Favorite Crime Fiction of 2025, Part III: Kevin Burton Smith

(Kevin Burton Smith is the Montreal, Quebec-born founder and editor of that essential resource, The Thrilling Detective Web Site, as well as the Web Monkey for The Private Eye Writers of America and a contributor to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. A lost Canadian, he’s currently hiding out in Southern California’s High Desert with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne [aka Diana Killian and Josh Lanyon], and waiting for the end of the world.)

In a “normal” year, I might have lost myself in crime fiction. Books, short stories, films, television, comic books, and graphic novels. Yet in a year and a nation overstuffed with real-life crime, fiction often wasn’t enough for this lost Canadian.

Oh, there were books I could almost lose myself in, and Lord knows I tried; but worries political, professional, and personal kept intruding. It has been one hell of a year, and Rap Sheet editor Jeff Pierce is not kidding when he suggests that we’re all—or at least most of us—tired.

Still, I was heartened by memories of my long-gone mother and her reports of how during World War II’s Blitzkrieg, Londoners took refuge in the underground Tube stations, huddled together, reading works by Agatha Christie and other authors, even as Nazi artillery exploded overhead. And so, as more figurative bombs kept falling right and left these last dozen months, I did manage to find solace in these 10 books:

• Untouchable, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly)
• Never Flinch, by Stephen King (Scribner)
• Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
• Picket Line, by Elmore Leonard (Mariner)
• Nightshade, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• Boystown, by John Shannon (Unnamed Press)
• Hatchet Girls, by Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland)
• Galway’s Edge, by Ken Bruen (Mysterious Press)
• North Country, by Matt Bondurant (Blackstone)
• Out of Alcatraz, by Christopher Cantwell and Tyler Crook (Oni Press)

Each of those had a scene, a character, a mood, a spark—something—that let me achieve escape velocity for a blissful hour of so.

Mike Lawson’s Untouchable, featuring Washington, D.C., political fixer Joe DeMarco, wandered all too close to reality on occasion. However, I was heartened by its suggestion that even in the most vile of times, with corruption coming down like a hammer on a drum, maybe, just maybe, some spark of goodness may prevail. Stephen King and Laura Lippman also brought back two of my favorite series eyes, Holly Gibney and Tess Monaghan, respectively, even if the long-missing Tess’ appearance amounted to little more than an extended cameo or two—still, it was great to catch up with both of them. The Leonard novella barely qualifies as a book, and yet it was a delicious reminder of what a gift that author was to crime fiction. Fellow vet Connelly’s Nightshade was a rousing introduction to a promising new series, featuring a big-city cop trying to bring law and order (or at least some approximation of justice) to the sleepy resort vibe of California’s beloved Santa Catalina Island, mere miles off the coast from big, bad Los Angeles. Back on that mainland, John Shannon’s beaten and battered, post-stroke private eye, Jack Liffey, continued to fight the good fight in the City of Angels and its myriad subcultures (Onward, West Hollywood?), while a few states over, in Texas, Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard go tooth, nail, and assorted weaponry against some well-armed women in a bloody froth of crime, misguided politics, and feminist ire. And across the ocean, in Ireland, the late, great Ken Bruen’s Galway’s Edge was a heart-wrenching adieu from one of the genre’s outstanding stylists and yarn spinners, and marked a swan song for his poetry-spouting, beleaguered but defiant detective, Jack Taylor, one of crime fiction’s most memorable characters. We’ll miss them both.

There were also a couple of unexpected surprises this year that landed hard. North Country was way out of my usual wheelhouse, mixing hard-boiled crime with some surprising WTF? and dark-hearted woo-woo, as dishonorably discharged Tom Kaiser makes his way home to upstate Chazy, New York—a return that turns into a swirl of murder, backstabbing, stolen art, broken families, and drug smuggling that stretches from Vermont all the way to Montreal and back. Oh, plus satellites and shooting stars in the sky and something like death moving under the unforgiving ice of a frozen Lake Champlain. The Out of Alcatraz graphic novel also straddles the Canada/U.S. border, telling a twisted prison break tale based oh-so-loosely on actual events that occurred in 1962, with the escapees (whose bodies, historically, were never recovered) and their accomplices squabbling, dodging the law and assorted betrayals, and fighting their way from the infamous San Francisco federal pen cross country to Canada, and the whispered promise of shelter from the storm.

I know just how they feel.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2024, Part I: Kevin Burton Smith

Kevin Burton Smith is the Montreal, Quebec-born founder and editor of that essential resource, The Thrilling Detective Web Site, as well as the Web Monkey for The Private Eye Writers of America and a contributor to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. A lost Canadian, he’s currently hiding out in Southern California’s High Desert with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne (aka Diana Killian and Josh Lanyon), and waiting for the end of the world.

• Huge, by Brent Butt (Seal):

It sounds like the set-up for a bad joke: three stand-up comics walk into a bar in Canada …

But it’s no joke—it’s a scene played out several times in comedian Brett Butt’s dead-serious thriller, Huge.

One of the comedians is Dale, a cash-strapped but seasoned pro who knows how to leave ’em laughing. Not a superstar, maybe, but he knows how to play the game, serving as emcee and closing headliner on a low-key, low-budget tour of nowhere Canadian prairie towns (Brass Hole! Wire Beach! Horsewater!), working its way to big-city Winnipeg, Manitoba, a prime spot (really!) on the North American comedy circuit. Joining Dale is Rynn, a feisty young Irish comedienne with a possible TV show deal in the works. She’s the opener. And the third comic, occupying the middle slot, is Hobie Huge, an over-sized Canadian desperate to make it as a comedian. He’s local, and so he’s using his customized van to drive them from gig to gig.

Only catch? Hobie’s a frickin’ psychopath—a stone-cold, homicidal nutjob with absolutely zero impulse control and a hair-trigger temper. So what starts out as a fascinating behind-the-scenes peek at the world of stand-up comedy ends up being infinitely darker as Hobie slowly loses it, and Dale and Rynn realize—too late—just how far out on the crazy train their co-star really is.

The lovably schlubby Canadian author, Butt, is probably best known in the United States for Corner Gas, a long-running, still-streaming Canadian sitcom, and No Clue, a 2014 film comedy in which a mild-mannered, middle-aged Vancouver, British Columbia, novelty salesman (played by Butt) poses as a hard-boiled private investigator, hoping to impress a woman. But Huge is something else again—a disturbing, twitchy, and surprisingly effective nail-biter that draws you in … before it yanks the rug right out from under you.

Killer, eh?

• Where the Body Was, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image Comics):

By this point, a kick-ass graphic novel by Brubaker (words) and Phillips (art) is no surprise—it’s pretty much an annual event. But Where the Body Was, which marks a break from their regular (and much harder-boiled) Criminal and Reckless series, is something else again—a clever and engaging standalone that borders on cozy; a crime story featuring a group of characters who all live in the same sleepy 1980s American suburban neighborhood, told through a bunch of overlapping viewpoints.

It’s almost quaint: tree-lined streets, well-tended (mostly) lawns, tranquil cul-de-sacs, a tree house, a slew of seemingly comfy bungalows, an old boarding house and, as presented in the helpful “Cast of Characters” list (a nod to vintage Dell Mapbacks), a closed circle of suspects. Those include a couple of ne’er-do-well “wild” kids, a loner with a badge and a rich fantasy life, a horny housewife, a workaholic psychiatrist, a homeless Vietnam vet, a precocious 11-year old fangirl who has appointed herself the local superhero, and an outsider private eye hunting for a runaway girl. And of course a murder that rocks this little world.

It’s all depicted with a nuanced and empathetic hand by Phillips, and as the viewpoint slides back and forth between multiple players and timeframes, the tale feels as cozy as a cup of Earl Grey, poured by Dame Agatha herself. At first, anyway, because Brubaker and Phillips can’t help but slide in a deliciously dark if-not-quite-noir sucker punch at the end. As the various pieces slowly come together, they click into place in a fashion that, frankly, knocked me for a loop.

But of course. How else could it end?

Well played, gentlemen, well played.

• California Bear, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland):

I generally hate serial-killer novels. Too often they’re simply workarounds for lightweights who want to skip over the tough job of creating credible villains. But Swierczynski does the heavy lifting here, because he’s after much bigger game. This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco—he ain’t foolin’ around.

