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Recommendations for a good crime novel?

The only good crime book I've ever read was In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke. I've tried to read Cornwell but couldn't get through more than a couple of chapters. Ditto Grisham, although he's more law, right?
 
My favourite crime books are (and I've read a lot of them)

James Siegel - Derailed.
Nicci French - Beneath the Skin
Michael Connolly - The Poet
Harlan Coben - Darkest fear

Hope you try some of these out!! You'll love them
Lani
 
I second Harlen Coben, but I think "Gone for Good" is his best.
Amazon.com
"The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies." So says Will Klein, whose search for his missing and allegedly murderous brother, Ken, leaves him doubting the actions of everybody he's ever loved.

Eleven years ago, Ken fled his family's suburban New Jersey neighborhood after Will's ex-girlfriend, Julie Miller, was raped and strangled. The Kleins eventually convinced themselves that Ken perished on the lam. But as Will discovers, the facts are not so simple. On her deathbed, his mother tells him that Ken is still alive. Then Will's girlfriend and "soul mate" disappears too, only to have her fingerprints turn up at a New Mexico homicide scene. How are these tragedies connected? And what's their relationship to the recent appearance of a contract killer known as the Ghost? With help from an abused ex-hooker, a former white supremacist turned yoga guru, and Julie's younger sister, Will finds himself in a tightly twisted plot that turns on double identities and misplaced trust and that forces him to dig for the courage he was always sure he lacked.

...This is a tale of manifold deceptions guaranteed to show its readers up as suckers, and to make them love every moment of the experience. --J. Kingston Pierce
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I also really like the Easy Rawlins books, by Walter Mosely. Good stuff.
http://www.thrillingdetective.com/rawleasy.html
In post-war Los Angeles, EZEKIEL "EASY" RAWLINS, an unemployed black vet desperate to hang on to his small house, agrees to do a little private snooping for a local gangster, tracking down a woman, and soon discovers that he has a knack for the work. That memorable first appearance, 1990's Devil in a Blue Dress, with its vivid sense of time and place, drew immediate and widespread praise. New York Magazine called it "a black Chinatown, a cross between Richard Wright and Raymond Chandler" and U.S. President Bill Clinton, then riding the crest of his popularity, cited Mosley as one of his favorite authors. Since then, author Mosley has continued the series, jumping ahead a few years at a shot, each book offering a vivid snapshot of the black experience in America -- and particularly Los Angeles, in the latter half of the 20th century; a sort of alternative social history.

Unlike some larger-than-life P.I.s, Easy is refreshingly human, even in sometimes disappointing ways. He's a proud man trying to cope with the social injustices of his time, as well as his own personal demons; and he doesn't always do a great job of it. He can be cruel or petty and sometimes cowardly, and sometimes a bit too easily led astray by temptations of the flesh. As well, his obsessions with acquiring wealth and privacy sometimes lead him into making poor decisions. But his faults are tempered by his passion to rise above what has been pegged as his station in life and an innate sense of what's right and especially what's wrong.
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Peronel said:
The only good crime book I've ever read was In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke. I've tried to read Cornwell but couldn't get through more than a couple of chapters. Ditto Grisham, although he's more law, right?
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Anything by James Lee Burke is worth reading. I would read the Dave Robicheaux series first.
 
imhere4beer said:
I second Harlen Coben, but I think "Gone for Good" is his best.


I also really like the Easy Rawlins books, by Walter Mosely. Good stuff.
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Thanks for the Mosely recommendation. I will add this to my list.

John Connolly is quite good. He is a little violent for most people but it's good. James Lee Burke is about as good as you get.
 
I've heard that Kathy Reichs books are good; if you are a fan of the show "Bones" you might want to read them. I'm currently reading her first one.
 
For crime novels, I recommend anything by Harlan Coben, Stephen Booth, Peter Robinson or Tess Gerritsen. Booth & Robinson are English police novelists. Gerritsen's are medical thrillers. Also, Tony Hillerman's novel are good. They are about Navaho police in the American west.
 
Picked up Devil In Blue Dress and am now on the Mosely bandwagon. I would definatley recommend this. Thanks Imhere4beer
 
Hitcher- that is excellent news; I'm so happy you liked it!! I think Devil in a Blue Dress is one of the best in the series, so you started off with a good one. :)
 
I'm about 70 pages into A Red Death now. Any other authors you want to recommend I'm willing to listen.

I'm gonna watch Devil In A Blue Dress this weekend. See how it compares
 
jennifer1975 said:
I want fictional crime. Any suggestions?
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I really enjoy Lawrence Block's "Hit Man" series. Keller is a fascinating character. The stories are criminal in nature, rather devious and amoral, but oddly amusing.

Out of the genre, but very good, is TC Boyle's new novel "Talk Talk". It's about identity theft and vigilantism. Excellent character development. It reads like a thriller, total page-turner for me.
 
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