OPINION:
This holiday season, one might want to buy the crime aficionado on your shopping list one or more of this year’s fine true crime or crime fiction books.
Here’s a roundup of some of the best crime books:
’Hell and Back’
Craig Johnson returns with another novel about Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming. In this mystical crime thriller, the sheriff wakes up in a heavy snowstorm and doesn’t know his name or where he is. While Longmire’s friend, Henry Standing Bear, and his deputy, Vic Moretti, are looking for him, he is living in an altered reality with a shape-shifting villain.
By Craig Johnson
Viking, $28, 352 pages
’Sonny: The Last of the Old-Time Mafia Bosses, John “Sonny” Franzese’
“Sonny” is a fascinating look at a real old-time gangster. Journalist S.J. Peddie conducted numerous interviews with Sonny Franzese, the former underboss of the Colombo crime family and a notorious reputed killer, prior to his death at age 103. Franzese, who spent more than half of his life in prison and was never an informant, gave his only interviews to the author. While loyal to the Cosa nostra, Franzese lamented the damage to he did to his natural family.
By S.J. Peddie
Citadel, $27, 288 pages
’Every Cloak Rolled in Blood’
James Burke, the author of the Dave Robicheaux and the Holland family crime thrillers, offers his most autobiographical novel. The narrator is an 80-something author named Aaron Holland Broussard in a sequel to his previous novel, “Another Kind of Eden.” This supernatural novel opens with a teenager spray-painting a swastika on Broussard’s barn in Montana. He takes on evangelical bikers, a violent meth dealer, and demons risen from the dead. Broussard is aided in his battle by his dead daughter, Fannie Mae. Mr. Burke, a fine writer, presents a grand fight between good and evil.
By James Lee Burke
Simon & Schuster, $27, 288 pages
’Firestorm’
In “Firestorm,” retired CIA officer Taylor Moore brings back his former special operator and DEA special agent character, Garrett Kohl. The thriller opens with Kohl rescuing a CIA officer that was kidnapped by criminals. Back at his Texas ranch, Kohl comes up against a powerful energy consortium, Talon Corp. The shady company is conducting a mining operation that threatens to destroy his land. Like his previous novel, “Down Range,” “Firestorm” is a fast-paced and well-written thriller.
By Taylor Moore
William Morrow, $27.99, 320 pages
’Gods of Deception’
This huge espionage novel is about a former judge, Edward Dimock, who was one of Soviet spy Alger Hiss’ lawyers. Hiss was convicted of perjury and sent to prison, and the novel deals with the fictional aftermath that includes the death of a number of people involved in the case. Dimock asks his grandson to edit his memoir, and he tells his grandson of crimes that have gone unrecorded and unpunished. David Adams Cleveland offers a good portrait of real-life spy Hiss and his accuser, former Communist Whittaker Chambers, as well as the fictional Dimock family.
By David Adams Cleveland
Greenleaf Book Group Press, $33.95, 928 pages
’The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance, and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women’
In this true crime book, journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau offers a look at the women involved with the various organized crime groups in Italy, such as the Cosa nostra, the Camorra and the ’Ndrangheta. Through extensive research and personal interviews, she tells the stories of Mafia women who testified against their mobster husbands, as well as those loyal to the mob. The main person portrayed is Assanta “Pupetta” Maresca, who avenged the murder of her criminal husband by shooting his assassin 29 times when she only 18 —and pregnant. Maresca spent 10 years in prison, where she gave birth to her son, before being pardoned for the murder in 1965. She later married a mob underboss and was revered as the “Godmother” and the “Lady of Camorra.”
By Barbie Latza Nadeau
Penguin, $17, 256 pages
’Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld’
Journalist T.J. English writes about the symbiotic relationship between jazz musicians and organized crime figures in the 20th century. From the bordellos of New Orleans and the speakeasies of Chicago to the tropical clubs of Havana and the desert empire of Las Vegas, jazz music is intertwined with organized crime history. Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and leading gangsters of the time are profiled.
T.J. English
Morrow/HarperCollins, $29.99, 448 pages.
• Paul Davis’ On Crime column covers true crime, crime fiction and fiction.
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