Sure, there’s the obligatory hunt for a serial killer, but that's just the corkboard for this author to pin a whole lot of things to, including:

— A multiple murderer known as the “California Bear,” who vanished four decades ago but is now coming out of retirement.
— An upcoming true-crime documentary by some scruple-free filmmakers about that slayer coming out of retirement.
— Cato Hightower, a crooked former cop who smells money, and isn’t beyond a little extortion to get what he wants.
— Jack Queen, a recently released ex-convict and single parent who’s trying to do right by his 15-year-old daughter.
— Jeanie Hightower, Cato’s beleaguered wife, a genealogist unwillingly dragged into her husband’s schemes.
— A slew of California Bear online fans and true-crime podcasters, plus a handful of real-life wannabes and copycats gumming up the works.
— The Girl Detective (aka Matilda), Jack Queen’s aforementioned daughter, a brainiac problem solver, confined to a hospital bed with a bad case of leukemia. And the prognosis is not good.

Along the way, Southern California writer Swierczynski takes savage pokes at a true-crime industry that cashes in on other people’s tragedies, a health care system run for profit, a legal system’s sometimes shaky notions of justice, and the million ways we can be torn apart, while shining a defiant light on the fragile, yet enduring ties that somehow—against all odds—bind us together.

Yeah, the plot slips and slides all over the place, its short, punchy chapters leaping from viewpoint to viewpoint, the head-whipping twists held together only by this author’s always muscular storytelling chops. But what it all adds up to is arguably Swierczynski’s best novel yet—a multilevel triumph that burns red hot, with an ending guaranteed to put the boot to even the most hardened of hearts. (And for those of us fortunate enough to know Duane Swierczynski, that ending is even more devastating.)

• Galway Confidential, by Ken Bruen (Mysterious Press):

There are all kinds of tough guys (and gals), and the Shamus Game has had more than its fair share of both, starting back in the pulps when bullet wounds, knife wounds, the ever-popular KOs, and every other sort of bodily misfortune could be miraculously cured by a shot of hooch from the office bottle, a Lucky or two, a good night’s rest, and maybe a therapeutic roll in the hay.

And in some ways that hasn’t changed much. Bruen’s latest entry in the Jack Taylor series carries on the tradition in grand old fashion. The private eye’s first instinct, after awaking in a Galway, Ireland, hospital from an almost two-year-long coma (thus conveniently skipping the entire pandemic), is to reach for a drink.

And who could blame him?

Alas, that restorative slug is offered by Rafferty, a poetry-spouting stranger who, it’s soon revealed, has been Jack’s only regular visitor. Allegedly an ex-Marine (among other things), he’s the guy who saved Jack from the brutal attack that had landed him in the hospital.

But upon release, it’s a whole new, more violent Galway that greets Jack (Masks! Reduced hours in the bars! Someone setting fire to homeless people at night!). He’s approached by a woman who wants him to find the man who’s been attacking nuns with a hammer. Reluctant at first (Jack’s no fan of the Catholic Church), he eventually relents, and so, wearing his all-weather Garda coat and armed with his beloved hurley, he sets out to do what must be done.

Simple enough, maybe, but fans of these books know that Bruen, one of the most distinctive stylists in crime fiction, only makes it look simple—the Taylor series contains multitudes. Loyal, steadfast, and as Irish as a pint of the black, Jack’s also an angry, bitter alcoholic and drug abuser, broken, battered, tattered, and scarred inside and out, and prone to violence—and not even much of a detective at times. “Cases get solved around me,” he admits, “very rarely did I actually find the solution.”

But try turning away. Somehow, despite numerous betrayals and failures, Jack perseveres. And really, how can anyone turn their back on a man who is so damned that even the nuns, he tells us, were “no longer praying for” him?

• Hero, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press):

In this standalone Perry yarn, the man behind the critically acclaimed Jane Whitfield series gives us another strong, resourceful female. But Justine Poole isn’t a “guide,” shepherding people into new lives under new identities.

Nope, Justine—we eventually find out—has already done that. To herself. Not that it matters—it’s her present life, as a personal security agent on the payroll of a high-priced and well-regarded Los Angeles firm, that lands her in trouble.

She's young, ambitious, attractive, quick on her feet, and very good at her job, protecting wealthy, high-profile Hollywood celebrities, attending lavish galas, and hobnobbing with Tinseltown’s rich and famous. So when she gets a call from her hands-on boss, who suspects a couple he’s been guarding—an elderly television producer and his wife—are possibly the targets of a home invasion, she doesn’t hesitate. She rushes to the couple’s swanky Beverly Hills home, and confronts five armed robbers lying in wait, who open fire. Her training kicks in, and she kills two of them, reluctantly becoming the “hero” of the title.

But that acclaim doesn’t last. Her brief moment of local celebrity does not go down well with the fragile ego of Mr. Conger, the man behind the robbery; a self-styled criminal mastermind who takes umbrage at a lone “girl” who not only took out two of his lackeys, but more importantly, blew his scheme to smithereens. Gee, what will all the other criminal masterminds think?

So he dispatches Leo Sealy, a coldly efficient assassin with a few ego problems of his own, to take out Justine and, he hopes, restore the chronically insecure Conger's reputation. Should be a snap, Leo figures, especially with the easily manipulated local media more than eager to dish on the new “hero” and her current whereabouts. Thus begins a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, as the young bodyguard finds herself trying to stay out of the sights (literally) of a much more experienced and deadly foe.

I said cat-and-mouse, but maybe I should have said roadrunner-and-coyote. It turns out that Justine Poole is unexpectedly resourceful, clever, and … lucky. A few coincidences click into place, a few missteps occur, and the increasingly frustrated Leo winds up badly rattled, making him even more dangerous.

This is a fine romp, a blood-flecked cartoon of deadly intentions and random chaos, tinged with black humor.

Meep-meep.

• Negative Girl, by Libby Cudmore (Datura):

All rock stars die in plane crashes of one kind or another. Sex. Drugs. Actual plane crashes. Take your pick. Someone (Lennon?) said that.

For former rock musician Martin Wade, it was definitely drugs (mostly heroin) that ended not his life, but at least his gig as front man for the French Letters, a 1990s punk band that had a brief slam dance with success. Well, the drugs and the subsequent disappearance of Wade’s wife, Cecilia, for which the LAPD has long suspected (and still suspects) Martin was responsible. As he tells it, “they didn’t know if she was dead or alive, but they saw a junkie ex-rock star aching for a fix and a blackout where a woman should be.”

That was almost two decades ago, though, and somehow Martin was eventually cleared. He survived, cleaned up his act, earned his P.I. ticket, and moved to Perrine, a small town in upstate New York, where he “learned how to run searches and what to look for.” Revisiting his wife’s fate, he finally came to the conclusion that “there was no trace of the woman [he] had once planned to spend [his] life with.”

Yet it’s that years-past tragedy that adds a strong touch of compelling melancholy to this story by Shamus and Black Orchid award winner Cudmore. Martin continues to rebuild his life, attend AA meetings, and live quietly and alone, working simple cases out of his shabby office over a vape shop, playing piano by himself in his living room. Not drinking. Not doing drugs. And keeping his head down.

Of course, one of the big hooks for a geek like me is the never-quite-gone music that is still a huge part of the middle-aged Martin's life, with songs and bands being name-dropped like confetti all over the place. His former bandmates have been mentioned casually in previous Wade stories Cudmore has contributed to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and other periodicals. But in this long-awaited novel-length debut (its title nicked from a Steely Dan song), one of them is finally dragged into the spotlight.

Janie Carlock, a promising young classical musician, shows up one day at Martin’s office and asks his new assistant, the heavily tattooed, 30-something Valerie Jacks, for an appointment. Janie wants Martin to speak to her estranged, drug addict father, who has lately been stalking her, trying to push his way into her life. As it transpires, that father is Ron Carlock, Martin’s old friend and a guitarist from the French Letters, who is still struggling with pills and booze. When Martin finally hooks up with Ron, the reunion isn’t a happy one. And their association doesn’t improve after Janie’s corpse is fished out of a river only days later.

The cops quickly write this drowning off as an accident, but Martin, Valerie, and Janie's heart-broken father don’t buy it. Martin reluctantly starts to nose around, unaware that Valerie, eager to prove her investigative chops and do more than manage their office, is conducting her own parallel investigation. Martin, we learn, isn’t the only sleuth here with a dark past, and Valerie has more than enough confidences of her own to confront.

