During my career in law enforcement, I worked in narcotics, violent crimes, criminal intelligence, hostage rescue, SWAT, and internal affairs, to name just a few. I am the recipient of many awards and commendations for heroism. The Sinister is the ninth novel in the best-selling Bruno Johnson Crime series, following The Disposables, The Replacements, The Squandered, The Vanquished, The Innocents, The Reckless, The Heartless, and The Ruthless. I live in the Los Angeles area with my wife, Mary.
My book is an intense story of family and crime. How crime can tear a family apart. Bruno is a good father and a just cop who is forced to give up his moral standards. The law no longer fits in his world. The main plotline is that a fencing operation is merely a vehicle to display conflicts within his family.
I fashioned this aspect behind true events in which I took part. With government grant money, Bruno’s team sets up a store-front operation in an industrial area. They buy stolen cars, guns, and property from burglaries. Bruno gets into all kinds of trouble. He juggles his job while trying to ferret out those who’d harm his family.
This one is an easy choice for this category. It won the Edgar Award and maintains a high score rating not only on Amazon but also on Goodreads. Goodreads readers are a tough crowd.
Great novels and series have one thing in common: interesting and flawed main characters. Dave Robicheaux fits both classifications plus a few more. Burke is a master at prose and setting, which rounds out a perfect recipe for the kind of book that keeps you up all night turning pages. It did for me.
The third highly acclaimed novel in the Dave Robicheaux series, and winner of the Edgar award.
Personal tragedy has left Dave Robicheaux close to the edge. Battling against his old addiction to alcohol and haunted nightly by vivid dreams and visitations, Dave finds his only tranquillity at home with his young ward Alafair. But even this fragile peace is shattered by the arrival of Dixie Lee Pugh who brings with him a brutal trail of murder and violence.
Robicheaux reluctantly agrees to help out his old friend but becomes more involved than he bargained for when he finds himself suspect…
Elroy wrote many other books before he took on this epic noir crime novel (one in a quartet). He made his bones in writing, and it's evident in his skill level, story, and prose. Elroy excels in this novel (and the other three) in voice. And voice is the Big Kahuna in writing, it’s the everything in writing and Elroy has it in spades.
Another great addition to the above is the length (because you don’t want this book to ever end) and that it’s a historical novel that absolutely captures the time period and adds the historical nuance to all the characters.
Christmas 1951, Los Angeles: a city where the police are as corrupt as the criminals. Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three LAPD detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers. The novel takes these cops on a sprawling epic of brutal violence and the murderous seedy side of Hollywood. One of the best (and longest) crime novels ever written, it is the heart of Ellroy's four-novel masterpiece, the LA Quartet, and an example of crime writing at its most powerful.
This book is the quintessential crime novel that is the closest thing to working the tough streets of Los Angeles. I worked in South Central Los Angeles as a patrol deputy, so I have a basis for this statement. It is a masterpiece of writing capturing the emotions of what it’s like to age out on a job rife with sorrow, constant threat of the unknown, and lots of blood.
I wrote 38 books before I sold my first novel, The Disposables, which gives me the basis to rate the writing craft in this one. For crime readers, this is one not to be missed. Put it at the top of your to-be-read pile.
I struggled to put this book on a crime novel list, but this is one of my favorite books of all time. At its heart, it’s a spy novel. It makes the list because the main character hunts bad agents–the internal affairs of the CIA.
The book opens with a murder crime scene in New York. If you haven’t heard about this book, it’s a true phenomenon. Many times, during book signings, I’ve been asked by readers if I knew of this book and how much they absolutely loved it. More importantly, though, they wanted me to tell them when the sequel was coming out. This book came out in 2014, and the sequel came out this year, ten years later. It garners 95k reviews on Amazon, which alone tells you all you need to know.
The astonishing story of one man's breakneck race against time to save America from oblivion. _______________ A FATHER PUBLICLY BEHEADED. Killed in the blistering heat of a Saudi Arabian public square. A YOUNG WOMAN DISCOVERED. All of her identifying characteristics dissolved by acid.
A SYRIAN BIOTECH EXPERT FOUND EYELESS. Dumped in a Damascus junkyard.
SMOULDERING HUMAN REMAINS. Abandoned on a remote mountainside in Afghanistan.
PILGRIM. The codename for a man who doesn't exist. A man who must return from obscurity. The only man who can uncover a flawless plot to commit an appalling crime against humanity. _____________
This book is a real sleeper. If you haven’t read it, drop what you’re doing and order it; you won’t be disappointed. This book, more than any other, reminded me of Raymond Chandler in voice, story, and character. I am baffled that this book is not more widely known.
I read this one and immediately ordered the others in this series. This author, under a pen name, wrote an absolute killer book called Five Decembers, which would have been book six on this five-book list. I absolutely loved this one.
“An electrifying read . . . I haven’t read anything so terrifying since Red Dragon.” — Stephen King
“Magnificent, thoroughly unnerving . . . I dare you to look away.” — Justin Cronin
Caleb Maddox is a San Francisco toxicologist studying the chemical effects of pain. He’s out drinking after a bad breakup when a hauntingly seductive woman sits down at his side. He talks to Emmeline over absinthe, but their encounter is fleeting. She brushes her lips on his ear and disappears. He must find her. As Caleb scours the city, he begins helping the city’s medical examiner with…
My book recommendations reflect an abiding passion for Japanese literature, which has unquestionably influenced my own writing. My latest literary interest involves Japanese poetry—I’ve recently started a project that combines haiku and prose narration to describe my experiences as a part-time resident in a 1300-year-old Japanese hot spring town that Bashō helped make famous in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. But as a writer, my main focus remains novels. In late 2023 the second in a planned series of novels set in Ishikawa prefecture will be published. I currently live in Kanazawa, but have also been lucky to call Sapporo, Akita, Tokyo, and Fukui home at different times.
Emmitt’s plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of purchasing their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover her subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo.
In his search for a meaningful life in Japan, and after quitting his job, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. He becomes drawn into the mysterious death of a friend of Mirai’s parents, leading him and his father-in-law to climb the mountain where the man died. There, he learns the somber truth and discovers what the future holds for him and his wife.
Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.
In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt's future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he's surprised to discover Mirai's subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes.
Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt's search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa's most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English.
