Year in Review: Best Reads of 2013

Well, another year has come and gone, and with it, some excellent reads. And so today I’d like to close out my “year in review” series with a recap of the best books I read in 2013. My usual procedure would be to choose an initial hangman’s dozen of books, and then write a brief bit on each of them. But 2013 was a bit different for me, and so before I do this I’d like to give a brief word of explanation.

I read far more of Ian Fleming than any other author, (re)reading the entire James Bond series in order, and this time getting to read You Only Live Twice (which I had skipped when I read these books years ago). The only character who even came close to matching Bond was Sherlock Holmes, who kept popping up and doing battle with other characters from English literature – but various authors were trying their hand there, and the results varied. I have a very high opinion of Ian Fleming, and a hangman’s dozen would probably result in multiple James Bond books being chosen. But this would be unfair to the rest of the crew from this year, so I have resolved to choose only one James Bond novel for this hangman’s dozen. It’s a rule that applies to everyone else also—each author this year can only be represented by one book. This is to make the hangman’s dozen a bit more diverse and to make my job (writing a really quick blurb) easier.

With that being said, here is the hangman’s dozen of the best books I read in 2013 (ordered by author’s name)

Death of a Ghost by Margery Allingham

As a big fan of Margery Allingham, the only thing I regret about her books is that she wasn’t more ingenious with her stories. She’s often at her finest coming up with lovably loony characters, but the plotting department just isn’t her forte. The strongest of her plots I’d read to date was Police at the Funeral, which had a plot that Allingham nicked from Sherlock Holmes. But in Death of a Ghost, she comes up with her own plot, and a beauty it is at that. It’s not so much a whodunit as much as it a how-will-he-get-caught novel. Campion knows whodunit instinctively, but he must find proof of his suspicions, and this leads to a very memorable conclusion in which Campion’s life itself is at stake.

Year in Review: Top 9 Discoveries of 2013

Meh, close enough.

I’m going to cheat in today’s article. When I do my “Top Discoveries” list, it is my time to showcase authors whose work I read for the first time the year before (here, 2013). But much of 2013 was spent by me in revisiting reliable favourites, so that the list of discoveries isn’t as big as it may have been in years past. (Hence only 9 inclusions instead of the usual 10.)

So for the 2013 installment of the “Top Discoveries” article, I’m going to include authors I’ve really come to appreciate in 2013 – if this sounds vague, then don’t worry, it will be clarified soon. I’m also going to cheat by including an author whose work I may have read in the past, but which I honestly can’t recall for 100%. So, without further ado, below are my Top 9 Discoveries of 2013 (in alphabetical order).

George C. Chesbro

Quite simply put, I was captivated by The Beasts of Valhalla, which has made Chesbro a new favourite of mine. The book started as a conventional mystery, but at around the 75-page mark, it did a complete 180 on me. All of my expectations were completely subverted, and it turned into one of the wildest mystery/fantasy/sci-fi epics I’ve ever read. It was terrific entertainment, and rarely was it predictable. I look forward to reading more Chesbro – for one thing, he knew how to come up with awesome-sounding titles. I submit as evidence the following: An Incident at Bloodtide, City of Whispering Stone, Two Songs This Archangel Sings, The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone, Shadow of a Broken Man…

Year in Review: Worst Reading Moments of 2013

I’m afraid that my year-end recaps of 2013 have started late this year. This is due to a variety of reasons that I really don’t need to go into detail here. But I’m here now and I’ll be running this show for the next little while, so please don’t change the channel just yet. As is tradition, I like to do a series of recap articles, highlighting various elements of the year that came before. And today, I’d like to start with the worst moments I experienced in 2013.

Let me just emphasize that these are my worst moments, and I’ve expanded the list this year to include categories other than books (for reasons that will soon be obvious). Just because a book is on this list does not mean it’s a terrible book; sometimes, something will happen to ruin my reading experience, and I can use these articles as a way to advertise the issue so that future readers can be warned. Sometimes, however, the items featured in these articles just plain ol’ suck, and the lower down you go on the list, the likelier this eventuality is.

I’ve been relatively lucky in 2013: it was a year of nostalgia for me, as I spent much of the year revisiting reliable favourites and so I didn’t run into quite as many bad moments as I did in years past, which is why I expanded the categories this year to include moments that otherwise would have remained unmentioned. (Remember that charming edition of Crispin’s Swan Song which spoiled the solution on the front cover? Or that Fred Vargas novel that was so poorly-edited it seriously made me question my knowledge of the French language?) But there were some bad moments nonetheless, so let’s get started with this last exorcism.

