Give me something so riveting that I’ll blaze through it in one sitting
Heartwood
by Amity Gaige
Don’t think you will be able to put down this gripping book, which follows the disappearance of an experienced middle-aged hiker, Valerie Gillis, on the Appalachian Trail. Gaige is a master of sustaining tension and creating fully human characters while making every sentence sing. Read our review.
A crime-solving duo with prickly chemistry? Yes, please!
Dead in the Frame
by Steven Spotswood
This is the fifth book to feature the ace private investigator Lillian Pentecost and her assistant Will Parker, who have an easy yet prickly chemistry. The smart, spiky series, set in 1940s New York City, is pure joy to read, and this installment — in which Pentecost faces a murder charge herself — is the best yet. If you haven’t read the others, you can absolutely start here and work your way back. Read our review.
I want a cozy mystery
Vera Wong’s Guide To Snooping (on a Dead Man)
by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Vera Wong loves being surrounded by family — biological and chosen — in her Bay Area tea shop, where she can dispense food, drink and lots of advice (mostly unsolicited). There’s just one problem: She’s bored. “Sometimes, all an old lady wants is a murder to solve. Is that too much to ask for?” No, it’s not! Read our review.
I’d like a novel that puts a fresh spin on the serial killer narrative
Death Takes Me
by Cristina Rivera Garza; translated by Sarah Booker and Robin Myers
This novel by a Pulitzer Prize winner, first published in Spanish nearly two decades ago, is a boldly metafictional look at femicide, the constraints and limitations of language and narrative, and how we try to shoehorn the viscera of violence into tidy boxes — to our eternal peril. Read our review.
Any good campus crime novels?
Notes on Surviving the Fire
by Christine Murphy
Murphy’s novel, about a graduate student’s amateur investigation into the apparent overdose of her best friend, is a righteous, angry and riveting work of suspense aimed squarely at academia and its failure to reckon with campus sexual assault. But the idiosyncratic narrative style is also mordantly funny, and it’s one of the best depictions of surviving trauma that I’ve seen in recent fiction.
Give me the most appealing amateur detective around
Glory Daze
by Danielle Arceneaux
Glory Broussard is working her weekly Sunday bookie stint when an unusual visitor arrives with a plea for help: Her husband is missing. It turns out the husband in question is Glory’s ex, Sterling Broussard — but when she finds him, there’s a knife embedded in his chest. She knows she’s on the right track when she starts making people mad. “The last thing I need is a nosy church lady … on my premises,” a casino owner tells her. “Don’t you go shining a light on things that should stay in the dark.” Read our review.
The post The Best Crime Novels of the Year (So Far) appeared first on New York Times.
