Horribly addictive crime

If you, like us, can’t help but be grimly transfixed by the criminal acts of bad people, you’re going to love the books on this list. These are not your usual grab-them-at-the-airport thrillers.

Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk

One woman’s mission to avenge her dogs plays out in the most unexpected fashion – we were transfixed and bowled over by this Polish future classic, and we frankly we don’t have time for anyone who disagrees. Chilly and ingenious, the landscape sings as loud as our brilliantly cantankerous heroine.

The Godmother, by Hannelore Cayre

Delicious little French translation that details the titular Godmother’s journey from lowly translator to cartel-smashing crime-fighter. Witty and readable, but still vicious enough to satisfy any hardened crime fan.

Deep Water, by Patricia Highsmith

Unbearably, brutally tense, but somehow also quite likeable, this is an absolutely clockwork domestic thriller, with an almost Edward Albee level of controlled hysteria. A bad-tempered book to say the least, and one that delightfully plays with the very worst in human instinct.

Muscle, by Alan Trotter

Written in a densely vernacular style that is so hard boiled you might actually damage your jaw from clenching it, Alan Trotter’s inimitable and addictive post-noir novel is unique. It begins with a violent and Beckett-ian altercation on a train, and unspools itself from there…

Catch and Kill, by Ronan Farrow

OK, not a novel, but it reads like a spy thriller, and it’s painfully, painfully true: Ronan Farrow’s determined pursuit of Harvery Weinstein makes for some brutal and uncomfortable conclusions about the power of celebrity and the complicity of those around it.

The Second Life Of Inspector Canessa, by Roberto Perrone

With a sense of tumbling melancholy, this dark and sumptuous Mafia thriller has a classic ‘pulled out of retirement’ premise, but addictively unusual execution. A novel of revisiting the past and reckoning with its lasting power.

Buy every book on this list and save 10%!