O ur best of the year lists combine prestigious crime shortlists with some of our own favourites, and you can find our best mysteries of 2020 below, in (very approximate) order of preference:
“Magpie Lane takes place in an academic setting. It’s set in an ancient college—I think it’s Corpus Christi, though it’s not called that in the book—and the child who goes missing is the daughter of the Master. He and his slightly erratic second wife live in the marvellous old Master’s Lodgings with lots of cubbyholes and secret places where odd things start happening. There’s a very spooky frisson to the whole thing. It’s beautifully done. Lucy Atkins writes like an angel. She takes a lot of time on her books, and you can really see where the love and effort has gone. In this book, she reminds me of AS Byatt, who’s one of my all-time favourite writers. You feel the layers in the book, the density. It’s packed with ideas, with observations. And it’s a mystery as well. You want to know what happened. Where is the girl? What happened to her? I’m not going to spoil that.” Read more...
The Best Crime Novels Set in Oxford
Cara Hunter ,
Novelist
🏆 Winner Best Novel 2020 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
The Stranger Diaries is a Gothic take on a modern mystery, with a fictional Victorian author, RM Holland, as a central part of the plot. The book has won a number of accolades, as well as being a Richard & Judy Bookclub pick, suggesting it’s also a relatively easy read. That said, it is educational: the book pulls you along, but you also feel the need to look up the ghost stories of MR James (on whom, one can’t help but presume, RM Holland is based), and reread Wilkie Collins.
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“The Searcher takes us to a village in Ireland and a retired Chicago cop who has just moved there and is doing up a rundown old house. His character is completely credible, and I can see him in front of his house, sanding down a piece of wood, as I write this. The book is slow-moving but absolutely absorbing.” Read more...
Best Crime Fiction of 2020
Sophie Roell ,
Journalist
☆ Shortlisted for the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
The Thursday Murder Club is a relentless parody of a classic, cosy murder mystery, written by British TV presenter and comedian Richard Osman. It is laugh-out-loud funny at times, though it’s hard to know how well that humour travels beyond UK borders, so it may be worth reading a sample before committing. It’s a light and enjoyable read, set in an upscale retirement village, with the upshot that many of the main protagonists are aged 70+, which is oddly empowering.
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“What’s not to love? Four 70-somethings living in the same retirement village meet every Thursday in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes—until a local developer turns up dead and the Thursday Murder Club confronts their first ‘live’ case. The entire scenario and cast is delicious. Lots of narratives are witty and worth a sardonic smile here and there, but The Thursday Murder Club is funny, compassionate, and completely entertaining—an utter treat to read.” Read more...
The Best Thrillers of 2021
Tosca Lee ,
Novelist
☆ Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Gold Dagger
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling ) is the 5th book in a series featuring Cormoran Strike , a British war veteran who sets up a detective agency in London after losing his leg in a roadside explosion in Afghanistan . The series is one of the most intelligent out there for fans of crime fiction. If you're new to the books, we recommend reading the series in order , as it's a lot about the evolution of the relationship between the two main characters.
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Perfect Kill by Helen Fields is the 6th book in a series featuring Edinburgh-based police detectives Luc Callanach and Ava Turner. If you're very squeamish about your mystery books, you might find them a tough read, but if you've got the stomach for a few horrific crimes, they're real page-turners. Perfect Kill is no exception, though if you haven't read any, you could start at the beginning, with Perfect Remains .
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🏆 Winner 2020 CWA Gold Dagger ☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
The title of this book is not ideal, seemingly jumping on the bandwagon of books with 'girl' in the title. But once you've set aside that prejudice, it's a great read, mainly seeing the world through the eyes of forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven.
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☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 CWA Gold Dagger
Forced Confessions is probably best classified as a legal thriller, with courtroom drama playing a key part in the action. The main character, William Benson, is a barrister (a trial lawyer in the English legal system). He is also a convicted murderer, who may or may be innocent of the crime he was sent to prison for.
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☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 CWA Gold Dagger
November Road by Lou Berney has been shortlisted for the 2020 Gold Dagger award, though it was first published in 2018 in the US. It's not exactly a mystery, it's more of a chase story, combined with historical fiction, since the plot doesn't exactly revolve, but mostly stems from the assassination of John F Kennedy. The main character works for a gangster, so if you prefer your mysteries not to include organized crime, it probably shouldn't be top of your list. That said, it's still reasonably light and enjoyable.
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☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
Smoke and Ashes is the third book in a series featuring Sam Wyndham, a policeman in the Imperial Police Force of Raj-era India, as the chief protagonist. It’s set in Bengal and specifically Calcutta (now Kolkata), after the capital of the Raj has moved to Delhi. In the background looms Gandhi and his bid for swaraj , or independence, by non-violent resistance and the tricky aspects of dealing with that for the authorities, of whom Captain Wyndham is one. It’s quite a light read and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
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☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 CWA Gold Dagger
This is book number 4 in a historical mysteries series set in India during the Raj, with book no.3 already nominated for an Edgar. You could also read the series in order, but if you want to sample just one, Death in the East is particularly gripping. The story alternates between East London (before World War I) and a hill station in India (after World War I), with the two plotlines weaving together nicely.
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☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 CWA Gold Dagger
Joe Country by Mick Herron is the 6th book in his Slough House series, more spy thriller than mystery book. It's an interesting, but decidedly odd, book about a set of dysfunctional spies. It was hard to tell why anyone was doing anything they were doing, which could, perhaps, be taken as a metaphor for the human condition, or alternatively, a sign that this is not a series to jump into and that you need to start at the beginning, with Slow Horses
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☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 CWA Gold Dagger
What You Pay For by Claire Askew is a police procedural set (as so many are these days) in Edinburgh, Scotland. The action takes place over the course of a week and it is quite gripping, a book you want to go back to reading. What's it not strong on is mystery. This is partly the publisher's fault: the blurb on the cover means there are basically no surprises in the first 100 pages and one excellent, really suspenseful passage is ruined by the fact you already know who is breaking into Detective Inspector Birch's house. But it's also not a book that particularly strives to have a clever plot: it's more about emotional anguish and tiredness—and how you could accidentally end up as a gangster—than thrilling twists and turns.
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☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
We’re putting Fake Like Me on this list of best mysteries because it’s been shortlisted for a 2020 Edgar award, but it’s not a mystery in the traditional sense. Yes, there’s a plot twist, but you have to wait a long time for it, and there’s no particular buildup to it. What it is is a vivid description of being a young artist, trying to make it in the world.
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☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
It's true that The River: A Novel by Peter Heller has been nominated for an Edgar, but it probably should not be classified primarily as a mystery or thriller. What it's mainly about is two young men going canoeing in Canada and their relationship. That combination of the great outdoors, two men, as well as the writing, makes it slightly reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain
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