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Categories: Book Reviews, Action/adventure, Amateur Sleuth, Comic, Cozies, Historical Mysteries, Lawyers, Police, Private investigator, Romantic Suspense, Thrillers
05/13/13
Booklist's Best Crime Fiction Debuts
I find some of my best new mysteries from these lists: The Booklist Year's Best Crime Fiction Debuts
This annual list includes crime fiction reviewed in Booklist since last Year's Best Crime Novels list (essentially from May 2012).
Booklist's Top 10 Crime Fiction Debuts 2013
The mini-reviews are from Booklist

The Andalucian Friend by Alexander Soderberg 2013
Suspense. Sophie Brinkman trilogy # 1
Swedish author Soderberg claims the coveted Booklist Mystery Showcase daily double by placing on both our crime fiction top 10 lists. FYI: Stieg Larsson didn’t do that.
Here is the Booklist mini-review:
Superficial similarities to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008) aside, this gripping Scandinavian crime novel, the first in a trilogy, deserves to stand entirely on its own. Sophie Brinkman seems an unassuming nurse and single mother, but after she finds herself in the middle of a Swedish gang war, she steps up and shows her Lisbeth Salander mettle. A fast-paced thriller whose multi-stranded plot holds together as exquisitely as finely wound silk.
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* * *

The Beggar’s Opera by Peggy Blair 2013
Blair’s exciting debut stars Inspector Ricardo Ramirez, the troubled head of Havana’s Major Crimes Unit, who has a hot potato of a case on his hands involving a Canadian policeman suspected of murder. Blair interweaves the stories of cop and suspect beautifully, but she also invests Havana geography (with its decaying buildings and rusted American cars) with new vigor.
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* * *

Black Fridays by Michael Sears 2012
A sad-sack investment broker goes to prison for fiddling the books, then loses his wife, and now finds himself trying to raise his autistic son on his own. Then a job comes along: investigate someone else fiddling books. The writing is fresh and vivid, and the portrait of pension-stealing Wall Street greedheads is harrowing.
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* * *

East of Denver by Gregory Hill 2012
Stacey “Shakespeare” Williams returns to the family farm in eastern Colorado to bury his cat and winds up planning a bank robbery with “a paralyzed asshole, an anorexic fatso, and my prematurely senile father.” A little country noir and a lot of black comedy equal a terrific opening salvo from a very talented writer.
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* * *

Ghostman by Roger Hobbs 2013
Like Alexander Soderberg, Hobbs pulls off the daily double, landing on our overall top 10 and our top 10 crime debuts. Nicely done for the twenty-something Hobbs, who sold his novel to an agent on the day he graduated from college.
Here's the Booklist mini-review:
Jack White is the Ghostman, a pseudonymous loner living far off the grid who specializes in disappearing. After high-level heists, he makes sure that all traces of the capers vanish. Except one time it didn’t work, and the organizer of that job wants Jack dead. First-novelist Hobbs possesses that rare ability for first unleashing and then shrewdly directing a tornado of a plot, but he also evokes Elmore Leonard in the subtle interplay of his characters.
* * *

A Good Death by Christopher R. Cox 2013
PI Sebastian Damon travels to Bangkok to investigate the death of a Laotian refugee who ultimately became vice president of a Boston bank. So begins a story that channels Conrad, Kipling, and Francis Ford Coppola. An insightful, transcendent adventure.
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* * *

The Old Turk’s Load by Gregory Gibson 2013
It’s 1967, and a shipment of the world’s finest heroin goes missing en route to Angelo DiNoto, New Jersey’s top crime boss. Gibson’s elliptical, ever-evolving plot combines Raymond Chandler complexity and Donald E. Westlake comic haplessness into a thoroughly original whole.
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* * *

Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason 2013
Mason hooks the reader with her first sentence, “There is very little peace for a man with a body buried in his backyard.” Even less when the bodies keep piling up, but their provenance remains murky. An astonishingly accomplished debut.
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* * *

