Our Favorite Crime Books of the Year

The crime and mystery community is nothing if not passionate. Its members read intensely, fall in love with authors and characters, and never shy away from a chance to champion the books they admire. It’s right there baked into the literature, which offers up thrills and insight in more or less equal measure, all the things we want from our stories and all the things we want to share with our fellow readers. There are more deserving books to champion all the time: 2018 was a banner year for thrillers, innovative mysteries, and hard-hitting noirs. Over the coming days, we’ll be revealing what we consider to be the best and most essential books of the year from categories across the world of suspense, but first we wanted to check in with the excellent writers and editors who make CrimeReads possible to find out what were their favorite books of the year.

Here you go: Our Favorite Crime Books of 2018. We hope you’ll read them all.

Araminta Hall, Our Kind of Cruelty (MCD x FSG)

What I particularly loved about this knockout suspense novel was the elegant, controlled voice which establishes itself from the first sentence as one of equal parts confidence and utter unreliability. There’s no good reason to trust what Michael is saying about his ex-girlfriend Verity, but the way in which he talks about her—and then fixes it so that people will remember her villainy, warranted or otherwise—leads to an ending that, nearly a year after I read it for the first time, still infuriates me on a molecular level, as was clearly Hall’s objective.

2018 Favorites: Rosalie Knecht, Who Is Vera Kelly? (Tin House); Michelle McNamara, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (Harper); Margalit Fox, Conan Doyle For the Defense (Random House); Alice Bolin, Dead Girls (William Morrow); Araminta Hall, Our Kind of Cruelty (MCD x FSG)

—Sarah Weinman, CrimeReads contributing editor
and columnist, author of The Real Lolita (Ecco)

A.J. Finn, The Woman in the Window (Morrow)

I thought this was the most over-hyped book of the year—then I read it and understood all that enthusiasm. It is the story of Anna Fox, a woman suffering from severe agoraphobia, confining her to her home where her major interests are drinking (Merlot), watching noir movies, and spying on her neighbors, especially the young man and his parents who live across a small park. Looking through their never-curtained window, she witnesses a brutal murder and calls the police. If the actual murder is the first shock in the book, the second is not far behind—and there are more to come.  Memorable!

2018 Favorites: John Hart, The Hush (St. Martin’s); Peter Swanson, All the Beautiful Lies (William Morrow); Megan Abbott, Give Me Your Hand (Little, Brown); Raymond Chandler, The Annotated Big Sleep (Vintage)

—Otto Penzler, proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop,
president of Penzler Publishers, founder of
Mysterious Press, editor of many, many great books

Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, The Serial Killer (Doubleday)

Oyinkan Braithwaite has been known for her short fiction already for years, yet this knowledge of Braithwaite’s developing international reputation could not prepare me for the stunning maturity of thought, work, and anger which her debut novel is built upon. Two sisters, one conventionally attractive, and the other plain and practical, are constantly at odds with each other, not least because the more beautiful sister keeps killing her boyfriends, and the more practical sister keeps stepping in to help hide the bodies. As their sisterly bonds are tested, then strengthened, My Sister The Serial Killer becomes both rollicking good story and parody of collaborative enterprise, and finally, a novel that laughs while spitting in the face of the patriarchy. Also, this book makes a really good case for becoming competent with using bleach to clean up blood. Only a crime novel could make cleaning seem this high-stakes…

2018 Favorites: Eva Dolan, This Is How It Ends (Bloomsbury), Antoine Laurain, Smoking Kills (Gallic Books), Hye-Young Pyun, City of Ash and Red (Arcade), Liz Nugent, Lying In Wait (Gallery/Scout)

—Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Associate Editor

Katrina Carrasco, The Best Bad Things (MCD x FSG)

A terrific historical crime debut, filled with action, atmosphere, twists, glorious writing, and an audacious upending of gender stereotypes. In Port Townsend, Washington, 1887, an ex-Pinkerton agent named Alma Rosales is hunting for opium stolen from her crime boss employer. So is Jack Camp, a rough dockside brawler with his own plans for the opium. Neither knows whom to trust, for each knows well that in this town nobody is who he or she seems to be. For Alma Rosales and Jack Camp are the same person. Who is Alma, really? Whomever she needs to be. Staggeringly good.

