A final column for 2022, as December shows a paucity of new titles, a few of which I will corral into the January round-up. It’s been a pretty good year for crime and mystery writing. Looking back on the past 12 months, these were (in no particular order) my favourite titles:
Michael Mann & Meg Gardiner/HEAT 2
Derek B Miller/HOW TO FIND YOUR WAY IN THE DARK
William Boyle/SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT
BOOK OF THE MONTH: Michael Connelly/DESERT STAR (Orion)
Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard team up for what might be one of the last times, as Harry’s sleuthing career inevitably approaches its twilight. Renee has returned to the police force and managed to assemble a cold case team of volunteers thanks to a local politician’s determination to see the case of his murdered sister many years back resolved, and Bosch is brought on board despite his disdain for authority. Harry has his own skeleton in the closet: the case of a slaughtered family whose remains were found in the desert, which has been haunting him for decades and agrees to join the team as long as he is allowed to investigate both crimes. Connelly’s customary unwrapping of the cases is as ever meticulous and fascinating, and the way he orchestrates the routines, sudden detecting insights, characters’ feelings, jaw-dropping twists and loaded red herrings and calibrates the whole in such a seamless manner is a wonder to behold and a sheer lesson in crime writing . Few authors manage to not just sustain a series this powerfully, but he even improves with every new instalment as the reader has grown up with his characters in real time and is so familiar with their mores. It’s not a spoiler to admit I even thought the two crimes investigated by our spiky duo might be connected, due to Connelly’s devious cleverness and they weren’t, such is his supreme talent for misdirection. This is a writer still at the top of his form.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED; Sara Gran/THE BOOK OF THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE (Faber)
Sara Gran is possibly the quirkiest of writers at work these days. She juggles metafictional detective stories like the Claire DeWitt novels which combine Golden Age sleuth tropes alongside decidedly contemporary settings and preoccupations, alongside horror shockers and intense, druggy thrillers. This time along, and unsurprisingly self-published in the USA, although still with faithful Faber in the UK, she tackles a powerful serving of explicit erotica, a tale about writers and book collecting which explodes in all directions and will divide readers strongly; a novel that will be equally loved and hated. Lily Albrecht’s writing career appears to be over and she is now a mere book dealer by default, as she tends to her terminally-ill husband and a sexless life. When she is made aware of the possible existence of a legendary occult 17th century book by wealthy collectors and is offered a fortune to hunt it down, she embarks on a quest that will take her from New Orleans to a number of major cities both in the USA and Europe in a quest for the legendary artefact, whose black magic of a sexual nature reputedly offers the owner unlimited power. Some deny its existence, others allegedly have seen it and Lily is seduced into eventually following the book’s most bizarre dictates to reach her aim and, in the process, right her own life. Both mischievously erudite (remember the fabled detecting manual in the Claire DeWitt novels), openly preposterous and downright shocking at times, this is a dark academia thriller with lashings of flesh, unholy bodily substances and humanity. Sex, books, redemption? How could I not love it to bits, but a word of warning not all of you will.
Paula Rodríguez/URGENT MATTERS (Pushkin Vertigo)
A rare sample of Argentinian crime fiction, evocatively translated by Sarah Moses, this fast-moving novel evokes the teeming metropolis of Buenos Aires in a vibrant fashion, travelling between its poles of social differences and affording insights into a country still divided by race and class. A train crashes in the suburbs on which Hugo, a criminal on the run for murder, was travelling. 43 people die but Hugo seizes the opportunity to disappear, abandoning his possessions and identity in a bid to escape his pursuers. But doughty Detective Domínguez is not fooled and remains determined to trap his prey. However, the inconvenience of Hugo’s mother-in-law becoming involved is not something he could have predicted. With a background of endemic political corruption at all levels of society and particularly media, this picaresque and sprawling cat and mouse thriller holds it own and offers a window into what to our eyes appears to be another world, a transformed uneasy mirror view of our own. At times, uncomfortably impressionistic and slow, but always full of endearing characters, a novel that confirms that crime in translation can sometimes prove to be a refreshing experience and makes us look at things from a different perspective.