As Cudmore’s story unfolds, and the side-by-side investigations crisscross in an uneasy tango (at one point, Valerie confesses that she doesn’t mind Martin when he “wasn’t being an asshole”), façades fall away and both secrets and hard, unpleasant truths are brought to the fore. Addiction, family ties, obsession, greed, resentment, mental illness, jealousy, and denial swirl around as Martin and Valerie swap the first-person narrative chores from chapter to chapter. When the solution of this moody, noir-tinged weeper comes, it cuts deep.

But not as deep as the concealed histories of our two gumshoes.

Wrenching. But you can dance to it.

Other 2024 Favorites: Murder at La Villette, by Cara Black (Soho Crime); Cream of the Crop: Best Mystery and Suspense Stories of Bill Pronzini, by Bill Pronzini (Stark House); Kingpin, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press); The Murder of Mr. Ma, by S.J. Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee (Soho Crime); and Buster, by George Pelicanos (Akashic).

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2023, Part IV: Kevin Burton Smith

Kevin Burton Smith is the Montreal, Quebec-born founder and editor of that essential resource, The Thrilling Detective Web Site, as well as the Web Monkey for The Private Eye Writers of America and a contributor to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. He’s currently hiding out in Southern California’s High Desert region, where he’s still working on a non-fiction book about married detective couples with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne (aka Diana Killian and Josh Lanyon), and waiting for the end of the world.

• The Second Murderer, by Denise Mina (Mulholland):

Before there was AI, there were “legacy authors”—writers hired by assorted and often dubious “literary estates” to dig up beloved series characters once their creators had shuffled off this mortal coil, and put them through their paces once again. All the biggies (Gardner, Hammett, Fleming, Spillane, Larssen, Christie, etc.) have been “honored” in this way, with results that have ranged from sublimely respectful to Ka-ching! Ka-ching! ridiculous. And now it’s Raymond Chandler’s turn.

Again.

There were originally seven novels by Chandler featuring his iconic Los Angeles private eye, Philip Marlowe. Naturally, the character has been pastiched before, but the increasing frequency (Ka-ching! Ka-ching!) of these “tributes” to Marlowe is rather troubling—the last one (which was wretched) was published just a year ago.

Somehow, though, Scottish author Denise Mina has beaten the odds. She may not have nailed Chandler’s style (Who could? Really?), but she’s certainly nailed Marlowe. She digs in deep, working through the caustic cynicism, the sardonic wisecracks, and the drinking, prying off that hard-boiled shell, exposing the bruised romanticism and crushed idealism of his gooey center.

It’s a staggering achievement; Mina not only “gets” Marlowe, but also the sweltering L.A. of the 1940s, thanks to an astounding amount of research (bitching about the heat while riding the open elevator in the un-air-conditioned Bradbury Building? Brilliant!), and an almost supernatural understanding of a time and a place.

Marlowe is hired in Mina’s tale to find runaway socialite Chrissie Montgomery, but he’s not the only one. Also on the case? His former inamorata Anne Riordan (last seen in Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely from 1940), now working as a private investigator herself. Their forced partnership is uneasy, and the ex-lovers are frequently at odds—over the case, their methods, and their shared past, as they crisscross the City of Angels, bouncing from the lowly flophouses and dive bars of Skid Row (and even a “kittens-only” lesbian joint) to the lofty heights of the Montgomery estate, and back again.

It’s all so Chandleresque: the heartbreak, the melancholy, the misunderstandings, the lies, the vividly drawn characters, the bitter taste of truth and the inevitable acknowledgment that, even more than 80 years after Marlowe made his debut, it still isn’t a game for knights. Mina may not “speak” Chandler, but Marlowe? She nails that poor son of a bitch. I just loved it.

• Holly, by Stephen King (Scribner):

What a fucking book! Since his career began, Stephen King has teased us with promises of a straight-up crime novel, one utterly devoid of any hint of woo-woo. Finally, after more than a few entertaining shucks and jives, he’s delivered, in what may one of his finest works ever. There are no vampires, sewer-dwelling killer clowns, or haunted Plymouths, but there are monsters.

The only catch? The monsters are us, or more precisely, they’re Rodney and Emily Harris, a couple of utterly unremarkable elderly professors you might run into at your local supermarket or the library. But monsters they are, and the evil they inflict on the sleepy college town they live in is almost too disturbing to stomach.

Enter private eye Holly Gibney, of the Finders Keepers Detective Agency. One of King’s most enduring characters, she was introduced in 2014’s Mr. Mercedes as former cop Bill Hodges’ new investigative partner, and went on to appear in now three more books, plus a novella. In Holly, she’s hired by a woman named Penny Dahl to track down her librarian daughter, Bonnie, who vanished three weeks before, leaving behind a note that read, “I’ve had enough.” As COVID-19 rages across the world and the Trump presidency staggers through its final bloody months, eccentric but endearing Holly is on her own, having recently buried her mother (an anti-vaxer brought down by the pandemic). Still emotionally fragile, with more issues than a magazine stand (OCD, synesthesia, sensory processing disorder, and she’s somewhere out there on the spectrum), Holly is also blessed with a keen intelligence, a savant-like memory, and some pretty savvy detective chops. But as she digs into this case, she discovers more people missing, and that real evil comes from within.

That’s just King reporting on human nature … being what it is. He pulls no punches in these pages, and digs right into the guts of who we are as a people at this moment. Those with delicate sensibilities might shy away, but this is a major work, no matter how you slice it.

• The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder, by Lawrence Block (LB Productions):

2023 was a good year for some of my favorite series characters to make appearances. But this one was unexpected. For years, Lawrence Block has made a pretty good living, fictionalizing the adventures of New York City private detective Matthew Scudder, who has appeared in novels, short stories, feature films, and even a graphic novel. But the now 85-year-old Block, who has admitted to telling lies for fun and profit, may not have always told the whole truth. Which is where this fascinating “autobiography” (purportedly written by Block, whose name is on everything), comes in. Not that Mr. Scudder is here to set the record straight, exactly. He’s more or less content with any dramatic license Block took over the years. What’s he’s more interested in doing is making some sense of his own life, as a form of self-therapy, dutifully recalling his past in daily installments.

And so Scudder scribbles away, occasionally balking at some details but diving deeply into other facets of his life that he thought he’d forgotten. This work covers only the first 35 years or so of Scudder’s existence on the planet, because he figures Block’s books have already presented a “sufficient printed record” of his years since. Thus, we see the future sleuth as a child, a young man, a student, a husband, a cop, and an alcoholic, casually meandering here and there, a conversation not so much read as overheard.

“Regrets. Yes, of course. There are things I could have done better,” Scudder confesses at this book’s conclusion. “But no bitter regrets, not really, because I truly like where I am. And the trip that got me here has had its moments.” By that point, I suspect most readers—and certainly fans of Mr. Scudder—will agree.

• Gotham City: Year One, by Tom King and Phil Hester (DC Comics):

This graphic novel (collecting all six issues of the 2022-2023 mini-series, plus a few tasty extras) ain’t for kids. Set two generations before Bruce Wayne's birth, it stars tough-as-nails Samuel Emerson “Slam” Bradley, the hardest-working private eye in the DC universe, a two-fisted palooka who brawled his way through more than 150 cases, and was actually the star of Detective Comics before Ol’ Pointy-Ears showed up.

In the ever-elastic world of comics, it’s 1961, and Bruce Wayne hasn’t even been born. Slam’s hired by Richard and Constance Wayne, pillars of Gotham society (and Bruce’s grandparents), to investigate the abduction of infant Helen Wayne, the so-called “Princess of Gotham”—a crime already being dubbed the “kidnapping of the century.” This is a noirish, brooding tale, all dark blunt shadows and family secrets, and the slash-and-burn angular artwork of Phil Hester, wielding a limited color palette to astounding effect, complements the tenebrous and heart-wrenching story—proclaiming this … this is something different. Lines of class and race rip through Gotham like a chainsaw, with Slam Bradley trying to work a case where everyone is lying, and writer Tom King uses that as a springboard to question everything from civic corruption and policing to the civil-rights movement, challenging the previously established history not just of Gotham City, but of Batman himself (he appears in a framing sequence).