2018 Favorites: Lou Berney, November Road (William Morrow); Katrina Carrasco, The Best Bad Things (MCD/FSG)

—Neil Nyren, Editor-at-Large, retired as evp, associate
publisher, and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Sara Gran, The Infinite Blacktop (Atria)

Sara Gran’s books are mysteries about mysteries, as I wrote earlier this year. In her latest, The Infinite Blacktop, Gran’s protagonist, Claire de Witt, has several mysteries to solve: some are actual cases, as in tracking down the motorist who tried to kill her in Oakland, CA (this is the titular Case of the Infinite Blacktop). Other mysteries are  the forces that have shaped De Witt’s life, primarily the disappearance of her friend Tracy in New York City when they were teenagers. Though Blacktop is the third in the De Witt series, the keen intelligence and purposely staccato rhythms of Gran’s writing makes any book a decent starting place. You’ll learn more about the nature of mysteries (which is distinct from the nature of crime) from reading Gran than you would reading anyone; it’s no surprise that many of Gran’s fans are crime writers themselves. She’s that good.

2018 Favorites: Sara Gran, The Infinite Blacktop (Atria); Camilla Way, The Lies We Told (Berkley Books); Alafair Burke, The Wife (Harper); Jennifer Hiller, Jar of Hearts (Minotaur); Paula Daly, Open Your Eyes (Grove Press)

—Lisa Levy, CrimeReads and Lit Hub contributing editor

Volker Kutscher, Goldstein (Picador)

The Babylon Berlin series of 1920s detective stories featuring Weimar cop Gereon Rath are now an international phenomenon—8 books in German, and now (with Goldstein) 3 in English, plus a hit TV adaptation. And Goldstein is maybe the best of the series so far—American gangster Abraham Goldstein is in Berlin’s Hotel Excelsior and being watched by both the FBI and Gereon Rath, who finds himself in the middle of a Berlin gang war with the Nazis coming round the corner. Volker Kutscher’s Babylon Berlin series is like the bastard love child of Christopher Isherwood and Raymond Chandler.

2018 Favorites: Guy Bolton, The Syndicate (Oneworld Publications); Robin Robertson, The Long Take (Knopf); Joseph Knox, The Smiling Man (Crown Publishing Group); Volker Kucher, Goldstein (Picador); Tom Callaghan, An Autumn Killing (Emily Bestler Books)

—Paul French, CrimeReads contributing editor,
author most recently of City of Devils (Picador)

Kelby Losack, The Way We Came In (Broken River)

In The Way We Came In, Kelby Losack tells a story about twin brothers in the Gulf Coast region of Texas, ordinary young guys working a drug deal so they can pay their rent. Losack writes a raw yet superbly controlled book, each short chapter delivering pain, humor, menace. He has the economy of the no-nonsense rappers he draws influence from, and somewhat in the mode of the TV show Atlanta, he can be both dreamlike and seriously hard-edged. It’s a book you can read in an hour, but it has the heft of something much longer.

2018 Favorites: Kelby Losack, The Way We Came In (Broken River); William Boyle, The Lonely Witness (Pegasus); Jason Starr, Fugitive Red (Oceanview Publishing)

—Scott Adlerberg, author of Jack Waters (Broken River)

Lou Berney, November Road (William Morrow)

It’s November 20, 1963 and Frank Guidry able lieutenant of New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello is given an unusual assignment: go all the way to Dallas and leave a getaway car in an underground garage near Dealey Plaza. Meanwhile Charlotte Roy has left her alcoholic husband and with her two daughters in tow heads out of dreary Oklahoma City along Route 66. After JFK is assassinated Guidry flees west and meets Charlotte. What ensues is a lyrical, gorgeously drawn, love-story/road-movie thriller; November Road marks a new high in the ascending career of Lou Berney.

2018 Favorites: Anna Burns, Milkman (Graywolf); Lou Berney, November Road (William Morrow); Steve Cavanagh, Thirteen (Orion); Attica Locke, Bluebird, Bluebird (Little, Brown); Leila Slimani, The Perfect Nanny (Penguin)

—Adrian McKinty, author of the Sean Duffy series,
The Lighthouse Trilogy, and other books

Daniel Silva, The Other Woman (Harper)

Written by one of the most gifted authors still currently working,The Other Woman proves once and for all that Daniel Silva is more than just the best spy novelist alive today … he’s one of the greatest spy novelists of all-time.

2018 Favorites: Brad Thor, Spymaster (Atria/Emily Bestler); Kyle Mills, Red War (Atria/Emily Bestler);Mark Greaney, Agent in Place (Berkley); C.J. Box, The Disappeared (G.P. Putnam’s Sons); Jack Carr, The Terminal List (Atria/Emily Bestler)

—Ryan Steck, author, CrimeReads columnist and
founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Real Book Spy

Craig Rice, Home Sweet Homicide (Penzler Publishers)

This novel shouldn’t work. It stars three precocious kids and their widowed mystery-writing mother, who together solve a neighborhood murder. The combination of banter, midcentury youth slang, and authorial amusement about the different ways that children and adults comprehend and wrestle with the world ought to be too twee and saccharine to bear. It’s a testament to Craig Rice’s delicacy of touch and wry humor that, instead, this cotton candy-light confection is as cozy and fun a mystery as you’ll find. It’s as delightful an escape from today’s troubles as it would have been for the war-weary population who read it when it was first published in 1944; its return to print thanks to Penzler Publishers is worth celebrating.

2018 Favorites: Sara Gran, The Infinite Blacktop (Atria); Craig Rice, Home Sweet Homicide (Penzler Publishers)

—Levi Stahl, editor of The Getaway Car:
A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany

David Joy, The Line That Held Us (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

This is a crime novel wrapped in a Souther Gothic. Beautifully written and brutal, The Line That Held Us shows Joy at the top of his game. He understands the psychogeography of the Appalachians like few other writers and possesses a knack for mixing brutality and poetry. There ar no bad David Joy books, and this one is his best yet.

2018 Favorites: Lou Berney, November Road (William Morrow); Jennifer Hillier, Jar of Hearts (Minotaur); Laird Barron, Blood Standard (G. P. Putnam’s Sons); Debra Jo Immergut, Captives (Ecco); David Joy, The Line That Held Us (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

—Gabino Iglesias, author of Coyote Songs
(Broken River) and Zero Saints (Broken River)

Michelle McNamara, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (Harper)

The one book I pre-ordered, read immediately upon arrival, and spent the rest of the year shoving on friends and strangers alike is I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (with assistance, since Michelle died before the book was published). I read a lot about crime (part of the job) but this book was the first in a while that gave me chills. It reminded me how tragically real, personal, and devastating crime is—which is something I want to remember for professional reasons as well as human ones.

2018 Favorites: Lou Berney, November Road (William Morrow); Michelle McNamara, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (Harper); Catriona McPherson, Go To My Grave (Minotaur)

—Lori Rader-Day, CrimeReads contributor and
author most recently of Under a Dark Sky (William Morrow)

Philip Kerr, Greeks Bearing Gifts (Marian Wood / Putnam)

Bernie Gunther is lucky to have survived as long as he has. A sardonic, concupiscent, onetime Berlin homicide cop and escaped Russian POW, he’s crossed enough World War II-era Nazi officials to earn his own cross—atop a cold, shallow grave. His 13th outing finds Gunther in 1957 trying to lie low under a phony moniker, only to be recognized and threatened by a dirty Munich detective, then hired by a German insurance company as a claims adjuster, charged with investigating a suspicious ship sinking in Greece. After that vessel’s owner is slain in a strangely familiar fashion, and Gunther’s probe of the sinking links to the wartime theft of valuables from Jews bound for Auschwitz, there’s little question that our hero’s past again threatens his future. Kerr, who died last March, was masterful at concocting thrillers abundant in the nuances of 20th-century politics. Lucky us: He left behind a final, 14th Gunther novel, Metropolis, which is due out in April.

