Best Crime Books

Cold In Hand by John Harvey

Here we go again, another year older and deeper in debt, literally, if you believe everything you read in the papers. But there are still a lot of great crime novels out there to keep your mind off the credit crunch this winter, so stick around and check out these winners with me.

Kicking off the list in fine style is the latest D.I Faraday novel, The Price Of Darkness by Graham Hurley (Orion H/B £9.99) It all starts off with what looks like a professional hit on a property developer with an interest in an M.O.D. site in Portsmouth which could yield rich pickings if turned into residential homes.  Then a government minister is assassinated. What’s the connection? Also, there’s a problem with ex-copper and Faraday’s old sparring partner Paul Winter who is now working for Bazza Mackenzie, Pompey’s leading crime lord. But has he really left the side of the angels? As I’ve said before, Hurley just gets better and better, and this book is his best so far.

Another writer who rarely disappoints is Jonathan Kellerman, and his new novel , Obsession (Michael Joseph H/B £14.99) featuring psychologist Alex Delaware is no exception. A patient from the past shows up at Alex’s office to try and discover what terrible  secret her mother tried to divulge on her death bed. With the assistance of cop buddy Milo Sturgis, Alex delves deeply into what turns out to be a plot involving the great and the good of Los Angeles high society and the dregs of the city’s low life. A read-in-one-go book.

The same could be said for Eye Of The Beholder by David Ellis (Quercus H/B £14.99) where, again, the past throws up secrets that were better hidden, as attorney Paul Riley discovers that the case that he has built his career on may not have been all it seemed. A serial killer brought to justice fifteen years previously could have had accomplices, as more grisly murders in his style are perpetrated, and the killer has Riley in his sights. Edgar Award winner Ellis delivers the goods from the first to the last page.

Twenty-five years ago, fourteen year old Cynthia Bigges’ family just vanished one night, and twenty-five years later she’s none the wiser as to what happened to them. It was a cause celebre for a while, then forgotten, but not by her, or the man she subsequently married. Then a cold case TV show  highlights her story and suddenly it’s front page news again. People are being murdered left, right and centre, and that’s not all. Mystery piles up on mystery in a striking debut, No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (Orion H/B £9.99) If you admire the novels  of Harlen Coben, then this book should be top of your Christmas list.

When Joe Denton, disgraced ex-cop gets out of prison, he finds he’s not welcome back in the town he used to police. His wife and daughter have fled. His mother and father can barely stand him near them, and his old colleagues want him dead or gone, or preferably both. He’s attacked, and then wrongly accused of rape, but Joe just won’t leave things alone, as his life appears to resemble a car crash in slow motion. Violent, but with an edge of graveyard humour, Small Crimes by David Zelserman (Serpents Tail P/B £7.99) shows the author to be the natural successor to Jim Thompson, which as far as I’m concerned can be no greater accolade.

Fans of John Harvey, and there are many, will celebrate the resurrection of Charlie Resnick in Cold In Hand (William Heinemann H/B £12.99) Charlie is now living in harmony with D.I. Lynn Kellogg,until she gets shot and is blamed for the death of a young black girl. Resnick is called into the case which causes some aggro at home, but worse is to come. Much worse, and he goes into decline. Understandably. But eventually all comes clear and he manages to find some peace in a far-off country. Harvey writes what are definitely in the top three police procedurals in the UK, filled with humanity and understanding of the human condition, plus a few sharp words on our immigration policy. No wonder he’s collecting so many awards these days. 

What could be a better time to disappear off the face of the earth than in New York in the aftermath of 9/11? This is the premise of the latest, and finest novel so far featuring Detective-Superintendent Roy Grace by Peter James (Dead Man’s Footsteps -Macmillan H/B £16.99) as the Brighton based copper travels to the Big Apple to investigate the last days of a local businessman who just doesn’t seem to be as dead as he wants the world to believe. Cracking, with a real sting in its tail. 

As Los Angeles burns around them, Elvis Cole and his buddy, Pike roam the city, looking for proof that, seven years ago, the pair didn’t provide tainted evidence that freed  a guilty man on a murder charge, leaving him able to kill and kill again. Crais is among the best of the best, and Chasing Darkness (Orion H/B £12.99) proves it once again. Elvis (Crazy name, crazy guy) has definitely not left the building!