There’s sex and treachery and nods to the notorious Lindbergh kidnapping and Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, and the secrets exposed here will knock sharp-eyed BatFans off their keisters, and plenty of 10-year-old fan boys will be left scratching their heads. We’ll tell them all about it when they’re older.

• Last Seen in Lapaz, by Kwei Quartey (Soho Crime):

Ex-cops turned private eyes are, of course, a dime a dozen in the Shamus Game, but young Emma Djan is something else. Cut adrift from the Ghana Police Service in Accra, her dreams of becoming a homicide detective (like her father) turned to dust, she goes to work instead for the tight-knit Sowah Private Investigators Agency, run by Yemo Sowah, the “Old Man” (all detective agencies beyond a certain size seem to be run by the “Old Man).

Like its predecessors, The Missing American (2020) and Sleep Well, My Lady (2021), this novel is billed as an “Emma Djan Investigation.” But these are really rarities in the genre: honest-to-goodness P.I. procedurals, following the whole team as they work a case to its conclusion—slowly, calmly, methodically, and—as the circle of suspects narrows—most inevitably. Emma may be Sowah’s youngest operative and the only woman among them, but she more than carries her weight, with a definite knack for undercover assignments. She may chafe when her male co-workers mock her “woman’s perspective,” but she’s one tough (and infinitely polite) cookie.

This third entry in Quartey’s increasingly fascinating and eye-opening series finds the team looking into the disappearance of Ngozi, a young Nigerian woman bound for law school, who has fled to Ghana to be with Femi, the new love of her life. However, he’s not quite the Prince Charming she imagined, and soon she’s a suspect in his murder. That would be story enough played straight down the line, as the crew work the case with their typical slow-burn professionalism, but the author cracks his plot wide open with multiple points of view and timelines, exposing the evils of human trafficking in West Africa. It’s not a pretty picture, and Quartey doesn’t point fingers or offer simple solutions—but insists that readers (and, hopefully, the world) bear witness.

Other 2023 Favorites: A Death in Denmark, by Amulya Malladi (Morrow); Death of a Dancing Queen, by Kimberly G. Giarratano (Datura); The Running Grave, by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland); Robert B. Parker’s Bad Influence, by Alison Gaylin (Putnam); Odyssey’s End, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview); Too Many Bullets, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime); and Homicide: The Graphic Novel, Parts 1 and 2, by David Simon and Philippe Squarzoni (First Second).

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2022, Part VI: Kevin Burton Smith

Kevin Burton Smith is the Montreal-born founder and editor of that essential resource, The Thrilling Detective Web Site, as well as the Web Monkey for The Private Eye Writers of America and a contributing editor of Mystery Scene. He’s currently hiding out in Southern California’s High Desert region, where he’s still working on a non-fiction book about married detective couples with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne (aka Diana Killian and Josh Lanyon), and waiting for the end of the world.

• Racing the Light,
by Robert Crais (Putnam):

Other private eyes may be darker or trendier or offer more wokeful nutrients, but nothing satisfies my P.I. jones more than high-fiving an old friend—and you can’t get much friendlier than Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole, the affable Hollywood dick with the loud shirts and the Pinocchio clock in his office. Crais has never let me down, but this one ranks right up there with 1999’s L.A. Requiem in the series; a hard-boiled thriller with more genuine heart than a truck load of Harlequins. That’s right—this one finally (at least for now) resolves the whole shit-or-get-off-the-pot Lucy relationship. I know, I know—some readers have a disdain for Lucy Chenier that reaches almost Susan Silverman levels, but not me. Either I’m too sensitive, or else I’m getting soft, but I like my detectives to have some sort of grown-up emotional life, preferably with someone boasting a little more depth than a potato chip, and who isn’t just a convenient plot point. An accomplished Louisiana lawyer, a single mom, and the survivor of a genuinely toxic marriage, Lucy and her son, Ben, are coming for a visit in this book—but that’s just a sidebar to the rollicking main event, because Elvis and his eternally fierce partner Joe Pike are in the midst of a complex missing-persons case that’s threatening to go completely off the rails. They’re hired by an eccentric woman with plenty of secrets of her own to find “Josh Shoe,” her muckraking podcaster son, who seems to have vanished while researching a story—as has a young sex worker he’d previously interviewed. Everyone dismisses Josh as just another social-media doofus trolling for likes, but soon enough, bodies start to pile up, and Elvis and Joe realize somebody out there is playing for keeps.

• Robert B. Parker’s Bye Bye Baby, by Ace Atkins (Putnam):

While the quality of continuation novels keeping the late Robert B. Parker’s other creations “alive” has fluctuated wildly, Atkins’ steady hand on Spenser has remained as constant as the North Star, offering sincere and faithful tributes to a much-loved character, while somehow breathing some new life into the apparently ageless Boston private eye’s literary career. So, how to mark Atkins’ 10th and allegedly final installment? Atkins goes out with a bang, not a whimper, leaving it all on the field, with the full roster of usual suspects in attendance: Hawk, Susan Silverman, Frank Belson, Gerry Broz—even Spenser’s former apprentice, Z Sixkill, drops by to help out. And Spenser may need every ounce of assistance he can get, as he jumps into the political and cultural septic tank of our times to protect a mouthy young Congressperson, Carolina Garcia-Ramirez, while she campaigns in a Democratic primary election despite a barrage of threats. But who’s behind those? Her older rivals, whom she bested in the previous contest? Or maybe a band of white-power mouth-breathers? And what’s with all the organized-crime yahoos poking around? As one can expect, Spenser eats, cooks, drinks beer, spars with Hawk, flirts with Susan, walks Pearl the Wonder Dog, cracks wise, annoys various good and bad guys, and even allows that Hawk and he aren’t quite as young as they used to be. But even 50 years on, Spenser and company remain great company—smart, entertaining, still able to engage and even surprise. Atkins doesn’t reinvent the wheel here—nor would we want him to. But over the course of 10 books, Atkins has kept that wheel spinning straight and true; not so much cash-cow pastiche as an honest, respectful continuation; more canon than cannon fodder, with a true fan in the driver’s seat. Something for which Spenser enthusiasts all over the world should be grateful. Thanks for the ride, Ace.

• Random, by Penn Jillette (Akashic):

What’re the odds? I’m not sure exactly what Penn Jillette (the motormouth half of Penn & Teller) is trying to say in Random, but I definitely enjoyed him saying it. Anyone who’s caught the duo’s act, live or in countless TV appearances (including their brilliant but cancelled, myth-puncturing documentary series, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!), will know what to suspect. Random is a profane and perverted speed-rap, a crude and rude shaggy dog tale, a meandering ode to the fickle finger of Fate, delivered the way only Jillette could tell it—as a breakneck-paced, digressive rant that gleefully topples sacred cows and kicks narrative expectations in the backside. The story spins around a young Las Vegas flake, Bobby Ingersoll, who, after a bizarre streak of luck saves him from being killed on his 21st birthday, decides to base every decision, major and minor, in his life on a roll of the dice. (Shades of Luke Rhinehart’s darker The Dice Man!) I’m not even sure if Random qualifies as a crime novel, really, although there are plenty of touchstones here for fans of the genre: homicidal dirtbags, leg-breakers, hookers, card cheats, magicians, con artists, showgirls, killers, strippers, private detectives, and other miscreants all wander through a shape-shifting, picaresque yarn that switches direction with every role of Bobby’s dice. As he heads towards (or is it away from?) his comeuppance, you’ll start to wonder if the author used a similar method to plot this thing. All of which means you’ll either love the book, or hate it. But I’m betting you won’t forget it. Roll the dice.

• The Old Woman With the Knife, by Gu Byeong-mo, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Hanover Square Press):

What a drag it is getting old … Hornclaw, the heroine of South Korean author Byeong-Mo’s first novel translated into English, is a stone-cold killer; a feisty 65-year-old assassin nearing retirement. Only thing? She’s not ready to go. Not just yet. She is beginning to feel her years, though, and it doesn’t help that Bullfight, a smug young male rival, seems intent on openly challenging her competency, casting aspersions on her emotional ability to continue doing her job. Is he just another callous jackass with no respect for his elders, or is there something else behind his behavior? And why does Bullfight keep showing up? Even more troubling for Hornclaw, however, is that—after decades of a locked-down, compartmentalized life—she’s starting to feel something akin to … empathy. Empathy for a handsome young doctor who helped her out of a jam once. For his aging parents. For his young daughter. For a homeless dude who collects old cans. Even for her aging rescue dog, Deadweight. The Old Woman With the Knife is doled out in a Stark (as in Richard), matter-of-fact tone, pinned against a grim, unforgiving South Korea that’s far from the air-brushed cotton-candy world of K-Pop. It’s a slow burner, laced with pitch-black humor and take-no-prisoners observations on aging and how society (not just of the Korean variety) treats the elderly, leading to a white-knuckle, action-film-ready climax that plays out like a re-imagined, smarted-up Die Hard—as unexpected as it is satisfying.

