Abir Mukherjee: 10 of my favourite thrillers
To be a great writer, you need to be a great reader. That’s why the best authors have excellent book recommendations. Claire Douglas, Lee Child and Shari Lapena have all shared their top page-turners with Dead Good. Now Abir Mukherjee, author of the hugely popular Wyndham and Banerjee series, as well as a fast-paced new standalone novel Hunted, reveals and reviews 10 of his favourite mystery books below…
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
To me, this book is a real classic. It is the first of Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko novels, and still my favourite. Set in the late Cold War period, Renko is chief investigator for the Moscow Militsiya, who is assigned to a case involving three corpses found in Gorky Park who have had their faces and fingertips cut off by the murderer to prevent identification. I first read this book when I was still at school and I thought it was brilliant. It’s the novel that first piqued my interest in the sub-genre of good detectives upholding a corrupt system, and it’s one of the few books I’ve read several times.
Laidlaw by William McIlvanney
My dad left sunny India and chose to make his home in Glasgow, Scotland and there’s a special place in my heart for this book. In my opinion, it’s one the finest works of crime fiction ever written, and was the rock upon which most of the great Scottish crime fiction of the last 30 years has been built. McIlvanney’s detective, Laidlaw, is hunting the killer of a teenage girl from one of the rougher parts of Glasgow. But the book is no ordinary crime novel – the reader is introduced to the killer early on – rather it is an exploration of the dark side of human nature. It’s also a love song to the city of Glasgow and its uniqueness and its contradictions. Finally, there’s the wonderful imagery which McIlvanney imbues throughout the book. No matter how many times I read it, I always find some turn of phrase that stops me in my tracks.
A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr
Philip Kerr was one of my favourite writers. His character, Bernie Gunther, an investigator in Nazi Germany and in the post-war period, is a brilliant creation. I love novels with an ambiguous, conflicted protagonist, and for me, Bernie Gunther is the gold standard. All of the Gunther novels are excellent and I’ve been hooked since I picked up his Berlin Noir trilogy more than a decade ago. My favourite, though, is A Quiet Flame, in which Bernie finds himself in post-war Argentina, alongside a bunch of unsavoury characters including Adolf Eichmann. Bernie is tasked with hunting down a serial killer targeting young girls in a method very similar to another crime he investigated back in Berlin.
The Trees by Percival Everett
Set mainly in the American Deep South, The Trees is the satirical tale of white men, the descendants of those involved in lynchings, being found murdered, with the same dead black men turning up next to them. It’s powerful, it’s funny, it challenges our views on what constitutes justice and it deserves to be read by everyone.
Finding Sophie by Imran Mahmood
If you’re a fan of gripping suspense novels with heart-wrenching twists and turns, Finding Sophie is a must-read. The story of a couple’s unwavering determination to find their missing daughter keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end.
Harry and Zara are growing increasingly frantic at their daughter’s disappearance, though they both deal with it in very different ways. Increasingly obsessed with their highly suspicious neighbour who won’t open the door or answer any questions, they are both coming to the same conclusion. If they want answers, they’re going to have to take the matter into their own hands.
Finding Sophie is an exploration of love, loss, and the resilience of the human spirit. Mahmood’s poignant portrayal of family bonds and the lengths one would go to for those they love is extremely well done, marking him out as one of the finest writers of thought-provoking crime fiction today.
Read more: 10 mystery audiobooks to read now
The City and the City by China Mieville
There are certain books that are works of art. The City and the City is the tale of a murder in a city that is two places at once. The cities of Beszel and Ul Quoma occupy the same space at the same time, sometimes even different sides of the same street. The residents of each are taught from childhood to ‘unsee’ the other side. Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Beszel police has to investigate the death of an American woman who was based in Ul Quoma but whose body is found in Beszel. It’s a story of politics and corruption but also an allegory for the way we unsee others, such as the homeless, on our own streets.
Little Rebel by Jérôme Leroy
This account of a terror attack on a school in an unnamed city in the west of France is a satirical look at modern French society and issues of immigration and the radicalisation of a forgotten underclass. In the hands of a less accomplished writer, this would be a difficult task, but Leroy is a master and he takes a scalpel to the subject matter. Insightful and beautiful, more of Leroy’s work needs to be translated into English.