When “Dolls” Come Out to Play

South Florida resident Robert Deis, with whom I worked on last year’s The Art of Ron Lesser Volume 1: Deadly Dames and Sexy Sirens, alerts me to this month’s release of its sequel, The Art of Ron Lesser Volume 2: Dangerous Dames and Cover Dolls, co-edited by Deis, Bill Cunningham, and Daniel Zimmer. I haven’t yet laid my hands on a copy, but here’s Amazon’s skinny on its intents and contents:

In the late 1950s, while studying with the legendary art teacher Frank J. Reilly at the Art Students League in New York City, Ron Lesser embarked on a long career as one of America’s top illustration artists. Over the next four decades, his artwork was used for thousands of paperback book covers, movie posters, magazines, and advertisements. Many great artists once made a good living doing such illustration artwork and Ron Lesser is among the greatest. He’s also one of the few who are still alive and still painting.

Like a number of other top 20th-century illustrators, Lesser went on to do paintings for galleries as the market for illustration art faded away in the 1990s. His gallery artwork includes Civil War and Western scenes, sports, celebrity portraits, and new versions of the types of subjects he once did for paperback covers. The Art of Ron Lesser Vol. 1 is the first in the series covering Ron's paperback, movie and advertising art. The Art of Ron Lesser Vol. 2 covers Ron's transition out of paperback illustration and into advertising, movie, and gallery illustration which he continues to this day.

In his Men’s Pulp Mags blog, Deis explains that Dangerous Dames and Cover Dolls “showcases scores of the paintings of sexy women Lesser has done in recent decades for galleries. Some are modern versions of the ‘dangerous dame’-style cover art he did for paperbacks in the 1960s and 1970s. Others are paintings of sexy celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, Brigitte Bardot, and Pam Anderson, and pop-culture characters like Vampirella, Red Sonja, and Harley Quinn.”

Like its predecessor, this book is said to include “commentary by Ron about his artwork and career.”

It sounds like a beautiful, fun follow-up to our previous work!

Fine Fall Finds

There are a few new-release books I’m particularly looking forward to diving into during this final quarter of 2024.

Those include: The Black Loch, the surprising fourth entry in British author Peter May’s “Lewis Trilogy,” again starring former police detective Fin Macleod; Midnight and Blue, which finds Ian Rankin’s formerly illustrious but currently incarcerated Scottish sleuth, John Rebus, digging into the brutal slaying of a fellow inmate; Silent Bones, Val McDermid’s eighth novel featuring Edinburgh inspector Karen Pirie; Hemlock Bay, Martin Edwards’ fifth Rachel Savernake mystery, which has the amateur sleuth and her reporter colleague, Jacob Flint, mixed up with a surrealistic painting, a psychic’s prediction of death, and a man determined to do away with someone he knows nothing about; Black River, the book that scored Indian journalist-author Nilanjana Roy considerable acclaim when it first reached print in the UK last year; Karla’s Choice, penned by John le Carré’s son Nick Harkaway and extending the career of his late pater’s most famous spy, George Smiley; Murder Town, another Australia-set thriller by Shelley Burr, who wrote 2022’s WAKE; Quarry’s Return, a short novel that sics Max Allan Collins’ series hit man, Quarry, on the trail of his daughter—who he only recently discovered he had, and who’s now gone missing; Holmes and Moriarty, by Gareth Rubin (The Turnglass), in which Sherlock Holmes and his infamous adversary, Professor James Moriarty, team up to unmask someone determined to kill them both; and Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II, a non-fiction work by Abbott Kahler (formerly Karen Abbott) that looks back at a social experiment in the Galápagos Islands gone horrifically wrong.

As I said, that’s a mere handful of the myriad new books and reprints in this genre we can expect to welcome between now and the end of 2024. Even my lengthy critic’s-choice list below—comprising more than 400 crime, mystery, and thriller works, all due out on one side of the Atlantic or the other—represents just a fraction of what publishers are preparing for our reading pleasure, mostly in time for holiday gift-giving. There will also be fresh fiction by Lee Goldberg, Attica Locke, Ragnar Jónasson, Lynda La Plante, Martin Walker, Louise Penny, Sam Wiebe, Candace Robb, M.W. Craven, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Jo Nesbø, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, Paula Hawkins, John Banville, Paige Shelton, William Boyd, Jane Thynne, and others.

My colleague Linda L. Richards this month introduces Insensible Loss, her fourth novel headlined by a highly conflicted, female hired assassin. In a completely different vein, we can anticipate seeing Qiu Xiaolong’s The Conspiracies of the Empire, which once more revisits the legendary mystery-solving career of Judge Dee Renjie, about whom Robert van Gulik composed his own 16-book series, mostly in the 1960s. Brad Parks, who I remember best for his half-dozen tales featuring New Jersey investigative journalist Carter Ross (Faces of the Gone), is returning with a new standalone, The Boundaries We Cross, focused on a boarding school teacher accused of improper behavior with a student—only to have him subsequently become the chief suspect in her disappearance. Julia Dahl is out now with I Dreamed of Falling, the dramatic story of a small-town newspaper reporter, who, after his girlfriend perishes under peculiar circumstances, goes searching for answers that may put his own life at risk. Steve Hockensmith has two spin-offs from his string of “Holmes on the Range” western whodunits rolling out this season: Hired Guns and No Hallowed Ground. Rob Hart and Alex Segura have teamed up to produce a science-fiction spy thriller called Dark Space. Peter Lovesey recounts the 22nd—and concluding—case for Detective Peter Diamond, in Against the Grain. Laurie Notaro’s The Murderess exploits the true story of 20th-century “blonde butcher” Winnie Ruth Judd (previously the inspiration for Megan Abbott’s Bury Me Deep) to sordid and sensational effect. And Vaseem Khan promises a November UK release for his fifth Malabar House mystery, City of Destruction. (A U.S. version of that same title is expected in March 2025.)

