6 Essential Crime Books for Beginners

A man walks into a liquor store with a gun. We know what he is. There are also preconceived notions. We think we know who he is as well. But, just imagine, you know about his past-due bills; you know about the family for which he’s struggling to provide; you know the desperate lengths that never quite measured up. You understand what guided the path that led to him walking into that store. What he’s doing is still wrong, sure, but it’s a little more understandable.

That’s exactly the empathetic journey the best crime books take you on. There are no imaginary worlds; no magical adventures. In fact, they’re often the opposite — creating characters so real you know their faces, environments you could walk through with your eyes closed, and situations you’ve struggled through yourself. But they also have us shoulder-to-shoulder with thieves, con men, and killers. They have us following them into situations we’d never dare find ourselves in. The longer we spend with them, the harder it becomes to condemn. The best crime fiction offers a different kind of escapism — the chance to walk in the shoes of society’s most condemned.

‘Harlem Shuffle’ (2021)

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There’s no such thing as a halfway crook. Ray Carney would beg to differ. That’s the heart of the story Colson Whitehead is telling in Harlem Shuffle. Carney is a furniture salesman in 1960s Harlem who’s convinced himself he’s only slightly bent. Sure, he occasionally fences stolen jewelry for his cousin Freddie. He isn’t the one stealing it, though. He’s just trying to build a successful business, move his family into a nicer apartment, and earn a little respect. Hardly unreasonable ambitions.

However, when Freddie gets tangled up in a robbery at the Hotel Theresa, Ray finds himself among gangsters, crooked cops, and wealthy businessmen whose dealings aren’t much cleaner than his own. Whitehead makes it awfully easy to sympathize with him. Ray keeps moving the line between an honest living and a dishonest one, and before long, we find ourselves moving it right along with him.

‘Get Shorty’ (1990)

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There’s something satisfying about watching someone who’s good at their job. Even when that job happens to be collecting debts for the mob. Elmore Leonard plays on that contradiction in Get Shorty. Chili Palmer, a Miami loan shark, embodies the great-at-his job ethos. We watch as he’s able to pinpoint a liar on the spot and apply just the right amount of pressure to get what he needs. Not exactly admirable talents. When a collection job takes him to Hollywood, we discover they’re surprisingly transferable to the movie business.

And Leonard has a field day with the comparison. Producer Harry Zimm is forever chasing his big break, promising more than he can deliver, and talking himself into trouble. Chili sees through the bluster, often with nothing more than a few well-placed questions. He’s a crook, sure, but he’s also the smartest man in most rooms he enters. Half the fun is watching people underestimate him, then realize their mistake. And his growing enthusiasm for filmmaking gives us another reason to root for him. Perhaps there’s a legitimate future for Chili after all, though Hollywood might have other ideas.

‘The Hunter’ (1962)

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Richard Stark doesn’t give us many reasons to like Parker in The Hunter. No hungry children to feed, no noble cause, no real conscience. Parker’s wife and an accomplice double-cross him, leave him for dead, and steal his share of a robbery. Parker survives — and he wants his $45,000 back. That’s about the extent of his moral argument. There’s no speech about betrayal, no demand for an apology.

But Stark does something more unsettling. He gets us thinking like Parker. When the mob refuses to return his money, Parker simply works his way up the criminal hierarchy, dispensing with anyone who stands in his path. Stark’s stripped-down prose gives his brutality an almost businesslike efficiency. There’s little room for sentiment when every problem presents another practical solution. And before long, we’re no longer questioning whether Parker should get his money back; we’re wondering how he’ll manage it.

‘Blacktop Wasteland’ (2020)

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Doing the right thing doesn’t always pay the bills. S. A. Cosby makes that the central struggle in Blacktop Wasteland. Beauregard “Bug” Montage has a wife and kids to support. But the auto-repair shop that he owns is barely keeping the lights on. The bills never seem to stop coming: back rent for the shop itself, glasses for his youngest. The pile of bills dwarfs that of the money coming in. Bug — at least the “old” Bug — knew exactly how to make a lot of it, though. You see he used to drive getaway cars, and was the best at doing so.

Cosby backs Bug into a corner, and the reader, too, can feel the walls closing in. We know another robbery could land him in prison, leaving his family worse off than before. But turning down the job won’t make those bills disappear, either. When Bug finally gets behind the wheel, Cosby makes the getaway so exhilarating that we find ourselves cheering him on. Never mind that he’s helping robbers escape. By now, we’ve spent enough time with Bug and his family that we’re desperate for him to make it home.

‘Swag’ (1976)

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Armed robbery isn’t exactly fertile ground for comedy. But Elmore Leonard finds plenty to laugh about in Swag. Frank Ryan’s first rule for successful armed robbery? Be polite. Say please and thank you. He and his partner, Ernest “Stick” Stickley Jr., have even devised ten rules for their new enterprise, as though they’re opening a respectable small business instead of pointing guns at cashiers. And the absurdity only grows from there.

During one supermarket holdup, Frank somehow ends up working the register, where an elderly customer gives him grief over an expired coupon. So much for a straightforward robbery. But the money keeps coming, and soon Frank and Stick are buying fancy clothes, chasing women, and spending their afternoons lounging around the pool. Not a bad life, really. Leonard makes the whole business so funny that we nearly forget these two are making their living by pointing guns at innocent people.

‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ (1934)

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Love makes people do stupid things. James M. Cain takes that old adage to an extreme in The Postman Always Rings Twice. That stupid thing here is murder. Frank Chambers, a drifter, falls for Cora, the wife of a roadside diner owner. She wants Frank, too. But she’d also like to keep the diner. And her husband is inconveniently attached to it. Running away would mean giving up the business, so the lovers begin entertaining another option.

And Cain gives Frank the floor to explain how they arrived at such a dreadful idea. Trouble is, the man has an excuse for everything. His feverish narration rushes us from one bad decision to another, barely leaving time to consider the last. Frank sounds more irritated by the obstacles than frightened of the crime. Cain makes two extraordinarily selfish people sound like lovers who’ve simply run out of options. We know murder isn’t the answer to an unhappy marriage. But spend enough time listening to Frank, and you begin to understand how he convinced himself otherwise.