Favorite Crime Fiction of 2022, Part I: Jim Thomsen

Jim Thomsen is a book editor for Blackstone Publishing, and also runs his own manuscript-editing business. His crime-centric fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Noir City, Switchblade, Mystery Tribune, Pulp Modern, Shotgun Honey, and West Coast Crime Wave, as well as The Rap Sheet. A former newspaper reporter and editor, Thomsen is a Pacific Northwest native who makes his home with his wife, Sue, in Kingston, Washington. He is also a dedicated Seattle Mariners fan and Seventiesologist, who can be found in his free time watching episodes of Quinn Martin productions, tracking down their tie-in novels, or listening to the beautifully excruciating music of Harry Chapin.

It’s been another good year in crime fiction, if judging only by the difficulty I had picking just five books for my personal “Best of 2022” list. But after much mental hand-wringing, here’s what I came up with:

• Other People’s Secrets, by Meredith Hambrock (Crooked Lane):

There’s no character I love more in literature that the loser, through poor choices and poorer circumstances, with a hidden higher gear that’s revealed only when they’re threatened with the loss of what little they have left. Baby, the heroine of Hambrock’s debut novel, is a classic such character. Born in a dumpster and scraping out a daily subsistence existence not so removed from the trash bin nearly three decades later, Baby finds her calling when the rundown lakefront resort she works at—and illegally squats in—is targeted for big changes that appear designed to leave her and her loser friends behind. And when she learns that the closure is part of a conspiracy by developers in league with local drug kingpins, god help anybody who gets in Baby’s way. Most of all herself.

• Blackout, by Erin Flanagan (Thomas & Mercer):

Erin Flanagan came onto my radar in a big way with Deer Season, the richly deserved winner of this year’s Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Blackout, her second novel, is a completely different beast, but no less assured than her debut. It’s a highly original twist on the unreliable-thriller trope. Maris Heilman, a college sociology professor and recovering alcoholic, is suffering blackouts that endanger herself and the stability of her family, and she seems unable to convince anyone that she isn’t drinking again. The truth, though, is that she is the target of a monstrous conspiracy involving some seriously weird science. But what Maris knows and what she can prove to anyone’s satisfaction are two very different things, and the gap between them may be too impossible to cross.

• Gangland, by Chuck Hogan
(Grand Central):

After nearly a decade away from crime fiction, the author of The Town (2010) returns with an exhilarating mash-up of 1970s fact and fiction centered on organized crime in Chicago. Nicky Passero, aka Nicky Pins, is the ultimate mob middle-manager, subject to the whims and rages of those above him, and answerable to the screw-ups of those beneath him. And when the serfs go to war with the vassals, Nicky’s room to satisfy all parties, let alone save his own life, becomes all but impossible to manage. This novel starts with Nicky murdering real-life mob figure Sam Giancana (no spoiler, seriously) and does nothing but maintain a sleek dark glide from there. Nicky’s predicament is as well-constructed as his personality is winning.

• A Thousand Steps, by T. Jefferson Parker (Forge):

I’ll admit it: I’ve never been a fan of most of Parker’s work, even as I admire his sheer competence and high style. That changed with this novel, which is a big change for Parker as well. Here he trades in the stylized torture-porn of most of his past work for a sweet and sincere reckoning with his own history. Like Matt Anthony, the novel’s narrator and hero, Parker was 14 years old in 1969, and reared in Matt’s hometown of Laguna Beach. His dad has left the family, his hippie mom has checked out on drugs, his brother is in Vietnam, and now his sister is gone as well—as in, disappeared, possibly kidnapped and even murdered. The more Matt searches, the more he opens himself up to being used for the dark purposes of others, and the more he is unable to convince anyone of what he believes. Parker has real skin in Matt’s game, and you will too. (This one fits neatly with my other favorite kind of book: stories about teens that are not Young Adult novels.)

• Beneath Cruel Waters, by Jon Bassoff (Blackstone):

There’s no damage more lasting than damage inflicted by family in one’s formative years, and that’s what Holt Thompson, a middle-aged drifter, has to face down as he returns to his small Colorado hometown in the wake of his mother’s suicide. He tugs on a thread of lies that unravels several decades of horrors, all the products of bad choices made with good intent, until it leads to those responsible for the destruction of his family. This novel is as sturdily plotted as it is emotionally shattering, and every piece of the puzzle fits with a crisp click and a crisp punch to the gut—to the reader as much as to Holt. (Full disclosure: This novel was published by my new employer, but I read and reviewed it before I even knew about the job.)

Other 2022 Favorites (any of which could have been in my top five): City on Fire, by Don Winslow (HarperCollins); The Devil Himself, by Peter Farris (Arcade Crimewise); Damnation Spring, by Ash Davidson (Scribner, 2021); Twentymile, by C. Matthew Smith (Latah, 2021); and It Dies with You, by Scott Blackburn (Crooked Lane).