The best books out in paperback in fall, as selected by the CrimeReads editors.
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Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle
(Anchor Books)
“A a fiendishly clever romp, a heist novel that’s also a morality play about respectability politics, a family comedy disguised as a noir…Harlem Shuffle reads like a book whose author had enormous fun writing it. The dialogue crackles and sparks; the zippy heist plot twists itself in one showy misdirection after another. Most impressive of all is lovable family-man Ray, whose relentless ambition drives the plot forward while his glib salesman’s patter keeps you guessing about his true intentions. This book is a blast that will make you think, and what could be better than that?”–Vox
Cadwell Turnbull, No Gods No Monsters
(Blackstone, September 6)
“The expert combination of immersive prose, strong characters, sharp social commentary, and well-woven speculative elements makes for an unforgettable experience.”—Publishers Weekly
Jon McGregor, Lean, Fall, Stand
(Counterpoint, September 6)
“As gripping as anything you’ll read this year . . . A book about the slipperiness of language, that flexible and fallible vehicle for consciousness and communication on which we are so dependent.” —Jon Michaud, The Washington Post
John Banville, April in Spain
(Hanover Square, September 6)
“The prose is rich with similes and the plot shocks.”—Wall Street Journal
James Kestral, Five Decembers
(Hard Case Crime, September 13)
“A gripping, resonant neo-noir odyssey” –New York Magazine
Paul Vidich, The Matchmaker
(Pegasus, September 13)
“Shades of Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and John le Carré hover over the pages of Paul Vidich’s The Matchmaker, a Cold War thriller set in West and East Berlin in the eventful years of 1989 and ’90. The innovative Mr. Vidich subverts expectations in ways that surprise.” —Wall Street Journal – Tom Nolan
Vera Kurian, Never Saw Me Coming
(Park Row, September 20)
“Fun, entertaining, and hard to put down, a twisty whodunit with a satisfying conclusion.” – New York Journal of Books
Katrine Engberg, The Harbor
(Gallery, September 27)
One of the best armchair travelogues in ages… It is the absolute humanity of the storytelling that makes the book a masterpiece of Nordic noir.”—Booklist (starred review)
Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence
(St Martin’s Griffin, October 4)
A delicious Gothic romance…. It has to walk the line between romance and horror and not flinch away from either. The Death of Jane Lawrence is up to this task…. By the time the book reached that point of no return, I was so invested that I would have followed Jane into the very depths of hell.” —NPR.org
Val McDermid, 1979
(Grove, October 11)
“A delightful throwback . . . McDermid has always packed her stories with a streetwise humor and a fierce impatience with how most institutions still favor the rich, the White, the male. And, the straight . . . 1979 is as much a female bildungsroman as it is a suspense story.”—Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post
Mick Herron, Dolphin Junction: Stories
(Soho, October 11)
“Each [story] delivers a surprise, a shock, or a shiver, with plenty of Herron’s trademark smoke-and-mirror misdirection and sardonic humour.” —The Guardian
Anthony Horowitz, A Line To Kill
(Harper Perennial, October 18)
“Fiendishly entertaining . . . . As a mystery, this book is immensely satisfying. But as a meta-story — an extravagant, knowing satire of authors, agents, publishers and literary hangers-on; a knowing sendup of the author himself; and a homage to the Golden Age of mystery — it is pure delight.” —New York Times Book Review
Hannah Morrissey, Hello, Transcriber
(Minotaur, October 25)
“With its fine-tuned bleakness and unflinching exploration of human depravity, Hello, Transcriber is a shudder-inducing series kickoff.” —BookPage
Katherine Faulkner, Greenwich Park
(Gallery, October 25)
‘Faulkner offers a clever spin on an expanding subcategory of psychological thrillers set during maternity leave… A twisty, fast-paced read’. —The Sunday TImes (UK)
Alison Gaylin, The Collective
(William Morrow Paperbacks, October 25)
“Chilling…this terrific novel is…propelled by an iron-tight plot that becomes increasingly tense.” —New York Times Book Review
Neal Stephenson, Termination Shock
(William Morrow Paperbacks, November 8)
“Neal Stephenson has never been afraid of engaging with big ideas within genre forms, and Termination Shock might be his most visionary, and timely, book yet.” — Chicago Review of Books
Gregory Galloway, Just Thieves
(Melville House, November 8)
“Spot-on throwback noir.”—Shelf Awareness
Lucy Jago, A Net for Small Fishes
(Flatiron, November 8)
“Bravura historical debut . . . Jago keenly conveys the peril of being a woman of any class in the 17th century . . . Like all the best historical fiction, A Net for Small Fishes is a gloriously immersive escape from present times, but it’s not escapism.”
—Guardian
Rachel Hawkins, Reckless Girls
(St. Martin’s Griffin, November 22)
“With a gothic sense of foreboding and plenty of dark secrets…the plot builds to an explosive conclusion. Hawkins uses the tensions among her young, beautiful characters to take a look at the intersections of class and gender, but there are no innocent people in this treacherous paradise. Fans of the film The Beach and television’s Lost will be enthralled.” ––Shelf Awareness
Ben Winters, The Quiet Boy
(Mulholland, November 22)
“Winters has proved himself to be one of our most fascinating genre blenders of crime and speculative fiction, a writer who never fails to challenge his readers to embrace new ideas and new forms of reality. A wonderful, thoughtful book.”—Booklist
