While every nation has its fair share of both crime and crime fiction, there are certainly some hotspots. The American love of Scandinavian crime fiction no longer surprises—after all, what is a Scandinavian thriller, but a work of fiction that could also be easily set in Maine or Wisconsin?—and Japanese, French, and Spanish crime writers continue to appeal to stateside audiences with a diverse array of content. There were also strong showings from the Nigerian and South Korean crime writing scenes, relative newcomers when it comes to distribution in the United States (although with long traditions of crime writing for national audiences). Baghdad Noir is perhaps the outlier on the list below, published this year after a decade in the making, and with no end in site to the violence that fills its pages, yet this work also represents the ability of crime fiction to respond to the world around it, and to process not only trauma from long ago, but on-going trauma. And without further ado (and in no particular order) we present the 10 best international crime and mystery releases of 2018.
Baghdad Noir, edited by Samuel Shimon (Akashic Books)
Baghdad Noir is a monumental achievement for Akashic’s long-running Noir series. The collection goes so far beyond the Iraq most of us have been exposed to over the last twenty years and offers up a vision of this important world city in all its complexity and humanity. Crime fiction may not have a long tradition in Iraqi literature, but the authors assembled here by editor Samuel Shimon embrace the finest noir traditions by shining a critical, incisive light on their city, ravaged by war and discord but full of moments of life and hope, some fulfilled, others crushed. This is a vital book, in every sense of the word. You can read an exclusive excerpt here: Muhsin al-Ramli’s story, “I Killed Her Because I Loved Her.”
You-Jeong Jeong, The Good Son (Penguin Books)
The protagonist of The Good Son is anything but, and since we’re suckers for stories featuring unreliable narrators and evil children, this one was a shoo-in for our end-of-the-year favorites. You-Jeong Jeong for some reason keeps getting called South Korea’s Stephen King, which is patently wrong—if anything, she’s South Korea’s Patricia Highsmith, able to convey the internal and manipulative logic of even the most disturbed minds, while spritzing her tales with commentary on the isolation that comes with modern prosperity. You can read an excerpt of The Good Son here.
Leila Slimani, The Perfect Nanny (Penguin Books)
While Leila Slimani’s American debut begins with the brutal murder of two small children by their nanny, the book as a whole is a much moodier affair, as we follow a seemingly happy family as they hire the perfect nanny for their small children and bourgeois lifestyle on a path towards their inevitable destruction. Intersectional on every page!
Hideo Yokoyama, Seventeen (FSG/MCD)
We’ve been fans of Hideo Yokoyama’s reporter mysteries since we first read Six Four, a stunning tale of dogged investigation, deep-seated cover-ups, and bureaucratic incompetence. Seventeen, Yokoyama’s latest to reach our shores, once again immerses us in the world of investigative journalism against a backdrop of a deadly airline crash based on real life. Hideo Yokoyama, who reported on the original plane crash, has memorialized in fiction what history has chosen to forget, and brings the same humanism and righteous outrage to the table as in his previous work. You can read an excerpt from Seventeen here.
Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Shape of the Ruins (FSG)
Gabriel Vasquez’s latest, The Shape of the Ruins, is a major achievement and a return to form for one of Colombia’s literary stars. An attempted heist of a grisly artifact starts the story, but it quickly spirals out into a wild jumble of paranoia, inchoate crime, crimes remembered, and, above all, conspiracy theories. Gabriel Vasquez has an incredible grasp on tone and manages to keep a certain aloofness to the novel’s voice, while simultaneously plunging us into distorted, traumatized minds.
Hye-young Pyun (transl. Sora Kim-Russell), City of Ash and Red (Arcade Publishing)
Hye-young Pyun won the Shirley Jackson Award for last year’s The Hole, a work described impeccably by the publisher as “Misery meets The Vegetarian” and her new work is even stranger (and rather more epic). A renowned rat-catcher in a future dystopia is sent to a country beset by a mysterious contagion, only to return home and discover his wife’s been murdered, and he’s prime suspect. Everything you could hope for in a dystopian thriller! You can read an excerpt from City of Ash and Red here.
Fuminori Nakamura, Cult X (Soho Press)
Nakamura is known for his sparse, brutal noir, exploring themes of alienation and the sublime in modern Japanese life, and the length of his new work Cult X may come as a surprise. The sprawling novel, told from multiple perspectives and with long forays into the science of the universe, is an epic endeavor that deserves to stand next to the works of Ellroy and Bolaño in the canon of lengthy crime fiction. Cult X begins when a young man goes undercover in a cult to search for his lost girlfriend. He soon discovers an underground war between two cults, one marked by libertine excess, and the other by puritanical restraint. While Nakamura’s shorter works may be a better place for the new fan of his work to begin reading, rest assured, Cult X is his magnum opus. You can read an excerpt from Cult X here.
Víctor del Árbol, A Million Drops (Other Press)
A Barcelona native and former police officer, Del Árbol has quickly established himself as one of the most promising voices in European crime fiction. (In 2012, he was awarded the prestigious Prix du Polar Européen, the first author from Spain to claim the honor.) His latest to come to the U.S., A Million Drops is a wide-ranging international espionage thriller that dives into the complex political landscape of Spain and Russia in the 1930s and 40s, and explores the legacy of mid-century upheaval in the present day. Fans of Javier Marias, Leonardo Padura, and Philip Kerr will find much to admire in Del Arbol’s work. You can read an excerpt from A Million Drops here.
Toni Kan, The Carnivorous City (Cassava Republic Press)
Set in sprawling Lagos, Toni Kan’s The Carnivorous City follows a young man in search of his missing brother, who may have gotten in too deep with the city’s thriving organized crime. This is a story both universal and specific—an ordinary man is pulled into a life of violence by circumstances beyond his control, à la The Man Who Knew Too Much, but the unique circumstances of the novel could only take place in modern-day Lagos, quickly becoming a center for crime fiction with the support of Cassava Republic Press. As thrilling as it is stylish!
Ragnar Jónasson, Blackout (Minotaur)
The third in Jónasson’s Dark Iceland series featuring Icelandic investigator Ari Thor, Blackout is also the best noir use of the 24-hour-sunshine since Insomnia (the Swedish one. Not the American remake, which was only salvageable because of Robin William’s psychopathic charms. But we digress). This appealing mashup of reporter mystery and police procedural is the perfect vehicle to explore the small town complexities of a nation where everyone knows each other, and long-ago crimes resurface with a vengeance. You can read an excerpt from Blackout here.
