Robin Agnew
At the end of the year a couple things happen. One, I start thinking about the books I truly enjoyed reading during the past year, and I start making a list. Then my husband and I argue about it so he can have some books on the list we put in our newsletter and on our website (he lost out on Stuart MacBride's Flesh House but he won on a few others. MacBride is well worth a look though).
Then our professional "group", IMBA, the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, begins balloting for the Dilys award, an award we give to the book we "most enjoyed selling" during the past year. Sometimes there's a ton of consensus, sometimes, not so much. This looks like a not so much year, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Some past winners have been In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming; Thirty Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill; Still Life by Louise Penny and last year's winner, Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger. All authors I enjoy handselling, and we sell lots of copies of titles by all of them every week.
Aunt Agatha's Top 10 list is one that has books on it that just caught me, somehow, when I was reading them, and three of them I thought were real, surprising, standouts - books by authors to watch in the future. Always fun to find those! (See if you can guess which three - this list is alphabetical).
Master of the Delta, Thomas Cook. What's not to like? Gorgeous prose, a haunting story set in the 50s in Mississippi, and characters you can't get out of your head. Cook is consistently one of the best of the best.
Gas City, Loren D. Estleman. Estleman's John O'Hara-esque look at a town that's corrupt from top to bottom. Speaking of prose, open any page and you'll find a whole paragraph that's so beautifully written it stays with you. I usually take my time reading an Estleman book just to savor it - it truly is like a box of chocolates.
Madman on a Drum, David Housewright. I think Housewright is way underrated and I never have anything but a great time when I read one of his Mac MacKenzie books about a Minneapolis P.I. In this one Mac's god daughter is kidnapped and Housewright manages to almost fit two books into one power packed volume; the first half about the kidnapping, the second about catching the kidnapper.
Red Knife, William Kent Kruger. I suppose someday my list won't include a Krueger title, but so far it hasn't happened. Last year's Thnder Bay was a meditation on love, and Red Knife is a meditation on violence, a meditation that does not leave series character Cork O'Connor unmarked. Krueger's gifts are all on display here - setting, character, and prose. He's the complete package.
The Shanghai Tunnel, Sharan Newman. Do you know what "being Shanghaied" means? I didn't until I read this book, and it's well worth finding out. A story of a widow in 1860's Portland, Oregon who comes back to Portland after years in China. Straight up fun, and Newman has long been a favorite writer of mine. I also love her Catherine LeVendeur series.
The Cruelest Month, Lousie Penny. Lousie Penny's Easter meditation about a woman who is scared to death in the local haunted house. It's really a book about friendships and jealousy and how those things can go way wrong. I love the way Penny writes, and I love that with each book she's able to change it up a bit. She's quickly become one of my all time favorite writers.
The Crazy School, Cornelia Read. I was a little late appreciating the ultra talented Read, and I thought this book, her second, was even better than the first (Field of Darkness). It's about a woman who teaches at a school for disturbed teenagers, though it quickly becomes clear that the administration is far worse than the students. Read's prose, her way with characters, and the vitality of her writing make her one of the best new writers I can think of.
At the City's Edge, Marcus Sakey. Everryone loves Sakey's first book, The Blade Itself, but this one is a step into deeper territory, with incredible characters and a wrenching story. An Iraqi war vet comes home to his brother's murder and the responsibility of taking care of his nephew. Sakey masterfully equates the war in Iraq with Chicago's gang violence. This is a book well worth seeking out.
Child 44, Tom Rob Smith. This book is truly amazing - I'm not sure how the very young Englishman on the back cover was able to channel 50's Stalinist Russia, but he does. You feel (sometimes unfortunately) like you're there, as you follow the rise and fall of one Leo Demidov, whose career and life are determined by the state. Bleak and unforgettable.
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, Kate Summerscale. Usually we don't have true crime or historical crime on this list, but this book is such a standout it's worth seeeking out. Whicher does two things: she tells the story of a horrible crime in a Victorian upper class household, and she equates the work of the real life detective in the book to the work that authors like Wilkie Collins were doing. The ficitonal detectives, it turns out, actually influenced the way real ones worked. Even better, this book has it's own twist at the end.
Hopefully some of you have read at least one or two of these but all of them have a hearty recommendation from me. It's been a great year to be a reader! Have a good holiday.
