The joys of time off might include time spent with one of these novels of intrigue, suspense or outright pulp fiction.

Newspaper people are capable of debating almost anything to death, and one great topic of debate around these parts has been this: Do people still read fiction?

The folks I run with still read fiction with great zeal. My BFF, for example, spent one recent summer reading what she liked to call “plague fiction,” or stories of medieval diseases and death. Another friend, a busy elementary school vice-principal, chews through roughly a book every two days during summer vacations. I alternate between buying books on my iPad, the library and the Friends of the Salinas Public Library racks at the local coffeehouse.

It’s not a comprehensive list that follows, but it is a list of my must-reads for the coming summer.

10. Lucas Davenport is a multi millionaire software developer, veteran cop and head of Minnesota’s elite Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He has a hot surgeon wife, a handful of kids, a great wardrobe and he’s killed more than a few people in the line of duty. And in Silken Prey, the latest Prey novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling novelist John Camp (nom de plume, John Sandford), Davenport and his crew take on the case of a Republican Senate candidate disgraced and facing prison when child porn turns up on his office computer. You know early on who put it there – it’s the how and the why that’s well worth the trip.

Silken Prey by John Sandford, Putnam Adult, May 2013.

9. San Francisco plays as much a part in the crime novels of John Lescroart as do tightly written characters like veteran homicide detective Lt. Abe Glitsky and his best friend, defense attorney Dismas Hardy. In The Ophelia Cut, Lescroart’s 16th novel to hit The New York Times bestseller list, Glitsky and Hardy are growing older and dealing with an incident from the past that could land them in prison. Hardy, meanwhile, is also dealing with defending his brother-in-law, Moses McGuire, charged with killing his daughter’s stalker-rapist of an ex-boyfriend. Did he do it? Lescroart’s characters have always had a darker cast to them than those of Sandford; this time around, they’re full-on grim.

The Ophelia Cut by John Lescroart, Atria Books, May 2013.

8. Speaking of grim, if you haven’t met Harry Hole, the dark, disturbed and often-drunk hero of Norwegian musician/crime novelist Jo Nesbo, the 417-page The Redeemer is the perfect chance. Nesbo’s Hole novels – this is his seventh – are packed with details about life in Norway and usually feature particularly sadistic anti-heroes. This time, Hole chases a Croatian assassin whose childhood was spent in the war-torn Balkans as he tries to figure out why a seemingly innocuous Salvation Army singer was shot to death during a Christmas concert in Oslo. Hole is as compelling a troubled detective ever written.

The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo, Knopf, May 2013.

7. Lauren Weisberger had a hit on her hands 10 years ago with The Devil Wears Prada, a thinly disguised, semi-comic “fictional” look at her time toiling as a young assistant under famed (and famously sadistic) Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Now protagonist Andrea “Andy” Sachs is back in Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns. Sachs has co-founded a high-end bridal magazine, she’s on the verge of getting married to the rich man of her dreams and – whammo! – back in her life is the devil herself, Runway editor Miranda Priestly, come to remind her that the past, and past mistakes, are impossible to elude.

Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns by Lauren Weisberger, Simon & Schuster, published June 2013.

6. There are many types of rescue, from the physical to the spiritual, and no rescue is ever quite the same. In her third book – and second collection of short stories – Seattle-based author Valerie Trueblood looks at 13 characters in need of saving in Search Party: Stories of Rescue. By its own description, “It’s impossible to guess the form this rescue will take, or even who it is who’ll require it.” Is it the disgraced-cop-turned-security-guard, the nurses aide who longs for a career (and education) in art, or the radio producer seeking a cure for incurable cancer? Trueblood’s last collection, Marry or Burn, turned the topic of women and marriage on its ear, with stories The Rumpus describe as bittersweet, mournful and joyful in equal measure. Here she does the same for the idea of redemption.

Search Party: Stories of Rescue by Valerie Trueblood, Counterpoint Publishing, July 2013.

5. Set in separate decades yet connected times, and with Florence as its stunning backdrop, Chris Bohjalian’s The Light in the Ruins follows the Rosatis, a family of nobility hiding out in their ancient villa and trying to stay out of the sights of the Nazis in war-torn Italy. The Nazis find them, of course, and the family castle becomes the family prison. A decade later, a Florence police investigator is tasked with finding the serial killer who appears to be targeting the Rosatis, one-by-one. Bohjalian specializes in the suspense created when people are cut off, physically and emotionally, from society (as he did in his best-selling Midwives). Here he goes back in time to create that suspense, with a compelling female detective running from demons of her own as his heroine.

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian, Doubleday, July 2013.

4. As pure and pulpy as any crime fiction out there, Lisa Jackson returns with reporter Nikki Gillette and Det. Pierce Reed in Tell Me, as Gillette investigates the reopened case of the murder of a childhood friend. The friend’s mother – also known as the most hated woman in Savannah, Ga. – has served two decades for her daughter’s murder, and the attempted murders of her two other children. But when her son recants and the case falls apart, all of those juicy Southern Gothic secrets are brought back to the surface.

Tell Me and Ready to Die by Lisa Jackson, Zebra Books, July and August 2013.

3. The website Bookish.com describes Marisha Pessl’s second novel, Night Film, as what might happen if Lewis Carroll chatted with Raymond Chandler and then brought director David Lynch in to film it. Woosh – what a description. Pessl brings in a great touch of noir-meets-gothic in Night Film, which follows a journalist investigating the death of a young beauty, only to find himself enmeshed with the woman’s father, a reclusive maker of horror films who hasn’t been seen in public for 30 years. Creepy good fun.

Night Film by Marisha Pessl, Random House, August 2013.

2. Paul Harding took home a Pulitzer for his debut novel Tinkers, the story of a dying old man who becomes unable to separate memories from reality as he recalls the lives of his own father and grandfather. In Enon, that dead old man’s grandson traverses New England and the depths of personal tragedy as he seeks answers to the great questions of his life and possibly find some inner peace. The strength of Harding’s debut has been compared to To Kill a Mockingbird’s. Enon stands to set Harding’s literary fame soaring higher.

Enon by Paul Harding, Random House, coming September 2013.

1. “Redrum! Redrum!” Those words should send a chill up your spine. They were spoken by Danny Torrance, the young hero with the spineless mother, the psychotically murderous father and a haunted hotel as home in Stephen King’s The Shining. Danny is all grown up in King’s much-awaited Doctor Sleep, and he’s battled his demons with a small measure of success. But then he meets a 12-year-old girl tied to a traveling cult called The True Knot, and it’s a cult that lives off of the energy created by torturing children to death. Feel that chill going up your spine again? Yeah, thought so. What a way to end the summer.

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, Scribner, coming September 2013.