March’s Best International Crime Fiction

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Spring has arrived, the clocks have moved forward, and we’re all one step closer to being about to travel for real, but as we wait for the world to open up, there’s still plenty of international crime novels to tide us over. March’s line-up features eerie Scandinavian folk horror, a thrilling Nigerian mystery, an elegant investigation in Italy, and new historicals from Poland and France.

Camilla Sten, The Lost Village
Translated by Alexandra Fleming
(Minotaur)

The folk horror wave continues! Thank god for Midsommar and all the many wonderful works that are now able to be compared to it. In The Lost Village, a documentary filmmaker is drawn to uncovering the secrets of an old mining village where nearly all the residents have vanished, including her own family. What ancient evils lurk in the hollowed-out earth? The filmmaker and her small crew, camped out in the disintegrating town, may themselves fall victim to terrors before they can discover any truths. The Lost Village is also being compared to the Blair Witch Project (sans snot). –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor

Femi Kayode, Lightseekers
(Mulholland)

Lightseekers is a dynamic and feverishly excited thrill ride of a novel. Kayode’s psychologist narrator is headed to a small college town in the heart of Nigeria to investigate the murders of three students. Why were they murdered? Why did the whole town seem to participate in the killings? And what could possibly have been their motive? You will never expect the twist at the end. –MO

Ruth Lillegraven, Everything Is Mine
Translated by Diane Oatley
(Amazon Crossing)

Lillegraven’s narrators are an Oslo couple living a peaceful yet empty life with their twin sons in the kind of house you can only inherit. When the family gets involved in a tragic case of abuse and a related murder through the husband’s work as a doctor, their quiet existence is shattered in favor of a long-overdue reckoning. –MO

Hervé Le Corré, In the Shadow of the Fire
Translated by Tina Kover
(Europa)

I was stunned by Hervé Le Corre’s After the War, featuring a quest for vengeance against Nazi collaborators set against the backdrop of the Algerian War, and his new historical crime novel, In the Shadow of the Fire, should be just as gripping. Set during the Paris Commune’s brief but glorious existence in 1871, Le Corre’s latest tells the story of a missing woman, and the many men who set out to find her, each representing a different faction in a fractured Paris. Le Corre captures not only the events of the era, but the mindset, the prejudices, and the blind spots as well. –MO

Andrea Camillieri, The Cook of the Halcyon
Translated by Stephen Sartarelli
(Penguin)

The Cook of the Halcyon is one of the final treasures left to us by Andrea Camilleri, the great Italian crime writer who passed away in 2019. English-language versions of the works he wrote before he died, beautifully translated by Stephen Sartarelli, have thankfully made their way to us. In this installment, our hero Inspector Montalbano has his hands full after investigating a tragic suicide at the shipyard: the truculent manager of the construction site loathes him, another body leads to the arrival of the FBI, and a mysterious schooner pulls into the harbor, deserted except for a single man. –Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads Assistant Editor

Guillaume Masso, Central Park
Translated by Sam Taylor
(Back Bay Books)

In this variation on the perennially popular two-strangers-chained-together-who-have-to-get-along narrative, a detective wakes up in Central Park’s wildest part, the Ramble, handcuffed to a stranger with unclear intentions and an even murkier past. This one is sure to please those who like to use reading as their cardio. –MO

Maryla Szymiczkowa, Karolina and the Torn Curtain
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
(Mariner)

Zofia Turbotyńska, Cracow’s favorite sleuthing socialite, is slammed preparing for the event of the season when she notices her maid, Karolina has gone missing—and soon enough, is found dead! Zofia heads deep into the turn-of-the-century underworld to find out what happened to her confidant and friend, and to perhaps secure some justice. As in previous installments of the series, expect a mixture of rich historical detail, well-plotted mystery, and delightful comedies of errors. Although this book may be set in 1895, Szymiczkowa’s tale of female independence and rebellion, embodied by her eccentric sleuth and the characters she encounters, taps into a rising women’s movement in Poland today. –MO

Eva Garcia Saenz, The Water Rituals
(Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Unai “Kraken” Lopez de Ayala, Eva Garcia Saenz’s beleaguered Barcelona detective, finds himself investigating the brutal, ritualistic killing of his first love, found dead in a Bronze Age cauldron. This is the second in Saenz’s White City trilogy and is sure to be just as thrilling and twisted as the first. –MO

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