Beyond those, keep your eyes peeled for re-issues of the final three entries in Len Deighton’s series about British intelligence agent Bernard Samson (Faith. Hope, and Charity), as well as new editions of celebrated works by Thomas B. Dewey, Nancy Barr Mavity, John Dickson Carr, and A.A. Milne (The Red House Mystery—a rare detective yarn from the creator of Winnie the Pooh). In addition, there are other estimable non-fiction publications coming that will likely draw attention from crime fans, among them Elyse Graham’s Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.

As usual, books marked below with an asterisk (*) are non-fiction; the remainder are novels or collections of short stories.

SEPTEMBER (U.S.):
• The Accomplice, by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (Amistad)
• Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime, by Leonie Swann (Soho Crime)
• The Alaska Sanders Affair, by Joël Dicker (HarperVia)
• The Art of Ron Lesser Volume 2: Dangerous Dames and Cover Dolls, edited by Robert Deis, Bill Cunningham, and Daniel Zimmer (Independently published)*
• Ashes Never Lie, by Lee Goldberg (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Bachelorette Party, by Sandra Block (Scarlet)
• Bad Liar, by Tami Hoag (Dutton)
• The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi, by Wright Thompson (Penguin Press)*
• Between Lies and Revenge, by Hannah D. Sharpe (Rising Action)
• Bitter Is the Heart, by Mina Hardy (Crooked Lane)
• The Black Loch, by Peter May (Mobius)
• Black River, by Nilanjana Roy (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, by Elyse Graham (Ecco)*
• Break Every Rule, by Brian Freeman (Blackstone)
• The Butcher Game, by Alaina Urquhart (Zando)
• But Not for Me, by Allison A. Davis (Bronzeville)
• Charity, by Len Deighton (Grove Press)
• The Child Catcher: A Fight for Justice and Truth, by Andrew Bridge (Regalo Press)*
• Cold Trail, by Taylor Moore (Morrow)
• Creation Lake, by Rachel Kushner (Scribner)
• Crooked, by Dietrich Kalteis (ECW Press)
• Crow Moon, by Suzy Aspley (Orenda)
• Dangerous Play, by Elise Hart Kipness (Thomas & Mercer)
• Dearest, by Jacquie Walters (Mulholland)
• Death at Dead Man’s Stake, by Nick Oldham (Severn House)
• Death at the Sanatorium, by Ragnar Jónasson (Minotaur)
• Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday)
• Death by Misadventure, by Tasha Alexander (Minotaur)
• Death Comes to Hong Kong, by Wayne Carey (Bold Venture Press)
• Desert Reunion, by Michael Craft (Questover Press)
• Devil’s Island, by Midge Raymond and John Yunker (Oceanview)
• A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Macmillan UK)
• Each Dawn I Die, by Jerome Odlum (Stark House Press)
• Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II, by Abbott Kahler (Crown)*
• The Examiner, by Janice Hallett (Atria)
• An Eye for an Eye, by Jeffrey Archer (HarperCollins)
• The Eye Hunter, by Sebastian Fitzek (Head of Zeus/Aries)
• Faith, by Len Deighton (Grove Press)
• Fatal Gambit, by David Lagercrantz (Knopf)
• Fatal Intrusion, by Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado
(Thomas & Mercer)
• The First Light of Dawn, by Jefferson Glass (Wolfpack)
• The Forest of Lost Souls, by Dean Koontz (Thomas & Mercer)
• Fortunate Son, by Andrew Bridgeman (Mission Point Press)
• French Quarter Fright Night, by Ellen Byron (Severn House)
• Game Without Rules, by Michael Gilbert (Union Square)
• Gaslight, by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and Sara Shepard (Blackstone)
• Gina Washington Slept Here, by Katherine Bolger Hyde
(Severn House)
• The Glass Box, by J. Michael Straczynski (Blackstone)
• A Grave in the Woods, by Martin Walker (Knopf)
• Graveyard Shift, by M.L. Rio (Flatiron)
• Grounds for Murder, by Betty Ternier Daniels (ECW Press)
• Guide Me Home, by Attica Locke (Mulholland)
• Here One Moment, by Liane Moriarty (Crown)
• Hired Guns, by Steve Hockensmith (Rough Edges Press)
• The Hitchcock Hotel, by Stephanie Wrobel (Berkley)
• Hope, by Len Deighton (Grove Press)
• Hunter at Large, by Thomas B. Dewey (Stark House Press)
• I Dreamed of Falling, by Julia Dahl (Minotaur)
• The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler,
by Robert Hutton (Pegasus)*
• Insensible Loss, by Linda L. Richards (Oceanview)
• Istanbul Crossing, by Timothy Jay Smith (Leapfrog Press)
• I Won’t Say a Word, by Joe Clifford (Square Tire)
• Jeykll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives, by Tim Major (Titan)
• A Killer Clue, by Victoria Gilbert (Crooked Lane)
• Lethal Standoff, by DiAnn Mills (Tyndale)
• Lies He Told Me, by James Patterson and David Ellis (Little, Brown)
• The Lightning Bottles, by Marissa Stapley (Simon & Schuster)
• The Little Sparrow Murders, by Seishi Yokomizo (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Madwoman, by Chelsea Bieker
(Little, Brown)
• The Many Lies of Veronica Hawkins, by Kristina Pérez (Pegasus Crime)
• Mark Twain’s Tales of the Macabre & Mysterious, edited by R. Kent Rasmussen (Lyons Press)
• The Mesmerist, by Caroline Woods (Doubleday)
• A Messy Murder, by Simon Brett
(Severn House)
• The Midnight Club, by Margot Harrison (Graydon House)
• The Moonflowers, by Abigail Rose-Marie (Lake Union)
• The Most Famous Girl in the World, by Iman Hariri-Kia (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year, by Ally Carter (Avon)
• Murder at King’s Crossing, by Andrea Penrose (Kensington)
• Murder in an Italian Café, by Michael Falco (Kensington Cozies)
• Murder in Berkeley Square, by Vanessa Riley (Kensington)
• The Murder Room, by Lisa Stone (HarperCollins)
• The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz (Mysterious Press)
• Nathan Heller: A Mysterious Profile, by Max Allan Collins (MysteriousPress.com/Open Road)
• Negative Girl, by Libby Cudmore (Datura)
• The Night We Lost Him, by Laura Dave (S&S/Marysue Rucci)
• Not Born of Woman, by Teel James Glenn (Macabre Ink)
• Not the Killing Kind, by Maria Kelson (Crooked Lane)
• Now You Are Mine, by Amanda Brittany (Boldwood)
• Ocean Drive, by Sam Wiebe (Harbour)
• Once More from the Top, by Emily Layden (Mariner)
• Out of Service, by Joseph Heywood (Lyons Press)
• Passiontide, by Monique Roffey (Knopf)
• The Phantom Patrol, by James R. Benn (Soho Crime)
• Precipice, by Robert Harris (Harper)
• Princess of the Savoy, by Prudence Emery and Ron Base
(Douglas & McIntyre)
• Queen Macbeth, by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Ransomed Madonna / The House on K Street, by Lionel White (Stark House Press)
• The Reaping, by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Red House Mystery, by A.A. Milne (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Retrograde Flaw, by Brian Shea and Raquel Byrnes (Severn River)
• Robert B. Parker’s Buzz Kill, by Alison Gaylin (Putnam)
• Safe Enough and Other Stories, by Lee Child (Mysterious Press)
• Saving Susy Sweetchild, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)
• The Serial Killer’s Guide to San Francisco, by Michelle Chouinard (Minotaur)
• Seven Lively Suspects, by Katy Watson (Mobius)
• The 17th Letter, by Dorothy Cameron Disney (Stark House Press)
• The Shadow Key, by Susan Stokes-Chapman (Harper)
• Sick to Death, by Andrew Welsh-Huggins (Swallow Press)
• Silver Moon Rising, by A.M. Potter (Stark House Press)
• A Slay Ride with You, by Vicki Delany (Crooked Lane)
• Snake Oil, by Kelsey Rae Dimberg (Mariner)
• The Solstice, by Matt Brolly (Thomas & Mercer)
• Suddenly at His Residence, by Christianna Brand (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Swimmer, by Loreth Anne White (Montlake)
• Syndicate, by Felix Francis (Crooked Lane)
• Them Without Pain, by Chris Nickson (Severn House)
• The Trap, by Ava Glass (Bantam)
• The Truth You Told, by Brianna Labuskes (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Tule Marsh Murder, by Nancy Barr Mavity (Penzler/American Mystery Classics)
• Turkeyfoot, by Rick Childers (Shotgun Honey)
• Under Cover of Darkness: Murder in Blackout London, by Amy Helen Bell (Yale University Press)*
• We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)
• What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust, by Alan Bradley (Bantam)
• When the Devil Drives, by John L. French (Bold Venture Press)
• Where They Last Saw Her, by Marcie R. Rendon (Bantam)
• Whispers of Guilt, by John Carson (Independently published)
• The Whitewashed Tombs, by Kwei Quartey (Soho Crime)
• Whole Life Sentence, by Lynda La Plante (Zaffre)
• The Witching Hour, by Catriona McPherson (Mobius)
• William, by Mason Coile (Putnam)
• XPD, by Len Deighton (Grove Press)
• Zetas Till We Die, by Amber and Danielle Brown (Graydon House)

