South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Critic’s pick: Year’s best mystery books
The year’s best mystery books
During this pandemic, many of us took comfort in books. According to several industry figures, reading was up at least 5 to 20 percent. And this was a stellar year for mysteries — stories that touched us, that captured who we are as a society and what our future might be.
Although the pandemic put a halt to in-person book tours, many authors, publishers, bookstores and others found that virtual tours could bring together far-flung readers. I recently moderated a virtual event sponsored by Politics and Prose, a bookstore in Washington, D.C., that featured Michael Connelly in Los Angeles and Jo Nesbø in Norway. Nearly 1,000 people attended from throughout the world. These virtual tours have become so successful they likely will continue after the pandemic — maybe even as a hybrid of in-person and virtual events to draw in more readers and save travel costs.
Here are my picks for the top mysteries of 2020. Stay safe, and happy reading.
1. “Blacktop Wasteland” by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron): A young family man has worked hard to create a normal life, but money problems entice him to take a potentially lucrative job as a getaway driver in a jewelry heist. The noir story brilliantly looks at race, responsibility, parenthood and identity via pin-perfect characters with realistic motives.
2. “And Now She’s Gone” by Rachel Howzell Hall (Forge): A perceptive look at domestic abuse, sexism, racism and identity under the guise of a private eye novel and a domestic drama that emphasizes character studies.
3. “These Women” by Ivy Pochoda (Ecco): Loneliness, courage and the strength to go on swirl through the lives of these characters who live on the margins in South Central Los Angeles. Pochoda compassionately finds beauty in the gritty side, hope where others see limited options.
4. “A Beautiful Crime” by Christopher Bollen (Harper): Two con men forge their romance while targeting an uber-wealthy ex-pat American in Venice.
5. “The Mountains Wild” by Sarah Stewart Taylor (Minotaur): From Long Island to Ireland, a homicide detective tries to find out who murdered her sister whose remains have just been found in Dublin
after 23 years.
6. “Little Secrets” by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur): The kidnapping of a 4-year-old from a busy Seattle market delivers a look at debilitating grief, obsession and betrayal as a family falls apart following the crime.
7. “The Law of Innocence” by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown): Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller must defend his most important client — himself — while in jail accused of murder. 2020 was a double hitter for Connelly fans, with “Fair Warning” about journalist Jack McEvoy published in May.
8. “Confessions on the 7:45” by Lisa Unger (Park Row): An encounter with a stranger on a train leads a woman to a vortex of pain in this gripping story about marriage, parenting, families and revenge.
9. “The Kingdom” by Jo Nesbø (Knopf ): A sprawling epic about two brothers united by a dark secret in Norway.
10. “A Song for the Dark Times” by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown): Retired Edinburgh Inspector John Rebus, suffering from COPD and other ailments, faces his regrets as a father when his daughter needs his help because her partner disappeared. Without a badge, Rebus has no official standing in the investigation in a remote part of northern Scotland. A prophetic title if ever there was one.
11. “Pretty as a Picture” by Elizabeth Little (Viking): A prickly, socially inept film editor travels to a remote island off Delaware’s coast to work for an egotistical director filming a secretive movie about the unsolved murder of a popular local teenager. A dangerous film set, unexplained accidents and the islanders’ ire over the project raise the suspense.
12. “Never Ask Me” by Jeff Abbott (Grand Central): Secrets in an affluent Austin neighborhood are exposed when a woman who helped couples seeking international adoptions is murdered.
13. “We Are All the Same in the Dark” by Julia Heaberlin (Ballantine Books): A young Texas cop delves into the 10-year disappearance of a popular cheerleader.
14. “They’re Gone” by E.A. Barres (Crooked Lane): Two women strangers whose husbands were killed on the same night maneuver a morass of danger, grief and inner resolve.
15. (tie) “Squeeze Me” by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf ): Does Hiaasen write fiction or documentaries? Whatever, he knows how to use humor to lambaste politics, society and South Florida.
15. (tie) “The Sun Down Motel” by Simone St. James (Berkley): A nondescript motel is more foreboding than the Bates Hotel, and makes the Overlook seem like a resort in this mixture of mystery and horror.
Best debuts
In alphabetical order
”No Bad Deed” by Heather Chavez
(Morrow): A smart veterinarian tries to figure out how her quiet, well-organized life that is full of good deeds could spin out of control so quickly.
”The Safe Place” by Anna Downes (Minotaur): A beautiful, remote mansion in the French countryside and a job soon turn creepy for a naïve young woman.
”The Eighth Detective” by Alex Pavesi (Henry Holt): It’s all about the numbers as a book editor focuses on reprinting a decades-old story collection that tried to give a mathematical definition of a mystery.
”Winter Counts” by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Ecco): A provocative look at culture, history and bigotry as Virgil Wounded Horse is hired to stop the heroin drug trade that infiltrated South Dakota’s Rosebud Indian Reservation.
”Darling Rose Gold” by Stephanie Wrobel (Berkley): A fresh update of the phenomenon Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, in which a parent purposely makes a child ill to gain sympathy and attention.
Short stories and essays
”Tampa Bay Noir” edited by Colette Bancroft and ”Miami Noir: The Classics” edited by Les Standiford, both with various authors (Akashic): Two lively collections showcase Florida’s landscape and characters.
”The Traveller and Other Stories” by Stuart Neville with a foreword by John Connolly (Soho Crime): Twelve stories meld mystery, speculative fiction and horror against the background of Northern Ireland.
”My Life as a Villainess: Essays” by Laura Lippman ( Morrow): In these 15 essays, Lippman turns the lens on herself with deeply personal, often self-deprecating tales about the writing life, child care, dieting, motherhood, friendship and marriage.