And finally, a reprint that’s been a long time coming but has been well worth the wait. Homicide-A Year on The Killing Streets by David Simon (Canongate P/B £12.99) first published in the early nineties is the big,  fat true crime masterpiece featuring the Baltimore police force that begot the wonderful TV series Homicide-Life On The Streets that begot The Wire. Need I say more?

Happy new year.

The latest D.I. Faraday novel, The Price Of Darkness by Graham Hurley starts off with what looks like a professional hit on a property developer. The dead man was involved in an M.O.D. site in Portsmouth with potentially rich pickings. Then a government minister is assassinated. What’s the connection? Also, there’s a problem with ex-copper and Faraday’s old sparring partner Paul Winter who is now working for Bazza Mackenzie, Pompey’s leading crime lord. But has he really left the side of the angels? Hurley just gets better and better, and this book is his best so far. Elvis McBeth

graham hurley, portsmouth, prince of darkness

Several elements come together to make a good novel: writing style, plot and overall atmosphere. Very occasionally a novel’s unique atmosphere can elevate an OK book into a classic. Take Gerald Kerch’s ‘Night and the City’, possibly the most atmospheric novel about London since Dickens trod the city’s shabby streets and undoubtedly a great book, even if – at times – the story plods along like a lame cart-horse.

The aspect of a novel that elevates it into the bestseller lists is usually its plot. Clive Cussler, David Baldacci and Dan Brown are dull, unimaginative writers whose prose has been known to cause great pain to many discerning readers, but they redeem themselves and write bestselling thrillers by means of superb plotting. Or, as the blurbs have it, they are ‘great storytellers’.
Take this extract from ‘Stone Cold’ by David Baldacci:

“Harry, you OK?”
He stirred. “Just some stuff at work.” There had been no news coverage of the incident, even though the police had been called, because Homeland Security had stepped in to put the kibosh on it. Having Finn exposed in the press would put a severe crimp in the red cell contract work that his company did for Homeland Security, work that was critically important to national security. With DHS in Finn’s corner, the local cops had quickly rolled over. The young security guard had not been charged with anything other than being stupid and undertrained, and his gun had been taken away. He had been reassigned to a desk job and told that if he said anything to anyone about what had happened he would regret it for the rest of his life.”

Just a section taken almost at random from the book I’m reading now. There are many far more guilty authors than David Baldacci and better examples of terrible prose out there, but it hardly seems worth spending time looking for them. The crime most average writers commit is the over-use of adjectives. People speak menacingly, cheerfully and tearfully; ideas are brilliant, inspired and wonderful; the bad guys are tagged as evil, heartless and merciless. And so on and so forth.
Claiming the middle ground is the great Agatha Christie. Possibly the best plotter that ever sat at a keyboard, some of her stories are so clever you want to scream, even if her prose has a tendency to be frothy and her characterisation – especially of ‘types’ such as majors, policemen and domestic staff – is invariably paper-thin. ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ is her undoubted masterpiece. In it, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is drawn out of retirement in order to solve a dastardly crime in the peaceful English village of King’s Abbot. Without giving too much away, this is the novel that turned the art of plotting on its head. All of Christie’s novels are worth reading, and the cream of her output also includes ‘Ten Little Indians’ (‘And Then There Were None’), ‘The ABC Murders’ and ‘Murder on the Orient Express’.
Another giant of the ‘Golden Age of Detective Fiction’ was John Dickson Carr, an American who lived in the UK, where most of his historically-flavoured mysteries are set. He was the leading exponent of what was called the ‘locked room mystery’ and when it came to close, intricately plotted puzzles, he had few equals. ‘The Three Coffins’ features Carr’s series character, Dr Gideon Fell, and, typially involves supernatural and historical elements. Chapter 17 is the ‘Locked Room Lecture’ in which Fell famously details the various types of locked-room situations. ‘The Devil in Velvet’ is no ordinary murder mystery, either. Set in 1925, it features Nicholas Fenton, a history don at Cambridge University, who makes a pact with the devil to be transported back to 1675 in order to solve and maybe prevent the murder of Lydia, Lady Fenton, the wife of an eponymous ancestor. If only more of today’s historical fiction could capture the intelligence and vibrancy of Carr’s writing.
More selections from my list of Best Crime Books next time, including novels by Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain and Graham Greene.
Jim Driver

agatha christie, bestseller lists, clive cussler, dan brown, david baldacci, Devil in Velvet, john dickson carr, kerch, locked room mysteries, Mysterious Affair At Styles, night and the city, Ten Little Indians, The ABC Murders, Three Coffins, Murder of Roger Ackroyd

