45 Reasons to Go on Living

Yeah, yeah, I know: 2009 has almost a month yet to go, and if you’re like me, you’re still reading books that were published earlier this year. At a time when folks are contemplating which novels in print they can wrap up and hand out for the holidays, is it really appropriate to begin talking about works of crime-fiction that won’t be available in stores for weeks, or even months? Well, of course it is. Since when did the fact that your to-be-read pile is already high enough to justify attaching aircraft warning beacons stop you from coveting books not yet in print?

Just to whet your appetite for what’s coming down the pike in 2010, I trolled today through several sites that compile lists of soon-to-be-published crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. For new U.S. releases, I turned primarily to Ashley McConnell’s The Bloodstained Bookshelf and the new hardcover releases page at Stop, You’re Killing Me! It seems that, among the treats we can all look forward to in the near future are the American version of Martin Edwards’ Dancing for the Hangman (December); Jonathan Gash’s new Lovejoy novel, Faces in the Pool (December); Alone, by Loren D. Estleman (December); I, Sniper, by Stephen Hunter (December); Paganini’s Ghost, by Paul Adam (January); The Godfather of Kathmandu, by John Burdett (January); Skin, by Mo Hayder (January); The First Rule, by Robert Crais (January); The Lock Artist, by Steve Hamilton (January); Gone ’til November, by Wallace Stroby (January); Requiem in Vienna, by J. Sydney Jones (January); Stuart M. Kaminsky’s last Porfiry Rostnikov novel, A Whisper to the Living (January); City of Dragons, by Kelli Stanley (February); Print the Legend, by Craig McDonald (February); A Night Too Dark, by Dana Stabenow (February); Let It Ride, by John McFetridge (February); The Fourth Assassin, by Matt Beynon Rees (February); Do They Know I’m Running? by David Corbett (March); Blood Hina, by Naomi Hirahara (March); The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, by Alan Bradley (March); The Spellmans Strike Again, by Lisa Lutz (March); Martin Cruz Smith’s new Arkady Renko novel, The Golden Mile (March); The Bad Kitty Lounge, by Michael Wiley (March); The Black Cat, by Martha Grimes (April); Eight for Eternity, by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer (April); and A River in the Sky, by Elizabeth Peters (March).

In search of forthcoming British titles of note, I surfed over to the Future Releases section of Karen Meek’s Euro Crime site, and then picked up a few more ideas from the Web pages of London’s Goldsboro Books. They turned me on to A Murder on London Bridge, by Susanna Gregory (December); Bad Penny Blues, by Cathi Unsworth (December); A Question of Motive, by Roderic Jeffries (December); The Last 10 Seconds, by Simon Kernick (January); Loss, by Tony Black (January); The Man from Beijing, by Henning Mankell (January); Deadly Communion, by Frank Tallis (January); Death by Design, by Barbara Nadel (January); Blue Lightning, by Ann Cleeves (February); Deathwatch, by Jim Kelly (February); The Detective Branch, by Andrew Pepper (February); The Snowman, by Jo Nesbø (March); 61 Hours, by Lee Child (March); A Room Swept White, by Sophie Hannah (March); Stephen Booth’s seventh Ben Cooper/Diane Fry mystery, Lost River (April); Free Country, by Jeremy Duns (April); The Bulgarian Claimant, by Jason Goodwin (April); The City of Lost Girls, by Declan Hughes (April); and R.N. Morris’ third Porfiry Petrovich investigation, A Razor Wrapped in Silk (April).

Whew! I haven’t even seen most of these novels, much less been able to crack their spines, and I’m already feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of having to read them.