#7: Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson

A young man saves an art dealer from drowning, only to become unnaturally interested in his subsequent life, in Antoine Wilson's chilly tale of obsession Mouth to Mouth.

Wilson writes one of my favorite styles of noir here, the unreliable narrator, but frames it at a curious remove; the narrator is talking to another character he comes across in an airport lounge, and tells the rather eye-opening story of how he became an art dealer in his own right.  To me it was an odd framing device that takes a little of the punch away.

But an enigmatic ending really sticks the landing, after several surprises along the way.

I bought this on a recommendation from a bookseller in England and read it on the plane back from a trip there.  Solid thriller.

#6: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Anne is convinced to call off an engagement, but years later--still unmarried--gets a second chance with Captain Wentworth in Jane Austen's mature, final work Persuasion.

Austen seems like an unusual read in the midst of westerns and crime novels, but I am helping my wife with an English field study and wanted to read along with the college class.  This one takes place in Bath, one of the stops on the field study.

Austen is a smart, literate writer and her novels are considered peerless in terms of writing about British society and 19th-Century relationships.  Recommended for any reader.

I listened to a good audiobook read on loan from the New Castle-Henry County Library in New Castle, Indiana.

#5: The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux

A North Korean teen stumbles upon a Dungeons and Dragons book left behind by a visiting delegation; playing the game becomes both dangerous and liberating in Marcel Theroux's The Sorcerer of Pyongyang.

The novel follows the teenager on into college and then adulthood, with the book he calls "The House of Possibility" factoring heavily into his adventures along the way.

I am a longtime D&D player so was definitely predisposed to liking this novel, but it is a solid literary read for anyone and a deep dive into North Korean culture. Recommended.

I checked this out from the New Castle-Henry County Memorial Library in New Castle, Indiana.

#4: One More for the Road by Larry Kent

New York P.I. Larry Kent swings into action knocking out a slavery ring in this entry in the long-running series by Australian author Desmond Dunn, One More for the Road.

This series came out as a response to the Carter Brown series, another Australian writing rat-a-tat style detective novels with hot .45s and cold dames, and spawned several hundred entries.

Dunn delivers about what you would expect, with hard-boiled beats and a lack of finely-shaded observations on gender, race, and the leading social issues of the day.  Most surprisingly, Kent is a Viet Nam vet, although the story reads with more of a 40s-50s vibe.

Fun for those who like this kind of pulp.  

I read this one quickly from my beloved Kindle.

#3: An Honest Living by Dwyer Murphy

The world of rare book collecting makes a surprising beat for a private investigator in early 2000s New York, in Dwyer Murphy's debut noir An Honest Living.

In true noir fashion, a mysterious woman (who isn't all she seems) sends our tarnished angel protagonist on the prowl for some possibly stolen works, only to stumble onto a much larger scheme.

Murphy hits all of the noir beats spot on, but also brings echoes of literary fiction to the proceedings in a remarkably sure-handed way.  

Clever and highly readable throughout and probably my first recommendation for 2023.

 

#2: The It Girl by Ruth Ware

April and Hannah are Oxford roommates, one vivacious and fun and one more serious; when the former is murdered by a staff member in the dorm, the terrible case seems open and shut.  But ten years later, after the man's death in prison, evidence points in a different direction in Ruth Ware's The It Girl.

Hannah, the surviving roommate, has married her college sweetheart and is expecting a baby; but that doesn't deter her from teaming up with Hannah's younger sister and going back to find their old friend group a decade later.

Very solid mystery, told in alternating chapters set in the past and the present, with lots of twists and turns and puzzle pieces locking into place.  

Ware is one of my favorite contemporary writers because she doesn't ever write the same book twice and dabbles in a lot of mystery subgenres.  This one satisfies down to the last surprise.

I listened to a good audiobook read on loan from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.

#1: The Next Time I Die by Jason Starr

 A good-hearted but hard-luck lawyer with a spiraling personal life intervenes in a mugging, only to wake up in a better world where he has been a worse person in Jason Starr's The Next Time I Die.

Starr writes a classic unreliable narrator noir with a parallel worlds twist.  Much like a previous work, Cold Caller, things go from bad to worse to murderous as the lawyer tries to untangle himself from the mess another version of himself got him into.

Starr writes a breakneck genre-bender that doubles down on the nihilism towards the end, making it an offbeat work.  This novel came out through the Hard Case Crime line, a reliable source of reading materials for quite a few years.

I checked this one out from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library and read it quickly.

Top Reads of 2022

 I didn't quite make my goal of reading 50 books in 2022, what with my beloved dog dying, a health scare, my son's wedding, shooting a new movie, and a new granddaughter (I think in that order), but a handful I did read that I can recommend to anybody.

