Five crime novels featuring law enforcement professionals who aren't detectives

Brooke Robinson is professional playwright who has had her work produced at London’s Vault Festival and the Old Vic, among others. She grew up in Sydney, Australia, and has worked as a bookseller, university administrator, and playwright there and in the UK. She started writing The Interpreter, her first novel, when the pandemic ground the theatre world to a halt, and is currently working on her second novel.

[Q&A with Brooke Robinson; The Page 69 Test: The Interpreter]

At CrimeReads Robinson tagged five crime novels featuring interpreters, transcribers, and other invisible law enforcement professionals, including:

In Nell Pattison’s The Silent House a shocking murder takes place in the Hunter household, a deaf family, making police reliant on British Sign Language interpreter Paige Northwood to conduct their investigation. Northwood’s links to the family, and the wider deaf community, make the situation extra complicated in this clever spin on the procedural thriller where the detectives are forced to step back.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue