These Women by Ivy Pochoda, 2020Read about another entry on the list.
Loosely based on the case of the Grim Sleeper, the serial killer so named for taking a 14-year “nap” between killing sprees, Pochoda turns the focus entirely on the women — survivors, witnesses and, in her most compelling character, a petite, street-savvy detective, Essie. “Pochoda’s serial killer novel flips the paradigm,” says Tod Goldberg, “focusing on the victims of terrible crimes instead of the perpetrators, and the result is a novel that does an anthropological dig of Los Angeles’ streets and subcultures. Reading it is like putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle, but the result is high art.”
These Women is among Erin Young’s six books that elevate the serial killer thriller, Adele Parks's four best novels with nuanced portrayals of sex workers, Alex Kenna's five top modern LA noir books by women writers, Meg Gardiner's six favorite crime fiction books, Eliza Jane Brazier's ten top thrilling stories of Los Angeles, Stephen Miller's favorite crime titles of 2020 and Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith's ten American masterpieces that are actually crime fiction.
The Page 69 Test: These Women.
--Marshal Zeringue
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