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.
Jonathan Lethem, The Feral Detective (Ecco)
Although he’s tapped into veins of the genre, Lethem hasn’t written a proper detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn, so right away you know the publication of The Feral Detective is going to be one of the most anticipated events on this year’s book calendar. But then the novel actually delivers. Lethem’s latest is a bizarre, poignant, mind-bending journey through the desert landscapes of California’s vast and arid inland regions, in particular the reclusive and eccentric communities that have sprung up there. In short, this is not Marlowe’s Los Angeles or Lew Archer’s Santa Teresa. This is the Southern Californian detective’s fever dream, and worth every page.—Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads senior editor
Emily Littlejohn, Lost Lake (Minotaur)
Lake is Littlejohn’s third entry in her Gemma Monroe series, which gets richer with every book. Monroe is a detective working in the picturesque town of Cedar Valley, Colorado as well as the mother of an infant daughter she had with her geologist fiance who frequently travels for his work. Monroe visibly struggles with juggling her responsibilities at work, at home, and with her beloved grandparents who raised her and are now suffering the ailments of old age. The case the book revolves around is juicy and complex: two employees of the town’s museum have been murdered, though the connection between the killings is unclear, and a priceless diary from one of the area’s pioneer settlers which belonged to the museum iis missing too. Plus, there’s a leak in the department her boss would like her to suss out. No worries, though: Monroe is up to these challenges and whatever else might come her way.—Lisa Levy, CrimeReads contributing editor
Louise Penny, Kingdom of the Blind (Minotaur)
Guess I’ve got Canada on my mind this month, since I’m recommending both the next great mystery from Louise Penny’s Three Pines and later in this post, taking a look at the new French-Canadian crime novel, Madame Victoria. With each new installment, Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache novels bolster their case as an iconic mystery series, and allow us all to get to know Three Pines and its quirky inhabitants even better. Kingdom of the Blind is another example of Penny’s signature blend of traditional mystery and procedural, with a hint of gothic atmosphere to make this the perfect winter read. Gamache is summoned to an old farmhouse where he learns that he, along with a local bookseller and a contractor, has been named executor of the will of a woman he’s never met. Lucky for Gamache, he’s on suspension, so he’s got plenty of time to get to the bottom of the mysterious will and contentious inheritors.—Molly Odintz, CrimeReads associate editor
Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister the Serial Killer (Doubleday)
My Sister, The Serial Killer is one of the year’s most hotly anticipated debuts, a dark, scathing, insidious, and wickedly funny novel about an embittered young woman who has come to realize that her sister—the good child, the one who seems to be so perfect—is actually killing her boyfriends, a fact that solidifies the sisters’ bond, as they need each other to cover up the crimes. The story is at once uproarious, shocking, and packed with emotional poignancy.—DM
Janet Evanovich, Look Alive Twenty-Five (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
It’s the twenty-fifth installment in the beloved Stephanie Plum series, and the madcap action is as madcap as ever, the mysteries deep, and the clues scarce. In Look Alive Twenty-Five, the Red River Deli in Trenton, New Jersey finds itself in the awkward situation of having its managers disappear over and over, which is when Plum takes on the new job and resolves to solve the mystery before she succumbs to it. Evanovich’s novels are always wildly engaging, and with the holidays coming up and family weekends arriving, there’s no better companion you could ask for than her latest page-turner.—DM
Katrina Carrasco, The Best Bad Things (MCD/FSG)
In this richly detailed historical mystery, a former Pinkerton detective, fired for dressing too often as a man, takes up with a smuggler named Delphine and begins tracking down stolen goods for her new employers. On the quest for some stolen opium, she must use all her skills of subterfuge to put her old Pinkerton pals off the track. I love books that focus on the artifice of gendered behavior, and weave the performance of identity into the larger performance of the spy, and I can’t wait to finish this wildly creative take on the genre from newcomer imprint MCD.—MO
Catherine Leroux, Madame Victoria (Biblioasis)
In Catherine Leroux’s experimental take on crime fiction and storytelling, Madame Victoria, Leroux takes as her starting point a real-life Jane Doe—discovered in 2001 and stashed away in Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital, labeled simply as “Madame Victoria”—and imagines 12 versions of the life and death of the titular corpse. Madame Victoria uses metafiction to highlight the limits of knowing when it comes to a life, compared to the vastness of our imaginations.—MO
Liane Moriarty, Nine Perfect Strangers (Flatiron)
There’s a reason Moriarty’s books (like Truly Madly Guilty and Big Little Lies) are so wildly popular. She’s a smart, funny, and shrewd writer with real gifts for dialogue and character development. Strangers is set at a mysterious health resort called Tranquillum House in a remote region of Australia which promises life-changing results in ten short days. The nine strangers of the title have come to Tranquillum in the warm January month (yes, summer is in January down under) to change their lives. Run by the draconian Masha, the methods of the resort seem downright strange: several days of yoga, healthy meals, and total silence are the norm for the beginning of the strangers’ stay. When things take a turn for the sinister (and the hilarious), each of the sojourners must deal with issues he or she has been avoiding. But what exactly is Masha’s grand plan?—LL
Ben Schott, Jeeves and the King of Clubs (Little, Brown and Co.)
Why has no one written this book before? The outrageous comic world of P.G. Wodehouse, specifically the characters of the hapless Bertie Wooster and his superlative valet, Jeeves, provides a perfect setting for a loopy espionage plot involving the Junior Ganymede Club–not one of the many London gentlemen’s haunts favored by Bertie but an organization of high-placed servants like the nearly omniscient Jeeves. Of course, since it’s supposed to be Wodehouse, there are plenty of romantic mishaps, comic minor characters, and aunts with country houses and ulterior motives. And since it is a pretty good approximation of Wodehouse, it’s also clever and, yes, funny.—LL
Jens Lapidus, Top Dog (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
For those who like their Scandi noir on the bleak side—and really, who doesn’t?—Jens Lapidus is your man. Lapidus, the author of the Stockholm Noir trilogy (Easy Money, Never Fuck Up, and Life Deluxe), returns with a complex story with characters on both sides of the law. Emilie is a young criminal defense lawyer (a job Lapidus does when he’s not writing) trying to protect a young client who is supposed to testify against her powerful abusers. Teddy is a criminal trying to go straight but the deck is stacked against him. He’s also trying to keep his nephew, Nikolas, from turning to crime but the murder of his best friend is pulling him to the dark side. Lapidus creates a layered and satisfying portrait of Stockholm and its residents, from the scummiest to the most privileged.—LL
