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Oklahoma native Lou Berney is the award-winning author of several crime novels, including Dark Ride, November Road, and The Long and Faraway Gone. His new novel, Crooks, follows four siblings who each find separate paths toward carrying on their parents\u2019 crooked legacy.<\/p>\n
\u2018In a Lonely Place\u2019 by Dorothy B. Hughes (1947)<\/p>\n This is such a dark, beautiful crime novel<\/a>, and it\u2019s also a master class in the powers of narrative perspective and interiority. The faint throb of unease that runs through the story is brilliantly handled. In a Lonely Place is both way ahead of its time and exactly of its time, and it still chills me every time I read it. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Week<\/p>\n Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nSUBSCRIBE & SAVE\n<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n \u2018Slaughterhouse Five\u2019 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1969)<\/p>\n I was assigned this book during my first year of college, in freshman comp, and it blew my mind. I hadn\u2019t realized until this book that a \u201cserious\u201d novel could be so fun and weird and tight. I don\u2019t think I would have become a novelist without it. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018Deacon King Kong\u2019 by James McBride (2020)<\/p>\n I love sprawling novels and authors who try to do too much. The author of The Good Lord Bird and The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store tries to do too much and thoroughly succeeds. This is a crime novel and a family novel and a novel about nothing less than everything American<\/a>. The richness of the world McBride creates is magical. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018Don Quixote\u2019 by Miguel de Cervantes (1605 and 1615)<\/p>\n Cervantes\u2019 classic can be an intimidating novel. I know it was for me when I finally cracked it open. But Don Quixote is a pure joy to read, packed full of larger-than-life characters who are in fact exactly true to life. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been aiming to do in my own fiction ever since. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018Love Medicine\u2019 by Louise Erdrich (1984)<\/p>\n There aren\u2019t many writers who are better at weaving elegant prose, wry humor, and biting social commentary into such a profoundly moving and satisfying narrative fabric, as she did in her very first novel. Erdrich is a great poet<\/a> who never forgets she\u2019s a storyteller and a great storyteller who never stops being a poet. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018Case Histories\u2019 by Kate Atkinson (2004)<\/p>\n For a lot of writers, I think, there\u2019s one book that kicks open a door they didn\u2019t even realize was there. For me, it\u2019s Kate Atkinson\u2019s Case Histories. I had never read a crime novel like it, both dark and light, both hilarious and harrowing, and I knew immediately this is what I wanted to do. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-54349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}