11. In which I learned why a reviewer’s responsibility includes knowing what they’re talking about… or, Jimmy the Stick by Michael Mayo

First of all, let me get this straight: Jimmy the Stick is not a bad book by any means. It’s actually quite a well-done hardboiled novel, clearly inspired by Dashiell Hammett. Unfortunately, I read the book expecting an homage to both Hammett and Agatha Christie, based on reviews by some other book bloggers out there. Unfortunately, they did not know what they were talking about. Just because part of the novel takes place in a country house, the name “Agatha Christie” entered their heads, and their reviews led me to expect a book in which a tough-guy-P.I. is transplanted into a genteel country-house mystery like the one forever associated with Christie. This did not happen, and because I was expecting such a different book, I didn’t enjoy the one I got nearly as much. So, to my fellow book bloggers, I implore you to please know what you’re talking about if you’re going to use a comparison. Your reviews can suggest a very different novel from the one you’ve read, and using a simplistic (and/or inaccurate) comparison can only mislead readers and could lead to unreasonable disappointment.

Year in Review: Best Books Read in 2012

When I began assembling a list of the best books I read in 2012, I ran into a problem. What would be the limit on the number of titles? Last year, I listed 45 books in total, but I read plenty of good books this year (which will come as a shock to anyone who has only read my review of the worst books of 2012). I finally decided to do something a bit different this year – start with a hangman’s dozen of books – thirteen, in case you’re wondering – and then list “honourable mentions” of books that I felt were equally deserving to be among the hangman's dozen, the ones that I felt were among the best of 2012. (I couldn't come up with a catchy name for this award, but I have a feeling nobody will be putting it on their curriculum vitae.) If I really and truly felt that a book deserved a spot on the list, I placed it there, although for the initial hangman’s dozen I gave preference to any novel I haven’t recapped over the last few days.

Best Books Read in 2012

Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong

This one is really damn good. I thought The Dream Walker was a minor masterpiece, but Mischief made it look like kids’ stuff. This is a taut novel of suspense, as two parents leave their child in a hotel suite with a strange babysitter, who then begins to do increasingly dangerous things. Soon enough, a man is lured to the suite and thus begins a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, with one of the most thrilling climaxes I’ve ever read. Everything slowly builds up to it, as misunderstandings, delays, and bad timing all contribute to help load the dice squarely against the main characters. One of the best-written books I’ve read this year and one of the finest plots as well.

Year in Review: Top 10 Discoveries of 2012

2012 was another year full of great discoveries for me. I’ve “met” new authors via their books, and some of them are now among my very favourites. When I find a new author that I really like, I feel the thrill of discovery anew, and it’s one of the most delightful feelings in the world. It helps to fuel my fascination with the genre. Some of the authors below were, sadly, neglected by me despite my discovery of them, and I can only profusely apologise. I’ll try to balance the books better in 2013.

I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats, waiting for me to unveil the list, so without further ado, let’s get to the Top 10 Discoveries of 2012.

Charlotte Armstrong

Wow! What a talent! What a superb writer! Charlotte Armstrong could do it all. She could plot right up there with the masters, and her climaxes are packed to the brim with tension. She can create atmosphere at the drop of a hat. She can create memorable characters, such as the three “weird sisters” or the mischievous babysitter Nell Munro. And every page makes for compulsive reading—you want to get to the end ASAP and find out just what happens, and the tension is slowly ratcheted up more and more until finally all hell breaks loose. I thought The Case of the Weird Sisters was pretty good. I thought The Dream Walker was a masterpiece. Mischief completely blew me away. If you’ve never read an Armstrong novel, have no fear—The Mysterious Press is your friend, having reissued several of her novels in e-book form. What time could be better than the present for catching up on your Armstrong?

Year in Review: A Review of the New Books of 2012

A few weeks ago, I surprised myself with the thought that I had read quite a bit of new books this year. At the time, I quickly looked over the English ones and found that there were 15 of them, certainly a step up from last year, when I probably read less than five. Now that the time of lists is upon us, what better way to recap 2012 than by looking back at the new books I read in 2012? After all, you never know what might happen in retrospect. Some books get more and more memorable over time; others fade away from memory. You get to like some more than others once you’ve had some time to think it all over. Generally speaking, I found that most of my opinions were still along the same lines, but there were one or two surprises along the way.

So, what exactly constitutes a “new” book? For the purposes of this blog post, a new book is one that was published in 2012 and which I read in 2012. In addition, I decided to include translations, even if the original book was written years ago, as long as the English translation was published and read by me in 2012. I decided not to include novels that were brought back into print. And finally, I decided to include novels in other languages – which in this case boiled down to the two Paul Halter novels published in 2012. Well, there’s no time like the present, so let’s get started on a review of BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 2012 THAT I READ IN 2012.

