2015 was a great year for reading in both quantity and
quality. I finished 61 titles, and will likely finish one more—the forthcoming Out of the Blues by Trudy Nan Boyce—which is three short of last year’s mark. The majority of the titles were fiction, but
the total includes a tolerable number of nonfiction works, too. The nonfiction
tended towards history and true crime, which included a number of interesting
titles including Night by Elie Wiesel
and Mind Over Matter by Ranulph
Fiennes.
I entered 2015 with my two ever recurring goals—1.
Increase the number of “new” authors (in 2014 I read only eight authors new to
me); and 2. Increase the number of female authors on my reading list. I
successfully increased the number of new writers, and also managed to add a few—only
three—female authors to my list (all are included in the “new to me” category).
I became acquainted with the work of ten authors in
2015: David Lippincott (Salt Mine), James
W. Hall (Bones of Coral), Sandra
Block (The Girl Without a Name), Rick
Ollerman (Truth Always Kills), Trace
Conger (The Shadow Broker), Andrew
Coburn (The Babysitter), Tony Park (Ivory), Christine Matthews (Beating the Bushes), Carolyn Hart (High Stakes), and John Saul (Nathaniel). The best of the “new”—and it
was actually published in 2015—was Park’s Ivory.
The number of new authors, and female authors, was due, mostly, to writing
reviews for Ed Gorman’s blog and Mystery Scene
Magazine.
As is my habit, I returned to old favorites many, many
times. In fact, four authors accounted for 17 titles, which is approximately 28
percent of the total for 2015. I read five by Jack M. Bickham, and four each by
Jack Higgins, Dean Koontz, and Ed Gorman.
Now all that is left is my top five favorite novels
of—at least that I read in—2015. No rules, except no repeats. If I previously
read it, it is not eligible for the top five. It was difficult to pare the list
to five, and there were two or three that were cut from the list that I wish
hadn’t been. With that said, my five favorite novels of 2015 are—
5. Ivory by Tony
Park. Mr. Park is an Australian thriller writer who writes vividly about
Africa. This one is set in Mozambique, South Africa, and the Indian Ocean. The
protagonist is an ex-SAS officer turned pirate to finance the rehabilitation of
his family’s hotel on the Island of Dreams. The pacing is fast, and the locales
are exotic and it actually lives up to the term “thriller.”
4. The King of
Horror and Other Stories by Stephen Mertz. If the title didn’t give it
away, this is a collection of short stories by crime and adventure writer
extraordinaire Stephen Mertz. It includes all of Mr. Mertz’s short stories over
the past several decades, and each is very entertaining. Read the Gravetapping review.
3. Split Image by Ron Faust. This is an old
school noirish treasure. It is dark, riveting, and curious; as much literature
as commercial. It weaves an enticing mixture of Edgar Allan Poe—think “The
Tell-Tale Heart”—Alfred Hitchcock, and a 1950’s Gold Medal novel. It is one of
Mr. Faust’s finest novels. Read the Gravetapping review.
2. The Husband by Dean Koontz. This is a
mesmerizing, well written, and extraordinarily entertaining thriller. It is
smooth with the beat of poetry in its prose—not in a complicated manner, but
rather the meter and rhythm. It opens in a rush, and keeps the steady pace from
beginning to end without falling into the trap of overwrought doldrums or
meaningless melodrama. Read the Gavetapping review.
1. Snowbound
by Richard S. Wheeler. This title won a Spur Award when it was published in
2010; an honor it surely deserved. It is the story of John C. Fremont’s
ill-fated fourth expedition, which was ostensibly to find a railroad route across
the Rocky Mountains at the 38th Parallel between St. Louis and San
Francisco. A fool’s dreams at best. It is a powerful novel of survival and
calamity, and deserving of a much larger audience than it has so far reached.
Read the Gravetapping review.
Ben, you read some good books in 2015. I like the variety in your reading. I still have to read Dean Koontz. Stephen Mertz is another writer I'd like to try.
ReplyDeleteThis year, for the first time I am going to attempt to record the books I read. I have also set a goal to find some new authors, I seem to return over and over to the same ones.
ReplyDeleteI clicked over here from your terrific comment on Richard Wheeler's blog - Wheeler is one of my all time favorites.