At the start of every month, CrimeReads staff members look over all the great crime novels and mysteries coming out in the weeks ahead and make recommendations based on what they’re reading and what they can’t wait to read. Check back over the course of the month for more suggestions for feeding your crime habit.
Zoje Stage, Baby Teeth (St. Martins)
I’m fascinated by the internal logic of child psychopaths, which does not differ much from child logic in general, but leads to far worse consequences, so I’m very much looking forward to Zoje Stage’s Baby Teeth, both for Stage’s uncomfortable portrayal of childhood amorality and for her ability to capture a child’s view of the world. In Baby Teeth, a mute child engages in forceful showdown with her mother, in a novel already getting comparisons to We Need To Talk About Kevin, and other classics of dangerous children.—Molly Odintz, CrimeReads associate editor
Flynn Berry, A Double Life (Viking)
Berry’s sophomore effort is just as smart and haunting as her Edgar-winning debut, Under the Harrow. Loosely based on the notorious case of Lord Lucan, a British peer who fled the country as when he was suspected of attacking his wife and murdering their nanny in 1974, leaving his wife and children to deal with the fallout. A Double Life is told from the perspective of one of those children, Claire, now a London physician leading a deliberately quiet life. After her father disappeared, she, her mother, and her brother started new lives under different names to escape the publicity of her father’s crime and disappearance. When her father resurfaces, Claire has to reckon with the possibility of his crimes and her own carefully constructed life falling apart again.—Lisa Levy, CrimeReads contributing editor
Megan Abbott, Give Me Your Hand (Little Brown)
At this point, it’s probably unnecessary to explain why I’m excited about the new Megan Abbott book. She’s one of the most talented novelists working today and seems to be getting even better with each new book. There isn’t an author around who can match her dexterity with dread, the kind that builds without you noticing at all until suddenly it’s crawling all over you and twisting at your gut. But I will say that her latest novel, Give Me Your Hand, is especially exciting. Having come out of the cloistered world of high school cheerleaders and then Olympic level gymnastics, she’s now turned to the cloistered world of high-level scientific research. Is there any more insidious environment, any world better suited to Abbott’s knack for precise observation and high-strung personalities locked in unseen rivalries? This is the one I’ve been waiting for.—Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads senior editor
Sheena Kamal, It All Falls Down (William Morrow)
This follow up to Kamal’s debut novel, The Lost Ones, also features her shrewd and damaged heroine, Nora Watts. Based in Vancouver, Watts is a former addict in a fragile state of recovery. The only connections she has are to her former boss, who she is taking care of now that he’s dying of AIDS, and her dog, Whisper. Her isolation is intentional: fewer entanglements mean fewer tough decisions. But when she meets someone who knew the father she never knew, Nora decides to head to his hometown of Detroit to find some answers about her absentee parent. She discovers he was one of the babies in the so-called “Sixties Scoop,” when the Canadian government removed indigenous children from their families and placed them with white families who adopted the kids. And the deeper she digs into her background, the more troubling and dangerous Nora’s life becomes.—LL
JP Delaney, Believe Me (Ballantine)
Claire White is a struggling actress, a Brit in America on an expired visa with little in the way of skills or income. So when she is hired by a firm of divorce lawyers to be a honey pot—i.e. to entrap married men into propositioning her so their wives can claim infidelity—she throws herself into the work, catching the cheaters on tape and making the suspicious wives and their lawyers as satisfied customers. Things go awry when one of her clients is murdered and the police think the husband is to blame. The police try to convince her to work with them to catch the husband on the murder charge, but he turns out to be much more complicated—and attractive—than she originally thought.—LL
Wallace Stroby, Some Die Nameless (Mulholland)
Stroby is a master of the high-octane crime novel, a perfect combination of pace and atmospherics. His latest, Some Die Nameless, sees an ex-military man living on a houseboat straight out of John D. MacDonald, when his past sins come back to haunt him. His path intersects with an investigative reporter from up north, and together they stagger across an intricate and sinister government conspiracy. This is a page-turner in the best possible sense. It might also be Stroby’s great tribute to journalism. Before turning to crime fiction, he was an accomplished reporter. His enduring respect for the craft gives the story an extra jolt of intensity.—DM
Claire O’Dell, A Study in Honor (Harper Voyager)
As someone who came to my lifelong love of crime fiction through the character of Sherlock Holmes, I appreciate the seemingly infinite variations applied to the Sherlock narrative. Claire O’Dell’s futuristic take on the trilogy may be the most creative take of all. Set in the midst of a future civil war that has its roots in contemporary issues, and featuring two women of color as Watson and Sherlock, A Study in Honor follows Dr. Watson, a recently discharged army doctor with a robotic arm, as she moves in with Sara Holmes, a mysterious government agent, and the two investigate several mysterious deaths tied to a disastrous battle. If you like dystopian future narratives, queer romance, and Sherlock Holmes, you’ll adore A Study in Honor.—MO
Christopher Huang, A Gentleman’s Murder (Inkshares)
The first novel from Singapore-born, Montreal-based architect Christopher Huang is a locked room traditional mystery that does justice to its inspirations, even as it aids in the genres continuing evolution. Set in the 1920s, A Gentleman’s Murder takes place predominantly in a London gentleman’s club for soldiers only, patronized by haunted aristocrats trying to forget the horrors of the first world war. When a murder at the club is tied to a mysterious wrong from the past, then amateur sleuth and club member Lieutenant Eric Peterkin must uncover his fellow club members’ darkest secrets, and in the process, relive some of his wartime traumas.—MO
Lucy Atkins, The Night Visitor (Quercus)
The cover alone is worth putting this book on the list—a beetle graces the cover just below the title, luminous, centered, and missing a leg, a signal of the sublime discomfort we are about to experience.In The Night Visitor, a researcher becomes obsessed with the diary of a 19th century woman scientist, and must trade increasingly dear favors to the academic who discovered the diary in order to retain access to the precious document.—MO
Rob Hart, Potter’s Field (Polis Books)
Hart’s newest is a distinctly New York crime novel and doesn’t flinch at taking on one of the city’s most pressing issues of the day: the spread of opioids and the rise in overdose deaths. PI Ash McKenna wants to go legit with a PI license but old colleagues draw him back into a more shadowy world, and soon he finds himself caught in the city’s increasingly deadly heroin wars.—DM
Lori Roy, The Disappearing (Dutton)
The new novel from two-time Edgar Award winner Lori Roy is impossible to put down or forget, a masterful show of suspense. A small town in Florida is full of secrets, especially when it comes to the eery historical plantation, the disappearances of several young people, and its dark relationship to a serial killer. All the claustrophobia of small town life is there, plus a healthy dose of Southern gothic.—MO
