OFF-ROAD YEAR’S-END RECOMMENDATIONS

 

2025 was a year when the news cycle felt like a car alarm that wouldn’t shut up. During Covid and Trump 1.0, Murder, She Wrote offered refuge—Angela Lansbury restored moral order with a raised eyebrow. Trump 2.0 has been less cozy: Checks and Balances under strain, Far Right movements worldwide, and a lingering suspicion that something odd is in the drinking water.

The upside: it’s been my most productive year as a writer. I wrote to be constructive, not destructive. And along the way I found a handful of books and films that cut through the noise—crime fiction with teeth, nonfiction that reminds us history loves reruns, and movies whose literary roots make them doubly satisfying.

Think of these as clarity, escape, or—at the very least—a well-timed jolt to the system.

 

CRIME FICTION

 

1. Crimson Tide — Bruce Robert Coffin
A strong launch for a new series and a sharp contrast to Coffin’s Byron books. Book two arrives in January, book three next August—always a comforting thing to know.

2. Knave of Diamonds — Laurie R. King
The latest Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes novel introduces Mary’s Uncle Jake, whose past is a little… flexible. Watching him and Holmes circle each other, with Mary in the middle, is pure pleasure.

3. The Thursday Murder Club — Richard Osman
Retirees, cold cases, and wit sharp enough to leave a mark—proof that menace doesn’t retire. Now a Netflix film, making this a two-for-one recommendation.

4. Slow Horses — Mick Herron
The misfit spies of Slough House are equal parts tragic, hilarious, and terrifyingly plausible. Herron writes intelligence-world satire with a scalpel. Also an excellent Apple series.

5. The Silver Book — Olivia Laing

Queer love story, noir thriller set in Venice 1974, months before the murder of poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. 

 

NONFICTION

 

5. The Age of Acrimony — Jon Grinspan
Nineteenth-century America was a carnival of political violence, election fraud, and institutional brinkmanship. Grinspan gently reminds us that history doesn’t repeat itself—but it does recognize familiar tricks.

6. The Outsider — Frederick Forsyth
Forsyth’s memoir proves the line between journalism, espionage, and crime fiction has always been thinner than we pretend. Read alongside le Carré’s The Pigeon Tunnel for a study in contrasts: le Carré broods; Forsyth shrugs, lights a cigarette, and keeps moving—passport already stamped.

7. A Resistance History of the United States — Tad Stoermer (June 2026)
From abolitionists to labor radicals to modern whistleblowers, Stoermer maps a lineage of resistance to abusive power. Not out yet, but worth saving to your Wish List.

 

FILMS INSPIRED BY BOOKS

(The two-for-one category: watch the movie, know the book)

 

8. The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
Adapted from Eduardo Sacheri’s La pregunta de sus ojos. A noir romance spirals around justice, obsession, and wounds that outlive their explanations.

9. Killing Them Softly (2012)
From George V. Higgins’s Cogan’s Trade. A critique of capitalism delivered with Higgins’s trademark dialogue—no wasted words, no mercy.

10. Il conformista / The Conformist (1970)
From Alberto Moravia’s novel. A dazzling psychological thriller about the seduction of authoritarianism—gorgeously composed and disturbingly timeless.

 

BONUS HOLIDAY PICK

 

11. Spirit of Steamboat — Craig Johnson
A Christmas tale with a mystery engine: a blizzard, a WWII bomber, a desperate medical flight, and a story that earns its sentiment without a drop of sap. A perfect fireside read.