Summery Judgment

OK, so nobody actually asked me to list off the crime novels I’m most looking forward to reading this summer. But since others (including Lee Child, Ken Bruen, David J. Montgomery, and Jim Fusilli) have made their own thoughts on this subject known elsewhere, it seemed like good ground to cover myself. The fact is, though, that there are myriad interesting books in this genre due in stores between now and Labor Day, and picking just a handful isn’t at all an easy assignment. But I’ll give it my best shot, anyway:

• Scared to Live, by Stephen Booth (HarperCollins UK). The seventh of Booth’s novels to feature British Peak District cops Ben Cooper and Diane Fry finds the pair dealing with seemingly innocent victims--a wife and her children burned in a house fire, an elderly woman assassinated--and looking to a remote corner of Europe to discern the unexpected connection between these tragedies. A June release.

• Darkness & Light, by John Harvey (Harcourt/Penzler USA). Retired Nottingham copper Frank Elder is back again (after 2005’s Ash & Bone), this time at the insistence of his ex-wife, whose friend’s older sister is missing. Not unexpectedly, the case soon leads the troubled Elder into a murder probe, with which he gets some help from Charlie Resnick, the protagonist from Harvey’s better-known previous series (Lonely Hearts, Last Rites, etc.) A June release.

• The Limehouse Text, by Will Thomas (Touchstone USA). The third entry (after To Kingdom Come, 2005) in Thomas’ series starring Victorian enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn. On this occasion, the London duo retrieve a pawned and innocent book, left behind by Barker’s late assistant, only to discover--surprise!--that the volume isn’t nearly so innocent in nature. In fact, it contains lethal martial arts techniques, and must be protected from a killer intent on learning those secret practices. A June release.

• The Hidden Assassins, by Robert Wilson (HarperCollins UK). I just can’t get enough of Wilson’s intense, tragic novels starring Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón, the chief homicide cop in Seville, Spain, who was last seen in The Silent and the Damned, one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2004. In Assassins, he begins by looking into the discovery of a mutilated, faceless corpse at the city’s municipal dump, but winds up trying to tamp down Seville’s escalating terrorist fears, after an explosion at an apartment building unearths a mosque in the basement. A July release.

• Iron Ties, by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press USA). The follow-up to Silver Lies (2003) places 1880s Leadville, Colorado, saloon proprietor Inez Stannert in the position of trying to defend her photographer friend, Susan Carothers, whose reliability is questioned after she witnesses an explosion and shooting along a high-country rail line. A July release.

• The Princess of Denmark, by Edward Marston (St. Martin’s Minotaur USA). This 16th installment in Marston’s humor-filled series about the trouble-prone Elizabethan theatrical troupe Westfield’s Men finds resourceful bookholder Nicholas Bracewell and his petulant actor charges setting forth for Denmark, accompanied by their patron, Lord Westfield, who seems determined to wed a woman he’s only seen in a tiny painting provided to him by his business agent. If it isn’t bad enough that the company faces pirates and storms at sea, they must then contend with the murder of Westfield’s agent in remote Elsinore. An August release.

• The Night Gardener, by George Pelecanos (Little, Brown USA). The real strength of Pelecanos’ stories is found in their characters. That’s proven once more in this tale, which begins with a 1985 investigation into the murder of a 14-year-old girl in Washington, D.C.--the latest victim of a killer the media have dubbed “The Night Gardener.” But then the novel moves ahead 15 years, to find one of the three detectives from that case looking into the murder of one of his teenage son’s pals, while his two former compatriots observe, at first, but eventually work together--not just to find answers to these crimes, but to expunge their individual demons. An August release.

• The Interpretation of Murder, by Jed Rubenfeld (Henry Holt USA). Technically, this is a September release. But with so much hype surrounding the thriller, it’s likely to be released somewhat in advance of that. Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s only visit to America, in 1909, The Interpretation of Murder focuses on a Freud disciple, Stratham Younger, who’s called in by the New York City police to help an intended homicide victim recover her memory and expose her attacker. Naturally, with Freud in Manhattan at the time, Younger enlists the Austrian neurologist to consult on the case. Joined by an adventuresome detective named Littlemore, this trio must get to the bottom of a conspiracy that sends them into the darker, more secret corners of Gotham and threatens the life of a woman who’s attracted Younger’s eye and heart. Comparisons with Caleb Carr’s The Alienist are inevitable.

While those eight titles are guaranteed of winning my eye over the next couple of months, I’ll also want to leave some time to tackle Madison Smartt Bell’s Straight Cut, Matthew Pearl’s The Poe Shadow, William Brodrick’s The Gardens of the Dead, Lila Shaara’s Every Secret Thing, Norman Green’s Dead Cat Bounce, Max Allan Collins’ The Last Quarry, and, come early September, Steve Hamilton’s latest Alex McKnight adventure, A Stolen Season. I guess I won’t be getting a whole lot of sleep this summer.

READ MORE: Stephen Miller’s Summer Reading Picks; Linda L. Richards’ Summer Reading Picks.