And In Summation ...

Had it not been for the unexpected failure of my office technology, I would have posted about many things on this page before or immediately after the new year dawned. Among those was Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine editor George Easter’s “best of the best” list. As he explains, he collected 89 year-end lists of the “best” crime, mystery, and thriller fiction of 2025. “Then,” he says, “I collated the lists to find out which books appeared the most on those lists. This is my attempt to find some consensus in a world of arbitrary opinion.”

He wound up with a fairly diverse roster of 28 most-favored titles, nine of which, he points out, “are on my personal best list.” The top vote-getter was S.A. Cosby’s King of Ashes (with 32 appearances among best-of-the-year selections), followed by Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune (27), Mick Herron’s Clown Town and Lisa Jewell’s Don’t Let Him In (both with 18), Amity Gaige’s Heartwood (16), Louise Hegarty’s Fair Play and Louise Penny’s The Black Wolf (both winning 15 endorsements), Holly Jackson’s Not Quite Dead Yet and Belinda Bauer’s The Impossible Thing (each amassing 14), and Lou Berney’s Crooks (with 13). The remaining 18 “bests” can all be found here.