Summer’s Dark-Hearted Bounty

Confession time: I’m still in the midst of enjoying a variety of crime novels I highlighted as top picks for spring reading. The fact that summer officially begins in the northern hemisphere only a week from today, on June 20, is therefore rather unsettling. While I’ve already been dipping my toes into the pool of books set for publication between now and Labor Day (and writing about a bunch of those for Kirkus Reviews), I am not really prepared to leave the last season behind. Not completely. This always happens to me in June. For professional reasons, I am called upon to turn my attention forward, to write about summer releases … yet I find myself glancing back guiltily at the piles of handsome volumes (not only crime fiction, but also general fiction and history) that I promised myself I would tackle during the first half of the year, and wondering whether I’ll ever find enough free time to digest them all. It is not uncommon for me to pack handfuls of such still-to-be-reads along on summer vacation, hoping to polish them off in an obsessive rush, even if doing so costs me a bit of the relaxation a holiday is designed to deliver.

Under the best of circumstances, I can still integrate a few books from early 2016 into my next three-month reading schedule. But that will demand serious commitment, because there are more than a few crime, mystery, and thriller distractions to come in June, July, and August. Just this month, for instance, U.S. bookstores will welcome Walter Mosley’s 13th Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins novel, Charcoal Joe; Susie Steiner’s police procedural/family drama combination, Missing, Presumed; Patricia Abbott’s Shot in Detroit, her new follow-up to last year’s Concrete Angel; and End of Watch, the final entry in Stephen King’s trilogy starring retired detective Bill Hodges. Later this season, keep your eyes peeled for Daniel Silva’s The Black Widow, Amy Gentry’s Good as Gone, Richard Vine’s SoHo Sins, Megan Abbott’s You Will Know Me, James Lee Burke’s The Jealous Kind, Louise Penny’s A Great Reckoning, and Andrew Gross’ The One Man. If you’re a resident of Britain, look forward to the debuts of Jill Dawson’s The Crime Writer (starring Patricia Highsmith!); Charles Cumming’s third Thomas Kell espionage adventure, A Divided Spy; Norwegian by Night author Derek B. Miller’s The Girl in Green (which isn’t due out in the States until January 2017); Stuart Neville’s second Serena Flanagan yarn, So Say the Fallen; and Craig Russell’s The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid, his fifth outing for shady Glasgow private investigator Lennox.

See what I mean about plentiful literary enticements?

Below you will find an inventory of some 300 works—primarily novels, but with a few non-fiction books about this genre tossed in (and marked with asterisks)—that should appeal to Rap Sheet followers. They’re a lot to take in at one whack, I know. So simply glance through the options, and maybe come back later to record the titles of a few releases you find particularly interesting. Remember, nobody expects you to read every one of these publications. Nor must you begin and finish all of those that appeal to you between now and the end of August. I, for one, will likely still be whittling away at my own choices deep into the fall season, and probably well beyond that.

JUNE (U.S.):

• Air Time, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)

• All the Missing Girls, by Megan Miranda (Simon & Schuster)

• As Good as Gone, by Larry Watson (Algonquin)

• The Big Sheep, by Robert Kroese (Thomas Dunne)

• Black Hammock, by Michael Wiley (Severn House)

• Blockbuster!: Fergus Hume & the Mystery of a Hansom Cab,
by Lucy Sussex (Text)*

• Books of a Feather, by Kate Carlisle (NAL)

• The Bowery Boys: Adventures in Old New York: An Unconventional Exploration of Manhattan’s Historic Neighborhoods, Secret Spots and Colorful Characters, by Gregy Young and Tom Meyers (Ulysses Press)*

• Brighton, by Michael Harvey (Ecco)

• Brutality, by Ingrid Thoft (Putnam)

• Buffalo Jump Blues, by Keith McCafferty (Viking)

• Burn What Will Burn, by C.B. McKenzie (Minotaur)

• The Butterfly Garden, by Dot Hutchison (Thomas & Mercer)

• Charcoal Joe, by Walter Mosley (Doubleday)

• The Charmers, by Elizabeth Adler (Minotaur)

• Child Not Found, by Ray Daniel (Midnight Ink)

• The Circle, by M.J. Trow (Crème de la Crime)

• City of Jackals, by Parker Bilal (Bloomsbury USA)

• Classic at Bay, by Amy Myers (Severn House)

• Clinch, by Martin Holmén (Pushkin Vertigo)

• Collecting the Dead, by Spencer Kope (Minotaur)

• The Crow Girl, by Erik Axl Sund (Knopf)

• The Corners of the Globe, by Robert Goddard (Mysterious Press)

• The Curse of Tenth Grave, by Darynda Jones (St. Martin’s Press)

• Danger Woman, by Frederick Ramsay (Poisoned Pen Press)

