This was another banner year for mystery fiction. Here are my picks. Happy reading.
- November Road by Lou Berney (Morrow, $26.99): While set immediately after President Kennedy's assassination, Edgar Award winner Lou Berney's powerful story is about how people can reinvent themselves, and the restorative forces of love and redemption. The unlikely pairing of a New Orleans mobster and an Oklahoma housewife who meet during a cross-country automobile trip delivers an emotional story, and a rousing piece of crime fiction.
- If I Die Tonight by Alison Gaylin (Morrow, $16.99): A high school outcast is the prime suspect when a popular football star is left in a coma following a carjacking. The crime's repercussions flow through the community as Gaylin's superb plot touches on parental issues, teenage angst, loneliness and fame.
- Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott (Little, Brown, $27): Two female scientists -- friends and rivals -- vying for a spot on a high-profile research project continues Abbott's look at female empowerment. Abbott uses science to enhance the plot but not overtake it as the stressful environment of a research lab -- "a nest of vipers" -- stands in for any challenging career whether at a law firm, a hospital, police force or a newsroom. Abbott shows the thin line between goals and blind ambition.
- Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown, $29): Police detective Harry Bosch is successfully paired with Los Angeles Police Department detective Renee Ballard, introduced in last year's The Late Show. Their union is not always smooth, but it is based on a growing respect for each other. Each sees the other through their own eyes. Connelly keeps his novels fresh as he again delivers an exciting police procedural, only this time with two unique characters.
- Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur, $26.99): Flashbacks, surprises and a polarizing heroine punctuate this outstanding psychological thriller. Newly released from prison for the role she played when her boyfriend murdered her best friend, Georgina "Geo" Shaw finds a different kind of jail on the outside. Geo's complicated personality elicits both sympathy and repulsion as she manages to always keep us on her side.
- Sunburn by Laura Lippman (Morrow, $26.99): Melding a classic hard-boiled mystery with a contemporary domestic thriller, Sunburn is a scorching intense story about characters hiding their identities even from themselves. Polly Costello walks away from her husband, Greg, and 3-year-old daughter, Jani, during a beach vacation, planning to revel in solitude. The last thing she wants, or needs, is to fall into a relationship with Adam Bosk, a cook at the diner where she finds a job as a waitress. A paean to Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Anne Tyler, Sunburn touches on murder and insurance as each character struggles with the dichotomies of who they are. Each is fragile and fearless, caring and cruel.
- The Wife by Alafair Burke (Harper, $26.99): Angela Powell's carefully calibrated life spins out of control when her highly respected husband, Jason, is accused of sexual harassment. While Jason's explanation sounds plausible, doubts increase when another claims Jason raped her. Angela fears that her socially conscious husband will be ruined and her marriage in tatters, but also that her past will be dredged up. When she was a teenager, she was held captive for years until rescued.
- 8. Lonely Witness by William Boyle (Pegasus, $25.95): The gritty area of Gravesend, Brooklyn, is really a small town for its residents, especially for Amy Falconetti, who has left her life as a hard-drinking party girl. Her return to religion saved her, but also left her numb as she tries to reconcile her previously destructive nature and her lonely existence. The reappearance of her father, who abandoned her when she was 12, brings back her feelings of inadequacy, and why she has been "searching for an identity my whole life, trying all these different lives. I've never been comfortable anywhere." Her actions after witnessing a murder don't make sense to her, but help to energize her.
- Safe Houses by Dan Fesperman (Dutton, $26.95): Espionage thrillers seldom address the emotional dangers of undercover work, or how young female spies can be at risk for sexual abuse, or worse. The spy trade is like any business in which women can face sexism and disrespect, keeping them powerless in the workplace. Alternating between West Berlin in 1979 and a small Maryland town in 2014, Safe Houses does double duty as a spy novel and a family drama.
- Death of a Rainmaker by Laurie Loewenstein (Kaylie Jones Books, $16.95): Set in a small Oklahoma town during the Great Depression, this launch of a promising new series is as vivid as the stark photographs of Dorothea Lange. Vermillion, Okla., residents are desperate because there has been no rain for 240 days, making the economic downturn worse. But the arrival of a man claiming he can make it rain ends in disaster. The heart of the story is Sheriff Temple Jennings and his wife, Etha, good people with compassion for their neighbors and a sense of justice.
Style on 12/23/2018