uses to super-charge her already uncanny brain.

‘Trust Her,’ Flynn Berry

Tana French may sell more books, but don’t sleep on Berry. Like French, she sets her books in Ireland (and England), but Berry is a more insightful writer. Her new “Trust Her” can be read on its own, but it’s a sequel to the previous novel “Northern Spy.” “Trust Her” is a page-turner with heart.