Favorite Crime Fiction of 2018, Part IV: Ali Karim

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.

• Gallows Court, by Martin Edwards (Head of Zeus):
Don’t let the early 20th-century backdrop fool you: this yarn from Crime Writers Association (CWA) chair Martin Edwards isn’t the comforting historical novel suggested by its cover. In fact, Gallows Court is a thriller that explores—with a contemporary eye—the darkest elements of human nature. Its narrative starts with a terse diary entry from 1919, written by a girl living on a remote island in the Irish Sea, recording the loss of her parents, allegedly killed by the Spanish flu. But little is as it seems in the journal excerpts peppered throughout this novel—and that includes Rachel Savernake, a brilliantly enigmatic figure who becomes central to the diarist’s continuing entries. Now jump ahead to London in 1930, where we are introduced to young and ambitious reporter Jacob Flint. He works for the Clarion newspaper, and has been promoted to head the crime desk after his chief is—much to Flint’s shock, though also to his career benefit—hurt in a Pall Mall-area automobile accident. There has recently been a series of murders in the city, terrible crimes delivering sometimes karmic justice, and Flint leaps upon that story. Integral to it may be the aforementioned Rachel Savernake, the well-heeled daughter of a notorious hanging judge (“Savernake of the Scaffold”), who’s established herself as an altogether sagacious amateur crime solver—though she’s often found a little too near her chosen quarry. Flint’s trajectory soon leads him into close contact with Savernake, like a moth drawn to the luminosity of a flame. His investigation links him as well to an innocent-seeming illusionist, who has attracted his eye and may be in need of his protection, and to a mysterious gentlemen’s club housed in the Gallows Court of Edwards’ title. Although this author (known for his Harry Devlin legal thrillers, as well as his Lake District mysteries) has long delivered thought-provoking, evocative fiction, little prepares the reader for the suspense or grim revelations this story features. I am delighted to hear from publisher Head of Zeus that Edwards is at work on a follow-up to Gallows Court, which may again find Rachel Savernake at large.

• A Noise Downstairs, by Linwood Barclay (Morrow):
Barclay’s work grows more intriguing with each novel, and A Noise Downstairs is decidedly strange. Protagonist Paul Davis is a college professor with a relatively normal life. One night, though, while he’s wheeling home, he spots a colleague, Kenneth Hoffman, driving erratically, and decides to follow him. When Hoffman finally stops, Davis gets out to lend assistance—only to discover his fellow academic extracting the bodies of two deceased women from his trunk. A struggle ensues, during which Davis is struck in the head with a shovel. Hoffman is subsequently apprehended and incarcerated, while Davis ends up in the hospital. Even after his release, Davis isn’t OK. He battles post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and memory problems, and has trouble at work. In an effort to exorcise his memories of that awful evening, and with his therapist’s acquiescence, Davis decides to research Hoffman’s background as a serial killer. His real-estate agent wife, Charlotte, even buys him an antique Underwood typewriter to encourage his efforts. But things don’t go well. Davis is convinced he hears the typewriter keys clacking away at odd hours of the night, as if the old black machine is possessed. But only he can hear it, and fears he’s losing his mind. He fears, too, that the Underwood may once have belonged to a murderer who forced his victims to type apologies to him before he took their lives. As in all of Barclay’s stories, it’s the characters—Hoffman, Davis’ ex-wife, and his therapist, among them—who bring the mystery to life in A Noise Downstairs. You cannot trust all you see, or in this case hear, as this story rushes toward its truly unexpected denouement.

