Forget quaint cottage gardens and picturesque trails—sometimes, Mother Nature has murder on her mind.
Growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Pennsylvania, I learned firsthand that the great outdoors isn’t just something to admire from afar. When you spend as much time as I did nibbling on sassafras leaves, watching out for copperheads, and dodging poison ivy, you realize nature has its own agenda.
In my novel, Smothermoss, I explore how an Appalachian mountain becomes both the collateral damage of a crime and ultimately an instrument of justice. This got me thinking about other works that juxtapose their examination of human wrongdoing with the raw power of nature.
One thing I love about many crime and mystery stories is how setting often plays a crucial role in creating atmosphere. But the books on this list go beyond using nature as mere scenery. Here, forests conceal bodies, the sea lures and mesmerizes, and violence enacted on the land is echoed in its people.
As you dive into these stories, you’ll find yourself questioning whether nature is ever truly neutral, or if it can be bent to serve the will of those with malicious intent—or even opt in on the side of justice. These five novels showcase how the natural world can become entangled in human crimes, blurring the lines between victim, accomplice, and perpetrator.
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
Based on the real-life Eilean Mor lighthouse mystery, this novel transforms a lonely rock in the sea into the stage for a locked-room puzzle. When a relief boat arrives at a lighthouse in the North Atlantic after a prolonged storm, all three keepers have vanished—leaving the door barred, an uneaten meal prepared on the table, and all the clocks stopped at a quarter to nine. The harsh conditions of lighthouse life mingle with hints of the supernatural, immersing readers in a world of freezing water, squelching seaweed, hurricane winds and “nothing for miles except sea and sea and sea.” Were the men driven mad by isolation and the relentless pounding of the waves? Did they kill each other or commit mutual suicide? Were they murdered by pirates, kidnapped by smugglers, or seduced by the sea itself into throwing themselves into her watery embrace?
The Night Flowers by Sara Herchenroether
Just before a lost hiker stumbles upon the remains of three murder victims stuffed into barrels and hidden in a remote brush-covered canyon in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, he “had the distinct impression of being pulled from below. That invisible hands gripped him, dragging him into the canyon.” He wonders, too, if it was only coincidence that one half of this mountain was a charred wasteland, while the other remained “dark, tangled, and wild.” At night, as he and his twisted ankle wait for rescue, the smell of absent flowers fill the air. Thirty years later, Laura begins to research the cold case as a distraction from her cancer treatment. What is cancer if not biology run amok? Laura’s struggle to escape her own body’s betrayal unexpectedly mirrors the killer’s need to control nature (which we glimpse in his meticulous gardening.) A great read for considering how human attempts to tame the world around us—and within us—can lead to both salvation and destruction.
Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie
Syd Walker, a Cherokee archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is suddenly pulled back to her rural Oklahoma roots when a chilling discovery is made in a tree near her childhood home: a skull with Syd’s badge stuffed in its mouth. Returning to Picher, a town ravaged by decades of unchecked lead and zinc mining and now one of America’s most toxic sites, Syd finds herself entangled in a web of personal and environmental tragedy as she learns her sister has vanished. Syd soon unearths a sinister trail of addiction, smuggling, and exploitation. Accompanied by the ghost of her murdered childhood friend whispering in her ear, Syd peels back layers of lawlessness and land grabs, exposing the brutal legacy of crimes committed against both the land and its Native American owners. As the epigraph puts it: “What happens to the land happens to the women.”
A Spectral Hue by Craig Gidney
Set in the enigmatic town of Shimmer, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, this slim novel blends art, nature, and magic into a tapestry as vibrant as the “ugly” quilt stitched by the town’s most famous resident, Hazel Whitby, weaving a hypnotic tale where the very landscape is alive with secrets. At the heart of the story is a mysterious pinkish-purple hue that pulses through the natural world, infusing the marsh grasses, the sunset-stained clouds, and the artwork of generations of Black artists. Though not a mystery in the traditional sense, there is crime here, and grave wrongs perpetrated over generations. A mix of ghost story, folklore, and magical realism, the mystery at the heart of Shimmer delves into complexities of identity, history, and artistic expression. Who or what is the mysterious presence in the marsh? Is she a force for creative inspiration or the cause of madness and suffering? Is she gift or curse? This one I can’t fully explain. You’ll just have to read it for yourself.
Shutter by Ramona Emerson
Rita Todacheene is a crime scene photographer with a unique gift – she can see ghosts. As she navigates the freezing winter streets of Albuquerque and the wind-scoured mesas of the Navajo Nation, the spirits of the dead are as much a part of the scenery for her as the wild horses running in the wash below her grandmother’s house. While the ghosts harass Rita into following-up on a series of crimes that eventually puts her in the crosshairs of a dirty cop who’s on the take from a powerful drug cartel, alternate chapters showcase Rita’s connection to her childhood home on the reservation, picking Navajo tea or collecting piñon seeds in the Chuska Mountains with her grandmother, balancing the violence she documents and the unhappy ghosts that clamor for her attention. Shutter isn’t just a crime novel, it’s an exploration of how nature, tradition, and the unseen world intersect.
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Alisa Alering is the author of the debut novel Smothermoss (Tin House).
