I can't believe it's taken me this long to get to my favourite goddamn genre, but here we are. Once again, I'm splitting my recs into adult and young adult mysteries. Because otherwise I won't be able to keep to only five. These are mostly historical mysteries, but only because that's clearly the best sort.
The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
Content Warnings: child deaths, violence
Synopsis: 1845. New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever.
Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, fantasizing about the day he has enough money to win the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted NYPD, but he is highly skeptical of this new "police force." And he is less than thrilled that his new beat is the notoriously down-and-out Sixth Ward - at the border of Five Points, the world's most notorious slum.
One night while making his rounds, Wilde literally runs into a little slip of a girl - a girl not more than ten years old - dashing through the dark in her nightshirt... covered head to toe in blood.
Timothy knows he should take the girl to the House of Refuge, yet he can't bring himself to abandon her. Instead, he takes her home, where she spins wild stories, claiming that dozens of bodies are buried in the forest north of 23rd Street. Timothy isn't sure whether to believe her or not, but, as the truth unfolds, the reluctant copper star finds himself engaged in a battle for justice that nearly costs him his brother, his romantic obsession, and his own life.
Comments: This has to be one of my favourite books ever, favourite series ever too, because it's so well-written and the characters are so good. And the relationship between the Wilde brothers will absolutely wreck you.
A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee
Content Warnings: period typical racism, violence, drug abuse
Synopsis: India, 1919. Desperate for a fresh start, Captain Sam Wyndham arrives to take up an important post in Calcutta's police force.
He is soon called to the scene of a horrifying murder. The victim was a senior official, and a note in his mouth warns the British to leave India – or else.
With the stability of the Empire under threat, Wyndham and Sergeant 'Surrender-not' Banerjee must solve the case quickly. But there are some who will do anything to stop them...
Comments: Maybe I have a weakness for the Sam Wyndham type of character, because honestly he was my favourite aspect of this book. Sure the mystery was good, but Sam! I even wasn't too bothered by the wishy-washy ending.
My Name is N by Robert Karjel
Content Warnings: torture, racism, violence
Synopsis: A Swedish security agent is summoned to interrogate a terror suspect held by the FBI — but the prisoner isn't the only one with something to hide.
At a remote military base in the Indian Ocean, the FBI is trying to get a prisoner to confess. But the detainee, a suspect in an Islamist-inspired terror attack in the United States, refuses to talk.
Ernst Grip, a Swedish security officer, has no idea why he's been dispatched to New York City. The FBI agent he meets on arrival, Shauna Friedman, seems to know a little too much about him. And when he arrives at his real destination, the American authorities have just one question: Is their terror suspect a Swedish citizen?
In the process of uncovering the prisoner's true identity, Grip discovers the man's ties to a group of other suspects — a ruthless American arms dealer, a Czech hit man, a mysterious nurse from Kansas, and a heartbreakingly naive Pakistani. The closer Grip gets to the truth, the more complicated the deception becomes. Who is real and who is leading a double life?
Comments: If I tell you that this one pissed off a whole lotta men when it came out, just because the main character is bi, and the author wrote a whole "fuck you" article in The Guardian, will that convince you to read it?
The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin
Content Warnings: period typical homophobia, violence, gore
Synopsis: The year is 1831.
Down the murky alleyways of London, acts of unspeakable wickedness are taking place and no one is willing to speak out on behalf of the city's vulnerable poor as they disappear from the streets.
Out of these shadows comes Hester White, a bright young woman who is desperate to escape the slums by any means possible.
When Hester is thrust into the world of the aristocratic Brock family, she leaps at the chance to improve her station in life under the tutelage of the fiercely intelligent and mysterious Rebekah Brock. But whispers from her past slowly begin to poison her new life and both she and Rebekah are lured into the most sinister of investigations.
Hester and Rebekah find themselves crossing every boundary they've ever known in pursuit of truth, redemption and passion. But their trust in each other will be tested as a web of deceit begins to unspool, dragging them into the blackest heart of a city where something more depraved than either of them could ever imagine is lurking...
Comments: Black Sails invented unbury your gays, and this book continued in that tradition. Sorry, my expectations for historical gay characters are now too high - nothing can ever beat this.
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
Content Warnings: child deaths, anti-Semitism
Synopsis: In medieval Cambridge, England, four children have been murdered. The crimes are immediately blamed on the town's Jewish community, taken as evidence that Jews sacrifice Christian children in blasphemous ceremonies. To save them from the rioting mob, the king places the Cambridge Jews under his protection and hides them in a castle fortress. King Henry II is no friend of the Jews - or anyone, really - but he is invested in their fate. Without the taxes received from Jewish merchants, his treasuries would go bankrupt. Hoping scientific investigation will exonerate the Jews, Henry calls on his cousin the King of Sicily - whose subjects include the best medical experts in Europe - and asks for his finest "master of the art of death," an early version of the medical examiner. The Italian doctor chosen for the task is a young prodigy from the University of Salerno. But her name is Adelia - the king has been sent a "mistress" of the art of death. Adelia and her companions - Simon, a Jew, and Mansur, a Moor - travel to England to unravel the mystery of the Cambridge murders, which turn out to be the work of a serial killer, most likely one who has been on Crusade with the king. In a backward and superstitious country like England, Adelia must conceal her true identity as a doctor in order to avoid accusations of witchcraft. Along the way, she is assisted by Sir Rowley Picot, one of the king's tax collectors, a man with a personal stake in the investigation. Rowley may be a needed friend, or the fiend for whom they are searching. As Adelia's investigation takes her into Cambridge's shadowy river paths and behind the closed doors of its churches and nunneries, the hunt intensifies and the killer prepares to strike again...
Comments: I really love this series, mostly because of its period in history, but also because it's about a female doctor and anatomist in a time when that was pretty much unheard of (in England, at least). And it's set near where I live so.
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