Mike Ripley’s Best Crime and Thriller Fiction of 2023
MOSCOW EXILE, John Lawton
SMALL MERCIES, Dennis Lehane
ALL THE SINNERS BLEED, S. A. Cosby
OZARK DOGS, Eli Cranor
A LINE IN THE SAND, Kevin Powers
VIPER’S DREAM, Jake Lamar
Mike adds this commentary on the books:
2023 was a strong year for spy fiction but one of the best historical novels, which was also about spying, was Moscow Exile by John Lawton [Grove Press], a forensic dissection of the motives and actions of people caught up in the Cold War and the ‘un-American activities’ paranoia; active belligerents, innocent bystanders and political schemers. Beautifully written with flashes of sardonic wit, it is, nominally, the fourth of Lawton’s ‘Joe Wilderness’ novels, but also features members of the Troy family from his primary series which has been delighting the discerning reader for more than twenty-five years now and as a body of work, is shaping up to be one of the most impressive achievements in spy-fi.
On the crime fiction front, I found the most memorable titles to be American and out in front (by a whisker) was Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane [Abacus], a compelling, convoluted saga of revenge, families and tribal rivalries set in 1974 Boston. The stresses and strains of domestic life in an Irish immigrant community dominated by a criminal kingpin has proved a happy hunting ground for many American crime novelists, but nobody does it better than Lehane.
S.A. Cosby has rapidly established himself as a major player in crime fiction and his novel All The Sinners Bleed [Headline] puts a new twist on the serial-killer thriller with a black sheriff in backwater Virginia struggling against a racist community as well as an inventive murderer. As a serial-killer-thriller, All The Sinners Bleed is up there with Silence of the Lambs, but as a crime novel which peels back the onion-layers of racism and bigotry in the southern states, it is in a class of its own. Simply superb.
For an uncompromising slice of country noir, look no further than Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor [Headline]. The country in question is blighted with rust-coloured towns, redundant nuclear plants and junkyards, and the population blighted by poverty, drugs, prostitution and the Ku Klux Klan. Family feuds and an abundance of weaponry don’t make life any easier.
Part murder mystery, part conspiracy theory thriller, A Line in the Sand by Kevin Powers [Sceptre] has its roots in the war in Iraq. An Iraqi translator for the US army, trying to make a new life in America, may have witnessed something which jeopardises the prospects of military contractors and their continued billion-dollar funding, so he must be eliminated. As spies and hit-men circle, he is defended by, among others, a wonderfully-drawn career policewoman who in theory should be out of her depth, but thankfully isn’t.
Any book which takes its title from a famous Django Reinhardt number gets my attention. In Viper’s Dream by Jake Lamar[No Exit], Clyde ‘The Viper’ Morton moves from rural Alabama to Harlem in 1936 in the hope of making it as a jazz trumpeter. He doesn’t, but does establish himself as a major dealer in the growing marijuana market. Over the next twenty years the Viper becomes a powerful gangster, protecting his trade in ‘weed’ against the growing popularity of heroin among jazz musicians as swing music is supplanted by the bebop generation, which in turn is threatened by rock-and-roll. Several jazz legends appear in person – Miles, Dizzy, Thelonius et al and there is even a small cameo, when the Viper’s trade expands to Hollywood, for Robert Mitchum. Hard-boiled, but also achingly tender, this is a tour-de-force of jazz noir – if that’s a thing; and if it isn’t it should be.