• Skyjack, by K.J. Howe (Quercus):
Kimberly Howe’s full-throttle follow-up to 2017’s The Freedom Broker finds the resourceful Thea Paris, a kidnap and ransom expert with Quantum Security International, on her way back to London. With her are her colleague, Rif Asker, and a couple of traumatized orphan brothers turned child-soldiers, who are scheduled to be placed with adoptive parents. Despite her issues with heights, Thea and her team think they have everything pretty much in hand—until the charter jet they’re riding in is hijacked by the pilot (who locks his cockpit) and rerouted to the Libyan desert. Howe—who’s the executive director of International Thriller Writers (ITW), in addition to being a novelist—offers little baggage here in the way of back story, instead crafting this adventure as if it were a standalone. Only after the plane touches down does Thea realize who’s behind their detour: Prospero Salvatore, a character without whom she’s had previous dealings. He tells Thea that before he will turn the plane and its passengers loose, the Quantum team must go to Budapest and engage in a deeply troubling mission to nab a truckload of Syrian refugees. The reason for this demand is not initially clear, but it apparently relates to a secret society in Austria, led by the father of one Johann Dietrich, that is determined to rid the world of anyone with a Middle Eastern heritage. In terms of theme, Skyjack reminds me of another sophomore work, Frederick Forsyth’s The Odessa File (1972), in which secret societies that date from our past hide in the shadows of contemporary times. Anxiety and action are Skyjack’s driving forces, but Howe also introduces engaging characters, especially Johann Dietrich, who is torn between his girlfriend, Fatima Abboud, and his hate-filled father. Howe has crafted an excellent read for anyone, except perhaps passengers looking to relax on Middle East-bound flights.

• Thirteen, by Steve Cavanagh (Orion):
This fourth and latest of Cavanagh’s legal thrillers (following 2017’s The Lair)—once more starring con man-turned-attorney Eddie Flynn—may also be his most surreal, boasting the most intriguing premise for a courtroom drama that I’ve read in some while. The tale commences with Flynn becoming involved in the defense of Bobby Solomon, a young Hollywood star accused of killing his wife, Ariella Bloom, and his security man, Carl Tozier. The pair were found naked on a bed in Solomon’s New York City apartment, and evidence seems to single out Solomon as their slayer. At first, Flynn is skeptical about taking part in this case; but a piece of evidence makes him wonder whether Solomon is in fact innocent. The yarn’s point of view alternates between Flynn, who works his contacts in the courtroom and local law enforcement, and the actual murderer … who contrives to win a place for himself on Solomon’s jury of 12. How he achieves that is remarkably imaginative and elegantly woven into the narrative. There are abundant tense and suspenseful moments in Thirteen that will have readers reaching for the Xanax, but also some welcome dark wit. And Cavanagh’s exploration of the mind of a psychopath brings out human dimensions that lesser fictionists might never have found. By all rights, this should be Irish lawyer-turned-crime writer Steve Cavanaugh’s breakthrough novel, a blindingly fast read that I guarantee will linger in memory longer than most thrillers. A U.S. edition of Thirteen is due for release this coming August.

• Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke (Mulholland):
Yes, I know most people enjoyed this novel when it was first published last year, but I didn’t get around to it until 2018. Locke’s extraordinary book, her fourth after Pleasantville (2015), follows Ian Fleming’s recipe for a best-seller: “you simply have to turn the page.” Yet it also forces the reader to think deeply about the world—what’s changed, and what demonstrably has not. The story’s pivot is Darren Matthews, a Texas Ranger and law-school dropout who’s battling demons both in his marriage and at the bottom of liquor bottles. While on suspension from his job—the result of irregularities in a case involving a murdered member of the racist group ABT (Aryan Brotherhood of Texas)—he’s convinced to help investigate a couple of slayings in the small East Texas town of Lark (population 178). The corpses of Chicago attorney Michael Wright and a local waitress, Missy Dale, have been pulled free from a bayou. Wright was African American, while Dale was white, immediately raising suspicions that these atrocities were racially motivated. Matthews comes to the aid of Wright’s estranged wife, placing him on the wrong side of some influential people in Lark and forcing him to examine the bigotry that still simmers under some corners of American society and today claims a voice in the Oval Office. Locke employs the familiar trappings of thriller fiction to offer social commentary, but she takes care not to turn Bluebird, Bluebird into a diatribe against modern racism. Like Sidney Poitier in the big-screen version of John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night, Darren Matthews’ presence in Lark is far from welcome. Local ranks close tightly against him as long-concealed secrets threaten to reveal themselves. The story’s pace is measured, as powers-that-be seek to avoid accepting a racial motive for the killings. In the end, Bluebird, Bluebird disturbs at the same time it entertains. That combination has proved to be more than a little powerful, winning Locke’s book the CWA’s 2018 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger as well as the Anthony Award and Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2018, Part III: Steven Nester

Steven Nester is the longtime host of Poets of the Tabloid Murder, a weekly Internet radio program heard on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). In addition, he is a New York-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Rap Sheet, January Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Yellow Mama, Mystery Scene, and Firsts Magazine.

• The Sinners, by Ace Atkins (Putnam):
As if continuing the adventures of Robert B. Parker’s Boston private eye, Spenser, weren’t sufficiently time-consuming, author Ace Atkins also pens a series about Quinn Colson, a former U.S. Army Ranger and current sheriff of Mississippi’s (fictional) Tibbehah County. One hell of a series it is, too. The Sinners, the eighth Colson novel, really hits it out of the park. Colson may have finally put his nemesis, corrupt businessman Johnny Stagg, behind bars some while back, but crime abhors a vacuum, and Stagg has since been replaced by one Fannie Hathcock, a red-headed strip-club proprietor we got to know in Atkins’ previous installment in this series, The Fallen (2017). In The Sinners, Hatchcock’s able bartender, Ordeen Davis, is murdered by Heath Pritchard, an old-school marijuana grower who likes “racin’, growin’ weed, drinking and screwin”—not necessarily in that order. Hamp Beckett, Colson’s deceased uncle and law-enforcement predecessor, consigned Pritchard to their state’s notorious Parchman prison 23 years ago, but now he’s returned—and he wants what he figures is his share of the family pot business still being carried on by his not-too-bright nephews, stock-car neophytes (and comic-relief providers) Tyler and Cody Pritchard. As one might expect, Hathcock is upset at Davis’ death, especially since it comes on top of other trouble she’s already been having with the Pritchard boys and moves her closer into conflict with the Dixie Mafia. Meanwhile, Boom Kimbrough—Colson’s wingman, fellow vet, and the designated best man at the sheriff’s impending nuptials—has gone to work for a trucking enterprise that’s also caught up in the drug trade, and a determined federal agent wants Kimbrough to don a wire and help her bring down his employer. As they might be in real life, the obstacles thrown in Colson’s way here are reconciled in a bittersweet manner that lends this book the resonance of reality.

• Swift Vengeance, by T. Jefferson Parker (Putnam):
Californian Jeff Parker boasts of an elegant prose style, and there are few other fiction writers who can come anywhere near to achieving his concision and beauty of expression. Parker also claims a firm grasp on the development of plot and characters, with 24 novels to his credit as proof. Saying much with little causes readers to want more—and Parker is happy to deliver. In this second tale starring Roland Ford (introduced in last year’s The Room of White Fire), this San Diego cop turned Marine turned private investigator endeavors to help Lindsey Rakes, a stressed-out ex-U.S. Air Force drone pilot, who has received the most gruesome death threats from a mysterious figured identified only as “Caliphornia.” It seems that would-be assassin intends to exact revenge upon Rakes for the deaths she caused in the Middle East during her military service. The handwriting on the menacing notes resembles that of Rasha Samara, a Saudi landscape architect she’s dated during her divorce from husband Brandon Goff. But the angry Goff might just as well be the source of the threats. Rakes goes into hiding for her own protection, while Ford works with an FBI specialist to identify her would-be assailant. The beheading of one of Rakes’ former Air Force colleagues, who had also been terrorized by Caliphornia, raises the stakes all around. While tackling international issues and the violence that may derive from them with confidence and prowess, Parker brings enough verisimilitude to his escapist fiction, that one can’t help feeling both thrilled by his storytelling … and on constant alert for dangers ahead.

• Pirata, by Patrick Hasburgh
(Harper Perennial):
A crew of louche ex-patriots killing time and abundant brain cells on a Central American beach find themselves in a most un-mellow situation; yet despite the violence, debauchery, and broken families, this book makes the life of a surf bum seem rather attractive. “Part of the deal with expats in Mexico is that we get to be whoever we want to be—as long as we don’t cause too much trouble,” opines Nick Lutz, a California used-car salesman turned slacker. After being shot in the head by a would-be client determined to hijack some wheels, then seeing his young son injured in an automobile accident and losing his wife, Lutz flees south of the border in hopes of finding a new life. It’s all good—until a pretty femme fatale named Meagan dumps her abusive boyfriend, Winsor, who also happens to be Nick’s drinking buddy. When she seeks refuge for herself and her two boys in Nick’s casita, Winsor doesn’t take too kindly to the disruption of his love life. Not too kindly at all. Suddenly dead bodies begin to appear, together with a distinctly unfriendly FBI agent; and in short order Lutz must fight for the few things that are genuinely important to him. Amid everything else, he realizes that his ex-wife back in the States, who now has custody of their child, may have had a hand in his attempted murder. Hasburgh created the 1987-1991 Fox-TV series 21 Jump Street, so it’s little wonder that Pirata moves quickly and credibly, tempting one to chuck it all and head to a beach with a board and suntan lotion.

Finally, one work from the non-fiction stacks …

• The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, by Kirk Wallace Johnson (Viking):
Edwin Rist, a 22-year-old home-schooled prodigy from upstate New York, brings unwanted scrutiny to the arcane and sometimes secretive circle of salmon-fly tiers when his “crime of the century” (at least in that world) unravels in Johnson’s The Feather Thief. Brilliant and protean, an extremely talented flautist with an intelligence bordering perhaps on Asperger’s Syndrome, Rist broke into Britain’s Natural History Museum at Tring, in Hertfordshire, in June 2009 and stole hundreds of brightly colored bird skins, putting him in the enviable position of owning one of the greatest such collections ever amassed. He then sought to peddle individual feathers and entire birds to fellow fly tiers at top-dollar prices. Many of those species are protected by law, whether the birds are dead or alive. But Rist figured that some of the world’s best tiers would nonetheless want his rare and otherwise-unattainable feathers in order to create flies in the style of the pastime’s masters. He also convinced himself that he’d acted in the public service, freeing the natural beauty that had been hidden in museums for decades. Over the course of The Feather Thief, Johnson—a master of erudition, concision, and simplicity—will make you slightly conversant in evolution, ecology, woman’s fashions at the turn of the last century, the rise of the British Empire, and exotic birds among many other things, without ever coming across as a prig. And all of that information is wrapped around a story worthy of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2018, Part II: Kevin Burton Smith

Kevin Burton Smith is the Montreal-born founder and editor of that essential 20-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 working on a non-fiction book about married detective couples with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne (aka Diana Killian and Josh Lanyon).

• The Man Who Came Uptown, by George Pelecanos (Mulholland):
His day-job among the pornographers on HBO-TV’s The Deuce must keep Pelecanos pretty busy. Fortunately, his latest novel is a clear sign that he hasn’t turned his back on the literary side of the street. Michael Hudson is a soft-spoken young knucklehead, squeezing out his sentence for armed robbery by burying himself in books borrowed from the library of a prison in Washington, D.C. For him, reading is a whole new world. Anna Kaplan Byrne is a restless, idealistic young married woman, not much older than Michael, working as a literacy tutor at the lockup, out to save the world one convict at a time. Michael is a point of light in her world. His newfound enthusiasm keeps her going, and a friendship beyond books begins to develop. But then Michael is sprung early, thanks to some slippery witness tampering by Phil Ornazian, a shady, middle-aged private detective working for Michael’s lawyer. Out on the mean streets again, Michael is determined to walk the straight and narrow. He gets a job, a place to live, and a bookcase he hopes to fill. But Ornazian, a family man who has a side gig ripping off drug dealers, needs a driver. And Michael owes him. That these three characters are on a collision course is a given, but the way their lives smash into one another is not only the sort of stand-up, hard-boiled delight we expect from Pelecanos, but (get this!) a stirring, passionate shout-out to the redemptive power of reading, and the ability of literature to change lives—and maybe even the world.

