Cover image of "All the Sinners Bleed," one of the best small-town mysteries

Setting a novel of suspense in a small town offers a writer several advantages. And those advantages multiply when the book is one in a series. Many of those in the cast of characters become familiar over time. They, and not just the investigator, as in an urban-based series, may come across as old friends. The setting itself might grow on the reader, its familiarity helping speed the story along. Not to mention how much easier writing these books is for the author. All of which helps makes clear why James Lee Burke, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Camilla Läckberg, Attica Locke, Louise Penny, and Karin Slaughter have all chosen to write about small towns. And it goes a long way toward explaining how they all landed on this list of the best small-town mysteries.

Both standalone novels and books in series

The following list of the 10 best small-town mysteries and thrillers includes both standalone novels and books in long-running series. Some of the series authors are likely to be familiar to you, and you may recognize that each of them has probably written more than one book that merits inclusion in this list. But I’ve limited myself to including only one title from any author.

What you’ll find below are two lists. First, the 10 best small-town mysteries. Then, a shorter list of novels that other reviewers may well think deserve to be included among the ten. Within each list, the books are arranged in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names. And each is followed by the headline of my review, with a link to the full text. So, here goes. . .

The 10 best small-town mysteries and thrillers

Cover image of "Burning Angel," one of the best small-town mysteries

Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux #8) by James Lee Burke (2014) 468 pages ★★★★★—Another winner from James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke‘s Dave Robicheaux series transcends the bounds of detective fiction and deserves the title of literature. Burning Angel, the eighth book in his time-tested series, proves the point. These novels are worth reading for their prose style alone. They’re written as well as anything I’ve read that is deemed Southern literature. In this book, the wounded Vietnam veteran, former New Orleans police lieutenant, now deputy sheriff, and future private investigator finds himself face-to-face with a New Orleans crime family that has invaded New Iberia Parish.

Cover image of "All the Sinners Bleed"

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby (2023) 352 pages ★★★★★—Southern noir at its eloquent best

“Blood and tears. Violence and mayhem. Love and hate. These were the rocks upon which the South was built. They were the foundation upon which Charon County stood.” So writes S. A. Cosby at the outset of this disquieting crime novel. This is Southern noir at its eloquent best. Cosby’s Charon County is the rural South writ large, where the terror of Jim Crow still echoes loudly. A statue of a Confederate war hero stands tall beside the courthouse. It’s the site of confrontations between angry White men marching in Confederate uniforms and equally angry Black counterprotestors. Yet Titus Crown, a Black man, now serves as Charon County’s Sheriff, and he’s caught in the middle.

Cover image of "Pines," one of the best small-town mysteries

Pines (Wayward Pines #1) by Blake Crouch (2012) 320 pages ★★★★★—A truly original work of speculative fiction

Most readers regard this book, and the two that follow it in the Wayward Pines Trilogy, as science fiction. But it is fundamentally the first installment in a three-book small-town thriller. It’s set in rural Idaho in what could well be the present time. And I guarantee you will be mystified by the mystery that unfolds in its three hundred pages.

Cover image of "Sharp Objects"

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006) 272 pages ★★★★★—Before “Gone Girl,” Gillian Flynn wrote this disturbing novel

Gillian Flynn gained fame (and undoubtedly fortune as well) with the advent in 2012 of her third novel, Gone Girl, and the 2014 film adaptation starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. The book was a #1 New York Times bestseller for many months. Within its first year of publication, there were more than two million copies of the novel in print. Flynn’s first novel was Sharp Objects, published in 2006. It displays the same steady buildup of suspense, the same complexity in its characters, and the same steady revelation of surprises from beginning to end. Like both the author’s other novels, it’s dark. Very dark. The protagonist, 30-something Chicago newspaper reporter Camille Preaker, is not the ambitious but cynical young newshound she seems at first. Not at all.

Cover image of "The Lost Man," one of the best small-town mysteries

The Lost Man by Jane Harper (2019) 345 pages ★★★★★—A superb murder mystery set in the Australian outback

Imagine a whodunit without a detective, or an investigator of any sort, for that matter. Take a family of three brothers, their mother, one wife, two young children, and a long-time hired hand. Now, one of the brothers has died. Did he commit suicide? Or was it murder? And if it was, who did it? Was it someone in the family . . . or a woman out of the murdered man’s past? Yes, this is a mystery as puzzling as you’ll find in any detective novel. And Jane Harper tells the tale beautifully in this novel.

Cover image of "Blackwater Falls"

Blackwater Falls (Blackwater Falls #1) by Ausma Zehanat Khan (2022) 400 pages ★★★★★—The debut of a brilliant new series of small-town thrillers

Many of the eighty percent of Americans who live in cities are unaware of the demographic revolution underway in the vast rural stretches of our country. The Immigration Act of 1965 ushered in a flood of racial or ethnic minorities to rural America over the past half-century. They now account for about one in every four persons living outside our cities. But they’re not spread across the country. Many small towns are more evenly split between White non-Hispanic and other people. And novelist Ausma Zehanat Khan sets her new series of small-town thrillers in one such community. Blackwater Falls, Colorado. There, Muslims, Somali refugees, and Mexican-Americans account for a large share of the population. And the mix is combustible.

Cover image of "The Preacher," one of the best small-town mysteries

The Preacher (Fjällbacka #2) by Camilla Läckberg (2004) 436 pages ★★★★★—A great example of Swedish noir

It’s a sweltering summer in Fjällbacka on the coast of Sweden, and Erica Falck is suffering mightily under the weight and anxiety of eight months of pregnancy. Her partner, Detective Patrik Hedström, has taken a vacation in hopes of supporting her as best he can at home. Then Patrik is called in to head up a deeply puzzling murder mystery. The nude body of a woman in her late teens has been discovered lying in the open in a spot frequented by tourists. Beneath her tortured corpse lie two skeletons, each suspected to be the victim of a similar murder 24 years earlier. So it begins.

Cover image of "Bluebird, Bluebird"

Bluebird, Bluebird (Highway 59 #1) by Attica Locke (2017) 318 pages ★★★★★—A compelling tale of murder, race, and family secrets

Two bodies have turned up in quick succession in a small town in hardscrabble East Texas. The sheriff is inclined to treat them as unconnected. But not so Darren Matthews, a Texas Ranger who has come to town at the urging of a friend in the FBI who suspects larger forces at work there. An African American, Darren fears a connection with the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT), a violent racist gang enriched by drug smuggling. Once in town, he encounters resistance from the sheriff and worrisome rumblings from the local people. No one, not the African Americans who congregate at Geneva’s cafe nor the white men who hang out in a nearby bar, is willing to help Darren at first. He’s an outsider. He doesn’t belong.

Cover image of "Still Life," one of the best small-town mysteries

Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1) by Louise Penny (2007) 314 pages ★★★★★—A detective novel that continues to surprise to the end

This book’s, and in most cases Louise Penny’s whole series of Three Pines mysteries, features a brilliant and diverse cast of characters. A misanthropic poet. An insightful African-American psychologist retired to a tiny village as a bookstore owner. The Mutt-and-Jeff-like gay couple who run the village’s bistro and B & B. A saintly retired schoolteacher. The truly nasty real estate agent. A rookie cop with the mind and personality of a five-year-old. And, of course, the brilliant Chief Inspector of Homicide Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec.

Cover image of "Faithless"

Faithless (Grant County #5) by Karin Slaughter ★★★★★—In rural Georgia, a gruesome murder and a religious cult

In the seven books of the Grant County series, Karin Slaughter chronicles the story of physician Dr. Sara Linton and her on-again, off-again husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, as they work to eliminate violent crime from their small rural Georgia community. In Faithless, the fifth book of the series, they come to grips with a vicious religious cult. As with all of Karin Slaughter’s novels, violence is a constant presence. It requires a strong stomach to read these books. If you’ve got one, you may find the series, and especially this novel, to be highly rewarding. 

Not quite the best small-town mysteries and thrillers

A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay (2013) 513 pages ★★★★☆—An engrossing small-town thriller

The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey (2017) 400 pages ★★★★☆—Guilt, the allure of beauty, and murder in an excellent Australian thriller

The Fleur de Sel Murders (Brittany Mysteries #3) by Jean-Luc Bannalec (2018) 304 pages ★★★★☆—A cranky detective and a kangaroo in the Brittany salt marshes

The Black Box (Harry Bosch #16) by Michael Connelly (2012) 413 pages ★★★★☆—The Rodney King riots, war crimes, and a small-town power elite

The Fourth Durango by Ross Thomas (1989) 288 pages ★★★★☆—From Ross Thomas, another take on small-town skullduggery

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