THE BIG SLEEP by RAYMOND CHANDLER

The Big Sleep is Raymond Chandler’s masterpiece. The best crime novel ever written bar none. Almost single handedly Chandler invented the genre of the hard drinking, hard smoking, hard loving, sharply dressed, first person, private detective, with a wisecrack for every occasion, and a bullet for every bad guy and gal. Over the last seventy years his hero Philip Marlowe has been the template for dozens of crime writers. Just think Ross Macdonald, John D. MacDonald, Robert B. Parker,  Derek Marlowe, Alan Sharp, Timothy Harris, Roger L. Simon, Robert Crais, and yours truly, plus loads more. (Not all first person I admit, but well in the Chandler groove, and if you don’t know any of these authors, Google them)

The novel opens with a paragraph that has been quoted time and time again as a classic of the genre. I don’t intend to reprint it here, just read the book if you haven’t already. And if you haven’t shame on you.

Simply, the plot of the novel is that a rich old man with two beautiful daughters who make Paris Hilton look tame, is being blackmailed. Enter Marlowe, who cuts a swathe through the Los Angeles demi monde, and solves the case quick fast.

Great plot, great characters, great atmosphere. Just the greatest.

Rarely out of print, Penguin put out a new paperback edition in 2005.

alan sharp, bar none, crime novel, crime writers, derek marlowe, first person, google, john d macdonald, paperback edition, paris hilton, philip marlowe, private detective, raymond chandler, robert b parker, robert crais, roger l simon, ross macdonald, swathe, timothy harris, wisecrack

Mystery Readers International (Mystery Readers Journal) announces the Macavity Award nominations for works published in 2007. The awards will be presented during opening ceremonies at Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention (Baltimore, October 2008).

MACAVITY NOMINEES:

Best Mystery Novel
o Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman (Bleak House)
o The Unquiet by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton*/Atria)
o Blood of Paradise by David Corbett (Ballantine Mortalis)
o Water Like a Stone by Deborah Crombie (Morrrow)
o What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman (Morrow)

Best First Mystery
o In the Woods by Tana French (Hodder & Stoughton*/Viking)
o Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (Morrow)
o The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)
o Stealing the Dragon by Tim Maleeny (Midnight Ink)
o The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees (Soho)

Best Mystery Short Story
o “A Rat’s Tale” by Donna Andrews (EQMM, Sep-Oct 2007)
o “Please Watch Your Step” by Rhys Bowen (The Strand Magazine, Spring 2007)
o “The Missing Elevator Puzzle” by Jon L. Breen (EQMM, Feb 2007)
o “Brimstone P.I.” by Beverle Graves Myers (AHMM, May 2007)
o “The Old Wife’s Tale” by Gillian Roberts (EQMM, Mar-Apr 2007)

Best Mystery Non-Fiction
o Rough Guide to Crime Fiction by Barry Forshaw (Penguin Rough Guides)
o Chester Gould: A Daughter’s Biography of the Creator of Dick Tracy by Jean Gould O’Connell (McFarland & Company)
o Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, edited by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower & Charles Foley (HarperPress*/Penguin)
o Police Procedure and Investigation: A Guide for Writers by Lee Lofland (Howdunit Series, Writers Digest Books)
o The Essential Mystery Lists: For Readers, Collectors, and Librarians, compiled and edited by Roger Sobin (Poisoned Pen Press)

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery
o Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen (Penguin)
o Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (Putnam)
o The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin (Faber & Faber*/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
o Consequences of Sin by Clare Langley-Hawthorne (Viking*/Penguin)
o The Gravediggers Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates (HarperCollins Ecco)
*UK publisher (first edition)

award nominations, international mystery, john connolly, macavity award, mystery convention, mystery readers journal, reed farrel coleman, world mystery

Shortlists for the 2008 CWA / Duncan Lawrie Daggers were announced at a reception at the British Library on 3rd June.

The authors shortlisted for the £20,000 Duncan Lawrie Dagger, the world’s largest prize for a crime novel, are James Lee Burke (The Tin Roof Blowdown), Colin Cotterill (Coroner’s Lunch), Frances Fyfield (Blood From Stone), Steve Hamilton (Night Work), Laura Lippman (What the Dead Know) and RN Morris (A Vengeful Longing).

There are five authors in the running for the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger: Andrea Camilleri (The Patience of the Spider), Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Dominique Manotti (Lorraine Connection), Martin Suter (A Deal with the Devil) and Fred Vargas (This Night’s Foul Work). This prize is worth £5000 to the winning author and £1000 to the translator.

In all there are eight awards in contention, the others being the Steel, Non-Fiction, New Blood, Library, Short Story and Debut Daggers.

There is an eternal debate about whether the best Crime Fiction can ever hold its head up as the equal of the literary novel. Just as ‘proper’ authors like Martin Amis, William Boyd and even Charles Dickens can and have turned their hand to mystery fiction, so there exists a strata of ‘crime’ novelists who really can be counted among the great and the good of the literary world. Let’s not pretend that the average Christie/ Rendell/ PD James pot-boiler is anything other than (in Graham Greene’s words) an ‘entertainment’, but the boundaries surrounding the writing of those writers of the calibre of John Harvey, George Pelecanos, Elmore Leonard, David Peace and Raymond Chandler are blurred to say the least. A good crime novel can be a good novel and this by James Lee Burke falls very much into both categories.
When the stink of destruction and death lifts off the page and you can practically hear the cries of anguish, you know that the author is a novelist to be reckoned with, whatever the genre. That’s what James Lee Burke has done with ‘The Tin Roof Blowdown’.
This powerful post-Katrina novel, features his main series policeman, Dave Robicheaux, who is called out of his own police district of New Iberia to help out in the beleaguered Big Sleazy. Along the way he gets caught up in the disappearance of a Catholic Priest, a seemingly random shooting and looting unexpectedly rich pickings from the home of old-school mobster and florist, Sidney Kovick. In Burke’s skilled hands, there are more shades of gray than you’ll find in an eye-specialists’ wall-chart. No one is all bad –  nor is anyone (Robicheaux and the Priest included) – beyond reproach.
At the centre of the action are Otis and Melanie Baylor, middle class whites with a daughter who had previously been raped by young black men. These men themselves, admittedly no angels, show up unwittingly to loot the houses in Baylor’s street and Otis – whose background included watching his father and uncle attend Ku Klux Klan burnings in Alabama – is driven to anger. Shots are fired but the Baylors deny any involvement. Robicheaux is ordered to check it out.
One of the looters, Bertrand Melancon, sees his brother shot and seriously wounded and a young friend killed. He also soon becomes aware that the diamonds and cash they’ve stripped out of Kovick’s walls are likely to get him tortured and disposed of, as a couple of psychopaths take up his trail. As Robicheaux’s ex-partner, renegade bail-bondsman Clete Purcel tells him: ‘Hey, kid, if you stole anything from Sidney Kovick, mail it to him COD from Alaska, then buy a gun and shoot yourself… With luck, he won’t find your grave.’
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina  came as a devastating blow to a country that thought its racial divide was largely behind it. To remember how deep the racism was in New Orleans back in the ‘old days’ one only has to recall the 1965 Football Boycott of New Orleans that occurred after numerous black players were refused service by a number of hotels and businesses in the Big Easy, and white cabdrivers refused to carry black passengers. The treatment of the poor black population in the aftermath of the Hurricane’s devastation recalled these days and Burke puts a fictional but very insightful spin on real life events and emotions.
‘The Tin Roof Blowdown’ is James Lee Burke’s masterpiece. He’ll be hard-pressed to equal it.
Jim Driver