SEPTEMBER (UK):
• Because She Looked Away, by Alison
Bruce (Constable)
• Blood Ties, by Jo Nesbø (Harvill Secker)
• The Case of the Lonely Accountant, by Simon Mason (Riverrun)
• The Chidham Creek Murders, by Pauline Rowson (Joffe)
• Close to the Edge, by Anna Britton (Canelo Crime)
• The Darkening Hills, by Kerry Buchanan (Joffe)
• A Deadly Discovery, by Ciar Byrne (Headline Accent)
• Dead Town, by Stephen Williams (Joffe)
• Death on Dartmoor Edge, by Stephanie Austin (Allison & Busby)
• Getting Away with Murder: My Unexpected Life on Page, Stage and Screen, by Lynda La Plante (Zaffre)*
• Hemlock Bay, by Martin Edwards (Head of Zeus/Aries)
• Holmes and Moriarty, by Gareth Rubin (Simon & Schuster UK)
• How to Slay at Work, by Sarah Bonner (Boldwood)
• The Island of Lies, by O. Huldumann (Independently published)
• Isolation Island, by Louise Minchin (Headline)
• Istanbul Crossing, by Timothy Jay Smith (Leapfrog Press)
• The Last Séance: Tales of the Supernatural, by Agatha Christie (HarperCollins)
• Lights Out, by Louise Swanson (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Living Is a Problem, by Doug Johnstone (Orenda)
• March Roars, by Maureen Jennings (Cormorant)
• Metropolitan Mysteries: A Casebook of London’s Detectives, edited by Martin Edwards (British Library Crime Classics)
• Midnight in Vienna, by Jane Thynne (Quercus)
• Missing Person: Alice, by Simon Mason (Riverrun)
• Murder at the Matinee, by Jamie West (Brabinger)
• Murder in Constantinople, by A.E. Goldin (Pushkin Vertigo)
• One Bad Apple, by Jo Jakeman (Constable)
• One of Us Is Dead, by Peter James (Macmillan)
• Opal, by Patricia Wolf (Embla)
• The Perfect Baby, by Sam Vickery (Bookouture)
• Poppy’s Christmas Cracker, by Leigh Russell (Crime & Mystery)
• A Reluctant Spy, by David Goodman (Headline)
• The Serial Killer Next Door, by Emma Kenny (Sphere)
• The Stalker, by Kate Rhodes (Simon & Schuster UK)
• A Suspicion of Spies: Risk, Secrets and Shadows, by Tim Spicer (Barbreck)*
• Writing the Murder: Essays in Crafting Crime Fiction, edited by Dan Coxon and Richard V. Hirst (Dead Ink)*