2018 Favorites: Derek B. Miller, American By Day (Houghton Mifflin); Philip Kerr, Greeks Bearing Gifts (Marian Wood / Putnam); Dervla McTiernan, The Ruin (Penguin Books); Martin Edwards, Gallows Court (Head of Zeus); Laura Lippman, Sunburn (William Morrow)

—J. Kingston Pierce, CrimeReads contributing editor
and founder of The Rap Sheet and Killer Covers

Chris Bohjalian, The Flight Attendant (Doubleday)

Flight attendant Cassandra Bowden wakes up in a Dubai hotel next to a dead man. Bowden, whose life-long vice is self-medicating to the max via rivers of alcohol, reckless one-night stands, and chasm-deep blackouts, knows she met the man on a flight, and happily spent the evening and night with him, including chatting and drinking with another woman who stopped by his hotel room for a visit. So who slashed the man’s throat, and why? A thriller that plays out at 35,000 feet as well as on the ground, Bohjalian’s Flight Attendant is a cannily crafted page-turner.

Favorite 2018: Kate Atkinson, Transcription (Little, Brown); Sarah Weinman, The Real Lolita (Ecco); Louise Candlish, Our House (Berkley); Rob Hart, Potter’s Field (Polis); Louise Penny, Kingdom of the Blind (Minotaur)

—Daneet Steffens, critic, essayist, CrimeReads contributor

Gordon McAlpine, Holmes Entangled (Seventh Street Books)

McAlpine’s latest novel begins with Jorge Luis Borges skulking through the streets of Buenos Aires on his way to meet with a private detective who turns out to be one of his own fictional creations, and the book just gets stranger, and more exhilarating from there. Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective, is the centerpiece here, but all manner of authors and their fictional creations pass through the story, which is either about a government conspiracy or an inter-dimensional slipstream conflict, depending on your perspective and your belief system. The novel is more complex and cleverer than it has any right to be and quite honestly, I didn’t think it would be my cup of tea. But somehow McAlpine pulls it all off with not just aplomb, but genuine insight. As it turns out, this was my favorite of the year, and I can’t wait to read more of McAlpine’s work.

2018 Favorites: Gordon McAlpine, Holmes Entangled (Seventh Street Books); Jonathan Abrams, All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire (Crown Archetype); Alison Gaylin, If I Die Tonight (William Morrow); Michael Kardos, Bluff (Mysterious Press); Alex Segura, Blackout (Polis)

—Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Managing Editor

R.O. Kwon, The Incendiaries (Riverhead)

The Incediaries by R.O. Kwon might not be the obvious choice for a favorite crime novel, but at its core the story is one of choices, violence and the shockwaves reverberating back and forth in time from a single action, slamming into the reader on the very first page. The mystery of the rooftop gathering—the celebrants swilling wine and laughing as they watch a bombed building collapse—is explored from a prism of characters and angles, each new shaft of light illuminating further motives and transgressions, all leading up and back to the original sin.

