We’re Not Yet Done with 2018

New Year’s Day has come and gone, but the critical choices for “best crime fiction of 2018” continue to roll in.

MysteryPeople’s Scott Montgomery reveals his 10 favorites, which include Martin Limón’s The Line, William Boyle’s The Lonely Witness, and Ken Bruen’s In the Galway Silence. David Nemeth, author of the blog Unlawful Acts, names Chris Offut’s Country Dark as his “Book of the Year,” but also gives thumbs-up to J.J. Hensley’s Bolt Action Remedy, Joe Clifford’s Broken Ground, Patricia Abbott’s I Bring Sorrow, and other works. On their resource site, Stop, You’re Killing Me!, Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich select their 30 preferred crime- and mystery-fiction debut novels from last year. Author-blogger Dana King sings the praises of works new and old, including Tom Pitts’ 101, Johnny Shaw’s Plaster City, and Joseph Wambaugh’s 1975 novel, The Choirboys. Aussie blogger Kerrie Smith picks 25 books as her “best reads in 2018.” Of the 101 (!) books Rob Kitchin consumed last year, he offers particular applause to 10 of them. In order to develop his “Best in Print” rundown,. C.J. Bunce of the Borg blog draws largely from the fields of science fiction and comic books, but he names Killing Town, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, as “Best Retro Read” of 2018, and Hard Case Crime’s reprint of Donald E. Westlake’s Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner as his “Most Fun Read of the Year.”

Meanwhile, Gravetapping’s Ben Boulden identifies his favorite mystery short stories of 2018; and Will Errickson names his top eight horror-fiction reads of last year. Sandra Seamans rounds up the state of crime-fiction short-story markets over the last 12 months. And check out Art of the Title’s list of what it says were the top 10 movie and TV main title sequences in 2018, which features the “exhilarating” opening from the German boob-tube series Babylon Berlin.

READ MORE: “2018: It’s a Wrap,” by Guy Savage (His Futile His
Futile Preoccupations …).