10 for 10

To help commemorate The Rap Sheet’s fast-approaching 10th anniversary, I’m going to engage in what I hope will be a bit of educational fun—and I would like you to join me. The assignment here is to choose 10 of your favorite crime, mystery, or thriller novels, all of them originally published during the last 10 years, from January 1, 2006, until now. (No paperback reprints, please.) There aren’t any perfect answers. The works needn’t be famous, nor must they demonstrate your literary taste or fondness for the esoteric. It’s only necessary that you enjoyed the books you select.

OK, I’ll go first:

• The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard (2006)
• A Quiet Flame, by Philip Kerr (2008)
• Bury Me Deep, by Megan Abbott (2009)
• City of Dragons, by Kelli Stanley (2010)
• Peeler, by Kevin McCarthy (2010)
• The Keeper of Lost Causes, by Jussi Adler-Olsen (2011)
• The Blackhouse, by Peter May (2012)
• Little Green, by Walter Mosley (2013)
• Norwegian by Night, by Derek B. Miller (2013)
• Darkness, Darkness, by John Harvey (2014)

This isn’t an easy task, I’ll grant you; my initial roll of possible titles ran to 33. I had to brutally cast away many books I have said nice things about over the last decade, including J. Robert Janes’ Bellringer (2012), David Morrell’s Inspector of the Dead (2015), and Laura Lippman’s After I’m Gone (2014), in order to make the 10-count. But the rules are what they are, and I had to follow them.

Now it’s your turn. In the Comments section at the end of this post, please feel free to submit your own list of 10 choice crime novels published between 2006 and 2016. Or submit five titles, or even just one or two. The point is that, while much is made of this genre’s classic novels, modern works can often have just as much influence on our memories and our fondness for this field of literature.

So, any suggestions?