Crime Reads - Suspense, Thrillers, Crime, Gun!
CrimeReads is a culture website for people who believe suspense is the essence of storytelling, questions are as important as answers, and nothing beats the thrill of a good book. It's a single, trusted source where readers can find the best from the world of crime, mystery, and thrillers. No joke,
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August brings an almost overwhelming bounty of great crime novels, both from promising newcomers and established voices alike. The variety of subject matter is almost as astonishing as the vast number of releases, and below, you’ll find such disparate settings as a ballet school, an apartment in lockdown, 1970s Mexico, and 1940s Chicago and Paris, just to mention some. Whether your tastes are traditional or twisted, you’ll be sure to be pleased with August’s selections. Stay tuned for more recommendations. Megan Abbott, The Turnout (Putnam) Megan Abbott has already written about the high-stakes (and highly dangerous) sports of cheerleading and gymnastics, and now she…
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Crime fiction and speculative fiction go together like, well, crime and anything else, for crime writing is the perfect plot vehicle for exploring a beautifully built universe—and testing the bounds of its structure. Below, you’ll find fantasy, science fiction, alternative history, and sardonic thought experiments; other than a thread of violence and its consequences, these novels share one more thing in common: an abundance of imagination. Mariana Enriquez, Our Share of Night (Hogarth, February 7) What a strange and luminous novel. Mariana Enriquez stunned with her collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, and Our Share of Night is just as fantastic (and fantastical…
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September brings an outstanding line-up of new crime releases showcasing the breadth of the genre and the variety of talented approaches to the world of crime. With new works from established voices and plenty of debuts, September also provides further proof of an ever-expanding and evolving genre. Whether you’re looking for shocking twists, historical thrillers, or fair-play mysteries, here are twelve new releases perfect for finishing out the summer. Vera Kurian, Never Saw Me Coming (Park Row) Vera Kurian’s extraordinarily entertaining Never Saw Me Coming is one of a few books in a new trend I’m calling “yoga pants noir,” in which hot girls in athleisure wear are …
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When I recommend historical fiction to people, I always feel a bit like Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny talking about being raised in the autoshop: my sister reads historical fiction, my historian father reads historical fiction, my medievalist mother read tons of historical fiction, and also, I know historical fiction very very well. It is in this spirit that I bring to you a list of historical mysteries coming out in 2022 that I think you, dear reader, as someone who also enjoys historical mysteries, will enjoy. I do have my favorites, so you’ll see World War II settings somewhat over-represented on the list below (although this is partially due to the the proliferatio…
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The flowers are blooming, the temperatures are climbing, the schools are out and summer reading season is officially in full swing. These June releases, featuring historical mysteries, psychological suspense, American gothics, supernatural thrillers, and classic espionage. There’s also new books from big names, as well as quite a few new voices to discover. So grab your pool towel, your sunglasses, and your 50+ SPF sunscreen, and enjoy! Clémence Michallon, The Quiet Tenant (Knopf) I just got my advance copy of Clémence Michallon’s much-anticipated new novel and I *can* confirm that it’s worth the hype!! It is a beautifully and thoughtfully written book with a pitch-p…
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The CrimeReads editors make their selections for the month’s best new novels in crime, mystery, and thrillers. Eli Cranor, Ozark Dogs (Soho) Eli Cranor is back in 2023 with the follow-up to his widely acclaimed debut, Don’t Know Tough. The new novel, which traces a volatile history of violence between two families, is a powerful portrait of love, revenge, and trauma. Cranor paints a vivid Ozark landscape and populates it with characters who jump off the page and demand your attention. Ozark Dogs establishes Cranor as a premier crime writer and on the rise. –DM V. Castro, The Haunting of Alejandra (Del Rey) V. Castro’s heroine is haunted by the spirit of La Llore…
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CrimeReads editors select the best new crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers coming out in October. * James Han Mattson, Reprieve (William Morrow and Custom House) It’s hard to do justice to how awesome this book is without giving much away, so I’ll just tell you the set-up: in the mid-90s, in a small university town in the middle of nowhere, there is a haunted house. Not just any haunted house, but a full-contact mansion of horrors, where the well-heeled cliental can go in smiling and emerge screaming, and a few daring souls each year attempt to win a cash prize by completing an exceptionally disturbing challenge. Reprieve is a self-aware and furious deconstructio…
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The allure of a vacation, especially in a luxurious seaside destination is so great that the thought of something potentially dark lurking beneath the sun and glitz feels particularly frightening to me. If we can’t be safe in paradise, where can we be? We almost expect darkness in the woods, in a haunted or deserted house, in remote, inaccessible areas and lonely car parks but most certainly not on the beach or at a luxury hotel resort. My third thriller, The Ex-Husband, is about a reformed con artist who finds the roles are reversed when a former victim seeks revenge. Charlotte Wilson and her ex-husband, Sam, worked on luxury cruise liners. Surrounded by wealthy guests,…
