My Favourite Reads of 2023

This year I have read a varied number of wonderful books and if you have listened to the CrimeTime Podcast back in November and also have followed DampPebbles #R3COMM3ND3D2023 then a number of the books on my favourite reads list this year should be of no surprise. I also have some honourable mentions.

I have put the books in alphabetical order solely because whilst I could actually work out my top 4, the rest would be slightly more difficult.

The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly (Hodder and Stoughton)

Twice upon a time - for that is how some stories should continue. Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard. Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey - to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres's childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father, to a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; to a land where old enemies are watching, and waiting.

All the Sinners Bleed by S A Cosby (Headline Publishing)

A black sheriff. A serial killer and a small town ready to combust. Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, no one knows better than Titus that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. But a year to the day after Titus's election, a school teacher is killed by a former student. The student is then fatally shot by Titus's deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes, and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer's possible connections to a local church and the town's harrowing history weighing on him, Titus tries to project confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town's Confederate history. Charon is Titus's home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.

Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor (Headline Publishing)

After his son is convicted of murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt. Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend-or in some cases, destroy it.

Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper (Faber & Faber)

In Hollywood, nobody talks. But everybody whispers. Welcome to Mae Pruett's LA. A 'black-bag' publicist at one of Hollywood's most powerful crisis PR firms, Mae's job isn't to get good news out, it's to keep the bad news in and contain the scandals. But just as she starts to question her job and life choices, her boss is gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and everything changes. Investigating with the help of an ex-boyfriend, Mae dives headlong into a neon joyride through the jungle of contemporary Hollywood. Pitted against the twisted system she's worked so hard to perpetuate, she's desperately fighting for redemption, and her life.

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron (John Murray Press)

Monochrome is a busted flush - an inquiry into the misdeeds of the intelligence services, established by a vindictive prime minister but rendered toothless by a wily chief spook. For years it has ground away uselessly, interviewing witnesses with nothing to offer, producing a report with nothing to say, while the civil servants at its helm see their careers disappearing into a black hole. And then the OTIS file falls into their hands … What secrets does this hold that see a long-redundant spy being chased through Devon's green lanes in the dark? What happened in a newly reunified Berlin that someone is desperate to keep under wraps? And who will win the battle for the soul of the secret service - or was that decided a long time ago? Spies and pen-pushers, politicians and PAs, high-flyers, time-servers and burn-outs ... They all have jobs to do in the daylight. But what they do in the secret hours reveals who they really are.

The McMaster's Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes (Headling Publishing)

Welcome to The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim. Who hasn't wondered for a split second what the world would be like the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you've probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this "Poison Ivy League" college-its location unknown to even those who study there-is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate...and where one's mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live. Prepare for an education you'll never forget. A delightful mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employerwill gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you'll ever read.

The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys by Jack Jewers (Moonflower Publishing)

It is the summer of 1669 and England is in dire straits. The treasury's coffers are bare and tensions with the powerful Dutch Republic are boiling over. And now, an investigator sent by the King to look into corruption at the Royal Navy has been brutally murdered. Loathe to leave the pleasures of London, Samuel Pepys is sent dragging his feet to Portsmouth to find the truth about what happened. Aided by his faithful assistant, Will Hewer, he soon exposes the killer. But has he got the right man? The truth may be much more sinister. And if the real plot isn't uncovered in time, England could be thrown into a war that would have devastating consequences ...

Viper's Dream by Jake Lamar (Bedford Square Publishers)

A hard-boiled crime novel set in the jazz world of Harlem between 1936 and 1961, Viper's Dream combines elements of the epic Godfather films and the detective novels of Chester Himes to tell the story of one of the most respected and feared Black gangsters in America. At the centre of Viper's Dream is a turbulent love story. And the climax bears an element of Greek tragedy. For the better part of 20 years, Clyde 'The Viper' Morton has been in love with Yolanda 'Yo-Yo' DeVray, a singer of immense talent but a woman consumed by demons. By turns ambitious and self-destructive, conniving and naive, Yo-Yo is a classic femme fatale. She is a bright star in a constellation of compelling characters including the chauffeur-turned-gangster Peewee Robinson, the Jewish kingpin Abraham 'Mr. O' Orlinsky, the heroin dealer West Indian Charlie, the corrupt cop Red Carney, the wife-beating singer Pretty Paul Baxter, the pimp Buttercup Jones and the brutal enforcer Randall Country Johnson. But Viper's Dream has a fast-paced vibe all its own, a story charged with suspense, intrigue and plot twists and spiced with violence and humour. It is also steeped in music. The Viper's story is intertwined with the history of jazz over a quarter century.

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (Little, Brown)

'Mrs. Fennessy, please go home.''And do what?' 'Whatever you do when you're home.''And then what?' 'Get up the next day and do it again.' She shakes her head. 'That's not living.''It is if you can find the small blessings. 'She smiles, but her eyes shine with agony. 'All my small blessings are gone.'In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of 'Southie', the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat's teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn't come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched - asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don't take kindly to any threat to their business. Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city's desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism.

The Second Murderer by Denise Mina (Vintage Publishing)

It's mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills.Wealthy twenty-two-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing. She's a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They've hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe's nemesis, too. The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that's before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found?

The Turnglass by Gareth Rubin (Simon & Schuster)

1880s England. On the bleak island of Ray, off the Essex coast, an idealistic young doctor, Simeon Lee, is called from London to treat his cousin, Parson Oliver Hawes, who is dying. Parson Hawes, who lives in the only house on the island - Turnglass House - believes he is being poisoned. And he points the finger at his sister-in-law, Florence. Florence was declared insane after killing Oliver's brother in a jealous rage and is now kept in a glass-walled apartment in Oliver's library. And the secret to how she came to be there is found in Oliver's tete-beche journal, where one side tells a very different story from the other. 1930s California. Celebrated author Oliver Tooke, the son of the state governor, is found dead in his writing hut off the coast of the family residence, Turnglass House. His friend Ken Kourian doesn't believe that Oliver would take his own life. His investigations lead him to the mysterious kidnapping of Oliver's brother when they were children, and the subsequent secret incarceration of his mother, Florence, in an asylum. But to discover the truth, Ken must decipher clues hidden in Oliver's final book, a tete-beche novel - which is about a young doctor called Simeon Lee.

The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Pan Macmillian)

'My father had spelt it out to me. Choice was a luxury I couldn't afford. This is your story, Red. You must tell it well.' A girl known only as Red, the daughter of a Cornish fortune-teller, travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient method: the Square of Sevens. When her father suddenly dies, Red becomes the ward of a gentleman scholar. Now raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendour of Bath, her fortune-telling is a delight to high society, but she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him? The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholemew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red's quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads into her grave danger.

Honourable mentions

Palace of Shadows by Ray Celestin

Resurrection Walk by Micheal Connelly

The Mantis by Kõtarõ Isaka

Moscow Exile by John Lawton

Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke

Prom Mum by Laura Lippman

Forthcoming Books from Headline

 January 2023

Dead Man's Creek is by Chris Hammer. Old bones sink - but secrets always rise to the surface. Newly-minted homicide detective Nell Buchanan returns to her hometown, annoyed at being assigned a decades-old murder - a 'file and forget'. But this is no ordinary cold case, her arrival provoking an unwelcome and threatening response from the small-town community. As more bodies are discovered, and she begins to question how well she truly knows those closest to her, Nell realises that finding the truth could prove more difficult - and dangerous - than she'd ever expected. The nearer Nell comes to uncovering the secrets of the past, the more treacherous her path becomes. Can she survive to root out the truth, and what price will she have to pay for it?

February 2023

Five years since his daughter's death. Now it's happening again. Dylan Kasper is stuck. Living in self-imposed reclusion from his former life in the police, he's been in a downward spiral since his daughter's death five years ago. All that changes when the son of an esteemed professor jumps under an inner-city train. His former colleagues call it suicide, but Kasper knows different. This has all happened before - to him, and his dead daughter. Taking on the investigation himself, Kasper soon realises the terrible trouble young Tommy had found himself in. With nowhere to run, he thought suicide was the only way to keep his family safe. But before long, Kasper's investigation makes him target number one. Can he keep his demons in check and stay alive long enough to bring those responsible to justice? The Next To Die is by Elliot Sweeney.

Red Dirt Road is by S R White. One outback town. Two puzzling murders. Fifty suspects.  In Unamurra, a drought-scarred, one-pub town deep in the outback, two men are savagely murdered a month apart - their bodies elaborately arranged like angels. With no witnesses, no obvious motives and no apparent connections between the killings, how can lone police officer Detective Dana Russo - flown in from hundreds of kilometres away - possibly solve such a baffling, brutal case? Met with silence and suspicion from locals who live by their own set of rules, Dana must take over a stalled investigation with only a week to make progress. But with a murderer hiding in plain sight, and the parched days rapidly passing, Dana is determined to uncover the shocking secrets of this forgotten town - a place where anyone could be a killer.

BERLIN. JANUARY 1941. Evil cannot bring about good . . . After Germany's invasion of Poland, the world is holding its breath and hoping for peace. At home, the Nazi Party's hold on power is absolute. One freezing night, an SS doctor and his wife return from an evening mingling with their fellow Nazis at the concert hall. By the time the sun rises, the doctor will be lying lifeless in a pool of blood. Was it murder or suicide? Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is told that under no circumstances should he investigate. The doctor's widow, however, is convinced her husband was the target of a hit. But why would anyone murder an apparently obscure doctor? Compelled to dig deeper, Schenke learns of the mysterious death of a child. The cases seem unconnected, but soon chilling links begin to emerge that point to a terrifying secret. Even in times of war, under a ruthless regime, there are places in hell no man should ever enter. And Schenke fears he may not return alive . . . Dead of Night is by Simon Scarrow.

Welcome to The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim. Who hasn't wondered for a split second what the world would be like the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you've probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this "Poison Ivy League" college-its location unknown to even those who study there-is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate...and where one's mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live. Prepare for an education you'll never forget. A delightful mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer is by Rupert Holmes and will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you'll ever read.

