Keeping Up with Easter

After stepping away from blogging for a few days, in order to complete a new CrimeReads piece (more about that later), I now find myself woefully behind in locating and publicizing “Best Crime Fiction of 2022” rolls. Fortunately, George Easter, the editor of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine has stayed hot on the beat. I won’t duplicate his work, but I want to share with readers a couple of new lists.

Below, for instance, are critic Jake Kerridge’s selections for The Daily Telegraph (his original, paywall-protected article is here; Easter’s shorthand version is here):

• Queen High, by C.J. Carey (Quercus)
• Lady Joker, Volume 1, by Kaoru Takamura (Baskerville)
• A Heart Full of Headstones, by Ian Rankin (Orion)
• A Season in Exile, by Oliver Harris (Little, Brown)
• The Bullet That Missed, by Richard Osman (Viking)
• Murder Before Evensong, by Reverend Richard Coles (Weidenfeld
& Nicolson)
• The Twyford Code, by Janice Hallett (Viper)
• The Companion, by Lesley Thomson (Head of Zeus)
• The Perfect Crime, edited by Vaseem Khan and Maxim Jakubowski (HarperCollins)
• The Ink Black Heart, by Robert Galbraith (Sphere)

The only one of these that passed clean by my radar was A Season in Exile. I’m currently enjoying Queen High, the sequel to 2021’s Widowland, both written under a nom de plume by Jane Thynne (who was married to author Philip Kerr until his passing in 2018).

Meanwhile, the New York Public Library has released its own rundown of crime/mystery favorites, all 10 of which were penned by women:

• The Appeal, by Janice Hallett (Atria)
• I’ll Be You, by Janelle Brown (Random House)
• Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
• Like a Sister, by Kellye Garrett (Mulholland)
• Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies, by Misha Popp (Crooked Lane)
• Never Name the Dead, by D.M. Rowell (Crooked Lane)
• Shutter, by Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime)
• Stay Awake, by Megan Goldin (St. Martin’s Press)
• You’re Invited, by Amanda Jayatissa (Berkley)

Interested in still more “best of” inventories? Then try this quartet:

She Reads Best Mystery/Thriller of 2022
Audible Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2022
Indigo Top 10 Best Thrillers of 2022 (Canada)
Booktopia Best Crime and Thrillers 2022 (Australia)

Finally, Easter shares his thoughts—here—on the 2022 choices thus far.