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There is no stronger bond in this world than family, and a caring, loving parent will do just about anything to keep his or her loved ones safe. Dive into a lake to save a drowning child, or step in front of a train to rescue a toddler who’s fallen onto the tracks. Go up against a gang of human traffickers, escape from an abusive spouse, track down a band of ruthless kidnappers. As a mystery and thriller writer I’ve always been drawn to stories in which an innocent person encounters some sort of evil entity or force that causes him or her to risk life and limb in order to rescue a daughter or son, husband or wife. In my new novel Beyond All Doubt, a grieving widower/sin…
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After combing through advanced reading copies, publisher catalogues, lists upon lists, and publicity emails galore, I can confidently say that 2023 is going to be a great year for YA. So good, that you may curse us for adding so many damn books to your TBR list. There’s quite the variety in the list below, including hard-hitting social thrillers, high-concept heists, intriguing use of multiple narration à la Rashoman, queer apocalypse thrillers/romances, and some highly symbolic haunted houses. There are also two different thrillers featuring sea-mesters at sea (get it?). This is not an error. There really are two books out this year featuring murder during study-at-sea p…
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This year marks the 125th anniversary of one of the most influential ghost stories ever written. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James is a novella of shadows, lurking dread and psychological menace. The story is deceptively simple: a vulnerable, highly sensitive young woman takes the position of governess at Bly, a remote manor house. The children she is employed to care for, Miles and Flora, are delightful, and at first Bly seems to be a place of sun-dappled sanctuary. That idyll is soon shattered. The (unnamed) governess’s pleasure in the role swiftly turns to terror when she becomes convinced that the manor, and particularly the children, are haunted by the ghosts of …
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While many of our favorite mysteries have humor in them (thank you Agatha Christie, Craig Johnson, Nevada Barr…I could go on for hours here), sometimes we need a little more humor to get us through the day. To let what hair we have left down. To tear up with laughter, preferably with a furry friend nearby. Or a glass of wine. Either way. Here are some stories where laugh-out-loud humor is a must, yet they still manage to deliver that soul-filling mystery we all crave like a carb addict craves pasta. Louisiana Longshot by Jana Deleon There’s a reason Jana’s books are beloved by thousands. Her character, CIA assassin Fortune Redding, is hilarious. The first book in the …
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Calling all Nancy Drew Fans! Grab your magnifying glass and hop in Nancy’s convertible as we adventure back through Nancy Drew’s most famous and memorable cases. With over 600 books published since 1930 in the original series and various spin-offs, there’s a Nancy Drew mystery for every generation. The classic 56 Nancy Drew series published from 1930 to 1979 and still in print today due to its popularity, has inspired these Sleuth-tacular Nancy Drew action figures from Wandering Planet Toys. Fans will remember fondly the mysteries the figures are based on and enjoy seeing Nancy Drew come to life right off the infamous mystery covers. Some of the following titles are acco…
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The incredibly successful suspense author Harlan Coben once told me—with a chuckle—that he thought conducting research for a book was just another form of procrastination. Guilty as charged on some occasions, but in most instances the research I’ve done for all nineteen of my mysteries and psychological thrillers has been extremely beneficial to the process. First and foremost, it helps me get my facts straight. Readers can be forgiving—to a point. They assume that as an author you might need to take some poetic license to move the plot along, but they also want to know that details you provide about everything from locales to characters’ jobs to crime scenes make sense…
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Witches in novels, and in real life, are having a moment. While last summer was defined by the nap dress and Cottagecore, this year’s end to Roe V. Wade makes “goth witch” the only reasonable aesthetic to embrace. After all, the original witch crazes, according to Silvia Federici’s essential theory book Caliban and the Witch, were meant as methods of reproductive control—village women steeped in herblore understood how to terminate a pregnancy, and the capitalist need for new workers, soldiers, and prisoners, (or as Amy Comey-Barrett calls it, the “production of infants”) demands that women with enough knowledge to end a pregnancy be themselves terminated. Paradoxically, …
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There’s a vast number of good YA thrillers and horror novels out this year, most using genre tropes as wider metaphors for the human experience, fierce fights against injustice, or lush groundings for romance. There’s also a whole lot of campy slashers and dead influencers….and there can never really be enough of those, can there? Courtney Gould, Where Echoes Die (Wednesday, June 20) Two sisters head to the desert to find the truth behind their mother’s death in this moody, atmospheric detective story. Their journalist mother had been obsessed with a small town with a reputation for miracles—and lost memories. People return over and over again to the unremarkable des…
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This year’s crop of excellent upcoming horror novels includes folk horror, wilderness thrillers, slashers in space, serial killers in the city, and a wide variety of supernatural entities. There’s plenty of queer romance and some well-earned queer vengeance. The gothic continues to reign supreme, but splattergore makes a respectably bloody showing. Amusingly, there are also two different novels on this list about Americans renting haunted Italian villas…I know, the list is going up in February, but I included January titles anyway. Jenny Kiefer, This Wretched Valley (Quirk, January 16) A group of climbers heads to a remote valley to scale an impossible cliff in this …
