Are you a thrilling criminal judge or neophyte, who, carrying your Newcastle coals enjoys a good crime read? The prestigious Crime Writers' Association Dagger awards for crime fiction were announced last month and as we wend our way through wintertime where a cup of tea and a lie down is always aided by a good book here is our crime and thriller special.
So whether you like committing crimes, or perhaps just reading about them, we hope there's something for everyone. Grab a nice cup of tea and your murder implement of choice, and read on…
Book of the month: Rabbit Hole by Mark Billingham
Alice Armitage is on an acute psychiatric ward at Hendon Community Hospital in north London. Let’s call it “Blunderland”, a special place where people who have made mistakes in their lives end up. Alice went into meltdown after treating a bad case of post-traumatic stress disorder with “merlot and skunk”. The strange world she finds herself in is peopled with curious characters such as the Grand Master (real name Ilias), the Foot Woman (Jamilah), the Singer (Lauren) and Big Gay Bob. The drug-induced dullness of the unit — only enlivened by the occasional flare-up — is shattered when one of the patients is murdered.
Alice, “a dirty-blonde, curly-haired northerner”, is by no means an innocent abroad and, boy, can she rabbit. The ultimate unreliable narrator, she claims that she was a detective constable in the real world and aims to help her colleagues to nail whodunnit. But this is “the nut house”, and when another person is killed, she realises that she has blundered: she is the most obvious suspect.
Mark Billingham might just as well have titled this brilliant novel “One Fell Out Of The Cuckoo’s Nest”. The pain and torment of mental illness is never downplayed — except by the patients themselves — and the depiction of day-to-day life on the ward feels distressingly accurate. The awkward visits of Alice’s father are heartbreaking. However, whereas Ken Kesey (in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest) rages against the breaking of the individual spirit by the satanic military-industrial complex (and Nurse Ratched), the evil in Rabbit Hole is the damage human beings inflict on each other. It is a gripping, twisting murder mystery and a blackly comic indictment of the way we treat psychological illness today: “Being banged up with mad people is not great for your mental health.” At the very least it should reach the shortlist of this year’s Booker prize.
Widespread Panic by James Ellroy
Freddy Otash, former rogue cop and FBI fink, is trapped in purgatory, trying to gain entry to Heaven by confessing his manifold sins. These are the dead man’s memoirs recalling his time in 1950s Hollywood. The Lebanese liar says: “I’ll do anything short of murder, and I’ll work for anybody but communists.”
There’s a lot of both as his dirt-digging helps to turn the magazine Confidential into the most successful scandal sheet there has been: “WE CREATED TODAY’S TELL-ALL MEDIA CULTURE.” His narration adopts the heavy-panting, madly punctuated style of the magazine: “Man, what a schvantz!!!” He thinks and writes in “algorithmic alliteration”, epitomising himself thus: “pervdog, peeper [and] priapic pad prowler”.
As an exercise in style, Widespread Panic is extraordinary. Ellroy may wallow in the gutter, but he’s always looking at the stars. Exposure is the name of the game: revealing the sordid reality behind the silver screen; detailing police brutality and corruption; peering into the soulless snake pit of American politics; shining an arc lamp on pornography’s fascination with fascism. There are highlights galore: atom bomb parties at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (Marilyn, Ingrid, Liz and JFK watching the tests in Nevada from the bungalow roofs and feeling the earth move); the search to give Rock Hudson a beard (fake wife); and Jimmy Dean and friends running amok during the filming of Rebel Without a Cause. Lance, Liberace’s pet leopard — a real cool cat — steals every scene he’s in.
Freddy’s hankering after the widow of a prisoner he shot shows that he is a man at the mercy of uncontrollable emotions and therefore highly dangerous. His Apologia Pro Vita Sua is a snitch’s brew of perversion and paranoia, extortion and sexploitation. Ellroy’s legion of fans will love it.
Pretty as a Picture by Elizabeth Little
Twenty-five years ago a wannabe actress called Caitlyn Kelly was killed on Kickout Island, Delaware. When Marissa Dahl, after signing a 16-page non-disclosure agreement, reaches the secluded spot — to edit a movie being made about the unsolved murder — she is determined to identify the culprit. She is helped and hindered by two girls whose parents work in the hotel where the cast and crew are staying.
Snippets from Dead Ringer, the hilarious podcast produced by the 13-year-olds, splice the narrative. The film unit is in chaos, as are Marissa’s feelings (she likes boys and girls), so there is plenty of action — and talk about movies — before the eventual payoff.
Elizabeth Little is not just a fine comic writer — “I know immediately that this time she’s dead for real. She’s not that good an actress” — but, highlighting the similarities between a detective and an editor, a bright one too: “We’re both presented with an incomplete collection of imperfect information and tasked with piecing together a coherent narrative.” She deserves her own Hollywood ending.
The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason, trans. by Victoria Cribb
Although he’s only 60, Arnaldur Indridason is the grand old man of Icelandic noir. Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Lilja Sigurdardottir, Eva Björg Aegisdottir and Ragnar Jónasson follow in his footsteps.
Indridason’s new novel features an old detective who is faced with the ultimate cold case when a group of German tourists come across a blond hunk buried in a melting glacier. The man went missing 30 years ago, so Konrad, whose case it was, comes out of retirement to finish the job. However, the man he always thought responsible for the murder swears his innocence and dies days later, forcing Konrad to search elsewhere for answers.
The Darkness Knows is a tragic tale of football, fathers and fear. Once again the intrepid Indridason reveals that the only escape from the past is death.
Diamond and the Eye by Peter Lovesey
Stone the crows! It’s 30 years since Peter Diamond made his debut in the award-winning The Last Detective (1991). Now a detective superintendent — still luxuriating in a lovely Bath — his 20th investigation forces him into a reluctant collaboration with Johnny Getz, a private eye whose office is above a hairdressers called Shear Amazing.
A dealer in antiques has gone missing. Unfortunately, he’s soon found dead in an Egyptian coffin, prompting the wisecracking Getz to quip: “No mummy, for sure, but I had a nasty feeling he was someone’s daddy.” As this suggests, Peter Lovesey writes feelgood crime yet he never lets the comedy vitiate the mystery.