The Best Books of 2023: Mystery!

The most happily reliable escape-hatch of all the genres, the one where you get all the intrigue and betrayal and murder and mayhem of the news headlines without any of the rude intrusions of reality, is almost certainly the murder mystery. Certainly it's been a refuge for me during the whole course of my reading life. And given some of the appalling news headlines of 2023, that refuge was much appreciated and well-stocked with good books. These were the best of them:

10 The Mitford Secret by Jessica Fellowes (Minotaur Books)

One of the least-likely mystery premises of recent years reaches its sixth and final installment in this novel, which once again places the intrepid adventures of private detective Louisa Cannon against the backdrop of the world inhabited by the famous Mitford sisters – including especially in this volume Diana and Unity. The time is 1941, and England is at war … but murder never takes a furlough, and right from the first chapter, Jessica Fellowes is providing the same concoction of wit and tension and period detail that's filled this whole series. It'll be missed.

9 So Shall You Reap by Donna Leon (Atlantic Monthly Press)

No stopping at a mere six books for Donna Leon, of course: this latest adventure of Inspector Brunetti is the thirty-second installment in Leon's beloved murder mystery novels set in a wonderfully-evoked contemporary Venice. This particular novel is as well-executed as all the dozens before it, and although elements of its plot are clearly aimed at relevance (issues of immigration and terrorism crop up), most of the book's allures are evergreen.

8 Murder Under a Red Moon by Harini Nagendra (Pegasus Crime)

Nagendra's charming main character, reluctant amateur detective Kaveri Murthy, once again takes center stage in this wonderfully fast-paced and involving murder mystery set in the Bangalore of an earlier and far more politically combustible era. There are plot-turns aplenty, but the main attraction here is Kaveri herself, as refreshingly interesting a new protagonist as the genre as seen in some time.

7 City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita (Berkley)

Considering how many fictional sleuths seem to be headquartered there, you'd think even Alaska might start to feel a bit crowded – but there's always room for one more series when it's as well-done as this one starring Anchorage detective Cara Kennedy, who here must deal with discovered body parts, secretive tiny towns, and the gigantically monstrous weather for which the state is famous. All of this – an impending storm, a town where everybody's acting suspicious – is so familiar it should be tedious, but Yamamshita fills it with as much energy as if she'd invented all these tired old gimmicks.

6 Code of the Hills by Chris Offutt (Grove Press)

There are plenty of conventions on hand in Chris Offutt's latest novel, but there of a decidedly different kind: here the wonderfully-drawn setting is the back roads and hollers of Kentucky, the old home of main character Mick and his sister Linda, a small-town sheriff dealing with a dead body and an array of clues that something much darker might be happening in her tiny town. Naturally Mick feels obliged to help out, and Offutt, employing some of the best prose-line skills of any author on this list, combines these elements into a truly memorable rural-noir thriller.

5 Playing It Safe by Ashley Weaver (Minotaur Press)

The central conceit of Weaver's delightful series – her professional-thief main character Ellie McDonnell is strong-armed by British Intelligence in to helping with sensitive missions – is so durable and winning that the fun is increased in every new adventure, like this latest one where our heroine goes undercover to the coast to await further instructions. In typical fashion, trouble intervenes even before she can be told what the trouble is – but then, watching Ellie try to figure out her new employers is every bit as much fun as watching her to try to figure out random murders.

4 The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)

This wonderful series set in 1920s India stars Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in Bombay, and in this complex and emotionally powerful new book, the normally-deliberative Perveen worries her family by seeming to become too personally involved in her latest case, one involving a young servant she believes has been imprisoned on false charges. This charged personal element adds even more tension to an already tightly-done plot.

3 The Lady from Burma by Alison Montclair (Minotaur)

The two main characters in Montclair's utterly delightful series are the enigmatic Miss Iris Sparks and the valiant war widow Gwendolyn Bainbridge, joint proprietors of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau, and in this latest adventure, they're faced with a puzzler of new client: a dying woman wants them to find the ideal match for her soon-to-be-widowed husband. But when she's later found dead, an already-complicated case turns byzantine, with our two heroines in the center of things as always. And Montclair once again captures their odd chemistry perfectly.

2 Not the Ones Dead by Dana Stabenow (Head of Zeus)

Our list returns to that crowded state of Alaska and to its most venerable fictional crime-solver, Dana Stabennow's terrific character Kate Shugak, here called in to investigate the wreckage of a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness. The scene is tragic enough, but Stabenow's many fans will know to expect plenty of twists, starting with two big ones: the body of an extra passenger is found in the wreckage – and he didn't die in the crash, he was shot to death. As she always does, Stabenow captures the beauty and danger of Alaska, and as usual, readers will be rooting for Kate Shugak.

1 The Last Songbird by Daniel Weizmann (Melville House)

The sunny streets of LA form the setting for this gripping, wistful, sharply-written story by Weizmann, the best mystery of the year. A likable Lyft driver named Adam has fallen into a strange routine: he regularly drives around a faded musical star from the 1970s – not to any particular destination, but just to let her talk. When she disappears, Adam is a natural suspect, and when she's found dead, he's spurred to look into the crime – and Weizmann captures perfectly the odd combination of desperate self-preservation and genuine grief that motivates Adam. The resulting novel bristles with vibrant dialogue, well-drawn characters, and plenty of knowing reflections on all the way music can shape our lives.