• A Darker Sky, by Mari Jungstedt and Ruben Eliassen (AmazonCrossing)

• Dark Horse, by Rory Flynn
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• The Dead Don’t Bleed,
by David Krugler (Pegasus)

• Dead Loudmouth,
by Victoria Houston (Tyrus)

• Death at the Boston Tea Party, by Deryn Lake (Severn House)

• Death on the Sapphire,
by R.J. Koreto (Crooked Lane)

• December Boys, by Joe Clifford (Oceanview)

• Destiny’s Pawn, by D.A. Keeley (Midnight Ink)

• The Devil Doesn’t Want Me, by Eric Beetner (280 Steps)

• The Devil’s Cold Dish, by Eleanor Kuhns (Minotaur)

• The Devils of Cardona, by Matthew Carr (Riverhead)

• Die of Shame, by Mark Billingham (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, by Paul Tremblay (Morrow)

• Drinking Gourd, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)

• End of Watch, by Stephen King (Scribner)

• The Far Empty, by J. Todd Scott (Putnam)

• Fatal Pursuit, by Martin Walker (Knopf)

• Field of Graves, by J.T. Ellison (Mira)

• First Strike, by Ben Coes (St. Martin’s Press)

• The Girls in the Garden, by Lisa Jewell (Atria)

• A Golden Cage, by Shelley Freydont (Berkley)

• The Great Revolt, by Paul Doherty (Crème de la Crime)

• Hard Cover, by Adrian Magson (Severn House)

• Heart of Stone, by James W. Ziskin (Seventh Street)

• Hell’s Gate, by Bill Schutt and J.R. Finch (Morrow)

• The House of Secrets, by Brad Meltzer and Tod Goldberg
(Grand Central)

• I’m Thinking of Ending Things, by Iain Reid (Gallery/Scout Press)

• Ink and Bone, by Lisa Unger (Touchstone)

• The Last Time She Saw Him, by Jane Haseldine (Kensington)

• Liar Liar, by M.J. Arlidge (NAL)

• The Lie, by C.L. Taylor (Sourcebooks Landmark)

• Lost Dog, by Alan Russell (Thomas & Mercer)

• Marked for Life, by Emelie Schepp (Mira)

• Missing, Presumed, by Susie Steiner (Random House)

• Murder on the Quai, by Cara Black (Soho Crime)

• New York Nocturne: The Return of Miss Lizzie, by Walter Satterthwait (Mysterious Press/Open Road)

• Not Dead Enough, by Warren C. Easley (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Paris Spring, by James Naugtie (Head of Zeus)

• Ping-Pong Heart, by Martin Limón (Soho Crime)

• Play Nice, by Michael Guillebeau (Five Star)

• The Pursuit, by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg (Bantam)

• Quick and the Dead, by Susan Moody (Severn House)

• Radio Girls, by Sarah-Jane Stratford (NAL)

• Riot Load, by Bryon Quertermous (Polis)

• Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Enigma, by Eric Van Lustbader
(Grand Central)

• The Second Girl, by David Swinson (Mulholland)

• The Secret of Spandau, by Peter Lovesey (Severn House)

• Security, by Gina Wohlsdorf (Algonquin)

• Shadowed, by Karen E. Olson (Severn House)

• Shooting the Sphinx, by Avram Noble Ludwig (Forge)

• Shot in Detroit, by Patricia Abbott (Polis)

• Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation, by James Runcie (Bloomsbury USA)

• Stealing Fire, by Win Blevins and Meredith Blevins (Forge)

• Stealing People, by Robert Wilson (Europa Editions)

• Tales of the Star Republic, by Terence Faherty (Gisbourne Press)

• That Bright Land, by Terry Roberts (Turner)

• Think Wolf, by Michael Gregorio (Severn House)

• Time Heals No Wounds, by Hendrik Falkenberg (AmazonCrossing)

• The Traitor's Story, by Kevin Wignall (Thomas & Mercer)

• Triggerfish, by Dietrich Kalteis (ECW Press)

• Under the Harrow, by Flynn Berry (Penguin)

• We Could Be Beautiful, by Swan Huntley (Doubleday)

• We Were Kings, by Thomas O’Malley and Douglas Graham Purdy (Mulholland)

• What We Become, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Atria)

• Widowmaker, by Paul Doiron (Minotaur)

• Willnot, by James Sallis (Bloomsbury USA)

• The Women of the Souk, by Michael Pearce (Severn House)

• Written Off, by E.J. Cooperman
(Crooked Lane)

• Yellowstone Standoff, by Scott Graham (Torrey House Press)

• The Yemen Contract, by Arthur Kerns (Diversion)

JUNE (UK):

• Behind Dead Eyes, by Howard Linskey (Michael Joseph)

