![\"\"](\"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/littleblacklies.jpg\")
<\/a>Sharon Bolton, Little Black Lies<\/em> (2015). Set on the Falkland Islands in the 90\u2019s, about a decade after a brief war that left the island studded with land mines, the whole island is on alert for a missing boy.\u00a0 Featuring a damaged female veterinarian as the main character, Bolton\u2019s story is gothic, specific to the time and place, and populated with indelible characters as well as an unforgettable resolution.\u00a0 The wrap up of the story proves once again that Bolton is one of the best plotters in the business, and a devastating scene involving some beached whales will probably be burned into your memory forever.\u00a0 Bolton is a strikingly original and gifted writer.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s 10.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t not mention\u2026(links to my reviews)<\/p>\n Tasha Alexander\u2019s Death in St. Petersburg<\/em><\/a> (2017)<\/p>\n Megan Abbott\u2019s You Will Know Me<\/em><\/a> (2016)<\/p>\n James R. Benn’s When Hell Struck Twelve<\/em><\/a> (2019)<\/p>\n Rhys Bowen\u2019s Love and Death Among the Cheetahs<\/em><\/a> (2019)<\/p>\n Michael Connelly\u2019s The Wrong Side of Goodbye <\/em><\/a>(2016)<\/p>\n Deborah Crombie\u2019s No Mark Upon Her<\/em><\/a> (2011)<\/p>\n Loren D. Estleman\u2019s Black and White Ball<\/em><\/a> (2018)<\/p>\n Dianne Freeman\u2019s A Lady\u2019s Guide to Etiquette and Murder<\/em><\/a> (2018)<\/p>\n Stephen Mack Jones\u2019 August Snow<\/em><\/a> (2017)<\/p>\n Julia Keller’s\u00a0A Killing in the Hills<\/em> (2012)<\/a><\/p>\n Laura Lippman\u2019s After I\u2019m Gone<\/em> <\/a>(2014)<\/p>\n G.M. Malliet\u2019s Pagan Spring<\/em> <\/a>(2013)<\/p>\n Sujata Massey\u2019s The Widows of Malabar Hill<\/em><\/a> (2018)<\/p>\n Susan Elia MacNeal\u2019s Princess Elizabeth\u2019s Spy<\/em><\/a> (2012)<\/p>\n Karin Slaughter\u2019s Cop Town<\/em><\/a> (2014)<\/p>\n Chevy Steven\u2019s That Night<\/em><\/a> (2014)<\/p>\n Lauren Willig’s\u00a0That Summer <\/em>(<\/a>2014)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reading all kinds of lists about the best crime novels of the past decade, I, of course, being incredibly opinionated, felt I needed to chime in.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Looking through this list one of the things that stick out, as far as my favorite reads are concerned, are a very specific sense of time and place.\u00a0 Sometimes … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[264,80,265,260,184,262,261,263,266,176],"class_list":["post-3444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-anthony-horowitz","tag-elly-griffiths","tag-jane-harper","tag-karen-dionne","tag-louise-penny","tag-lyndsay-faye","tag-sharon-bolton","tag-steve-hamilton","tag-tana-french","tag-william-kent-krueger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3453,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions\/3453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Karen Dionne, The Marsh King\u2019s Daughter<\/em> (2017). This novel is so fresh, so immediate, so firmly anchored in Michigan\u2019s upper peninsula and so beautifully written it should be missed by no one.\u00a0 The story of a tiny family living in isolation in the northern wilds, it\u2019s also the story of a daughter\u2019s coming of age and her slow realization that her father is not who she thought he was.\u00a0 Dionne wraps things up with an incredible chase sequence, one that could only have been possible with the specific characters she created in the specific setting she brings to life.\u00a0 A bravura piece of writing.<\/p>\n<\/a>Lyndsay Faye, Seven for a Secret<\/em> (2013). \u00a0I love historical mysteries and inhale them like pieces of chocolate, but this novel, the second in Faye\u2019s \u201cGods of Gotham\u201d series, is an incredible standout.\u00a0 Set in New York City in 1846, the main character is Timothy Wilde, a member of New York\u2019s newly formed police force.\u00a0 The men were known as \u201ccoppers\u201d because of the copper stars they wore.\u00a0 Faye\u2019s prose is perhaps the most gorgeous of any contemporary writer, mystery or otherwise, and her setting is beautifully and heartbreakingly drawn.\u00a0 This story is not only about Timothy, it\u2019s about the underground railroad and the men who caught free African Americans and sent them back down south and into slavery.\u00a0 It brings this time and place so vividly to life, it\u2019s one of those books that are jarring to look up from, so totally has Faye returned you to the past.\u00a0 \u00a0This is a masterwork.<\/p>\n<\/a>Tana French, Broken Harbor<\/em> (2012). While I am not as huge an admirer of Tana French as some, I always admire her beautiful prose and incredibly well drawn and memorable characters.