Only Killers and Thieves – Paul Howarth
‘Only Killers and Thieves’ by English-Australian author Paul Howarth is as good a debut novel as I’ve read in a long time. For its powerful sense of place – and an extraordinary place too, unforgiving but beautiful – its sophisticated characterisation, well-paced plot and, above all, for Howarth’s spare, intense writing, veined with strong echoes ...
What You Want To See – Kristen Lepionka
‘What You Want To See’ by Kristen Lepionka is the second instalment in the saga of Roxane Weary, a private investigator from Columbus, Ohio. Like Roxane herself, the story is bursting with energy, alive with wit and sharp as a whiplash. Above all, ‘What You Want To See’ is a first-rate crime novel, that rare ...
The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland – Nicolai Houm
‘The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland’, the first novel by Norwegian author Nicolai Houm to be published in English, is far and away the most intriguing suspense novel I have read this year. And it isn’t a crime novel by any stretch of the imagination nor, in canonical terms, a thriller. Yet is simply exudes ...
Conviction – Julia Dahl
Uber-cosmopolitan New York City may seem the ultimate interconnected melting pot, yet local communities can be very powerful in its midst. Disturbingly so, if they turn out to be closeted, oppressive and non-inclusive. You’ll get a strong sense of this reading the powerful crime novels written by Julia Dahl, featuring young New York journalist Rebekah ...
The Execution of Justice – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Crime novels can be violent, occasionally gory, almost always nerve-wracking but, ultimately, they are designed to be comforting. Life may be grim, but in the end order will be restored. There is always a flicker of light the end of the tunnel. And there’s crime fiction à la Friedrich Dürrenmatt. It can be violent, occasionally ...
The Wife – Alafair Burke
US author Alafair Burke, a former prosecutor who now teaches criminal law, has ten crime novels under her belt. Some are of the serial variety, featuring Assistant District Attorney Samantha Kincaid or NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher, and others are stand-alone ones, like ‘The Ex’, nominated last year for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Burke’s ...
This Is How It Ends – Eva Dolan
Eva Dolan is a stand-out in the new breed of British detective novelists for her refreshing take on the police procedural genre in the Zigic and Ferreira series. In the three novels published so far, Dolan showed how, even in a setting that is not London, multi-culturalism, gender and social issues can be woven into ...
The Master Key – Masako Togawa
In ‘The Master Key’, the first novel by Japanese crime author Masako Togawa, reality is far from straightforward: it’s made of sliding layers, like shoji screens in Japanese houses, concealing and revealing in turns the life that goes on behind them, often showing its mere outline. The author delights in stunning readers with every unexpected ...
