July is Crime Month here at Booktopia — a month-long celebration of crime fiction and edge-of-your-seat thrillers, as well as the readers who devour them. Today, veteran crime writer Lynda La Plante is on the blog to share some of her favourite books with us. Read on …
As a crime writer I am obviously interested in reading my fellow authors’ books – including Val McDermid, Karin Slaughter, Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly and Peter James, to name just a few. However, I thought I would compile a list of crime books that I have enjoyed reading most recently:
Careless People
by Sarah Churchwell
This is the brilliant and fascinating story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. Churchwell explores the newly rich detail of the 1920s and its relationship to the extravagant, scandalous and chaotic world in which Scott and Zelda lived – covering murder, mayhem and the story of how The Great Gatsby came about.
Buy it here
My Dark Places
by James Ellroy
Jean Ellroy was murdered in 1958. Her body was dumped on a roadway in a rundown LA subway. The killer was never found. The case was closed and it became a sordid, back-page homicide that nobody remembered – except her son. My Dark Places explores the author’s search for the truth and the perpetrator behind his mother’s gruesome murder.
Buy it here
Resurrection Bay
by Emma Viskic
This novel is a tour de force excursion into good, evil and the labyrinth of human motivations. Emma has created a brilliant protagonist in the profoundly deaf and irresistibly obstinate Caleb Zelic. I found Caleb’s character quite astonishing – being deaf appears to give him the ability to read people better than anyone. I think Emma is a truly astonishing young writer and her books are highly recommended.
Buy it here
The Art of Death
by David Fennell
This is a truly extraordinary crime novel that I honestly had to read in the afternoon as it was too chilling to read in the evening! It is a gritty, dark thriller with a serial killer of frightening proportions.
Buy it here
The Mild Murderer
by Tom Cullen
This is the story of Dr Crippen’s case, and it really is true crime writing at its best – thoroughly fascinating and offering an insight into Crippen’s attempt to get away with the brutal murder of his wife. He was subsequently arrested with the help of the newly innovative wireless telegraphy system. Cullen’s reconstruction of the crime, the chase and the trial provide an unusual portrait of middle-class Edwardian society. Rather amusingly, Alfred Hitchcock was quoted as saying, “When it comes to a murder case, the British are hard to beat.”
The Fatal Lover
by Julie Wheelwright
This is a wonderful and beautifully researched book on the life of Mata Hari. Many years ago I was commissioned by the BBC to write a series based on Mata Hari’s life – sadly the ‘powers that be’ felt that the overt sexuality of the heroine was too much for the British public! More than 70 years after her death, Mata Hari is almost a household name throughout the Western world and it is believed that her execution was murderous.
Lynda Lynda
Judas Horse
Detective Jack Warr: Book 2
Wild mustangs are difficult to rope, their lead stallion wary and protective of his herd. To capture that special stallion takes time. He is separated, roped, and lead back to the ranch. Once tamed, he is sent back into the wild. And before long, he will lead the entire herd back to the ranch. He is given the name 'Judas Horse'.
When Detective Jack Warr identifies an informer, the terrified man begins to give details of a massive robbery planned by a team of unscrupulous and dangerous men...
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