When Temps and Tempers Boil

With summer having firmly arrived in the United States (Seattle has already recorded a 90-degree day this month!), it was to be expected that crime-fiction critics would commence trotting out their selections of what people ought to be reading over the next three months.

The Rap Sheet offered up its own long list of titles for perusal. But those were all new works, most of them still on the horizon. By contrast, Janet Rudolph’s rundown of summer mysteries features older books, all of which have a distinct seasonal connection. And Otto Penzler’s choices, for Literary Hub, of five crime and mystery yarns to be enjoyed on a beach blanket or sun-scorched deck are split between recent books (such as Lee Child’s No Middle Name) and genre classics (on the order of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley).

Should you be in the mood, as well, to gander longingly at a beautiful assortment of vintage paperback crime-fiction fronts linked to summer, click over to this extensive gallery in my Killer Covers blog. Artists represented include Barye Phillips, Robert Bonfils, Robert McGinnis, Paul Rader, Mitchell Hooks, Charles Copeland, J. Oval, George Ziel, Harry Barton, and Charles Binger.