19 mysteries and thrillers to lose yourself in this winter
By Lauren Daley Globe Correspondent,Updated January 28, 2021, 8:07 p.m.
Email to a Friend
Whodunit? Why? How?
Nothing takes my mind so completely away from the twists and turns of reality like the dark twists and turns of a good mystery novel.
During the pandemic, Iâve fallen into every kind â from cozy mysteries to nail-biting suspense. Here are some titles to lose yourself in this winter. (All were published in 2020 unless otherwise noted.)
The incomparable
â
,â is a stand-alone â not one of her cult-favorite Dublin Murder Squad books â so if itâs your first French, you wonât feel lost. Now living in Dublin, French is a Vermont native whose books have won fistfuls of awards. â
Or buy the whole trilogy at Amazon and Bookshop
The key to gifting books is to know your audience: What do they like to read? For my history buff friends, I always recommend Wolf Hall and the other two books in Hilary Mantel s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell during the reign of Henry VIII (assuming they have not read them yet). Both Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies won the Booker Prize, and the third volume in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, was nominated. Awards aren t everything, but these books truly shine with unique storytelling, shifting perspectives, and prose that makes you feel like you re inside Cromwell s head.
Perhaps Irish-American author Tana French’s nihilism is softening with age, but the main character in “The Searcher,” which launched in October, is less tortured and ends up less troubled than any of the detectives in her Dublin Murder Squad series or her first stand-alone novel, “The Witch Elm.”
American ex-cop Cal Hooper buys a run-down farm in a tiny Irish village to escape the trauma of his former job and his failed marriage. A North Carolina country boy, Cal is damaged by what he sees on the job with the Chicago police force. He wants nothing more than to fish, shoot a few rabbits, visit the pub occasionally, and have little to do with other people.
Going Places With Jeff Abbott, Lisa Unger, and Brian Panowich
The importance of location in mysteries can never be stressed enough.
Mysteries that give us a sense of place make that area be it a city, region or country a true character that effects the plot and the people who inhabit the story.
And that place can vary from author to author. Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles is different from Robert Crais and a different city than that of Denise Hamilton or Rachel Howzell Hall or Steph Cha. And these different visions make for more involving novels.
But sometimes it’s the location that is the constant as different characters inhabit the landscape.