Crime on My Hands

In the best cases, technology can make things easier. But when something goes wrong, coping with the hurdles technology may present becomes a frustration. January Magazine’s “Best Books of 2006” feature has temporarily fallen victim to high-tech snafus. The plan was to post that feature earlier this week, but computer problems and the unexpected need to replace our old Web site management program have caused a delay in that schedule. Editor Linda L. Richards (bless her techy heart) is overcoming the complications even as I write these words, and with any luck, our mammoth package of mini-reviews should be posted later today, or perhaps early tomorrow sometime.

Meanwhile, I’ll take advantage of this lull to reveal (in alphabetical order) my own top-10 list of crime-fiction picks from the last year. Some of these novels I have written about for the “best of” package, but others are critiqued by my fellow January/Rap Sheet critics:

• The Blonde, by Duane Swierczcynski (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• Critique of Criminal Reason, by Michael Gregorio (Faber and Faber UK)
• The Hidden Assassins, by Robert Wilson (HarperCollins UK)
• The Interpretation of Murder, by Jeb Rubenfeld (Headline Review UK)
• The Night Gardener, by George Pelecanos (Little, Brown and Company)
• The One from the Other, by Philip Kerr (Marian Wood/G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
• The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard (HarperCollins)
• Red Sky Lament, by Edward Wright (Orion UK)
• Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell (Little, Brown and Company)
• The Wrong Kind of Blood, by Declan Hughes (Simon & Schuster)

This wasn’t a terrific year for fiction, in general; but it was a particularly satisfying 12 months of mystery and crime fiction offerings. I had a devil of a time paring my selections down to 10. Had I allowed myself to exceed that limit, I’d also have chosen A Piece of My Heart, by Peter Robinson; Ratcatcher, by James McGee; Holmes on the Range, by Steve Hockensmith; Crippen, by John Boyne; and The Railway Viaduct, by Edward Marston. All of these provided me with great delight, and sometimes overwhelming anticipation, throughout 2006.