THE EMPLOYEES by Olga Ravn

 SLEEPWALK by Dan Chaon

THE HEAP by Sean Adams

PATRICIA WANTS TO CUDDLE by Samantha Allen

Enjoy!  Hope you find something to like.

#43: Gun Protege by Shad Denver

An aging sheriff abruptly retires, and a town leader with a strong hand appoints an inexperienced clerk as the new sheriff; unfortunately, a pair of vengeance-minded brothers are heading their way in Shad Denver's Gun Protege.

I stumbled across a small collection of the hard-to-find Australian paperback Cleveland Westerns and have been reading them steadily.  I thought they were by a whole bunch of different authors, but several I picked up in a row have actually been by the prolific Desmond Robert Dunn, under various names.

Again Dunn writes an above-average western with a few surprises, including the secret motivation of the retired sheriff (albeit overall sharing a few similarities with another Dunn western I read recently, Danton's Day).

Cleveland Westerns are fast reads but often lightly sketched in; this "Shad Denver" one has a bit more to offer.  Enjoyable.

#42: Brood X by Joshua Dysart

In 1950s Indiana, a group of itinerant workers are brought to a remote woods to dig a bomb shelter; but when they unearth a once-in-a-lifetime brood of cicadas, they begin dying one by one in Joshua Dysart's Brood X.

Dysart is primarily a comic-book writer, and this slender volume of pulp fiction comes from TKO Rogue, an imprint of TKO Comics.  

It seems natural, then, that the novel is a little light on plotting and characterizations (and includes a few illustrations), but is eminently readable and very propulsive, rocketing to a somewhat surprising ending.

Dysart has a steady hand with the proceedings, and this was a good, light one to read over Christmas Break, after receiving it for the holidays.

#41: Shifty's Boys by Chris Offutt

A tough military policeman, currently stateside because of an injury, finds navigating the backwoods and hollers of his rural home as difficult as anything he's experienced in Chris Offutt's Shifty's Boys.

Offutt's follow-up to The Killing Hills finds our tarnished protagonist trying to manage his relationship with his sister (the local sheriff) as well as a promise to a local drug lord to look into the death of her son, a heroin dealer, whose murder law enforcement feels is best left alone.

Another chewy serving of tough Kentucky noir, with sure-handed characters and blistering action.  Really a great new contemporary series.

I checked this out from the Henry County-New Castle Public Library in New Castle, Indiana and read it quickly.  

#40: Space Invaders by Nona Fernández

 As the Pinochet era in Chile winds to a close, a group of young friends think about the mysterious loss of a classmate in Nona Fernandez's Space Invaders.  

I've read several novels that take place in Chile during its dictatorship and disappearances, but Fernandez brings a more baroque, dreamy storytelling in stark contrast to the terrors of that era.

Knowing a little of the history of this period definitely makes the novel unsettling when you can read between the lines of a disappearance told through the perspectives of various children.

A solid, slender read and recommended for those who appreciate literature of this kind.

#39: Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen

The four finalists from a dating show are wrapping up production on a remote island, not realizing the island's dark history, in Samantha Allen's Patricia Wants to Cuddle.

The Patricia of the title is not one of the contestants (from a Bachelor-type show), but a female sasquatch who has an intimate connection to the vacation town built there.

A pretty wild mash-up of reality television, sexual politics, and creeping horror, Allen has created a one-of-a-kind novel that transcends multiple genre boundaries.

Recommended to any reader who wants to read something fresh and original.  Interested to see more from Allen.

I got this from the Henry County-New Castle Public Library in New Castle, Indiana and read it quickly.

#38: Trail 3 South by Glenn Murrell

A young man from a poor background in a frontier town wants nothing more than to be a Wells Fargo driver; but when he gets a chance he is robbed the first time out, leading him on a danger-filled trail to recover the loot in Glenn Murrell's Trail 3 South.

This seeming country bumpkin has secretly been honing his formidable gunfighting skills, leading to several surprises along the way.  He matches wits with a deadly outlaw gang as well as stands against the prejudices of the town.

I was happy to find out this Cleveland Western was written by Leonard Meares, possibly best known as "Marshall Grover," the author of two top-flight western series, "Nevada Jim" and "Larry and Streak."

Nevada Jim is a hard-nosed gun-hand with his own code, and Larry and Streak are a pair of laconic cowpokes with lightning-fast gun skills but a very easy-going attitude.  The first is pretty sober and the second runs more to comedy, with this non-series entry landing somewhere in between.

I think Meares is one of the better writers in the prolific Cleveland stable, as this entry is more expansive in storytelling, and the characters more colorful, than in some of the offerings.

