My best reads for 2011

Not all of these were published in 2011 and I read so many good books in 2011, that the choice was really difficult. In the end the book had to be rated at 5 or 4.9 to get onto my list.

5.0, BURY YOUR DEAD, Louise Penny
5.0, THE WRECKAGE, Michael Robotham
5.0, A THOUSAND CUTS, Simon Lelic
5.0, BLUE LIGHTNING, Ann Cleeves 
5.0, THE RULE BOOK, Rob Kitchin
5.0, DEAD TOMORROW, Peter James
5.0, THE END OF THE WASP SEASON, Denise Mina
5.0, STAGESTRUCK, Peter Lovesey 
4.9, THE BRUTAL TELLING, Louise Penny
4.9, BAD INTENTIONS, Karin Fossum

The list above differed a little from my picks on the month, the outstanding book from each month's read:

• January      5.0, THE RULE BOOK, Rob Kitchin
• February    5.0, BURY YOUR DEAD, Louise Penny
• March        4.8, CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER, Tom Franklin
• April          5.0,  A THOUSAND CUTS (aka RUPTURE), Simon Lelic
• May          5.0, THE WRECKAGE, Michael Robotham
• June          5.0, DEAD TOMORROW, Peter James
• July           4.8, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL, Geoffrey McGeachin
• August       5.0, BLUE LIGHTNING, Ann Cleeves
• September  5.0, THE END OF THE WASP SEASON, Denise Mina 
• October      5.0, STAGESTRUCK, Peter Lovesey
• November   4.8, WHISPERING DEATH, Garry Disher
• December   4.7, ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo

My best reads for December 2011

December 2011 was a good month for reading despite the festive activities.
There were 3 contenders for pick of the month and in the end I chose the oldest, a book that revolutionised crime fiction writing.

Pick of the month

1. 4.6, BAD BOY, Peter Robinson
2. 4.2, MURDER IN THE SECOND ROW, Bev Robitai - New Zealand
3. 4.2, EDGE, Jeffery Deaver
4. 4.7, WINTERLAND, Alan Glynn
5. 4.6, ECHOES OF THE DEAD, Sally Spencer 
6. 4.5, THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN'S BAG, Alan Bradley 
7. 4.7, THE BLACKHOUSE, Peter May
8. 4.4, THE UNDER DOG, Agatha Christie 
9. 4.3, BOLD BLOOD, Lindy Kelly - New Zealand
10. 4.6, WATCH THE WORLD BURN, Leah Giarratano - Australian
11. 4.5, CELL 8, Roslund & Hellstrom
12. 4.7, ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - pick of the month
13. 4.3, THE LIKENESS, Tana French

Review: THE END OF EVERYTHING, Megan Abbot

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 480 KB
• Print Length: 304 pages
• Publisher: Picador; Australia/New Zealand ed edition (August 1, 2011)
• Sold by: Macmillan
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005EOLW22
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (author website)

In a placid 1980s suburb in the Midwest, thirteen-year-old Lizzie and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable, best friends who swap bathing suits and field-hockey sticks and between whom, presumably, there are no secrets. Together they live in the shadow of Evie's glamorous older sister Dusty, who provides them a window on the exotic, intoxicating possibilities on their own teenage horizons. To Lizzie, the Verver household, presided over by Evie's big-hearted father, is the world's most perfect place.

And then, one afternoon, Evie disappeared.

My take

Some might argue that THE END OF EVERYTHING is not really crime fiction. When Evie disappears no-one is sure that a crime has been committed, although the longer she is gone, the more likely it seems that she has been abducted. The question of planned sexual abuse is raised. There's plenty of mystery though and, in the end, the reader can't be sure he knows he/she has all the answers.

Much of the story relies on the memories and interpretations of Evie's friend and neighbour Lizzie and her memories are unreliable and her interpretations often one-sided. Lizzie's mind has played with some of her memories, trying to make sense of them.

Both our memories self spun, radiant fictions.

THE END OF EVERYTHING is really about relationships, particularly between adolescent girls and their fathers and male neighbours. Although Evie and Lizzie are almost exactly the same age, their bodies are not in sync, and Evie has secrets from Lizzie. Their mothers don't seem to understand much and Evie's mother in particular does not cope well. Their older siblings, Lizzie's brother Ted, and Evie's sister Dusty, have more clues but Dusty's interpretations are tinged with jealousy as she sees Evie about to move into the centre stage that she has occupied for so long.

As Evie's father searches to understand what may have happened to his daughter, Lizzie and he seem to grow closer. Lizzie comes up with the initial clue to who took Evie, and after that plants "evidence" to reinforce that conclusion, and at the same time seems to place herself centrepiece.

