Hearing from Two Big Players

An old friend of The Rap Sheet, Tom Nolan of The Wall Street Journal is one of the reviewers whose “best crime fiction of the year” lists we most look forward to seeing. Unfortunately, the Journal hides them behind a paywall. Refusing to be daunted by such a trivial obstruction, we simply e-mailed Tom to ask which 2018 releases he thinks were the most commendable. Here are his 10 picks:

• Give Me Your Hand, by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown)
• The Accident on the A35, by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Arcade)
• The Silent Ones, by William Brodrick (Overlook)
• Lethal White, by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland)
• The Word Is Murder, by Anthony Horowitz (Harper)
• Wrecked, by Joe Ide (Mulholland)
• The Last Equation of Isaac Severy, by Nova Jacobs (Touchstone)
• Sunburn, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)
• Don’t Send Flowers, by Martín Solares (Black Cat)
• Charlesgate Confidential, by Scott Von Doviak (Hard Case Crime)

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Meanwhile, The Boston Globe is out with its “Best Books of 2018” selections. There are five categories, but here are that paper’s 16 mystery-fiction favorites:

• The Middleman, by Olen Steinhauer (Minotaur)
• Safe Houses, by Dan Fesperman (Knopf)
• Shell Game, by Sara Paretsky (Morrow)
• Broken Ground, by Val McDermid (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
• November Road, by Lou Berney (Morrow)
• Robicheaux, by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster)
• In a House of Lies, by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown)
• The Witch Elm, by Tana French (Viking)
• Don’t Let Go, by Michel Bussi (World Noir)
• Transcription, by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown)
• Give Me Your Hand, by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown)
• Who Is Vera Kelly?, by Rosalie Knecht (Tin House)
• The Killing Habit, by Mark Billingham (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit, by Amy Stewart (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• The Wife, by Alafair Burke (Harper)