To Each His Own

I agree with Peter Guttridge’s statement in today’s issue of The Guardian that “Crime fiction has had a great year ...” In fact, the better-than-average reads have been so numerous in 2007, that I’ve had a difficult time narrowing down my ist of favorites, and must therefore put off announcing them until later this week. For now, consider Guttridge’s own picks, which include Natasha Cooper’s A Greater Evil, Peter Robinson’s Friend of the Devil, and Michael Norman’s The Commission. Meanwhile, over at the London Times, Peter Millar tots up his favorite thrillers from the last 12 months, a rundown on which we find not only Robert Harris’ The Ghost and Deon Meyer’s Devil’s Peak, but also Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s The Painter of Battles, a book that isn’t scheduled for release in the States until early next month.

Had it not been for a mention in B.V. Lawson’s blog, In Reference to Murder, I might have missed The Christian Science Monitor’s tally of its favorite thrillers of 2007, which includes Martin Cruz Smith’s Stalin’s Ghost, Walter Mosley’s Blind Faith, and a book that somehow passed me by entirely, Mischa Berlinski’s Fieldwork. And the Web site of Deadly Pleasures magazine features its lengthy list of crime and mystery novels that “are generally considered to be among the best of the year.” Just looking through that compilation leaves me with a sense that I’ve barely appreciated what 2007 has had to offer, and yet it’s time to move on to 2008. Sigh ...