My Favorite Books Published in 2024

My Favorite Books Published in 2024     There was a time not so long ago when I read enough new mystery and crime releases that I would have felt more comfortable (although not that comfortable) putting together a “best of the year” listing, but 2024 hasn’t been that kind of year. I have read a bunch of books published this year—I’ve even reviewed many of them here at the blog and at Mystery Scene’s website, which like the magazine is now gone—but my survey of the genre hasn‘t been broad enough to declaratively state what I think of as the best. So—instead of championing the following five titles as the best of the genre, these are my favorite of the books (of those I’ve read) published this year. As has been the case since 2016—when I took over as Mystery Scene’s short story critic—about two-thirds of my intake this year were story anthologies and collections. And this list reflects that disparity. So, without precedence, here are my favorite mystery and crime fiction books published in 2024:
HERO, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press / Jan. 16). This action-packed thriller from the author of The Old Man is everything I like about thrillers: fast, complicated without being busy, and a rush of pure adrenaline. In my review I called Hero “a shotgun blast from the first page to the last.” Read the review here. Check out Hero here at Amazon.
THE STARK HOUSE ANTHOLOGY, edited by Rick Ollerman & Gregory Shepard (Stark House / June 3). A big and ambitious celebration of Stark House’s silver jubilee, this anthology has 30 tales from mid-century to today. There are brilliant stories by Jada M. Davis—a short novel, really—Charles Runyon, Orrie Hitt, Dan J. Marlowe, Ed Gorman, Fredric Brown, Wade Miller, and—so many more. In my review, I called The Stark Anthology, “close to a perfect hardboiled story collection…” Read the review here. Check out The Stark House Anthology here at Amazon.
SAFE ENOUGH AND OTHER STORIES, by Lee Child (Mysterious Press / Sep. 3). If you’ve only read Child’s Jack Reacher series, many of these 20 standalone tales may surprise you. They showcase Child’s ability as a writer—sharp plotting, expert pacing, and subtle irony—without tying him down to the expectations of a series character. As I wrote in my review of Safe Enough, “[it] reads easy” and “there is nary a dud in the pack.” Read the review here. Check out Safe Enough and Other Stories here at Amazon.
CHRISTMAS CRIMES AT THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP, edited by Otto Penzler (Mysterious Press / Oct. 22). The twelve stories here are a catalogue of good short fiction by some of the genre’s best writers. Every tale has a scene or two in New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop and every single one is exciting, well-written, good-natured (aka nothing dark) and every story is different from every other story. About those writers—they include, Lyndsay Faye, Ace Atkins, Rob Hart, Jeffrey Deaver, Thomas Perry, and a bunch of others just as good. Read the review here. Check out Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop here at Amazon.
FLINT KILL CREEK: STORIES OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE, by Joyce Caro Oates (Mysterious Press / Nov. 5). This twelve-story collection is a dark ride into the underbelly of what it is to be human. The tales are dark, at times grotesque without ever being unbearable, and written with a power of language that allows them to live in the mind of the reader long after the pages have been turned. And here is my favorite line from the review I wrote for Flint Kill Creek: “It should appeal to fans of Joyce Carol Oates and anyone else with a humanist bent and an eye for the phantasm of gothic hallucinatory realism.” Read the review here. Check out Flint Kill Creek here at Amazon.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Man in the Water, by David Housewright (Minotaur Books / June 25); An Honorable Assassin, by Steve Hamilton (Blackstone / Aug. 27); Against the Grain, by Peter Lovesey (Soho Crime / Dec. 3).

Booked (and Printed): August 2024

 

Booked (and Printed) August 2024 While August’s temps were too hot, the days were noticeably shorter than those at summer’s height and a few even showed the promise of autumn. Heck, here and there leaves are shimmering red and gold. My reading volume was normal for August, but my eyes were sore all month and so much of my reading happened on Kindle to allow me to adjust the font size to “super old guy with angry peepers.” I read five books—two story collections, two novels, and a single nonfiction true crime—along with two individual short stories. You’ll notice, however, I’m only going to talk about one of those shorts because I don’t remember a thing about the other, besides the author’s name, and the magazine where I read it: a late-1980s Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (EQMM). Well, that issue went missing in what I think of as “The Case of the Missing EQMM” and it’s a true mystery because I’ve been looking for it for three weeks. Now, I’m wondering if a rascally poltergeist is playing tricks. But alas…onto that solitary story I wrote in my ledger and remember well. “THE SPY CAME D.O.A.,” by W. L. Fieldhouse, is a solid whodunit featuring Army CID investigator, Major Clifford Lansing, printed in the Feb. 1979 issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. When Lansing is called into investigate the murder of a colleague working undercover on a narcotics investigation in Nuremburg, Germany, he discovers a long line of criminality and treachery. Fieldhouse does an excellent job of shuffling suspects across the page and mixing action scenes into the narrative to keep things interesting. I guessed the culprit earlier than I should have, but that didn’t bother me a whit.