March 2023

The last thing Anna needs is a baby. Abandoned, adopted and living hand to mouth, she never dreamt of having a real family. But when she meets her birth mother, everything changes - because the same day, she learns she's going to be a mother too. Marlene is eccentric, generous with her considerable fortune and overjoyed to become a grandmother. Anna's living the dream. But is it her dream, or someone else's? Now she will have to decide what she's willing to sacrifice for a real family - her future, her freedom, even her unborn child. Mother's Day is by Abigail Burdess.

Cold Blooded Liar is by Karen Rose. Colton Driscoll is a compulsive liar. But there's one thing his psychologist Sam Reeves fears he is telling the truth about: murder. Concerned his patient has committed an awful crime and that the life of another girl could be under threat, Sam calls in an anonymous tip to the San Diego Police Department. Detective Kit McKittrick works homicide in the hope that one day she will find out what happened to her foster sister, Wren. When a tip comes in from an anonymous caller it leads her to the body of a girl whose murder has the hallmarks of a serial killer that has been at large for almost twenty years. It also leads her to the source of the information: Dr Sam Reeves. Will Kit be able to crack the cold case in time to stop another murder being committed? And is Sam Reeves being a concerned citizen trying to help, or is there another more sinister reason he has so much information?

April 2023

After his son is convicted of murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt. Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend-or in some cases, destroy it. Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor.

Rivers of Treason is by K J Maitland. From the stark Yorkshire landscape to the dark underbelly of Jacobean London, Daniel Pursglove's new mission sees him fall prey to a ruthless copycat killer... London, 1607. As dawn breaks, Daniel Pursglove rides north, away from the watchful eye of the King and his spies. He returns, disguised, to his childhood home in Yorkshire - with his own score to settle. The locals have little reason to trust a prying stranger, and those who remember Daniel do so with contempt. When a body is found with rope burns about the neck, Daniel falls under suspicion. On the run, across the country, he is pursued by a ruthless killer whose victims all share the same gallows mark. Are these the crimes of someone with a cruel personal vendetta - or has Daniel become embroiled in a bigger, and far more sinister, conspiracy? A new river of treason is rising, flowing from the fields of Yorkshire right to the heart of the King's court . . .

In The Red Hotel: The Untold Story of Stalin's Disinformation War by Alan Philps he sets out the way Stalin created his own reality by constraining and muzzling the British and American reporters covering the eastern front during the war and forcing them to reproduce kremlin propaganda. War correspondents were both bullied and pampered in a gilded cage of the Metropol Hotel. They enjoyed lavish supplies of caviar and had their choice of young women to employ as translators and to share their beds. While some of these translators turned journalists into robotic conveyors of Kremlin propaganda, others were brave secret dissenters who whispered to reporters the reality of Soviet life and were punished with sentences in the Gulag. Through the use of British archives and Russian sources, the story of the role of the women of the Metropol Hotel and the foreign reporters they worked with is told for the first time. With a riveting narrative very much in the same wheelhouse as Ben McIntyre's Agent Sonya this revelatory story will finally lift the lid on Stalin's operation to muzzle and control what the western allies' writers and foreign correspondents knew of his regime's policies to prosecute the war against Hitler's rampaging armies from June 1941 onwards.

May 2023

After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus Crown returns home to Charon County, land of moonshine and cornbread, fist fights and honeysuckle. Seeing his hometown struggling with a bigoted police force inspires him to run for sheriff. He wins, and becomes the first Black sheriff in the history of the county. Then a year to the day after his election, a young Black man is fatally shot by Titus's deputies. Titus pledges to follow the truth wherever it leads. But no one expected he would unearth a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. Now, Titus must pull off the impossible: stay true to his instincts, prevent outright panic, and investigate a shocking crime in a small town where everyone knows everyone yet secrets flourish. All while also breaking up backroads bar fights and being forced to protect racist Confederate pride marchers. For a Black man wearing a police uniform in the American South, that's no easy feat. But Charon is Titus's home and his heart, and he won't let the darkness overtake it. Even as it threatens to consume him... All The Sinners Bleed is by S A Cosby.

When the son of a feared Istanbul gang leader is accused of murdering his gypsy girlfriend, feelings of vengeance are ignited amongst rival Turkish gangs. But the son suffers from a terrible psychosis, whereby he constantly sees people's doubles, and Inspector Suleyman and his team are about to discover that there is a long list of suspects who might have framed him for a murder he didn't commit. Double Illusion is by Barbara Nadel.

June 2023

My Murder is by Katie Williams. Lou has been murdered. She was the fifth victim of the serial killer Edward Early. A young wife and new mother, Lou's death outraged a public breathlessly following the story of the serial murders. Lou has been cloned. Along with Early's other four victims, Lou has been brought back to life by the government-funded replication commission. The women gather at a weekly support group, helping each other to navigate a society obsessed with their very existence. Lou has been lied to. But when Lou agrees to help fellow murder victim Fern secure a visit with Edward Early, a shocking revelation causes Lou to investigate the events around her death and question everything she thought she knew about her murder. Can she finally uncover the truth?