A Lucky Number, After All

I shall never be able to keep up with Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter when it comes to cataloguing all of this year’s lists of “best” crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. Every so often, though, I do want to highlight selections that seem special, from sources or individual reviewers I trust.

Such a case is Daily Telegraph critic Jake Kerridge’s new register of what he contends are the 13 top crime thrillers of 2024:

• Midnight and Blue, by Ian Rankin (Orion)
• The Bad Seeds, by C.J. Skuse (HQ)
• Imposter Syndrome, by Joseph Knox (Doubleday)
• Vengeance, by Salma Mir (Point Blank)
• The Night of Baba Yaga, by Akira Otani (Faber & Faber)
• City in Ruins, by Don Winslow (Hemlock Press)
• Against the Grain, by Peter Lovesey (Sphere)
• Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday)
• We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman (Viking)
• Guilt by Definition, by Susie Dent (Zaffre)
• Farewell Dinner for a Spy, by Edward Wilson (Arcadia)
• Karla’s Choice, by Nick Harkaway (Viking)
• The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (No Exit)

Kerridge declares Berry’s debut novel “my thriller of the year,” but it actually came last year on this side of the Atlantic.

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Speaking of thrillers, the Financial Times’ Adam Lebor has compiled his own top-five choices of 2024 works in that same category:

• Every Spy a Traitor, by Alex Gerlis (Canelo)
• Karla’s Choice, by Nick Harkaway (Viking)
• The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry (No Exit)
• Moscow X, by David McClockey (Swift Press; a 2023 U.S. release)
• Midnight in Vienna, by Jane Thynne (Quercus)

READ MORE: “Chicago Public Library Best Mystery & Thriller Fiction of 2024” (Deadly Pleasures).