in 2019 we say goodbye to one of crime fiction’s iconic investigators, bernie gunther. His latest work, completed shortly before the untimely death of author Philip Kerr last year, is just as gripping and immersive as his predecessors. metropolis (quercus) is set in berlin in 1928, where young gunther finds himself on the trail of a murderer of sex workers and a serial killer targeting disabled war veterans. /p>
This year’s most impressive debuts include the brilliant literary thriller kill [redacted] from anthony good (atlantic), an inventive exploration of the morality of revenge after a terrorist attack, and from holly watt to the lions (raven), the first in a new series starring investigative reporter casey benedict. Others worth seeking out include Kia Abdullah’s thought-provoking legal thriller Take It Back (HQ); Laura Pastor-Robinson’s vivid evocation of the slave trade in Georgian England, blood & sugar (mantle); and scrublands (wildfire), an accomplished slice of outback noir from Australian journalist chris hammer. american spy (dialogue) by lauren wilkinson is the story of black agent marie mitchell, recruited in the 1980s by the cia as bait in a trap for the president of burkina faso, whose fledgling government they are the Americans. willing to destabilize.
Among the established practitioners going from strength to strength are mick herron, whose slough house series of spy novels – the sixth and most recent title is joe country (john murray) – is being televised , with gary oldman was scheduled to play the spectacularly repulsive jackson lamb. The latest thriller in Don Winslow’s cartel trilogy, La Frontera (HarperCollins), is social fiction at its finest, showing how Mexican mobsters, enriched by decades of the misguided “war on drugs” from the United States, are now taking advantage of the opioid crisis. there are more astute comments on the state of the nation, this time on brexit in britain, from john le carré in agent running in the field (viking), and on american race relations in heaven my home (serpent tail) by attica locke. also on the police procedural front, but in the uk, jane casey published her eighth book by ds maeve kerrigan, Cruel Acts (harpercollins), and sarah hilary’s di marnie rome made her sixth appearance in never be broken (title): two intelligent series whose protagonists have real emotional depth.
You are reading: Best british mystery books 2019
See Also: General reading list | Epilepsy Society
tana french took a break from her superb dublin death squad series for the wych elm (Viking), a compelling examination of the unreliability of memory, the effects of trauma and the relationship between privilege and what we perceive as luck. Other changes in direction include The Chain (Orion), an independent thriller from series author Adrian Mckinty, Sean Duffy, which invests a pyramid kidnapping scheme with overwhelmingly gruesome verisimilitude; and The Whisper Man (Michael Joseph), a supernatural-tinged police procedural from Steve Mosby, written as Alex North. After nearly a decade, Kate Atkinson reunited with her character from the series Jackson Brodie. in big sky (doubleday) the rude pi returns to his native yorkshire and is involved in a case of human trafficking and a historical network of pedophilia.
Catastrophically dysfunctional friendships are the key ingredient in an increasingly popular subgenre of domestic film noir, of which Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party (HarperCollins) is a prominent example. When a group of thirty-something friends vacation at an exclusive hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands, things soon begin to unravel: it turns out they all have something to hide. another exceptional reading in this sense is the guilty party (hq) by mel mcgrath, in which a group of friends have reasons not to report the rape of a stranger who is later found dead.
See Also: 25 Books That Define Cool | Cool Material
Something this reviewer is delighted to see on the rise is what might be described as “smooth noir”: middle-aged women pitted against the world, a hitherto neglected subgenre that, given the reading of the crime demographic, publishers really They should be encouraging. Two prominent examples are Helen Fitzgerald’s Sublime Worst Case Scenario (Orenda), a foul-mouthed, satirical revenge thriller in which Glasgow probation officer Mary Shields struggles with professional burnout and death. menopause, and the godmother (old street) by hannelore cayre, translated from the french by stephanie smee. Winner of both the grand prize for policière literature and the European crime novel prize, this witty and biting gem is the story of a fifty-something widow, mother of two, who, faced with a precarious future, decides to become a drug dealer. .
This year saw the 50th anniversary of the Manson murders and books exploring the cults included The Family Above (Century) by Lisa Jewell and The Island of Fog (hq) by scientology survivor mariette lindstein, translated from swedish by rachel willson-broyles.
Finally, there have been a number of welcome reissues, including Susanna Moore’s erotic classic in the cut (w&n), a terrifying tale of death and sex first published in 1995. and, several decades earlier, the listening walls and a stranger in my grave (both pushkin vertigo), by the queen of american domestic noir, margaret millar (1915-1994 ). It all adds up to an extraordinary year.
See Also: 12 Best Sci-Fi Audiobooks (On Audible) | Books and Bao