OCTOBER (U.S.):
• The Absinthe Forger: A True Story of Deception, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Dangerous Spirit, by Evan Rail (Melville House)*
• Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness, by Mark Aldridge (HarperCollins)
• The Amber Waves of Autumn, edited by David M. Olsen (Kelp)
• And He Shall Appear, by Kate van der Borgh (Union Square)
• Anna Hoyt, by Dana Cameron (Dcle)
• The Arizona Triangle, by Sydney Graves (Harper Paperbacks)
• The Bad Neighbor, by Jenifer Ruff (Greyt Companion Press)
• Banners of Hell, by Paul Doherty (Headline)
• Behind You, by Mike Omer (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024, edited by
S.A. Cosby (Mariner)
• Betrayal at Blackthorn Park, by Julia Kelly (Minotaur)
• The Betrayal of Thomas True, by A.J. West (Orenda)
• Beyond Reasonable Doubt, by Robert Dugoni (Thomas & Mercer)
• Bloom, by Delilah S. Dawson (Titan)
• Blue Christmas Bones, by Carolyn Haines (Minotaur)
• The Blue Hour, by Paula Hawkins (Mariner)
• The Boyfriend, by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Brew Unto Others, by Sandra Balzo (Severn House)
• Bronco Buster, by A.J. Devlin (NeWest Press)
• Brooklyn Kills Me, by Emily Schultz (Thomas & Mercer)
• A Case of Rage, by Chester Himes (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
• The Case of the Busy Bees, by Clifford Witting (Galileo)
• Catch You Later, by Jessica Strawser (Lake Union)
• Christmas at Glitter Peak Lodge, by Kjersti Herland Johnsen (HarperVia)
• The Christmas Jigsaw Murders, by Alexandra Benedict (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Clean, by Alia Trabucco Zerán (Riverhead)
• Dark Space, by Rob Hart and Alex
Segura (Blackstone)
• Death Comes at Christmas, edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane (Titan)
• Death Stake, by Andrew Mayne
(Thomas & Mercer)
• Disturbing the Bones, by Andrew Davis
and Jeff Biggers (Melville House)
• The Dry Diver Drownings, by A. Carver (Carver Culls)
• The Drowned, by John Banville (Hanover Square Press)
• Echoes of Us, by Joy Jordan-Lake (Lake Union)
• Eight Very Bad Nights: A Hanukkah Story Collection, edited by Tod Goldberg (Soho Crime)
• The Elias Network, by Simon Gervais (Thomas & Mercer)
• Every Moment Since, by Marybeth Whalen (Harper Muse)
• Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret, by Benjamin
Stevenson (Mariner)
• Exposure, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
• Gathering Mist, by Margaret Mizushima (Crooked Lane)
• The Great Hippopotamus Hotel, by Alexander McCall
Smith (Pantheon)
• The Grays of Truth, by Sharon Virts (Flashpoint)
• Greta, by Manon Steffan Ros (Amazon Crossing)
• The Grey Wolf, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer, by Maxie Dara (Berkley)
• Identity: Unknown, by Patricia Cornwell (Grand Central)
• In Too Deep, by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Delacorte Press)
• It Will Only Hurt for a Moment, by Delilah S. Dawson (Del Rey)
• Karla’s Choice, by Nick Harkaway (Viking)
• Killer Cocktails: Dangerous Drinks Inspired by History’s Most Nefarious Criminals, by Holly Frey and Maria Trimarchi (Hachette)*
• Killing Time, by M.C. Beaton with R.W. Green (Minotaur)
• The Last One at the Wedding, by Jason Rekulak (Flatiron)
• Leave the Girls Behind, by Jacqueline Bublitz (Atria/Emily Bestler)
• The Life and Death of Rose Doucette, by Harry Hunsicker (Oceanview)
• Lightborne, by Hesse Phillips (Pegasus)
• The Little Bird, by Ashby Jones (Addison & Highsmith)
• Long Time Gone, by Hannah Martian (Crooked Lane)
• Mandatory Reporting, by Jennifer Wilson O’Raghallaigh
(Seventh Street)
• The Man in Black and Other Stories, by Elly Griffiths (Mariner)
• The Mermaid Mystery, by Tamar Myers (Severn House)
• Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin (Mulholland)
• The Mistletoe Mystery, by Nita Prose (Ballantine)
• The Mistress and the Key, by Ben Mezrich (Grand Central)
• The More the Terrier, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)
• Mr. Einstein’s Secretary, by Matthew Reilly (Macmillan Australia)
• Mr. Good-Evening, by John MacLachlan Gray (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Murder Among the Pyramids, by Sara Rosett (McGuffin Ink)
• The Murderess, by Laurie Notaro (Little A)
• Murder in Highbury, by Vanessa Kelly (Kensington)
• Murder in Lima, by Robert A. Levey (Cutting Edge)
• Murder on the Page, by Daryl Wood Gerber (Kensington)
• Murder Takes the Stage, by Colleen Cambridge (Kensington)
• My Darlings, by Marie Still (Rising Action)
• Mysterious Tales of Old St. Paul, by Larry Millett (University of Minnesota Press)
• Mystery in the Title, by Ian Ferguson and Will Ferguson (Mira)
• A New Lease on Death, by Olivia Blacke (Minotaur)
• The Night Woods, by Paula Munier (Minotaur)
• No Hallowed Ground, by Steve Hockensmith (Rough Edges Press)
• No One Will Know, by Rose Carlyle (Morrow)
• Not Yours to Keep, by Zelly Ruskin (She Writes Press)
• The President’s Lawyer, by Lawrence Robbins (Atria)
• Prophet of Blood, by Peter Tremayne (Severn House)
• The Puzzle Box, by Danielle Trussoni (Random House)
• The Queen, by Nick Cutter (Gallery)
• The Restaurant of Lost Recipes, by Hisashi Kashiwai (Putnam)
• Rockin’ Around the Chickadee, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur)
• Rough Pages, by Lev AC Rosen (Forge)
• Run, by Blake Crouch (Ballantine)
• Run Man Run, by Chester Himes (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
• Scrambled, by Jaime Maddox (Bold Strokes)
• The Secret War of Julia Child, by Diana R. Chambers
(Sourcebooks Landmark)
• The Seventh Floor, by David McCloskey (Norton)
• Shallow Depths, by Milan Skrecek (Independently published)
• The Slate, by Matthew FitzSimmons (Thomas & Mercer)
• Society of Lies, by Lauren Ling Brown (Bantam)
• The Specimen, by Jaima Fixsen (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Sponsor, by Fred Das and Jeroen Terlingen (New In Chess)
• This Ends Now, by T.M. Payne (Thomas & Mercer)
• This Girl’s a Killer, by Emma C. Wells (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Three Coffins, by John Dickson Carr (Penzler/American
Mystery Classics)
• The Trip, by Phoebe Morgan (Morrow)
• The Treasure Hunters Club, by Tom Ryan (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Trials of Marjorie Crowe, by C.S. Robertson (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Troubling Death of Maddy Benson, by Terry Shames
(Severn House)
• Two Good Men, by S.E. Redfearn (Blackstone)
• Under a Lightning Sky, by Pam Lecky (Avon)
• The Undercurrent, by Sarah Sawyer (Zibby)
• The Usual Silence, by Jenny Milchman (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Waiting, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• What Are the Odds, by David List (Blackstone)
• The Wheel Spins, by Ethel Lina White (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Will End in Fire, by Nicole Bokat (She Writes Press)
• A Woman Underground, by Andrew Klavan (Mysterious Press)
• You Better Watch Out, by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth (St. Martin’s Press)
• You Can Kill, by Rebecca Zanetti (Zebra)
• You Have Gone Too Far, by Carlene O’Connor (Kensington)
• The Young Widows, by S.J. Short (Avon)

