{"id":6629,"date":"2017-05-18T07:25:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T11:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6629"},"modified":"2017-06-01T06:59:17","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T10:59:17","slug":"best-mystery-crime-and-thriller-fiction-may-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6629","title":{"rendered":"Best Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Fiction \u2013 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1970\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1970\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Urval_av_de_bocker_som_har_vunnit_Nordiska_radets_-e1495106578292.jpg?resize=300%2C200\" alt=\"books\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1970\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(photo: wikimedia.org)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Because reading a bad novel seems, well, criminal, we can thank Bill Ott at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.booklistreader.com\/2017\/05\/04\/books-and-authors\/the-years-best-crime-novels-2017\/\"><em>The Booklist Reader<\/em><\/a> for wading through the enormous output of crime, thriller, and mystery fiction to come up with his list of top books of the year, 5\/1\/16-4\/15\/17. He admits to ignoring some long-running series, in favor of bringing to light less familiar authors and work. So, from his list, in alphabetical order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>The Boy Who Escaped Paradise<\/em>, by J. M. Lee, translated by Chi-Young Kim \u2013 part of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=6445\">growing shelf<\/a> of fiction set in North Korea\u2014home base for alternative facts\u2014where the mechanisms of the state purposefully distort the lives, minds, and hearts of the people. Gil-mo has escaped, following an adventurous trail through several countries. Now he sits wounded in a New York City jail cell, while the authorities try to answer the question, is he a murderer and a terrorist or a mathematical genius?<\/li>\n<li><em>Celine<\/em>, by Peter Heller \u2013 Celine is nearly 70, a private investigator with an oxygen tank, who specializes in missing persons. A \u201ccaptivating, brainy, and funny tale\u201d full of suspense, it\u2019s set in the beautifully described Yosemite National Park. As in so many investigations, her quest is for more secrets than the fate of a nature photographer presumed killed by a grizzly.<\/li>\n<li><em>Dark Side of the Moon<\/em>, by Les Wood \u2013 Ott compares the zingy dialog of this novel about the theft of a diamond to that of Donald E. Westlake (author of the classic jewel-theft caper, <em>The Hot Rock<\/em>). It\u2019s told from the\u00a0 point of view of one of Glasgow\u2019s notorious crime lords. Wood honed his crime-writing skills concocting detection challenges as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefreelibrary.com\/CRIME+LAB%3B+NOVEL+APPROACH+HEIST+CAPER+GREW+OUT+OF+TEACHING+METHOD+Dr...-a0463941560\">teaching tool for his physiology students<\/a> at Glasgow Caledonia University.<\/li>\n<li><em>Darktown<\/em>, by Thomas Mullen \u2013 Set in post-World War II Atlanta, the story follows an unauthorized murder investigation by two newly hired black cops, at a time when \u201cone-quarter of Atlanta policemen were, in fact, members of the Ku Klux Klan,\u201d said Mullen in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2016\/09\/23\/495065415\/darktown-imagines-what-it-was-like-for-atlantas-first-black-policemen\">NPR interview<\/a>. They were supposed to patrol only the black neighborhoods, many of whose residents \u201csaw them as toothless sellouts.\u201d This story of men under pressure is already in line to become a television series.<\/li>\n<li><em>Let the Devil Out<\/em>, by Bill Loehfelm \u2013 \u201cThe most compelling, complex patrol cop in the genre\u201d is Loehfelm\u2019s New Orleans rookie Maureen Coughlin, on the trail of a white supremacist militia. This is Loehfelm\u2019s fourth book featuring his smart and strong protagonist, with the gritty, corrupt, fascinating city of New Orleans her frowzled co-star.<\/li>\n<li><em>Razor Girl<\/em>, by Carl Hiassen \u2013 another laugh-out-loud story displaying \u201cHiaasen\u2019s skewed view of a Florida slouching toward Armageddon.\u201d The super-cool Merry Mansfield may be a scammer, whose trade is phony auto accidents, but when she rear-ends the rental car of the agent to a TV reality star, a high-profile mess ensues, richly peopled with Florida characters, including disgraced detective Andrew Yancy, eager to redeem himself.<\/li>\n<li><em>Revolver<\/em>, by Duane Swierczynski \u2013 Set in 1965, 1995, and 2015, this three-generation crime story is a \u201cbleak, powerful tale of corruption,\u201d Ott says, and shows how long a family will persist in trying to resolve a tragic murder. <a href=\"http:\/\/crimespreemag.com\/duane-swierczynskis-revolver-reviewed\/\"><em>Crimespree Magazine<\/em><\/a> likens the book\u2019s style and its portrayal of the city of Philadelphia (\u201ca character unto itself\u201d) to the master, Dashiell Hammett.<\/li>\n<li><em>What We Become<\/em>, by Arturo P\u00e9rez-Reverte \u2013 In 1928, Max works ocean liners as a tango dancer with an eye for the ladies and their jewelry. P\u00e9rez-Reverte \u201cdrinks freely from many genres: historical epic, Hitchcockian thriller, and deliciously sexy love story,\u201d Ott says. His affair with the beautiful but married Mecha Inzunza flares, then fades. Eleven years later their paths across again in France, when Max becomes involved in a risky espionage and her husband away, fighting in Spain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Edgar Winners 2017<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Mystery Writers of America recently announced its 2017 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theedgars.com\/nominees.html\">Edgar winners<\/a>. As last year, none of the nominees for \u201cbest novel\u201d were in Ott\u2019s list, which to me is evidence of the quantity of good writing out there. Awarded an Edgar for \u201cbest novel\u201d was <em>Before the Fall<\/em> by Noah Hawley and for \u201cbest first novel\u201d was <em>Under the Harrow<\/em> by Flynn Berry. Two other truly excellent novels in the latter category, reviewed here, were <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=5541\">Dodgers<\/a><\/em> by Bill Beverly and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=5312\">The Drifter<\/a><\/em> by Nicholas Petrie.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Be sure to check out the &#8220;Book Reviews . . .&#8221; tab above to find more in the crime\/mystery\/thriller genre.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because reading a bad novel seems, well, criminal, we can thank Bill Ott at The Booklist Reader for wading through the enormous output of crime, thriller, and mystery fiction to come up with his list of top books of the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6629\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Best Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Fiction \u2013 May 2017","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,40,3,126,32],"tags":[1023,991,1020,1024,1021,1022,1025,1027,1016,1018,1028,1026,1017,1019],"class_list":["post-6629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-fiction","category-mystery","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-arturo-perez-reverte","tag-bill-beverly","tag-bill-loehfelm","tag-bill-ott","tag-carl-hiassen","tag-duane-swierczynski","tag-edgar-awards","tag-flynn-berry","tag-j-m-lee","tag-les-wood","tag-nicholas-petrie","tag-noah-hawley","tag-peter-heller","tag-thomas-mullen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1IV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6629"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6670,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629\/revisions\/6670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}