• Black Water, by Louise Doughty (Faber and Faber)

• Black Water Lilies, by Michel Bussi (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

• Burned and Broken, by Mark Hardie (Sphere)

• The Crime Writer, by Jill Dawson (Sceptre)

• Crisis, by Frank Gardner (Bantam Press)

• Daisy in Chains, by Sharon Bolton (Bantam Press)

• The Dead Woman of Deptford, by Ann Granger (Headline)

• Dear Amy, by Helen Callaghan (Michael Joseph)

• A Divided Spy, by Charles Cumming (HarperCollins)

• The Dying Detective, by Leif G.W. Persson (Doubleday)

• False Hearts, by Laura Lam (Macmillan)

• The Final Word, by Liza Marklund (Corgi)

• The Fire Child, by S.K. Tremayne (HarperCollins)

• Last to Die, by Arlene Hunt (Bookouture)

• Lost and Gone Forever, by Alex Grecian (Penguin)

• The Man Who Wanted to Know, by D.A. Mishani (Quercus/Riverrun)

• The Man Who Wasn’t There, by Michael Hjorth and Hans
Rosenfeldt (Century)

• The Night Book, by Richard Madeley (Simon & Schuster)

• Nomad, by James Swallow (Zaffre)

• A Quiet Life, by Natasha Walter (Borough Press)

• The Rule of Fear, by Luke Delaney (HarperCollins)

• The Salt Marsh, by Clare Carson (Head of Zeus)

• Saturday Requiem, by Nicci French (Michael Joseph)

• Secrets of Death, by Stephen Booth (Sphere)

• The Secrets of Gaslight Lane, by M.R.C. Kasasian (Head of Zeus)

• The Searcher, by Chris Morgan Jones (Mantle)

• Signal for Vengeance, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)

• The Sinking Admiral, edited by Simon Brett (Collins Crime Club)

• S Is for Stranger, by Louise Stone (Carina)

• Streets of Darkness, by A.A. Dhand (Bantam Press)

• Treacherous Strand, by Andrea Carter (Constable)

• Where Roses Never Die, by Gunnar Staalesen (Orenda)

• Without Trace, by Simon Booker (Twenty7)

• The Wolf Road, by Beth Lewis (Borough Press)

JULY (U.S.):

• The Accidental Agent, by Andrew Rosenheim (Overlook Press)

• All Is Not Forgotten, by Wendy Walker (St. Martin’s Press)

• Among the Wicked, by Linda Castillo (Minotaur)

• Another One Goes Tonight, by Peter Lovesey (Soho Crime)

• Arsenic with Austen, by Katherine Bolger Hyde (Minotaur)

• The Asset, by Shane Kuhn (Simon & Schuster)

• Baby Doll, by Hollie Overton (Redhook)

• The Baker Street Jurors, by Michael Robertson (Minotaur)

• The Beauty of the End, by Debbie Howells (Kensington)

• The Black Widow, by Daniel Silva (Harper)

• The Boy in the Shadows, by Carl-Johan Vallgren (Quercus)

• The Branson Beauty, by Claire Booth (Minotaur)

• Breaking Cover, by Stella Rimington (Bloomsbury USA)

• Bury Me When I’m Dead, by Cheryl A. Head (Bywater)

• Coastal Corpse, by Marty Ambrose (Five Star)

• The Coaster, by Erich Wurster (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Cold, by John Sweeney (Thomas & Mercer)

• Court Trouble, by Mike Befeler (Five Star)

• Dancing with the Tiger, by Lili Wright (Marian Wood/Putnam)

• Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch (Crown)

• Dead Joker, by Anne Holt (Scribner)

• Death in Rough Water, by Francine Mathews (Soho Crime)

• Deep Waters, by Patricia Hall
(Severn House)

• The Devil’s Evidence, by Simon Kurt Unsworth (Doubleday)

• The Discourtesy of Death, by William Brodrick (Overlook Press)

• Dr. Knox, by Peter Spiegelman (Knopf)

• The English Boys, by Julia Thomas (Midnight Ink)

• Everything I Don’t Remember, by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Atria)

• Face Blind, by Lance Hawvermale (Minotaur)

• Fatal Headwind, by Leena Lehtolainen (AmazonCrossing)

• Free Fall, by Rick Mofina (Mira)

• The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Ripper Legacy, by David Stuart Davies (Titan)

• Go-Between, by Lisa Brackmann (Soho Crime)

• Good as Gone, by Amy Gentry (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• A Grave Concern, by Susanna Gregory (Sphere)

• The Graveyard of the Hesperides, by Lindsey Davis (Minotaur)

• Guilty Minds, by Joseph Finder (Dutton)

• The Hatching, by Ezekiel Boone (Atria/Emily Bestler)