My rating 4.5

THE END OF EVERYTHING has provoked some very different reactions from readers, but be aware that some of these contain more plot spoilers than I have:

• Jenny's Books
• The Book Smugglers
• Booking Mama
• Bermuda Onion 
• Reactions to Reading

I read THE END OF EVERYTHING for discussion at my face to face book group and we chose it because Megan Abbott will be at Adelaide Writers' Week in March. It will be interesting to see what group members think. One has already commented to me on what she thought was an abrupt ending.

Other reviews of titles by Megan Abbott on MiP
DIE A LITTLE
4.7, BURY ME DEEP

MiP celebrates 4th blogoversary

MYSTERIES in PARADISE was created 2 January 2008 as the result of a New Year's resolution.

(Paradise because that's where I live, and mysteries because that's what I read.)

Since then I've published well over 2000 posts and added over 500 reviews, nearly all for crime fiction novels.
I've made some great blogging friends and been part of some great events!
Blogging gives me great satisfaction as well as an opportunity to reflect on my reading.
My blog has about 250 visitors a day, and you are one of them today, so thank you for dropping by.

Things to do when you visit MiP

• Tell me your top 10 crime fiction reads for 2011. Visit my collecting place here.
• Sign up for the 2012 Global Reading Challenge
• Looking for particular authors? Visit Authors A-Z 
• Interested in Agatha Christie? Visit the Agatha Christie Carnival
• Visit All Reviews (ranked) or check what I read in 2011  
• Want to check out what others in the crime fiction world are blogging about? Looking for some new bloggers to follow? Look at Crime Fiction Journeys where I collect feeds from over 100 bloggers.

Reminder: I'm collecting your best crime fiction reads for 2011

As I've done for the past 2 or 3 years,  I will be "collecting" titles again this year and then aggregating them, and publishing lists, early in 2012.
I've decided that I will collect in two ways:

• If you write a post on your own blog that lists your best crime fiction reads, then you can simply add the URL to the Mr Linky below and I will visit your site and collect the titles.
• Your alternative is to add your list as a comment to this post. Other comments appear on my initial post at the beginning of December and I will collect them up too.

The books you choose need not have been published in 2011, but need to come under the category of crime fiction.

You choose how many titles are in your list - I'll accept any number of titles up to 20. (you might like to decide a cut off point in your ratings - mine might have to have a rating of 4.9 or above, but I need to have a serious think about that)

Please feel free to use this icon on your blog post, to advertise the meme, and encourage others to add their contributions to this page.

Remember, the Mr Linky below is for the URL of your blog post, not the titles themselves.
If you don't have a blog post just list the titles and authors in a comment.

"Collecting" will close on January 7.

Important: how to find this post when you are ready to add your list - look for the icon in the right hand margin.

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Happy New Year 2012

My reading New Year's resolutions have been building for a few weeks now and once again look suspiciously like last year's.

• Mt TBR takes 2 forms at present: a heap of made-from-paper books lurking in a bookshelf just inside the front door, and another less visible heap on my Kindle. I shudder when I think of the $s they represent, and I really must focus on reading them.
• I need to make greater attempts to read branches of the genre I have neglected in 2011: e.g. more Australian titles, more American titles
• when I borrow library books I must read them more quickly.
• When I visit other people's blog posts, I need to make greater efforts to leave sensible comments.

What New Year's resolutions have you made?

Farewelling 2011

This post is becoming an annual event  and so you may notice some similarities between this post and previous New Year's Eve ones.

Time to ring out the old year and welcome the new.
Where does time go?

MiP (MYSTERIES in PARADISE) will have been around for just on 4 years in a couple of days time.

I created it as the result of a resolution on New Year's Eve 2007.

Some statistical reflections.

• I've read 160 books this year, quite an increase over last year's 136, and bringing my total since I have begun to keep records (1975) to an even 3160 in the last 37 years.
  
• I've written 450 blog posts on MiP this year, an decrease of about 25% on last year. I reached some milestones: 500 book reviews added in 4 years, 2000 blog posts, and 7000 comments.
  
• According to my main counter about 85,000 visitors have come to my blog this year, still about 2,000 a week, but a bit of a drop from last year.
  I have installed a number of different counters this year and they all tell different stories. I guess it doesn't matter a tinker's curse really - the blog gives me great satisfaction to write.
  
• I dropped out of a couple of memes like Sunday Salon and Weekly Geeks mainly because there seemed to be so few crime fiction readers participating. However I have kept up with Friday's Forgotten Books and the Book Bloggers Review Carnival.
  
