Auntie M reads about three books a week, 90% crime fiction. So you can believe me when I tell you that there are dozens of great reads out there for you to discover. I’m putting the spotlight on four standouts I’ve recently read that have stayed with me, and all are highly recommended.

AJ Finn’s The Woman in the Window was a huge success with good reason, made into a movie starring Amy Adams. This story is another that took time and creativity to construct and it shows. A young detective fiction expert is invited to the home of a dying crime novelist to write his own story. Leaving her NY home behind, she travels to San Francisco, which comes alive under Finn’s talented pen and luscious prose. And there she meets what is left of Sebastian Trapp’s family: his spinster daughter Madeline and second wife Diana. For Trapp’s first wife and son disappeared twenty years ago and that mystery is only one Nicky Hunter hopes to solve.

Filled with clues and quotes from detective novels, this homage to Golden Agers feels fresh as it mines the tropes of detective fiction and manages to contain twists you won’t expect and more you won’t see coming. It’s simply terrific.

Alex Gray’s long-running DSI William Lorimer series still manages to feel fresh in this 21st outing. Gray takes the detective and his wife Maggie from Glasgow to Zimbabwe for a special holiday. Their good friend, Zimbabwean inspector Daniel Kohi, has become a PC in Scotland and must rise through the ranks, despite his elevated position before.

With Lorimer checking out Kohi’s home turf, the PC becomes involved in a Glasgow murder investigation that puts him on high alert. For back in his home country, malignant forces believe Kohi perished in the fire that killed his wife and child, and if they have found him alive in Scotland, anyone in Kohi’s circle is in danger, and that includes his elderly housemate. When news that Lorimer and Maggie are friends of Kohi, they find themselves as targets in the wilds of a safari. With a fascinating sense of place that makes this highly atmospheric, the twin stories weave together into an exciting read.

The new Inspector McLean finds the detective out of sorts on his self-imposed retirement. He’s reluctant to become involved when a well-known crime boss insists the police are not looking deeply enough into the death of an ex-con who perished when a wall collapsed in a decrepit Edinburgh church. When this body was found in the rubble, the death was deemed a heart attack from the terror.

But then a second body is found in another closed church, and McLean finally becomes involved when this man’s corpse is found to have a cross branded in his forehead. It’s a balancing act between his police and the crime lord’s worlds that leads McLean to one of his most unusual cases. Oswald has soldiered McLean through serious crimes, personal tragedy, and offbeat friends over the course of fourteen books, and they only get stronger. He also writes the newer DC Constance Fairchild series, with an intriguing lead you should check out.

Belfast born and bred Steve Cavanagh’s Eddie Flynn series is set in Manhattan and its environs. As a native New Yorker, I’d swear he lived there for at least part of his life, that’s how good his grasp of the city and its vibe is. And Eddie Flynn, the conman who is now a defense lawyer, radiates all aspects of that vibe and is such an intriguing character that I find myself anxiously awaiting each book.

This time Eddie takes on an innocent brain surgeon, accused of the murder of a neighbor. With no connection to the woman, it’s difficult to find a motive, yet the murder weapon and the surgeon’s DNA are found on it. But the other part of the equation is Ruby Johnson, a nanny who used to live on the tony Upper West side, and who is determined to provide care for her ailing mother. When she witnesses the murder and can identify the killer, she chooses to place an anonymous call to the police naming the surgeon and uses her knowledge for her own ends.

There will be more killings, hitmen, and so many twists you can’t see how Eddie can handle them all. In the words of Anthony Horowitz: “Steve Cavanagh’s twists hit you between the eyes.” You’ll love it.