{"id":3471,"date":"2019-11-29T10:03:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T18:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=3471"},"modified":"2019-11-29T10:06:40","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T18:06:40","slug":"best-of-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/best-of-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

I couldn\u2019t keep it to 10 this year \u2013 can I ever?\u00a0 My taste does tend toward the traditional and historical fiction side of things, so that\u2019s mostly reflected here.\u00a0 And a note: Kent Krueger\u2019s This Tender Land, <\/em>while not strictly a mystery, can definitely be enjoyed by his mystery loving fans.\u00a0 Quite simply, it\u2019s the best book of 2019 of any variety, and I hope everyone reads it.\u00a0 I am looking to read it again myself.<\/p>\n

There was lots to love this year!\u00a0 Some long-awaited returns (S.J. Rozan), some debuts (Melanie Golding, Allison Montclair, Jess Montgomery), some trying a different format or series (Ann Cleeves, Elly Griffiths), and of course some solid entries in already great series (Benn, Bowen, Jones, Massey, Shaber). Lots of great, passionate, spectacular writing.\u00a0 I love being a mystery reader!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>James R. Benn, When Hell Struck Twelve.<\/em> What\u2019s not to love about a chase novel ending in occupied Paris?\u00a0 And actually\u2026ending in the liberation of Paris.\u00a0 The best historical fiction places the reader back in time, and James Benn, now 14 books into a classic series, has taken his spy Billy Boyle from raw recruit to experienced operative.\u00a0 Benn\u2019s depth of knowledge is vast, but he never overwhelms the reader with too much detail. The pulsing pace of his stories makes it hard to stop turning pages.\u00a0 I felt I actually was<\/em> in occupied Paris.\u00a0 Benn, with a few vivid cameos, illustrates history with real people, including, in this book, Ernest Hemingway. (You may think about Hemingway in a very <\/em>different way).\u00a0 I like the immediacy Benn brings to his novels, and his illumination of parts of history you may be unaware of.\u00a0 This is a stunning and unforgettable read.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Rhys Bowen, Love and Death Among the Cheetahs. <\/em>Rhys Bowen is often the winner of my own personal \u201cmost fun between the covers\u201d award, and this year\u2019s Lady Georgie entry is so much fun it should almost be illegal.\u00a0 Georgie and Darcy end up spending most of their honeymoon in Africa, to Georgie\u2019s disappointment, and on a spy mission no less.\u00a0 Georgie also has a request from the Queen to watch out for evidence of Mrs. Simpson.\u00a0 This novel is mostly set in the decadent \u201cHappy Valley\u201d, an enclave of Brits in colonial 1930\u2019s Kenya. Bowen\u2019s writing is especially fine tuned as far as class distinctions, and she is one of the wittiest writers in contemporary mystery fiction.\u00a0 This book ends slightly ambiguously (yet satisfyingly so) and takes the puzzle to the very last page.\u00a0\u00a0 Bravo.<\/p>\n

Ann Cleeves, The Long Call. <\/em>A new and strong direction for Ann Cleeves, who gives us the story of Mathew Venn, a detective in a small British city in Devon. Matthew is complex \u2013 he\u2019s gay, he\u2019s a bit OCD, and he\u2019s married to the messy, creative Jonathan, who runs the local arts and social center.\u00a0 When one of the disabled adults who spent time at the center is killed, \"\"<\/a>it fuels the kind of intelligent and complex police procedural of which Ann Cleeves is a master.\u00a0 With the character of Matthew, she\u2019s also given the reader a fascinating person to get to know and explore, hopefully in many more novels.\u00a0 This has all the Cleeves\u2019 hallmarks \u2013 beautiful writing, intelligent plotting, thoughtful social explication, and wonderfully memorable characters.\u00a0 Great debut to a new series.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Melanie Golding, Little Darlings. <\/em>I read this book early in the year and knew right away it was a favorite.\u00a0 I could not put it down.\u00a0 It\u2019s the story of Lauren, who gives birth to twins, but then is so exhausted and strung out she becomes paranoid.\u00a0 She\u2019s sure someone is out to get them, and she\u2019s pretty sure it\u2019s a hag from a fairy tale who wants to take the babies away and make them changelings.\u00a0 Each chapter has an epigraph from a fairy tale or bit of folklore, and Golding skillfully ties this aspect of her novel to Lauren\u2019s growing post-partum panic.\u00a0 And from the reader\u2019s eye view, you are challenged to parse what\u2019s happening \u2013 is Lauren crazy?\u00a0 Is her husband a jerk?\u00a0 IS something \u2013 or someone \u2013 out to get her?\u00a0 This has one of the more haunting resolutions since Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/em>.\u00a0 I don\u2019t usually fall for this kind of book but this is a real knockout.<\/p>\n

