Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Around the world in 2012

I managed to travel virtually to 30 countries during 2012 via the books I read.  Here's the breakdown and the full list of titles below.

29:  United States
15:  England
9:  Ireland
5:   Scotland
3:   Germany, France
2:   Iceland, South Africa, Austria, Czech Republic, Italy
1:   Belguim, Sweden, Cambodia, Eygpt, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Laos, Russia, Denmark, Turkey, Australia, Poland, Canada
5:  Multiple countries (including Ireland, England, Austria, Hungary, Poland, France, Germany, Australia, China, India, Burma, Singapore)
3:  Short story collections
11: non-fiction

United States
Edge of Dark Water by Joe R Lansdale *****
Johnny Porno by Charlie Stella *****
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore *****
Storm Front by Jim Butcher *****
The Rocksburg Railroad Murders by K.C. Constantine ****.5
Dig Two Graves by Eric Beetner ****.5
The Pistol Poets by Victor Gischler ****.5
Cypress Grove by James Sallis ****
Money Shot by Christa Faust ****
Even Flow by Darragh McManus****
The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollack ****
The Last Policeman by Ben Winters ****
The Science of Paul by Aaron Philip Clark ****
The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson ****
Dead Harvest by Chris F Holm ****
Hill Country by R. Thomas Brown ****
Choke on Your Lies by Anthony Neil Smith ****
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes ****
Cadaver Blues by J.E. Fishman ***.5
Nobody's Perfect by Donald Westlake ***.5
Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig ***.5
Shaman Pass by Stan Jones ***.5
The Black Box by Michael Connelly ***
Dust Devils by James Reasoner ***
The Shark Infested Custard by Charles Willeford ***
Star Island by Carl Hiassen ***
Head Games by Craig McDonald *** 
The Dead Detective by William Heffernan ***
A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller **.5

England
We Are the Hanged Man by Douglas Lindsay *****
The Envoy by Edward Wilson *****
Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill ****.5
A Lily of the Field by John Lawton ****.5
Restless by William Boyd ****
The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin ****
Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter ****
Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis ****
Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie ***.5
Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska ***.5
Tollesbury Times Forever by Stuart Aylis ***.5
Crime at Christmas by C.H.B. Kitchin ***
The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey ***
Kiss Me Quick by Danny Miller ***
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths ***

Ireland
The Nameless Dead by Brian McGilloway *****
The Point by Gerard Brennan *****
The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty *****
Ghost Town by Michael Clifford ****.5
Red Ribbons by Louise Phillips ***.5
Slaughter's Hound by Declan Burke ***.5
A June of Ordinary Murders by Conor Brady ***.5
Black Sheep by Arlene Hunt ***.5
The Eighty Five Billion Euro Man by Donal Conaty ***

Scotland
Blood Tears by Michael J Malone *****
Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin ****.5
The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson by Douglas Lindsay ****.5
White Nights by Ann Cleeves ****
The Black House by Peter May ***

Germany
The Killing of Emma Gross by Damien Seaman ****.5
Silesian Station by David Downing ****.5
The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman ***

France
Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson ****
The Imitation of Patsy Burke by John J Gaynard ****
Death on the Marias by Adrian Magson ***.5

Iceland
The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning by Hallgrimur Helgason ***.5
Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason ***

South Africa
Wake Up Dead by Roger Smith *****
Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer ****.5

Austria
A Death in Vienna by Frank Tallis ****
Brenner and God by Wolf Haas **.5

Czech Republic
Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr ***.5
HHhH by Laurent Binet ***

Italy
Day After Day by Carlo Lucarelli ***.5
A Death in Tuscany by Michele Giuttari ***

Belguim
No Sale by Patrick Conrad ****

Sweden
The Man on the Balcony by Majs Sowall and Pers Wahloo ****

Cambodia
Ghost Money by Andrew Nette ***.5

Eygpt
The Golden Scales by Parker Bilal ***.5

Brazil
Buried Strangers by Leighton Gage ***

Spain
Or The Bull Kills You by Jason Webster ***

Netherlands
A Long Silence by Nicolas Freeling **

Thailand
Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill **

Russia
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith ***

Denmark
Disgrace by Jussi Adler-Olsen *** 

Turkey
Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon ******

Australia
A Few Right Thinking Men by Sulari Gentill ***.5

Poland
Lumen by Ben Pastor ***.5

Canada
White Heat by M.J. McGrath *****

More than one country
The City of Shadows by Michael Russell *****
A Dark Place to Die by Ed Chatterton ****
Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst ****
The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming ***.5
The Last Sunrise by Robert Ryan ***
Incompetence by Rob Grant ***
The Vanishing Point by Val McDermid **.5

Collected short stories
Snapshots by Paul Brazill ****.5
Old School by Dan O'Shea ****
Manchester 6 by Col Bury ***.5

Non-fiction
Homicide by David Simon *****
Resistance by Matthew Cobb *****
The Victory Lab by Sasha Issenberg ****.5
Only a Game? by Eamon Dunphy ****
When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson ****
Spies in the Sky by Taylor Downing ***.5
The Great Crash 1929 by JK Galbraith ***
The Information by James Gleick ***
The Untouchables by Shane Ross and Nick Ross ***
The Barbed-Wire University by Midge Gillies ***
Death in the City of Light by David King ***

3 comments:

Keen Reader said...

Only one from Canada? And an English author at that!

Mrs. Peabody said...

I'm deeply impressed, Rob, and will be sure to have a browse as this is a very rich list. Many thanks!

I'm never quite sure whether to classify novels by the author's country of origin as opposed to the place the novel is set. I've tended to go for the latter, but there are of course lots of authors who set their novels in a country other than their own (Philip Kerr - Germany, MJ McGrath - Arctic Circle, Quentin Bates - Iceland, to name but three)...

Rob Kitchin said...

I'll have to hunt down some Canadian works this year. I've been meaning to read another John McFetridge so that would be a start.

I classify by the place the novel is setting in as that's what I'm trying to capture in the post - where I've visited, rather than the nationality of the author. I was quite surprised by how many places I'd made it to as it felt like a very US/UK/Irish year of reading.