This past decade, we’ve been pleased to see publishers, readers, editors, and reviewers alike have come to the same conclusion—crime fiction is a big tent, and we need our bookshelves to reflect the vast diversity of stories and experiences that inform our beloved genre. We also need to nurture young and growing talents in a crowded field where the big names can dominate at the expense of the up-and-comers, and take the time to celebrate when an author breaks through from rising voice to master of the genre.
A few trends are immediately obvious: first, great crime writers begin their careers at any age. To be a rising voice in the genre does not imply youth, beauty, or an MFA—it implies grit, experience, maturity, and intensity. Second, the world of crime fiction is far more diverse than it would have seemed a decade ago, in every sense of the world. Women, authors of color, and queer writers are reinventing traditional forms in ways that honor the complexity and messiness of experience; psychological thrillers brought murder into the home and the workplace, and noir and procedurals grappled with police brutality and the long shadows of prejudice and xenophobia. Social justice moved from a common factor in crime fiction to a given. And readers everywhere are looking for fiction that can be both a window and a mirror.
Lest we pat ourselves on the back too much, it’s important to remember that authors need sustained support over decades to establish a career; it’s not enough to just celebrate new voices—we need to actually go out and buy books, patronize libraries, or otherwise find ways to provide authors with financial and community support. (Otherwise, it’s our own fault if we notice a certain sameness to the landscape of crime writing.) There’s plenty of work left to do in shaking up our crime community.
A note on methodology: while some of the authors selected below got started in the decade previous, all authors picked for this list have built their careers up over the past 10 years and experienced breakthroughs of one kind or another. All authors selected for this list are at least two books into their writing careers, and each has demonstrated both creativity and virtuosity within traditional forms. Many have also distinguished themselves in multiple forms, crafting standalones and series, whodunnits and whydunnits, and mashups of subgenres galore. This was a difficult list to settle on, and at the end of the post, you’ll find a list of notable authors who we’d also like to highlight. We’ve loved watching these folks build their names in the crime world, and we can’t wait to see what they’re planning to do next.
And so, without further ado, behold, crime fiction’s best new voices!
Steph Cha
Cha first made her mark early in the decade introducing readers to Juniper Song, a young Angeleno training to be a private detective, a woman who had raised herself on the great works of the noir canon. More recently, Cha has changed gears away from PI fiction toward “social novels,” with her recently released and highly acclaimed, Your House Will Pay, a story about families in the aftermath of a killing, and a string of riots, in 1990s Los Angeles. Cha’s ambition is growing with each novel, no matter the form, and she looks set to push crime fiction in new, exciting directions for years to come. Steeped in noir traditions but not beholden to them, Cha has a solid claim to be one of the most exciting, innovative voices in west coast crime.
Lyndsay Faye
Lindsay Faye’s novels fit comfortably in the genre “badass nineteenth-century” (a genre that she helped make, by the way). Her first novel, the clever pastiche, Dust and Shadow: an Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson, as the title might suggest, allows Sherlock Holmes to take on the real Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper. Her subsequent, transatlantic novels have included a trilogy of historical mysteries reimagining the origins of the New York City Police Department, a riotous redo of Jane Eyre which recasts Jane as a justice-wielding serial killer, and a historical novel about the rise of the KKK in 1921 Oregon. In just a few short years, Faye has been nominated for multiple Edgar (and other) awards, and has become the point person for bringing Sherlockiana to younger generations, and creating spaces for women to be included in Sherlock Fandom, including with the Baker Street Babes group and podcast series she co-runs. Her influence on the crime literature community can’t be overstated, and her enthusiasm for the cornerstones of the genre, as well as her own literary creativity, ensure the safe passage of crime lit to the next generation.
Kellye Garrett
Every once in a while, a book comes along that charms just about everyone in the crime world, from the hardboiled devotees to the cozy club, and Kellye Garrett’s Hollywood Homicide was just that book. Garrett swept the awards circuit for her debut, and followed it up with the equally acclaimed Hollywood Ending. Never has there been a crime citizen more deserving of praise—in addition to her writing, Kellye is also involved in the writing mentorship program Pitch Wars, and co-founded the group Crime Writers of Color, as well as being on the board of the national organization Sisters in Crime. We can’t wait to see what Garrett brings to the crime world next!
Rachel Howzell Hall
Rachel Howzell Hall began writing crime fiction after a battle with cancer convinced her to focus on creative pursuits; she survived cancer and is now four books into a crime writing career. Her first four take us into the world of L.A. cop Eloise “Lou” Norton, who must use her position of authority to fight both prejudice within the force and crime outside of it (all while dealing with a convincingly imploding marriage). Her latest book is also her first standalone—They All Fall Down brilliantly retells Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and heralds a new direction in Hall’s career. Here’s to plenty more procedurals and standalones!
Jennifer Hillier
Across a decade of novels, starting with Creep and Freak and now ratcheting up the ambition and the intensity with her most recent and most acclaimed novel, Jar of Hearts, Hillier has been doing impressive work bringing together strands of serial killer literature and the psychological thriller into works of emotional complexity and terrifying suspense. She has a solid claim to be the Thomas Harris of a new generation, with work that’s searching and provocative, challenging readers but also providing them with consistent thrills. Hillier keeps getting better with every book, and we expect to be reading her disturbing, moving fiction for years to come.
Joe Ide
Joe Ide’s first novel dropped in 2016 and immediately established him as one of the most energetic voices in mystery. IQ, the first novel in the series and the moniker of its protagonist, depicts a Sherlock Holmes-type investigator working the streets of South Central Los Angeles, solving crimes for the community. Ide’s world has been steadily expanding through Righteous and Wrecked, with more expected in early 2020, but in the meantime Ide has also been drilling down to make more intimate, personally powerful stories. There’s a dash of Conan Doyle, a dash of Elmore Leonard, and a whole lot of Los Angeles Noir ambience mixed in with this series, which is earning fans by the droves and has Ide set up for what we hope will be a long career in crime.
Ausma Zehanat Khan
Ausma Zehanat Khan’s series featuring Inspectors Esa Khattack and Rachel Getty of the Community Policing Unit is the most Canadian thing ever—by which we mean that it explores the central dichotomies of a nation that would like to believe itself to be nicer than it actually is. Khattack and Getty are partners in a unit that’s dedicated to liaising between community interests and police investigations, and while sometimes their superiors behave in honorable ways, for the most part, Khan’s protagonists spend the majority of each book trapped between a rock and a hard place. While the first in the series draws from Khan’s experiences as a human rights lawyer in the Balkans, two of the later works explore Islamophobia in Canada, interspersed with stories grounded in the Syrian Refugee Crisis and the Iranian Green Revolution. Khan’s work represents the best that crime fiction can be (morally speaking). Her works use the procedural structure as entrance to a wide range of social and political concerns, and help us process our complex reality through the lens of fiction.
Shari Lapena
There’s a strong case to be made for the past ten years as “The Decade of the Psychological Thriller,” and Shari LaPena has been at the forefront of this new era of domestic suspense and twisty thrillers. Her 2016 novel The Couple Next Door established her trademark blend of empathy and voyeurism, and her 2018 release An Unwanted Guest showed her ability and willingness to play with traditional mystery tropes and reinvent them for new audiences. We can’t wait to see what Lapena brings us in the decade to come!
Attica Locke
Attica Locke has spent the whole of the decade producing powerful crime fictions set in deeply traumatized Southern communities, the kind of places where neighbors are both torn apart and tied together by history and blood. After three acclaimed novels, starting with Black Water Rising and running through Pleasantville, she broke through to crime fiction superstar status with 2017’s Blackbird, Blackbird, the first in the Darren Matthews series, which centers on a Texas Ranger working the southeastern corridors of the state and untangling generational crimes. Locke’s work is political in the most impactful, necessary sense, as she tells stories of crimes both personal and systemic, all while showing a complete mastery of suspense, plotting, and style. If you’re looking for a crime novelist to stick with across her career, and across media (she’s taking up the helm on TV series now), Locke is the writer for you.
Lori Rader-Day
Lori Rader-Day, like Ruth Ware, writes traditional mysteries with a noir sensibility, although for Rader-Day, the noir is strictly in the language itself, and serves to emphasize the high stakes of ordinary moments in women’s lives. Rader-Day is also the queen of the Midwestern crime scene, helping to put on the “Murder and Mayhem” festival, and currently serves as the president of Sisters in Crime. Her small, yet startling, tales have gripped us from the get-go, and we’re looking forward to many more.
Alex Segura
Segura’s Pete Fernandez mysteries spanned the decade and gave readers one of the most emotionally rewarding journeys in recent PI fiction memory. Fernandez, a Miami-bred private eye, the son of a detective, is marked not only by the cases he solves and doesn’t solve, but above all with his daily struggles—with life, memory, and recovery. Segura took one of the oldest tropes of crime fiction—the hard-drinking PI—and brought a fresh perspective to it. He also earns his stripes as a rising noir star thanks to his experimenting with new forms. Whether podcasts, comic books, or whatever comes next, you can be sure Segura will bring a thoughtful noir sensibility with him to tell powerfully human stories.
Ruth Ware
Ruth Ware, it is an acknowledged fact, is one of the best new crime writers around, but what exactly appeals in her carefully crafted worlds? Ware is at the center of the traditional mystery revival, her twisty plots and new takes on classic mystery setups helping to revitalize Golden Age tropes for millennial readers, and it’s this peculiar blend of past and present that draws me in. Ware’s first novel takes us into the dark, dark woods for a gothic twist on the bachelorette party (or perhaps a hen do twist on the classic gothic mystery); her second took us on the cruise from hell for her version of the locked room mystery, while her third blends gothic suspense and boarding school intrigue, her fourth is a psychological spin on the trip to a manor house for the reading of a will, and her fifth brings Henry James’ Turn of the Screw up to date for the nanny generation. If Ware keeps up the good work, perhaps we’ll be able to put the distinction between psychological thrillers and traditional mysteries by the wayside, and instead, just call them all “Ware-esque.”
Notables:
Leye Adenle · Lucy Atkins · Flynn Berry · Darcey Bell · William Boyle · Oyinkan Braithwaite · Alexandra Burt · Joe Clifford · Angel Luis Colon · John Copenhaver · S. A. Cosby · Julia Dahl · Aya de Leon · J.P. Delaney · Rene Denfield · Eva Dolan · Allen Eskens · Caz Frear · Alison Gaylin · Amy Gentry · Juliet Grames · Araminta Hall · Robyn Harding · Rob Hart · Mette Ivie Harrison · Cheryl Head · Wendy Heard · Patrick Hoffman · Christopher Huang · Margot Hunt · Gabino Iglesias · Shannon Kirk · Lisa Jewell · David Joy · Sheena Kamal · Jessica Knoll · Renee Knight · Kristin Lepionka · Ed Lin · Steven Mack Jones · Matthew McBride · Adrian McKinty · Laura McHugh · Mindy Mejia · Liane Moriarty · Abir Mukherjee · Liz Nugent · Kwei Quartey · B.A. Paris · Ivy Pochoda · Steph Post · Marcie Rendon · Nina Revoyr · Nathan Ripley · Riley Sager · Lisa Sandlin · Peter Swanson · Taylor Stevens · Victoria Helen Stone · Amy Stewart · C.J. Tudor · Lynne Truss · Wendy Walker · Gina Wohlsdorf · Erica Wright
