Top ten US crime novelist tour guides

Edgar Award-winning author C. J. Box's novels include the Joe Pickett series. He’s also won the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, and the Barry Award. For the Guardian, he named a top ten list of US crime novelists who own their home turf.

One novelist on his list:

Baltimore / Laura Lippman

Lippman is a former journalist who grew up in Baltimore and returned to write about it from the inside out. Like a painter, she illustrates the mean and kind streets of this fascinatingly American city on a big canvas.

Suggested titles: Baltimore Blues, What the Dead Know, To the Power of Three.

Read about another novelist on Box's list.

The Page 69 Test: Another Thing to Fall.

The Page 69 Test: What the Dead Know.

The Page 69 Test/Page 99 Test: Life Sentences.

--Marshal Zeringue