Elly Griffiths, The Stranger Diaries. <\/em>I love Ruth Galloway as much as the next person, but it\u2019s great fun to see the talented Elly Griffiths branching out.\u00a0 From Margaret Agnew\u2019s review on our website: \u201cThis novel brings us a modern-day gothic horror \"\"<\/a>story while keeping solidly grounded in tradition. Instead of a castle or drafty mansion, there is an old school with secrets. Instead of a threatening lord of the manor, characters are menaced by fellow teachers and students. There is a ghost story in the background of the novel, and a mystery concerning the true identity of someone long dead. Delightfully, the novel\u2019s three heroines are not quite so traditional.\u201d\u00a0 As always, Griffiths delivers strong female characters, in this case, three of them.\u00a0 There is so much to love an unpack in this book.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Stephen Mack Jones, Lives Laid Away.<\/em> I loved Jones\u2019 Detroit centric debut, August Snow, <\/em>and I liked this one even better.\u00a0 It feels like Jones settled into his storytelling rhythm, he\u2019s shared August Snow\u2019s origin story with the reader, and he gets right in to a beautifully paced, intense private eye novel. \u00a0Jones is expert in creating a world \u2013 in this case, a more or less back channel world of a community working together to fight \u201cthe man\u201d \u2013 which isn\u2019t a corny saying but a necessity.\u00a0 August works loosely with a rogue FBI agent, a donut shop owner, and a priest, among others, to keep his community safe and the cops and ICE agents in his neighborhood on the up and up.\u00a0 Like all simple sounding tasks, it\u2019s of course a complex one. Because of the inclusion of August\u2019s strong community this is not a dark novel, but a strangely optimistic one, despite the dark topics Jones covers.\u00a0 I can\u2019t wait for book three.<\/p>\n

William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land. <\/em>Lots of people have already told me how much they loved this book and that they \"\"<\/a>want to read it again.\u00a0 I don\u2019t blame them. Set in 1930\u2019s Minnesota, it\u2019s the story of Odie, his brother Albert, and their friend Mose, who doesn\u2019t speak. All of them are young and living in an \u201cIndian\u201d boarding school. At the time (and up through the early 70\u2019s) native children were taken from their homes and put in these harsh schools where they were allowed little to no contact with their families and were forbidden \u2013 even punished \u2013 if they spoke their native language. The story is epic in scale. The brothers \u2013 and Mose \u2013 are on the cusp of adulthood, being between 12 and 15 \u2013 and the adventures that come their way in this novel, which takes place at the height of the depression \u2013 are adult ones. When they tell folks they encounter on their journey they are on their own and are orphans, it\u2019s accepted with a shrug. The river is full of twists and turns and takes the boys and Emmy through some of the iconic settings of the 30\u2019s \u2013 a religious revival tent, Hoovervilles, riding the rails, and to a farm where they work by day and where they are locked up by night. The story takes its own sinuous and compelling path, with the boy\u2019s quest for identity and a home at the forefront of all their minds. The spirit of this novel \u2013 the threads of love and kinship that bind this little troupe to one another and to the earth (or \u201cThis Tender Land\u201d) \u2013 is a compelling and moving one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sujata Massey, The Satapur Moonstone. <\/em>The Satapur Moonstone<\/em> is the second in Massey\u2019s series featuring female lawyer Perveen Mistry.\u00a0 She works for her father\u2019s firm in Bombay in the 1920\u2019s, and she\u2019s an unusual example of early feminism.\u00a0 Because of her gender, she can\u2019t argue cases in court, but Massey is ingenious in finding ways that Perveen\u2019s gender works to her advantage rather than her disadvantage. This second novel is an adventure story with all that implies \u2013 a journey through the jungle in a palanquin, monkeys, a tiger, several maharajahs (dead and alive), a moonstone necklace, and a palace full of maharinis attempting to decide what\u2019s best for a young maharajah who is too young to assume power. In the first novel, Perveen\u2019s origin was all, slowly and masterfully revealed.\u00a0 In this novel, the sinewy, delicious, tricky story is all, as Perveen uncovers motivations and hatreds and unexpected goodness as well.\u00a0 The characters are just as firmly etched and brought to life on the page as they were in the first novel. It\u2019s fun to see Perveen using her mind as she solves this puzzle.\u00a0 You seriously will not want to stop reading.<\/p>\n