OCTOBER (UK):
• And Then There Were None: The Ultimate Mystery Edition, by Agatha Christie (HarperCollins)
• The Bad Seeds, by C.J. Skuse (HQ Digital)
• The Bells of Westminster, by Leonora Nattrass (Viper)
• The Burning Stones, by Antti Tuomainen (Orenda)
• The Cursed Writer, by Holly Hepburn (Boldwood)
• Curtain Call to Murder, by Julian Clary (Orion)
• Dance to Death, by Shirley Ballas (HQ)
• The Dangerous Journey, by Frederick J. Hillberg (Brown Dog)
• Dark as Night, by Lilja Sigurdardóttir (Orenda)
• Dead Behind the Eyes, by Ian Moore (Duckworth)
• Dead Island, by Samuel Bjørk (Bantam)
• Death at the Old Curiosity Shop, by Debbie Young (Boldwood)
• Death Rites, by Sarah Ward (Canelo Crime)
• Dramatic Murder: A Lost Christmas Mystery, by Elizabeth Anthony (British Library Crime Classics)
• The Eleventh Grave, by Rachel Amphlett (Saxon)
• Guilty, by Martina Cole and Jacqui Rose (Headline)
• The Honeymoon, by Gemma Rogers (Boldwood)
• A Killer of Influence, by J.D. Kirk (Canelo)
• The Labyrinth House Murders, by Yukito Ayatsuji (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Leo, by Deon Meyer (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency, by Josie Lloyd (HQ)
• Murder in My Backyard, by Ann Cleeves (Pan)
• Murder Under the Mistletoe, by Richard Coles (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• The Official Agatha Christie Puzzle Book (Laurence King)*
• Pay Back the Devil, by Graham Masterton (Head of Zeus/Aries)
• The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place, by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury Circus)*
• Prize Catch, by Alan Carter (Fremantle Press)
• A Saxon Shadow, by H.L. Marsay (Tule)
• Silent Bones, by Val McDermid (Sphere)
• The Soho Murder, by Mike Hollow (Allison & Busby)
• Their Frozen Bones, by D.K. Hood (Bookouture)
• When the Germans Come, by David Hewson (Bloodhound)