\u00a0 In this outing she combines those skills with a kick ass plot, one full of mystery and horror and all things in between.\u00a0 This is a novel set in the recession, with a family hanging on in a dying subdivision outside of Dublin.\u00a0 Unfortunately they are not hanging on too well, as most of them are discovered murdered in the first chapter.\u00a0 It\u2019s the why and how that keep you glued to your seat.\u00a0 There\u2019s no doubt French is one of the most gifted voices in crime fiction, and this novel will show you why.<\/p>\n<\/a>Elly Griffiths, Room Full of Bones<\/em> (2011).\u00a0 Griffiths, to me, has created one of the greatest characters in modern crime fiction, Ruth Galloway.\u00a0 Ruth is an archaeologist who lives at the edge of the world with her cat and her daughter.\u00a0 She is unapologetically herself.\u00a0 Along with Ruth are the great stories Griffiths tells, anchored in Norfolk as well as the past in the form of, well, bones.\u00a0 In this one a long ago bishop bursts from his coffin accompanied by a fresher body, and Ruth, using her expertise, helps to discover why.\u00a0 This series has lovely writing, humor, brisk storytelling and a memorable setting.\u00a0 This one is a standout in a great series.<\/p>\n<\/a>Steve Hamilton, Let it Burn<\/em> (2013). The specific place in this novel is Detroit, Michigan, a city plagued by arson and fire and revisited by Hamilton\u2019s unforgettable character Alex McKnight.\u00a0 Steve Hamilton creates polished, concise works of art that may trick the reader into thinking what he does is easy, but anyone that writes this tightly and this intensely while at the same time engaging the reader\u2019s heart with character is nothing short of brilliant.\u00a0 This book finds ex-cop Alex returning to Detroit as the man who shot is partner is being released from prison.\u00a0 Everything great about series fiction can be found in this book: setting, character, plot and action.<\/p>\n<\/a>Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders<\/em> (2016).\u00a0 This complex, well told, witty and beautifully written story of a village beset by murders that can only be solved by the famous detective Atticus Pund is really a manuscript, held in the hands of editor Susan Ryeland.\u00a0 The manuscript is the last work of crime writer Alan Conway, who has died mysteriously.\u00a0 Horowitz uses every golden age trope possible, in the most loving and reverential way.\u00a0 The story within a story format allows him to be intensely traditional (the Atticus Pund section) and intensely contemporary (the Susan Ryeland section). This book is absolutely delicious.\u00a0 Finishing it, you may want to pick it up and start again.\u00a0 What a great example of the brilliance of the traditional detective story.<\/p>\n<\/a>Jane Harper, The Dry<\/em> (2016). Setting is a character in Harper\u2019s novel set in draught-stricken Australia, where financial detective Aaron Falk has returned to his tiny hometown from Melbourne to try and discover why his boyhood friend has murdered his entire family.\u00a0 As Aaron peels back the layers of his own childhood as well as Luke\u2019s, getting to the surprising heart of this horrific crime, the Australian heat covers this book like a blanket.\u00a0 Searingly unforgettable and beautifully written.<\/p>\n<\/a>William Kent Krueger,\u00a0Ordinary Grace<\/em> (2013). This is simply, to me, the greatest novel of the past decade, and Krueger has capped it, this year, with another classic, This Tender Land<\/em> (see this year\u2019s \u201cBest of\u201d list).\u00a0 Ordinary Grace<\/em>, set in 1960\u2019s Minnesota, follows 13 year old Frank, the son of a Methodist minister, as his family deals with a devastating loss.\u00a0 While this book is about loss, it\u2019s also about the way loss can be dealt with.\u00a0 There\u2019s a scene at the end of the book that is one of my favorite scenes in any book I\u2019ve ever read.\u00a0 The writing, the characters, the heart and yes, the story, make this book an absolute classic.<\/p>\n<\/a>Louise Penny, Bury Your Dead<\/em> (2010).\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to pick one of Penny\u2019s books as a favorite but this one, the sixth in her now classic series set in tiny Three Pines, Canada, finds Inspector Gamache\u00a0 in Montreal, recovering from an injury, and stumbling into a mystery involving some bones found in the Literary and Historical Center library (a real and beautiful place, brought sharply to life by Penny).\u00a0 Meanwhile Beauvoir, Gamache\u2019s second, journeys to Three Pines to solve a different case.\u00a0 This is a beautiful explication of one of Penny\u2019s favorite themes: being trapped in the past prevents movement forward.\u00a0 The writing, the history, the setting and most of all the characters in this gorgeously written novel make it one of Penny\u2019s best.<\/p>\n