Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Red Scare Murders | 2025 | Con Lehane | Buy |
The Red Scare Murders is Con Lehane’s 2025 standalone novel, published by Soho Crime. Set in Hell’s Kitchen in 1950, it follows Mick Mulligan, a private investigator who used to work as a Hollywood cartoonist before being blacklisted during the McCarthy-era communist witch hunts. When a taxi union president hires him to look into the case of a man on death row, Mulligan gets pulled into a web of Cold War paranoia, racial injustice, and union politics.
The novel marks a shift for Lehane – it is a period piece rather than a contemporary mystery, but his longtime interest in labor politics and working-class characters carries through. Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, praising its pacing and hardboiled dialogue and noting that Lehane makes the paranoia of the era feel immediate.