My Best Reads of 2024

 

And that’s a wrap for 2024 from my desk to yours. I wish departing fellow Minds Susan C. Shea and Josh Stallings all the best. It’s been a blast. And now for a recap of my Best Reads (and Recommendations) from 2024.

 

Edwin Hill, WHO TO BELIEVE? New England Edwin Hill author returns with another mystery set in the fictional New England town of Monreith. A popular restaurateur is murdered, and suspicion falls on the spouse. Readers know nothing is that straightforward. There are unreliable narrators, multiple point of views, and more motives than Christie’s Death on the Nile, but an ending that even this is veteran mystery reader didn’t see coming. I bow to you, Edwin. The story is set during the summer season, but snatch this one up for a cold winter’s night.

 

 

 

LynDeeWalker and Bruce Robert Coffin, THE CARDINAL’S CURSE. The second entry in the Turner and Mosley Files series, takes Avery Turner and partner Carter Mosley to Antarctica, where they join an expedition to explore a shipwreck that may contain the lost crown jewels of Norway.

As someone who has done numerous dives, including a wreck dive, I draw the line (pun intended) on ice diving. It’s one thing to kick up silt inside a ship and be blind, another thing to be in frigid water, under solid ice, and with nothing more than a rope in your hand as you run out of air. The hole above, the view to the word above, is there to give you hope. Chills, thrills, and shivers. You’ll never hear ice crack the same way again after reading this one.

 

Tom Straw, THE ACCIDENTAL JOE. There’s the old chestnut that a certain government agency is known to recruit from the most unlikely of sources. There is, for example, a long history of writers who have been spies or ‘information gathers’ or ‘observers,’ so why not a chef?  They come to the job armed. I know because I worked in a restaurant during the 80s and sharp knives and copious amounts of cocaine do not mix. Tom Straw has always written with a deft hand at humor (the hardest to write, in my opinion). I loved the action, all the food porn, the dashes of intrigue and romance, but most of all, his dialog. A chef’s kiss and Michelin stars.

 

 

Rob Hart, ASSASSIN’S ANONYMOUS. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, Rob Hart is known for the high-concept novel. He gave us the cube farm from hell à la The Warehouse, a time-travel hotel, The Paradox Hotel, that is The Grand Budapest Hotel on acid. In Assassin’s Anonymous, the AA doesn’t stand for the traditional 12-step recovery program we all know. Yes, it’s action, philosophy and self-help turned on its ear, but it all comes down to a character you’re less likely to forget anytime soon. Note: book 2, The Medusa Protocol, is slated for release, June 24, 2025.