Literary crime novel recommendations.

I haven't read any crime fiction in ages. I've been going through a Penguin Classics phase. However, I just finished P. D. James' "Talking About Detective Fiction" which has inspired me to return to the genre. I'm looking for contemporary, literary crime novels and would love some recommendations.

A while back we reviewed The Semantics of Murder and Thursday Night Widows on our blog. I don't know if they're what you mean when you say Literary, but you can take a look at the reviews over there and decide.

Kate Atkinson has a series of literary crime novels. Case Histories is one; there are two others to date, if memory serves.

Man-Booker winner John Banville writes literary crime fiction under the name Benjamin Black--Christine Falls is the first of these.

Thomas Pynchon's latest, Inherent Vice is kind of crime fiction...and it's most definitely literary...and really, really funny.

Um, there are lots of others, but my pea brain isn't coming up with any right now.

Two of the best written and plotted books I own are A Dark-adapted Eye by Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell) and Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark. Exceptional mysteries by authors who understand characterization and how to write effective suspense. The latter is more of a police procedural than the first. Both are exquisitely crafted.

You might want to check out Natsuo Kirino, who writes some gritty crime novels set in modern-day Japan. I've read Out and Grotesque by her and recommend both.

Kirino is good, yep I agree KT.

Also try The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub. Unique voice, good plot, excellent sociopath portrayal.

One I'm reading right now--The Broken Shore by Peter Temple--I would call literary crime fiction.

Ooh, Bookmarque, I loved Mr. White's Confession. Such a beautifully written story.

I'll second (or third) the raves for Mr. White's Confession and add that I thought The Night Gardener was good too. Lush by Richard Price would also go into this category, I think. And always always P. D. James!

If you liked Clark's Confession, check out In the Deep Midwinter. It's not a crime novel per se, but it's subtle and moving and intense. Written with the same care and attention to character it does have a few surprises.

I'll keep thinking about literary crime novels. I find Chandler very poetic, but I'm not sure he qualifies as "Literary" with a capital L.

I would recommend The Calling and The Taken by Inger Ash Wolfe. The author is supposedly a well-known Canadian literary novelist writing under a pseudonym.

Anyone got a suggestion or link to an article or essay that talks about "literary crime" as a genre? I *think* I grasp what the distinction is, but I'd be kind of curious what others think the characteristics that distinguish a "literary crime" novel from a non-literary crime novel.

The way I've always distinguished the two is by focus - a crime novel without "Literary" aspirations (don't forget that oh-so-important capital L) focuses only on the crime and methods used to solve it. A "Literary" crime novels focuses mostly on other aspects of the story; the whys and wherefores mostly.

Take Mr. White's Confession; it has a crime, cops, a corpse and a killer, but it really wants to talk about relationships, police corruption and faulty methodology. The time itself, America between world wars, is relatively rare and therefore interesting (at least to me).

If you read Vine's A Dark-adapted Eye (and you must, really) you'll know who the killer is and who the corpse is within the first chapter, but all the things you don't know will keep you going. The commentary on what women can get up to when their men are at war is interesting.

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino also has deed and doer, but focuses on the hyper-competitive world of modern Japan and the ramifications it has for those who don't reach the very pinnacle of success. Underbelly is an understatement.

Straightforward crime novels don't give many pages to those kinds of concepts. At least that's how I see it.

>13 Bookmarque:
I always think of Dürrenmatt and Patricia Highsmith as the classic examples of that genre, but I suppose they're not exactly contemporary any more!

What about lightish crime novels that rely heavily on clever literary allusions, but don't have serious literary pretensions themselves? There's an awful lot of that in British crime fiction. Michael Innes, Dorothy L. Sayers, more recently Reginald Hill, Jasper Fforde, and many others. Do they get to be called literary crime?

Agreed about Highsmith - Strangers on a Train is a painful novel, but a perfect example of what I mean. The Ripley series are more focused and enjoyable, but they really just serve to illustrated sociopathy.

