From a Times Insider column by Katherine J. Igoe headlined “For One Writer, Crime Is a ‘Window’ Into Society”:

A murder in a Northern California coastal town. The unsolved case of a girl who disappeared near Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1956. A spray-painted message near a body, warning: “MIND YOUR BUSINESS.”

It’s these cases that Sarah Weinman covers for The New York Times. They are fictional, we should add. As the crime and mystery columnist for the Book Review, Ms. Weinman investigates not mysteries themselves but the merit of mystery novels, offering readers four book suggestions — puzzling whodunits; twisty thrillers — every month.