• I ran a couple of memes myself this year: the Crime Fiction Alphabet attracted a goodly number of participants each week, as did the shorter Crime Fiction on a Euro Pass. I'll run another round of the CFA at least in 2012.
  
• I also continued with my Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and the monthly Agatha Christie Blog Carnival 
  
• I've completed a number of reading challenges this year, and yesterday wrote a reflective post on what you get out of participation. I did worry that I had taken on too much, but I think it paid off, even if I did only get the final 2 books read this week. I thought that the challenges would help me out by reducing Mt. TBR but unfortunately it is still growing.

So if you are a visitor to my blog, regular or not, thanks for coming; and if you've left comments, thanks for the encouragement. I hope to hear again from you in the new year.

So farewell the old year with gusto, and think about those New Year's resolutions!

But please, if you drink, don't drive!

Reading Challenges Update 2011

I joined quite a number of reading challenges this year (16)and worried about whether I had taken on too many.
I hoped the challenges would achieve a number of things:

• push me to read beyond my usual boundaries
• help me reduce the number of books waiting on TBR which had grown by the beginning of this year to alpine proportions
• by joining participating communities, I would learn of new books and titles that I should hunt down.

I kept a running record of my progress on Reading Challenges Update 2011
You can see from the general summary below that I completed all the challenges at the original levels that I signed up on. I'm feeling very happy with my achievements.

• Agatha Christie Reading Challenge 13/12 - target for 2011 achieved 
• Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge: aiming for 142+  currently 160 - got there! Nov 12
• Historical Fiction Challenge 10/10 - Completed
• British Books Challenge 12/12 - completed at Royal Family Level.
  Now attempting to earn a Crown (50 books) - completed
  
• e-book challenge 67/100 - completed at 20, now aiming for 100
• Nordic Challenge 2011 15/11 to 20 - completed
• Aussie Author Challenge 16/12- completed
• Ireland Reading Challenge 4/4 - Completed 
• Cruisin' thru Cozies Reading Challenge 23/13+ - Completed
• 2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 10/9 - Completed
• 2011 Global Reading Challenge 21/21- - Completed
• Canadian Book Challenge 2010-2011 7/7 - Completed
• Canadian Book Challenge 2011-2012 7/13 - on target!
• translated, currently 23
• New Zealand  4 - Completed
• new to me: currently 60

I did allow challenges to overlap, i.e. I could count a book for more than one challenge, although I did restrict myself to crime fiction titles. I did treat audio books as books read.
See what I've read.

Some of the challenges such as "translated" and "new to me" were personal challenges to exceed a level from the previous year.

I do think the challenges achieved what I wanted them to do, with the exception of reducing my TBR.
They did also reveal a lot about my reading choices.
For example, I was surprised that nearly one third of my reading was British crime fiction, but on reflection a number of those were audio books. I much prefer British narrators. I also have a fondness for British police procedurals.

I have decided that in 2012 I need to target more American crime fiction - those titles don't appear very often in my reading choices, more Australian, more New Zealand, and much more from my TBR both paper and e-book.

I may just focus on setting myself targets in 2012 rather than joining challenges. I haven't really decided.
Although I will be hosting the 2012 Global Reading Challenge and also the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge.

Canadian Reading Challenge update, December 2011

I've embarked on the Canadian Book Challenge run by John Mutford at the Book Mine Set for the second year in succession and am happy to report that I am on target.

The Canadian Book Challenge is an online reading challenge in which participants from Canada and around the world aim to read and review 13 or more Canadian books in a one year span: Canada Day to Canada Day. Reviews must be posted online and participants are asked to share links to their reviews with other participants. 

I can now join other participants at LAC MISTASSINI (7 or more books read)

1. 4.6, BAD BOY, Peter Robinson
2. 4.5, THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN'S BAG, Alan Bradley
3. 4.4, A BREWSKI FOR THE OLD MAN, Phyllis Smallman
4. 4.8, THE SUSPECT, L.R. Wright
5. 4.2, IN DESPERATION, Rick Mofina
6. 4.4, ACTS OF MURDER, Laurali R. Wright
7. 4.4, SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET & Other Creepy Stories, Cheryl Kaye Tardif

Review: BAD BOY, Peter Robinson

• published by William Morrow (Harper Collins) 2010
• ISBN 978-0-06-136295-8
• 341 pages
• Source: review copy supplied by Random House Australia

Publisher's blurb (author website)

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks faces his most challenging, personal, and terrifying case yet when his own daughter crosses paths with a psychopath...

A distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But since Banks is away on holiday, his partner, Annie Cabbot, steps in. The woman tells Annie that she’s found a loaded gun hidden in the bedroom of her daughter, Erin—a punishable offense under English law. When an armed response team breaks into the house to retrieve the weapon, the seemingly straightforward procedure quickly spirals out of control.

But trouble is only beginning for Annie, the Eastvale force, and Banks, and this time, the fallout may finally do the iconoclastic inspector in. For it turns out that Erin’s best friend and roommate is none other than Tracy Banks, the DCI’s daughter, who was last seen racing off to warn the owner of the gun, a very bad boy indeed.

Thrust into a complicated and dangerous case intertwining the personal and the professional as never before, Annie and Banks—a bit of a bad boy himself—must risk everything to outsmart a smooth and devious psychopath. Both Annie and Banks understand that it’s not just his career hanging in the balance, it’s also his daughter’s life.

more

My take

I've followed the Alan Banks series for a number of years and so have a nodding acquaintance with the background to this story. I think however you could probably read BAD BOY as a stand alone because the author does give the reader snippets to fill in the holes.

As a character Banks doesn't come out of BAD BOY particularly well. True, he's had a tough life, but the fact that he's been a neglectful father rebounds on him when his daughter Tracy at the age of twenty four decides to choose her own path. As second in command of the Western Area, Banks is used to everyone working for his good and over the years that has made him rather self-centred, and to my mind, rather pre-occupied with his own well-being. Mind you, he is surrounded by some female characters, terrifically drawn, such as Annie Cabbott and Winsome Jackman , and even his boss DS Catherine Gervaise, who seem to always anticipate his needs. As a result Alan Banks tends to choose his own path rather than follow protocols.

If you enjoy British police procedurals then you will enjoy BAD BOY despite the fact that Peter Robinson is a Canadian author. (I chose to read this for the Canadian Book Challenge run by John Mutford). Robinson is yet another of those non-British authors who have set their novels in Britain, like Elizabeth George and Deborah Crombie.

BAD BOY isn't the best in the Alan Banks series but don't let that put you off.

My rating: 4.6

Other reviews on MiP
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL (2007)
ALL THE COLOURS OF DARKNESS (2008)

Australian crime fiction I read in 2011

My count this year of crime fiction by Australian authors was 16, despite my determination this time last year to attempt to read more.

So among my New Year's resolutions is of course that I will try to read more in 2012. It is not that there aren't plenty on offer!

I've linked each title to my review. (and you'll notice they are not in rating order.)

1. 4.6, WATCH THE WORLD BURN, Leah Giarratano
2. 4.8, WHISPERING DEATH, Garry Disher
3. 4.3, RING OF FIRE, Peter Klein
4. 4.8, VIOLENT EXPOSURE, Katherine Howell
5. 4.4, BEREFT, Chris Womersley
6. 4.8, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL, Geoffrey McGeachin
7. 5.0, THE WRECKAGE, Michael Robotham
8. 3.9, DIAMOND EYES, A. A. Bell
9. 4.8, COLD JUSTICE, Katherine Howell
10. 4.3, THE SERPENT AND THE SCORPION, Clare Langley-Hawthorne
11. 4.2, DARK WATER, Georgia Blain
12. 4.7, WYATT, Garry Disher
13. 4.4, D-E-D DEAD! Geoffrey McGeachin
14. 4.4, THE PERICLES COMMISSION, Gary Corby 
15. 4.7, PRIME CUT, Alan Carter 
16. 4.5, THE HALF-CHILD, Angela Savage

I joined the Aussie Author Challenge so I could be in touch with other readers.

If you are interested in ramping up your Australian crime fiction reading here are 4 places you might be interested in:

• Fair Dinkum Crime: a blog to keep you informed with new titles, events, and reviews
• Aussie Author's Challenge for 2012 
• Australian Women Writers' Challenge for 2012
• National Year of Reading 2012 website

My New Zealand Reading Challenge

I never did get around to finding an "official" New Zealand crime fiction reading challenge to join.

However I did set myself a target of  reading 4-6 books by New Zealand authors in 2011 and I achieved that this week:

1. 4.2, MURDER IN THE SECOND ROW, Bev Robitai
2. 4.3, BOLD BLOOD, Lindy Kelly
3. 4.3, DIED IN THE WOOL, Ngaio Marsh
4. 4.8, BOUND, Vanda Symon

It is not that there is a lack of NZ authors to read, or even a lack of suggestions thanks to Craig Sisterson at CrimeWatch, just a lack of time!