1.
Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper
This gifted practitioner of contemporary Hollywood noir writes with staccato vividness about “the Beast,” the group of corrupt entities that cleans up celebrity messes, and what happens when two of its number decide that doing “ugly things for ugly people” isn’t the rush it used to be.
2.
The Twyford Code, by Janice Hallett
Told in the form of voice memos from a semi-literate former London gangster, this is ostensibly about his efforts to learn the fate of a favorite teacher who disappeared years ago. But nothing about this charming rascal is straightforward, as multiple inventive plot twists reveal.