2018 Favorites: Megan Abbott, Give Me Your Hand (Little, Brown); Sarah Weinman, The Real Lolita (Ecco); Paul Tremblay, The Cabin at the End of the World (William Morrow); Joe Ide, Wrecked (Mulholland); R.O. Kwon, The Incendiaries (Riverhead)

—Steph Post, author of Miraculum (Polis), Walk in the Fire, and others 

Laura Lippman, Sunburn (William Morrow)

A modern noir that feels timeless and also very much of the moment, Sunburn is remarkable on many levels – including the idea that the acclaimed Lippman manages to level up from her already spectacular string of novels with this sexy, taut, and imaginative standalone. Featuring a conflicted, scrappy protagonist in the mysterious Polly, and a cast of double-crossing characters populating a menacing small town backdrop, Sunburn has all the elements of a mystery classic. You’ll finish this book in one sitting, so make sure you savor it slowly the second time around. It’s that good.

2018 Favorites: Sara Grann, The Infinite Blacktop (Atria); Megan Abbott, Give Me Your Hand (Little Brown); Sarah Weinman, The Real Lolita (Ecco); Laura Lippman, Sunburn (William Morrow); Jonathan Lethem, The Feral Detective (Ecco)

—Alex Segura, CrimeReads contributing editor
and author of the Pete Fernandez series

Sam Wiebe, Cut You Down (Quercus)

No one is writing contemporary Vancouver better than Sam Wiebe. Taking in the full life of a North American city while also building out a clever plot that upends femme fatale tropes, creating an incredibly smart and frightening villain in their place, is what Wiebe achieves in Cut You Down. It’s a book that shows the city I lived in for a decade isn’t just the postcard tech-hub hiking paradise, but a complex centre of class conflict, where people just trying to pay rent live half a block down from the CEOs of ultra-rich conglomerates. And, as with any situation equally rich in financial opportunity, desperation, and ambition, there’s always crime.

2018 Favorites: Laura Lippman, Sunburn (William Morrow); Sarah Weinman, The Real Lolita (Ecco); James Lee Burke, Robicheaux (Simon and Schuster); Charles Willeford, Understudy for Death (reissue) (Hard Case Crime); Sam Wiebe, Cut You Down (Quercus)

—Naben Ruthnum / Nathan Ripley, author of Find You in the Dark (Atria)
and Curry: Eating, Reading, & Race (Coach House)

Karin Brynard, Weeping Waters (Europa)

Weeping Waters is the rare book I recommend to every person in my life. It’s got something for everyone: a twisty murder plot, two heroes it’s a pleasure to root for, and an introduction to a world few American readers know. Set in a small town in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert, Weeping Waters digs deep into the complex structures of racism and oppression that have emerged from apartheid, masterfully combining personal with political wrongs. Brynard’s got an ex-reporter’s nose for the truth, and in Weeping Waters, it shows. This may be crime fiction, but the story’s as true as it gets.

2018 Favorites: Christobel Kent, The Day She Disappeared (Sarah Chricton); Karin Brynard, Weeping Waters (Europa); George Pelecanos, The Man Who Came Uptown (Mulholland); Jonathan Lethem, The Feral Detective (Ecco)

—Lily Meyer, critic and CrimeReads contributor

Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room (Scribner)

2018 Favorites: Clare Fuller, Bitter Orange (Tin House Books); Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room (Scribner); Alan Hollinghurst, The Sparsholt Affair (Knopf)

—Julia Ingalls, essayist and CrimeReads contributor

Lisa Unger, Under My Skin (Park Row)

Lisa Unger is that rare writer whose body of work evidences remarkable versatility—mysteries, thrillers, supernatural, she can do all of it—but with a consistent and identifiable creative voice and sensibility. But I’ll go out on a limb and say that Under My Skin is my favorite kind of Unger book, where a marriage drives both characterization and plot. With Unger at the wheel, love feels raw, reckless, relentless, and entirely real. It can be dangerous but empowering and is utterly unstoppable, and she wields it masterfully to drive the narrative. UNDER MY SKIN is a breathless, beautifully written novel, one of my favorites of 2018.