• Hell and Gone, by Sam Wiebe (Harbour):

Beautiful British Columbia, my ass! Vancouver, B.C., has long been touted as one of North America’s most gorgeous cites, but Sam Wiebe’s series featuring young, idealistic local private eye Dave Wakeland and his partner, Jeff Chen, has always shone an unflinching and unflattering light on a Vancouver that visitors (with any luck) never see—and that the tourist industry certainly doesn’t mention. Beneath the peaceful, postcard-ready façade lies a simmering underworld of organized and unorganized crime, and multiple layers of money launderers, drug dealers, swindlers, gangs both local and international, and of course, homicide. Not that Dave and Jeff really want to deal with such things—particularly not the always ambitious, businesslike Jeff, who has great plans for the agency. Dave doesn’t want to get involved with the rough stuff, either—at heart, he just hopes to help people. But all of that changes when Dave, working alone in their agency’s Chinatown office, witnesses a bloody shootout on the street outside, and everyone wants to know if he can identify the gunmen. Not wishing to become any more involved than he already is, Dave plays dumb. However, the cops, local bikers, various gangsters, retired Triad members, a shady international security company, and even Jeff all insist that Dave spill the beans. He stands firm, though—at least until some of the shooters themselves are killed, and Dave realizes silence is no longer an option.

Other 2022 Favorites: Bad Actors, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime); Secrets Typed in Blood, by Stephen Spotswood (Doubleday); Knock Off the Hat, by Richard Stevenson (Amble Press); Follow Me Down, by Ed Brubkaer and Sean Phillips (Image Comics); and Secret Identity, by Alex Segura (Flatiron).

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2021, Part V: Kevin Burton Smith

Kevin Burton Smith is the Montreal-born founder and editor of that essential resource, The Thrilling Detective Web Site, as well as the Web Monkey for The Private Eye Writers of America and a contributing editor of Mystery Scene. He’s currently hiding out in Southern California’s High Desert region, where he’s still working on a non-fiction book about married detective couples with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne (aka Diana Killian and Josh Lanyon), and waiting for the end of the world.

• A Man Named Doll, by Jonathan Ames (Mulholland):

I can’t remember the last time a private-eye debut hit me so hard, but Jonathan (Bored to Death, The Alcoholic) Ames delivers a bare-knuckled KO with this one. Gone are the arch, semi-autobiographical works of his past. Instead, he delivers here something more directly aimed at pleasing fans who share his obvious love for old pulp fiction and classic black-and-white detective films, topping it with his own cock-eyed, thoroughly postmodern mojo, all making for a bracing blend of old and new. Ex-U.S. Navy and ex-LAPD, Happy Doll (blame his dad for that boy-named-Sue moniker) is low-hanging fruit on the P.I. tree, reduced to working security at the Thai Miracle Spa massage parlor. He tries not to drink too much, watches his weight, and keeps his appointments with his therapist, but his get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone. He can’t even drum up enough courage to ask out local bartender Monica, a woman he clearly adores. Happy’s saving grace is that he’s a stand-up guy—decent, conscientious, and loyal to his friends, and he clearly loves his feisty little mutt, George, with whom he lives in a bungalow just under the Hollywood sign, a gift from a grateful client—back when he had clients. Then a bad night at the Thai leaves him with a dead customer and a broken face, and the next day an old pal shows up at his door, just in time to bleed out from a gunshot wound. Soon the bodies are piling up, and Happy, sporting more bandages than Jake Gittes and popping painkillers like they were going out of style, sets out to “do something” about his murdered friend. It’s all safely familiar middle-of-the-road hard-boiled shtick, until about two-thirds in, when Ames heads for the ditch, and goes all Grand Guignol on us. Horrid, macabre things ensue that shouldn’t happen to a dog. Happy may work at a tug-and-rub joint, but there’s no happy ending here—just a promising one, which bodes well for Ames’ sequel, The Wheel of Doll, due out next April.

• An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed, by Helene Tursten (Soho Crime):

A charming little stocking stuffer of a read, all gussied up with seasonal and floral graphic embellishments that just reek of innocence, this tiny hardcover—a sequel to 2018’s equally pint-sized An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good—is just as delightful as its predecessor: a crafty blend of Miss Marple sweetness and Scandinavian noir heated up to pure blackness. Once again, it follows the charming but homicidal adventures of cranky elderly Maud, a retired schoolteacher from Gothenburg, Sweden, who’s pushing 90 and has absolutely no qualms about bumping off anyone who gets in her way. This time out, she’s in the mood for a little reminiscing, as she journeys to Africa on a long-anticipated holiday—while conveniently avoiding some possibly unwelcome questioning from the police back home (including Tursten’s series character, Inspector Irene Huss), who would like to discuss a dead body or two discovered in Maud’s apartment building. Over the course of six interlocking stories, Maud looks back on a life tinged with tragedy, disappointment, and homicide, even as she and her fellow travelers sightsee across Africa, going on safari and exploring local hot spots. The dance between the seemingly benign, amiable Maud and her inner heart of pure, evil darkness makes this an entertaining read for anyone who doesn’t mind a little mirth with their murder. It should appeal to any mystery reader with a sense of humor who’s not afraid to read over boundaries. The book also serves as a handy-dandy how-to guide—for those so inclined—to homicide, with a tantalizing list of ways to set the world right (i.e., the way you want it), and it concludes with a couple of recipes for ginger snaps—divided, presumably for the holidays, into both “Naughty” and “Nice” versions.

• Friend of the Devil, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image Comics):

The second in a series of hardcover graphic novels by the award-winning team of writer Brubaker and artist Phillips is such a labor of love, it’s almost embarrassing. Like, get a room already, guys. But that being said, the dynamic duo’s heartfelt affection for men’s adventure novels, 1970s TV private detectives, film noir, and hard-boiled crime fiction in general is something I can get behind. It’s the 1980s in Los Angeles, and former ’60s radical/undercover FBI agent turned surfer dude/troubleshooter (or is that troublemaker?) Ethan Reckless is on the prowl, going down mean streets Raymond Chandler could never have imagined: streets teeming with sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll (“for some reason, there always had to be skinheads”), and more than a dollop of male wish fulfillment. I mean, Ethan works out of an old abandoned movie theater; his assistant, Anna, is a mouthy but sorta cute teenage DJ/punkette; and he tools around town in a way cool Dodge van from the ’70s. Sure, there’s plenty of action here—but even better is that Reckless isn’t just some bare-chested meathead whose knuckles barely clear the ground. He’s fully aware of the world around him, and his part in it. Sure, he may half-jokingly dismiss himself as a “maudlin old stoner,” and he may occasionally retreat into the comfort of screening old TV shows, but he knows it’s only temporary; that out there in the real world things don’t always end well. Like his search for a woman last spotted in the background of an old, cheesy B-movie, on behalf of her sister. The hunt soon wanders into the weeds, as Ethan encounters war criminals, Hollywood execs run amok, and a Satanic cult leader, and there’s more than enough he-man action along the way to keep things moving until the bittersweet, noirish ending. Cheesy? Over the top? Maybe. Do I want more? YES.