NOVEMBER (U.S.):
• Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer (Down & Out)
• All’s Fair in Love and Treachery, by Celeste Connally (Minotaur)
• Antiques Slay Belles, by Barbara Allan (Severn House)
• April Storm, by Leila Meacham (Harper)
• The Author’s Guide to Murder, by Karen White (Morrow)
• Big Breath In, by John Straley (Soho Crime)
• The Boundaries We Cross, by Brad Parks (Oceanview)
• Bright Segments, by James Sallis (Soho Crime)
• Burn This Night, by Alex Kenna (Crooked Lane)
• Call Me Carmela, by Ellen Kirschman (Open Road Media)
• A Case of Matricide, by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Biblioasis)
• The Coldest Case, by Tessa Wegert (Severn House)
• The Conspiracies of the Empire, by Qiu Xiaolong (Severn House)
• Deadly Animals, by Marie Tierney (Henry Holt)
• Death and the Old Master, by G.M. Malliet (Severn House)
• Death in Briar Bottom: The True Story of Hippies, Mountain Lawmen, and the Search for Justice in the Early 1970s, by Timothy Silver (University of North Carolina Press)*
• Death Takes the Lead, by Rosemary Simpson (Kensington)
• Devil’s Defense, by Lori B. Duff (She Writes Press)
• The Don: 36 Rules of the Bosses, by R.J. Roger (Citadel)*
• Double Barrel Bluff, by Lou Berney (Morrow Paperbacks)
• Drop Dead Sisters, by Amelia Diane Coombs (Mindy's Book Studio)
• The Fallen Sparrow, by Dorothy B. Hughes (Penzler/American Mystery Classics)
• Fatal Foul Play, by David S. Pederson
(Bold Strokes)
• Flint Kill Creek: Stories of Mystery and Suspense, by Joyce Carol Oates
(Mysterious Press)
• Guilt and Ginataan, by Mia P.
Manansala (Berkley)
• The Gonif, by Andy Weinberger
(Prospect Park)
• Heavy Are the Stones, by J.D. Barker and Christine Daigle
(Hampton Creek Press)
• He Who Whispers, by John Dickson Carr (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Honolulu Noir, edited by Chris McKinney (Akashic)
• Hotel Lucky Seven, by Kotaro Isaka (Overlook Press)
• I Know She Was There, by Jennifer Sadera (CamCat)
• I’ll Be Home for Mischief, by Jacqueline Frost (Crooked Lane)
• The Indian Rope Trick, by Tom Mead (Crippen & Landru)
• An Insignificant Case, by Phillip Margolin (Minotaur)
• Kill Yours, Kill Mine, by Katherine Kovacic (Poisoned Pen Press)
• The Lake of Lost Girls, by Katherine Greene (Crooked Lane)
• The Last King of California, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland)
• Men of Action: Behind-the-Scenes of Four Classic TV Series, by Ed Robertson (Cutting Edge)*
• Misery Hates Company, by Elizabeth Hobbs (Crooked Lane)
• Mr. Campion’s Christmas, by Mike Ripley (Severn House)
• Murder at Glenloch Hill, by Clara McKenna (Kensington)
• Murder at Whitechapel Road Station, by Jim Eldridge
(Allison & Busby)
• Murder in the Ranks, by Kristi Jones (Crooked Lane)
• Murder Town, by Shelley Burr (Morrow)
• No Special Hurry, by Colman Conroy (Koehler)
• Now or Never, by Janet Evanovich (Atria)
• The Nuremberg Papers, by Jonathan E. Lewis (Stark House Press)
• Out in the Cold, by Steve Urszenyi (Minotaur)
• Pony Confidential, by Christina Lynch (Berkley)
• Quarry’s Return, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime)
• Red Hook: Brooklyn Mafia, Ground Zero, by Frank Dimatteo and Michael Benson (Citadel)*
• Robert B. Parker’s Hot Property, by Mike Lupica (Putnam)
• Safecracker, by Jesse Deroy (Union Square)
• The Saint, by Carin Gerhardsen (Mysterious Press)
• Shell Games, by Bonnie Kistler (Harper)
• Silent Are the Dead, by D.M. Rowell (Crooked Lane)
• Smoke Season, by Amy Hagstrom (Lake Union)
• The Starlets, by Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorpe (Harper Muse)
• Submerged: How a Cold Case Condemned an Innocent Man to Hide a Family’s Darkest Secret, by Hillel Levin (Crime Ink)*
• These Opulent Days, by Jacquie Pham (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• To Die For, by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
• Tooth and Claw, by Craig Johnson (Viking)
• The Trunk, by Kim Ryeo-Ryeong (Hanover Square Press)
• Two Times Murder, by Adam Oyebanji (Severn House)
• A Very Bad Thing, by J.T. Ellison (Thomas & Mercer)
• We Three Queens, by Rhys Bowen (Berkley)
• Widows of Medina, by D.D. Black (Independently published)
• Widow’s Walk, by Raemi A. Ray (Tule)
• You Can’t Hurt Me, by Emma Cook (Hanover Square Press)

NOVEMBER (UK):
• The Berlin Agent, by Stephen Ronson (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Black Swan Mystery, by Tetsuya Ayukawa (Pushkin Vertigo)
• Blood Sacrifice, by Douglas Jackson (Canelo Action)
• Blood Will Tell, by Christian Unge (MacLehose Press)
• The Bologna Vendetta, by Tom Benjamin (Constable)
• Can’t Run, Can’t Hide, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Christmas Stocking Murders, by Denzil Meyrick (Bantam)
• City of Destruction, by Vaseem Khan (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Cut and Run, by Alec Marsh (Independently published)
• Dead Cold, by T.F. Muir (Constable)
• Deadfall, by Aline Templeton (Allison & Busby)
• A Deadly Fall, by E.V. Hunter (Boldwood)
• Death of a Princess, by R.N. Morris (Independently published)
• The Enigma Girl, by Henry Porter (Quercus)
• Firefight, by Tom Wood (Sphere)
• Ghost Island, by Max Seeck (Mountain Leopard Press)
• Going to the Dogs, by Pierre Lemaitre (Mountain Leopard Press)
• Ice Town, by Will Dean (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Killer in the Cold, by Alex Pine (Avon)
• Last One Left Alive, by Michael Wood (One More Chapter)
• The Last Ride, by Nick Louth (Canelo Crime)
• Liars Island, by T. Orr Munro (HQ)
• A Lively Midwinter Murder, by Katy Watson (Constable)
• Mr. Hogarth’s Morning, by Tom Braun (Troubador)
• A Mother’s Revenge, by Alex Kane (Canelo Hera)
• Murder at the Crooked House, by Lesley Cookman (Headline Accent)
• Murder in Vienna, by E.C.R. Lorac (British Library Crime Classics)
• The Neighbour’s Secret, by Sharon Bolton (Orion)
• Nothing to See Here, by Susan Lewis (HarperCollins)
• Palisade, by Lou Gilmond (Armillary)
• The Revenge Pact, by Liz Mistry (HQ Digital)
• Sizar, by Susan Grossey (Susan Grossey)
• A Thief’s Blood, by Douglas Skelton (Canelo Adventure)
• The Three Deaths of Justice Godfrey, by L.C. Tyler (Constable)
• The Traitor, by Jørn Lier Horst (Michael Joseph)
• Traitor, by Roberta Kray (Sphere)
• Victim, by Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger (Orenda)
• The Village Killer, by Ross Greenwood (Boldwood)
• White City, by Dominic Nolan (Headline)
• You All Die Tonight, by Simon Kernick (Headline)

