This month’s international thriller releases showcase authors at the top of their game, split fairly evenly between Latin America and Scandinavia (with one Swiss author thrown into the mix). What’s remarkable about this month’s selection is the incredible diversity of genre forms—whether you’re looking for a chilling psychological thriller, a fast-paced tale of international intrigue, a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase, or a moody consideration of how a killer comes to be, there’s a book on this list sure to satisfy.
Paula Rodriguez, Urgent Matters
Translated by Sarah Moses
(Pushkin Vertigo)
In this perfectly paced and plotted Argentine thriller, a train crash is the opportunity one criminal needs to change his identity and go on the run. Unfortunately, one of the detectives hunting him just isn’t ready to let the case go, and he’s ready to use questionable methods to track down his target. What follows is one of the most delightful cat-and-mouse thrillers I’ve read in quite some time.
Victoria Kielland, My Men
Translated by Damion Searls
(Astra House)
Nasty, brutal, and short, Victoria Kielland’s My Men features Norwegian-American lonely hearts killer Belle Gunness, who lured widowers and their children to her farm with the promise of care and inheritable land, then slaughtered both her lovers and their families. The novel frames Gunness’ murderous quest as an almost-inevitable perversion of the American Dream. Kielland’s lyrical, abstract, and visceral prose, capably translated by Damion Searls, has won acclaim in her native Norway and is a beguiling match to her terrifying subject matter.
Rodrigo Rey Rosa, The Country of Toó
Translated by Stephen Henighan
(Biblioasis)
The Cobra is a reluctant would-be assassin recruited to take care of a troublesome environmental activist. When he finds himself on the run and presumed dead, he joins the Mayan struggle against the violence of developers, but will he ever see his young child, held hostage by his spymasters, again?
Juan Goméz Barcena, Not Even the Dead
Translated by Katie Whittemore
(Open Letter)
Goméz Barcena’s Not Even the Dead is a hallucinatory trip through the frontier days of northern Mexico, as a soldier who agrees to the proverbial ‘one last job’ finds himself on the heels of a supposed heretic who may just be a prophet. The story travels through a vivid, haunting landscape that seems to transcend time. This is a deeply imagined novel and one you won’t soon forget. –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads editor-in-chief
Hansjörg Schneider, The Murder of Anton Livius
Translated by Astrid Freuler
(Bitter Lemon Press)
Schneider’s series featuring Inspector Peter Hunkeler is kind of the most Swiss thing ever—it takes place in a border city, and a jumble of languages plus the frequent need for cross-border cooperation make for a fascinating farrago of crime-solving. In his latest to be translated into English, the inspector is confronted with a brutal killing that somehow connects to events in an Alsatian village during the Second World War.
Lars Kepler, The Spider
Translated by Alice Menzies
(Knopf)
The married couple behind the pen name Lars Kepler delivers another fiendishly clever thriller, this time featuring a serial killer who sends riddles to the police before each killing. Brutal and chilling, The Spider delivers everything you’ve come to expect from a Scandinavian thriller.
