The best of the already pretty great, by Catriona

Don't know about you, but I love a listicle. Top five mistakes people make when roasting a turkey? I'm clicking. Five worst Oscars outfits of all time? Count me in. And I've recently compiled lists of my five favourite Christmas crime novels for CrimeReads and my five favourite Christmas rom-coms for Stiletto Gang. (Did I mention that I've got a Christmas-set book out this week?)

Details and buy links are here

But could I list my books of the year? Maybe, with a lot of time and lot of angst. But I'm cheating. I'm going to list all the books I've read in 2023 and then pick one from each month. 

First though: I stand behind each and every one of the books listed below - both picked and unpicked - because I don't keep reading books I'm not enjoying and I don't list the ones I give up on. So every one of these 107 (I think) books is, in my professional literary opinion, spiffy.

Also, I didn't use any method to choose the monthly picks. I simply looked back over the titles and went for whichever one filled me with greatest fondness all over again.

So here goes. December is easy, because I've only read BLACKOUT, Marco Carocari, and I'm not even finished it yet. It's hardly news that this is a belter of a debut, though. It came out in 2021 to huge acclaim. It's the story of Franco DiMaso, who witnessed his father's murder during the Manhattan backout of 1977, and has grown up understandably damaged. When he is spiked by a hook-up and witnesses a murder, Rear Window / 4.50 From Paddington style, just before his own personal blackout, he can't persuade the cops that it was real. Until the body turns up, along with Franco's fingerprints. The hook-up is long gone and Franco's nightmare is just beginning . . . Man, it's good!

Nov 2023

CASE STUDY, Graeme Macrae Burnet

FIREKEEPER'S DAUGHTER, Angeline Boulley - this is a YA novel about a girl caught between her mother's posh French-heritage fmaily and her Ojibwe father's people in a small town and adjacent reservation in the far north of Michigan. There's a lethal new street drug threatening the hockey-obsessed high school and Daunis finds herself mixed up in the investigation. It's another debut, which I found frankly unbelievable. Stirring stuff!

WE RIDE UPON STICKS, Quan Barry

O CALEDONIA, Elspeth Barker

CARRIE, Stephen King

Oct 2023

GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN, James Baldwin

THEY COME AT KNIGHT, Yasmin Angoe

THE WHEEL OF DOLL, Jonathan Ames

THE ROYAL GAME, Linda Keir - coming early next year from the writing duo of Linda Joffe Hull and Keir Graf is this irresistible rom-com/mystery about a prince in the British Royal Family, who falls for an American celebrity and wants to marry her. Between the pomp and glamour, though, are unsettling questions about his late mother's untimely death. Could it be about to happen again? I wouldn't imagine Camilla P-B will buy this for all her friends but I loved it. Sheer chutzpah!

A MAN NAMED DOLL, Jonathan Ames

BIG FAT F@CK UP, LAwrence Allan

THE READING LIST, Sarah Nisha Adams

THE SERIAL KILLER GUIDE TO SAN FRANCISCO, M. M. Chouinard

Sept 2023

THE LIST, Yomi Adegoke

JACKAL, Erin E Adams

BOOKWORM, Robin Yeatman

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, Richard Yates

LANDLINES, Raynor Winn

SURVIVOR'S GUILT, Robyn Gigl

THE SUMMER WIVES, Beatriz Williams 

BY WAY OF SORROW, Robyn Gigl

SUNDIAL, Catriona Ward

REMAIN SILENT, Robyn Gigl - please excuse my threefer, but I inhaled Robyn Gigl's trilogy about Jersey lawyer, Erin McCabe, pretty much in a oney. Erin is trans and we meet her just post-transitioning, with her family relationships strained and her attitude to love cautious in the extreme. Through the three books, besides proplusive plots about corruption and skulduggery, we take a journey with Erin that had me punching the air. Also, I love a legal thriller that's written by a lawyer and - truly - I have never read a book set in NJ that I didn't love. 