As for the books. Four of them are new—published in 2024—and the fifth is an old favorite. TIEBRAKER, by Jack M. Bickham (1989), is my version of comfort reading. It’s Bickham’s first mystery featuring aging professional tennis player and part-time spy, Brad Smith. In this one, Smith is sent to Yugoslavia to cover a new tournament, the Belgrade Open, for a tennis magazine. But his real assignment is to help the young tennis phenom, Danisa Lechova, defect to the United States. Tiebraker is a wild ride with a marvelous Cold War-era Eastern Bloc setting, a bunch of action, romance, and a brilliant dosing of tennis. I’ve read it five times (maybe more) and I’m sure I’ll read it again. You can read an old review I wrote for Tiebreaker here. Steve Hamilton’s AN HONORABLE ASSASSIN (2024), is a thriller that reads so fast it is easy to ignore the implausibility of the plot. It is Hamilton’s first solo job since 2018 and his first Nick Mason novel—there are three so far—since 2017. It should appeal to anyone who likes an adrenalin-rich and low-calorie thriller. Check out my full review of An Honorable Assassin here. LONG HAUL: HUNTING THE HIGHWAY SERIAL KILLERS, by Frank Figliuzzi (2024), is a scary but fascinating look at serial killers working America’s highways. It is centered around the FBI’s Highway Serial Killings initiative, which identifies and tracks these murders. After reading it, I’ll never look at truck stops with same innocence as I once did. My full review of Long Haul is here. Lee Child’s SAFE ENOUGH AND OTHER STORIES (2024), is a collection of 20 standalone tales without Jack Reacher anywhere in sight. The stories are thoughtful, exciting, mysterious, and…good! Check out my review of Safe Enough here. The final collection (and book) of the month, HERETIC 2: MORE STORIES, by Philip José Farmer (2024), is a cool collection of three of Farmer’s early stories—one novella and two shorts—from the 1950s. They, like pretty much everything Farmer wrote, question authority and religion in an entertaining and thought-provoking manner. I’ll have more to say about this one in the next few weeks. Last, and I suppose least, is Robert Littell’s A NASTY PIECE OF WORK (2013), because I gave up the fight a little more than halfway to the finish. I’ve enjoyed Littell’s spy fiction, including his extraordinary novel about the CIA, The Company (2002), but what appealed to me most about A Nasty Piece of Work—its P.I. status and New Mexico setting—wasn’t enough to overcome the longwinded narrative, including pages-long descriptions of women’s ankles and feet. I couldn’t pin down when the novel took place, either. It felt like it was written in the late-1980s—no cell phones, descriptions of an Afghanistan that seemed more Soviet Union-era than post-9/11—and then half-heartedly updated to give it a 21st Century feel. It didn’t work. On any level. Fin— Now on to next month…

Review: "Safe Enough and Other Stories" by Lee Child

 

Safe Enough and Other Stories by Lee Child Mysterious Press, 2024   Lee Child is best known as the creator of Jack Reacher, which makes sense because estimates place the number of books sold north of 200-million. This, along with a couple big budget Hollywood movies and a hit television series, have made Reacher a pop-culture icon. But—and many of you will disagree with me here—my favorite of Lee Child’s writing are his standalone short stories. I like them because they showcase Child’s craft, the precise plotting, and the subtle and ironic humor without the built-in expectations of a series character. All of this is why Child’s new collection, Safe Enough and Other Stories, featuring 20 of his standalone tales, made me happy when it crossed my desk. The stories, published between 2004 and 2020, are easily categorized as mystery and thriller and there is nary a dud in the pack. “The Greatest Trick of All” is a wicked-ironic take on an altogether too greedy hitman. The titular, “Safe Enough,” is a smashing story about murder and betrayal, but it ranges far from the expected and it left this reader with a smile. “The .50 Solution” is another hitman job but this time the surprise is—well, it’s better left unsaid, but it is a surprising, if somewhat violent, solution. “Me and Mr. Rafferty” is a cockeyed serial killer tale about the symbiotic relationship between detective and deviant. “Addicted to Sweetness” is about drugs and murder and, ultimately, just rewards (of a sort). “My First Drug Trial” is a clever take on marijuana use and laws in the United States. It felt just about right, too, with the added benefit of being fun. “New Blank Document,” which is the most serious story in the collection, is about racism and secrets. And my favorite story, “Normal in Every Way,” is about a brilliant but awkward policeman relegated to file clerk duty in the San Francisco of the 1950s. He was the police department’s database before everything was moved into the ether, but did he get any of the credit? Safe Enough and Other Stories is the kind of collection that reads easy. Most readers will devour its stories in a few sittings and enjoy every second of it, but don’t take my word—read it yourself.

Click here to purchase the Kindle edition or here for the hardcover at Amazon.