Modern Day Greats

Some great crime novels from the last twenty years or so.

I spend most of my time thinking about, reading, and writing about old crime fiction. It’s what I’m most interested in, what I know the best, where my enthusiasm lies. Chandler, Ross Macdonald, John D MacDonald, the 90s Spensers and Scudders and Rawlins and Milhone books I remember grabbing from the library, are all very present to me.

I read modern crime fiction, too, but writing about it is a bit of a minefield.

For one, I don’t like every book. And since any negative comment might be read by the author—or more likely, gleefully shared with them by a ‘friend’ in order to ruin their day—why spread misery?

There’s also the issue of personal relationships. If I rave about a book, the reader might think I’m pals with the author. And I might be. Or that I’m cultivating them for some quid pro quo down the line, which wouldn’t be true (but should be, I’m just very bad at that sort of thing.)

It’s harder to appraise modern crime fiction because I bring my own shit to the process. I might have opinions about their online personalities, or overheard rumors about their in-person behavior, or their agent’s maneuvers, or the marketing, etc. etc.

The final reason is because not writing about someone, the act of choosing, also creates headaches. Why didn’t I include this other writer? Be honest, be positive, be constructive, be entertaining—reviewing becomes a lot like Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, in that you’re in shit however you do it.

With all these caveats in mind, here are ten books from the last twenty years which won’t ruin your day.

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Year of the Dog (and any book in the Jack Yu series) by Henry Chang

To quote Ron Rosenbaum’s review in Slate: “Chang owned a world I’d lived a few blocks from for years but had known really nothing about, and he makes the subtle distinctions among its inhabitants utterly riveting. He paints, in miniature, a harsh world of neon and shadows but doesn’t slight the Big Questions.” The Yu books are vibrant, punchy novels with great characters and, in the case of Year of the Dog, twists and ideas I’d never seen before in crime fiction.

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

Darren Matthews, a Black Texas Ranger, is a great protagonist, and the smalltown murder mystery he’s called to solve is gripping. The second Matthews book, Heaven My Home, is also good, but I think Bluebird is the best. The tensions in the town, the details of food and music and relationships, are note perfect.

Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

Made into the film The Town, which tacked on a chickenshit happy ending and destroyed the Gen X Friends of Eddie Coyle vibe of the book. Hogan’s novel is miles better: the heist scenes are inspired, especially the One Last Score. I’m not familiar with his science fiction novels coauthored with Guillermo del Toro, but I will be picking up Hogan’s new historical crime novel Gangland soon.

Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish

You might argue this is not a crime novel, but it does everything that old noir used to do—show two desperate people on the margins of society, how they live and what they do for cash, and how they’re brought together to either flourish or destroy each other or both.

Carly told me yesterday, “No one really writes about jobs anymore,” something Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford did so well. Preparation is as close as we can get.

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips

A mother and child trapped at the zoo during a shooting, cordoned off by the police who don’t know they’re inside. Fierce Kingdom is a superior thriller with none of the upper-middle-class ‘Actually I’m Not Just a Rich Society Wife But Also a Super Genius With Super Important Secrets’ thrillery junk. The Road writ small-scale, with echoes of Richard Stark’s Slayground, and a terrific lack of sympathy for the shooters.

Property Values by Charles Demers

A group of friends fake a rash of gang violence in their neighborhood to drive down real estate prices so they can actually afford to live there. A great premise, and uproariously funny, and the crime elements are employed deftly. By focusing on the housing crisis and including the suburbs, Demers brings something new to the genre.

All Things Violent by Nikki Dolson

A woman with a past apprentices to become a professional assassin, torn between the man training her and her boss. The Vegas setting, the relationship between Laura, Frank, and Simon, the series of violent vignettes leading up to Laura’s ultimate decision—gripping, thoughtful, character-driven, and expertly paced.

Where it Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman

Gus Murphy is a former cop whose son died, not violently, just one of those things. An existential hero who’s given up, who buys all his clothes at Costco, who isn’t after redemption or revenge because those things don’t matter, but who tries to fill his days usefully—Coleman is a widely celebrated writer who’s also somehow underrated, and this is some of his best work.

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby

An excellent heist-gone-wrong story with a complex wheel man at its center. I remembered the controversy over the cover being featured on Booklist’s “Spotlight on Crime Fiction” issue. A lot of readers had simply never seen a Black person on the cover of a crime novel, and reacted to this. That shows how Blacktop has changed how people think about crime fiction—who writes it and what it can be about. Cosby is also a great short story writer—check out “Sugar,” published in Tough.

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

The characters in this are well-wrought, and the ‘perfect crime’ has a mathematical precision—fitting because the sleuth is a physics professor nicknamed ‘Detective Galileo.’ A great doomed romance and a plot worthy of Agatha Christie.

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I could just as easily have written about another ten—SG Wong, Nick Kolakowksi, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Rob Pierce, Dwyer Murphy, Tracy Clark, JT Siemens, Amber Ritchie, Naomi Hirahara, and Thomas King, off the top of my head. Contemporary crime fiction is vast and amazing. Read all of them.