The others you mention I don't have much experience with. Cutesy stuff like Fforde puts out just isn't my thing and I wouldn't call it Literary or literary. I think I read ONE Sayers - The Nine Tailors back in my teens, but that's it.

Yes, there's a borderline somewhere, but it's hard to pin down where. I've been rediscovering Simenon lately. He's someone who churned the stuff out at such a rate that he ought to go in the "non-literary" basket automatically, but he certainly fits your definition of focussing on the "why?" rather than the "what?".

Another thought: would we class L'Etranger as a literary crime story? If not, why not? (It has roughly the same plot as Simenon's L'homme qui regardait passer les trains, after all.)

Dürrenmatt is worth a look if you don't know him - he was a Swiss playwright who only wrote two or three crime novels, very dark, complicated and philosophical. Der Richter und sein Henker is the famous one.

Thanks for the many intriguing suggestions. I forsee a trip to the library with a shopping cart. My idea of a literary crime story involves multi-layered believable characters, authentic setting, some social and human insights, compelling plot and , for want of a better word, elegant writing. Among Amercian writers, Chandler and Ross McDonald come to mind, but they are hardly contemporary. The writer that would epitomize the literary style of crime writing for me would be Graham Greene, although admittedly most of his novels can't be included in the crime genre. But that's more of what I'm looking for, although in a more contemporary setting. (John Le Carre?.....in many ways he can be considered a mystery writer).

I'm not really interested in the Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Michael Innes school of crime writers. Too much emphasis on plot and puzzle and not enough on character.

>17 David1312:
Did you know that one of John Le Carré's earliest novels, A murder of quality had Smiley as detective in a good old-fashioned murder mystery set in a public school? Tinker, Tailor... is also basically a whodunnit, of course. But I don't think his post-Cold War stuff is as good.

What do you think of Ian Rankin? I'd guess that he comes fairly close to your standard. Not a Graham Greene, of course, but plenty of authentic atmosphere, social insight and politics, lots of alcohol, and even some fairly substantial characters here and there.

>8 BeckyJG:,9,17
If I'm not mistaken Le Carre's first two or three books were murder mysteries. I read A Murder of Quality years ago and all I remember of it was that it was a terrificly tight little story. I've read several Rebus stories and enjoyed them for all the reasons mentioned above and also because I know Edinburgh well. Rankin's portrayal of the city is spot on, and generally I think that an acute sense of place is an important element of crime novels, particularly detective fiction.

Anyway, I'm thinking Robert Clark's "Mr White's Confession" has a place in my immediate future.

You have "contemporary" in your question, and this wouldn't fit that, but when I think "literary mystery", I think Dorothy L. Sayers and her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. Nine Tailors, for example, although you could pick any of them.

The Harriet Vane ones, Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, and Gaudy Night, which are a ways into the series, are particular favorites for me.

If we're talking about Le Carre, we should also mention Charles McCarry. His stuff is political and/or espionage by genre, but the quality of his writing, and the depth of his characterizations--not to mention all that other aspects of the story stuff--sets him, I think, firmly in the Literary thriller camp. Plus, I really want people to read him, because I think he's criminally (pardon the pun) under-read. All his stuff follows the same characters, but, as the books aren't written in any kind of chronological way it's not necessary to have read any one of them to understand any of the others. The Better Angels and Shelley's Heart are my favorites, so far (Overlook Press--who also publish those wonderful little editions of Wodehouse) has been bringing one or two of them back into print a year, so I haven't read them all yet).

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, or the works of Wilkie Collins, both The Moonstone and The Woman in White. Tho, I forgot you limited your request to contemporary novels. In that case you must read Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas.

Considering the term "literary" from another perspective, you may be interested in the Kate Fansler series by Amanda Cross, who died in 2003. Her protagonist is a college literature professor, and the books contain many references to various authors and their works. An enjoyable series, except for one of the last books--I wouldn't recommend Honest Doubt.

