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SCOTT'S TOP 10 (OKAY, 13) THRILLERS AND CRIME NOVELS OF 2024

I realized how good this year was by the titles I had to leave out. I swore books like Duane Seirczynski's California Bear, Mark Pryor's A Blood Red Morning, and Cinnamon Girl by Daniel Wiezman would be on this list after I read them. I even double up with with some books with commonality to cram three on the more didn't even get everything I wanted to put on. After some very hard choices, this is what I came up with.


1, THE NIGHT OF BABA YAGA by Akira Otani- This Japanese debut was a revelation. This relationship between a yakuza princess and the female bruiser forced to be her driver/bodyguard builds complicated and pre emotions while it breaks a lot bones though some of the most visceral hand to hand combat put on paper (Look out Frank Bill). A wonderful use of the genre to examine identity, genre, and love.


  1. DEUS X by Stephen Mack Jone and BLIND TO MIDNIGHT by Reed Farrel Coleman- Both of these authors showed the hero series can be much more than pulp action while delivering the entertaining goods. Jones' ex-cop turned protector of Detroit's Mexican Town feels the personal toll of the duty he took on as he deals on a militant sect of the Catholic Church. Coleman's Nick Ryan, a NYPD cop who works in the shadowy realm of the city, deals with the ghosts of 9/11. Both offer human meditations while serving up kick ass fights, shoot-outs, and car chases.


  1. NOTHING BUT THE BONES by Brian Panowich - Panowich goes back to a the nineties of his Bull Mountain with some of his regulars being pulled into a story about an shunned, deformed enforcer for the infamous Burroughs clan who goes on the run with an alluring girl with a rough past when he accidently beats the abusive guy she is with to death. This is a novel form of the best Springsteen and Steve Earle ballads of broken people.


  1. HOUSE OF RAIN AND BONE by Gabino Iglesias- Iglesias creates a coming of age revenge story both political and humanist. He uses Hurricane Maria to take his story of four boys who attempt to kill the drug dealer responsible for the death of one of their mothers to combine crime and horror fiction and explore the collective soul of both the friends and Puerto Rico.


  1. THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN by Scott Phillips and THE HOLLYWOOD ASSISTANT by May Cobb - Two very different but entertaining and lurid takes of sex and sin in Tinsel Town. Phillips' mosaic novel covers an array of killers, criminals, ne'er do wells and schemers in Los Angeles as the country is heading into World War One, the movie business is booming, and porno is starting. Think of your great-grandfather's Boogie Nights. May Cobb pays a tribute to erotic thrillers of the eighties and nineties with an assistant who becomes a murder suspect when she gets pulled into the tangled relationship of a powerful writer-director and his actress wife, Jackie Collins crossed with Laura Lippman. Both are smart as they are sexy (or as for Scott's book, just plain filthy), even if you feel some guilty pleasures while turning the pages.


  1. ASSASSINS ANONYMOUS by rob Hart- Rob Hart continues to earn his last name with this cinematic yarn about a reformed hired killer whose twelve step program is crashed by someone hired to kill him. On the run around the world, with old colleagues on his heels, he searches for those behind everything,, struggling not to go back to his old ways.Rob delivers plenty of action and laughs while keeping the human heart of the story beating.


  1. ASH DARK AS NIGHT by Gary Phillips- Gary brings back One Shot Harry Ingram for a second book with the photographer/process server looking for a white businessman who disappeared during the Watts Riots, as he deals with fame from photos he took during the riots and a revelation about his lover. Phillips builds a vibrant historical South Central for his hero to interact with.


  1. DON'T LET THE DEVIL RIDE by Ace Atkins- An upper class Memphis woman hires a cool detective to help her find her missing husband and both fall into an international arms deal gone awry. Ace taps into Elmore Leonard for a fun mix of spy thriller and private eye story full of quirky characters, humor, and crisp dialogue.


  1. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ROSE DOUCHETTE by Harry Hunsicker-An ex-cop turned private detective investigates the murder of his police detective ex-wife with the help of her current husband. As they get closer to the killer, they unearth secrets of the woman that sheds lights on both of her marriages to them. This is now my favorite book by one of my favorite Texas crime writers.,


  1. FIRST FROST and TOOTH AND CLAW by Craig Johnson-Johnson went back in time twice this year to look at Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear. First Frost has them on a road trip before they go to Vietnam and getting stranded in a town with a dark secrets that some citizens will kill to keep quiet. He then gives us a ripping adventure yarn with Tooth and Claw with them after the war in Alaska dealing with a murder in the midst of a group of scientist, a ghost ship and killer polar bear. He delivers all the entertaining troped of the genre while perfectly capturing the two in their relative youth.

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