Bound Together 2023: Fiction: Crime and Noir
Page-turners from authors Michael Connelly, Jonathan Lethem, and Ivy Pochoda are included in this chilling roundup.
WHAT NEVER HAPPENED, By Rachel Howzell Hall
THOMAS & MERCER • AUGUST 2023 • 428 PAGES • $29 HARDCOVER
Obituary writer Coco Weber is looking for a quiet life in her old home on Catalina Island: working at the local newspaper and quietly coping with the trauma of surviving a deadly home invasion before she left. Her writing assignments keep her occupied when a flock of elderly people die within a short period, but as Coco looks deeper into their lives, she suspects there might be something more menacing behind their deaths.
GANGSTERS DON’T DIE, By Tod Goldberg
COUNTERPOINT PRESS • SEPTEMBER 2023 • 384 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
Sal Cupertine is back for the third—and final—time in the thrilling conclusion to Tod Goldberg’s Gangsterland series. Once a hardened Mafia hit man in Chicago, Sal is lying low as a rabbi in the Nevada desert as his new life falls apart. Mob boss Peaches Pocotillo is expanding his territory westward, leading him to Sal and their old, unsettled feuds. To save his future—and protect his family—Sal must face his biggest foe yet.
RESURRECTION WALK, By Michael Connelly
LITTLE, BROWN • NOVEMBER 2023 • 400 PAGES • $30 HARDCOVER
Michael Connelly’s latest crime novel—his The Dark Hours was a 2022 Alta Journal California Book Club selection—follows Mickey Haller, the Lincoln lawyer and half brother of retired detective Harry Bosch, as he takes on yet another near-impossible case: a woman on trial for killing her cop husband. Haller calls upon Bosch to work the case with him, and the stakes are heightened when they uncover evidence suggesting that this crime was far more complicated than they thought.
BROOKLYN CRIME NOVEL, By Jonathan Lethem
ECCO • OCTOBER 2023 • 384 PAGES • $30 HARDCOVER
Jonathan Lethem takes readers back to 1970s Brooklyn. It’s a different world from today’s, but many of the same actors lurk at every corner: gentrification looms large, communities benefit from deep roots, crime plays out at the edges. In this fitting addition to Lethem’s impressive body of work, the author experiments freely with the form of the novel, leaning into ideas of criminals and victims, city and place, power and powerlessness.
SING HER DOWN, By Ivy Pochoda
MCD • MAY 2023 • 288 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
Ivy Pochoda brings to life Florida, a convicted criminal who firmly asserts her innocence, and her cellmate, Dios, who knows there is more to Florida than meets the eye. After the two inmates are released from prison in Arizona, they find themselves bound for Los Angeles and a final confrontation.
DENIAL, By Jon Raymond
SIMON & SCHUSTER • JULY 2022 • 240 PAGES • $26 HARDCOVER
In this future-set novel, journalist Jack Henry is on a mission to bring Robert Cave, a notorious and powerful player in the oil industry, to justice following years of catastrophic climate change. Cave, who escaped conviction while many of his fellow environmental villains were found guilty, now lives in Mexico. Henry succeeds in locating him but undergoes a surprising change of heart, raising questions about the effects and concept of justice.
TOUCHED, By Walter Mosley
GROVE ATLANTIC • OCTOBER 2023 • 176 PAGES • $26 HARDCOVER
When a man wakes up one day with an understanding that he is the Cure for the virus of humanity, he is forced to fight the personification of death with the help of his family. Walter Mosley—author of the 2020 Alta Journal California Book Club selection Devil in a Blue Dress—delivers gripping speculative fiction that alternates epic battles against supernatural forces with scenes of domesticity to offer a glimpse at the threats posed by so-called technological advancements.
DR. NO, By Percival Everett
GRAYWOLF PRESS • NOVEMBER 2022 • 232 PAGES • $16 PAPERBACK
Percival Everett’s Telephone was a 2023 Alta Journal California Book Club selection and a finalist for a 2021 Pulitzer Prize. His latest work introduces a professor whose first and last names, Wala and Kitu, both translate to “nothing” and who studies nothing. Kitu helps a stereotypical Bond villain, John Sill, attempt to steal a box of nothing to try to gain control of, you guessed it, nothing. But all the while, Kitu is valiantly trying to trick Sill, making this fun novel about nothing into something quite worthwhile.
THIRTEEN QUESTION METHOD, By David L. Ulin
OUTPOST 19 • OCTOBER 2023 • 181 pages • $19 PAPERBACK
This noir thriller by Alta Journal’s books editor revolves around a man who lives quietly in a Hollywood apartment and speaks with his neighbor only because she comes over to apologize for screaming in the courtyard. When he learns that she is engaged in a dispute with her stepmother over her father’s will, the man agrees to help her, but he soon finds himself in a world marked by secrets and hidden motivations.
THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME, By Gabino Iglesias
MULHOLLAND BOOKS • AUGUST 2022 • 320 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
In need of money to keep his ailing daughter alive, Mario does the unthinkable and becomes a hit man, trading hardcore kills for cash. His highest payout yet—to come from one last job—involves targeting an entire cartel, requires two co-conspirators, and presents low odds for survival. This riveting drama offers a too-close-for-comfort look at what pain and desperation can drive one man to do.
