There’s Simply No Hope of Consensus

With just a week to go now before Christmas, we’re finally nearing the end of publications issuing their “best books of 2021” rolls.

CrimeReads is out with two new subgenre selections: “The Best International Crime Novels of 2021” and “The Best Noir Fiction of 2021.” Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper promotes what it says are the best thrillers released over the last 12 months. During the course of an interesting interview with Goodreads, author Kellye Garrett (Hollywood Homicide, Like a Sister) reveals five of her favorite 2021 mysteries, including one that completely escaped my radar, Amita Murray’s cozyish Arya Winters and the Tiramisu of Death.

Reviewer and Crime Time FM podcast host by Paul Burke helps lead Crime Fiction Lover’s multipart coverage of “bests” with this top-five list that he says “reflects some to the diversity the genre encompasses.” And the digital weekly Air Mail, co-founded by former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, has produced an “Eight Best Mystery Books of 2021” selection that includes Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot, Sarah Moss’ Summerwater, and Linwood Barclay’s Find You First.

Oh, and former U.S. President Barack Obama’s favorite reads of the year list includes, among its 23 titles, one crime novel: Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle.