Policing, in real life, can be something of a grind. Paperwork piles up; so do cases. But in fiction, the police procedural can be downright exciting, marrying a good mystery with the twists and turns of the investigative process to deliver page-turning thrills. Readers know that the crime will be solved and justice will, in all likelihood, be served. And when these books are part of a series, they offer the pleasure of following your favorite characters as they work and live and grow, often for decades.
The best practitioners of the procedural genre understand that cops are first and foremost human beings. These detectives work their cases, but the cases work them even more. The narrative arcs of these novels bend, time and again, toward justice and moral clarity.
I want to start at the beginning (or close to it)
Sadie When She Died
by Ed McBain (1972)
McBain (the crime-writing name for Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Lombino) wrote the iconic 87th Precinct novels. The heart and soul of this series — which started in 1956 and ran for almost 50 years — is Detective Steve Carella, who tries to do right by his community and his family, but many sleuths (like the heroic and unfortunately named Meyer Meyer and the irascible Ollie Weeks) take turns in the spotlight, too.
The early installments are quick and pulpy, but by the early 1970s McBain had hit his stride, most notably with SADIE WHEN SHE DIED. At first glance, the murder of Sadie Fletcher seems like an easy solve for Carella and his crew, who promptly arrest a drug-addled intruder. So why is Sadie’s husband, Gerald, so gleeful about her death? And why is Carella so sure Gerald did it? McBain crafts an exemplary “howcatchem,” where the suspense comes from Carella’s obsessive quest to prove what he knows.
You might also like … “Doll” or “Fat Ollie’s Book,” both by Ed McBain, and the Harlem Detective novels, by Chester Himes, particularly “The Real Cool Killers” and “Cotton Comes to Harlem.”
I’d like something filthy and funny
The Choirboys
by Joseph Wambaugh (1975)
Wambaugh’s first crime novels, published while he was still a working police officer, have an earnest sincerity to them that the later ones don’t. The change began with THE CHOIRBOYS, a filthy, funny book about a group of malcontent cops of varying ages (but all, of course, men) who get together for “choir practice” — drinking, drugging, carousing and grousing about how tough their jobs are. Cases aren’t worked so much as gleefully ignored; Wambaugh excels at showing how the job can eat at a person’s soul and inspire terrible choices.
You might also like … “The Bait,” by Dorothy Uhnak; “Year of the Dragon,” by Robert Daley; or “Red on Red,” by Edward Conlon.
Give me something with British crime show vibes
Shroud for a Nightingale
by P.D. James (1971)
When James introduced Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh in 1962, police fiction was still a relatively new concept. James needed a few books to find her footing, but her now beloved Scotland Yard detective comes into his own in SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE. Here, Dagliesh’s investigation of a nurse’s murder takes him into a cloistered community brimming with sexual secrets, petty grievances and moral ambivalence. (It’s no accident that abortion, a longtime crime only legalized three years before the novel was published, figures significantly in the narrative.) The series only gets better with each successive book.
You might also like … Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford series or the Vera Stanhope novels, by Ann Cleeves.
I want a mystery that grapples with race and class
Bluebird, Bluebird
by Attica Locke (2017)
Locke had already mastered the crime novel before embarking on her trilogy featuring Darren Mathews, a Black Texas Ranger working — and struggling — in East Texas after years away. In BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD, Mathews comes up against the limits of racial tolerance while investigating the murders of a Black lawyer visiting from Chicago and a local white woman. Read our review.
You might also like … Eleanor Taylor Bland’s Marti MacAlister novels; “Lush Life,” by Richard Price; or “Blackwater Falls,” by Ausma Zehanat Khan.
Give me something dark — the darker, the better
I Was Dora Suarez
by Derek Raymond (1990)
If darkness is what you crave, Raymond’s “Factory” novels will hit the spot. The standout fourth installment (though I would still urge readers to work up to it) is I WAS DORA SUAREZ, a blackened carnival of pain and suffering that unmoors an unnamed detective as he learns about the exploitation a young sex worker suffered before her murder. Raymond’s commitment to emotional truth propels the narrative into something truly powerful. Read our review.
You might also like … “Miami Blues,” by Charles Willeford; “Black & Blue,” by Ian Rankin; or “The Wire in the Blood,” by Val McDermid.
I love a character-driven thriller
Faithful Place
by Tana French (2010)
When it comes to procedurals that emphasize the inner lives of the detectives and those they are investigating, no one does it better than French. Though I’m personally fond of French’s second novel, “The Likeness,” the one after that, FAITHFUL PLACE, is a better place to begin.
The Dublin police detective Frank Mackey has spent years grappling with the 1985 disappearance of his then-girlfriend Rosie Daly, with whom he was planning to run away. She didn’t show up at their planned rendezvous, and no one has seen her since. Decades later, the discovery of Rosie’s packed suitcase rips open old wounds.
French’s mastery of interrogation scenes — which start at a slow simmer before slowly reaching full boil — is on full display here, making this one of the most memorable of the Dublin Murder Squad novels. Read our review.
You might also like … “Missing, Presumed,” by Susie Steiner; “In a Dry Season,” by Peter Robinson; or “Death’s Jest-Book,” by Reginald Hill.
Got any oddball detectives?
Have Mercy on Us All
by Fred Vargas (2005)
Reading the Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg novels is an exercise in patience. The perpetually distracted Adamsberg does not operate in linear fashion, often brushing off obvious suspects and ignoring major clues. HAVE MERCY ON US ALL, translated by David Bellos, is a moody mix of retro panic (strange markings on doorways suggesting a resurgence of the Black Death) and present-day suspense (the bodies start piling up). Adamsberg, as always, solves the crimes in a most unorthodox fashion, which Vargas unspools with confidence and wit.
You might also like … “The Saturday Morning Murder,” by Batya Gur; “Morituri,” by Yasmina Khadra; or the Peculiar Crimes Unit novels by Christopher Fowler.
I keep hearing about Scandinavian procedurals. Where do I start?
The Laughing Policeman
by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (1970)
The earliest practitioners of what’s often called Nordic noir were Sjowall and Wahloo, whose 10-volume series featuring the Stockholm detective Martin Beck was a pioneering look at police procedure that, like the 87th Precinct novels, emphasized the squad more than an individual cop. In THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN, translated by Alan Blair, the perpetually gloomy Beck investigates a mass shooting on a bus in which one of the victims is a fellow officer, painstakingly connecting it to an earlier murder.
Some early crime fiction can feel dated. Not these novels: Crisp writing, droll humor and a keen sense of collective responsibility keep the entire series astonishingly timely. Read our review.
You might also like … “Don’t Look Back,” by Karin Fossum; “Jar City,” by Arnaldur Indriðason; or “One Step Behind,” by Henning Mankell.
Take me to Japan next!
Tokyo Express
by Seichō Matsumoto (1970)
Last year it seemed like everyone I knew was reading TOKYO EXPRESS, newly reissued by Modern Library with a translation by Jesse Kirkwood, and once I finally got to it myself, I understood the enthusiasm. Matsumoto’s bone-dry prose complements a fiendish plot about a double “love suicide” that grows tighter with each passing page. I didn’t see the solution coming — and neither will you.
You might also like … “The Tokyo Zodiac Murders,” by Sōji Shimada; “The Devotion of Suspect X,” by Keigo Higashino; or “Six Four,” by Hideo Yokoyama.
Let’s keep the world tour going
Gorky Park
by Martin Cruz Smith (1981)
Death of a Red Heroine
by Qiu Xiaolong (2000)
No matter where they’re set, police procedurals are a window into how society works (or doesn’t). GORKY PARK introduces the Moscow homicide detective Arkady Renko, committed to the truth in the midst of the Soviet Union’s equal commitment to propaganda, while DEATH OF A RED HEROINE juxtaposes Chief Inspector Chen Cao’s murder investigations against the tensions of living in modern China.
You might also like … Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series, set in Canada; Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Inspector Espinosa series, set in Brazil; Kwei Quartey’s Detective Inspector Darko Dawson series, set in Ghana; or Jane Harper’s Aaron Falk series, set in Australia.
Do you have a personal favorite?
The Last Coyote
by Michael Connelly (1995)
I will never forget my initial experience reading Harry Bosch novels as a college student. “Everybody counts or nobody counts,” Bosch’s credo as an L.A.P.D. homicide detective (and former Vietnam tunnel rat), struck a resonant chord.
From the beginning — “The Black Echo” in 1992 — Bosch cared about the victims, and readers cared about Bosch. But there’s something special about THE LAST COYOTE. Out on involuntary stress leave after shattering a window with his lieutenant’s head, Bosch decides to look into the unsolved murder of his mother, a sex worker who was killed when he was 12. Connelly brilliantly melds a twist-laden investigation with Bosch’s tangled past. Read our review.
You might also like … “The 37th Hour,” by Jodi Compton; or “Long Bright River,” by Liz Moore.
Finally, a list of police procedurals would be incomplete without Simenon’s Inspector Maigret novels. There are 75 of them, starting with “Pietr the Latvian” (1933) and finishing with “Maigret and Monsieur Charles” (1973). The pleasures of this series are manifold: nippy writing, strong narratives, and two characters — Maigret and his wife — with whom you want to spend ample time. Start with any one of them and work your way in whichever direction you’d like.
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