Suggested reading: 14 thrillers and crime novels for the holidays

To win, nothing like a good thriller or a good thriller. And all those we offer you here are.

Last party

If we are starting to miss the cold and the snow, we can always plunge our noses into this story which opens on a December 31 like no other. While everyone is celebrating, the corpse of a man will indeed be fished out of Llyn Drych, a lake that is exactly between Wales and England. Because of this small geographical peculiarity, two cops will be in charge of the investigation: one English, the other Welsh – yes, a bit like in the film Good cop, bad cop ! And they’ll have some work to do, because apparently the victim was collecting enemies. Very good.

spade drama

It is with pleasure that we found the Grilled Chickens, a group of badly polished cops who have all been dismissed from the standard police services for incompetence, crass stupidity, extreme clumsiness, laziness or other defect of the kind. That said, that could soon change because we’re going to entrust them with the case of the “Stings in the evenings”. For some time now, people have been getting bitten on the sly in public places and now that some have died from it, the authorities are keen to put a stop to it. If Superintendent Anne Capestan and her team of broken arms manage to corner the killer, all could return to the “real police”. Light and fun.

The last house before the woods

Little Lulu, 6, disappeared a little over a decade ago and even today, no one knows exactly what happened to her. Dee, her older sister, however, thinks she knows the culprit: Ted Bannerman, the man who lives at the very end of Needless Street and who, at the time, had been suspected before being released for lack of evidence. By settling in the house next to this individual who often behaves in a very strange way, Dee will thus try to find out what he could have done with his sister. A confusing story at first — one of the narrators is a cat! —, then taking.

brazilian psycho

Head for São Paulo, the biggest, most polluted and most populated city (12 million inhabitants) in Brazil. The destitute are legion there and who says poverty unfortunately also often says drugs, prostitution, violence and high crime. But what distinguishes São Paulo from all other megacities is corruption. Wherever we go, whatever we do, it is everywhere, absolutely everywhere. Combining fiction and reality, this impressive noir novel tells it by giving pride of place to the former president, Jair Bolsonaro.

An eye in the night

After a few books that had left us a little unsatisfied, the French Bernard Minier comes back to us with a real good thriller that flirts squarely with horror films. Especially those of the famous director Morbus Delacroix, who now lives in an isolated house in the depths of the Pyrenees… not without having shot a last extremely gory which may well be cursed. Because who knows why, members of the team who participated in the filming of this film will start to die. We liked it a lot!

The sect of the forgotten

Like all the girls in her class, Emily Vaughn should have had a wonderful evening. Except that it will not be the case: instead of dancing with the other graduates of the class of 1982, she will be murdered. As for the murderer, pfffuittt. Not seen not caught.

Forty years later, Andrea Oliver — the heroine of His real face, adapted as a television series on Netflix — will be responsible for protecting Emily’s mother, who is a judge. And while she is there, she will also try to flush out the murderer of her daughter, who is still on the run.

study in black

The idea of ​​this book is rather amusing: to show us how the famous character of Sherlock Holmes was able to take shape in the mind of its creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For that, we will be transported to the XIX^e century in Portsmouth, England, where there is a psychiatric institution exclusively for men. Among them, a certain Mr. X, a very special patient who plays the imaginary violin and who has such an extraordinary spirit of deduction that he can guess almost anything about anyone. So when a wave of murders hits the city, this talent could be very useful…

Marralee’s Forgotten

Australian Jane Harper’s thrillers are always safe bets, and this one is no exception to the rule. Every year, if you are in the vicinity of the Marralee Valley, you can attend the Wine and Food Festival. Kim Gillespie will go there with her six-week-old baby, but soon after, the horror: we will find the tiny Zoe in her stroller, without any mother by her side. However, Kim would never have left leaving her daughter alone like that.

A year later, the mystery remains intact. What happened to Kim? That’s what Detective Aaron Falk will try to figure out.

Hollywood is going to war

September 1941. The Japanese have yet to bomb Pearl Harbor and since the American First isolationist movement began to gain popularity, many Americans are no longer very keen on the idea of ​​their soldiers going to help the Allies. . To remedy this, the Roosevelt government has an unstoppable weapon: Hollywood. Indeed, nothing like a good anti-Nazi film to reverse the situation… provided that its headliner, the splendid Lala, does not spoil everything because of a story of stolen photos. A thriller full of twists and turns that will surely appeal to fans of old movies!

The Burning Boys

A trip of a few hours to Iceland, do you like it? Located about fifty kilometers from Reykjavik, Akranes is a small port city which, under its quiet exterior, is a real bubbling pot. Moreover, the police will not be long in finding the corpse of a young man of 20 years there… who burned alive in his bed. It was up to Inspector Elma to find out why, because everywhere in the house there were smoke detectors in perfect working order. Just for the change of scenery, a polar that is worth the detour.

children of silence

Since we’re in the area, might as well stay a little longer in Australia. This time to meet Joy Henderson, who has agreed to return one last time to the farm deep in the bush where she grew up. For her, the place is synonymous with beatings, cries of pain and tears. Because with a father as tyrannical as his, violence was a daily occurrence in their home. So now that her father is dying, she could well take advantage of it to get revenge… A psychological thriller that we recommend without reservation.

Ravaged

Does Rat River Mad Trapper mean anything to you? Inspired by real events, this book tells how far the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have gone—literally and figuratively! — to try to capture or kill this man. And the resulting narrative is simply amazing. During the first weeks of the winter of 1931, when the mercury hovered around minus 40 degrees, heavily armed officers set off after him across the Far North. The hunt lasted for weeks and really, you have to see how the trapper managed to escape them for so long.

Thugs

Not everyone is lucky enough to be born into a good home. Tyler Wallace, for example. As well as having a heroin and alcoholic mother constantly on coal tar, he lives in one of the worst areas of Edinburgh. So to offer the minimum to his little sister Bean, he participates in all the burglaries orchestrated by his half-brother. But as you can imagine, things will one day end badly, very badly turn out, and to get out of it, Tyler will have to compete with cunning and courage. A novel as dark as it is good.

lost little girls

Amy Hanson and Charlotte Timmins are best friends and do everything, everything, everything together. Even get kidnapped. Text messages sent to their mothers confirm that neither of the two 9-year-olds will be coming home.

On the plot side, we have already seen more original, at least at the beginning. Because very quickly, we will learn that only the couple who will pay the largest amount of money will have the chance to recover their daughter. Yes, hard to imagine a more twisted scenario. We say no more, the sequel being captivating at will.