• Billy Summers, by Stephen King (Scribner):

The master storyteller finally delivers a straight up, woo-woo-free, hard-boiled crime story, and it’s a corker—a pulpy, ripping yarn that reads like a 1950 Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, cranked up to 11 and retooled for the faithful. Former army sniper Billy Summers is a quiet, blandly affable guy who likes to read. He’s also a contract killer for the Mob. But he only kills bad people. That shaky justification, however, is wearing thin—especially since his clients aren’t exactly angels themselves. He wants out, but reluctantly agrees to take on one last, lucrative job. Anyone familiar with crime fiction, of course, knows what’s coming, but King runs with it, working the tropes like Keith Richards plays guitar, adding crunch and heft and swing to a rhythm that will not be denied, adding his own special sauce. Billy figures there’s something hinky about the gig, but it’s too tempting to turn down, so he puts on his “dumb face,” and accepts. Posing as a writer, he heads to an unnamed city in the American South, rents a downtown office overlooking the local courthouse, and waits patiently, with his high-powered rifle, for a certain witness to arrive to testify. In the meantime, he goes all Joe Citizen, renting a home in the ’burbs, meeting the neighbors, and fitting in … perhaps a little too well. Is he being set up? What’s with his landlord? Will the grass on the lawn of his rented house ever grow? Of course, King can’t quite help scratching one of his favorite itches: writing itself. To kill time, Billy begins jotting down the (slightly fictionalized) story of his life, but that story-within-a-story soon becomes just as compelling—especially when everything goes pear-shaped and Billy and a girl (Hey! There’s always a girl) have to go on the run. From the really bad guys. OK, there is a vague, possibly supernatural bone slyly tossed in for King’s veteran fans; but for everyone else, this book’s just a white-knuckled ride—and an unabashed ode to the redemptive and transformative power storytelling can offer. Which is a whole other kind of woo-woo.

• Every City Is Every Other City, by John McFetridge (ECW Press):

The ever-growing regionalism of the mystery genre (Boston! Botswana! Baffin Island!), particularly in the post-Parker/Leonard era, seems to know no bounds—a notion McFetridge riffs on constantly in his latest novel, wherein Toronto, Ontario, the Lon Chaney of cities, gets to play a multitude of other burgs, faking it for (mostly American) movies and television. Sometimes it even gets to play itself. But it’s all in a day’s work for Gord Stewart (with a moniker like that, what else could he be but Canadian?), a sometime location scout for productions in the Toronto area whose longtime job is finding local settings that can be passed off as other places entirely. He boasts that he’s been doing it “since before Google Maps was born,” but in this first entry in a promised new series, he supplements his income with a little private-eye work for OBC, a local security company run by ex-cops. At loose ends, single and 40-something, Gord’s crawled back to the endless suburbs of Toronto from which he sprung to care for his widowed, aging dad. But there isn’t much going on, and so he agrees to look for a fellow crew member's missing uncle, last seen walking into the Northern Ontario bush, somewhere up near Sudbury. He’s also undertaken, warily, a few hours of shadowing a woman on behalf of OBC who may—or may not—have been raped by a big-shot client of theirs. Aiding and abetting him in these investigations—and sometimes simply being a pain in the ass—is Gord’s on-and-off girlfriend, would-be comedian Ethel Mack, who brings the sass, playing Nora to his Nick. But it’s not all slap-and-tickle—there’s some serious grit in here among the wit. Clever, compassionate, and smart, John McFetridge deserves a bigger audience. Maybe this novel (his first since 2016’s One or the Other) will finally win him one.

Other 2021 Favorites: Blood Grove, by Walter Mosley (Mulholland); Clark and Division, by Naomi Hirahara (Soho Crime); Hell and Gone, by Sam Wiebe (Harbour); Dolphin Junction, by Mick Herron (Soho Crime); So Far and Good, by John Straley (Soho Crime); Sleep Well, My Lady, by Kwei Quartey (Soho Crime).

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2020, Part V: Kevin Burton Smith

Kevin Burton Smith is the Montreal-born founder and editor of that essential 22-year-old resource, The (New) Thrilling Detective Web Site, as well as the Web Monkey for The Private Eye Writers of America and a contributing editor of Mystery Scene. He’s currently hiding out in Southern California’s High Desert region, where he’s still working on a non-fiction book about married detective couples with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne (aka Diana Killian and Josh Lanyon), and waiting for the end of the world.

• Fortune Favors the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood (Doubleday):

In a year most of us would like to escape from, this nostalgic ode to the Golden Age of crime fiction is a vaccination well worth rolling your sleeve up for. A nifty and refreshingly creative spin on Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, this Manhattan-set debut novel was a true tonic for the troops, a comfortably complex—but not too complex—tale of a cranky, demanding genius detective and her younger, more physically able partner, assigned to handle the rough stuff, as well as the secretarial duties, records keeping, and office management. Lillian Pentecost, “the most famous woman detective in the city and possibly the country,” is a spry, enigmatic, and demanding 40-something fighting multiple sclerosis, who favors expensive suits and exactitude, while Willowjean “Will” Parker is a boyish young woman whose rough-and-tumble childhood has left the former traveling circus performer with a more-than-particular skill set (knife-throwing, lock-picking, mimicry, pickpocketing, and, uh, dancing). And since this book was written in 2020, not 1945, the “cirky girl” is a lesbian. But who cares, right? It’s all cool, and well-handled, and Spotswood nails the period details—even narrator Will’s wisecracks and similes are era-appropriate. The only glitch? The irritating anachronism of Will—and everyone else—constantly referring to her boss as “Ms. Pentecost.” In 1945? Yeah, right. But fortunately, that retro bit of wokefullness gets lost in a breezy, colorful, clue-ridden plot that serves up Will and Lillian’s “meet-cute” origin story, as well as the main course, an “honest-to-God locked-room mystery,” complete with a wealthy millionaire apparently murdered by her husband's ghost. Toss in the woman’s surviving twins (the son’s a cad, the daughter’s surprisingly interested in Will’s work), a shady spiritualist, plenty of post-World War II corporate shenanigans, a well-meaning “uncle,” and a mansion’s worth of deep, dark family secrets, and you’ve got a satisfyingly modern spin on what’s essentially a good old-fashioned ripping yarn. I want to see more of these two.

• All Kinds of Ugly, by Ralph Dennis (Brash):

Lee Goldberg and his Brash Books imprint deserve a slap on the back for resurrecting the literary bits and pieces of this long-lost manuscript by Dennis (1931-1988), and assembling them into this Frankenstein’s monster of a read—an unapologetically hard-boiled page-turner that finally wraps up the Jim Hardman series. The buzz for years was that sales of Dennis’ original 12 books were sandbagged by their having been published as “men’s adventures” back in the 1970s (complete with cheesy covers and numbered titles), and there’s no doubt who these novels were aimed at: manly men who appreciated a good drink, a good broad, and a good brouhaha. But those of us who can lift our knuckles an inch or so off the ground can also appreciate the books—Dennis was a fine writer, a master of believable action and surprising empathy, with characters who could crack wise with the best of them. And in an era when the P.I. genre was still waking up from the Big Sleep of the Tighty-Whiteys, the idea of a black-and white team of gumshoes was fresh, bold, and in-yer-face; by the time Robert B. Parker’s Spenser met Hawk, Dennis had already cranked out seven or so books featuring tough-guy Atlanta private investigator Jim and his drinking buddy Hump Evans, a former pro football player. Make no mistake—Ugly’s some kind of beauty: a pure distillation of Grade-A Hard-Boiled Pulp that dares to reach for more. Jim’s not getting any younger, and has recently been dumped. At loose ends, he takes on a case for a wealthy, elderly industrialist, and flies to London to track down that old man’s missing grandson. But the job is a bust—the potential heir is dead. Instead, Jim brings the deceased’s sexy (and apparently pregnant) young widow back to Atlanta, where Grampa waits with open arms. And then the fun really starts: the widow’s a femme fatale of the highest order, an atomic bomb of bad news, bad choices, bad drugs and bad luck … but Jim can’t seem to keep his hands off her. A typical noir setup, maybe, but underneath it all floats the enduring friendship of Jim and Hump that gives this book unexpected heart, and makes it a fitting conclusion to a series that coulda/shoulda been a contender.

