As is the custom on our site, at the end of the year each of our writers brings you their personal favourites. I’m going first, and as I look back on 2024 it’s been another spicy year for crime fiction lover fans, with top quality and excellent variety across the genre. My list covers political shenanigans and corruption, pulse racing action and shady financial deals, not to mention murder and a clever comic legal adventure too. Cops are no longer what stereotypical tormented, boozy, middle-aged burnouts, as the two police procedurals here illustrate. And we love character but setting is always important in a crime story – Iceland, Monaco, London, Edinburgh and Newcastle all feature here.
5 – Murder Under the Midnight Sun by Stella Blómkvist
High-profile Reykjavik lawyer Stella loves challenging authority. She knows what she wants, loves whiskey and has a propensity to find cases that rub nasty people up the wrong way. Hired by a Scottish businessman to find his niece, Julia, who went missing touring Iceland 10 years before, Stella soon knows the police messed up the investigation. At the same time a journalist friend digs up dirt on a leading politician, but as he’s about to publish his source meets a grizzly end. Stella can’t resist that one. The first person narrative makes us privy to Stella’s thoughts and her wry acerbic wit. As champion for the little guy, she is a powerhouse in action. Translated by Quentin Bates, this complex story becomes a page-turner thanks to the vibrant energy of the prose and the black humour works beautifully for British and American readers. This book has pace and drive and passion and when it comes to social issues, a quiet anger at injustice, inequality and the abuse of power.
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4 – The Silent Killer by Trevor Wood
Trevor Wood’s opener for a new series featuring DCI Jack Parker is a sobering but deeply rewarding read. Following a car crash Jack finds out he has early onset Alzheimer’s. It’s a devastating blow for the murder detective and it’s news he isn’t planning on sharing. Meanwhile he has to catch a killer hellbent on revenge against the people he blames for ruining his life.
There are some poignant and thought provoking moments in a novel that addresses an issue we’re all connected to in one way or another – dementia. We are with Jack as he deals with what he faces, masking the signs of the disease and fearing every burst of anger it causes. Eye on the prize, there’s a killer to catch and that side of the novel is gripping too. Newcastle is as alive here as it was in Wood’s Jimmy Mullen series. Ultimately, if you portray someone with Alzheimer’s you need to do it respectfully and sensitively; at times this is heartbreaking but there’s plenty of thrills, spicy relationships and funny moments to enjoy too. The best crime novels are relevant and this is.
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3 – Bay of Thieves by Megan Davis
There’s wealth and then there’s the Cote d’Azur – a playground of the filthy rich; grand villas, helicopters and yachts. All owned by the kind of people who are bleeding the world’s financial systems dry accumulating fortunes. These are the kinds of clients, mostly eastern European oligarchs, that Meritus specialises in finding creative ways of laundering money for. Vanessa and Kate both work for Meritus, one steeped in the system but troubled by it, the other new to the game and slowly being lured to the dark side. How far are they prepared to go for their clients? A woman is brutally killed, her body left on the beach in front of Meritus’s top client Amir Federovich’s villa, but how did it come to this? Experiencing how the two women deal with the moral issues is fascinating. Financial thrillers with real depth are rare and so this is a joy. This asks questions about how far people are prepared to go for money and how they wind up getting involved in this kind of corruption. Davis’s portrait of the world of finance so plausible and the characters Vanessa and Kate are really intriguing portraits of women caught up in a moral vacuum.
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2 – The Last Days of Johnny Nunn by Nick Triplow
This is the second book featuring detective Max Lomax of the Met Police’s Special Operations Unit, which deals with big cases involving corruption and a rich blend of police procedural and political thriller in a classic London setting awaits. It’s almost like walking down those mean streets of 2011 London in the run up to the Olympics. The Jamaica Docks development is worth billions and the city is changing whether the locals want it or not. Campaigner Fraser Neal, a voice for the community, stands up to the government, the council, developers and the backroom players behind the scheme. Then he is murdered and that ties up with Max’s investigation into the dodgy investors and dirty money behind Jamaica Docks. Johnny Nunn, former boxer, living on the streets, has his own story. He’s beat-up and worn out after five years searching for his missing daughter, 15-year-old Bethany. Johnny could prove to be the key to Max’s investigation, but getting to the truth will be tough. Max is honest and puts himself out there for the truth. Triplow’s masterly biography of Ted Lewis, Getting Carter, was an indication that his return to fiction would be a noir novel, and this nails the Brit grit spirit. The conspiracy hangs over the story like a pall but tortured Johnny Nunn is such an empathetic character we can sense his weariness and his pain and that creates an emotional kick as the story progresses.
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1 – The Bells of Westminster by Leonora Nattrass
Chosen for the sheer delight of reading this novel. Leonora Nattrass became an instant historical fiction favourite with Laurence Jago, with espionage, politics and murder set in the 1790s. These are literary tales with a light touch, which she has retained in this new pure crime adventure, set two decades earlier in 1774 in Westminster Abbey and it’s so engaging. Miss Susan Bell is the daughter of the Dean of the Abbey. She has grown up within its rather dull confines. So when a party of scientists turn up to investigate the tomb of Edward I she is intrigued, even more so when one of them is murdered. The Georgian strictures that determined how a woman should behave, a role defined by society for her sex, are clever noted and used in the narrative. Susan’s story cheers us as she is brave and forthright and butting up against these strictures. The murder investigation has classic Golden Age charm, and as ever Nattrass weaves in an authentic historical mystery. It’s playful and engaging as we witness early academic archaeological investigations juxtaposed with crime. What’s most enjoyable about this novel is the easy way Nattrass has of portraying the past in all its complexity, the differences in culture and thinking, the mindset of men of science, something that comes from deep research and empathy. Susan is a memorable character and a match for any man. One of the books of 2024 I will look back on most fondly.
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