Mystery and True Crime

Hell has changed. No longer punished by fire and torture, humans are assigned miserable, thankless jobs overseen by a demon bureaucracy. Thomas Fool is Hell’s detective, tasked with solving crimes curious even by Hell’s standards. Navigating a dystopia echoing Orwell’s 1984, Thomas delves deep into the machinations of a world he will never understand, confronting ancient, powerful demons. His quest for the truth imbues him with something forbidden in Hell: hope.                                                      

How would you feel if your friend of 15 years turned out to be a con man and a murderer? Walter Kirn knows. This is the true story of Kirn’s friendship with a man who pretended to be a Rockefeller until his arrest for murder and the subsequent trial. This is true crime at its best—personal and shocking, it seems like it must be fiction, yet isn’t. I couldn’t put this down.

Nici introducted me to Elizabeth Haynes some time back, and I’ve loved her smart, edgy mysteries ever since. In Behind Closed Doors, the most recent of her new series, the tough, dedicated DCI Louisa Smith is pulled into an old case when a missing person resurfaces. A former police analyst, Haynes integrates police reports and areas of investigation in interesting ways, giving the police procedural a fresh feel. I can’t wait for the next book!

McKinty lovers rejoice! Gun Street Girl, his fourth book in the Troubles Trilogy, is out and detective Sean Duffy is on the trail of disappeared missiles, suspicious American agents, and some decent tunes. Duffy has the fascinating perspective of a Catholic cop on an almost entirely Protestant police force in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. If you haven’t already read McKinty, rush in and get a copy of the first Sean Duffy novel, The Cold Cold Ground. My friend Larry blames me for introducing him and says “All I want to do now is sit around and read McKinty.”

If you participated in our Winter Reading Program, you may have read one of Robotham’s books, The Suspect. If you did, and liked it, rest assured that his other books are just as good, including this one! If you haven’t read him, his books are taught psychological thrillers that will keep you on the edge of your seat till the last page. If that sounds like your kind of thing, check this out.

An obsessive ex-wife and her morning commute bring to life the thrilling magic of Rear Window.  When Rachel spots something suspicious in a backyard from her seat on the train, it brings into motion a series of unsettling discoveries.  As she gets closer to the truth, more questions arise, causing the reader to doubt the narrator. 

I first became interested in Belfast after reading McKinty’s Troubles Trilogy. Those books sparked a curiosity about this bloody, complicated landscape, a curiosity more than sated by the excellent Belfast Noir. These stories look at Belfast from every possible facet, and each one is better than the last. I can’t remember a story collection this satisfying. 

If you haven’t read Penny’s stellar Inspector Gamache series, please go buy the first, Still Life, right now. Why? Because her writing is beautiful, her detective is a modern-day Poirot, and in How the Light Gets In, she concludes a plotline that has been building over eight books with incredible skill. All of her books are great, but this one completely blew me away.

Winters’s Last Policeman trilogy is one of the most original series I’ve ever read, and World of Trouble brings it to a stellar close. The premise seems dark (the world is ending!), but these books are funny and wise. I love how Winters considers what people would do knowing the end is nigh, and how the stakes are raised as the day of reckoning approaches.