• That Left Turn at Albuquerque, by Scott Phillips (Soho Crime):

As bleak as Phillips’ books may occasionally get, they’ve always had a sort of gleeful, Looney Toons wickedness about them, so it’s great to see the author finally acknowledge it with the title of this darkly funny slice of noir. Douglas Rigby, a fast-living, fast-talking slime ball of a SoCal lawyer (think Foghorn Leghorn in cargo shorts, maybe), is circling the drain, having “borrowed” a sizable pile of cash from his only remaining client, Glenn Haskill, a former TV big shot not long for this world. Rigby’s big plan is to finance a drug deal with a gang called the Devil’s Hammers (nice chaps, I’m sure) that absolutely can’t go wrong. Except … it goes wrong. Fortunately for readers, if not for the attorney himself, Rigby may be a slick piece of work, but he’s not particularly bright, and the people he enlists in his criminal endeavors aren’t exactly stable geniuses, either. Desperate to replace the missing loot before its absence is discovered, he embarks on a series of increasingly frantic schemes that Wile E. Coyote might admire, finally culminating in a cock-eyed scam involving a valuable painting, art fraud, a murder or so, and a will that may or may not exist. Meanwhile, Rigby contends with his long-suffering real estate broker wife, Paula (who doesn’t want to lose their house), his girlfriend, a forger with an agenda of his own, Glenn’s devious nurse, a hot-to-trot bartender, a greedy, unscrupulous nephew with eyes on Glenn’s estate, and regular visits to his priest to confess. Nobody’s particularly likable in these pages, and none of them are overly burdened with scruples or self-control. Think Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, maybe Sylvester—that’s the caliber we’ve talking about here. As this bonfire of inanities rages higher and higher, about the only one displaying any sort of Bugs Bunny-like wisdom is Paula, who might even deserve to survive. The rest? That’s all, folks …

• Dead Girl Blues, by Lawrence Block (LB Productions):

Block decided to self-publish this dark little morsel, and who can blame him? As the author explains, “I don't think it's terribly commercial. And there are elements that will put off a lot of readers.” No doubt, but this is Lawrence Block, folks, and while his book will offend many, and upset even more, God help me, I loved it. It may just be one of the more life-affirming novels I’ve read in years. Strange to say, but it’s true. There’s no doubt the initial crime here, related in first-person—the murder and violation of a young woman somewhere near Bakersfield, California—is sickening, and the subsequent justifications, rationalizations, and philosophical meanderings of the narrator as he drifts aimlessly through the country, changing names and occupations, are disturbing. Yet somewhere along the way, the narrator (by now calling himself Roger) matures and takes stock of his life, coming to tentative terms with his past, and folding himself into the American Dream. As he becomes a businessman, a husband, and even a father, I began to, um, sympathize with the bastard. I mean, he killed and raped that kid (in that order). And now, years later, he’s living a comfortable suburban life, and he gets to be surrounded by a loving family, all gathered around the television set watching fricking Dateline with Lester Fricking Holt every night? Roger doesn’t deny his past to us, although his family’s in the dark; but as the science of forensics marches on and the minutiae of a middle-class life well-lived piles up, he tries to reckon with his possible, or even probable, future. Until then, though, he writes in his journal and waits for the knock on the door, guilt and doubt never far off. You may think you know where this book goes, but you don’t. Not so much a crime novel as a ballsy and important novel about the very nature of crime, Dead Girl Blues prods troubling questions about justice and mercy and morality and family, the worth of a life, and the whole existential soup. Put this up on your shelf, right next to Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I think it belongs there.

• Dead West, by Matt Goldman (Forge):

Oh, what a joy to discover a new private eye! Yes, I know, I’m three books late, but who cares? OK, Goldman may not break any new ground, but he injects so much fresh heart into this fourth book in his series (which began with 2017’s Gone to Dust) that it’s like falling in love with the shamus game all over again. When Minneapolis gumshoe Nils Shapiro is offered a job by a crazy-rich control-freak to fly out to sunny Los Angeles to attend a memorial service for the fiancée of her beloved grandson, Ebben Mayer (and meanwhile find out whether that young heir is squandering his trust fund on some Hollywood films), Nils jumps at the chance. It’s February, after all, and he’s never been to warm, sunny, shiny La-La Land. Swimming pools! Movie stars! How can he say no? So he picks up his pal Jameson, a hefty former pro football player, to act as a guide, and the two head off to the airport. It doesn’t take long for them, though, to realize that Ebben is no trust fund bozo, but instead a young man in genuine pain over the death of his fiancée. He’s also a serious filmmaker who knows exactly what he’s doing. A quick phone call to reassure Grandma, and Nils is more than ready to head home to his own fiancée and their infant daughter. Except … somehow, Jameson has gone missing, Ebben’s fiancée may have been murdered, and somebody may be out to stop his film project—at any cost. But part of the joy of this book is simply Nils. He’s a decent, level-headed, and unjaded guy in a business not exactly overpopulated with them; a dogged investigator with a “disproportionate sense of justice,” whose new-kid-in-town take on Tinsel Town culture and its various denizens may be worth the price of admission alone, being full of razor-sharp observations tempered with equal amounts of wit and empathy. Ultimately, however, it’s the heart and soul that veteran TV writer Goldman sneaks into this tough little tale of loss and love, particularly its final scenes, that sucker-punched me. In an unexpectedly good way. More Shapiro, please.

Other 2020 Favorites: Anonymous, by Elizabeth Breck (Crooked Lane); Do No Harm, by Max Allan Collins (Forge); Dead Land, by Sara Paretsky (Morrow); and two non-fiction works—Detectives in the Shadows: A Hard-Boiled History, by Susanna Lee (Johns Hopkins University Press), and The Modern Detective: How Corporate Intelligence Is Reshaping the World, by Tyler Maroney (Riverhead).

Our Favorite Crime Fiction of 2019

There’s been no shortage of new books churned out this year. Over the last 12 months, in four separate seasonal reports (here, here, here, and here), we have highlighted more than 1,500 crime, mystery, and thriller works worth investigating. Some of those (even a few by prominent, best-selling authors) ultimately proved to be disappointing, and many others managed to be diverting and sufficiently satisfying without ever being memorable. However, a much smaller number of novels in this genre not only caught our attention, but held it—and we went on to recommend them to fellow readers.

Admittedly, we had neither the time nor manpower to tackle and judge every newly published title that drew our eyes. So we won’t maintain that our preferences represent the incontestable “best” of new crime, mystery, and thriller releases on offer in 2019. Yet we think they’re as valid as anyone else’s, and certainly worth sharing. So below, four regular Rap Sheet contributors present their favorite discoveries in this genre from the last twelvemonth. Each critic has briefly reviewed one novel of particular merit, and thereafter listed several additional choices they found to be outstanding. Almost all of the titles mentioned here first appeared in bookstores during 2019. And except where noted, the publishers mentioned are American.

* * *

Kevin Burton Smith is the Montreal-born founder and editor of that essential 21-year-old resource, The (New) Thrilling Detective Web Site, as well as the Web Monkey for The Private Eye Writers of America and a contributing editor of Mystery Scene. He lives in Southern California’s High Desert region, where he’s still working on a non-fiction book about married detective couples with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne (aka Diana Killian and Josh Lanyon).

• Save Me from Dangerous Men, by S.A. Lelchuk (Flatiron):

Is there anyone out there who’s actually for violence against women? If so, please leave the room. But how about violence by women?

It’s a hot-button topic these days, in some crime-fiction circles. I guess we can blame it all on Lisbeth Salander (star of the best-selling The Girl Who Tattooed “Rapist” on a Dude series), arguably the first modern-era heroine to lay a little hands-on justice on a man who just doesn’t get it. But author Stieg Larsson was a dude himself, so does that even count? Since then, though, there have been several female protagonists, all delivering their own versions of rough justice, utilizing everything from judo chops and brass knuckles to carving knives, on deserving male members of the species (and sometimes on the members of those members). A swift kick to the balls is also quite popular.

Which brings us to troubled private investigator/avenger Nikki Griffin, created by the gender-neutral (but revealed to be male) S.A. Lelchuk, cast by some as the perfect vigilante hero for the #MeToo age. Her powerful, if at times disturbing debut comes in Save Me from Dangerous Men, a ballsy mash-up of agitprop and vengeance porn; a cautionary tale (or cheap thrill read) full of sadistic, abusive men (Boo! Hiss!), with a violent, possibly unbalanced woman who often makes Ms. Salander (slyly name-checked several times) look like a pillar of mental stability (Hip-Hip-Hooray?).

“I’m not some psycho. There are people in this world who need help,” Nikki says, but her firm proclamation of sanity would go over better if it wasn’t in response to a question asked by her court-ordered therapist. Nonetheless, it’s moments like these, plus Nikki’s own self-doubts, that suggest both she and her creator may have many more depths yet to plumb.

So is this tale a socially sensitive call-to-arms, or opportunistic ca-ching? Or both? I’ve read plenty of books this year, and possibly better ones, but Save Me’s the one that really begs a sequel. And answers.