A Fatal Winter by G M Malliet

Not a terrible book by any stretch, but Malliet has some atrocious luck when it comes to being read by me. I had just finished reading a novel by Belgian author S. A. Steeman, which used Malliet’s solution as just half of its solution. I was able to recognize this quite quickly and thus won the author-reader game very early on in the story. Although the mystery is decently constructed, it was almost ruined for me by a cheesy romantic element. I’m afraid I’m as immature as the child in The Princess Bride who suspiciously asks if grandfather Peter Falk is about to read him “a kissing book”. I don’t like romance. Well, I like it just fine in small doses, but I don’t like a romance to intermittently interrupt the mystery I’m reading, and then to spend an additional 40 minutes after the book’s story is over wrapping up that angle. But it’s okay, I suppose. I give it a grade of B-.

Year in Review: Worst Reading Moments of 2012

Last year, when I posted my Worst Reading Moments of 2011 list, I was criticised for including good books that were ruined by, say, spoiling the solution on the cover or terrible editing, with people pointing out that that was no reason for condemning the book or author in question. I absolutely agree, and that was why I made a list of the worst reading moments. This year, I am doing the same. Not all of these books are terrible (though most of them just aren’t good), but this is a list of my own personal worst reading moments. I decided to start with this list because it will purge some poison from my system, and then I can go on to talk about the stuff I actually liked. So without further ado, below are the worst reading moments of 2012 in order of severity:

11. How to Cynically Rake in Money… or, Ask a Policeman by The Detection Club

As much as I like this book, it was nearly ruined for me by HarperCollins. This is the most cynically produced Kindle book I think I’ve read this year. The editing is absolutely atrocious and just plain lazy—the worst being how the calibre of a bullet is consistently printed as ?22 instead of .22!!! But what really gets my blood boiling is how, even though she contributed nothing to the book, Agatha Christie gets top billing because an essay of hers with no connection to the book is used as an introduction!!! As much as I recommend Ask a Policeman, I also advise staying away from the HarperCollins edition.

Year in Review: Top 10 Discoveries of 2011

What better feeling is there than stumbling over an author you love? That moment of excitement, the thrill of the discovery, is one of many things that keep us readers going. We want to find an author who will excite us, and when we find one, we tend to hold on and refuse to let go.

2011 was no exception for me— I discovered new authors left and right and many of these discoveries were tremendously exciting. Some authors I unfortunately neglected despite the discovery, but I’ll be doing my best to make up for that in the New Year. But which discoveries were the most exciting? After all, it’s been a long year and there have been many book reviews. Surely some must stand out more than others.

Yes, it’s time for another list as I take a look at the ten most exciting literary discoveries I made in 2011. They are, in alphabetical order:

Year in Review... Worst Reading Moments of 2011

Yesterday I posted an article celebrating the best of 2011, but today it’s time to get the furnace fired up to dispose of the literary cadavers I stumbled across throughout the year. I created a tag which I dubbed the “Hall of Shame”, the tag I used for books that had something they ought to have been ashamed of. At times, the book itself wasn’t to blame, but there was still something inextricably, unequivocally, vociferously awful about my experience reading it. Unsurprisingly, many of the entries in the list below made it onto the Hall of Shame, and a few were so awful I neglected to apply the tag until now. But some of these books had enough merit to keep them off that list.

So without further ado, here are, in order of severity, the worst reading moments I experienced in 2011:

Year in Review... Best Books Read in 2011

Not to worry-- it's just a flesh wound.

It has been an interesting year for me. At the Scene of the Crime was not officially opened until March 26^th, but my blogging journey began on March 8^th. I had read a book I still consider awful in every respect: George Baxt’s The Affair at Royalties. It left me incensed and I finally decided to script and write an internet video based on a rant I wrote about the book. It was flawed in nearly every way: after a promising opening, all signs of imagination were banished from the book as George Baxt engaged in “hilarious” satire about Agatha Christie that missed the entire point. I didn’t even bother stopping before the dénouement, I just ploughed through it and pointed out just how ridiculous the ending was.

I now look back at that video with horror— it seems to me nothing more than a collection of shouts instead of a thought-out review. Nevertheless, instead of getting bashed myself, I got fairly positive reception for my video. I followed it up with two articles and then decided to open up a site on Blogger. I went with a purple colour scheme that, in retrospect, must have been absolutely hideous. I later redesigned the blog entirely, giving it a background pulled from various crime scene maps to fit in with the title. And the older the blog got, the more experienced I became.

Throughout 2011, I’ve read many books but now that the year is drawing to a close, I feel it is time to look back through the year and count down the Top 10 mystery novels I’ve read this year. This list was incredibly hard to compile and I was forced to omit many titles that I’ve given an honourable mention. But at the end of the day, these ten novels were left standing as the best of the best that I’ve read in 2011. They are in alphabetical order: