My Favorite Crime Fiction Film, TV, and Books of the Year

It’s always a good time to explore the dark side.

Like so many years before it, 2022 offered too many choices when it came to excellent crime fiction. I was overwhelmed at moments by the sheer size of my stack of books to be read and movies to watch. But amidst that maelstrom, here are some of the books, movies, and TV series I keep thinking about — I think you might like them, too.

Film and TV

My favorite crime film of the year was Romain Gavras’s “Athena,” a brutal account of a riot in a French public-housing development. I’ve always been a sucker for a long tracking shot in a film, and “Athena” is full of them, starting with the 10-minute opener that begins with a tight close-up of a man speaking at a press conference before launching into a police station raid, a chase down a highway, and hundreds of rioters blockading a housing block. Gavras seamlessly blends drone and traditional camera footage into an ever-roving “eye” (it’s almost impossible to catch the editing seams) and the ultimate effect is one of constant acceleration, climaxing with an explosive denouement.

For a few nights this summer, I was also entranced by “The Longest Night,” a Spanish thriller series about a prison under siege by a mysterious gang that wants to…