The Thing about Thugs by Tabish Khair 2012
At first glance, this slim Victorian thriller seems no more than an exposé of British imperialism wrapped in a Kill Bill plot. Soon, though, the reader is drawn into a deeply thought-provoking literary suspense novel that evokes Collins and Dickens.
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The Twenty-Year Death by Ariel S. Winter 2012
Former bookseller Winter tells an epic tale in the form of three novels written in the style of three different crime-fiction legends: Simenon, Chandler, and Jim Thompson. What might seem at first like an amusing exercise for mystery buffs becomes by the end immersive, exhilarating, and revelatory.
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## Related MBTB post: Booklist: The Year's Best Crime Novels
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posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
The Coroner
by M.R. Hall
Book # 1 with Jenny Cooper, a small-town lawyer newly appointed as Severn Vale District Coroner, in Gloucestershire, England
Description: When lawyer Jenny Cooper is appointed Severn Vale District Coroner, she's hoping for a quiet life and space to recover from a traumatic divorce, but the office she inherits from the recently deceased Harry Marshall contains neglected files hiding dark secrets and a trail of buried evidence. Could the tragic death in custody of a young boy be linked to the apparent suicide of a teenage prostitute and the fate of Marshall himself? Jenny embarks on a lonely and dangerous one-woman crusade for justice which threatens not only her career but also her sanity.
05/01/13
Booklist: The Year's Best Crime Novels
This is one of my favourite lists: The Booklist Year's Best Crime Novels
This annual list includes crime fiction reviewed in Booklist since last Year's Best Crime Novels list (essentially from May 2012).
Booklist's Top 10 Crime Novels 2013
The mini-reviews are from Booklist

The Andalucian Friend by Alexander Soderberg 2013
Suspense. Sophie Brinkman trilogy # 1
Superficial similarities to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008) aside, this gripping Scandinavian crime novel, the first in a trilogy, deserves to stand entirely on its own. Sophie Brinkman seems an unassuming nurse and single mother, but after she finds herself in the middle of a Swedish gang war, she steps up and shows her Lisbeth Salander mettle. A fast-paced thriller whose multi-stranded plot holds together as exquisitely as finely wound silk.
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The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny 2012
Canadian police procedural. # 8 with Armand Gamache, Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec, in the village of Three Pines, in southern Quebec
Penny’s latest begins when the choir director of a monastery in a remote corner of Quebec is murdered. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir are charged with finding a killer among a group of largely silent monks, whose recording of Gregorian chants has made them famous. Roiling human passion set against the sublime serenity of the chants produces a melody of uncommon complexity and beauty.
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Dare Me by Megan Abbott 2012
Cheerleading noir? In Abbott’s bloodstained hands, why not? When a new coach upends the power structure behind a high-school cheer team, the ousted captain lashes back with stunning ferocity. This is cheerleading as blood sport, Bring It On meets Fight Club — just try putting it down.
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Ghostman by Roger Hobbs 2013
Jack White is the Ghostman, a pseudonymous loner living far off the grid who specializes in disappearing. After high-level heists, he makes sure that all traces of the capers vanish. Except one time it didn’t work, and the organizer of that job wants Jack dead. First-novelist Hobbs possesses that rare ability for first unleashing and then shrewdly directing a tornado of a plot, but he also evokes Elmore Leonard in the subtle interplay of his characters.
* * *

