Best reads of 2019

I read and reviewed 87 books in 2019, totalling 31,908 pages according to Goodreads. I rated 14 books as five star reads, two of which were non-fiction. That's a pretty good strike rate for excellent reads, which is mostly down to knowing whose recommendations to trust. Difficult to put the books in an order as all first class.

The Borrowed by Chan Ho-Kei

Linking together six novellas, the stories trace the legendary career of Kwan Chun-dok, a Hong Kong detective, working back from the present day to 1967. While each tale is an intricately plotted police procedural, where the mystery is a difficult puzzle that takes a different form – locked-room, prisoner-dilemma, jail break, siege, kidnapping, terrorist conspiracy) they are also astute social and political commentaries about Hong Kong as it passes from British colony to the sphere of Chinese rule. Kwan is an intriguing character, full of humanity and compassion, but ruthless in pursuing justice. An engaging, intriguing and thought-provoking novel with excellent plotting, strong character development, and a good sense of place and historical context.

A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott

Manda Scott expertly weaves together two inter-related plots that are separated by seventy years. The first concerns a battle of wits between a master Gestapo agent who cleverly turns resistance members and a group of SOE agents and French Marquis that last much of the war. The second charts the present day investigation into the assassination of one of the elderly former SOE agents. Both threads make for compelling stories, but when twisted together the result is a page-turning thriller. The characterisation is very nicely done, there’s good historical contextualisation, and the underlying premise in terms of the post-war era is interesting. Scott peppers the plot with twists and turns, and keeps the reader guessing to the end.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Ursula Todd is born on 11 February 1910 and promptly dies. History repeats but she lives, the doctor having made it through the snowstorm. It is a pattern that Ursula is set to repeat dying multiple times in several different ways, sometimes a sense of déjà vu saving her from the same fate in a subsequent life. Mostly her lives follow a very similar trajectory, occasionally they diverge and take a different track. At some point, she realises that she could potentially save the world from the darkness of the Second World War. But can one person stop fate? Atkinson uses the repeating lives idea to explore the notion of history as a palimpsest. The result is an engaging, thoughtful literary novel that asks big questions but not in a highbrow, inaccessible way.

The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh

The Blinds blends together aspects of a Western with a SF memory loss tale. Caesura, West Texas, is a dusty, isolated town of second chances. Its residents are either criminals or key witnesses who’ve had their memories altered so they cannot remember what led to them being there. A suicide and a murder have them worried. Sternbergh spins-out a compelling yarn in which the past gradually intrudes on the present leading to betrayal, violence, redemption, and desperate fight to survive. The plot is very nicely constructed with plenty of intrigue and tension, the characterization is excellent, and there’s a strong sense of place and context. A wonderful, engaging, fresh tale of corrupted justice.

Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway by Sara Gran

Claire, a wonderful, flawed, complex, anti-hero character with a self-destructive streak, investigates the murder of an ex-boyfriend. Half debilitated by drugs, grief, and the memories of a past case, she slowly seeks clues. As with all detectives trained in the Silettian tradition, her pursuit is truth rather than justice, and Gran mixes in philosophy, dead-pan and dark humour, and two interesting mysteries. I was hooked from the get-go and my interest never waned. This multifaceted, engaging and quirky tale would be perfect for a movie treatment or a TV series.

Only Thieves and Killers by Paul Howarth

A coming of age tale set in the settled outback of Australia in 1885. when their parents are murdered and their sister left for dead, brothers Tommy and Billy team up with a wealthy landowner and ruthless policeman and head off into the outback to capture the suspected Aboriginal killers. While Billy embraces the bigotry and violence of the landowner and native police, the other starts to regret what they have started and resist rough justice. Howarth creates an engaging story rooted in a credible history of Australian colonialism and the relations between settler and Aborigines without it swamping the story or becoming preachy. There's strong character development, and a good sense of place and time. 

Tightrope by Simon Mawer

Marian Sutro, a SOE agent dropped into France in 1943 and arrested by the Gestapo a short time later and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Post-war she returns to Britain to be debriefed and to convalesce but finds it hard to adjust. She still craves purpose and adventure, so when an opportunity arises to slip back into the intelligence world she takes it. Mawer tells her story via a narrative pieced together by her biographer, Samuel, who’d been obsessed with her ever since he was a boy. It’s an interesting approach as it allows for hesitancy and silences where the biographer has to speculate about motives and what really occurred. The tale is very nicely plotted, with Marian struggling with loyalties and motives, and her past and her future, as she’s drawn into the cold war intelligence and romance.

Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

Nayir Sharqi works as a desert guide and Katya works as a lab technician in the coroner’s office. They are paired together through their shared acquaintance with the brother of Nouf Shawari. Nouf is found dead in the desert having drowned in a flash flood and the brother asks each of them to investigate her death. The sixteen year old girl was due to be married shortly after she disappeared. Ferraris creates a compelling murder mystery tale that is firmly rooted in the culture and place of Saudi Arabia. The contrast and awkward tension between Nayir and Katya nicely unfolds, as does the investigative elements of the plot.

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

Set in Tokyo, The Devotion of Suspect X is a police procedural with a difference. The reader is presented with the murder at the start of the novel. Yasuko Hanaoka and her daughter murder her abusive former husband. Their neighbour, Ishigami, who is smitten with Yusuko, hears the fight and offers to help them dispose of the body and create a cover-up. A body is subsequently found, quickly identified and the police turn up at Yashuko’s door. Will the police discover the truth given Ishigami’s carefully plotted cover-up? It's a slow burn, but the patient build-up is worth it. Despite having sight of all sides in the game, the pay-off for the reader is the double-twist in the denouement. It’s relatively rare to come across a twist so clever and the ending is just perfect. Overall, an absorbing tale with a nice philosophical spin.

The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonio Hodgson

A whodunit set in a London debtors prison in 1727. Tom Hawkins, a young man who has dropped out of training for the church, finds himself in the prison as a debtor. He has to adapt quickly, but saviour is promised if a challenge is completed – solve the murder of Captain Roberts that took place a few months before he entered and he'll have his debts cancelled and be set free. Hodgson draws on real testimony about life in Marshalsea prison and the populates the story by a number of real-life historical characters associated with the prison. She spins the tale out with plenty of intrigue and twists and does an admirable job of creating a strong sense of place and history. The result is a well-researched, engaging historical murder mystery full of colourful characters that keeps the reader guessing.
 

Best reads of 2018

I was a little surprised to find I'd read 101 books in 2018. Every year I think the number will drop to 80 or so, but it sticks pretty resiliently at c.100. According to Goodreads, the books totalled 34,435 pages, the third highest year over the past ten. I guess it's a mark of the books I read that the pages just flew by. In the end I read 12 books I rated at five stars and here is my best reads selection. Difficult to put in an order as all were excellent.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

An expansive and endearing story of the life of Count Alexander Rostov, placed under house arrest in the Metropole Hotel in Central Moscow in 1922. It is somewhat of an allegorical tale exploring the nature of being confined within borders and hope, friendship, dignity and making-do under political tyranny driven by political ideology. The characterisation and character development is excellent, as are the social interactions between them. There is a real sense of place as to the Metropole Hotel and all the goings on within its walls. The prose is lovely and the storytelling compelling, full of wonderful little side stories, musings, and reflections on life. And the long arc of the plot, with its somewhat meandering path, is very nicely executed.

The Way Back to Florence by Glenn Haybittle

The Way Back to Florence is a tale of love during war between an Italian woman and English man, and between a father and his young daughter. The tale is told as a multi-layered narrative, involving a number of entwined threads, and doesn’t pull any punches with respect to the harrowing experiences of the lead characters. The story is loaded with a deep sense of realism, tension and affect, so that just as the characters cycle through a gamut of emotions, so does the reader. The result is a visceral, engaging, thoughtful and at times traumatic story of love, loyalties, compromises, and survival.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

In 1829 Agnes Magnúsdóttir was the last woman to be formally executed in Iceland. Hannah Kent provides an in-depth and sympathetic character study of Agnes. The story is somewhat of an existential tale, in part examining the mind and actions of a person awaiting death, in part charting the path that led to this fate. In combination with some wonderfully evocative and lyrical prose, a strong sense of place and time, the result is a compelling, thoughtful-provoking read in which the nuances and circumstances of the crime are laid bare. In particular, the characterisation and social relations between Agnes, her priest, and the farm household are beautifully realised.

She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper

A noir tale of a father and daughter struggling to take on a major criminal gang, the Aryan Brotherhood, and survive. Nate decides that the only way to make the death sentence placed on the two of them go away is to cause so much destruction and lost income that the Brotherhood call quits. Polly transforms from a relatively innocent, bullied school girl into a mini-Bonnie Parker. Harper provides a very nice balance of character development and action, telling a fresh, modern-day noir that slowly ratchets up the tension to a dramatic denouement. It’s difficult to see how the story could be improved – an excellent, engaging coming-of-age tale with a twist.

The Force by Don Winslow

The Force is a tour-de-force police procedural, with well-drawn characters, a strong sense of place, and a complex, multi-layered, intricate plot that has more twists and turns than a bowl of spaghetti. What elevates the book is its wider political and social reflections. Most crime fiction is also usually a slice of social realism that provides a commentary on society and its ills. That commentary is often incidental, but in The Force, it’s front and centre. Winslow’s ambitious tale of cops on the take in New York is not simply an engaging, compelling tale, but a searing exploration of law and justice in the US.

Watch Her Disappear by Eva Dolan

The fourth book Zigic and Ferreira series focuses on violent attacks against trans women, while also developing the personal lives of the lead characters, and the institutional politics of their police station. Dolan does a very nice job of exploring the often complex family situations of trans women, as well as the hateful ways they are often treated by society. She never loses sight, however, that she is telling a police procedural and does a very good job of keeping the reader guessing as to the guilty party. A very good police procedural, with engaging characters and a compelling plot.

Sirens by Joseph Knox

A dark, gritty, violent tale of fall and redemption set in Manchester. Aidan Waits has a past he’d sooner forget and a future that is seemingly going nowhere. The route to possible salvation is go undercover into the city’s criminal underworld. Knox’s tale is a rollercoaster of a read, a dark, chilling thriller that throttles along, full of twists and turns and tension. The sense of place and atmosphere are excellent, as is the characterisation. Knox layers in multiple threads to produce a small Gordian knot that is slowly unravelled. The result is a compelling, page-turner.

The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham

Fiona Griffiths is a wonderful literary creation, an engaging, complex, multidimensional, and often surprising character. In this outing, she trains to go undercover and then penetrates a sophisticated, careful and ruthless criminal gang who are perpetrating an enormous accounting fraud. The plotting is excellent, with Bingham spinning a multi-layered tale that also twists and turns and creates plenty of tension. The police procedural elements are very nicely done and the whole book feels steeped in realism.

Rain Falls on Everyone by Clár Ni Chonghaile

Rain really does fall on everyone in Clár Ni Chonghaile’s tale of identity and belonging in situations of violence in Dublin. Ni Chonghaile’s tale is a carefully crafted slice of social realism. It is shot through with empathy and pathos, but it is not for the faint-hearted with its scenes and discussion of domestic abuse, genocide, gang violence, suicide, and racism. The characterisation, character development across the story, social interactions and sense of place are excellent. Engaging, thought-provoking and compelling.

A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee

Set in 1920s India, detectives Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee travel from Calcutta to Sampalpore, an Indian state rich from trading diamonds and run by an aging Maharajah, to investigate the assassination of a Prince. The tale has all the hallmarks of a very good police procedural: an interesting puzzle, well-drawn and engaging characters, a balance of investigation with character development and back story, strong sense of place, nice pacing, plenty of intrigue and twists and turns, and interesting framing and contextualisation. Does a very nice job in detailing the complexities of Indian society, politics, and pre- and colonial history. The result is a thoughtful, entertaining and colourful tale.