CrimeReads’ Own Crème de Crime

Not to let everyone else have all the fun, the editors of CrimeReads today announced their “Best Crime Novels: 2022” choices. Their primary list comprises 20 works, some of which are more noir fiction or fraught relationship dramas than classic crime yarns:

• Paradais, by Fernanda Melchor (New Directions)
• Don’t Know Tough, by Eli Cranor (Soho Crime)
• More Than You’ll Ever Know, by Katie Gutierrez (Morrow)
• Shrines of Gaiety, by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday)
• After the Lights Go Out, by John Vercher (Soho Press)
• The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
• The Devil Takes You Home, by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland)
• Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
• The Midcoast, by Adam White (Hogarth)
• Blackwater Falls, by Ausma Zehanat Khan (Minotaur)
• The Violin Conspiracy, by Brendan Slocumb (Anchor)
• Secret Identity, by Alex Segura (Flatiron)
• Like a Sister, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland)
• On Java Road, by Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth)
• Anywhere You Run, by Wanda M. Morris (Morrow)
• An Honest Living, by Dwyer Murphy (Viking)
• Lady Joker, Volume 2, by Kaoru Takamura (Soho Crime)
• Complicit, by Winnie M. Li (Emily Bestler)
• Notes on an Execution, by Danya Kukafka (Morrow)
• The Family Chao, by Lan Samantha Chang (Norton)

There are several books among CrimeReads’ “Notable Selections” list at the end that deserve more attention, including Dan Fesperman’s Winter Work (Knopf), Grace D. Li’s Portrait of a Thief (Tiny Reparations), Don Winslow’s City on Fire (Morrow), Dervla McTiernan’s The Murder Rule (Morrow), Gary Philips’ One-Shot Harry (Soho Crime), Ava Barry’s Double Exposure (Pegasus), and Paraic O’Donnell’s The Maker of Swans (Tin House)—the last of which is, again, not quite a crime novel, but also not quite not a crime novel. Assembling this sort of list can often require relaxing genre boundaries.

READ MORE FROM CRIMEREADS: “The Best Espionage Novels of the Year”; “The Best Psychological Thrillers of 2022,” by Lisa Levy; “The Best Traditional Mysteries of the Year,” by Olivia Rutigliano; “The Best Gothic Fiction of the Year: 2022,” by Molly Odintz; “The Best Historical Fiction of the Year: 2022,” by Molly Odintz; “The Best International Crime Fiction of 2022,” by Molly Odintz; “The Best Critical Non-fiction/Biography Books of 2022”; “The Best Noir Fiction of 2022”; “The Best True Crime Books of the Year.”