Seven crime novels that address the Covid era head-on

Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the Shamus, Derringer, and International Thriller Writers-award-nominated author of the Andy Hayes Private Eye series, featuring a former Ohio State and Cleveland Browns quarterback turned investigator, and editor of Columbus Noir. His stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, the 2022 anthology Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, and other magazines and anthologies.

[My Book, The Movie: An Empty Grave; Q&A with Andrew Welsh-Huggins; The Page 69 Test: An Empty Grave; Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (April 2023); My Book, The Movie: The End of the Road; The Page 69 Test: The End of the Road]

Welsh-Huggins's newest novel, the eighth Andy Hayes mystery, is Sick to Death.

At CrimeReads the author tagged seven "crime novels that incorporate COVID-19 within their pages," including:

Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim

In Virginia, the lives of a biracial Korean American family are changed forever when the father and his son don’t return from a walk at a park. Later, the son, Eugene—who has a rare genetic condition, Angelman syndrome, which prevents him from speaking—rushes home bloody and alone. Narrated by Eugene’s older sister, Mia, the novel follows the family’s efforts to understand what happened and the ensuing police investigation, all of which unfold beginning on June 23, 2020.

Kim started the novel during the pandemic and found it hard to get writing done. But the lockdown also produced a breakthrough, she told Jane Ciabattari of Literary Hub.

“Somehow, imagining a family dealing with a crisis during the same quarantine my family and I were experiencing gave me a way into the story and inspired specific scenes and situations,” Kim said, noting she had friends with autistic children having an especially hard time adjusting to the disruption.

“Once I was done,” Kim continued, “I realized how much elements like wearing masks, the racial tensions involving police interactions, and our society’s changing baselines and expectations not only added to the plot, but reinforced some of the themes I wanted to explore.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue