5. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

Old crimes cast long shadows; an attack on a child decades ago leads, by a dark winding road, to the murder of a young woman. This is another one that smashes huge holes in the walls that used to surround the genre. A lot of people used to look down on mystery; the assumption was that it was basically about cheap thrills and roller-coaster plots, with no character depth, no thematic depth, no high-quality writing and no thoughtful exploration of ideas – in other words, that there was a huge wall between mystery and ‘real’ writing. If anyone still believed in that barrier, I’d say Mystic River finally blew away the last remnants of it. It’s a cracking good whodunit and a tight police procedural, but it’s also a family saga, a social history, a coming-of-age story and a beautifully written book with vivid, unforgettable characters.

Click Here to view the rest, Tana French’s top 10 maverick mysteries | Books | guardian.co.uk.

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