From the 2021 Edgar Award Nominees.
The Distant Dead, Heather Young. Literary, sad.
Winter Counts David Heska Wanbli Weiden. A rare mystery novel about native Americans by a native American. First novel, so it has some flaws, imo, but the main character is done brilliantly. The GF character, I didn't believe much.
2020 Edgars:
The Stranger Diaries by Ellie Griffiths. (pen name and it won the top Edgar for its year)
All definitely strong with characters.
And if you can bear ghosts, my favorite 2022 book so far, The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James. Shea is a murderino with a website, a childhood experience of crime, and she runs into a woman who was arrested and tried for an unsolved murder, years after the crime. And investigates...
2022 edgar noms are out, but I'm reading for my new genre and probably won't get there until winter.