Ten American masterpieces that are actually crime novels

Smith Henderson is the author of Fourth of July Creek and lives in California and Montana. Jon Marc Smith teaches English at Texas State University and lives in San Marcos, Texas. Make Them Cry is their first novel.

At CrimeReads, the authors tagged ten American masterpieces that are actually crime fiction, including:

These Women, by Ivy Pochoda

These Women is another book about misogynistic violence, this time centered on the strippers and prostitutes of Los Angeles. The genius of Pochoda’s book is how well it does away with the murderer—there is little in the way of a manhunt or clue-finding. Instead, the book draws its power and astonishing narrative momentum by focusing on the lived lives of the women killed, nearly killed, and troublingly proximate to this monster. No less riveting than a traditional serial killer story, what emerges from These Women is a more complex portrait of our relationship to horrific violence.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: These Women.

--Marshal Zeringue