• The Hemingway Thief, by Shaun Harris (Seventh Street)

• Hero’s Lust/The Man I Killed/House of Evil, by Kermit Jaediker, Shel Walker, Clayre & Michel Lipman (Stark House Press)

• House Revenge, by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press)

• I Am No One, by Patrick Flanery (Tim Duggan)

• The Innocents, by Ace Atkins (Putnam)

• Killer Look, by Linda Fairstein (Dutton)

• The Kingdom, by Fuminori Nakamura (Soho Crime)

• The Last One, by Alexandra Oliva (Ballantine)

• Lawless and the Flowers of Sin, by William Sutton (Titan)

• Let the Devil Out, by Bill Loehfelm (Sarah Crichton)

• A Maiden Weeping, by Jeri Westerson (Severn House)

• Midnight Crossing, by Tricia Fields (Minotaur)

• A Most Curious Murder, by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli (Crooked Lane)

• Murder.com, by Haughton Murphy (Mysterious Press/Open Road)

• A Murder of Crows, by Terrence McCauley (Polis)

• Murder on Brittany Shores, by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)

• Night and Day, by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s Press)

• Night Talk, by George Noory (Forge)

• No Good to Cry, by Andrew Lanh (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Once Upon a Time in Camelot, by James Patrick Hunt (Five Star)

• Outfoxed, by David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)

• Rebellion’s Message, by Michael Jecks (Crème de la Crime)

• Revolver, by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)

• Roots of Murder, by R. Jean Reid (Midnight Ink)

• Salvation Lake, by G.M. Ford (Thomas & Mercer)

• The Second Death, by Peter Tremayne (Minotaur)

• SoHo Sins, by Richard Vine (Hard Case Crime)

• Someone Always Knows, by Marcia Muller (Grand Central)

• Tag, You’re Dead, by J.C. Lane (Poisoned Pen Press)

• Threefold Death, by E.R. Dillon (Five Star)

• The Trap, by Melanie Raabe (Grand Central)

• Underground Airlines, by Ben H. Winters (Mulholland)

• Vita Brevis, by Ruth Downie (Bloomsbury USA)

• White Bone, by Ridley Pearson (Putnam)

• The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer, by Kate Summerscale (Penguin Press)*

• Wolf Lake, by John Verdon (Counterpoint)

• The Wolf Road, by Beth Lewis (Crown)

• The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press)

• You Will Know Me, by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown)

JULY (UK):

• As Time Goes By, by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster)

• Birthright, by David Hingley
(Allison & Busby)

• Blackout, by Ragnar Jónasson (Orenda)

• Blackwater, by James Henry (Quercus/Riverrun)

• Blood Wedding, by Pierre Lemaitre (MacLehose Press)

• Broken Heart, by Tim Weaver (Penguin)

• A Climate of Fear, by Fred Vargas (Harvill Secker)

• Dandy Gilver and a Most Misleading Habit, by Catriona McPherson (Hodder & Stoughton)

• Dark Forces, by Stephen Leather (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The Dead House, by Harry Bingham (Orion)

• The Girl in Green, by Derek B. Miller (Faber and Faber)

• I See You, by Clare Mackintosh (Sphere)

• The Kept Woman, by Karin Slaughter (Century)

• Lie with Me, by Sabine Durrant (Mulholland)

• The Long Drop, by Denise Mina (Little, Brown)

• The Lost Swimmer, by Ann Turner (Simon & Schuster)

• Lying in Wait, by Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)

• Mister Memory, by Marcus Sedgwick (Mulholland)

• Nocturne of Remembrance, by Shichiri Nakayama (Vertical)

• Penance of the Damned, by Peter Tremayne (Headline)

• The Secrets of Wishtide, by Kate Saunders (Bloomsbury)

• Silent Scream, by Angela Marsons (Zaffre)

• The Sister, by Louise Jensen (Bookouture)

• So Say the Fallen, by Stuart Neville (Harvill Secker)

• Thirst, by Benjamin Warner (Bloomsbury)

• When the Music’s Over, by Peter Robinson (Hodder & Stoughton)

AUGUST (U.S.):

• The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman,
by Mamen Sánchez (Atria)

• Arrowood, by Laura McHugh (Spiegel & Grau)

• Associates of Sherlock Holmes, edited by George Mann (Titan)

• Bird in a Cage, by Frédéric Dard (Pushkin Vertigo)

• Brain Storm, by Elaine Viets (Thomas & Mercer)

• Brussels Noir, edited by Michel Dufranne (Akashic)

• The Buried Book, by D.M. Pulley (Lake Union)

• The Couple Next Door, by Shari Lapena (Pamela Dorman)

• Crowned and Dangerous, by Rhys Bowen (Berkley)

• The Damascus Threat, by Matt Rees (Crooked Lane)

• The Darkest Secret, by Alex Marwood (Penguin)

• Dead Ground in Between, by Maureen Jennings
(McClelland & Stewart)

• Die Like an Eagle, by Donna Andrews (Minotaur)

• Drive Time, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)

• Elmore Leonard: Four Later Novels, edited by Gregg Sutter
(Library of America)

• Epiphany Jones, by Michael Grothaus (Orenda)

• Foretold by Thunder, by E.M. Davey (Overlook Press)

• A Great Reckoning, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

• The Girl Before, by Rena Olsen (Putnam)

• The Hanged Man, by Gary Inbinder (Pegasus)

• Hell Fire, by Karin Fossum (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Insidious, by Catherine Coulter (Gallery)

• In the Barren Ground, by Loreth Anne White (Montlake Romance)

• Invasive, by Chuck Wendig
(Harper Voyager)

• I Shot the Buddha, by Colin Cotterill
(Soho Crime)

• The Jealous Kind, by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster)

• Killfile, by Christopher Farnsworth (Morrow)

• The Last Days of Night, by Graham Moore (Random House)

• The Little Parachute, by J. Robert Janes (Mysterious Press/Open Road)

• The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes: 12 Original Stories, by Denis O. Smith (Skyhorse)

• Miss Dimple and the Slightly Bewildered Angel, by Mignon F.
Ballard (Minotaur)

• Mississippi Noir, edited by Tom Franklin (Akashic)

• Murder at Rough Point, by Alyssa Maxwell (Kensington)

• The Night Bell, by Inger Ash Wolfe (Pegasus)

• The Ninja’s Daughter, by Susan Spann (Seventh Street)

• The One Man, by Andrew Gross (Minotaur)

• One or the Other, by John McFetridge (ECW Press)

• Only the Hunted Run, by Neely Tucker (Viking)

• Paradime, by Alan Glynn (Picador)

• The Paris Librarian, by Mark Pryor (Seventh Street)

• Playing with Fire, by Gerald Elias (Severn House)

• A Quiet Place, by Seicho Matsumoto (Bitter Lemon Press)

• Rise the Dark, by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown)

• Rage, by Zygmunt Miłoszewski (AmazonCrossing)

• Red Dog, by Jason Miller (Harper)

• The Red Hot Typewriter: The Life and Times of John D. MacDonald, by Hugh Merrill (Stark House Press)*

• Repo Madness, by W. Bruce Cameron (Forge)

• Rob Thy Neighbor, by David Thurlo (Minotaur)

• Rough Trade, by Todd Robinson (Polis)

• St. Louis Noir, edited by Scott Phillips (Akashic)

• The Shattered Tree, by Charles Todd (Morrow)

• She Got What She Wanted, by Orrie Hitt (Stark House Press)

• The Sixth Idea, by P.J. Tracy (Putnam)

• Sorrow Road, by Julia Keller (Minotaur)

• Surrender, New York, by Caleb Carr (Random House)

• Survivors Will Be Shot Again, by Bill Crider (Minotaur)

• These Honored Dead, by Jonathan Putnam (Crooked Lane)

• A Time of Torment, by John Connolly (Atria/Emily Bestler)

• Tokyo Girl, by Brian Harvey (Raven)

• Watching Edie, by Camilla Way (NAL)

• We Eat Our Own, by Kea Wilson (Scribner)

• When Krishna Calls, by Susan Oleksiw (Five Star)

• When the Music’s Over, by Peter Robinson (Morrow)

• The Widower’s Wife, by Cate Holahan (Crooked Lane)

• With Love from the Inside, by Angela Pisel (Putnam)

AUGUST (UK):

• All These Perfect Strangers, by Aoife Clifford (Simon & Schuster)

• Black Night Falling, by Rod Reynolds (Faber and Faber)

• Blood Sister, by Dreda Say Mitchell (Hodder)

• A Cold Death, by Antonio Manzini (Fourth Estate)

• Cold Killers, by Lee Weeks (Simon & Schuster)

• The Constant Soldier, by William Ryan (Mantle)

• Dark Serpent, by Paul Doherty (Headline)

• Dead Man’s Blues, by Ray Celestin (Mantle)

• A Death at Fountains Abbey, by Antonia Hodgson
(Hodder & Stoughton)

• Death Ship, by Jim Kelly (Crème de la Crime)

• Deep Red, by Hisashi Nozawa (Vertical)

• Kill Me Twice, by Anna Smith (Quercus)

• Local Girl Missing, by Claire Douglas (Penguin)

• My Husband’s Wife, by Jane Corry (Penguin)

• None but the Dead, by Lin Anderson (Macmillan)

• Nothing Short of Dying, by Erik Storey (Simon & Schuster)

• Poison City, by Paul Crilley (Hodder & Stoughton)

• The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid, by Craig Russell (Quercus)

• The Revenant Express, by George Mann (Titan)

• The Royal Ghost, by Linda Stratmann (History Press)

• Why Did You Lie?, by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir (Hodder & Stoughton)

Are you on the hunt for still more summer reading choices? Then click over to The Bloodstained Bookshelf (for coming American titles) or Euro Crime (for British releases). And if you believe that I’ve neglected to cite any must-read works for this sunny season, please don’t hesitate to drop a note about them into the Comments section at the bottom of this post. You may not have noticed in the past, but I commonly add to and update seasonal picks lists such as this one when I discover works I missed mentioning initially.

You're Steele the One for Us

This tidbit comes from In Reference to Murder:

Pierce Brosnan is returning to television for the first time since the 1982 private-eye show Remington Steele as the lead of AMC’s upcoming drama series The Son. The former James Bond is replacing Sam Neill who had been originally cast in the role but left for personal reasons. Based on the book by Philipp Meyer and written by Meyer, Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy, The Son is a multi-generational epic tale of the story of America’s birth as a superpower through the bloody rise and fall of one Texas family.

And Now for the Macavitys

Today we have the announcement of books and authors nominated for the 2016 Macavity Awards. As Janet Rudolph explains in her blog, “The Macavity Awards are nominated by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal and friends of MRI.” The winners are to be announced during the opening ceremonies at Bouchercon 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana (September 15-18).

Best Mystery:
• Little Black Lies, by Sharon Bolton (Minotaur)
• The Long and Faraway Gone, by Lou Berney  (Morrow)
• The Hot Countries, by Tim Hallinan (Soho Crime)
• The Child Garden, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)
• Life or Death, by Michael Robotham (Mulholland)
• The Cartel, by Don Winslow (Knopf)

Best First Mystery:
• Concrete Angel, by Patricia Abbott (Polis)
• Past Crimes, by Glen Erik Hamilton (Morrow)
• The Killing Kind, by Chris Holm (Mulholland)
• Where All Light Tends to Go, by David Joy (Putnam)
• The Unquiet Dead,  by Ausma Zehanat Khan (Minotaur)
• On the Road with Del & Louise, by Art Taylor (Henery Press)

Best Critical/Biographical:
• The Golden Age of Murder: The Mystery of the Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story, by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins)
• A Is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie, by Kathryn Harkup (Bloomsbury Sigma)
• Meanwhile, There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald, edited by Suzanne Marrs and Tom Nolan (Arcade)
• Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us About Crime, by Val McDermid (Grove)
• The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett, by Nathan Ward (Bloomsbury)

Best Short Story:
• “The Little Men,” by Megan Abbott (Mysterious Press/Open Road)
• “On Borrowed Time,” by Mat Coward (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, June 2015)
• “Sob Sister,” by Loren D. Estleman (from Detroit Is Our Beat: Tales of the Four Horsemen, by Loren D. Estleman; Tyrus)
• “A Year Without Santa Claus,” by Barb Goffman (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine [AHMM], January/February 2015)
• “Quack and Dwight,” by Travis Richardson (from Jewish Noir, edited by Kenneth Wishnia; PM Press)
• “A Joy Forever,” by B.K. Stevens (AHMM, March 2015)

Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award:
• The Masque of a Murderer, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)
• A Gilded Grave, by Shelley Freydont (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo), by C. Joseph Greaves (Bloomsbury)
• The Lady from Zagreb, by Philip Kerr (Putnam)
• Secret Life of Anna Blanc, by Jennifer Kincheloe (Seventh Street)
• Dreaming Spies, by Laurie R. King (Bantam)

Congratulations to all of the nominees!

“He Was Funny, He Was Beautiful, He Was the Most Perfect Athlete You Ever Saw, and Those Were His Own Words”

This video clip of comedian Billy Crystal paying homage to the late boxing champ Muhammad Ali has nothing to do with crime fiction. But watching it is a wonderful way to begin a Saturday.

Public Acclaim for Private Dicks

The Private Eye Writers of America has announced its nominees for the 2016 Shamus Awards in five categories, as follows.

Best Hardcover Private Eye Novel:
• The Promise, by Robert Crais (Putnam)
• Dance of the Bones, by J.A. Jance (Morrow)
• Gumshoe, by Robert Leininger (Oceanview)
• Brush Back, by Sara Paretsky (Putnam)
• Brutality, by Ingrid Thoft (Putnam)

Best First Private Eye Novel:
• The Red Storm, by Grant Bywaters (Minotaur)
• Night Tremors, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview)
• Trouble in Rooster Paradise, by T.W. Emory (Coffeetown Press)
• Depth, by Lev Ac Rosen (Regan Arts)
• The Do-Right, by Lisa Sandlin (Cinco Puntos Press)

Best Original Private Eye Paperback: 
• Circling the Runway, by J.L. Abramo (Down & Out)
• The Long Cold, by O'Neil De Noux (Big Kiss)
• Split to Splinters, by Max Everhart (Camel Press)
• The Man in the Window, by Dana King (CreateSpace)
• Red Desert, by Clive Rosengren (Moonshine Cove)

Best Private Eye Short Story:
• “The Runaway Girl from Portland, Oregon,” by C.B. Forrest (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine [AHMM], October 2015)
• “The Sleep of Death,” by David Edgerley Gates (AHMM, December 2015)
• “The Dead Client,” by Parnell Hall (from Dark City Lights: New York Stories, edited by Lawrence Block; Three Rooms Press)
• “The Dead Detective,” by Robert S. Levinson (from Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea, edited by Andrew McAleer and Paul D. Marks; Down & Out)
• “The Continental Opposite,” by Evan Lewis (AHMM, May 2015)

Last year, independently published books competed with each other in their own category. But this time around, they had to be submitted in the Best Original P.I. Paperback category.

Winners will be declared during a PWA banquet held in association with Bouchercon 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana (September 15-18).

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)

Copycat Covers: Lighting the Way

A new entry in our series about remarkably look-alike book fronts.



The Missing Piece, by Kevin Egan (Forge, 2015); Murder Boy, by Bryon Quertermous (Polis, 2015). The photograph comes from the stock art agency Shutterstock.

Oh, no! Just when I thought I’d seen the last of this image of a woman in a scarf (at least I think it’s a woman—either that, or an alien descended to Earth), here it crops up once more on Scottish author Ed James’ new police-procedural e-book, Missing.

Nine Get the Nod

In times past, I have known in advance when to expect news regarding New Zealand’s annual Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. But since I am not participating as a judge of that competition this year, I was caught off-guard by this afternoon’s announcement of the nine-book longlist of rivals for the 2016 prize. They are:

• Inside the Black Horse, by Ray Berard (Mary Egan)
• Made to Kill, by Adam Christopher (Titan)
• Trust No One, by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)
• Starlight Peninsula, by Charlotte Grimshaw (Vintage)
• Cold Hard Murder, by Trish McCormack (Glacier Press)
• The Legend of Winstone Blackhat, by Tanya Moir (Vintage)
• The Mistake, by Grant Nicol (Number Thirteen Press)
• American Blood, by Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin)
• Something Is Rotten, by Adam Sarafis (Echo Publishing)

The Ngaio Marsh Awards were established in 2010. Judging convenor/blogger Craig Sisterson observes that in previous years, “our judging panels have had some very close calls when it came to picking the winner, or tough choices for who’d be finalists, but this is the first time we’ve had such a log-jam of good books battling for the longlist. Even with nearly a dozen debutante authors entering our new Best First Novel category instead, and the majority of our past winners and finalists not being in the running this year, the pool has never been broader or deeper.”

A briefer list of finalists for the Best Crime Novel commendation will be broadcast in late July. And the winner of this prize, as well as the Best First Novel award, will be made known on August 27 during the 2016 WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival.

Field of Honors

Once upon a time only a meager handful of annual awards were available to authors of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. But as you know if you’ve been reading The Rap Sheet during the last several months, there are now myriad (perhaps too many?) such accolades up for grabs. This week brings a couple more.

First in line: the Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction, “sponsored by the Women’s National Book Association of New Orleans and honoring Diana Pinckley, longtime crime-fiction columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.” It has been announced that novelist Sara Paretsky, creator of the V.I. Warshawski private-eye series (Brush Back, etc.), will receive this year’s Pinckley Prize for Distinguished Body of Work. Meanwhile, Christine Carbo’s The Wild Inside (Atria), has been chosen to receive the 2016 Pinckley Prize for Debut Novel.

Second, we have the winners of the 2016 Lambda Literary Awards (“Lammys”), which honor lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) books published during 2015. There were more than two dozen categories of nominees, but the pair of greatest interest to this blog’s readers are probably these:

Lesbian Mystery:
(Tie) Ordinary Mayhem, by Victoria Brownworth (Bold Strokes); and Tarnished Gold, by Ann Aptaker (Bold Strokes)

Also nominated: The Grave Soul, by Ellen Hart (Minotaur); Illicit Artifacts, by Stevie Mikayne (Bold Strokes); No Good Reason, by Cari Hunter (Bold Strokes); The Red Files, by Lee Winter (Ylva); Relatively Rainey, by R.E. Bradshaw (R.E. Bradshaw); and The Tattered Heiress, by Debra Hyde (Riverdale Avenue)

Gay Mystery:
Boystown 7: Bloodlines, by Marshall Thornton (Kenmore)

Also nominated: After the Horses, by Jeffrey Round (Dundurn); The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter, by Tom Mendicino (Kensington); Cheap as Beasts, by Jon Wilson (Bold Strokes); Introducing Sunfish & Starfish: Tropical Drag Queen Detectives, by Wallace Godfrey (Strand Hill); Murder and Mayhem, by Rhys Ford (Dreamspinner Press); Orient, by Christopher Bollen (Harper); and The Swede, by Robert Karjel (Harper)

(Hat tip to Crimespree Magazine.)

Bringing the Dead to Life

(Editor’s note: Just a year after the release of her debut novel, Concrete Angel, Michigan author Patricia “Patti” Abbott is back with a brand-new second yarn, Shot in Detroit [Polis]. I included a short write-up about that work in my latest Kirkus Reviews column, but I also asked Patti to pen a short original piece for The Rap Sheet about the work she did concocting back-stories for each of a dozen dead African-American men—all under 40 years old—who become photo subjects in Shot in Detroit. Her fine submission is below.)

In Shot in Detroit, Violet Hart, trying to succeed as a serious artist, comes up with the idea of photographing the young men her boyfriend, a mortician, buries with alarming regularity. Initially, she's caught up in the artistic aspect of this project. But gradually the horror of what she sees, the possibility that she is exploiting the situation in Detroit, Michigan, takes hold. Black Lives Matter, or the foreshadowing impetus and circumstances around that movement, begins to have an impact on her work. Is she exposing her own insensitive ambition in her pictures, or is she exposing what's happening in the city where she lives? Has she crossed a line?

I suffered those same qualms about the book’s subject matter as I wrote her story, and as it became a several-years-long project. Violet and I, in essence, followed the same path. Yes, it seemed like an interesting idea and one that was once used by a New York photographer with access to a mortician’s Harlem practice. That New Yorker’s gallery show and the subsequent book was a great success a decade ago. By changing the setting to Detroit, by making Violet’s relationship with the mortician more personal, by making her photos focus solely on young black men, by having Violet involved in some of their lives, I upped the ante for accusations of exploitation.

An early reader made a suggestion: Why not include a short chapter about each of the dead men on whom Violet turns her camera lens? Inoculate myself from seeming callous by giving those subjects more airtime in the minutes before their death. Initially this seemed like a good idea. In Shot in Detroit, the 12 men meet their ends due to various causes: smoke inhalation, HIV, West Nile virus, a skirmish at a mall, an altercation at a bar, an aneurysm, and several are victims of robberies. Why not write short pieces that bring each man to life? I began to work on that. And it was very useful. I felt I understood, in a small way, the situation leading up to each man’s demise. But when I began to insert these pieces into the book, they diluted Violet’s story. They broke into any suspense I’d been able to generate from the narrative of how Violet becomes increasingly involved with the police, with gangs, with some dangerous situations. I read a few of these pieces to members of my writing group, and although they liked the stories, they agreed that they were more an intrusion than an enhancement to Violet’s yarn.

I eventually settled on using only a death notice at the front of each chapter in which I dealt with one of those dozen men. In a few cases, there is more than the notice, but only when I thought it served Violet’s story. However, I still wanted to get those back-stories out there. So I began posting them in my blog, Pattinase, for anyone wanting to know more about each individual. (You should be able to keep track of the posts by clicking here.) Some of these deaths closely resemble ones that took place in Detroit between 2006 and 2008. Others I completely invented. Sadly, it was not due to a scarcity of actual deaths (you can Google “shot in Detroit” any day of the week to find some tragic tale similar to those found in my new novel), but strictly to avoid repetition of the same distressing stories. Men die in Detroit because of guns most often. Guns in the home, guns in the car, guns in the schools, guns stuffed deep into pockets. I could have easily had Violet Hart photograph 12 men who perished because of the ease with which Americans can now acquire such deadly weapons. And perhaps that would have been the most honest approach. Over and over and over again.

READ MORE: “My Five (Actually Six) Favorite Novels Set in Detroit (or Near Detroit),” by Patti Abbott (Crimespree Magazine).

Dark Reads Under Sunny Skies

And we’re back! After a week’s impromptu vacation—necessitated by other work demands—I have returned with a new Kirkus Reviews column. My subject this time is summer crime novels, 20 of them to be exact. Among the books I suggest your checking out over the next three warm months are tales by Walter Mosley, both Megan Abbott and Patricia Abbott, Michael Harvey, James Sallis, Peter Lovesey, and Laura McHugh. Click here to learn more about these picks.

READ MORE: “What Kirkus Didn’t Tell You: Three More New Crime Novels You Can Read This Summer,” by Peter Rozovsky
(Detectives Beyond Borders).