2023 Favorites; LoA Noir Event; and More

It's Best-of List Season.

Dear TCL Readers,

Let me first start with the most immediate item to promote: The Library of America is hosting a virtual event for its recently published Crime Novels of the 1960s set tonight (yes, tonight!) at 6 PM Eastern. David Lehman will be in conversation with the collection’s editor (and former LoA EiC) Geoffrey O’Brien, myself, and Gene Seymour. You can still register here.

It’s that time of year, when the best-of lists start to accumulate. And who am I to fight this? For my own best-of-crime fiction list is now online (and will appear in this Sunday’s print edition of the Book Review, with this evocative illustration by Timo Lenzen.) Here’s how it opens, and why the format’s a bit different than in prior years:

When I made this list, I kept discovering ways in which these books were in conversation with one another. The protagonists of my two favorite mystery series debuts seemed like they could work well together, albeit warily. Several books explored the crimes of serial murderers and gave greater voice to those harmed.

Noir, particularly the American variety, still endures as a potent lens on contemporary society. And whether the tone is dark or light, crime fiction as a whole still has the power to move scores of readers.

The list, in alphabetical order:

• Danielle Arcenaux, GLORY BE (Pegasus Crime)

• Christopher Carlsson, BLAZE ME A SUN (Hogarth)

• S.A. Cosby, ALL THE SINNERS BLEED (Flatiron Books)

• Eli Cranor, OZARK DOGS (Soho Crime)

• Margot Douaihy, SCORCHED GRACE (Gillian Flynn Books)

• Jordan Harper, EVERYBODY KNOWS (Mulholland Books) 

• Ragnar Jonasson & Katrin Jakobsdottir, REYKJAVIK (Minotaur)

• Victoria Kielland, MY MEN (Astra House)

• Clemence Michallon, THE QUIET TENANT (Knopf)

• Richard Osman, THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE (Pamela Dorman Books)

I really think there is something for every possible mystery reader in this list, though of course it reflects my own tastes — noir, unforgettable new series characters, crime in translation, and “those Thursday Murder Club books”. But in last week’s holiday issue I also recommended even more crime novels, old and new, including a reissue (Death on the Down Beat by Sebastian Farr) that I simply could not resist because it combines mystery and classical music.

Are there glaring omissions on my best-of-list? Well, of course. I enjoyed a lot of the books on the Washington Post’s 10 Best Mysteries and Thrillers lists, as well as on Sarah Lyall’s Best Thrillers list. And then there’s what I semi-jokingly call the Shadow Docket, books written by friends: Prom Mom by Laura Lippman, Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott, Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochoda (all of which are on Oline Cogdill’s year-end list), Windfall by Wendy Corsi Staub, The Eden Test by Adam Sternbergh, I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai, Where Are the Children Now? by Mary Higgins Clark & Alafair Burke, and Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski (whose pub date is today!) I should add that at least 2-3 authors on my published best-of list will be joining the Shadow Docket, because this is what happens when one is also an author with an active social life.

As for nonfiction books, the true crime-y ones will be discussed in future Best Evidence newsletters, but my overall favorite was Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe, just masterly in form and function and style and provocation. And in non-crime fiction, I’ve been telling everyone for months to read Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante (translated from Italian by Jenny McPhee), 800 pages that I did not at all want to end and which remains one of the most glorious plane-reading experiences of my life. The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner, also recently reissued, is one of the best novels of the later 20th century, period. And my favorite contemporary literary novels were The Bee Sting by Paul Murray and The Biography of X by Catherine Lacey. But in truth, I just didn’t read a lot outside of crime narratives this year. It might change in 2024, but we’ll see.

**

Finally, it’s just eleven days until the fall concert for the choir that I belong to, Cecilia Chorus of New York, the culmination of what has occupied so much of my time this fall. We rehearsed the full program last night — Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem and the world premiere of Daron Hagen’s cantata Everyone, Everywhere, commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights — with several soloists and it’s going to be so good. The date is Saturday, December 16 at 8 PM at Carnegie Hall, and program and ticket details are available here.

Until next time, I remain,

The Crime Lady