The Best Crime Novels of the Year (So Far)
Looking for some murder and mayhem (fictional, of course)? Here are the best crime novels of 2024 so far.
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Looking for some murder and mayhem (fictional, of course)? Here are the best crime novels of 2024 so far.
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The books in this month’s column have something in common: unforgettable main characters.
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Jacqueline Winspear is retiring Maisie Dobbs, and Susan Elia MacNeal bids farewell to Maggie Hope.
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Our crime columnist on mysteries by Catherine Mack, Katrina Carrasco, Marcia Muller and K.C. Constantine.
By Sarah Weinman
Our crime columnist reviews new novels by Andrey Kurkov, Kristen Perrin and others.
By Sarah Weinman
In Francis Spufford’s new novel, “Cahokia Jazz,” a detective must solve the mystery of a staged killing before its repercussions destroy his city’s social and political order.
By Ivy Pochoda
An F. B.I. rookie hunts for a serial killer, four friends seek reparations, a daughter searches for her mother and a community looks for answers in four new mysteries.
By Sarah Weinman
In these novels, detectives — some real, others self-appointed — investigate deaths in a small town, on board a train, in a haunted French chateau.
By Sarah Weinman
Need a little diversion? Our crime columnist has plenty of books to recommend.
By Sarah Weinman
Our crime columnist recommends four newly published books.
By Sarah Weinman
Our crime columnist, Sarah Weinman, on four buzzy October releases.
By Sarah Weinman
Our crime columnist recommends four September books.
By Sarah Weinman
In Angie Kim’s new novel, “Happiness Falls,” Adam Parson’s wife and children question everything they thought they knew about him.
By Jennifer Reese
In Halley Sutton’s “The Hurricane Blonde,” a young woman struggles with the decades-old, still unsolved murder of her sister.
By Sarah Weinman
“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” opens with the discovery of a skeleton in a well, and then flashes back to explore its connection to a town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history.
By Danez Smith
Scott Von Doviak’s novel “Lowdown Road” evokes “The Dukes of Hazzard” — in a good way.
By Sarah Weinman
In new crime novels from Victoria Kielland, James Wolff, Katie Siegel and Michael McGarrity, the past is hard to shake.
By Sarah Weinman
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Our columnist looks at a clutch of summer crime novels, including “I Didn’t Do It,” set at a mystery writers’ conference.
By Sarah Weinman
New crime novels from Susan Isaacs, Peter Robinson and Arnaldur Indridason all feature indelible characters.
By Sarah Weinman
In Joyce Carol Oates’s “48 Clues Into the Disappearance of My Sister,” a troubled, resentful younger sibling describes the long-ago events.
By Sarah Weinman
In the novel “Scorched Grace,” a tattooed, chain-smoking, swearing-prone nun turns out to be a crack detective.
By Sarah Weinman
In Jane Harper’s new book, “Exiles,” set in a small Australian town, a 39-year-old woman disappears from a wine festival — but her infant daughter is found in her stroller, unharmed.
By Sarah Weinman
In “Blaze Me a Sun,” by Christoffer Carlsson, murders and disappearances pile up in a small Swedish town.
By Sarah Weinman
Our columnist, who’s read dozens of books this year, selects her favorites.
By Sarah Weinman
In Stephen Spotswood’s new novel, “Secrets Typed in Blood” — set in 1940s New York City — a pulp magazine writer claims that a killer is copying crimes from her stories.
By Sarah Weinman
The plucky, trash-talking detective in “Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man,” by Emily Edwards, is a throwback to fictional characters from decades past.
By Sarah Weinman
In “Blackwater Falls,” Ausma Zehanat Khan introduces a Muslim police detective bent on bringing justice to marginalized communities.
By Sarah Weinman
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The mystery driving “The Maze” is a fascinating one, but the main character? He’s an insufferable jerk.
By Sarah Weinman
In Alaina Urquhart’s serial-killer thriller “The Butcher and the Wren,” a Louisiana forensic pathologist matches wits with a murderer.
By Sarah Weinman
In “The Rising Tide,” old school chums who meet on an island off the Northumberland coast become murder suspects.
By Sarah Weinman
William Kent Krueger’s “Fox Creek,” the 19th book starring the detective Cork O’Connor, will delight fans — and it’s a good entry point for those new to the series, too.
By Sarah Weinman
Johanna Mo’s new novel, “The Shadow Lily,” is a solid police procedural that brims with twists, turns and surprising revelations.
By Sarah Weinman
The rot runs deep in George Dawes Green’s long-awaited fourth novel.
