11 Crime Novels You Should Read This February

Abigail Dean, Girl A
(Viking)

I know it’s only February, but Girl A already looks to be one of biggest books of the year. In this powerful story of trauma, abuse, and long-delayed reckonings, the survivors of horrific family abuse must reconnect after the death of their mother. The siblings are still fractured by the alliances and betrayals of their childhood, and each is damaged—and attempting to heal—in their own way. A bleak and powerful tour-de-force that raises complex questions of responsibility and truth, Girl A is not to be missed. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor

Walter Mosley, Blood Grove
(Mulholland)

Mosley’s latest, Blood Grove, may just be one of the best novels in an already iconic detective series. A new client, a Vietnam vet with a mysterious story about a possible murder in an orange grove, sets Easy Rawlins down a dark path of SoCal washouts and suffering veterans. Meanwhile Easy’s own family life is undergoing new tensions, when his adopted daughter’s birth father shows up on the scene. Mosley manages to unfurl a genuinely captivating plot that travels a dark odyssey through the subcultures of 1969 LA, while also adding poignant new depth to the stories of long-running characters. Blood Grove is as satisfying as noir gets. –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief

Cynthia Pelayo, The Children of Chicago
(Agora)

Wow, this novel is scary. It’s about a serial killer known as “the Pied Piper” (cool, I’ll never sleep again) who kills children. Detective Lauren Medina lost her sister to him years before, and now he’s back. And she’s determined not to miss her chance to lead him to his doom. –Olivia Rutligliano, CrimeReads Assistant Editor

Nalini Singh, Quiet In Her Bones
(Berkley) 

Kiwi crime writer Nalini Singh thrilled the international crime scene with her sunburnt noir A Madness of Sunshine, and her latest work is just as stunning. In a wealthy New Zealand enclave, Aarav Rai, stuck in his father’s home while recuperating after a car accident, couldn’t be more miserable, even before the discovery of his long-missing mother’s corpse. While he should rest (especially given his medications), he’s not going to give his foggy mind a break until he discovers what really happened 10 years before. Full of twists, turns, and genuine emotion, Quiet in Her Bones cements Singh’s place in the modern pantheon of suspense. –MO

Catie Disabato, U Up?
(Melville House)

I adored Catie Disabato’s wildly playful debut The Ghost Network, detailing a fan’s obsessive quest to locate a missing pop star named Molly Metropolis, rumored to have vanished into a lost section of the Chicago train system. In Disabato’s long-awaited followup, U Up?, the Very Online and very traumatized Eve can see ghosts, and one of them—her best friend, Miggy—keeps up from the other side by texting. A lot. Eve’s other best friend is missing on the anniversary of Miggy’s death, and Eve must confront her fears, her ex-girlfriends, and many, many ghosts, as she winds through the vibrant LA queer scene, refreshing her Instagram and delving deep into her soul in search of a terrible truth. –MO

Paul Vidich, The Mercenary
(Pegasus)

Paul Vidich has staked himself a claim as one of the foremost espionage novelists working today, and he’s back this year with The Mercenary, an insightful and thought-provoking story about the attempted exfiltration of a KGB man from 1980s Moscow. Vidich’s characters are always rich, well-developed, and just on the border of unknowable, a perfect balance of shifting identity and allegiance. In short, this promises to be one of the year’s premier spy novels. –DM

Sarah Gailey, The Echo Wife
(Tor)

In The Echo Wife, a scientist renowned for her skills in cloning finds out that her husband has been cheating on her—with her clone. When the clone kills the husband, the scientist has to cover it up, or else the investigation might ruin her reputation and cause the community to question the efficacy of her research. She’s also got a certain level of sympathy for her genetic twin; her husband’s clumsy attempt to grow the perfect wife hobbled his creation and made her miserable. Innumerable plot twists ensue, leading to a perfect set-piece of an ending. –MO

Amy Gentry, Bad Habits
(HMH)

A triumphant convention dissolves into a personal nightmare as a literature professor finds herself confronted by past demons and fis orced to acknowledge some uncomfortable truths. In her graduate student days, she’d been a member of an elite interdisciplinary school known as “The Program,” led by a charismatic and ruthless academic with access to a coveted research grant used to pit students against each other. I dub this one “academic gothic.” –MO

Jane Harper, The Survivors
(Flatiron)

When Kieran Elliott returns to the coastal town where he grew up, he is consumed by guilt and fear about the tragedy that took place there, years before—the event that drove him away from his family, friends, neighbors. But when a body washes up onshore, it causes him to confront the past that has been haunting him for so long. -OR

Tod Goldberg, The Low Desert
(Counterpoint)

Tod Goldberg is the literary offspring of Elmore Leonard and Charles Portis, which means he’s smart, deep, and profoundly funny. The Low Desert, set in Goldberg’s Gangsterland universe, is a story collection that the publisher describes as equal parts Raymond Carver and Elmore Leonard (but I’d rather mention Charles Portis again). The Low Desert features Goldberg’s hit-man-turned-rabbi Sal Cupertine and a cast of tangentially related characters as they each face alienation, ambiguity, and uncertainty. –MO

Sarah Pearse, The Sanatorium
(Pamela Dorman Books)

Sarah Pearse’s atmospheric thriller involves a naive hotelier destroyed by his own hubris when he attempts to turn the ruins of a sanatorium into a swanky new destination for travelers. First, his architect vanishes. Then, the staff start disappearing. And then, an avalanche traps the rest of the staff, to be picked off one by one. Lucky for the rest of the hotel’s trapped denizens, there’s a British cop visiting, and she’s determined to hunt down the attacker, even as the weather rages outside and threatens to obliterate the entire cast in one fell swoop. –MO