Kellye Garrett/LIKE A SISTER (Simon & Schuster)
Garrett is one of the rising stars of new authors of colour emerging in the USA, and this, her first standalone thriller sees her debut in the UK, following a three volume series set in Hollywood (where the author once worked on the COLD CASE TV series). Lena Scott, straight-laced and studious, is the younger sister of the more flamboyant Desiree Pierce, a Black TV reality star and has little in common with her. But when Desiree is found dead, seemingly the victim of an heroin overdose in the Bronx, a part of town she would normally not venture into, Lena’s suspicions are raised. Fuelled by her own guilt and family issues caused by the music mogul father she is estranged from, she embarks on an investigation into the truth behind the death. Very much set in a contemporary context when Lena initiates her search through a trawl through her late sister’s Instagram account in an effort to garner clues, this is also a novel about being black and female and middle class in a city, New York, which becomes an integral part of the story. A classy thriller featuring a fascinating, if reluctant heroine, although at times the social ‘message’ feels a little heavy-handed if tempered by humor. Will Lena reappear as a series character?
James Grady/THIS TRAIN (No Exit Press)
Mystery novels set on trains are an established tradition of the genre and I was initially intrigued by the prospect of protean talent James Grady’s, of Condor fame, take on the classic Orient Express trope. A busy Amtrak train departs Seattle on the West Coast and journeys to Chicago with a cast of varied passengers, movers, lovers, enigmas, killers, plotters, dysfunctional families and a whole assortment of bizarre at first seemingly unconnected characters. All the ingredients are present and correct but Grady’s style for the occasion is more of an improvised stream of consciousness and randomised chaos in the way if skips from character to character, both providing tantalising glimpses into their past and motivations but also into their deepest private thoughts, and this sheer accumulation of information deters the reader from engaging fully with most of the more important protagonists. Grady has always been a major Bob Dylan fan and the accumulated effect of this parti-pris reminded me at times of the rambling improvisation of some of the songs on BLONDE ON BLONDE, tinged with a James Joyce-like unfurling stream of consciousness. On its own merits, this deliberate style and structure is both experimental and innovative, but somehow for me never properly got off the ground as I found it difficult to separate so many of the teeming passengers and their role in the plot. An admirable attempt at renewing the genre, but one that didn’t work for me, alas. An ambitious project which is both free-flowing and impressionistic but also disjointed and introspective.
Abi Silver/THE AMBROSIA PROJECT (Lightning Books)
A British courtroom drama thriller series that has been steadily growing in assurance and popularity somewhat under the radar reaches its sixth volume. Judith Burton and Constance Lamb are, like the author, savvy lawyers in a genre where the protagonists are more commonly male and American and form a dynamic duo which readers will find easy to identify with. Caterer Nick Demetriou has been charged with manslaughter when food mogul Brett Ingram collapses and dies during an event he has been employed to supply. Was it an accident or maybe murder? With a meticulous investigation into the event and the personalities involved outside of the courtroom as well as a well-drawn and realistic representation of the routines of the court, Burton and Lamb navigate sleuthing and legalities with cheery aplomb. Burton is the older of the pair, initially retired, solid and silent while Lamb is a younger and more energetic solicitor and the relationship between the two allies is well-drawn and grows in strength as they navigate the obligatory twists and dead ends of their case. A series that will satisfy all fans of traditional mysteries.
Will Carver/SUICIDE THURSDAY (Orenda)
There is no doubt that Will Carver is carving a strong niche in the current territory of British crime fiction. Every new book something of a unique proposition and challenge and miles away from tradition and the mainstream; certainly an author who never repeats himself and has a knack for coming up with highly original premises and concepts. His latest lands as dark as can be and equally disturbing in a tale of Eli Hagin, a failed writer whose world dangerously comes to life, following the suicide of his friend Mike, in circumstances eerily similar to one of the many incomplete first chapters of the books Eli has never managed to fully complete. The line between reality and fiction is increasingly blurred in this existential thriller which plumbs dark places indeed. Carver is making noir metafiction his own: explicit, uncompromising, with a multitude of conflicting voices and every character anything but cheerful or predictable. Maybe Carver is creating a new genre: misanthropic crime fiction but his imagination knows few bounds and will attract many a reader with a taste for the unconventional and the decidedly uncomfortable. As for me, I haven’t quite made my mind up!
