The Force
Written by Don Winslow, narrated by Dion Graham — For a while yet, every gritty, noir cop story set in urban America will be compared to the television series The Wire in terms of realism, character development, and sheer storytelling power. So the audiobook of…
Sirens
Written by Joseph Knox — Disgraced Detective Constable Aidan Waits has been caught stealing drugs and publicly humiliated. His boss, Superintendent Parrs, is an uncompromising Scot with ambiguous motivations who takes the opportunity to make Waits an offer he simply can’t refuse. He can go to…
NTN: Cambodia Noir
Written by Nick Seeley — This year has seen the rise of some impressive new stars in crime fiction, authors whose novels are set in far-flung European locales, Scandinavian landscapes, and urban America. Perhaps none is more stellar than Nick Seeley whose debut novel, Cambodia Noir, is set in…
Darktown by Thomas Mullen
So many countries are divided on the issues of race and identity at the moment that Thomas Mullen’s latest novel is born into a world of vitriol. Set in Atlanta in 1948, and written in tribute to the city’s first black policemen who joined the…
The Far Empty
If it was down to cover alone, J Todd Scott’s effort might just end up as book of the year. But it’s what’s inside that really matters and The Far Empty is set in the outlaw country just inside Texas on the Mexican border. The…
The Far Empty by J Todd Scott
It’s hard to believe this well-crafted crime thriller is a debut novel. The author’s experience as a DEA agent lends authority to his prose, and his meticulous rendering of the Big Bend country south and east of El Paso, Texas, and its fictional town, Murfee,…
Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama
Translated by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies — The main attraction of a police procedural is the opportunity for readers to watch the characters develop over a series of short, complex novels – Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels, for example, or Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Martin Beck series. Both offer…