Thoroughness Reigns Supreme

My colleague in tracking this year’s “best crime fiction of 2023” nominations, George Easter of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, has now compiled the conflicting results from 111 separate inventories. “From those,” he explains, “I tallied the number of times certain titles were mentioned on those lists. This is an attempt to find some consensus on what exactly are the best mysteries, crime novels and thrillers of the year 2023.”

The top vote-getter overall? S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed (Flatiron), which featured on 50 of the lists under study (and has dominated these sorts of contests in three out of the last four years). Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies (Harper) came in second place with 34 mentions. Rounding out the top five are Mick Herron’s The Secret Hours (Soho Crime), 29; Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women (Simon & Schuster), 27; and a tie—with 24 votes apiece—between Richard Osman’s The Last Devil to Die (Viking) and India-born author Deepti Kapoor’s debut novel, Age of Vice (Riverhead).

Click here to see the full results of Easter’s tallying.

Also revealing their 2023 book biases before the year comes abruptly to an end are Sandra Mangan and Garrick Webster, both with the excellent British site Crime Fiction Lover; Marilyn Brooks, who writes Marilyn’s Mystery Reads; Brad Friedman of Ah Sweet Mystery; The Invisible Event’s Jim Noy; and Ayo Onatade names her favorite crime-related non-fiction works of 2023 in this post.

UPDATE: Blogger Jerry House has assembled this long inventory of all the titles recommended on 90 different “year’s best” lists of crime and mysteries books. Scroll down to find the start of that register.