• The Feral Detective, by Jonathan Lethem (Ecco):
Other private eyes keep a bottle of hooch in the desk drawer. Charles Heist keeps a possum. The 50-something “feral detective” of this phantasmagorical, swirling tale (by the author of Motherless Brooklyn), wasn’t raised by wolves, but he comes close. Heist works out of a shabby office near a trailer park in Upland, California, and seems to operate according to a whole set of not easily defined rules. Here he agrees (reluctantly) to help a snappy, snarky former New York Times reporter, Phoebe Siegler, find Arabella, a friend’s runaway teenage daughter. After a brief sojourn up Mount Baldy to pay homage to the late singer Leonard Cohen, Arabella has disappeared into the Mojave Desert, where she's apparently hanging out with the Rabbits, a mostly female cult involved in some decades-old tribal conflict with the Bears, a mostly male clan. This story is a wild, picaresque hoot, full of cultural and sociological spelunking of the finest kind, and lots of talky-talk (the high-strung Phoebe serves as the neurotic narrator), while it plays host to a slew of desert rats and other eccentric characters, plus a lot of moaning and groaning about the 2016 election of Donald Trump and the subsequent “barking madness of the world.” It is also an intoxicating release (at least for me), something like an acid flashback of suppressed pop culture memories, dredging up everything from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and Ross Macdonald’s novels to Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain, the Mad Max movies, and several of Margaret Atwood’s books. Your mileage may vary. I’m not quite sure I “got” The Feral Detective, but I’m pretty sure I loved it.

• Sunburn, by Laura Lippman (Morrow):
If you’re not squirming after reading the beginning of this twisted, twisty slice of nasty—wherein private investigator Adam Bosk (“Like the pear, only with a ‘k’ instead of a ‘c.’”) ponders the sunburned shoulders of his target, Polly Costello—well, you’ve never had a sunburn. But don’t worry. By book’s end, everyone gets burned one way or another. Lippman has been threatening to write this yarn for at least as long as I’ve known her. Acting like a One-Woman Chamber of Commerce for Charm City’s Vaunted Coterie of Crime Writers (Poe, Hammett, James M. Cain, that Simon guy, etc.), she finally raises a little Cain of her own, resulting in a blistering bit of noir. Of course, anyone who’s ever read Lippman’s Tess Monaghan detective novels or, especially, her potent standalones, knows that—sunny disposition aside—she has a heart of darkness that can beat like a hammer on a drum. Here she shows it to the world. It’s 1995, and Polly is sitting on a barstool in Belleville, Delaware, a sad little town stuck 45 miles from the beach. We soon learn that she’s on the lam from a busted marriage, a doofus husband, and a 3-year old daughter. Alpha male Adam, the P.I. who’s taken on the job of following her (though his employer is a mystery), slides onto a nearby seat. They’re two good-looking young people, with an almost immediate mutual attraction, and before you know it they’re both lying their asses off to each other—and to the reader. Adam’s secrets are more or less what you’d expect, but they’re nothing compared to those of shapeshifter Polly (if that’s even her real name), who has secrets inside of secrets, wrapped in lies and more lies, and dusted with greed, betrayal, and murder—all eventually revealed by the harsh, relentless, burning light of the Truth. Pass the Coppertone.

