The City & the City by China Miéville

Good Science Fiction uses an altered reality to reveal something about the real world that couldn’t be revealed without that altered setting. Great Science Fiction does this and entertains as well. China Miéville’s The City and the City is really great Scifi. It begins feeling like a dark, well-written, noir-style mystery – a body has been found in the city of Beszel, detective Borlu has been assigned to investigate – but the story quickly takes a sci-fi turn. Beszel exists, somehow, in the same place as the completely separate, foreign city of Ul Qomo. The book is both about the murder and about how these two cities exist intermingled the way they are. Yes, it is sometimes a little confusing, but I trusted Miéville to make it clear as I went along and I was not disappointed. This is the best book I’ve read this year. If you’re up to it, it would make a fantastic book club selection.

Elegy for April by Benjamin Black

We put all of Benjamin Black’s (the pen name for Booker-prize winning author, John Banville) books in our Mystery section, but it’s more accurate to call them Crime Novels. There is a whodunit element, but their real strength is in atmosphere and character. In the opening pages of Elegy for April there is an unseasonable fog flooding the streets of 1950s Dublin. Black evokes it so well, with such gentle intensity, that I was sorry when the weather began to clear. This story again features the alcoholic, brooding pathologist Quirke from Christine Falls, his complicated family connections, and the power system in Ireland. Even in the moments when the pace began to almost lull me, I couldn’t put it down. I felt like I’d gone back in time, like I was right there at Quirke’s shoulder as he made a hash of his relationships, struggled to resist the Bushmills, and doggedly did not let anyone get away with murder.

Echoes from the Dead by Johan Theorin

I probably don’t need to mention that Scandinavian authors are popular right now - you might have heard of a certain Girl and her Tattoo. My family is a little obsessed with them - Steig Larsson, Jo Nesbo, Per Petterson (not mysteries, but very good), Henning Mankell, and others. So when both my dad and my brother told me that Theorin is their new favorite Swedish author, I had to give him a try.
Echoes from the Dead is set on a chilly, windswept island off the coast of Sweden. The story follows Julia Davidsson and her father Gerlof as they delve into the twenty-year-old disappearance of Julia’s young son, Jens. It is a quieter book than some mysteries. Julia’s long-held grief over her lost son is very well portrayed. Gerlof is a former ship’s captain in his eighties. The search for new information about Jens is partly a way to escape the care facility where he lives and feel important again. And then there is the shadowy figure of Nils Kant. He is revealed in historical chapters interspersed throughout the story. Nils is legendary on the island, evoked almost as boogieman, and Gerlof thinks he was involved in Jens’s disappearance.
The best part about Echoes from the Dead was that Theorin kept me guessing about what happened to Jens and Nils Kant, and about what might happen to Julia and Gerlof.

Pavel & I by Dan Vyleta

Normally I hate being tricked when a book is repackaged with a new cover so that I don’t realize it’s been out for years. But if the publishers hadn't “tricked” me into reading Pavel & I, I would have missed a great read. It has just about everything I want in a mystery: fantastic atmosphere, intriguing characters, enough of a mystery that I’m surprised at times, and an ending that I didn't see coming.
The story takes place in Berlin during the winter of 1946-1947. With resources at a frightening low, this is the worst time for one of the coldest winters on record. Pavel Richter, a decommissioned American soldier, is just barely getting by when another former-soldier comes to him for help covering up the death of a Russian midget. When the friend later turns up dead, Pavel is drawn into an investigation of multiple murders. There’s also a monkey and a hooker with a heart of, well, maybe not quite gold. I loved this book. It’s especially great for readers of Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, and those who, like me, loved Winter in Madrid.