Crime fiction experts tag their favorite books of 2022

J. Kingston Pierce is the editor of both The Rap Sheet and Killer Covers, the senior editor of January Magazine, and a contributing editor of CrimeReads. At The Rap Sheet he's rounded up lists of their favorite crime fiction of 2022 from some experts. Two titles from Jim Thomsen's list:

Other People’s Secrets, by Meredith Hambrock (Crooked Lane):

There’s no character I love more in literature that the loser, through poor choices and poorer circumstances, with a hidden higher gear that’s revealed only when they’re threatened with the loss of what little they have left. Baby, the heroine of Hambrock’s debut novel, is a classic such character. Born in a dumpster and scraping out a daily subsistence existence not so removed from the trash bin nearly three decades later, Baby finds her calling when the rundown lakefront resort she works at—and illegally squats in—is targeted for big changes that appear designed to leave her and her loser friends behind. And when she learns that the closure is part of a conspiracy by developers in league with local drug kingpins, god help anybody who gets in Baby’s way. Most of...[read on]

[The Page 69 Test: Other People's Secrets]

Blackout, by Erin Flanagan (Thomas & Mercer):

Erin Flanagan came onto my radar in a big way with Deer Season, the richly deserved winner of this year’s Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Blackout, her second novel, is a completely different beast, but no less assured than her debut. It’s a highly original twist on the unreliable-thriller trope. Maris Heilman, a college sociology professor and recovering alcoholic, is suffering blackouts that endanger herself and the stability of her family, and she seems unable to convince anyone that she isn’t drinking again. The truth, though, is that she is the target of a monstrous conspiracy involving some seriously weird science. But what Maris knows and what she can prove to anyone’s satisfaction are two very different things, and the gap between them may be too...[read on]

[The Page 69 Test: Blackout; My Book, The Movie: Blackout; Coffee with a Canine: Erin Flanagan & Mavis and Lorna]

Read about the favorite 2022 crime fiction titles tagged by J. Kingston Pierce, Kevin Burton Smith, Ali Karim, Stephen Miller, Jim Napier, Fraser Massey, and Jim Thomsen.

--Marshal Zeringue