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 2012
When Nick Dunne’s beautiful and clever wife, Amy, goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary, the media descend on the Dunnes’ Missouri McMansion with all the fury of a Dateline episode. In the year’s biggest crossover best-seller, Flynn combines a corkscrew of a plot with her own twisted sense of humor. A compelling thriller and a searing portrait of a marriage.
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Live by Night by Dennis Lehane 2012
Lehane’s latest historical thriller continues the author’s propulsive narrative train ride across twentieth-century American history. This time the train stops during Prohibition, and the individual focus is on Joe Coughlin, a Boston cop’s son by birth but a gangster by choice. A magnetic re-imagining of the great themes of popular fiction—crime, family, passion, betrayal—set against an exquisitely rendered historical backdrop.
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The Rage by Gene Kerrigan 2013
If you like hard-boiled Irish thrillers in the Ken Bruen mold, and you don’t know about Kerrigan, you’re at least two Guinnesses behind. This tense, thoughtful thriller about an armored-car robbery gets into the heads of both the robber and the Dublin copper who tracks him. Start the word-of-mouth going: Kerrigan is the real deal.
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Shatter the Bones by Stuart MacBride 2012
British police procedural. Book # 7 with Logan McRae, a detective sergeant in Aberdeen, Scotland
MacBride’s seventh Logan McRae novel, starring the Aberdeen, Scotland, police detective, may be the most harrowing yet—and that’s saying something. The crimes (two kidnappings) are breathtakingly awful, the pacing is breakneck, and the stakes are higher than ever. There’s little comfort in the bleak ending, but still: Brilliant. Bloody. Brilliant.
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Suspect by Robert Crais 2012
Two PTSD sufferers — Scott, an LAPD cop, and Maggie, a German shepherd veteran of the Iraq War—bond during tryouts for the department’s K-9 unit and soon join forces to solve a murder. Who would have thought that the most multifaceted and appealing new protagonist in crime fiction this year would be a hard-boiled dog?
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What Comes Next by John Katzenbach 2012
An abducted teenager. A perverted villain (or villains). A chase to save the victim. These are not unfamiliar ingredients in crime fiction, but Katzenbach reinvents the formula several times over in this absolutely gripping novel. Combining the intricacy of psychological fiction with the pulse-pounding narrative of plot-driven suspense, this is certainly among the most original thrillers of the year.
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Watch for upcoming post Booklist Top Crime Fiction Debuts, coming soon.
posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Scratch Deeper
by Chris Simms
British police procedural
Book # 1 with Iona Khan, a feisty detective constable in the Counter Terrorism Unit, in Manchester, England
Description: Detective Constable Iona Khan investigates when a Sri Lankan student begins asking suspicious questions about Manchester's tunnel system prior to the start of the Labour Party conference.
04/19/13
Jason Webster: Or the Bull Kills You (2011) ***
Or the Bull Kills You
By Jason Webster

"Either you kill the bull, or the bull kills you." Chief Inspector Max Cámara thinks in proverbs,and he hates one thing above all: bullfighting. One hot afternoon in Valencia, however, he has to stand in for his boss, judging a festival corrida starring Spain’s most famous young matador. That night, he is back in the bullring, and what he finds on the blood-stained sand shocks the city of Valencia to its core. Cámara is roped into investigating a grisly murder while dealing with violent shadows from his own past, as well as confronting the suspiciousness of the bullfighting community and the stonewalling of local politicians in full electoral campaign. To top it all, Fallas, the loudest fiesta in the country, has just got underway. For Cámara, it seems his problems have only just begun... (Book Description)
I really enjoy reading mysteries set abroad because the author tends to bring so much of the local flair and culture, both the good and the bad. I have never been to Spain and all I knew about bullfighting was what I learned from cartoons as a child (i.e.: angry snorting bull, red flag), so Mr. Webster had a big task ahead of him when I picked up this book. He did a fantastic job at explaining the history of bullfighting and the significance it has to the local culture. But the thing I really appreciated was that Webster showed both sides of the issue, the benefits bullfighting for the local economy and spirit (the aficionados), the political aspects of the historical event (both the corrupt and the not-so corrupt), and the environmentalists who are staunchly against the killing of innocent animals. I learned a lot.
That being said, the actual mystery aspect of the book was just so-so, the strength of this novel really was in the rich history and culture of bullfighting. The second book in the series A Death in Valencia is coming out soon.
Posted by Shiela
04/03/13
Sam Thomas: The Midwife's Tale ****

Sam Thomas: The Midwife’s Tale (2012) ****
MBTB mini-review: I love an unusual point of view. Following midwife Bridget Hodgson through the dangerous streets of 1644 York brings that time period alive.
Here's what Booklist had to say: It is 1644, and civil war has erupted in York, England. The Parliament’s armies have revolted against the king and laid siege to the city, but midwife Bridget Hodgson still has babies to deliver. She soon finds an even bigger problem. Her friend Esther Cooper has been convicted of murdering her husband. She will burn at the stake if the real killer is not found. Bridget and her servant, Martha Hawkins, set out to save Esther. Martha has street smarts and excellent knife skills. The two women begin investigating while keeping clear of the rebel artillery and confronting an evil figure from Martha’s past. They find that Esther’s husband, an ostentatious Puritan, had a very sinister secret life. Moving from the dank alleys of the poor neighborhoods to the mansions of the rich, Bridget and Esther capture a brutal killer and find that traitors are often tyrants. The author is a historian, and his period detail creates a vivid atmosphere. The strong female characters and action-packed plot will please historical-mystery readers.
This is suggested for fans of Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death series and C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series
## Related posts:
MBTB profile of Ariana Franklin
MBTB review of C.J. Sansom's Sovereign # 3
posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
The Sound of Broken Glass
by Deborah Crombie
British police procedural
Book # 15 with Duncan Kincaid, a Scotland Yard superintendent, and Gemma James, a sergeant, in London, England
Summary: While investigating the murder of a well-respected barrister who was found dead at a seedy hotel in Crystal Palace, Detective Inspector Gemma James and her partner, Detective Sergeant Melody Talbot, begin to question everything they think they know about their world and those they trust most.
03/12/13
An Irish mystery: The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty *****

With St. Patrick's Day fast approaching, it was just coincidence that I picked up Adrian McKinty's The Cold Cold Ground, a 5-star read for me.
This is Book # 1 with Sean Duffy, a detective sergeant in 1980s Northern Ireland, in the Troubles Trilogy.
MBTB mini-review: I enjoyed the young protagonist’s wry sense of humour in a terrible violent time. The case: the discovery of a murdered man with his hand cut off and a different man’s hand left with the body is the beginning of a complex murder investigation. McKinty's description of the time (1981) and the place (Belfast and area) was excellent.
Here's what the Guardian review had to say:
There's food for thought in McKinty's writing, but he is careful not to lose the force of his narrative in introspection. The Cold Cold Ground is a crime novel, fast-paced, intricate and genre to the core. The violence is extreme and the sex is gritty. Duffy's three murder cases are isolated on the surface, but in the dark world of dirty wars, the dead are seldom unconnected, and rarely innocent as they beckon to us from the cold, cold earth...... Read the entire Guardian review here.

Other series set in Ireland that I have liked:
Ken Bruen's series with Jack Taylor, dismissed from the Garda Síochána (Irish police) for drinking, now finding things for people in Galway, Ireland, since “private eye” sounds too much like “informer” to the Irish.
First book: The Guards

Tana French's loosely connected series with police detectives on the murder squad in Dublin, Ireland.
First book: In the Woods
## Related posts:
MBTB mini-review of The Likeness # 2 in the Dublin Murder squad series
MBTB mini-review of Broken Harbor # 4 in the Dublin Murder squad series
Want more? Here's a list in the library online catalogue generated using the key words "mystery stories Ireland"
posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Whispering Death
by Garry Disher
British police procedural
Book # 6 with Hal Challis, a Detective Inspector on the Peninsula south-east of Melbourne, Australia
Summary: Hal Challis is in trouble at home and abroad: dressed down by the boss for speaking out about police budget cuts; missing his lover, Ellen Destry, who is overseas on a study tour. But there's plenty to keep his mind off his problems. A rapist in a police uniform stalks Challis's Peninsula beat, there is a serial armed robber headed in his direction and a home invasion that's a little too close to home. Not to mention a very clever, very mysterious female cat burglar who may or may not be planning something on Challis's patch.
02/12/13
Sharon's Top Mystery Reads of 2012, part two
Not all these books were published in 2012 - my only criteria is that I read them in 2012.
The brief reviews are mine.
Click here to download the entire list and see all 10 mysteries.
Sharon

Graham Hurley: Happy Days (2012)
British police procedural.
Book # 12 with troubled DI Joe Faraday and fellow police officer, now retired Paul Winter, set in Portsmouth, England.
Paul Winter is still working for crime boss Bazza MacKenzie, but wants to get out – he takes an undercover assignment from his friend police officer Jimmy Suttle to get Bazza into trouble. This is the last book in this series, but Hurley has started a new series, using police officer Jimmy Suttle.
First book: Turnstone
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Peter James: Not Dead Yet (2012)
British police procedural.
Book # 8 with D.S. Roy Grace, Sussex, England. Roy’s wife Sandy disappeared years before and he has finally given up looking for her.
Roy is assigned to protect superstar singer Gaia, coming to Brighton to star in a movie. A stalker has not only threatened her, but has already killed her look-alike assistant.
First book: Dead Simple
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Val McDermid: The Retribution (2011)
British police procedural.
Book # 7 with Tony Hill, a psychologist who does criminal profiling for the police, and his friend DI Carol Jordan.
Serial killer Jacko Vance has escaped from prison and starts killing people in revenge for his imprisonment. Carol and Tony are on the list.
First book: The Mermaids Singing
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Ian Rankin: Standing in Another Man’s Grave (2012)
British police procedural.
Book # 19 with the now-retired D.S. John Rebus in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Rebus is now working as a civilian in the cold case unit. The case: the mother of a teenaged girl missing several years ago convinces Rebus to look at the old case. He soon discovers a link to several other similar disappearances of teenage girls along the same stretch of highway, including a recent one. It’s good to have Rebus back.
First book: Knots and Crosses
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Scott Thornley: The Ambitious City (2012)
Canadian police procedural.
Book # 2 with MacNeice, a senior police detective in the fictional Ontario city of Dundurn.
A project to raise a couple ships sunk in the War of 1812 brings several bodies to light – some are very old, but a couple appear to be within the last 10 years. There is also a serial killer attacking and killing young women of colour – we observe some of the killer’s internal conversations – interesting and creepy.
First book: Erasing Memory
## Related posts:
Sharon's Top Mystery Reads of 2012, part one
and from the previous year:
Sharon's Top Mystery Reads of 2011, part one
Sharon's Top Mystery Reads of 2011, part two

