We have an understandable human fascination with stories of underground societies. Homeless and often forgotten people have done what seems incredible and unnatural to humankind—a species that has always thrived in the open air and on high ground. Here are the people who choose to go underground; and much has been written about the individuals who shelter in the tunnels and abandoned human byways that exist under earth’s cities.

In her outstanding new Ruth Galloway novel, The Chalk Pit, author Elly Griffiths as usual has drawn on her extensive knowledge of archaeology and history, enticing readers beneath the streets of Norwich, England, on a dark journey that will yield some strange discoveries. Archaeologist and professor Ruth travels below ground to a series of abandoned thoroughfares to investigate the age and provenance of some human remains just discovered in an area where a local architect hopes to build a very modern enclave of shops and restaurants.

At the same time, DCI Harry Nelson is looking into the mysterious disappearance of a homeless woman named Babs, and he hears a rumor that she may have gone underground. Then, two homeless men who knew her are found brutally murdered. Soon Ruth, Nelson and his detective team are pursuing separate investigations in the eerie, claustrophobic yet fascinating caverns beneath the streets where they uncover a trove of unsuspected life and activity.

Readers new to Griffith’s stellar mystery series will soon become familiar with Ruth and Nelson and their singular relationship, as well as with the unconventional, extended family of friends and acquaintances who’ve been with the series since its outset, from the meticulous Judy and Druid-inspired Cathbad to Clough and his love, Cassandra.

Griffiths’ understated, dry humor invests her characters with a special humanity that’s a cut above the ordinary. Behind each character’s façade, their thoughts can be very funny indeed—mostly not too far off from emotions we’ve felt ourselves. Conversely, when the author wants to move you to tears, she can also do that very well indeed.

The novel wraps with a zinger of a final sentence (containing a suspicion that a few skeptical readers may have had earlier in the story), and it's one that guarantees the allure of the next Ruth Galloway book that is sure to follow.

It’s Halloween night, and the K-Bar in Bolton, Montana, is well into its annual costume party. The bar is full of Elvis impersonators competing for top dress-up honors. Drinking with her friends among other costumed partygoers and over-imbibers is local college student Grace Adams, dressed up as a prom queen. She gets spooked enough by someone she has tagged as a stalker that she leaves the party to escape the real or imagined threat.

At the same time as hips are swiveling in the K-Bar, the nearby home of well-known local residents Peter and Hannah Granger is burning to the ground, leaving the remains of two unidentified bodies in the rubble as well as a heap of smoldering questions.

Enter Detective Macy Greeley, who arrives from neighboring Helena to investigate the fire and determine whether it was accident or arson. That it was an intentional act soon becomes clear, and Macy sets out to dissect the lives and relationships of the Grangers—Hannah, an artist and teacher at the local college, and Peter, a nationally popular author who teaches a popular writing workshop.

Macy must determine the identity of one of the bodies and unearth a motive behind the murder of Peter Granger, the second victim. As more becomes known about the coterie of female students who seemed to be Granger groupies, readers may begin to share Macy’s suspicions that a lot more than manuscript critique was going on in Peter Granger’s creative writing workshop. It turns out Grace was once very close to the Grangers—taking painting classes from Hannah and a spot in Peter's coveted workshop—until they had a mysterious falling out.

The detective casts a wide net to include the volatile, often troubled young women who formed the members of the writing workshop; Jessica, a despondent art department associate with mixed motives: the Grangers’ personal assistant, Cornelia; a disaffected boyfriend or two; and the malignant stalker, Jordan.

Karin Salvalaggio’s Silent Rain builds on themes in her earlier Bone Dust White (2014). Those who haven’t read the first book may find that Silent Rain involves some heavy sledding. Both Grace and Macy were front and center there, and that past influences the present in the new entry. Unfortunately it’s often referred to with roundabout, sometimes muddy allusions. The goal may be to preserve the suspense in Silent Rain, but the result for the reader is often confusion. This book is all arms and legs—presenting too many questions that dangle without resolution. This can obscure the author’s very real talent for intriguing police procedurals, a solid core that will hopefully emerge more strongly in future novels.

If you are a fan of NBC’s “Law & Order” programs, you’ll probably be a fan of Peter Blauner’s new novel, Proving Ground. A staffer in the writer’s room, as well as a past Edgar Award-winning author, Blauner knows how to write compelling crime fiction. But, what’s more important, he knows how to portray the characters caught up in the midst of criminal misdeeds, bringing out their emotional and inner turmoil in gripping fashion.

Former Army lieutenant Nathaniel “Natty Dread” Dresden, already haunted by the death of a young Iraqi boy at his hands, is further traumatized when his father, civil rights lawyer David Dresden, is killed in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. While processing this latest disruption in his life, longtime family friend and David’s business partner, Benjamin Grimaldi, aka Ben Grimm, enlists Natty’s help in closing David’s latest high-profile case involving an Iraqi man suing the United States government for its role in torturing him about alleged terrorist activity.

