Crime Novels for a Restless Summer
Whether you’re sprawled on a beach towel, riding a train with the windows down, or hiding from the heat with the blinds drawn, there’s no better companion than a great crime novel—especially one that shatters convention, rewrites the rules, or simmers with something more profound than suspense. This summer’s list isn’t just about mystery or misdeeds—it’s about reckoning: with the past, with injustice, with the self. These are stories where bullets fly, ghosts return, and lives unravel at the margins. Because sometimes the best way to cool down… is with a book that sears.
Reading List
A razor-sharp blend of crime, horror, and satire, Châtiment is one of those novels you tear through with your jaw on the floor. Set in Money, Mississippi—haunted by the real-life legacy of Emmett Till—Everett turns the classic detective story on its head, delivering a biting, page-turning reckoning with racism, justice, and America’s unburied past. Shocking, funny, and ferociously smart, it’s a ghost story like no other—and an unforgettable howl of outrage wrapped in wit.
Châtiment (The Trees) by Percival Everett, trans by Anne-Laure Tissut, Babel/Actes Sud
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A fierce, heartbreaking portrait of a woman on the edge, Vanda is a slim novel with the force of a tidal wave. Living with her son in a seaside shack outside Marseille, Vanda is defiant, volatile, and achingly human—shaped by poverty, prejudice, and a life lived far from society’s safety nets. When an old lover reappears to claim a place in her and her son’s life, the fragile equilibrium begins to crack. Brunet’s stripped-down prose burns with tension, rage, and tenderness, offering an unforgettable glimpse into the life of a woman whom the world has overlooked—but who refuses to disappear.
Vanda by Marion Brunet, Le livre de poche
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Lyon, 1979: Victor Bromier has just lost his job selling umbrellas and is nursing his disappointment with a glass of Jack Daniel’s—when Corine bursts into his life like a Molotov cocktail. She’s a fiery revolutionary; he’s a disillusioned ex-salesman. Their chance encounter sparks an improbable, irresistible love affair that hurtles them into a madcap spree of robberies, getaways, and revolutionary mischief. Think Bonnie & Clyde, but under Giscard’s presidency—with cigarettes, sarcasm, and subversion.
Paying gleeful tribute to the cinema, music, and literature of late-70s France, Kantcheloff strikes a perfect balance between irreverent parody and affectionate homage. With nods to Manchette, Echenoz, Blier, and Lautner, this rock’n’roll tragicomedy is equal parts anarchic romp and stylish nostalgia trip.
Tout le monde garde son calme by Dimitri Kantcheloff
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Set against the haunting aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this masterful collection of ten short stories captures the soul of a region battered by loss but rich in resilience. With his signature blend of grit and poetry, James Lee Burke explores the full sweep of human experience—love and violence, memory and mortality, the sacred and the profane. These are stories that ache with beauty and truth, each one a testament to the power of storytelling in the face of ruin.
Jesus prend la mer (Jesus Out to Sea) by James Lee Burke
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Once a deadly assassin trained by the Stasi and KGB, Thobela “Tiny” Mpayipheli has traded his past for a quiet life—until an old friend’s cry for help pulls him back into the shadows. What follows is a high-octane chase across South Africa on a stolen BMW, with intelligence agents in pursuit and no idea who they’re really up against. Taut, propulsive, and steeped in the complexities of post-apartheid history, L’Âme du chasseur cements Deon Meyer’s place among the world’s finest thriller writers.
L’Âme du chasseur (The Heart of The Hunter) by Don Meyer, trans. by Estelle Roudet, Folio Policier
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