10 Novels You Should Read This November

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CrimeReads editors select the best new crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers coming out in October.

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Hannah Morrissey, Hello, Transcriber
(Minotaur)

I’ve been looking forward to Hello, Transcriber for months, just based on the cover design alone, but the plot is just as compelling. Hazel Greenlee works the graveyard shift as a police transcriber in Black Harbor, Wisconsin, a rustbelt city plagued by addiction and hopelessness. Her days are filled with her husband’s hunting exploits, and her nights are taken over by clinically precise descriptions of lurid crime scenes. She tries to keep her emotional distance, but one case in particular—and the mysterious detective working it—takes her from observer to actor, as she begins her own investigation. With echoes of The Conversation and The Lives of Others, Hello, Transcriber is a statement to the eternal human impulse to Get Involved. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor

Hervé Le Tellier, The Anomaly
Translated by Adriana Hunter
(Other Press)

In this bizarre speculative thriller from literary powerhouse Herve le Tellier, the passengers on a doomed flight from Paris to New York find themselves trapped in a world of simulacra come to flesh, experiencing the same events over and over again. Perfect for those who like their realities unstable. –MO

Santiago Gamboa, The Night Will Be Long
Translated by Andrea Rosenberg
(Europa)

For my money there may be no more ambitious, accomplished writer than Gamboa at work in international noir today. His newest novel, The Night Will Be Long, focuses on a mysterious flash of violence in Cauca, Colombia, witnessed by one boy only, with all others swearing to have seen nothing, know nothing. The investigation soon points in the direction of a powerful cabal of Christian churches exercising inordinate and disturbing power over their followers. Gamboa brings a searching, penetrating style to the prose and unwinds a genuinely compelling and provocative story that interrogates the very nature of violence and truth. –DM

Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets
(William Morrow and Custom House)

This book is so good! Wanda M. Morris takes the traditional legal thriller and gives it a  high-concept twist that you’ll never see coming. As All Her Little Secrets begins, Ellice Littlejohn arrives for her usual liaison with her boss, only to find him deceased in her office. Things quickly get worse from there, as Ellice, one of the few Black attorneys at her firm, finds herself the target of a menacing Old Boys Club. –MO

Thomas Perry, The Left-Handed Twin
(Mysterious Press)

In Perry’s newest Jane Whitfield novel, a young woman on the run from Los Angeles turns up at the rural New York house that serves as a jumping off point for Jane’s metier—helping people disappear. The young woman has an abusive ex and the Russian mob on her tail, and she and Jane undertake an exhilarating odyssey through northeastern towns and cities on their way to the Maine wilderness. Perry is one of the best in the business today, and his latest is a brooding, peripatetic stunner. –DM

Alison Gaylin, The Collective
(William Morrow)

Alison Gaylin has been a crime writer’s crime writer for years, but her new book is poised to make her a household name for readers everywhere. In The Collective, a grieving mother is obsessed with getting back at the boy who caused her daughter’s death, even as he appears to have no chance of facing consequences for his actions. Late one night, she stumbles across a chat group for those who’ve experienced the ultimate loss—and there, she will find a path towards the ultimate revenge. Gaylin has crafted a high-concept thriller that delivers a strong warning against the kind of catharsis to be found online. –MO

Natashia Deón, The Perishing
(Counterpoint)

God, The Perishing. Where do I even begin? It’s riveting, my God. When Lou, a young Black woman, wakes to find herself naked in a Los Angeles alley with no memory, she feels fortunate to be taken in by a loving family. She concentrates on school and goes on to accomplish extraordinary things. But she doesn’t yet know that her astonishing future is connected to her astonishing past; Lou has flashbacks to past moments in time that she doesn’t understand and can’t explain. And so she decides to find out who she is—and what life she is meant to live. Just…. I…. –OR

William Boyle, Shoot the Moonlight Out
(Pegasus)

Boyle’s latest novel is a kaleidoscopic vision of life in South Brooklyn, shifting between timelines and perspectives to bring together a swirling, fate-laced story of modern New York. Boyle’s work is keeping a very particular strand of the noir legacy alive, and with each new book he adds another piece to New York City’s rich literary history. Shoot the Moonlight Out is one of his best stories to date, an ambitious take on crime and tragedy in South Brooklyn. –DM

Kieran Scott, Wish You Were Gone
(Gallery)

Emma Walsh and her kids can’t believe their luck when the family patriarch turns up dead—he’ll never terrorize them again. But was the death really an accident, when so many people would benefit from his sudden absence? Emma and her family try to keep up the appearance of mourning, but as more and more secrets come to light, it becomes clear that almost everyone is happier with Emma’s husband dead. –MO

Michael Connelly, The Dark Hours
(Little Brown)

It’s New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles and Renee Ballard is back on the midnight shift. A new murder scene also draws her back into the orbit of Harry Bosch, and the two of them team up to connect and solve a pair of homicides spanning the years, with a bit of sideline action taking down a serial rapist. Connelly is sharp as ever and his stories always manage to explore another piece of the city’s soul. –DM

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