I’m tired of living in this world. Let’s take some time to imagine others. These authors have done so in spades, crafting immersive narratives full of possibility (and also at least some kind of nefarious doings because this is a CrimeReads list). Whether you’re looking for fantasy noir, science fiction heists, or alternative imaginings of the past, you’ll find something on this list to distract, entertain, and possibly even inspire. Hope springs eternal, especially in genre fiction.
Makana Yamamoto, Hammagang Luck
(Harper Voyager, January 14)
Hawaiians in space, planning a heist—what’s not to love? In this queer anti-capitalist caper, former outlaw Edie is determined to abide by the law after 8 years in prison, but their loved ones are in need of more money than a regular job can provide—so Edie reluctantly agree to one last job, organized by Angel, their femme-fatale-will-they-or-won’t-they former partner in crime, and the source of much unresolved sexual tension with the novel’s handsome enby lead. Angel’s got a plan to rob the richest man in the galaxy, and she’s assembled a team that might just pull off the toughest heist in galactic history.
Margarita Montimore, The Dollhouse Academy
(Flatiron, February 11)
In her new novel, Montimore takes the star factory studio system of turn-of-the-millenium pop music into a speculative thrill ride with deep implications for the future of art. The Dollhouse Academy follows two young strivers, bursting with potential and ripe for exploitation, as they begin training at an elite academy dedicated to shaping today’s raw talent into tomorrow’s stars. I’ll let readers discover the speculative elements on their own, but I will say that the ending was quite satisfying.
Nick Newman, The Garden
(Putnam, February 18)
If Emily Bronte had written On the Beach, it might have read something like this. Two aging sisters, safe behind a high wall and forgotten by the disintegrating world, find their small kingdom upended by the arrival of a young boy. Will they accept him into the fold, or will he lead them out of the garden? Or will a darker series of events come to pass? I found myself haunted by this dark fable and impressed with the balance between archetype and story.
Cory O’Brien, Two Truths and a Lie
(Pantheon, March 4)
It’s hard to believe this is Cory O’Brien’s debut, given the sophisticated plotting and world-weary tone—Two Truths and a Lie already feels bound to be a classic. O’Brien channels the spirit of Hammett and Chandler in his futuristic ode to Chinatown and The Long Goodbye, set in a future Los Angeles mostly inundated with water and home to a wide variety of scrappy denizens, hustling con artists, and veterans of the AI wars (both human and machine). The scruffy antihero narrating the tale is a former drone operator turned fact checker who finds himself embroiled in a Byzantine plot featuring erased memories, manipulative rich people, and dark secrets, with more twists than a mid-century candy wrapper. The conclusion is logical, devastating, and necessary.
Silvia Park, Luminous
(Simon and Schuster, March 11)
A United Korea in the nearish future is the setting for Silvia Park’s deeply human take on artificial life. The estranged children of a robotics pioneer are reunited by the search for a missing, and rare, robot unit, one who may lead them to their sorely missed, and entirely artificial, brother.
Alex Gonzalez, rekt
(Erewhon, March 25)
Alex Gonzalez has perfectly captured the horrors of the dark web in this disturbing exploration of grief, trauma, and violence. After Sammy loses his girlfriend of almost a decade to a shocking car accident, he finds himself drawn to the worst possible content online, trying to numb himself to personal misery through dedicated consumption of public tragedies. When he finds himself on a site that appears to show not just how someone died, but all the ways they could have died, he can’t look away. Who are the people responsible for such a sick exercise in creativity? And does he want to stop them, or join them?
Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption
(Del Rey, April 1)
Robert Jackson Bennett’s immersive world-building, engaging characterizations, and intricate mysteries are once again on display in this second mystery to feature the Watson-and-Sherlock duo of Ana Dolabra and Dinios Kol, investigators for a vast empire full of cruel masters and strange magicks. This book was so fucking creepy and good. Y’all all need to read it so we can all talk about the shroud.
Jane Flett, Freakslaw
(Zando, April 1)
THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING. In an ode to Tod Browning’s Freaks, Kathryn Dunn’s Geek Love, and Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, a carnival with sinister intentions arrives in a town with a terrible past, ready to unleash chaos on the conforming while liberating the weird. Grotesque, creepy, and celebratory, Freakslaw is sure to be one biggest books of the year (and possibly, one of the defining novels of the century).
Adam Oyebanji, Esperance
(DAW, May 20)
Adam Oyebanji has crafted another brilliant melange of science fiction and murder mystery, with a heady dose of Afrofuturism thrown into the mix. In a seemingly impossible crime, a number of bodies are found drowned in seawater, and far from the ocean. Meanwhile, a woman with strange talents and even stranger technologies seeks information related to a singular 18th-century voyage marked by disaster and cruelty. The Esperance does something very tricky, and does it quite well indeed.
Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints
(Harper Voyager, May 20)
A castle under siege and about to run out of food is the setting for Starling’s latest. When mysterious strangers arrive promising victory and sustenance, the defenders let them in, but at what cost? And what bargains must be struck to be rid of them? This book was messed up (in the best way).
Tochi Onyebuchi, Harmattan Season
(Tor, May 27)
Tochi Onyebuchi is one of the most creative writers around, and Harmattan Season showcases both his world-building talents and his sly sense of humor. Set in a West African city full of traditional magic and annoying French colonizers, Harmattan Season follows a rumpled private eye looking into a string of murders that have baffled the occupiers and worried the locals.
Vaishnavi Patel, Ten Incarnations of Rebellion
(Ballantine, June 3)
In this epic alternative history of Indian independence, the movements of the 30s and 40s are brutally suppressed to the point of failure, and it is the next generation, in the 1960s, who must take up the mantle of revolution and overthrow their colonial masters. The book is arranged in ten chapters referencing incidents in the life of Vishnu, adding cultural depth to an already-compelling narrative.
Markus Redmond, Blood Slaves
(Dafina, July 29)
Another alternative history! Markus Redmond has crafted a truly epic reimagining of the 19th century, in which an ancient vampire enslaved on a plantation becomes the catalyst for a widespread slave rebellion and violent reckoning with injustice. It’s clear throughout the narrative that the true monsters are not the vampires, who need blood to survive, but the slave-owners, who require human suffering in the name of profit. Redmond’s novel should be one of the most satisfying of the year, and perhaps of the decade.
Melissa Pace, The Once and Future Me
(Henry Holt, August 19)
This book will blow your mind!!!! It kind of felt like a Marvel movie, but like, one that’s actually good! Pace’s amnesiac heroine, locked up in a mental institution and subjected to strange experimental procedures, must escape her padded prison and find out what exactly she’s forgotten, and what role her husband has played in all this, well, madness. I cannot tell you more without spoilers, but even as someone who reads 150+ books a year, I was genuinely surprised.
