Forshaw’s Fortunate 13

British critic and author Barry Forshaw has come out with two completely different rundowns of what he believes are the most notable crime novels released in 2015. His first selection--eight books in total--was published in The Independent this last week. You can read more about them at the link, but here are the titles:

• The Girl Who Wasn’t There, by Ferdinand von Schirach
(Little, Brown)
• The Kind Worth Killing, by Peter Swanson (Faber and Faber)
• Camille, by Pierre Lemaitre (Quercus)
• Pleasantville, by Attica Locke (Serpent’s Tail)
• Snowblind, by Ragnar Jónasson (Orenda)
• Life or Death, by Michael Robotham (Sphere)
• Dark Corners, “the final novel by the late Ruth Rendell” (Hutchinson)

In addition, Forshaw recommends a biography: “The life of one of the great golden age crime writers is granted a forensic examination in Josephine Tey (Sandstone, £19.99) by Jennifer Morag Henderson, who has an unusual take on Tey’s much-disputed sexuality.”

Meanwhile, in The Financial Times (a story hidden inconveniently behind a paywall) Forshaw picks five other works as the “top crime reads of 2015.” They are as follows:

• Tell No Tales, by Eva Dolan (Harvill Secker)
• The Killing of Bobbi Lomax, by Cal Moriarty (Faber and Faber)
• Icarus, by Deon Myer (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Mulberry Bush, by Charles McCarry (Head of Zeus)
• Wolf Winter, by Cecilia Ekbäck (Hodder & Stoughton)

What’s most interesting about these lists, at least from my perspective, are the touted works that haven’t yet been published in the States, including von Schirach’s The Girl Who Wasn’t There, Jónasson’s Snowblind, and Dolan’s Tell No Tales. I guess I’ll just have to direct the people generous enough to give me gifts during the holidays to purchase those works from the UK.