A FATAL GLOW, Valerie Wilson Wesley

August 2023

JOAN IS OKAY, Weike Wang

NOTHING STAYS BURIED, PJ Tracy

SHOOT TO THRILL, PJ Tracy

HOWARDS' END IS ON THE LANDING, Susan Hill - Susan Hill decided to spend a year reading books she already owned. It doesn't sound like much of a premise, does it? But she's erudite without being snooty, serious without being stuffy, knows a lot of London and Oxford literary gossip and just really loves books. If there's someone in your life who also loves books - this would make a perfect present.

A GAME OF LIES, CLARE MACKINTOSH

ULTRA PROCESSED PEOPLE, Chris Van Tulleken

THE RACEHORSE WHO LEARNED TO DANCE, Clare Balding

REAL TIGERS, Mick Herron

THE FLATSHARE, Beth O'Leary

July 2023

THE FULL ENGLISH, Stuart Maconie

AGAIN, RACHEL, Marian Keyes

ZERO DAYS, Ruth Ware

A POCKETFUL OF HAPPINESS, Richard E Grant - if you ever cry at books, you will cry at this one. I sobbed. It's a memoir that goes along in two timelines: one thread is the story of actor Richard E Grant's meeting, falling for, marrying and spending a long, happy life with his wife, Joan; the other thread is their last year as he cares for her while she's dying of cancer during the COVID lockdowns. But it's not the sadness of his loss that makes you cry. It's the joy of this love story told by a man still basking in its glow.

THE BOY IN THE DRESS, David Walliams,

A BLIND EYE, Marion Todd

SOMEONE ELSE'S SHOES Jojo Moyes

THE RACEHORSE WHO DISAPPEARED, Clare Balding

HOUSE ARREST: PANDEMIC DIARIES, Alan Bennett

ADVENTURES ON THE HIGH TEAS, Stuart Maconie

June 2023

THE DEAD DON'T SPEAK, Claire Askew

HEAR NO EVIL, Sarah Smith

THE RACEHORSE WHO WOULDN'T GALLOP, Clare Balding

LOVE UNTOLD, Ruth Jones

TELLING TALES, Ann Cleeves

SNOW BLIND, PJ Tracy

DEAD RUN, PJ Tracy

SECRET IDENTITY, Alex Segura - I know nothing about comics and am not even particularly insterested in them, but I found myself rapt while reading this great big mad carnival of a crime novel about the NYC comic scene in the 70s. It's meta and tricksy and noirish, but with a heart of gold and a lot to say about life. Carmen Valdez is one of those characters you're sorry to leave behind as you turn the last page. 

LIVE BAIT, P J Tracy

May 2023

LAVENDER HOUSE, Lev A C Rosen

MONKEEWRENCH, P J Tracy - I re-read when I'm stressed and this was my third go round with the Minneapolis-set series about two bickering cops, a found family of tech-wizards, a rural sheriff with a lot to prove and a fizzer of a plot. I got though the lot over a few months in the middle of year. And not for the last time, probably. 

LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ, Kwei Quartey

MAD HONEY, Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

THE RAVEN THIEF, Gigi Pandian

DEATH ON A DEADLINE, Joyce St Anthony

THE HOUSE GUEST, Hank Phillippi Ryan

NEVER NAME THE DEAD, D M Rowell

JUST US, Claudia Rankine

THE DISINVITED GUEST, Carol Goodman

April 2023

MILLER'S VALLEY, Anna Quindlen

THE SEVENTH SINNER, Elizabeth Peters

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN, Mary Higgins Clark

NAKED IN DEATH, J D Robb

A SOCIALITE'S GUIDE TO MURDER, S K Golden

GLAMOUR GIRLS, Marty Wingate

FRONT PAGE MURDER, Joyce St Anthony

THE UNKEPT WOMAN, Allison Montclair

I WILL FIND YOU, Harlan Coben

DAVID TUNG CAN'T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND UNTIL HE GETS INTO AN IVY LEAGUE COLLEGE, Ed Lin - huh, look at that. Another YA. I'ma fan of Ed's Taipei Night Market series but this little coming of age gem about a over-parented Chinese American boy is as funny as any book I read all year.