By Sarah Weinman
In Tom Mead’s “Death and the Conjuror,” a man is found dead in his study, his throat cut. There is no weapon in the room, and the doors are locked — from the inside.
By Sarah Weinman
In “Vera Kelly Lost and Found,” the final volume of Rosalie Knecht’s 1960s-era private detective trilogy, Vera searches for her missing girlfriend.
By Sarah Weinman
In “Last Call at the Nightingale,” a fizzy detective novel set in Prohibition-era Manhattan, a champagne-soaked evening at a speakeasy ends in murder.
By Sarah Weinman
Robin Peguero’s novel, “With Prejudice,” features a tough-talking prosecutor who says, “The jury is a crew of misfits. The scraps that neither side particularly wanted.”
By Sarah Weinman
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In “Bad Actors,” Mick Herron’s latest Slough House novel, a group of maladroit agents confronts a scandal in their own office.
By Sarah Weinman
Harini Nagendra’s new novel, “The Bangalore Detectives Club,” stars a bookish, Sherlock-Holmes-loving young bride.
By Sarah Weinman
Grace D. Li’s debut, “Portrait of a Thief,” is both a heist novel and a reckoning.
By Sarah Weinman
The note — found at a murder scene in Simone St. James’s spine-tingling new novel, “The Book of Cold Cases” — seemed to implicate one woman. Or did it?
By Sarah Weinman
Eli Cranor’s top-shelf debut, “Don’t Know Tough,” is Southern noir at its finest, a cauldron of terrible choices and even more terrible outcomes.
By Sarah Weinman
In Valerie Wilson Wesley’s new novel, “A Fatal Glow,” a Realtor-turned-caterer investigates the death of an exceedingly unpleasant businessman.
By Sarah Weinman
In Paul Vidich’s elegant new spy novel, “The Matchmaker,” an American translator living in Berlin grapples with some difficult truths.
By Sarah Weinman
Stephen Hunter’s new novel, “Targeted,” features the retired Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger — who’s still a crack shot — in his 12th adventure.
By Sarah Weinman
In “Something to Hide,” Elizabeth George delivers another intelligent, intricate mystery starring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley of New Scotland Yard.
By Sarah Weinman
In “The Replacement Wife,” Darby Kane’s mile-a-minute novel, a young wife tries to get someone — anyone — to take her suspicions seriously.
By Sarah Weinman
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Our crime fiction columnist picks the books that wowed her this year.
By Sarah Weinman
Rachel Kapelke-Dale’s debut novel, “The Ballerinas,” set in the hothouse world of a Paris ballet academy, follows three dancers hiding a very big secret.
By Sarah Weinman
Our crime fiction columnist assesses three riveting new novels and an emotionally devastating short-story collection.
By Sarah Weinman
In Cherie Priest’s new novel, “Grave Reservations,” a travel agent with spotty psychic powers assists a local detective.
By Sarah Weinman
In “Mango, Mambo, and Murder,” a series debut from Raquel V. Reyes, a food anthropologist in Miami begins to investigate crimes.
By Sarah Weinman
In Katie Lattari’s unnerving suspense novel, “Dark Things I Adore,” a scheming thesis adviser proves no match for his young protégé.
By Sarah Weinman
Nail-biting new crime fiction from Amy Stewart, Craig Nova, Catherine Dang and Karen Cleveland.
By Sarah Weinman
End-of-summer whodunits bring chills and thrills.
By Sarah Weinman
In her latest column, Sarah Weinman explores four new novels, each dark in a different way.
By Sarah Weinman
If your idea of a great summer read involves murder, bloodshed, revenge and trickery, you’re in luck.
By Sarah Weinman
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Our crime columnist raves about Samira Sedira’s “People Like Them,” as well as Willa C. Richards’s debut, “The Comfort of Monsters.”
By Sarah Weinman
Sarah Weinman on four new mysteries, including Heather Levy’s “spellbinding” debut, “Walking Through Needles.”
By Sarah Weinman
Murders abound in new novels from James Ellroy, Joe R. Lansdale, Laura McHugh and Leonardo Padura.
By Sarah Weinman
Four new crime novels plumb the very depths of depravity.
By Sarah Weinman
Sarah Weinman on four new mysteries that brim with cunning and subterfuge.
By Sarah Weinman
In her latest Crime column, Sarah Weinman reviews Amy Suiter Clarke’s debut novel, “Girl, 11,” about a true-crime podcast host in a killer’s cross hairs.
By Sarah Weinman
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