DECEMBER (U.S.):
• Against the Grain, by Peter Lovesey (Soho Crime)
• Alter Ego, by Alex Segura (Flatiron)
• Bellevue, by Robin Cook (Putnam)
• Booked for Murder, by P.J. Nelson (Minotaur)
• Buried Road, by Katie Tallo (Harper)
• The Case of the Missing Maid, by Rob Osler (Kensington)
• The Close-Up, by Pip Drysdale (Gallery)
• Deadbeat, by Adam Hamdy (Atria)
• Desperate Blonde / Dungaree Sin, by Lorenz Heller
(Stark House Press)
• Dogs and Wolves, by Hervé Le Corre (Europa Editions)
• The Door, by Mary Roberts Rinehart (Penzler/American
Mystery Classics)
• Echo, by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)
• Gabriel’s Moon, by William Boyd (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Good Bride, by Jen Marie Wiggins (Crooked Lane)
• Good Lieutenant, by E.J. Copperman (Severn House)
• Havoc, by Christopher Bollen (Harper)
• I Might Be in Trouble, by Daniel Aleman (Grand Central)
• Imposter Syndrome, by Joseph Knox (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Invisible Helix, by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur)
• The Last Kilo: Willy Falcon and the Cocaine Empire That Seduced America, by T.J. English (Morrow)*
• Leviathan, by Robert McCammon (Lividian)
• Locked In, by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton)
• Love the Stranger, by Michael Sears (Soho Crime)
• Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, Vol. 5, by Michael Bracken
(Down & Out)
• My Darling Boy, by Helen Cooper (Putnam)
• The Next Grave, by Kendra Elliot (Montlake)
• Nobody’s Hero, by M.W. Craven (Flatiron)
• October Bride, by Neil Albert (Independently published)
• Past Redemption, by David Mark (Severn House)
• Perfect Storm, by Paige Shelton (Minotaur)
• The Resurrectionist, by A. Rae Dunlap (Kensington)
• The Rivals, by Jane Pek (Vintage)
• The Secret of the Three Fates, by Jess Armstrong (Minotaur)
• The Silent Watcher, by Victor Methos (Thomas & Mercer)
• A Snake in the Barley, by Candace Robb (Severn House)
• Stuart Woods’ Golden Hour, by Brett Battles (Putnam)
• The Survivors, by Caroline Mitchell (Thomas & Mercer)
• The Theft of the Iron Dogs, by E.C.R. Lorac (Poisoned Pen Press)
• Trial by Ambush: Murder, Injustice, and the Truth about the Case of Barbara Graham, by Marcia Clark (Thomas & Mercer)*
• Trouble Island, by Sharon Short (Minotaur)
• The Turnglass, by Gareth Rubin (Union Square)
• We Are the Beasts, by Gigi Griffis (Delacorte Press)
• What the Wife Knew, by Darby Kane (Morrow)

DECEMBER (UK):
• City of Silk, by Glennis Virgo (Allison & Busby)
• Death on the Prowl, by Ann Granger (Headline)
• Katya: Arctic Betrayal, by David Bickford (Coinkydink)
• Murder on the Brighton Express, by C.J. Archer (C.J. Archer)
• Murder’s Snare, by Paul Doherty (Severn House)
• Scotzilla, by Catriona McPherson (Severn House)
• Tea on Sunday, by Lettice Cooper (British Library Crime Classics)
• 36 Hours, by Angela Marsons (Bookouture)

I’m sorry for posting this list now, rather than at the beginning of September, as I had planned to do. But life got in the way. Let’s hope these recommendations are received well, nonetheless. If you think I’ve missed mentioning any works of special merit, please don’t hesitate to let us all know about them in the post’s Comments section.

Ned Masters

The Australian Crime Writers Association has announced the winners of its 2024 Ned Kelly Awards (the “Neddies”), in four categories.

Best Crime Fiction:
Darling Girls, by Sally Hepworth (Pan Australia)

Also nominated: Killer Traitor Spy, by Tim Ayliffe (Simon & Schuster Australia); Dark Corners, by Megan Goldin (Canelo); Dark Mode, by Ashley Kalagian Blunt (Ultimo Press); The Seven, by Chris Hammer (Allen & Unwin); Ripper, by Shelley Burr (Hachette Australia); The Tea Ladies, by Amanda Hampson (Penguin); and Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect, by Benjamin Stevenson (Michael Joseph)

Best Debut Crime Fiction:
Murder in the Pacific: Ifira Point, by Matt Francis (Big Sky)

Also nominated: Four Dogs Missing, by Rhys Gard (Echo); Gus and the Missing Boy, by Troy Hunter (Wakefield Press); Lowbridge, by Lucy Campbell (Ultimo Press); The Fall Between, by Darcy Tindale (Penguin); The Beacon, by P.A. Thomas (Echo); and Violet Kelly and the Jade Owl, by Fiona Britton (Allen & Unwin)

Best True Crime:
Crossing the Line, by Nick McKenzie (Hachette Australia)

Also nominated: Killing for Country, by David Marr (Black Inc); The Murder Squad, by Michael Adams (Affirm Press); Reckless, by Marele Day (Ultimo Press); and The Teacher’s Pet, by Hedley Thomas (Macmillan Australia)

Best International Crime Fiction:
The Only Suspect, by Louise Candlish (Simon & Schuster UK)

Also nominated: Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton (Granta); Dice, by Claire Baylis (Allen & Unwin); Resurrection Walk, by Michael Connelly (Orion); The Search Party, by Hannah Richell (Simon & Schuster UK); and Zero Days, by Ruth Ware (Simon & Schuster UK)

A video revealing each of this year’s winners and including acceptance speeches by the victors can be enjoyed here.

The Ned Kelly Awards were inaugurated in 1995 and, as the ACWA explains, are named for “the nation’s most infamous villain, bushranger Ned Kelly from the Kelly Gang.”

Revue of Reviewers: 9-17-24

Critiquing some of the most interesting recent crime, mystery, and thriller releases. Click on the individual covers to read more.

Living in the Modern Sherlockian Age

I recently finished reading author and screenwriter Nicholas Meyer’s splendid Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell (Mysterious Press), his sixth novel starring Holmes and the steadfast Doctor John H. Watson. So when I spotted Sherlock authority Steven T. Doyle’s article, in CrimeReads, looking back at the 1976 release of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, I had to read it right away. It begins:

For those who weren’t there, who didn’t live through the transition, it may be impossible to understand what it was like. Even for those who were, enough time has passed that perhaps the memory has dimmed under the successive tides of Sherlockian enthusiasm. But the fact is that 1974 is a watershed year in the history of Sherlock Holmes. The Great Detective went mainstream with the debut of Nicholas Meyer’s novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. We now live in a Sherlockian universe permanently transformed by this single volume, a pastiche that inaugurated the modern Sherlockian age.

