Crime Fiction Author Guides
Discover the crime authors and novels that define a city, a setting, or a subgenre — from Las Vegas noir to small-town stalker thrillers. Curated recommendations from Phillip Strang, author of 150+ crime novels.
The best crime novels set in Anchorage use Alaska’s unforgiving landscape not as backdrop but as weapon — a place where isolation amplifies every motive and the wilderness itself becomes a suspect.
Anchorage is a city that defies easy categorisation: part frontier outpost, part modern metropolis,...
The best crime novels set in Sacramento prove that California’s capital city harbours shadows as deep as any Los Angeles back alley — and the fiction that maps those shadows is long overdue for serious attention.
Sacramento is not the California of Raymond Chandler’s sun-drenched myths or...
The best crime novels set in San Diego prove that paradise has always been the perfect backdrop for murder — sun-bleached streets and Pacific breezes conceal some of the darkest fictional crimes in American crime writing.
San Diego rarely gets the literary attention lavished on Los Angeles or San Francisco,...
The Best Crime Novels Set in Honolulu strip away the postcard glamour to reveal a city defined by colonial tension, ethnic complexity, and corruption simmering beneath an eternal summer sky.
Honolulu is one of the most misunderstood settings in crime fiction. Tourists arrive expecting leis and luaus;...
The Best Crime Novels Set in Pittsburgh reveal a city that crime fiction was born to inhabit — where rusted bridges, blue-collar grief, and institutional rot combine to produce some of the most authentic and electrifying American noir being written today.
Pittsburgh is not a pretty city in the conventional...
The best crime novels set in Albuquerque prove that America’s Southwest is one of crime fiction’s most potent and underused landscapes — a city where desert heat, cultural collision, and moral ambiguity conspire to make trouble feel inevitable.
Albuquerque has always been more than a punchline...
The Best Crime Novels Set in Indianapolis prove that America’s heartland harbours darkness every bit as savage and complex as anything found on the coasts — and these books make sure you never forget it.
Indianapolis tends to be overlooked in the American crime fiction conversation, yet the city...
Cleveland has always been a city that crime fiction treats honestly — and the Best Crime Novels Set in Cleveland prove that this overlooked American metropolis deserves a permanent place in the genre’s geography.
There is something about Cleveland that crime writers find irresistible: the industrial...
No city rewards crime fiction quite like Washington DC — and the Best Crime Novels Set in Washington DC prove that when power is the backdrop, every murder carries the weight of an empire.
Washington DC is not merely a setting — it is a pressure cooker of ambition, secrecy, and institutional rot, and...
The best crime novels set in Seattle understand something essential: this is a city where the rain never quite stops, the wealth never quite reaches everyone, and the darkness pooling under those famous grey skies makes for crime fiction of remarkable, brooding power.
Seattle has long deserved a more...
The best crime novels set in Portland don’t just use the city as backdrop — they let its mist-soaked streets, fractured communities, and uneasy progressive mythology do half the narrative work.
Portland, Oregon has always been a city of contradictions: progressive on the surface, deeply troubled...
The best crime novels set in Phoenix use the desert heat not merely as backdrop but as moral weather — a city of transience, ambition, and buried secrets that makes an ideal pressure cooker for the crime genre.
Phoenix is one of the most underwritten cities in American crime fiction, which makes every...