2018 Favorites: Michael Connelly, Dark Sacred Night (Little Brown and Co); Lisa Unger, Under My Skin (Park Row); Michael Koryta, How It Happened (Little Brown and Co); Megan Abbott, Give Me Your Hand (Little Brown and Co)

—Alafair Burke, author of The Better Sister (Harper), The Wife, and others

Nathaniel Rich, King Zeno (MCD x FSG)

Expertly-crafted and glittering with historical detail, King Zeno uses the story of the New Orleans Axeman murders to illuminate a broad vision of life in the city at the end of World War I, in the years that saw the birth of jazz, the construction of the Industrial Canal, and the arrival of the Spanish flu. These were vibrant and tumultuous times in the Crescent City, and, while the intersecting narratives of an ensemble cast give the book’s grand context a human scale, the main character is the city itself, trembling with panic as a killer stalks its streets.

2018 Favorites: Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, The Serial Killer (Doubleday); Leila Slimani, The Perfect Nanny (Penguin Books); Tana French, The Witch Elm (Viking); Araminta Hall, Our Kind of Cruelty (MCD x FSG); Nathaniel Rich, King Zeno (MCD x FSG)

—Charles Perry, publisher of Penzler Publishers

T.J. English, The Corporation (William Morrow)

T.J. English is America’s most authoritative and varied chronicler of organized crime. From a history of Irish mobsters in the United States (Paddy Whacked), to Vietnamese gangs (Born to Kill), to the mafia’s casinos in 1950s Havana (Havana Nocturne), every T.J. English book presents a fascinating slice of crime history that’s always well-researched and sober-minded while remaining a lively read. In The Corporation, English returns to Cuba picking up where Havana Nocturne left off with Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959. Following the failed 1961 invasion attempt, one Bay of Pigs veteran ascends through the American underworld to become the Godfather of the Cuban mob, “The Corporation.” Spanning nearly 50 years with a diverse cast of players including the Italian mafia, the CIA, and JFK, The Corporation tells enough true stories for 10 books, yet it seamlessly reads like the most breathtaking fictional page-turner.

2018 Favorites: Kent Anderson, Green Sun (Mulholland Books); Chris Offutt, Country Dark (Grove Press); Lou Berney, November Road  (William Morrow); John Straley, Baby’s First Felony (Soho Press); George Pelecanos, The Man Who Came Uptown (Mulholland Books); T.J. English, The Corporation (William Morrow)

—Tom Wickersham, manager of The Mysterious Bookshop

Keigo Higashino, Newcomer (Minotaur)

For people like me, who love the Golden Age mysteries of the 1930s and 40s and are depressed that most of their favorite writers are dead, Keigo Higashino deserves to be your friend. His writing follows the tradition of classic “death is but a logic puzzle”-type mysteries, while at the same time feeling completely fresh. Newcomer, his second book featuring Detective Kyoichiro Kaga that’s been published in English (but you can start with this book and not be confused), has an unusual structure. Rather than follow the detective from one interview to the next, so that the reader is introduced to suspects at the same time the detective is, each chapter of Newcomer opens with a different character who works in the neighborhood where a murdered woman was seen on her last day alive.  We meet a girl who helps out in her family’s rice cracker store, a boy who works in a clock shop, a newlywed who’s crushed that the woman of his dreams can’t get along with his mother. With the ease of a masterful short story writer, Higashino pulls you into the everyday drama of each world so that before long, you forget what the point of the book even is–until Detective Kaga appears like a magic trick, introduced afresh through the eyes of a new character. Kaga himself is in step with casually dashing detectives like Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn: young, affable, just slightly eccentric, seemingly harmless till his mind closes on you like a steel trap. The culmination of the book will satisfy even the most demanding of mystery lovers, and reassure them that tradition and innovation can go hand in hand.

2018 Favorites: Fred Vargas, The Accordionist; Boris Akunin, All the World’s a Stage; Leila Slimani, The Perfect Nanny (Penguin); Ane Riel, Resin; Keigo Higashino, Newcomer (Minotaur)

—Emily Rose Stein, CrimeReads contributing editor