I got this in a big lot of Cleveland Westerns and read it quickly.

#37: Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon

Saturday Night Live's Molly Shannon started from humble, frequently tragic roots in Cleveland, but remains sunny on her rise to stardom, in her autobiography Hello Molly!

Her father kills her mother and other family members in a car accident when Shannon is a child, which sets the stage for a difficult relationship from then on.  Even in good times, her father's oversized personality, alcohol consumption, and secretive private life wreak havoc on Shannon's ambitions.

I listened to the audiobook version, read by Shannon in rather cheery fashion, even as she described all of her childhood trauma as well as her youthful penchant for lying, stealing, and other petty crimes.

There's probably been a lot of therapy over the years to be able to portray it all so casually, but as a listener I was genuinely surprised by how revealing the portrayal of her family is.  Very interesting for those who have followed her career.

I listened to this audiobook on loan from the Henry County-New Castle Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.

#36: Jury Seven by Brett Iverson

 A man comes back to a frontier town to claim his bride, only to find she has married another man; more inconveniently still, an outlaw gang trying to find a doctor for their wounded leader blows in and kidnaps her and some other women.  Now it's up to a ragtag bunch of townsmen and lawmen to rescue them in Brett Iverson's Jury Seven.

This is another fast-moving Cleveland Western I plucked off a stack and read on a camping trip, and it came to my surprise that this one was also written by Desmond Dunn (author of the "Gunn Halliday" novel I just finished).  Dunn was one of those hard-working pulpsters who cranked and cranked Westerns and detective novels for the apparently hungry Australian reader.

The "Jury Seven" of the title are seven men who decide to risk their lives raiding a courthouse where the outlaw gang--currently feuding as their leader lies dying--is holed up with the town's wives and daughters.  There are a couple of tough lawmen--also feuding--a reluctant gun-hand, and, as in many westerns, a coward who becomes a man when he has to.

It's a lot of plotting for a pretty slender western, but Iverson keeps the plot gears all meshing and throws in vivid characters.

Really enjoying Desmond Dunn under his various names and will look for more of his work.

#35: Danton's Day by Gunn Halliday

 An outlaw gang wants revenge on a small-town sheriff, but he skips town and leaves a hot-headed young deputy, and a burned-out former lawman, to take on the gang in Gunn Halliday's Danton's Day.

As one might suspect, "Gunn Halliday" is somebody else, in this case one of those many crazily prolific Australian writers Cleveland Publishing kept seeming to find; in this case Desmond Dunn, who wrote under a bushel of names and genres.

To me, this was an unusually robust Cleveland Western, as they are generally slender volumes with a single story arc sketched in.  Here we find a number of colorful characters and more intricate plot, still resolving about where you'd think, with the burned-out lawman finding the strength to coach the younger deputy into standing and fighting.

Halliday finds a way to make Danton's Day pop more than the average western, thus making me want to look for more from him.

I picked this out from a big stack of Cleveland Westerns I lucked into and read it quickly on a camping trip.

#34: Cold Caller by Jason Starr

A telemarketer in bad old 90s New York tries to climb the corporate ladder, while the pressure has his mind unraveling at the same time, in Jason Starr's Cold Caller.

Starr is a versatile thriller/noir writer who I have enjoyed over the years; I came across his initial novel for my beloved Kindle and scooped it up.

The protagonist is a classic unreliable narrator, who can't understand why a spontaneous murder is throwing a wrench in his plans.  His unplanned attack on a prostitute, and his live-in girlfriend's growing suspicions,  become increasingly inconvenient to him as well.

Cold Caller keeps spiraling into a darker and colder place until it hits bottom with a sobering, but necessary, denouement.

I read this one quickly.  Good for genre fans and fans of Starr.

#33: The Employees by Olga Ravn

A deep-space ship on an expedition to a far-off planet, with a crew of humans and robots, gathers alien objects from the planet's surface and begin interacting with them, for good and for ill, in Olga Ravn's The Employees.

What could be a plot lifted from lantern-jawed 40s pulp is given a unique spin by Danish author Ravn, who presents the story in a elliptical way through memos, interviews, and other documents being transmitted among colleagues on the ship.  It's like a version of The Office as told by The Strugatsky Brothers.  If that resonates with you, this is your jam.

The Employees is a slender read, but really full of ideas for anyone who spends the time reading it carefully.  I've thought about it a lot since and have recommended it to several people who enjoy mind-bending science fiction.

I checked this out from the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it quickly.

#32: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

The sound of a violin seems to be disrupting space and time, sending a time travel agent from the far future into various eras to understand how it has happened, in Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility.

