Just Add Wrapping Paper

With the holiday gift-giving season upon us, it may be time to revisit The Rap Sheet’s lengthy list of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction published since the beginning of September.

That particular inventory is a choice example of how I’ve been approaching these quarterly collections of publications over the last several years. It used to be that I would post such a rundown, and then leave it generally untouched, moving on to the next season. But now those listings are dynamic, growing in size as I learn about more releases during the period of their coverage. The most recent selection offered just over 400 titles when it went up three months ago. But since then, I’ve added dozens of novels, among them Alec Marsh’s Cut and Run, Katie Tallo’s Buried Road, Tom Braun’s Mr. Hogarth’s Morning, Catriona McPherson’s Scotzilla, and October Bride, Neil Albert’s 10th entry in an excellent series starring Pennsylvania private eye Dave Garrett. On top of those, I’ve tossed in new non-fiction works, including Timothy Silver’s “gritty” Death in Briar Bottom: The True Story of Hippies, Mountain Lawmen, and the Search for Justice in the Early 1970s, and Marcia Clark’s Trial by Ambush: Murder, Injustice, and the Truth about the Case of Barbara Graham.

Still looking for presents to bestow upon the crime-fiction lovers in your life? There are ideas aplenty here.