The books I’ve read and reviewed this year for my crime-novel podcast, Poets of the Tabloid Murder, have been many and varied. Although I prefer capers, hard-boiled yarns, and tales of the riff-raff living down to their (and my) expectations, this year I rounded things out. I peppered my reading list with a few locked-room mysteries,
police procedurals, tea cozies, rom coms with gun-in-hand, and others. Yet however hard I tried to mix things up, my preferences prevailed. Below are the books from this genre that really made an impression on me, and which I would recommend to anyone.• Everybody Wants to Rule the World, by Ace Atkins (Morrow)
• Crooks, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• Karma Doll, by Jonathan Ames (Mullholland)
• The Get Off, by Christa Faust (Hard Case Crime)
• Pro Bono, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press)
These books present much to be admired (as did those that didn’t quite make my final cut), yet each possesses an aspect that stands prominently above their other attributes. The late Thomas Perry’s ability, for instance, to create a complicated plot, yet keep it accessible and still filled with surprises. Christa Faust brings the genuine down-low to life not just because she has lived it, but because during her wild-child youth she also honed her craft as a writer, able to make the transgressive tenable. Jonathan Ames keeps private-eye fiction very much alive, with a breath of fresh cordite and an inventive plot, plus a protagonist, in Hank “Happy” Doll, who refuses to say “uncle!” From the humid swamps of Louisiana to Washington, D.C., Ace Atkins dips his toes in international waters in a homegrown thriller that makes you laugh as well as hang onto your seat; his attention to the details of living in the troubled 21st century is complete and humorous. Finally, Lou Berney channels James Michener to expand his narrative style in a crime family saga that boasts of perfectly presented characterizations and a believable happy ending that won’t have anyone reaching for a Kleenex.
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