Five top mysteries set in the Boston area

Peter Colt is currently a police officer in a small New England city where he has worked since 2007. He spent over twenty years in the Army reserve and was deployed to Kosovo in 2000, where he was attached to the Russian Army. He was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and again in 2008. He was fortunate to get to know many Vietnam vets and U.S. Army Special forces soldiers. He lived on Nantucket Island from 1973-1986.

Colt's new novel is The Off-Islander: An Andy Roark Mystery #1.

At CrimeReads Colt tagged five top mysteries set in the Boston area, including:

George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle

If you could only read one book about crime in or about Boston. This would be it. In a very tight 182 pages (in my copy), Higgins introduces us to mid-level criminals in Boston. There are no masterminds here, just a bunch of guys trying to carve out their own piece of the crime pie. The dialogue crackles, the characters seem like people you might meet siting next to you at a dive bar at three in the afternoon. Almost fifty years after it was written it still gritty and absorbing. It paints a picture of low rent criminals that is hard to find anywhere else. It is also an excellent window into a grimy, gritty Boston that has been replaced with high end real estate, luxury cars and Keto diets. There are other great Boston Crime novels but The Friends of Eddie Coyle is the first and the best of the bunch.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is among Thomas O’Malley and Douglas Graham Purdy's ten top crime novels set in Boston, Anthony Bourdain's ten favorite books, Don Winslow's top five crime novels, and Elmore Leonard's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue