Every month, like customs agents with a penchant for literature, we’re scouring the latest imports to these shores looking for the best crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers. Whether you’re a devotee of Nordic Noir, French crime, or you’re looking for the next big thing from the far corners of the mysterious world, chances are there’s a good book headed your way. This month brings fantastic noir and new thrillers from Sweden, Italy, France, and a visit to 1920s Calcutta.
Niklas Natt Och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman (Atria)
This incredibly disturbing trip into the grotesqueries of history is as well-written as it is well-researched, true to not only the detail of the time period but also true to its mores and atmosphere. At the start of Niklas Natt och Dag’s incredibly self-assured debut, a watchman in late 18th-century Sweden discovers a mutilated corpse floating in the local cesspool, and things only get darker from there. Written by a member of Sweden’s oldest living aristocratic family, and infused with a tear-it-all-down mentality, this one is not to be missed.
Giochinno Criaco, Black Souls (Soho Crime)
Criaco’s novel is an epic crime saga told with incredible intimacy, a moving and personal story that also relays the criminal history of a region—Calabria, Italy, long an outlaw territory and more recently the home of the clans and cliques that make up the ‘Ndrangheta mafia. Black Souls zeroes in on three young boys caught up in the region’s vacuum of poverty and lawlessness, then follows them as they rise up through the ranks of organized crime. Criaco is a Calabria native and the story has a strong personal touch, also showing a profound grasp of the region’s history, as well as its place in the global crime-scape.
Sara Blaedel, Her Father’s Secret (Grand Central)
Blaedel is a major force in Denmark’s booming crime fiction scene, and in her latest, her work is also a reflection of the world’s increasing fear of visiting the U.S., as a Danish woman travels to Wisconsin after receiving a strange bequest from an estranged father, and there finds herself drawn into the mystery around the killing of a local woman. Blaedel knows suspense and dread, both of which infuse her pages with a special kind of momentum.
Abir Mukherjee, Smoke and Ashes (Pegasus)
Abir Mukherjee’s historical crime series set in 1920s Calcutta has been winning acclaim and readers thanks to the lush world-building, intricate character work, and the remarkable wit with which the stories are told. In the new installment, Sam Wyndham and Surrender-Not Banerjee are back on a murder case and also trying to kick Wyndham’s disorienting opium habit. Mukherjee’s work is playful while also offering a serious look at colonialism and cross culture mystery.
Tanguy Viel, Article 353 (Other Press)
In this extremely French take on gentrification, land fraud, and other capitalist schemes, a real estate developer is cast into the sea in a depressed northern town after his plans to revitalize the area with a gleaming new seaside resort fail to come to fruition. Article 353 is as much about self-deception as it is about swindlers, with a narrative delivered by the down-on-his-luck man accused of killing the developer after failing to recoup his life savings, invested into the resort project as a last-ditch attempt to win back the affection of his estranged family.
Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna (HMH)
With this follow-up to his debut, Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions, Giordano looks to cement the series starring Auntie Poldi, retiree, wine aficionado, a woman of honor with a nose for mystery and an appreciation for the many delights of the Sicilian countryside. The Auntie Pold mysteries offer up plenty of great armchair traveling and detection, bringing a strong note of the sensual back to the southern European mystery.
