When it comes to conjuring atmosphere, good old Pathetic Fallacy is one of literature’s hardest working tropes. From the desolate Arctic setting of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to the tumultuous wind-blown moors in Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, what’s happening with the weather can speak volumes about our characters’ state of mind and the demons they battle (not to mention where the bodies might be buried…).
But something particularly potent happens when the mercury rises in crime fiction. In hot weather whodunnits, blood is spattered, the humidity builds, and our protagonists navigate heat-wizened landscapes and sweat-soaked clues to track down killers who lurk, not in shadows, but under the glare of the burning sun. It’s a lesser trodden path, but when done right, searing temperatures can make for some of the most compelling crime fiction around.
I’m a sucker for treating the weather as a silent protagonist in my stories–I’ve sent grief-stricken heroines into raging cyclones and had housewives track down serial killers in sweltering Californian summers. So here’s my list of some of the finest, most evocative crime novels that take place during heatwaves, from arid outback procedurals to claustrophobic city thrillers.
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Jane Harper, The Dry
Harper is the undeniable queen of Outback noir, using boab-flecked landscapes and searing Australian heat to add tension to her stifling small-town narratives. With The Dry, her smash hit debut, we follow Federal Police agent Aaron Falk as he returns to his rural hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, Luke Hadler, who died in an apparent murder suicide alongside his wife and young son.
But when Luke’s parents press Falk to investigate further, dark secrets bubble to the surface and Falk’s own murky past is called into question. The action takes place in the fictional farming community of Kiewarra during the arid, unbearably hot Dry season. With a backdrop of scrubby crop fields, desiccated riverbeds and vast Outback emptiness, the heat swells from every page, creating a claustrophobic yet utterly compulsive reading experience.
Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley
Sprawling across a long, hot summer in Italy, Highsmith’s sun-baked 1950s classic follows the ruthlessly ambitious Tom Ripley, who’ll stop at nothing in his bid for success and self-preservation. When he is approached by shipping magnate Herbert Greenleaf and asked to persuade Greenleaf’s wayward son, Dickie, to return to the United States, Ripley has no qualms with exaggerating his own connections and accepting.
The resulting recce mission is filled with lies, manipulation and, ultimately, murder. Ripley is tantalizingly amoral, but it’s the picturesque coastal setting, with its mirrored seas and sultry summer heat, that make this an irresistible heatwave read.
Emma Cline, The Girls
An infamous ranch in the dusty Californian desert forms the centre point for Cline’s eerie meditation on magnetism and murder. Loosely inspired by the Manson cult and the murder of starlet Sharon Tate, it follows restless, lonely fourteen-year-old Evie in the searing summer of 1969.
Evie’s life is changed forever when, one day, she encounters The Girls, wild and beautiful-looking, hair long and uncombed and led by the intoxicating Suzanne, who invites Evie back to the decaying ranch they call home to meet the enigmatic Russell Hadrick. What follows is murky, savage and shocking.
The prose is stifling and beautiful and Cline’s characters are hauntingly, vividly drawn. But it’s the environment that provides much of the tension here, with heat radiating from every line and leaving a grubby tarnish on everything it touches.
Amy McCulloch, Runner 13
The unforgiving sandstorms and blistering heat of the Sahara Desert form the evocatively brutal setting for this pulse-pounding thriller. Set in the world of extreme endurance racing (McCulloch herself even ran the punishing 156-mile Marathon des Sables for research) it follows Adri who is returning to ultrarunning in the wake of a scandal.
Her aim is to prove to everyone, including her young son, that she is still a winner, but as the tension builds and the competition closes in, so too does the weather—tents are destroyed by vicious sandstorms, runners succumb to heatstroke and soon enough, bodies start piling up. Adri can outrun most people in the pack, but as the heat rises to unbearable levels, is she really made to outrun a killer?
Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile
Christie over-wintered in Egypt herself before writing this 1937 Poirot page turner, which sees the mustachioed sleuth board a luxury Nile steamer for a much-needed holiday, only for one of his fellow guests to show up dead in her cabin. As the much-loved formula dictates, it falls to Hercule Poirot to delve deep into the lives of the steamer’s passengers to discover just who put a small caliber bullet in the head of lovely Linnet Doyle.
Could it be the romance novelist? The Italian archaeologist? Or Linnet’s jealous love rival, and former friend, Jacqueline de Bellefort?
Dripping with luxury, excess and drama, the novel leans heavily on its sultry Aswan setting, with expensive jewellery, glasses of Champagne and the polished barrels of shotguns all glittering under the glare of the heady Egyptian sun.
Emma Flint, Little Deaths
Little Deaths is based on the real-life case of Alice Crimmins, an American mother who was accused of murdering her two young children in Queens in 1965. The book recasts Crimmins as Ruth Malone, a single mother and cocktail waitress who wakes to find her two children have disappeared from their New York apartment in the middle of a heatwave that has the city in its grip.
A gruesome discovery shortly after puts Malone in the spotlight for murder, and the police—and press—are quick to cast aspersions: Malone is an unfit mother, oversexualized, provocative, wild. As the heat bulges at the windows and cops continue to watch Ruth, the narrative is interspersed with news articles about the case, demonstrating an all-to-familiar trial by press.
It’s not a neat narrative, and you’ll likely come away with questions, even doubts, but this is beautifully drawn, atmospheric look at the way women are treated by the police, the press and a society that expects them to wordlessly fit a certain mould.
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