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
The Lewis Man
by Peter May
Investigator/British police procedural
Book # 2 with Fin Macleod, a detective inspector in Edinburgh, returns to his birthplace, the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland
from the eurocrime review: "another fantastic book and every bit as excellent as THE BLACKHOUSE, the first one. Fin McLeod is once again the central character. He has resigned from his job as a detective inspector in Edinburgh and returned to Lewis, in an attempt to rebuild his life, as well as his parents' old house.
Meanwhile, a body has been discovered in the peat. It is originally thought to be one of the prehistoric bog men but the Elvis Presley tattoo on its arm dates it as being rather more recent. ..." read more
02/06/13
Sharon's Top Mystery Reads of 2012, part one
Not all these books were published in 2012 - my only criteria is that I read them in 2012.
The brief reviews are mine.

Mark Billingham: Good as Dead (2011)
British police procedural.
Book # 10 with loner DI Tom Thorne in London.
A hostage situation depends on Thorne looking into the supposed suicide of a young man in prison at the request of the hostage-taker, a formerly mild-mannered storekeeper. Even more fast-paced than usual.
First book: Sleepyhead
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Lyndsay Faye: The Gods of Gotham (2012)
Historical/police.
Book # 1 with Timothy Wilde, set in 1845 in New York City. Ex-bartender Wilde is one of the brand new police officers in the new city police force.
The crime was interesting and sad (several bodies of young children have been found buried in a field) but the characters, the city, the politics and the language raise this above the ordinary.
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Charles Finch: A Death in the Small Hours (2012)
Historical/investigator.
Book # 6 with Charles Lenox, consulting detective, Victorian gentleman and new Member of Parliament.
In the countryside seeking privacy, Charles takes a break from speech writing by looking into a series of vandalisms in the village. When a young police officer is murdered, Charles is determined to get to the bottom of it all.
First book: A Beautiful Blue Death
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Tana French: Broken Harbour (2012)
Irish police procedural.
This is one of her books about the Dublin murder squad. This book features murder detective Mick Kennedy.
A young family has been killed in their house in an abandoned development by the beach - the only survivor, the mother, is in intensive care. This is an excellent mix of police procedural and the personal, as Kennedy battles with memories of his childhood connection to the murder location.
* * *

Alex Grecian: The Yard (2012)
Historical/British police procedural.
Book # 1 with newly appointed Scotland Yard detective Walter Day, set in 1889 London.
On his first day on the job, Walter is assigned the case of the murder of a fellow detective, the body found stuffed in a trunk in the train station.
posted by Sharon
Watch for upcoming post: Sharon's Top Mystery Reads of 2011, part two

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Bad Little Falls
by Paul Doiron
Book # 3 with Mike Bowditch, a game warden in Maine
Description: Summoned to a rustic cabin during a blizzard, Maine game warden Mike Bowdich embarks on a dangerous investigation involving a notorious drug dealer, a beautiful woman with a dark past, and her troubled young son. NoveList
01/30/13
Jonathan Nasaw: The Girls he Adored (2001) ****

