Want to treat an avid crime fiction reader to a book or two this Christmas? Or simply want to do a bit of literary self-gifting? From a beguiling South Korean mystery to a grizzly serial killer procedural, here are six new novels to consider.
Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun
People Like Them by Samira Sedira
This pair of short books, both published in translation, are two of the finest crime novels of 2021. Firstly, Lemon, by the South Korean author Kwon Yeo-Sun takes a well-worn starting point, the murder of a beautiful female high school pupil, and spins an idiosyncratic and beguiling mystery from it. A riveting police interview kicks things off, but this is the one nod to convention. For the rest of the book, Yeo-sun jumps forwards and backwards in time to hint at the identity of the killer, but whodunit is not her primary concern.
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