Amanda Lees/THE SILENCE BEFORE DAWN & PARIS AT FIRST LIGHT (Bookouture)
A couple of loosely linked WW2 thrillers which hark back to the adventures, travails and tragedies of the French resistance against Nazi occupation; a thematic patch that has recently been explored by English-writing authors like Chris Lloyd, Stephen Hunter,Kate Quinn, Cara Black and others, albeit with mixed results. What Amanda Lees -who coincidentally played a sitcom resistance fighter when still a young actress in ALLO’ ALLO!- brings is a seductive touch of romance to some of the undeniable clichés, successfully moving on from her children’s and crime books. Deliberately old-fashioned, this is all heroism and courage in the face of adversity and betrayal. In the initial volume, Marianne’s underground cell is wiped out by the Germans in a bloody ambush, leading her to strongly suspect Jack, her paramour and the only other survivor of the massacre, to be the turncoat responsible but who is also a man who knows the identity of countless other agents in the field. The chase is on as Marianne is helped by other fearless woman combatants in the shadows. In the second volume also set in 1944, Juliette, who abandoned her children to join the struggle against the occupiers, has to ally herself against her better judgment with dashing American agent Captain Daniel Diaz to uncover a terrible plot which could have a significant bearing on the outcome of the war. Engaging historical thrillers with a strong feminist bent, all inspired by the stories of real women who fought in WW2 and whose role must not be forgotten lightly. Commercial, gripping and fast-moving entertainment of the highest order.
Sulari Gentill/THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY (Ultimo Press)
Something of a welcome departure from the Australian author of the 10 volume series of historical crime novels featuring 1930s gentleman artist Rowland Sinclair as well as a trilogy based on the myths and epics of the ancient world, this new novel is a bookish mystery which turns out to be a sheer lightweight delight. Set in the reading room of Boston’s Public Library, we come across four strangers who are locked in as a perilous situation develops outside, and one might actually be a murderer! All very Agatha Christie-like but with a delicate lightness of touch and much tongue in cheek homage to the Golden Age with touches of the impossible crime/locked room genre but also a divertimento with just characters conversing, initially unfolding a story within the story, each protagonist sharply-etched and memorable, like the tattooed ‘Freud Girl’, law student, the ‘Heroic Chin’ and a charismatic author known as the ‘Handsome Man’. Pulling together the threads of the mystery is Winifred Kincaid, a young visiting Australian writer visiting on a scholarship. A woman screams outside the room and the game is on! Ingenious, light-hearted and old-fashioned in the best possible way. A great read.
Mick Herron/STANDING BY THE WALL (Baskerville)
While we eagerly await the next Slough House novel, Herron’s UK publishers offer a short Christmas novella as an amuse-bouche for the festive season (note that in the USA it is the title story of a collection regrouping all the short stories about the slow horses which had appeared individually in the UK). As River Cartwright makes a tentative return to the decaying building housing the ill-assorted spooks following the bloody events concluding BAD ACTORS, the previous novel in the series,, this interlude is a platform for the customary and profane deviousness of Jackson Lamb and dispenses criminally-hilarious insights into the heights of nerdy computer hacker Roddy Ho’s levels of self-delusion and fantasy, when he is tasked by Lamb to do a last-minute technical doctoring job on an old photograph, which opens a blurry window into Lamb’s own, secretive espionage past. It’s always a pleasure to be back amidst all the idiosyncratic inhabitants of the iconic building of failing spies, but the story gives the reader short thrift and teases with no proper confusion, merely a taster for something better and more intricate.