You can enjoy the complete essay by Doyle (and what a convenient moniker that is!) simply by clicking here.

Brookmyre Grabs the Crown

Glasgow-born novelist Chris Brookmyre has won the 2024 McIlvanney Prize for his most recent standalone mystery, The Cracked Mirror (Abacus). That announcement was made on Friday, September 13—the opening night of the Bloody Scotland Festival.

Also shortlisted for this award: Past Lying, by Val McDermid (Sphere); Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage); A Spy Like Me, by Kim Sherwood (HarperCollins); and A Divine Fury, by D.V. Bishop (Pan Macmillan).

Presented annually since 2012, the McIvanney Prize is named in honor of Scottish author William McIlvanney, who passed away in 2015. Previous recipients include Charles Cumming, Peter May, Denise Mina, Francine Toon, and Alan Parks.

ADDENDUM: I neglected to mention there was a second prize winner declared during this year’s Bloody Scotland Festival. The Silent House of Sleep (SA Press), by UK “doctor and medical pathologist” Allan Gaw, was chosen to receive the 2024 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.

Contending for that commendation, as well, were the novels Crow Moon, by Suzy Aspley (Orenda); Dark Island, by Daniel Aubrey (Harper North); Blood Runs Deep, by Doug Sinclair (Storm); and Double Proof, by Martin Stewart (Polygon).

The Book You Have to Read: “The Digger’s Game,” by George V. Higgins

(Editor’s note: This is the 186th installment in The Rap Sheet’s continuing series about great but forgotten books.)

By Steven Nester
Jerry “Digger” Doherty, a degenerate Boston gambler with a drinking problem, is once again in a jam. This time a Las Vegas junket run by the mob has left him in the hole for six figures, and he’s got no plan for paying it back. His usual go-to guy is his brother the Catholic Bishop, but his eminence has had enough of his wayward sibling. Lucky for the Digger there are others to do the thinking for him; and since his skill set is breaking and entering, that’s what the loan sharks have in mind, whether this ex-con likes it or not.

Hot on the heels of 1970’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle (“the best crime novel ever written,” according to Elmore Leonard), and resembling Coyle in style and execution, George V. Higgins’ The Digger’s Game (1973) offers fly-on-the-wall observations of how the other half makes money, loses money—and attempts to make good on it. Considering the alternative, anyone who finds themselves behind the eight ball with the mob will do just about any type of dirty work to get themselves in the clear. In gangster logic (and anyone’s) it’s very simple. The Digger’s counselor-in-crime lays out the law of supply and demand for him just before a heist, in his estimation of a pep talk.

“Some guys,” the driver said, starting the Jaguar, “some guys need more’n they have, some guys have more’n they need. It’s just a matter of getting us together.”

Because the Digger can’t be trusted to raise the cash on his own, “the Greek” is brought in to help. An old-school mob enforcer, the Greek also happens to be regent for the enterprises of an imprisoned crime boss. Among the diverse holdings the Greek oversees on his behalf is a partnership with two young cologne-soaked sharpies who run the junket operation that allowed the penniless Digger to gamble on their dime. A source of irritation for the Greek, who’s ever mindful of money, is that those two hotshots rolled the dice on Digger just to fill an airplane seat, only to came up snake eyes.

“We hadda fill the plane,” Torry said. “We had fourteen beds at the hotel, we’re gonna have to pay for, at least one night, we don’t use them, the whole three nights, they don’t rent them to somebody else. Miller told me he was coming up empty, his other prospects. I said I’d see what I could do. So I tried the Digger.”

Richie the Greek said, “You hang around the wrong guys. You know them guys?”

And it doesn’t stop there. The trio butt heads once again when the youthful sharpies explain how they want to turn their junket operation into a legit business: a travel agency. As far as the Green is concerned, this would present problems. A paid secretary, expense accounts, and an office worthy of looking mainstream are components of their vision, but the Greek is from another generation. More comfortable with back-room dice games than welcoming newly flush marks to the jet set, he owes fealty to working-class characters from gritty places like Worcester and Providence; he’s only babysitting these two upstarts because he’s obligated to.

So this book is about two underworld figures, the Digger and the Greek, both with big problems. But as with any Higgins novel, there are more attractions here than simply the plot.

As a former assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts (and an ex-crime reporter), this author had experience with the criminal world, and anyone who’s read his work before can expect a signal strength of The Digger’s Game to be in how it captures the cadence and idioms of his characters’ dialogue. The son of exacting schoolteachers who read aloud to him, it was perhaps that which helped Higgins develop an ear later in life for the ways in which people—especially crooks, cops, lowlifes, and politicians—spoke. Capturing those peculiarities on the page helped put his readers into the thick of things. Yet, because Higgins’ books are driven by soliloquies in the patois and rhythm of Boston hard guys—“patterns of elision and compression that people use,” as he put it—stage direction and sense of location are nowhere to be seen. The reader must pay special attention to nuance. Some may balk at the challenge Higgins presents, but he had a careful, straightforward plan for his writing style. As he said, “Dialogue is character and character is plot.”

By following that maxim, Higgins made his stories ready for cinematic interpretation. Eddie Coyle made it to the big screen in 1973, starring Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle. Cogan’s Trade (1974), repackaged for moviehouses as Killing Them Softly, with Brad Pitt playing a hit man, never achieved the same renown.

The author of more than 30 books, most of them novels, Higgins also published on a variety of other subjects, including baseball, politics, and naturally, the art of writing. On Writing: Advice for Those Who Write to Publish (or Would Like To) reached print in 1990. In it, Higgins gives credit to his characters for the strength of his storytelling, and not to himself as their creator. It’s advice that any budding fictionist should heed. “I’m not writing dialogue because I like doing dialogue,” Higgins said. “The characters are telling you the story. I’m not telling the story.”