Jess Montgomery, The Widows.\u00a0 <\/em>This is one of the most original and heartbreaking reads of 2019.\u00a0 Set in 1920\u2019s Ohio in two \"\"<\/a>fictional mining towns, the story centers on Marvena, whose husband was killed in a mine collapse, and Lily, whose sheriff husband is murdered in the first chapter.\u00a0 Lily is appointed sheriff in his stead.\u00a0 The story is one of a growing friendship between Lily and Marvena, despite their differences, the network of women who hold the community together, and the heartbreaking and brutal conditions of the mines.\u00a0 This is also the story of a battle, hard fought, with many casualties: the battle for worker\u2019s rights. There\u2019s a scene toward the end of the book of a mine rescue that is simply the most memorable of any scene I read all year.\u00a0 Beautifully written, intelligently crafted, and driven by these two incredibly strong women characters, so real they could step right off the page –\u00a0 this is one of the reads of the year. And a side note, Marvena and Lily have some basis in real people \u2013 be sure not to skip the afterword.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Allison Montclair, The Right Sort of Man. <\/em>This is one of the most intelligent and funny first novels I\u2019ve read in a long while.\u00a0 Set in immediate post WW II London \u2013 any fan of\u00a0Call the Midwife<\/em>\u00a0will be familiar with the setting \u2013 it\u2019s a period of time still governed by rationing and coupons, and people who have suffered some war trauma, be it loss, living through the Blitz, or actually fighting in the war. Our two central characters are Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge.\u00a0 Iris has a secret history of resistance fighting and espionage; Gwen, an almost titled member of the upper classes, has lost her husband and is raising her son at her mother-in-law\u2019s after a stint in a mental asylum.\u00a0Both of them put their smarts and practicality to work to found the Right Sort marriage bureau (apparently an actual phenomenon immediately post war), using their different skills to create a strong partnership.\u00a0 After meeting a client they go through their card files separately to come up with a match.\u00a0 After meeting with a Miss Tillie La Salle, they match her with an appropriate man and send off the necessary letters of introduction. Sadly, Tillie is killed and her potential date is arrested, but Iris and Gwen are sure he is innocent and spring into action.\u00a0 There are several things that set this novel apart.\u00a0 One is simply the intelligence of the prose and the fast flying wit of the dialogue.\u00a0 One is the pleasantly complicated caper-ish plot, which involves black market stockings and forgeries.\u00a0 Most remarkably, Montclair deftly folds into her clever plot some real depth of emotion and feeling.\u00a0 Iris and Gwen slowly learn to reveal their secrets to one another; their love lives and losses are examined; and all of it is carried off with a humor and wit that is pretty rare.\u00a0 There\u2019s a couple of side bar characters \u2013 Sally, Des and Archie \u2013 who are full blown wonders. There was not a moment when I was reading this delightful novel that I was not completely entertained.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>S.J. Rozan, Paper Son. <\/em>Eight long years and a change of publisher later, Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith have returned. Rozan\u2019s series is one of the best private eye series around, with the fresh take of shifting narrators between books. One book will be Lydia\u2019s, one Bill\u2019s. This one is Lydia\u2019s. She\u2019s summoned to Mississippi to get a never met cousin out of jail for murdering his father. Lydia\u2019s scary (and entertaining mother) is sure her cousin Jefferson cannot be guilty, because he\u2019s family. Lydia has no such shared assumption when she gets to town and discovers that her cousin has broken out of jail and can\u2019t be found. All private eye novels mostly involve the private