Other 2019 Favorites: Bellini and the Sphinx, by Tony Bellotto (Akashic); The Bitterest Pill, by Reed Farrel Coleman (Putnam); The Butterfly Girl, by Rene Denfield (Harper); Metropolis, by Philip Kerr (Putnam); A Time to Scatter Stones, by Lawrence Block (Subterranean); and Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (Ecco).

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Ali Karim is The Rap Sheet’s longtime British correspondent, a contributing editor of January Magazine, and the assistant editor of Shots. In addition, he writes for Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, Crimespree, and Mystery Readers International.

• Cari Mora, by Thomas Harris (Grand Central):

Like his 1975 debut, Black Sunday, Harris’ sixth novel is a standalone, so does not feature his singular character, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Instead, Cari Mora offers a furtive glance into something considerably worse: the very best, and the very worst of the people and monsters that surround us. And at both extremes, they wear our skin.

We are introduced here not only to tall, hairless, and sadistic criminal Hans-Peter Schneider (an ex-medical student, who’d been “asked to leave on ethical grounds”), but also to those clients he provides with unspeakable entertainment and horrific services—namely, the mysterious Mr. Gnis of Mauritania and Mr. Imran (both of whom remain mostly off-stage, or are mentioned only in dispatches). When we do see Mr. Imran, he’s accompanied by a burly bodyguard, one who keeps his distance and wears “archery armguards” under his tailored suits. (Schneider remarks at one point that “Mr. Imran was a biter.”)

Brought into this tale, too, is Jesus Villarreal, a dying man in Colombia who knows about some $25 million in gold bars—a secret legacy of the late drug lord Pablo Escobar—concealed in a Miami Beach residence. Villarreal needs to provide for his family, so in exchange for help, he tells the story of that gold to Schneider, but also to Don Ernesto, the head of a Colombian crime syndicate. And he warns both men that those riches are locked in a solid steel safe, booby-trapped with plastic explosives.

Now enter the eponymous Caridad “Cari” Mora, a young South American woman, clinging to her life in Miami by the thread of a precarious immigration status. A former kidnapped child-soldier, she managed to survive (and escape) the clutches of a ruthless militia, but not without “scars on her arms. Truly,” writes Harris, “they are only snaky lines on her clear brown-gold skin. The scars are more exotic than disfiguring. Like cave paintings of wavy snakes. Experience decorates us.”

Apart from the gold, Hans-Peter Schneider also wishes to capture the lovely Ms. Mora, for he has designs, unspeakable desires that are detailed on a sketch pad, and have been shared with Mr. Gnis and Mr. Imran. And there hangs this tale, a cat-and-mouse game between the Colombian criminals and the creepy Schneider.

Cari Mora lends credence to the axiom that “less is more” when a narrative is in the hands of a master. Judiciously edited, this extraordinary novel puts Harris’ ability to craft truly nightmarish villains on full and frightening display.

Other 2019 Favorites: Elevator Pitch, by Linwood Barclay (Morrow); My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Atlantic UK); No Mercy, by Martina Cole (Headline UK); The Warehouse, by Rob Hart (Crown); and The Whisper Man, by Alex North (Celadon). Plus, from the non-fiction shelves—Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide, by Barry Forshaw (Oldcastle UK).

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Jim Napier is a crime-fiction critic based in Quebec, Canada. Since 2005, his reviews and interviews have appeared in several Canadian newspapers and on various crime-fiction and literary Web sites, including January Magazine and his own award-winning review site, Deadly Diversions. His debut crime novel, Legacy, was published in the spring of 2017, and the second book in that series, Ridley’s War, is scheduled for release in the spring of 2020.

• Night Watch, by David C. Taylor (Severn House):

On a September morning in 1956, Detective Michael Cassidy (NightLife, Night Work) is having his share of problems. He’s suffering from nightmares dating back to the Second World War, and to make matters worse, someone is trying to kill him—but not before tormenting him first. Cassidy discusses the threat with his police partner, Tony Orso, over breakfast, but they realize they have nothing to go on: it’s just a matter of wait and see.

So Cassidy continues doing the work for which he’s paid, and it’s not long before the cauldron that is New York City spits out a new case to capture his attention. On the southern fringes of Central Park, near Columbus Circle, a corpse has been discovered in the early morning mist. It’s the body of a middle-aged man, and he has been murdered. Although at first glance it seems like a simple mugging—the victim’s wallet is missing—the autopsy reveals that he’s been stabbed in the skull, an extremely thin, sharp blade having penetrated his brain not once, but several times. On the face of it, the victim is an unlikely target, an immigrant who takes tourists around Central Park in his carriage. Not a wealthy man, then. Cassidy is handed the case … and his investigation will lead him to a complex conspiracy involving people in the highest echelons of political power, endangering his own life and the lives of those around him.

David Taylor’s writing is simply superb, deftly capturing the noir atmosphere of postwar Manhattan, and sweeping the reader through the story line until the final page. And it’s not all plot—the atmosphere is gripping, too:

Cassidy hated the night watch. The worst of people seeped out during the night. They did things they would not do in daylight, as if darkness could hide their actions: children were thrown against the wall for not finishing dinner, women were beaten for changing the channel, rapists and muggers, stick-up artists, the perverted, and the weird, they all slid out of the shadows looking for prey. Cassidy remembered the magazine photographs of zebras and antelope gathered around a waterhole at night. The flash revealed the glowing eyes of predators waiting in the bushes—New York City after midnight.

Hammett and Chandler would have been well pleased. Readers seeking a compelling, finely honed series that is rooted in history and perfectly captures the immediacy of those deceptively placid times simply cannot do better than to grab this novel.

Other 2019 Favorites: Broken Ground, by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press); One False Move, by Robert Goddard (Bantam Press UK); Run Away, by Harlan Coben (Grand Central); and The Stranger Diaries, by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

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J. Kingston Pierce wears more hats than his head can firmly hold. He is the editor of both The Rap Sheet and Killer Covers, the senior editor of January Magazine, a contributing editor of CrimeReads, and a columnist with Down & Out: The Magazine.

• Blood & Sugar, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle UK):

It’s the summer of 1781, and a young man is found hanging cruelly from a hook at Deptford Dock, on the River Thames east of London, his body displaying signs of torture and the brand of an Atlantic slave trader. Not long afterward, a widow named Amelia Bradstreet calls at the townhouse of Captain Henry Corsham, an aspiring politician and hero of Britain’s unsuccessful wars to hold onto its American colonies. She is the disgraced sister of Thaddeus “Tad” Archer, a barrister and fervent anti-slavery campaigner who was once Corsham’s closest friend. It seems Tad disappeared after traveling recently to Deptford, a town notorious for its role in the highly remunerative commerce involving African bondservants, and Amelia wants Corsham to go in search of him. She’s particularly concerned, because her sibling had told her before heading off that he’d discovered a secret capable of finally destroy the slave trade.

Not surprisingly, that Deptford lynchee was Tad, and his slaying provokes Corsham to begin searching for the killers. In order to succeed, the captain must reconstruct his old chum’s investigation into an appalling incident on board a trans-Atlantic slave ship. This leads him, further, to clash with men—wealthy, powerful, ruthless—who will do anything, conspire in any way necessary to perpetuate the selling of human flesh. Assailed by threats and alarmed by the spread of death in his wake, Corsham pursues the truth in Tad’s stead, despite it endangering his life, his family’s stability, and his prospects as a future member of Parliament; and despite fears that it will force him to reckon with a secret from his own past that he’d prefer remain concealed.

Although this is Shepherd-Robinson’s first novel, Blood & Sugar is extraordinarily sophisticated in its plot construction and most confidently written. Her portrayal of Georgian England, both its wealthy and wanton extremes, is deftly and convincingly executed (I can only imagine how many history books she must have enlisted in this endeavor!). Her characters are provided with full, sometimes surprising, dimensions. And she hesitates not for a moment to display the moral depravities of the slave trade in all their rawness. Let’s hope Shepherd-Robinson has a sequel in the works.

Other 2019 Favorites: The Darwin Affair, by Tim Mason (Algonquin); Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman (Morrow); Metropolis, by Philip Kerr (Putnam); and The Wolf and the Watchman, by Niklas Natt och Dag (Atria). Plus, from the non-fiction shelves—The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).