The best American historical crime novels

One of the masters of Los Angeles historical crime (along with Walter Mosely), Ellroy has written numerous outstanding novels, but my favorite is American Tabloid, which I think is Ellroy at the absolute top of his game.

Pete Bondurant, former cop and current freelance enforcer, troubleshooter, and troublemaker, just can’t keep his nose out of trouble. That trouble includes the FBI and the mob, but that’s just the start. The tendrils stretch from Cuba to the White House to the office of Howard Hughes. A sprawling, yet tightly plotted novel, American Tabloid is a masterpiece of crime fiction.

E.L. Doctorow was one of America’s greatest novelists, and Billy Bathgate is one of his best (of many great books). Doctorow is the writer who inspired me to write historical novels, and he was both a wonderful writer and an amazing storyteller.

Billy is a boy from the mean streets who insinuates himself into the dangerous circle of the gangster Dutch Schultz. Billy eagerly plunges into the crime world of Depression-era New York City, participating in everything from gangland killings to three-day parties in West Side brothels. Dutch’s world includes Tammany Hall politicians, bankers, lawyers, and a lot of bad men. As with all Doctorow novels, the story is about the people and the good and the bad that reside in all of us.

I could pick any of the Easy Rawlins books as favorites, but Devil in a Blue Dress is where Easy started, and is required reading for any historical crime reader. 

Set in the late 1940s, World War II veteran Easy Rawlins is fired from his job at a defense plant. He’s drinking in a friend’s bar, wondering how he’ll pay the mortgage, when a white man walks in offering to pay Easy to locate Daphne Monet, a beautiful blonde known to frequent Black jazz clubs. Of course, it’s not as easy as that, and no one is who he or she seems, and Easy gets drawn into a mystery that will almost certainly end badly, particularly after his oh-so-violent friend Mouse gets involved.

Ace Atkins has written a number of excellent historical crime novels based on true stories, and Devil’s Garden is my favorite of the bunch. 

The 1921 murder trial of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle created headlines around the world, and Devil’s Garden illustrates the fall from grace of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Atkins brings to life Prohibition-era Hollywood, real-life Pinkerton operative Dashiell Hammett who investigates the murder, William Randolph Hearst, actress Marion Davies, and a large cast of grifters, B-girls, politicians, and hangers-on revolving around Fatty’s trial for the murder of actress Virginia Rappe.

Loren Estleman is the quintessential Detroit novelist, with dozens of books under his belt set in the Motor City. The best of the bunch is Whiskey River, part of his Detroit Seven, which includes King of the Corner (another of my faves).

Whiskey River tells the story of reporter Connie Minor in 1928 Detroit, chasing a story that takes him through Detroit’s underworld of gangsters, bootleggers, crooked cops, and cold as ice criminals. This well-researched book includes the who’s who of Detroit Prohibition-era gangsters, like the Purple Gang, the Oakland Sugar House Mob, and the Machines. The question for Connie is whether the story he’s chasing will make him famous—or dead.