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The sleuths of yesterday could be spotted by their trench coats and fedoras. Nowadays, it's iPhones and selfie sticks, and it was inevitable that the world of truecrime podcasts would [...]

* Small Mercies. By Dennis Lehane. Apr. 2023.320p. Harper, $28.99 (9780062129482); e-book (9780062129505). One sweltering night in Boston's Southie neighborhood in 1974, Mary Pat Fennessy's daughter, Jules, disappears, and a [...]

The Paris Deception. By Bryn Turnbull. May 2023. 384p. MIRA, paper, $18.99 (9780778333418); e-book (9780369732712). Sophie Dix is an art restorer at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris--the job [...]

The Ball in the Air: A Golfing Adventure. By Michael Bamberger. Mar. 2023.272P. Simon 8c Schuster/Avid Reader, $30 (9781668009826); e-book (9781668009840). 796.352. Bamberger, a senior writer at the Fire Pit [...]

The Refusal Camp. By James R. Benn. Mar. 2023.264p. Soho, $26.95 (9781641294515); e-book (9781641294522). The author of the Billy Boyle WWII mystery series delivers his first collection of short fiction [...]

Lost in Paris. By Betty Webb. Apr. 2023. Poisoned Pen, paper, $16.99 (9781728269900). Webb dramatically changes direction here, moving from her contemporary series starring Scottsdale PI Lena Jones to Lost [...]

* City of Dreams. By Don Winslow. Apr. 2023. 320p. Morrow, $30 (9780062851239); e-book (9780062851260). The second volume in Winslow's Danny Ryan trilogy delivers on all the promise of its [...]

* Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction. By Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor. Feb. 2023.400p. Penzler, $26.95 (9781613163795); e-book (9781613163801). 813. Collins, who is the executor of Mickey Spillane's [...]

* Paris Requiem. By Chris Lloyd. Feb. 2023.352p. Pegasus, $26 (9781639362660). In September 1940, the reality of the German Occupation is taking hold in Paris, 'the streets gray with uniforms [...]

As we near the seventy-fifth anniversary of the end of WWII, a flood of books has begun to appear commemorating the key events leading up to the cessation of hostilities, [...]

Last year we offered a year-end review from the perspective of starred reviews, and this year we're doing it again. What I follows is an annotated list of all the [...]

* Murder Book. By Thomas Perry. Jan. 2023.420p. Mysterious, $26.95 (9781613163832). There is no form of crime fiction at which Perry doesn't excel, and he's tried them all... except, perhaps, [...]

* A World of Curiosities. By Louise Penny. Nov. 2022.400p. Minotaur, $28.99 (9781250145291); e-book, $14.99 (9781250145314). Two apparently unrelated events in the village of Three Pines thrust Armand Gamache, head [...]

* Desert Star. By Michael Connelly. Nov. 2022. 400p. Little, Brown, $29 (9780316485654); e-book, $14.99 (9780316421461). Renee Ballard, who quit the LAPD after the events of The Dark Hours (2021), [...]

* A Heart Full of Headstones. By Ian Rankin. Oct. 2022. 336p. Little, Brown, $28 (9780316473637); e-book, $14.99 (9780316473750). As the pas de deux between now-retired Edinburgh copper John Rebus [...]

The Hot Beat. By Robert Silverberg. Sept. 2022. 240P. Hard Case Crime, paper, $14.95 (9781789099928). Science-fiction Grand Master Silverberg dabbled in crime fiction when the sf short-story market took a [...]

* The Double Agent. By William Christie. Nov. 2022. 352p. Minotaur, $27.99 (9781250080820). Alexsi Smirnoff is still trying to survive WWII, spying for whomever seems to be offering the best [...]

Our favorite debut mysteries and thrillers reviewed in Booklist over the past 12 months are tangible proof that today's first timers are not only sticking with what's hot right now--domestic [...]

In Andrew CartmePs Paperback Sleuth, reviewed opposite, Cordelia Stanmer cares only for vintage paperbacks, but the sleuths in the bibliophile thrillers below covet rare books of all varieties, and their [...]

This year's top 10 mysteries and thrillers include titles that tackle disturbing contemporary social issues and others that use history to reflect on themes that still resonate today. The titles [...]

* Ozark Dogs. By Eli Cranor. Apr. 2023. Soho, $26.95 (9781641294539); e-book (9781641294546). Cranor follows his dynamite first novel, Don't Know Tough (2022), with another scorching country noir, this one [...]

Mad Money. By Max Allan Collins. Apr. 2023. Hard Case Crime, paper, $13.95 (9781789091465); e-book (9781789091472). This twofer is the final volume in Hard Case's project to republish all of [...]

* Fixit. By Joe Ide. May 2023.336p. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $28 (9780316531085); e-book (9780316531115). In Smoke (2021), Isaiah 'IQ' Quintabe left the not-so-friendly confines of East Long Beach to put himself [...]

* White Fox. By Owen Matthews. Mar. 2023.304p. Doubleday, $28 (9780385543446); e-book (9780385543453). This concluding volume in Matthews' trilogy (following Black Sun, 2019, and Red Traitor, 2021) continues the saga [...]

The Lock-Up. By John Banville. May 2023.288p. Hanover Square, $28.95 (9781335449634). We left Dublin pathologist Quirke at the end of April in Spain (2021) devastated over the death of his [...]

* The Kind Worth Saving. By Peter Swanson. Mar. 2023.320p. Morrow, $28.99 (9780063204980); e-book (9780063205000). This isn't exactly a sequel to Swanson's The Kind Worth Killing (2015), though several of [...]

