Publishers Weekly Best Books 2013 :
http://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2013
Mystery & Crime Top 10
Hour of the Red God
Richard Crompton (FSG/Sarah Crichton)
Former BBC journalist Crampton joins the front rank of writers of fiction set in Africa with this mystery in which a Nairobi police detective, who lost his wife in the 1998 al-Qaeda bombing of the U.S. embassy, looks into the murder of a fellow Maasai tribe member.
PW Review
Murder in Kenya: PW Talks With Richard Crompton
The Crimson Fog
Paul Halter (Locked Room International)
First published in France in 1988, this brilliant fair-play mystery showcases the author’s ingenuity at misdirecting the reader and his unique approach to the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.
PW Review
When You Eliminate the Impossible...PW Talks with Paul Halter
The Silent Wife
A.S.A. Harrison (Penguin)
Gone Girl fans will welcome Canadian author Harrison’s first novel, a smart, nuanced portrait of a faltering marriage. Harrison breathes life into Adlerian psychology.
PW Review
Death of a Nightingale
Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis (Soho Crime)
Artfully drawn characters who are a pleasure to know populate this writing pair’s third thriller featuring Danish nurse Nina Borg, who bonds with Natasha Doroshenko, a Ukrainian refugee accused of murder.
PW Review
The Other Child
Charlotte Link (Penguin Crime)
A college student leaves her babysitting gig late at night to travel home across a remote part of Yorkshire, only to become a murder victim, in German author Link’s U.S. debut, which will appeal to fans of Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters.
PW Review
Red Sparrow
Jason Matthews (Scribner)
Matthews brings all the authenticity and tradecraft of his 33 years as a CIA agent to his first novel, in which CIA agent Nate Nash matches wits with beautiful Dominika Egorova, an agent of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
PW Review
Spies and Honey Traps: PW Talks with Jason Matthews
Gods and Beasts
Denise Mina (Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur)
Det. Sgt. Alex Morrow’s third outing takes the reader into the dark, beating heart of modern Glasgow, where the real deals are struck and the spoils divided.
Tartan Noir
A Scottish Crime Novelist
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: The Comic: Denise Mina
Murder as a Fine Art
David Morrell (Little, Brown/Mulholland)
Thomas De Quincy, author of the controversial essay “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” sets out to solve a multiple murder case in 1854 London that replicates the real-life Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811.
PW Review
If Once a Man Indulges Himself in Murder...PW Talks with David Morrell
How the Light Gets In
Louise Penny (Minotaur)
In her ninth novel with Chief Insp. Armand Gamache of the Quebec Sûreté, Penny balances personal courage and faith with heartbreaking choices and monstrous evil, as Gamache looks into the murder of an elderly woman, the last survivor of a set of quintuplets who were once national celebrities.
PW Review
Good Fortune Leads to Great Crime
Red Moon
Benjamin Percy (Grand Central)
A blend of supernatural thriller and alternate history showcases the plight of an underclass of citizens—lupine shapeshifters known as lycans—who illuminate much of recent U.S. history, including the “war on terror.”
PW Review
On the Road with Benjamin Percy
The Wild West of Benjamin Percy
Enigma of China: An Inspector Chen Novel
Qiu Xiaolong (Minotaur)
Qiu neatly delineates the dilemmas of being an ethical cop in a police state in his eighth novel featuring Chief Insp. Chen Cao, who looks into the apparent suicide of the director of Shanghai’s housing development committee.
PW Review
Fear in the Sunlight
Nicola Upson (Harper/Bourbon Street)
Real-life mystery writer Josephine Tey is featured in Upson’s psychologically complex fourth whodunit. The murders of three women on the set of Rear Window in California in 1954 connect to three other murders committed 18 years earlier in the resort town of Portmeirion, Wales, where Tey met a promising young director named Alfred Hitchcock.
PW Review
A Cup of Tey: PW Talks with Nicola Upson
Hour of the Red God
Richard Crompton (FSG/Sarah Crichton)
Former BBC journalist Crampton joins the front rank of writers of fiction set in Africa with this mystery in which a Nairobi police detective, who lost his wife in the 1998 al-Qaeda bombing of the U.S. embassy, looks into the murder of a fellow Maasai tribe member.
PW Review
Murder in Kenya: PW Talks With Richard Crompton
The Crimson Fog
Paul Halter (Locked Room International)
First published in France in 1988, this brilliant fair-play mystery showcases the author’s ingenuity at misdirecting the reader and his unique approach to the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.
PW Review
When You Eliminate the Impossible...PW Talks with Paul Halter
The Silent Wife
A.S.A. Harrison (Penguin)
Gone Girl fans will welcome Canadian author Harrison’s first novel, a smart, nuanced portrait of a faltering marriage. Harrison breathes life into Adlerian psychology.
PW Review
Death of a Nightingale
Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis (Soho Crime)
Artfully drawn characters who are a pleasure to know populate this writing pair’s third thriller featuring Danish nurse Nina Borg, who bonds with Natasha Doroshenko, a Ukrainian refugee accused of murder.
PW Review
The Other Child
Charlotte Link (Penguin Crime)
A college student leaves her babysitting gig late at night to travel home across a remote part of Yorkshire, only to become a murder victim, in German author Link’s U.S. debut, which will appeal to fans of Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters.
PW Review
Red Sparrow
Jason Matthews (Scribner)
Matthews brings all the authenticity and tradecraft of his 33 years as a CIA agent to his first novel, in which CIA agent Nate Nash matches wits with beautiful Dominika Egorova, an agent of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
PW Review
Spies and Honey Traps: PW Talks with Jason Matthews
Gods and Beasts
Denise Mina (Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur)
Det. Sgt. Alex Morrow’s third outing takes the reader into the dark, beating heart of modern Glasgow, where the real deals are struck and the spoils divided.
Tartan Noir
A Scottish Crime Novelist
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: The Comic: Denise Mina
Murder as a Fine Art
David Morrell (Little, Brown/Mulholland)
Thomas De Quincy, author of the controversial essay “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” sets out to solve a multiple murder case in 1854 London that replicates the real-life Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811.
PW Review
If Once a Man Indulges Himself in Murder...PW Talks with David Morrell
How the Light Gets In
Louise Penny (Minotaur)
In her ninth novel with Chief Insp. Armand Gamache of the Quebec Sûreté, Penny balances personal courage and faith with heartbreaking choices and monstrous evil, as Gamache looks into the murder of an elderly woman, the last survivor of a set of quintuplets who were once national celebrities.
PW Review
Good Fortune Leads to Great Crime
Red Moon
Benjamin Percy (Grand Central)
A blend of supernatural thriller and alternate history showcases the plight of an underclass of citizens—lupine shapeshifters known as lycans—who illuminate much of recent U.S. history, including the “war on terror.”
PW Review
On the Road with Benjamin Percy
The Wild West of Benjamin Percy
Enigma of China: An Inspector Chen Novel
Qiu Xiaolong (Minotaur)
Qiu neatly delineates the dilemmas of being an ethical cop in a police state in his eighth novel featuring Chief Insp. Chen Cao, who looks into the apparent suicide of the director of Shanghai’s housing development committee.
PW Review
Fear in the Sunlight
Nicola Upson (Harper/Bourbon Street)
Real-life mystery writer Josephine Tey is featured in Upson’s psychologically complex fourth whodunit. The murders of three women on the set of Rear Window in California in 1954 connect to three other murders committed 18 years earlier in the resort town of Portmeirion, Wales, where Tey met a promising young director named Alfred Hitchcock.
PW Review
A Cup of Tey: PW Talks with Nicola Upson
