Episodes

In Augustus Rose’s debut crime fiction novel, The Readymade Thief, it’s 17-year-old Lee Cuddy against secret societies, conspiracies, stolen artwork, an underground city-within-a-city, physics, chemistry, a jailhouse breakout—and Marcel Duchamp

Van Shaw, the protagonist of Every Day Above Ground by Glen Erik Hamilton, is conflicted. He has the perfect skillset—as well as the family tradition—for being a successful career criminal. But Van is just not sure breaking the law for a living is right for him… Right now, though, Van doesn’t have the time... Read more »

Helena, the protagonist of The Marsh King’s Daughter, Karen Dionne’s recently published suspense novel, is the daughter of a brutal sociopath and the woman he kidnapped and raped. And the story just gets darker from there Photo of Karen Dionne ©Robert Bruce Photography

In The Templars’ Last Secret, Martin Walker’s new Bruno, Chief of Police mystery, even the fictional village of St. Denis can’t escape from the tension of living in France today

In The Force, the new crime fiction novel by Don Winslow, Detective Sergeant Danny Malone thinks he can beat The System and be a good cop, in spite of the fact he occasionally—well maybe more than occasionally—does bad things

Everyone is playing an angle in Beach Lawyer, Avery Duff’s debut novel that explores the dark side of sunny Santa Monica

Anna Winger, the narrator of Lori Rader-Day’s The Day I Died, has spent the past thirteen years running away from a past that continues to haunt her Photo of Lori Rader-Day ©Iden Ford Photography

In Dangerous Ends, Alex Segura’s third Pete Fernandez mystery novel, Pete’s new case—investigating the purported innocence of a former Miami police detective serving time for murdering his wife—collides with events in Pete’s family’s past as Cuban emigres in Miami

Investigative reporter Rebekah Roberts is back in Conviction, Julia Dahl’s third crime fiction novel. Like the previous two novels, the story is set in Brooklyn, this time toggling between the past—when the borough was not as salubrious as it is now—and the present Photo of Julia Dahl ©Chasi Annexy

When asked about inscribing a copy of Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted, Les Klinger, co-editor of the anthology along with Laura Caldwell, said he wrote, “Prepare to have your heart broken.” The story of each wrongfully convicted man and woman is powerful; and in the hands of fifteen high-profile crime fiction authors, powerfully told... Read more »

Up until the time of the car accident that killed her co-worker, self-help book author Bryn Harper—the protagonist of The Secrets You Keep, Kate White’s new domestic suspense thriller—had been described as a force of nature. Now, as she recovers in Saratoga, New York, Bryn finds herself plagued by nightmares and suffering from exhaustion. And... Read more »

In Rhys Bowen’s new stand-alone novel, In Farleigh Field, it’s the summer of 1941, and even though almost everyone, including aristocratic debutantes, are giving it their all, the war is not going well for the people of England. Traitors are moving among the estates of the titled, parachutists who are German spies dressed as English infantrymen... Read more »

There is violence, brutality and deep humanity in David Joy’s The Weight of This World, a story about a friendship between two young men as they try to outrace the trauma, neglect, pain and futility each has suffered Photo of David Joy ©Ashley T. Evans

What happens to a police officer who mistakenly shoots an unarmed man of color? That question and more is examined in Suzanne Chazin’s timely mystery No Witness But the Moon, when her protagonist Detective Jimmy Vega responds to a call of “shots fired” at the home of a wealthy Mexican musician

In Cruel Mercy, David Mark’s new crime fiction novel, Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy, a Scot by birth, married to an Irish Traveler—a gypsy to Americans—who investigates murder in Yorkshire, is sent to New York City to get to the bottom of the disappearance of two Irishmen. Finding them could be a matter of life or... Read more »

There’s an imposter posing as a covert agent in the CIA’s Paris office, but that’s the least of the Agency’s problems in The Prometheus Man, Scott Reardon’s debut thriller about the human repercussions of a rogue experiment to create the perfect warrior

When Private Investigator Fina Ludlow begins a job she never really knows where a case will lead and what sort of secrets will be revealed. In Ingrid Thoft’s fourth crime fiction novel, Brutality, Fina looks into a growing evangelical church as well as a more personal investigation—into her own brother, Rand Photo of Ingrid... Read more »

The murder that the retired Scotland Yard Inspector John Madden has been asked to re-examine to see if the wrong man may have been hanged for it in Rennie Airth’s The Death of Kings may have occurred in an English country home, but this is no Agatha Christie-esque tale

Meet John Penley, homicide detective in the Sacramento, CA police department: In At What Cost, James L’Etoile’s debut mystery, Penley is doing the best he can to balance an investigation into a series of particularly gruesome murders with the tension of waiting for a suitable donor for his young son who needs a kidney

At the heart of Say No More, Hank Phillippi Ryan’s new crime fiction novel featuring TV investigative reporter Jane Ryland, is the question: Even though it may be the right thing to do, is speaking up always a good idea? Les Klinger and Nancie Clare also talk to Hank about “The Adventure of the... Read more »

Isiah Quintabe, the protagonist in IQ, Joe Ide’s debut crime fiction novel, is a young man with Sherlockian skills from East Long Beach. The perfect man to find out who’s trying to kill Calvin Wright, the rapper known as “Black the Knife”

Harry may be carrying a brand new badge in Michael Connelly’s new novel, The Wrong Side of Goodbye, but he brings the same Bosch intensity to the tasks at hand As Harry Bosch fans know, there’s more Bosch to consume. Michael also talks about Bosch on Amazon, the third season of which is just about... Read more »

A crossroad can be perilous, as Diana Poole, the protagonist in Hold a Scorpion, the second in the series from Melodie Johnson Howe, discovers

In her review in The New Yorker of The Trespasser—Tana French’s new Dublin Murder Squad novel—Laura Miller got it dead right: “Most crime fiction is diverting; French’s is consuming.”* Photo of Tana French ©Kathrin Baumbach * “Tana French’s Intimate Crime Fiction,” Laura Miller. The New Yorker, October 3, 2016