Genre
The best Police Procedural books
How the investigation actually runs. Witnesses, evidence chains, departmental politics, and the difference between the case the cops can prove and the truth they all know.
25 reviews in this genre.
Editor's picks
Highest-rated police procedural on the shelf
Broken Harbor
by Tana French
Broken Harbor by Tana French 2012 review. A Dublin family is murdered in their half-finished suburban-development house. Fourth Dublin Murder Squad book and French's structural masterwork.
A Conspiracy of Faith
by Jussi Adler-Olsen
The third Department Q novel. Carl Morck investigates a message in a bottle written in blood. The best book in a great series.
The Purity of Vengeance
by Jussi Adler-Olsen
The fourth Department Q novel. The Danish eugenics program at Sprogo, four decades on. Adler-Olsen at his most morally serious.
Blind Date
by Frances Fyfield
Frances Fyfield's 1998 standalone. A traumatized woman ex-cop and the killer who took her sister. One of the British psychological-thriller form's genuine peaks.
The Late Show
by Michael Connelly
The Late Show by Michael Connelly 2017 review. Renee Ballard works the LAPD late shift in Hollywood after being banished from the elite Robbery-Homicide Division. The novel that launched the strongest new Connelly series in twenty years.
Final Frame
by Jane Adams
The fourth Mike Croft. A photographer's posthumous show, an image that should not exist, and Jane Adams in fully realized form.
Sea of Green
by Thomas Adcock
The first Neil Hockaday mystery by Thomas Adcock. NYPD detective in mid-90s Hell's Kitchen, before the neighborhood got polite.
The Absent one
by Jussi Adler-Olsen
The second Department Q book. An old boarding-school case the Danish elite would prefer stayed cold.
The Marco Effect
by Jussi Adler-Olsen
The fifth Department Q novel. A Roma boy on the run from his family is the only witness to something the Danish foreign ministry is hiding.
Stiff News
by Catherine Aird
The 17th Sloan procedural. A retirement-home death that may not be natural. Catherine Aird at her most institutional and her most quietly biting.
Amendment of Life
by Catherine Aird
The 19th Inspector Sloan. A body in a country church maze and Catherine Aird in her purest form.
Hunting Season
by Nevada Barr
The 10th Anna Pigeon. Nevada Barr at Natchez Trace, a deer-poaching case that opens into something worse.
Flashback
by Nevada Barr
The 11th Anna Pigeon. Nevada Barr at Dry Tortugas National Park. Civil War history, present-day crime, and the Gulf as antagonist.
High Country
by Nevada Barr
The 12th Anna Pigeon. Nevada Barr undercover at Yosemite. Backcountry meth, missing employees, and the most physically demanding entry in the series.
Hard Truth
by Nevada Barr
The 13th Anna Pigeon mystery. Nevada Barr in Rocky Mountain National Park. Three girls survived a horror, and what they will not say is the case.
Blood Lure
by Nevada Barr
The 9th Anna Pigeon. Nevada Barr at Glacier National Park. A grizzly bear, a backcountry camp, and a murder that the bear did not commit.
Hell Gate
by Linda Fairstein
The 12th Alex Cooper mystery. Linda Fairstein at her most New-York-specific, with Hell Gate at the center and the geography doing real work.
Terminal City
by Linda Fairstein
A Linda Fairstein Alex Cooper novel. Grand Central Station as the case's gravitational center. Fairstein at her most New-York-specific.
A Banquet of Consequences
by Elizabeth George
The 19th Inspector Lynley novel. Elizabeth George doing late-period family-secrets and an investigation that genuinely deserves its 700 pages.
Behind Closed Doors
by Elizabeth Haynes
Elizabeth Haynes's fourth novel. A Detective Lou Smith procedural about a years-old missing-person case opening back up. Slower than Human Remains, just as careful.
Unlikely Victims
by Alvin Abram
Alvin Abram's Maxie Lewis Toronto mysteries. Yiddish-inflected procedural with serious neighborhood texture.
After Effects
by Catherine Aird
Inspector Sloan investigating a pharmaceutical company's drug-trial gone wrong. Aird writing institutional procedural.
Little Knell
by Catherine Aird
The 18th Inspector Sloan. A piece of garden statuary, a missing mother, and Catherine Aird at her most procedural.
Evan Blessed
by Rhys Bowen
The ninth Constable Evan Evans mystery. Rhys Bowen in cozy Welsh-village form. Reliable comfort reading.
The Evidence Exposed
by Elizabeth George
The Evidence Exposed by Elizabeth George review. A three-novella mini-collection of Inspector Lynley and Barbara Havers shorter cases, useful but uneven.
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