One could include The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I enjoyed it both times I read it. Having bought it on a whim without knowing anything about it back in the early 90s, I can say that was one of the best serendipitous book moments.

If one bends "Literary" and uses a small L I won't hesitate to include Ross Thomas in the list. Overlooked and under-read he's a genius with the unreliable narrator. Chinaman's Chance is phenomenal as are some of his others like Briarpatch, The Fourth Durango and Twilight at Mac's Place.

Paul Auster's New York Trilogy—City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room—was fascinating.

Try Fred Vargas, a really stylish and quirky French writer, and if you are interested in history, her best one is The Three Evangelists

I'm afraid I gave up on Mr White's Confession. To my mind, it had clunky writing, unconvincing characters (Mr White who has no intermediate memory can nevertheless remember the plot of past movies he's seen when he writes to the movie star he's obsessed with). I switched to Kate Atkinson, and what a treat. The first three chapters of Case Histories are stunning. She writes with wit, intelligence and style. The way she paints the manners and characters of children is wonderful. Maybe the story is a bit slow to develop, but the quality of the writing just carries you. This definitely conforms to my idea of literary crime stories.
>23 Bookmarque:
Bookmarque, I couldn't agree with you more on Ross Thomas. For years I've loved reading his delightful books wiith their intricate plots, sardonic humor and style in bucketloads.

Based on the above (#23, 26), I think I'll pull down my copy of Chinaman's Chance and give it a reread. It's the only one I have by Ross Thomas - maybe I should find some others.

I like Bookmarque's definition of literary mystery in #13. Along those lines I can highly recommend the following:

In the Woods and The Likeness by Tana French. I agree that Ian Rankin books qualify, as do Elizabeth George's and Minette Walters'. Michael Gruber's The Forgery of Venus and The Book of Air and Shadows. You might want to try Swedish authors Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson. The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time by Michael Cox. Smila's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg. The Alienist et seq by Caleb Carr. Check out Carol O'Connell and Walter Mosley and James Sallis.

I think the "literary mystery" is my favorite genre.

do, etrainer, do, it's a fabulous book. I've been meaning to get myself some more Ross Thomas, too.

#28 I agree with citigirl that O'Connell and Mosley are excellent writers in the genre.

Eh...I found O'Connell nonsensical, but that's just me. Mosley was good, but the Easy Rawlins books didn't grab me. I liked the non-series one I think was called A Man in my Basement or something like that...let me look.

I think I would include the Benjamin January series by Barbara Hambly set in 1830's New Orleans. I just love her dense, atmospheric prose style.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher was absolutely excellent - I can recommend it highly!

Bookmarque! O'Connell nonsensical? I should sic Mallory on you. :-}

Eh, she's not very scary. One of the most badly portrayed sociopaths I've read. And her crime solving ability / police work is just gawd-awful. She needs an epiphany to get anything done. Just my take. I know they're supposed to be entertaining, but the mistakes and missteps just took me out of the story every time. Not to mention the awkward and clunky prose.

*holds head in hands* Aaaargh! Oh, well, to each her own.

Have you read any Reginald Hill? His Dalziel and Pascoe series are a good read with indepth character studies that have developed from the first book to the latest.

I think Literary Mysteries refer to novels which involve other novels in the plot. Two that come to mind are Possessions by A. S.Byatt and Club Dumas by Perez-Reverte. I see the wrong Touchstone has popped up for Possessions!

#38 - I think the A. S. Byatt novel you're looking for is actually called Possession!

Sophie, you are right! Possession is the correct title. By happenstance, DH and I watched the movie version a few nights ago. He was not enthralled by the story, but I thought the book and movie excellent. I did not categorize this as a mystery in my own LT. It is a romance and mystery in my estimation. Possession:A Romance brings forth the right Touchstone. Ha on me!

I recommend Michael Innes. I love his books. And I recently finished The Oxford Murders, which I really enjoyed.