Competing for Top of the Heap

Before I post The Rap Sheet’s second “Favorite Crime Fiction of 2017” list, let me point you toward some other fine year’s-end choices being made elsewhere on the Web. The Real Book Spy, for instance, selects what it says are the best thrillers of the year, in a variety of subcategories. Critics with Crime Fiction Lover are in the midst of rolling out their individual preferences. For The Irish Times, novelists Declan Burke and Declan Hughes identify “The 20 Best Crime Books of 2017,” not all of which were written by Irish authors … or even by Irish authors named Declan. In his blog, A Couple of Pages, Jon Page clues us in to his “Top 5 Reads of 2017,” which include Dennis Lehane’s Since We Fell. And the Strand Magazine blog carries AudioFile’s “Best Mystery & Suspense Audiobooks” picks.