At the start of every month, CrimeReads staff members look over all the great thrillers, mysteries, and crime novels 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.
Zhou HaoHui, Death Notice
Death Notice is the first in a trilogy that’s hugely popular in China, not only in its printed form, but as a series soon entering its third season, and the novel is the first work by Zhou HaoHui to be translated into English. The story is part of an increasingly popular genre in Chinese crime fiction, the serial killer thriller; in Death Notice, a sadistic murderer inspired by Greek mythology goes after a series of victims he believes to be deserving of their fate, for a plot that has enjoyed comparisons to that twisted classic of retribution, Se7en.—Molly Odintz, CrimeReads associate editor
You-Jeong Jeong, The Good Son
If you want the same feeling you got from Bong Kee-Ho’s film Mother or Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin, but have been dying for that story from the son’s point of view, then You-Jeong Jeong’s The Good Son is the summer read for you. Or, alternatively, if you’re a fan of the Macauley Culkey film The Good Son (hey, it’s the same title!) but always wanted to know more about what was going on in Macauley Culken’s head, then You-Jeong Jeong’s The Good Son would also make for a perfect summer read. When a young man wakes up covered in blood and finds his mother has been murdered, he must investigate the blank spaces in his own memories to uncover what happened. What emerges is a chilling portrait of psychopath, and a beautifully evocative tale of wealth and isolation in modern South Korean life. You-Jeong Jeong has been called the Stephen King of South Korea, although I’d prefer to compare her to Gillian Flynn or Patricia Highsmith. —MO
Laurie R. King, Island of the Mad
Laurie R. King’s latest Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell investigation first takes Mary to Bedlam, and then both to Venice, to locate a friend’s wayward aunt, imprisoned by her brother ostensibly for being a lesbian, but really to control her money. King shines, as always, in the sense of adventure and the historical details; Venice is filled with beautiful tourists, Venetian shop owners, and a growing number of Mussolini’s blackshirts, for a tale that unfortunately resonates with our own times.—MO
Maria Hummel, Still Lives
We’re big fans of art mysteries here at CrimeReads—something about the lush backdrops, musty backrooms, glitzy auctions, eccentric figures, long cons, and powerful double dealings, with the transcendent power of art thrown in as the cherry on top. I’m in particular a fan of any crime novel that incorporates performance art into the mix—Exhibit Alexandra, by Natasha Bell, and The Ghost Network, by Catie Disabito, are the only other two that come to mind—so I was pleased to see that Maria Hummel’s Still Lives continues this micro-tradition. Still Lives is a novel of the LA art scene, paintings of murdered women, and an artist who disappears just before her gala show, and makes a fine addition to the world of feminist performance art thrillers (and, you know, the world of mysteries as a whole, since the previous category is, admittedly, not the biggest).—MO
Jennifer Hillier, Jar of Hearts
Hillier has been writing excellent creepy serial killer thrillers for a few years, including Creep and The Butcher. She’s upped her game considerably with Jar of Hearts, which weaves together the past and present of Georgina Shaw, who is incarcerated as the book begins. She’s in prison because the bones of her former best friend, Angela, were found in her backyard Yet Geo’s (as Georgina is called) release from prison coincides with both the reappearance of figures from her past she’d rather not have anything to do with and an investigation of a series of murders of young girls is underway. Does Geo (or do any of her old friends) have a part in these new serial killings? Jar of Hearts is pretty much everything you want in a thriller: fast-paced with sympathetic characters and a whole lot of murder.—Lisa Levy, CrimeReads contributing editor
Michelle Sacks, You Were Made For This
Merry and Sam and their infant son, Conor, have an idyllic life in the Swedish countryside. Sam is pursuing a career as an independent filmmaker while Merry tends to Conor and keeps house in a spectacular fashion: lots of cooking and baking, a spotless house, and a well-tended garden. The serpent who enters this paradise is Merry’s old friend Frank (a woman). At first, Merry especially is happy for the company, as Sam often has to drive down to the city for work-related appointments (well, that’s what he tells Merry, anyway). Gradually Frank begins to suspect all is not perfect in this picture of domestic bliss, but will she be able to stop what she thinks of as reckless behavior—the kind that could ruin lives.—LL
Tara Isabella Burton, Social Creature
When Louise is befriended by the rich and popular socialite Lavinia, her world blossoms into something unrecognizable, full of parties, champagne, high-quality drugs, and lots of good-looking and interesting people. Both writers, soon Louise is wearing Lavinia’s clothes, going out with Lavinia every night, and generally living the high life. Their friendship inches from extremely close to toxic, with Louise frantic about doing anything to make the mercurial Lavinia angry. Social Creature is a carefully plotted and brilliantly executed book, which dives deep into privilege, class, wealth, art, and female friendships.—LL
Tiny Crimes (eds. Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto)
Brevity is essential to crime fiction. That’s not to say I don’t like a good door-stopper now and again, or an intricately sub-claused sentence, but the kind of noir writing I like best was built out of the detective’s report, the straight-ahead account of a particularly mysterious or depraved event. The (very) short story, then, has a special appeal, not just as an exercise but as an homage to a literary tradition. That’s why Tiny Crimes has me hooked. This collection, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto, brings together a host of writers, most of them young, some of them crime writers, others not, all angling to tell the most riveting tale possible in just a few hundred words. There’s a nice feeling of competition to the book: like the contributors were embracing the challenge of who could spin the most compelling yarn. Some of my favorite contemporary writers are here, too: Laura van den Berg, Carmen Maria Machado, Adam Sternbergh, Yuri Herrera, and many more. I’ll be reading and re-reading throughout the month.—Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads senior editor
Rosalie Knecht, Who Is Vera Kelly?
People who know me know that two of my, say, top five interests include midcentury double identity stories and underground Latin American political/intellectual scenes. As it happens, those are the very same driving forces behind Rosalie Knecht’s new novel, Who Is Vera Kelly?, a strange and innovative take on the spy novel, one that’s noir and full of ambiguities, doubles, and double-crosses. There’s political intrigue, spycraft, solid location work, and all the things you would want from espionage fiction, but there’s also something strange and subversive going on in this story. Knecht has a livewire intellect and I hope she sticks with spy fiction of some kind of another, because this is just the kind of jolt the genre (my beloved genre) needs now and again.—DM
Santa Cruz Noir (ed. Susie Bright)
Akashic’s well-traveled, always-riveting Noir series has been to some serendipitous locales over the years, cities perfectly suited to crime fiction, some boasting a long noir tradition of their very own. But for me, just in terms of sheer allure and possibility, the new Santa Cruz collection is right up there at the top. A washed out seaside pleasure palace, nestled up against the hills and the surf, home to all manner of shady types and societal misfits, proximate to great wealth but possessed of an undeniable scruffiness, and above all, beautiful, with that low California sun so conducive to good noir…The contributors list is promising here, but really I don’t even need any convincing. There will be boardwalks, surfers, drugs, sunsets and crime stories, and I am there.