• Only to Sleep, by Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth):
I should hate this book. I wanted to hate this book. It’s a continuation of the adventures of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, a joint effort by the Chandler estate and hired English author Lawrence Osborne, ostensibly released to mark the 130th anniversary of the master’s birth. The more cynical among us might also note the looming copyright expiry date, and ask, “Who the hell is Lawrence Osborne?” Turns out he’s a legit writer, fairly well respected, with a handful of well-received novels to his name, although there doesn’t seem to be much connection to Chandler, or to crime fiction, in general. Nonetheless, Osborne must have been aware of how previous attempts to nail down Chandler had gone, and so Osborne presents his version of Marlowe. Forget the years of Marlowe’s prime—Osborne gives us a retired old coot, living off what savings he has. In Mexico. In 1980. The City of Angels is a world away. This is a smart, audacious move on Osborne’s part. Because what works best in this book is all the ways it’s not slavishly Chandler, but merely Chandleresque. Osborne doesn’t even try to match Chandler’s style. The pages aren’t loaded with strained similes, metaphors that don’t work and wisecracks that don’t crack—a common failing of those who seek to mimic Chandler. Osborne’s 72-year-old Marlowe is intriguing enough all on his own. Mournful, exhausted, and ready to meet his maker, maybe, but not quite yet, and only on his own terms. Of course, he’s still Marlowe: he still narrates his own adventures, Linda Loring is mentioned, though not by name (“I was married once”), and he still occasionally drinks gimlets. Despite himself, Marlowe still has a romantic eye and an appreciation for beauty (“When she came back to the table, half-soaked from the surf, and happier, she seemed as fresh and real as anyone I could remember”). Naturally, he’s urged out of retirement. By two L.A. insurance men, who want him to look into the suspicious death of a wealthy but shady real-estate dealer (sound familiar?), who drowned somewhere along the Mexican coast, leaving behind a young and very rich widow. When he finally tracks her down, it’s clear the long career of going down the mean streets has left Marlowe both tarnished and afraid. There’s a palpable sense of sorrow here; an elegiac sense of time running out, ushered along by some quietly beautiful writing: “We sat there for a long time, declining to disturb the moment or to add a single word to what had already been left unsaid.” Osborne’s Marlowe isn’t Chandler’s Marlowe. But I think the two would have understood each other. I don’t hate this book. I loved this book.

• Eight Million Ways to Die, by Lawrence Block and John K. Snyder III (IDW Publishing):
It’s almost cheating, saying that comic writer-artist John K. Snyder III’s graphic novel adaptation of Lawrence Block’s 1982 masterpiece was one of 2018’s best reads. Even the 1986 film, based on a screenplay by Oliver Stone and directed by Hal Ashby, is looking a little long in the tooth. Mind you, the original novel is a bit of a personal ringer for me (let’s just say some family members drank). It’s a gut-wrenching, swirling blast of damnation and salvation; a pitch-black Hallmark card from Hell, as troubled, unlicensed New York City private eye Matt Scudder struggles to come to terms with his drinking, after four previous novels, each of which nudged Scudder closer to the abyss. By the time of Eight Million, Scudder was suffering from blackouts and memory loss, and the realization that both he and his hometown—then in the throes of a rash of violence—were damned. The Jeff Bridges/Rosanna Arquette film did nobody’s reputation any favors. The novel pinned the intoxicating fog of Scudder’s alcoholism and his investigation of a murdered hooker against a noirish backdrop of a Big Apple rotten to its 1970s core; a string of random murders ringing like the Bells of Impending Doom in the headlines. There was a palpable, dark, claustrophobic sense of decay setting in, and you got the sense that the city itself was coming for Scudder. So what did the movie do? Chucked it all for the sunshiney beaches and endless wide-open spaces of Los Angeles. Even Bridges as Scudder couldn’t save it. Block despised that picture. But now we have Snyder to wash away Hollywood’s sins, and welcome us back to the Hell Block intended. His seedy, rough impressionistic art and grimy palette—all muddy grays, browns, and muted primary colors—suggests old pulp magazine covers, grainy, deteriorating 1940s B-films, and a rain-drenched midnight, perfectly nailing how I felt when reading the novel more than 30 years ago: a nightmare of conflicting emotions clutching at me as I raced to the bleak, heart-thumping conclusion. Roll over, Hal Ashby, and tell Ollie Stone the news: this is how it’s done.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2018, Part I: Jim Napier

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 2019.

