Best Books of 2017: Contemporary Crime Fiction, Part Two
We’ve slipped over the finish line into 2018, so it behooves me to finish posting my “best reads” in crime fiction of the past year:
Old Bones by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. A series that, by virtue of its wit, sympathetic cast of characters, and above all its self-effacing hero Bill Slider, has been an unadulterated delight since its inception back in 1991.
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Dungeon House Martin Edwards. Another winning series, by an author who’s also a distinguished scholar of the genre.
Skin and Bone by Robin Blake. An historical series of superior quality in which Blake narrates the exploits of Titus Cragg, coroner, and Luke Fidelis, a physician in 18th century Lancashire, England. People need to discover these marvelous novels!
Robin Blake
Stone Coffin by Kjell Eriksson. This Swedish series featuring Detectives Ann Lindell and Ola Haver is exceptionally well written and at times, genuinely moving. (Although Stone Coffin is the most recently published book in this series, it’s actually the earliest that’s been translated into English and is therefore a good place to begin.)
Kjell Erikkson
A Fine Line by Gianrico Carofiglio. I continue to champion this little-known high quality series set in Bari, Italy, and featuring the extremely appealing ‘avvocato’ Guido Guerrieri. (Carofiglio’s nonseries novel The Silence of the Waves is also very much worth reading.)
Gianrico Carofiglio
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. For sheer delicious enjoyment, this one was the big winner.
Trace by Archer Mayor. This is number twenty-eight in a series I’ve been following for years. Also I’ve felt a special bond with this author ever since I stood right next to him while ostensibly browsing the magazines at Onsite News in BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport several years ago. (Sighting was later confirmed by means of a subsequent email exchange with the ever congenial Mayor.)
Archer Mayor
Fast Falls the Night by Julia Keller. I was deeply touched by the sufferings, both noble and ignominious, of the people of Acker’s Gap, West Virginia. I can do no better than to quote the Kirkus Review of this novel: “Keller’s prose is so pure that her exploration of the desperate scourge of drugs and poverty and her forecast of a grim future for her heroine are a joy to read.”
Julia Keller
Paganini’s Ghost by Paul Adam. Recently reviewed by me in this space.
Books to the Ceiling 
kdwisni said,
January 4, 2018 at 1:07 pm
I love the wittty and wonderful Bill Slider series, and this entry was definitely a very good one, as was the latest Archer Mayor. I swore off the Swedish mysteries several years ago because they were all so relentlessly dreary and violent. How does Stone Coffin compare to the other Swedish bestsellers? Is it any less depressing?
gunnardeckare said,
February 26, 2018 at 6:52 pm
Carofiglio is on my list of “shall read”