Sylvia Plath, THE BELL JAR

Mar 2023

BLOODY JANUARY, Alan Parks

UNDER LOCK AND SKELETON KEY, Gigi Pandian

THE BULLET THAT MISSED, Richard Osman

THE MEMORY POLICE, Yoko Ogawa - this was an odd one. Is it a ghost story? Is it sci-fi? Is it an political allegory? Is it all three and more? The plot concerns an island where everyday objects can be disappeared, which causes the islanders to forget that they ever existed. When a young writer discovers that her editor remembers everything, she tries to hide him and thus save not only her own book but the collective memory of all literature. It's really creepy but incredibly compelling. 

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE, Maggie O'Farrell

MAYFLIES, Andrew O'Hagan

Feb 2023

BROTHERLY LOVE, D.R. Ransdell

THE FRAGRANCE OF DEATH, Leslie Karst

OLD DETECTIVES HOME, Mike Befeler

OUR MISSING HEARTS, Celeste Ng

THE BEGGAR MAID, Alice Munro

MURDER UNCORKED, Maddy Day (Oct 2023)

KISS MYSELF GOODBYE, Ferdinand Mount

NIGHTCRAWLING, Leila Mottley - based on real case where Oakland PD officers sexually trafficked minors (for years!) but squarely focussed on a fictional victim - in her community, in the societal setting that drives her choices - Mottley is clear-eyed about the relentlessness of poverty but the story's not as grim as I've made it sound, mostly because Kiara is as exuberant as she's vulnerable and the book absolutely sizzles with life.

BLOOD GROVE, Walter Mosley

BEATNIKKI'S CAFE, Renee James (June 2023)

(Almost all books look fine against that tomato-red background)

Jan 2023

ANYWHERE YOU RUN, Wanda M. Morris

TRULY MADLY GUILTY, Liane Moriarty

A STREETCAR NAMED MURDER, Greg Herren

RACHEL TO THE RESCUE, Elinor Lipman

YOU MADE A FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY, Akwaekwe Emezi

YOU LET ME IN, Camilla Bruce

BIG BAD, Lily Anderson

AGATHA CHRISTIE, Lucy Worsley - I'll read, watch or listen to anything Lucy Worsley writes, films or records. A history of furniture? I'm in. Podcast about 19th century murderers who're women? I've never missed an episode (Lady Killers) so when she turned her attention to the Queen of Crime, it was like Christmas came early except I got the book for Christmas.

THE BOOK HATERS' BOOKCLUB, Gretchen Anthony

Xmas Hols 22-23

BLEEDING HEART YARD, Elly Griffiths

A DUTIFUL BOY, Mohsin Zaidi

THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT, Maggie O'Farrell

MARPLE (12 NEW STORIES), Agatha Christie kind of

FOSTER, Claire Keegan

RECITATIF, Toni Morrison

THE WORLD WE MAKE, N K Jemisin

THE RISING TIDE, Ann Cleeves

THE CHRISTMAS BOOKSHOP, Jenny Colgan - It's a Christmas book set in a bookshop in Edinburgh. What else do you need to know? Well, if Jenny Colgan is a new name, maybe you need to know that she's a writer of thought-provoking rom-coms (imagine if Marian Keyes was Scottish) who's prolific and life-affirming and genuinely funny. There's a sequel now - MIDNIGHT AT THE CHRISTMAS BOOKSHOP - and I have told Santa.

FAIRY TALE, Stephen King

So there's the cream of my reading year: all manner of crime, some memoir, some YA, bit of history, whatever The Memory Police is and a couple of rom-coms. Also, my TBR shelves are already promising more treats to come and Santa hasn't been yet. 

Have a cool Yule and a very Happy 2024 when it comes,

Cx