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August is Women in Translation Month! So I figured I’d round up some of this year’s best crime novels in translation by women from around the world. Below, you’ll find Norwegian serial killers, Argentinian vampires, French influencers, South Korean lawyers, and so much more (honestly, a lot of French stuff—it’s been a really good year for French noir). A quick shoutout to the amazing publishers and translators who shepherded these works into a language I can read (although I did, once upon a time, read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in French. And some Simenon. Not to brag or anything). Victoria Kielland, My Men Translated by Damion Searls (Astra House) Nasty, brut…
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It’s another great year for historical fiction, as many of my favorite trends from the past few years continue; in the list below, you’ll find con artists and queens, spies and spiritualists, nurses and ne’er-do-wells, vagabonds and vigilantes, and marginal characters of all kinds fighting to stay afloat in a cruel and inconsiderate world. The works below have a bit of a 19th and 20th century bias, in particular focusing on the mid-1800s and the Interwar Period, as well as several set just after the end of WWII. You’ll find the familiar within the strange, and the strange within the familiar, in each of these works, for the job of the historical novelist is to walk the ti…
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As the world gets worse, the speculative fiction gets ever better (and maybe that’s just because we’ve finally acknowledged that we’re already living in a dystopia). The novels in this list lean heavily towards the speculative future but there’s plenty of high-concept fantasy, stellar scifi, and alternative histories as well. As an aside, there’s also lots of love! Which is nice, because I’m not a big fan of romance as the center of the story, but I do love a subplot where attraction does not necessarily equal distraction. Keep an eye out for more spinoff previews, as we highlight YA, horror, and historical novels, curated as always to please any crime fiction fan. Tlo…
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Last year, dear crime friends, I got super into horror—what other genre could be better at capturing our current doom-laden era, or our numerous discomforts and accommodations with modern life? It turns out that horror and crime fiction often enough aren’t so different after all, and like last year, 2022 brings with it a host of crossovers perfect for readers of either genre. As a service that perhaps will reveal my own ignorance of the wider genre, I bring to you 12 upcoming horror novels sure to please fans of thrillers, noir, and psychological suspense. (Notice something missing? I want your recommendations too! Please leave a comment with any other titles you want us…
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What’s better than a horror movie? A horror comedy of course! And after another long and terrifying year, we all deserve a chance to spend Halloween however we choose, including doubled over with laughter. And, if your kids are still at home, each of these films easily doubles as an educational tool, as you explain each and every joke, and with it, the entire history of 20th century cinema. This article is dedicated to every child who saw Young Frankenstein before they had even heard of Frankenstein. Hocus Pocus (1993, dir. Kenny Ortega) While most of the 21st century has been a steaming pile of horseshit, the growing status of Hocus Pocus as a cult classic is one of…
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In much of domestic suspense, the scary stuff happens within the same home. It’s husband versus wife, wife versus husband, and sometimes, the kids have a role, too. But in these suspense novels, it’s the lovely neighbors next door, down the street, or even the entire community you better watch out for. No matter how perfect the neighborhood seems, there’s trouble close by. In my latest, SOMEBODY’S HOME, Julie Jones and her daughter are starting over, and she’s purchased a lovely home across town, miles away from the oceanfront mansion where she’s lived in a loveless marriage. The only problem: the sellers have moved to a different town, but they’ve left someone behind in…
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I think we all can agree that the twin peaks—so to speak—of film noir came in the 1940s and 1980s. What’s that? How can I ignore the 1950s, which gave us gritty crime classics like “The Phenix City Story” and others? How can I pass over the classic noir of the 1970s? “Chinatown,” after all? Well, if you’re already outraged, I’ll outrage you further. When I began to research this article, I preferred the noir of the 1980s to the films of the then-new genre in the 1940s. Maybe—just maybe—I still do. If you haven’t already thrown your phone out the window or tipped your laptop off your lap, come along for my argument. After all: “Blood Simple.” “Body Heat.” “Thief.” “Bla…
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It feels nearly impossible to effectively eulogize Jean-Luc Godard, the giant of French cinema whose films and writings helped establish the 1960s movement known as the French New Wave and changed the course of cinema forever—and who, after doing that, continued toying with form, style, text, and technology in countless film projects for the remainder of his life. He died on September 13th, 2022, at the age of ninety-one. I think it’s fair to say that Lit Hub is extremely indebted to Godard; so must be any institution which is enthusiastically preoccupied with stories that explore and experiment with narrative, form, timelines, and genre, as well as stories that interrog…
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