The best crime thrillers that offer more than just thrills

Michael Connelly says he wrote the Harry Bosch series in the hope that, over time, readers would come to know Harry like a brother. The early entries expertly balance Bosch’s work as an LAPD homicide detective with his complex personal story. None of them does this better than The Last Coyote, which gives us new insight into Harry’s broken childhood. And on a personal note, the title never fails to remind me of my years in Los Angeles, when I would drive into the Hollywood Hills at night and sometimes come across a lone coyote, its eyes gleaming in my headlights.  

From its shocking first paragraph to its explosive conclusion, Dirty White Boys is a daring, almost insanely ambitious tour de force. Loosely inspired by the saga of Bonnie and Clyde, the book follows a ragtag band of escaped convicts on a wild multi-state crime spree. In his later books, Hunter may become a bit too caught up in the minutiae of firearms, but here he’s focused on characters and human drama. This book showed me that I had to up my game and aim higher. 

The first entry in Thomas Perry’s Jane Whitefield series is also the best, as the endlessly resourceful Jane overcomes a dazzling array of obstacles to save a client on the run. Vanishing Act offers insights into Native American culture and a portrait of an indomitable heroine with a strong moral code, while serving as a virtual textbook on how to disappear when the bad guys are after you. Sadly, the series declined pretty quickly after the first sequel. This taught me not to mess with a winning formula; Jane as an independent woman is great, but as a housewife married to a boring stiff, she’s a lot less interesting. 

I might have picked A Maiden’s Grave for the title alone, though you’ll have to read it to learn the subtle double meaning packed into those three words. But of course there’s a lot more to this fast-paced story of a school for the deaf caught in the crossfire of a police standoff. Jeffery Deaver deftly intertwines full-bodied characters, crackling tension, and emotionally affecting backstories. Reading it, I realized that it could have been a pretty ordinary police procedural and that only the author’s determination to add layers of depth and detail lifted it to a new level. 

Gerald Petievich must have used a crystal ball when writing Earth Angels in 1989, because only nine years later, all the basic elements of the story would hit the headlines, as rogue elements within the LAPD were exposed in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy known as the Rampart scandal. The book’s eerie prescience is only one reason it’s a modern classic. Its depiction of police procedure is almost unmatched in accuracy and detail, and it perfectly captures the dark, gritty side of Los Angeles, far away from the bright lights of movie premieres. If I ever need to remind myself why I left L.A. after twelve years, I only need to revisit Petievich’s open-eyed exposé of official corruption, casual lawlessness, and random violence.