The Girls he Adored
By Jonathan Nasaw
Book 1 with FBI Agent E.L Pender
This book appealed to my psychology background and was a real treat. Nasaw does a great job at creating a character who suffers from both the controversial Dissociative Identity Disorder phenomena and all of the implications that go with the disorder, and meshed it so brilliantly with Antisocial Personality Disorder in such a believable way. Max actually reminded me of a new and more twisted Hannibal Lector.
What I loved about this book is the amount of time and detail the author spends developing the antagonist. We go way back into Max’s childhood and learn of the repeated atrocities and abuse that played such a large role in shaping him into the monster he eventually became. You actually felt sorry for the little boy who lost so much at such a young age (which, albeit, doesn’t excuse him from becoming a serial killer when he grew up). So many criminal/forensic/thrillers spend so much time developing the protagonist and focusing on the mere chase of the “bad guy(s)” that they often neglect to fully divulge motives of the killer. Kudos to Nasaw for depicting such a fleshed out antagonist.
Note: Not for the faint of heart
Posted by Shiela
01/09/13
Margaret Cannon's Top Ten Mystery Picks for 2012
This list was published in the Globe & Mail December 7, 2012.
The mini-reviews following the book titles are Cannon's.

GONE GIRL, by Gillian Flynn
One of the best mystery plots I’ve ever read. Unexpected, unguessable, altogether great.
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DEFENDING JACOB, by William Landay
Brilliantly plotted, with great characters and an unforgettable ending.
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THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY, by Louise Penny
# 8 with Armand Gamache, Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec, in the village of Three Pines, in southern Quebec
Murder in a monastery. The book mixes music and history, and is Penny’s best to date.
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CREOLE BELLE, by James Lee Burke
# 19 with Dave Robicheaux, a deputy sheriff in New Iberia, Louisiana
A master class for all aspiring crime writers, as Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel fight personal demons and unravel a murder.
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STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN’S GRAVE, by Ian Rankin
# 18 with John Rebus, a detective sergeant in Edinburgh, Scotland
John Rebus returns to duty to solve a very cold case.
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MISSION TO PARIS, by Alan Furst
It’s Paris in 1938, and a Hollywood star is spying on Hitler’s Germany. The best espionage novel of the year.
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UNTIL THE NIGHT, by Giles Blunt
# 6 with John Cardinal, a police detective near Algonquin Bay, Ontario, Canada
John Cardinal returns in another Algonquin Bay mystery, and Blunt remains one of Canada’s best crime authors.
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THE IMPEACHMENT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, by Stephen L. Carter
One of the best alternative history novels ever, period.
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THE VANISHING POINT, by Val McDermid
Riveting tale with a complex plot and unforgettable characters.
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BEASTLY THINGS, by Donna Leon
# 21 with Guido Brunetti, a police commissario in Venice, Italy
One of the best of the Guido Brunetti books. Leon never disappoints, but this one is special.
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Watch for the upcoming post Sharon's Top Mystery Reads 2012
posted by Sharon
12/24/12
Margaret Cannon's Christmas Picks
Here's the link to the December 22, 2012 Globe & Mail Crime Fiction review column by Margaret Cannon with the full reviews. These all have Christmas or winter themes.

The Dead of Winter
by Peter Kirby
Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa has brought crime fans a brand-new detective series set in Montreal, and it’s terrific.
Irish-Canadian lawyer Peter Kirby’s Inspector Luc Vanier is just what the readers ordered for a Christmas-themed murder mystery.....read more
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The Snow White Christmas Cookie
by David Handler
Funny, smart and the perfect antidote to the seasonal treacle, The Snow White Christmas Cookie – the ninth novel by David Handler in the excellent Mitch Berger and Desiree Mitry series – turns the Christmas cozy on its head....read more
The series with Mitch Berger, a New York film critic, and Desiree “Des” Mitry, a black police detective, in Dorset, Connecticut starts with The Cold Blue Blood
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A Fatal Winter
by G.M. Malliet
Those who love updated puzzle plots and solid English mysteries need look no further than this superb series featuring Anglican priest/sleuth Max Tudor. Malliet has managed to pay homage to Agatha Christie, while at the same time taking her favoured settings into the 21st century....read more
First book: Wicked Autumn
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All is Clam
by Hilary MacLeod
Mountie Jane Jamison returns in this delightful Christmas confection set in The Shores, that lovely fictional spot just off the coast of Prince Edward Island. There’s not yet snow, but there is murder...read more
Previous books in the Shores mystery series:
Revenge of the Lobster Lover
Mind Over Mussels
posted by Sharon
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