The deeper Natty digs into the case—even while butting heads with the FBI and NYPD Detective Lourdes Robles, who each have their own investigations—the more secrets he uncovers about his father and Ben Grimm, putting family and friendship to the ultimate test.

Blauner easily gets into the head of each of his characters, creating a sense of sympathy and compassion for their individual traumas. But this is easily Natty’s tale, overall, and the majority of the book rightly follows his investigation and personal quest for redemption. Blauner writes crisp, detailed passages and sharp dialogue, giving the story an edgy, almost noirish quality. There’s even a fiery court scene between attorneys that would fit into almost any “Law & Order” episode.

If you haven’t read any books in Donna Leon’s stunning detective series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, now up to 26 books, the first installment may take a bit of getting used to as everything takes place on the water. Of course it does—her detective lives in Venice, where you pop out your door and into a boat in order to get to your destination.

In Earthly Remains, the scene shifts from Venice to its nearby islands, resulting in a subtle change in pace and atmosphere in this outstanding new entry in the series.

Brunetti’s blood pressure has run a bit awry, and he ends up embarking on a trip to regroup and relax. With his wife, Paola, in agreement with the plan, Brunetti is off to stay by himself in a villa that’s owned by a wealthy relative just a short boat trip away on the nearby island of Sant’Erasmo, in the Venetian Lagoon.

Earthly Remains takes shape as Brunetti begins his somewhat solitary stay at the unoccupied villa by making the acquaintance of the villa’s caretaker, widower Davide Casati. The two begin rowing daily together in the quiet waters of the lagoon among the shimmering reaches of nature, water and sun, burning Brunetti’s mind to quiet. He grows to love the nature that surrounds him as they row: “Brunetti had the sudden realization that, though none of this belonged to him, he belonged to all of it.”

Leon paints a picture of the incessant, encompassing warmth and the quiet reaches of nature as the two men travel out among the reeds and skimming ducks under the burnishing sun. Casati introduces his friend to the bees he keeps on a number of outlying islands where, in many of the hives, the bees are dying—to Casati’s grave distress.

The sun-blanched idyll changes in an instant when Brunetti, walking to the dock in the early morning to meet his friend, finds that both Casati and his boat are missing. Brunetti must slip back into character as a law enforcement officer as he joins in the search for the caretaker. As facts emerge, the detective is forced to re-evaluate all that he knows about the caretaker and his troubled past.

Stunning descriptions of the often tranquil surroundings mingle with an atmosphere that quickly turns malignant as troubling discoveries begin to emerge and take shape beneath the surface of the calm waters.

“I didn’t do the crime.” Journalist Rebekah Roberts reads these words, part of prisoner DeShawn Perkins’ handwritten plea for justice. He’s doing time for a murder that took place 22 years earlier, when Malcolm and Sabrina Davis, along with their young foster daughter, were brutally shot in their Crown Heights apartment. DeShawn, their troubled foster son, is fingered for the crime. But after reading DeShawn’s letter, Rebekah is moved to follow up on his contention of innocence.

Conviction is the latest mystery from Julia Dahl (Invisible City, Run You Down). Police officer Saul Katz, a prominent character in Dahl's earlier books, is a kind of stepfather to Rebekah. The story slips back and forth in time between 2014, the year Rebekah reads DeShawn's letter, to 1992. We learn that 1992 was the year of the murder, and that Katz was involved in the DeShawn case as a rookie with the NYPD during this time when violence between black and Jewish neighborhoods was rampant in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

The elements of this chilling, well-crafted jigsaw puzzle never skip over the hard facts of racial division and frequent bloodshed that racked the Brooklyn community during the '90s. Each character receives close attention: from Isaiah, an uncompromising Jewish landlord; to Henrietta, whose testimony solidified the case; to Joseph's unspoken, terrible mission; and finally to DeShawn and his tragic story. Most of all, Conviction captures the characters of Saul and Rebekah in their intricate, sometimes explosive interactions that explore both affection and wariness.

One particular passage captures Dahl’s essential mindset as she frames this story. In Saul's early cop years, while closely involved with the Crown Heights neighborhood, he recognizes “how much the camaraderie among officers resembled the camaraderie among the men in shul. . . . The men in blue uniforms—like the men in black hats—had a common language, a common purpose, a common set of rules and prejudices. They were misunderstood by outsiders, but outsiders were not important. What was important was the man beside you.”

Rebekah shines in this installment in Dahl's series, and the young journalist is sure to linger in readers’ minds. She’s solid, believable and never overplayed. In Conviction, Rebekah recognizes the insular nature of parties in conflict and finds a way to bring the truth to light.