Here she offers up Marin, a woman with a happy family and a thriving business, but whose life soon comes apart when her son is taken.
Hillier has made her reputation with striking portraits of the monsters hiding in plain sight and in all of us, and Little Secrets is no exception. Foley became a mystery reader’s household name with last year’s The Hunting Party, and The Guest List presents the same delightful combination of mystery, suspense, and thriller that’s helped Foley and other rising stars revive the traditional mystery’s charms for a modern audience. Despite the destination wedding’s exclusive guest list, everyone’s got their secrets, and everyone’s come bearing not only gifts, but grudges. Reading Lucy Foley’s The Guest List was one of the highlights of quarantine-a perfect escape read set on an island with few escapes, as a wedding at a remote Irish manor begins with faux pas and then escalates to a bloodbath. Nugent ties the family’s favoritism and scapegoating into her wider critique of late-20th-century Irish mores, as she continues to explore the last 40 years of Irish history through the lens of the supposedly well-behaved, fascinated by the tension between upstanding citizenry and their own deepest, darkest secrets. As the siblings grow to adulthood, their childhood squabbles turn darker and more dangerous, and as the book begins, we learn one of them is dead. In her latest, three siblings born in 1980s Ireland are pitted against each other by their cruel and competitive mother and indifferent father. The title may be “Little Cruelties” but the sins of Nugent’s characters are vast. These Women is ambitious, accomplished crime fiction. The looming violence unites them, but so does the city itself, as Pochoda brings out a community discovering itself under the most trying circumstances.
Each segment of the novel is a detailed, emotionally-charged snapshot of a life in peril, though most of the women have little idea what kind of danger they’re really in.
Rather than focusing on the killer or the investigation into his crimes, Pochoda takes on a shifting, lyrical perspective that presents the lives of the neighborhood’s women in their full nuance and richness. Pochoda’s These Women is a captivating portrait of a changing neighborhood in South L.A., a place where insidious social forces are at play but there’s also a dangerous individual threat, a largely unseen man targeting local women. –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief Dread and excitement combine to create a unique sense of atmosphere, one that will keep readers pushing ahead toward a genuinely powerful conclusion. Cosby writes beautifully of the sensations and memories that drive Bug through the night and down the empty roads toward his old life. When an old colleague comes calling with a new proposal, the two identities begin to merge anew, and Bug goes back behind the wheel.
He’s also the seemingly retired getaway driver known across the southeastern of the US as the best man to get you clear of a crime. Beauregard “Bug” Montage is a family man and a pillar of the community. It’s a soaring, deeply felt, deeply propulsive tale written by an author coming into his full powers. Here are our choices for 2020’s best crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers.Ĭosby’s Blacktop Wasteland is the year’s most celebrated crime novel, and with good reason. Thanks to the authors for inspiring us and for keeping us reading. Through a turbulent, tragic year, these books gave readers something to be consumed and captivated by. There were breakout performances from writers on the rise and standout novels from authors with decades of work under their belts.
It was a year for revisionist readings of classic forms and for spotlights on underrepresented corners of society and of the crime fiction world itself. The year may not have given us much to celebrate, but we can grateful at least for a banner crop of crime novels, books that gave us insight and entertainment, nuanced narratives and chills running down our spines.