This Year’s Critical Hits

By Fraser Massey
When presenting the list of their favorite 2021 crime, mystery, and thriller works a few weeks back, Washington Post critics Maureen Corrigan and Richard Lipez remarked on the range of settings and themes to be found amid their choices, and they pronounced that level of diversity to be fitting “for a year of so much uncertainty and a far higher than normal rate of social chaos.”

Contentiously, they went on to argue that the high quality of the cream of the novels published over these last dozen months demonstrated “a level of talent and craftsmanship that can compete with any Golden Age of crime fiction.”

Maybe we have entered a new Golden Age. After spending the past few weeks consulting the multiple 2021 “bests” lists submitted by critics covering this field across the globe (those sources are spelled out at the end of this post), I must agree with Corrigan and Lipez about the excellence and variety of titles put forward.

In our now annual quest to determine which novels from this genre were most often recommended (see 2020’s story here), we found that some of the titles being regularly acclaimed this year were by writers previously unknown to us, such as James Kestrel and Abigail Dean. However, there were also many familiar and much-loved wordsmiths once more presenting high-quality fiction.

Topping the chart for the second year in a row—and again by a considerable distance ahead of all other contenders—is S.A. Cosby, who himself was a relative unknown when his slice of southern U.S. noir, Blacktop Wasteland, turned him into the darling of the critics last year.

The latest by “Shawn” Cosby, who, when he’s not writing drives a hearse for his wife’s funeral home in Virginia, is Razorblade Tears. It’s a multi-layered buddy-buddy tale of two ex-cons—one black, one white—who are thrown together on a dangerous quest. Appropriately for these post-woke days, there’s a 21st-century twist to what links those protagonists, Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee Jenkins. Their sons made up a gay, married couple who were killed in what appears to have been a hate crime. Randolph and Jenkins find they must band together in their bid to exact vengeance, and also to confront their own prejudices along the way.

That book’s place at the top of our 2021 list of the 10 most critically acclaimed crime novels seems particularly timely.

1. Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron [U.S.], Headline [UK]) “has unexpected depth for such a violent, confrontational book,” wrote Lesa Holstine in her Library Journal review.
2. Five Decembers, by James Kestrel (Hard Case Crime [U.S., UK]). The Rap Sheet’s own Jim Napier was among the numerous fans of Hawaii-based attorney Kestrel’s debut mystery yarn. His review described it as “a sweeping saga of love, hate, innocence, and evil, consummately told.”
3. Billy Summers, by Stephen King (Scribner [U.S.], Hodder & Stoughton [UK]). Geoffrey Wansell, in Britain’s Daily Mail, hailed veteran novelist King’s tale of a hit man’s last job as “a thriller that tugs at the heart-strings.”
4. Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday [U.S.], Fleet [UK]).
5. The Dark Hours, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown [U.S.], Orion [UK]).
6. Slough House, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime [U.S.], John Murray [UK]).
7. Silverview, by John le Carré (Viking [U.S., UK]).
8. Girl A, by Abigail Dean (Viking [U.S.], HarperCollins [UK]).
9 (tie). Clark and Division, by Naomi Hirahara (Soho Crime [U.S.]).
9 (tie). Velvet Was the Night, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey [U.S.], Jo Fletcher [UK]).

As is so often the case—even today, when women are gaining overdue recognition for their contributions to our favorite genre—this assessment is dominated by male writers.

Our inventory also poignantly features the final, short novel by that master of the espionage thriller, John le Carré, who died in December 2020. His Silverview was published posthumously, after being discovered among the great man’s papers by le Carré’s son Nick Cornwell (aka Nick Harkaway), who readied it for publication.

We thank Cornwall and all of the other writers featured on the list above for providing us with so much wonderful material to read during these difficult times.

CrimeReads senior editor Molly Odintz recently waxed poetic, while introducing one that site’s manifold “best of the year” lists, writing: “As we’ve sleepwalked through the second year of the pandemic, lucid dreaming our way through endless possibilities in the midst of endless isolation, these authors have sought to capture the highs and lows, perils and opportunities, of a changing world.”

Long may they continue to do so.

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Our top-10 register for 2021 was compiled from choices made by our own Rap Sheet contributors, as well as those from crime fiction, mystery, and thriller critics published by the following print publications and digital sites (all are U.S.-based unless otherwise stated): CrimeReads, Daily Express (UK), Daily Mail (UK), The Daily Telegraph (UK), Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, Esquire, Financial Times (UK), The Globe and Mail (Canada), Good Housekeeping, The Guardian (UK), The Irish Times (Ireland), Library Journal, Literary Review (UK), Marie Claire, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The New York Times, New Zealand Listener, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, The Spectator (UK), The Sunday Times (UK), Time, The Times (UK), The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

Special thanks are owed to editor George Easter of Deadly Pleasures. Without his tireless efforts to list so many writers’ “best of” recommendations on his splendid Web site, the task of creating this year’s Rap Sheet tally would have proved impossible.

Our top-10 chart ranks the most frequently chosen books in order of the number of times they appeared on critics’ lists. In the event of a tie for places on the chart, the novels that appeared highest in any lists where rankings were published were given precedence (whenever possible). Titles selected, which were released in either the U.S. or UK prior to the start of 2021, were omitted from the calculations.

READ MORE: “Favorite Books of 2021,” by Lesa Holstine (Lesa’s Book Critiques); “My Books of 2021,” by Kate (The Quick and the Read); “Brad’s Best Reads of 2021,” by Brad Friedman (Ah Sweet Mystery Blog); “Top Five Books of 2021,” by both CrimeFictionLover and Erin Britton (Crime Fiction Lover); “The Very Best Reads of the Second Plague Year,” by Brian Busby (The Dusty Bookcase).