The last thing Hudson Miller, the protagonist in It Dies with You, Scott Blackburn’s debut crime fiction novel, wants to do is return to his hometown of Flint Creek, North Carolina. But when his father is shot and killed, it’s the first thing he has to do
Photo of Scott Blackburn ©Ross Fletcher Gordon
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If 99 Miles From L.A., P. David Ebersole’s debut crime fiction novel, sounds like it should be the title of a song, that’s because it is. Written by Hal David and Albert Hammond—and sung by everyone from Hammond to Julio Iglesias to Art Garfunkel (a decidedly disturbing version)—it’s Johnny Mathis’s take that inspired Ebersole, and consequently the novel
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When Kaveri Murthy, the recently married headstrong young woman in The Bangalore Detectives Club—Harini Nagendra’s debut historical crime fiction novel that takes place in 1921—witnesses the aftermath of a murder at a club where the cream of Indian society can socialize with members of the British Raj, she does what’s in her nature to do: she investigates. And the murder investigation is only one of the many situations that she must learn to navigate: there’s also swimming, learning to drive, conquering the kitchen and studying mathematics
Photo of Harini Nagendra ©Venkatachalam Suri
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Aimée Leduc is back in Murder at the Porte de Versailles, the 20th installment in Cara Black’s arrondissement-specific series that takes place in November 2001, in a fraught post-9/11 Paris. This time Aimée is racing around the 15th arrondissement, a residential part of Paris that, Cara explains, is where you move after you finish your clubbing days and want to raise a family. But murder and mayhem happen, and Aimée is desperate to find out who bombed the police lab located in the 15th, because her close friend Boris was there when the explosion occurred. And he’s not just in a coma—he’s being blamed. In fact, Aimée is so good—and persistent—that the DGSI: General Directorate for Internal Security, presses her into service. They just may not like what she finds out…
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In The Echos, Jess Montgomery’s fourth installment of the Kinship mystery series, Sheriff Lily Ross has an unimaginable amount on her plate. Or should we say, plates? It’s July 4th, 1928, and Lily is dealing with the security for the new amusement park when a murder of a young woman, who may or may not, be the mother of the infant left on a nearby doorstep takes place. Oh, and Lily’s young niece Esmé—whose very existence is only know to Lily’s mother—is making her way from France to Ohio
Photo of Jess Montgomery ©JP Ball Photography
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Is there any location riper for noir than a small town high school? Except maybe the heart of a teenager? Stewart O’Nan’s new noir novel Ocean State, isn’t so much a “whodunit” as a “why-dunit” story of the murder of a teenage girl and the ripples the crime and its aftermath cause in a small town and to the families who live there
Photo of Stewart O’Nan ©Trudy O’Nan
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From the lush improbability of the Hotel Bel-Air’s Swan Lake to the wild and weird of Death Valley, it’s no wonder LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan is feeling both personal and professional whiplash. People are turning up dead in L.A. and secrets are escaping from the desert and it’s her job—along with fellow LAPD Detective Remy Beaudreau and friend Sam Eastman—to figure out who’s responsible
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Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Suran Banerjee are back in The Shadows of Men, the fifth installment in Abir Mukherjee’s series set in post-World-War I Calcutta. Banerjee has found himself in a spot of bother, in that he’s been accused of murdering a Hindu scholar in a same-as-it-ever-was story of political and religious tension as it segues from a smolder to a conflagration
Photo of Abir Mukerjee ©Nick Tucker
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Alison Gaylin opens The Collective, her latest thriller, with a quote from Euripides’ Medea, “Hate is a bottomless cup; I will pour and pour.” Meet Camille Gardner who, five years after the death of her daughter as the result of a violent sexual assault, is living at the intersection of grief, anger and vengeance. It was one thing when Camille’s dark space was solitary, quite another when she joins a forum where she can share
Photo of Alison Gaylin ©Michael Gaylin
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Syria isn’t the only thing aflame in Damascus Station, David McCloskey’s debut thriller set against the ongoing conflict: McCloskey’s protagonist, CIA officer Sam Joseph, has fallen for a source, strictly forbidden, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Only, when it comes to the CIA “F-ups happen to good officers. Deception does not. You can lie to your wife, your girlfriend, your kids. But not to the CIA.” Along the way, the double crossing is so dizzying the characters would be giddy if the consequences weren’t so deadly
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