Sinister Graves. By Marcie R. Rendon. Oct. 2022.240p. Soho, $27.95 (9781641293839). This third Renee 'Cash' Blackbear novel (following Girl Gone Missing, 2019), set along the Red River bordering Minnesota and [...]

* From the Shadows. By James R. Benn. Sept. 2022.336p. Soho, $27.95 (9781641292986). Through 17 installments in his celebrated series of WWII thrillers, which track the peregrinations of Billy Boyle, [...]

Setting has been the driving force behind our gazetteer series for the last 22 years. Back in 1997, in the first 'Hard-Boiled Gazetteer,' I wrote, 'Today we've come to expect [...]

With 2017 looking back at us from the rear-view mirror, we decided to offer our first-ever year-end review from the perspective of starred reviews. Over the following 76 pages, we've [...]

The Librarian Spy. By Madeline Martin. July 2022. 320p. Hanover Square, paper, $17.99 (9781335426918); e-book, $12.99 (9780369720207). This unusual WWII spy tale is based on the real-life work of the [...]

Monkey in the Middle. By Loren D. Estleman. June 2022. 192p. Forge, $25.99 (9781250827173); e-book, $13-99 (9781250827180). Trends in crime fiction wax and wane, but Estleman's Amos Walker, a hard-boiled [...]

December '41. By William Martin. June 2022. 304p. Forge, $27.99 (9780765384249); e-book, $14.99 (9780765384263). Americans, still reeling from Pearl Harbor, may have another shock coming. FDR insists on sticking with [...]

The Cup They Couldn't Lose: America, the Ryder Cup, and the Long Road to Whistling Straits. By Shane Ryan. May 2022. 336p. Hachette, $29 (9780306874413). 796.3. The Ryder Cup, which [...]

* Moscow Exile. By John Lawton. Apr. 2023. 448p. Atlantic Monthly, $28 (9780802158024); e-book (9780802158048). Lawton brings the band back together for another virtuoso performance in what continues to be [...]

Fallen Angel. By Marty Holland. Mar. 2023. 174P. Stark House, paper, $15.95 (9798886010190). Film noir fans will adore this new series, which showcases the novels on which classic noirs were [...]

The Donut Legion. By Joe R. Lansdale. Mar. 2023. 304P. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $28 (9780316540681); e-book (9780316540674). Charlie Garner is a former PI turned writer living in the dusty byways of [...]

The Mitford Affair. By Marie Benedict. Jan. 2023.304P. Sourcebooks/Landmark, $27.99 (9781728229362); e-book, $14.99 (9781728229379). Families torn apart by politics is a common theme in today's divisive times, but Trumpers versus [...]

Winter Swallows. By Maurizio de Giovanni. Tr. by Antony Shugaar. Jan. 2023.384p. Europa, paper, $18 (9781609457273). The latest in de Giovanni's long-running Commissario Ricciardi series finds the troubled Neapolitan inspector [...]

* So Shall You Reap. By Donna Leon. Mar. 2023.272P. Atlantic Monthly, $28 (9780802162366); e-book (9780802162373). If Leon's devoted readers have learned anything over the 31 previous installments in the [...]

Night Flight to Paris. By Cara Black. Mar. 2023.336p. Soho, $27.95 (9781641293556); e-book (9781641293563). After being betrayed by her British handlers in Three Hours in Paris (2020), American sniper Kate [...]

* Everybody Knows. By Jordan Harper. Jan. 2023.352P. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $28 (9780316457910); e-book (9780316458238). Harper leaves the country noir of She Rides Shotgun (2017) for a contemporary take on Nathanael [...]

Every Man a King. By Walter Mosley. Feb. 2023.336p. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $28 (9780316460217); e-book (9780316460194). PI and former cop Joe King Oliver is slowly recovering from the trauma he endured [...]

Death of a Dancing Queen. By Kimberly G. Giarratano. Feb. 2023.400p. Datura, paper, $15.99 (9781915202420); e-book (9781915202512). Unlicensed PI Billie Levine attempts to revive her grandfather's detective agency as a [...]

Crapped Out. By John Anthony Moccia. Jan. 2023. 184p. Stark House, paper, $14.95 (9798886010114). Jack Hannigan is a retired FBI agent consigned by his son to an 'old-folks home' in [...]

A History of Fear. By Luke Dumas. Dec. 2022.368p. Atria, $27.99 (9781982199029); e-book (9781982199043). Most crime-fiction readers feel comfortable with unreliable narrators, but that comfort vanishes only a few pages [...]

* The Bullet Garden. By Stephen Hunter. Jan. 2023.480p. Atria/Emily Bestler, $28.99 (9781982169763); e-book (9781982169787). It's been nearly 20 years since the last Earl Swagger novel (Havana, 2003), and Hunter [...]

Blaze Me a Sun. By Christoffer Carlsson. Tr. by Rachel Willson-Broyles. Jan. 2023.448p. Hogarth, $28 (9780593449356); e-book (9780593449363). The unsolved assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986 lurks [...]

Before the Storm By James D. Shipman. Feb. 2023.304p. Kensington, paper, $16.95 (9781496736734) Set in 1948 against the backdrop of the Berlin Blockade, this fast-moving Cold War thriller brings to [...]

Back Country. By William Fuller. Feb. 2022. 202p. Stark House/Black Gat, paper, $10.99 (9781951473594) When a hard-boiled hero has car trouble deep in the Everglades and winds up in a [...]