The CrimeReads editors make their picks for the best new fiction in crime, mystery, and thrillers.
Naomi Hirahara, Evergreen
(Soho)
Hirahara’s Clark and Division was one of the more accomplished crime novels in recent memory, and this year she’s following it up with Evergreen, following Aki Ito and her family as they make the journey from Chicago back to California, where they find the Japanese-American community in distress. Evergreen dives into the shadows of Boyle Heights and Little Tokyo to tell a story about one of the darker chapters of American history. With these books focused on the Japanese-American experience of post-WWII America, Hirahara has found a pivotal subject and brought her immense talents to bear. –DM
Catherine Chidgey, Pet
(Europa)
Damn this book is good. Pet is at once a brilliant coming-of-age thriller and a sharp dissection of racism and misogyny in 1980s New Zealand (apologies, a previous version of this post had the setting as Australia). When a new teacher comes to town, every girl in class is swooning over her glamor and vying to be her favorite, even when the competition for affection tears lifelong friendships apart. Meanwhile, someone’s been stealing things in the classroom. Little things, but they’re greatly missed. And someone will have to take the blame, because for every pet, there’s a scapegoat. –MO
Mindy Mejia, To Catch a Storm
(Atlantic Monthly Press)
In Mejia’s latest (the launch of a new series), an atmospheric physicist with a husband gone missing teams up with an unlikely partner—a self-declared psychic detective. The pair begin a mad dash around Iowa, fighting the elements, fleeing authorities, and wrestling with doubt and skepticism along the way. Mejia brings out the tension perfectly and crafts a thriller that will drive readers barreling forward. –DM
Denise Mina, The Second Murderer: A Philip Marlowe Novel
(Mulholland)
The Second Murderer is the latest in the strange afterlife of one Philip Marlowe, and it represents a return to form for the series, the most interesting iteration since Lawrence Osborne took a crack at it with Only to Sleep. Mina has obviously made a close study of Chandler’s particular brand of poetics, while still bringing her own enviable style to the story, which traverses high and low Los Angeles of the period. Mina also brings a critical eye to Marlowe in the best sense possible: understanding him in his core. His weaknesses are on display, but so is the deep strain of romanticism underpinning this seemingly immortal literary character. –DM
Christine Mangan, The Continental Affair
(Flatiron)
Mangan has quickly made a name for herself as a purveyor of international mystery with a dash of glamor. Sure enough, The Continental Affair brings us onto a train from Belgrade to Istanbul and into a story that will hop from one lushly recreated locale to the next. A woman on that train is holding a good sum of money; a man on the same train has been sent to collect it. Their stories will take readers down a gauntlet of rich settings and haunting back stories. –DM
Jesse Q. Sutanto, I’m Not Done With You Yet
(Berkley)
Man, does Jesse Q. Sutano know how to plot a novel! By God. You know when novels start out by showing how their protagonists have it all: great career, attractive and successful spouses, beautiful homes? This starts out with the complete opposite premise! Jane’s books don’t really sell, she’s got a bland marriage, and she’s stuck paying a mortgage for a house she barely likes. She misses Thalia, a friend from her past; her best friend, her soulmate, whom she hasn’t seen since the horrible, bloody night one decade earlier. Now, though, Thalia has written a book–a book that seems like it could be about that fateful moment, a book that is poised to rocket to #1. And so Jane heads to the book launch, to see her old friend again. Because she’s not done with Thalia. And Thalia, clearly, is not done with her. I told you! What a premise! –OR
Jamison Shea, I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me
(Henry Holt)
In this ballet horror novel, a young ballerina is given a chance at power after a star of the company takes her under her wing. But all power comes at a cost, and this power derives from an ancient source with its own agenda. I’m not sure what it is about dance that lends itself so well to horror—think Black Swan or Suspiria—but add this one to the list of stories that take the bloody feet and brutal precision of the dance world and turn them into visceral horror. –MO
David Joy, Those We Thought We Know
(Putnam)
Joy is back this year with a new novel about a small mountain town in North Carolina and a pair of crimes that resonate through the community. The story follows an artist from Atlanta looking to explore her family roots and the investigation into a presumed vagrant who turns out to be a Klansman on a mission. Joy weaves the stories together and comes out the other side with a richly-layered vision of a small town living through the broader crises of a divided nation increasingly enamored with violence. –DM
Stephen Kearse, Liquid Snakes
(Soft Skull)
This book has the best tagline: “What if toxic pollutants traveled up the socioeconomic ladder rather than down it?” Kearse weaves together two main stories: a Black biochemist-turned-coffee-shop-owner in mourning for his stillborn daughter, dead because of toxic chemicals leaking into Black neighborhoods, and crafting a toxic revenge plan, and two Black epidemiologists investigating the mysterious death of a high school girl. Liquid Snakes is a compelling dystopian novel that rewards careful reading and uses the structure of a criminal investigation to channel righteous anger and explore weighty questions. –MO
Ken Jaworowski, Small Town Sins
(Henry Holt)
In a tough Pennsylvania town on the precipice, three lives and three stories barrel toward calamity in this debut novel from Ken Jaworowski. Small Town Sins gives us a portrait of modern America in all its dark complexity, as Jaworowski brings insight and empathy to his characters’ struggles, while always maintaining the story’s strong momentum. –DM