Mandel's Station Eleven is one of my favorite reads of the last few years, and her follow-up The Glass Hotel, was not its equal but worth reading as well; curiously, this volume kind of makes it a trilogy.

I was always curious why characters from Station Eleven showed up in The Glass Hotel, but in entirely different situations, including being alive when they were dead and so on.  In a strangely tangential way this novel tries to explain that, by again featuring some of the same characters, with their lives changed by this ripple in time.

That being said, Sea of Tranquility can be read without the other novels as more of a meditation on the impact of random encounters, small decisions, and passing friendships on the scope of someone's life.  

Again doesn't reach the heights of Station Eleven, but thoughtful and readable, and I continue to look forward to her new work.

I purchased this one and read it quickly, then passed it on to interested friends.

#31: Bring Me His Scalp! by John Benteen

Jim Sundance, the product of a white father and a Cheyenne mother, spends his time trying to negotiate peace between those two worlds; but when a mysterious organization puts a high bounty on his head to stop him, all hell breaks loose in John Benteen's Bring Me His Scalp!

Benteen was really Ben Haas, who was fortunate to have two great series characters--Sundance and a soldier of fortune named Fargo--in addition to his other writing.  His stories are always very hard-nosed, fast-moving and generally a cut above the genre.

Bring Me His Scalp! starts off with a bang, as Sundance is being pursued by eight hired guns, all of which he dispatches before the end of the first chapter.

But there are plenty of killers in the Old West, and Sundance makes a sizable dent as he tries to figure out who ordered his murder.

A very action-packed outing for Benteen and a satisfying entry in the series.

I found this at a goodbye price and read it very quickly on a camping trip.

#30: Silver Pebbles by Hansjörg Schneider

A cynical Basel cop has his own reasons for trying to bring down a smuggling ring in Swiss writer Hansjörg Schneider's Silver Pebbles.

Although prolific in Switzerland, this is only Schneider's second novel translated into English.  I hope these keep coming, because I have enjoyed them both.

In this one, our tarnished hero seems to be more intent on helping a hapless immigrant sewer worker, who stumbles into the crime, than actually bringing the gang to justice.  Even by the high standards set by Scandinavian noir, our detective is extremely dour and sardonic and plays by his own set of rules (if he thinks about rules at all).

A wide cross-section of characters, with Basel as a vivid setting (at the crossroads of several countries and cultures) helps make Schneider's work a cut above.

I checked this out from the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it quickly.  Recommended for noir fans.

#29: Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Upon the death of her mother, a teenager and her grieving dad move from Philadelphia to a small town in Missouri.  She is at school only a single day before she realizes a dark cloud hangs over the town, and it is all coming to a head during a celebration called Founder's Day.

Clown in a Cornfield from Adam Cesare goes pretty much where you expect from there, the clown of the title being the mascot of a local factory, recently shut down and burned, and the cornfield being where the teenagers plan to hold an all-night bonfire party.  

But crossbows, chainsaws, and machetes intervene on the fun, hitting all the expected beats.  

Cesare's novel is pre-built for cinema, a straight-faced homage to 80s and 90s teens in peril horror.  Highly agreeable for genre fans.

I listened to a very good audiobook reading by Jesse Vilinsky on loan from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.

#28: Layover in Dubai by Dan Fesperman

A buttoned-down numbers cruncher for an American company and a rumpled, eccentric Dubai cop must team up when they inadvertently reveal corruption coming from both quarters in Dan Fesperman's Layover in Dubai.

Fesperman, a former journalist, writes a sober, well-paced international thriller in an unusual setting; a Dubai steeped in tradition while trying to race into the future.  It's a potent stew where a sex-trafficking ring, as exposed by our ill-matched protagonists, could thrive.

They end up being helped by several other interesting characters, including the Dubai cop's Bedouin friend from childhood as well as the cop's daughter, caught in a cultural web she is secretly trying to break free from.

This is my first exposure to Fesperman's writing; apparently he has written thrillers in a number of unique settings, to steady acclaim.  I would definitely look for another of his novels.

I listened to this one on audiobook on loan from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in in New Castle, Indiana.

#27: The Paper Wasp by Lauren Acampora

Two childhood friends--one who is now a rising Hollywood star, the other who stayed in her hometown and draws illustrations based on her dreams--are brought back together at a class reunion, with troubling results, in Lauren Acampora's The Paper Wasp.

At first glance the storyline might seem familiar, but Acampora is able to chrome out the characters and situations with plenty of surprises, including both women's involvement with an enigmatic film director, which adds value.  

A protagonist who is an unreliable narrator, but also may or may not have psychic powers, adds a level of interest.

Acampora is a smart, literate writer even as she works through a number of thriller genre beats.  Recommended.

I checked this one out from the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it quickly.