• The Witch Elm, by Tana French (Viking):
Dubliner Toby Hennessy—who’d previously believed himself to be a fortunate, happy man—is attacked in his flat by two burglars. He suffers a massive beating. Days later, he awakens to find himself in a hospital bed, barely able to function. His balance is iffy, his coordination and speech are impaired, and his memory of the violence recently visited upon him is fragmentary, at best. Now flash forward two months: Toby is only marginally better. Anxious to put his apartment and its bleak memories behind him, he looks forward to moving, if only for a few months, to Ivy House, the domain of his uncle Hugo. When Toby learns that Hugo has cancer and is dying, he is determined to make the most of things, to be useful in caring for his relative. Toby’s thoughts also turn to the nexus of friends dating back to his youth. As the group of them had often spent their summers at Ivy House, Toby invites them to return for a weekend visit. They do, and for a moment it seems that things are taking a turn for the better in Toby’s life. But the casual closeness of this group masks important underlying tensions. Envy and suspicion, along with secrets and slights, rise to the surface, where their long friendships will be put to the test. Then a human skull is discovered in Ivy House’s backyard, and Toby is left to reassess everything he thought he understood about his life and family. Told in the first-person, this standalone yarn from the author of the Dublin Murder Squad series (The Trespasser) provides an intriguing exploration of the human psyche. French forces readers to confront the issue of who we are, individually, and what we are capable of doing under extreme conditions. Like some of her earlier works, The Witch Elm violates cardinal rules of writing, but she manages to hold readers firmly in her grasp. A superb story, destined to become a classic.

• Two Kinds of Truth, by Michael Connelly
(Grand Central Publishing):
Like so many other people nowadays, Harry Bosch finds himself still working after nominally retiring. Yet it’s not for the money; he’s driven by his crime-breaking labors, the satisfaction they give him. After being ousted from the Los Angeles Police Department, he’s now volunteering with Southern California’s San Fernando PD, operating out of a repurposed office that was formerly a drunk tank, and poring over old files, looking to bring justice to the victims of unsolved crimes—and closure to their families and friends. But his day doesn’t get off to the best start when he learns that Preston Borders, a man he put on Death Row three decades ago, is seeking to have his conviction overturned on the basis of previously unexamined DNA evidence, claiming that Bosch planted damning “proof” of his guilt at trial. Bosch knows it’s BS, but he’s stumped to prove it. And before he can make any headway in ensuring Borders’ continued incarceration, he’s called out to the scene of a double homicide: father and son pharmacists have been brutally gunned down in their place of business, in what looks more like an execution than a robbery gone wrong. As Bosch dives into this fresh case, he’s drawn into the shadowy world of prescription painkillers and the organized criminals who traffic in them. Bosch agrees to go undercover—a risky role that he has largely avoided during his long career—and as a consequence, is compelled to fight not only for his reputation, but also for his life. Meticulously researched and packed with sordid ambience, Two Kinds of Truth is a grim and gritty exposé of a major scourge of modern-day America, wrapped up in a compelling drama that reaffirms Connelly’s place as quite simply his country’s finest crime writer. This 20th Bosch novel was originally published in late 2017, but the release of a paperback edition in 2018 qualifies it (barely) for The Rap Sheet’s list.

• Though the Heavens Fall, by Anne
Emery (ECW Press):
1995: When Halifax, Nova Scotia, lawyer Monty Collins travels to Northern Ireland to perform some work on behalf of his firm, his good friend Father Brennan Burke takes advantage of the opportunity, and tags along. Much of Burke’s family remained in Northern Ireland during the euphemistically termed “Troubles.” Now, however, events are inching toward reconciliation, and a compromise solution seems to be on the horizon. Father Brennan’s cousin Ronan Burke spent some time behind bars during the decades of conflict, but he’s now a free man, hugely popular among the Republicans and an odds-on favorite to play a leading part in the proposed joint political assembly, once it’s established. Lurking not far beneath the surface of all this, though, are age-old enmities, and deeds gone unpunished on both sides of the turmoil. Brennan is drawn into the intrigue, and when his involvement is discovered, he’s thrown into prison, there to await trial in a courtroom where the customary safeguards of rights for the accused no longer apply, and under threat that he could spend the the rest of his days in a place of unspeakable degradation. Though the Heavens Fall chronicles the times leading up to a ceasefire between opposing forces in Northern Ireland, and the eventual Good Friday Agreement. With its many harrowing tales based on fact, this is a dark novel, by far the darkest yet in Emery’s 10-book series, guaranteed to leave even the most casual reader deeply disturbed that these sorts of things could be allowed to happen in a nation that regards itself as civilized. Though the Heavens Fall is a fine example of how, in the hands of a skilled and dedicated writer, a novel can enlarge our understanding of complex issues in the real world. Clearly one of the finest reads of 2018.

• Chasing the Wind, by C.C. Humphreys
(Library and Archives Canada):
Roxy Loewen is a feisty, indefatigable, yet refreshingly fallible aviatrix in the America of the 1930s. Friends with Amelia Earhart no less, she will, before this story ends, match wits with Nazi leader Hermann Göring in a bid to prevent him from possessing a previously unknown, yet priceless, painting—not because of her political views, but because she needs that work of art, or rather the wealth it represents, to extricate herself from crippling family debts and secure her independence. Roxy is aided in her quest by fellow pilot Jocco Zomack, who couldn’t be more different from her. Jocco is an idealist, with sympathies for communist causes and the rebels fighting a civil war in Spain. Theirs is an uneasy alliance, and one which will come back to haunt the intrepid Roxy before this book’s final page. Together, the pair face a truly sinister adversary named Sidney Munroe. He’s responsible, at least indirectly, for Roxy’s father’s death, and he too wants the painting, together with all of Roxy’s family inheritance. Munroe is also a friend of Herr Göring. Not an easy man to like, then. Deftly combining the politics of the day, art history, and the catastrophic fate of the airship Hindenburg, Chasing the Wind blends escapist fun into an action-packed yarn that begs for a film treatment to do it justice.

• Insidious Intent, by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press):
Barely squeaking onto this list with a December 2017 publication date, Insidious Intent is one of the best crime novels of this or any other year. In Bonny Scotland, the bodies of young women are being found in burned-out cars, all apparently unconnected with one another, and Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan (last seen in 2015’s Splinter the Silence) is certain there is a serial killer on the loose. The culprit is cunning, though, and even with his formidable skills, profiler Tony Hill has nothing to work with. Maddeningly, just as the team does move toward identifying a suspect, it seems that person—aided by a formidable lawyer—will walk free with the chance to murder again. As always, Jordon’s turbulent personal life lurks not far beneath the surface of this plot. After a night of drinking, she’d been involved in a traffic accident. Members of her team had derailed the resulting inquiry by claiming that the breathalyzer used to establish the DCI’s alcohol level had been faulty. The resulting acquittal, bad enough in it’s own right, had led to similar verdicts for several other drunk-driver defendants, and one of them had gone free only to kill himself and others in yet another incident. Now an energetic reporter, aided by a disgruntled police officer who is nursing his own grudge, is on the trail of the cover-up, and it seems to be only a matter of time before Jordan’s professional life—as well as those of several officers involved in the cover-up—are in tatters. Reading one of Val McDermid’s novels is like taking a master class in creative writing, her nuanced characters and layered back-stories encompassing profound moral themes wrapped in a gripping story line. Her body of work firmly establishes her as one of our age’s foremost crime fictionists.