Personally I thaw in water- because it's pretty fast & I can easily feel when they're fully thawed throughout, and the longer food (any kind) spends at a temperature where pathogens can grow (ie. not frozen) the more likely you are to have an "exploding rodent" or at least one that's mushy, smells bad to the snake, falls apart & is rejected for spoilage.
Ask yourself, does your food ever go bad in the refrigerator? (the answer is yes) So do rodents- 24 hours is a long time for something small like a mouse to be thawing. Remember that when we thaw our own meat, there's no "guts" involved like there is with whole animals (mice, rats), & that's the part that's just loaded with germs waiting for a wake-up call. Being cold (in the refrigerator, roughly 40*) slows spoilage but doesn't preclude it- especially for whole animals.
Food safety, for humans OR for pets, means preventing spoilage by keeping things at temperatures where germs can't proliferate as long as possible, & then feeding (or eating) before they have a chance to go bad. And obviously, the meat we consume is cooked, which further destroys bacteria, but prey for snakes is just warmed up to temperatures that make germs 'happy' (not dead, like with cooking) before offering, & if the snake doesn't take it right away, it may lay around for a while- getting "ripe".
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