eye driving around and asking questions, and first, figuring out what questions need to be asked. As Lydia and Bill are very much out of their element the questions that need to be figured out are difficult ones. Really good private eye writers make the questions, the questioners, and the search an interesting one. Rozan is a really good private eye writer. As Lydia untangles her family threads, explaining to Bill why the Mississippi branch is named \u201cTam\u201d rather than \u201cChin\u201d (you\u2019ll need to read the book, as it explains the title), the story circles back to what is ultimately the strongest element in Rozan\u2019s best books: family. The whole novel features the combined skill sets in Rozan\u2019s extensive toolbox: a fast moving narrative, memorable characters, and a setting that\u2019s almost equally as important as plot. This is a more than welcome return to print of one of the greatest private eye writers on the planet.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sarah Shaber, Louise\u2019s Crossing. <\/em>This is the seventh Louise Pearlie mystery \u2013 the first one for me, and I have to say I am now a fan.\u00a0 I was able to pick up the character threads easily and was quickly absorbed in the story of Louise Pearlie, OSS agent, crossing a wartime ocean in winter to take up an assignment in London.\u00a0 Shaber is a brisk storyteller and I was immediately drawn into Louise\u2019s goodbye to her U.S, wartime office, to her boarding house friends, and even her packing for a winter voyage. By the end of chapter two she has her orders and is already on-board ship. The ship Louise boards \u2013 the\u00a0Amelia Earhart\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 is taking much needed supplies overseas and the \u201ccasual passengers\u201d of which Louise is one, are more or less of an afterthought. I\u2019ve never been a big fan of the shipboard mystery or novel, but I liked this one, for lots of reasons.\u00a0 One was the way Shaber was able to skillfully illustrate life on a wartime ship, with all its discomforts.\u00a0 At the same time, the passengers to a man want to help the war effort in any way possible and understand the importance of their cargo.\u00a0 They are willing to endure their discomfort. As the ship crosses the ocean, they encounter the kinds of attacks you might expect from the Germans \u2013 air and sea \u2013 and there\u2019s even a moment of otherworldly beauty in the far north.\u00a0 There\u2019s also, of course, a gale, but Shaber keeps her story moving \u2013 I was totally absorbed in Louise\u2019s passage across the ocean \u2013 and then she throws in a death. As Louise is a trained OSS agent, she can\u2019t let a death pass unexamined, and she\u2019s sure it\u2019s a murder, though the captain tells her to lay off.\u00a0 Like every detective ever, she does not. Unlike other wartime mysteries I have read, the death of the one person is relative to the ship\u2019s wartime importance and the war in general.\u00a0 It was a very realistic balance. I was impressed by Shaber\u2019s skill in telling a memorable story, but also in her ability to create a character I liked so much.\u00a0 I\u2019m delighted there are six books I haven\u2019t read.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Also notable: Deborah Crombie\u2019s delectable A Bitter Feast; <\/em>Ellen Hart\u2019s Twisted at the Root; <\/em>Maureen Jenning’s Heat Wave; <\/em>Hank Phillippi Ryan\u2019s The Murder List; \u00a0<\/em>Vicki Delany\u2019s Silent Night, Deadly Night; <\/em>\u00a0Louise Penny\u2019s A Better Man; <\/em>Annelise Ryan\u2019s Needled to Death; <\/em>Diane Freeman\u2019s A Lady\u2019s Guide to Gossip and Murder; <\/em>Lauren Willig\u2019s The Summer Country;<\/em> Susanna Calkins\u2019 Murder Knocks Twice \u00a0<\/em>and Kylie Logan\u2019s The Scent of Murder.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I couldn\u2019t keep it to 10 this year \u2013 can I ever?\u00a0 My taste does tend toward the traditional and historical fiction side of things, so that\u2019s mostly reflected here.\u00a0 And a note: Kent Krueger\u2019s This Tender Land, while not strictly a mystery, can definitely be enjoyed by his mystery loving fans.\u00a0 Quite simply, it\u2019s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[256,197,80,191,267,96,53,151,147,165,107,176],"class_list":["post-3471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of","category-uncategorized","tag-allison-montclair","tag-ann-cleeves","tag-elly-griffiths","tag-james-r-benn","tag-jess-montgomery","tag-melanie-golding","tag-rhys-bowen","tag-s-j-rozan","tag-sarah-r-shaber","tag-stephen-mack-jones","tag-sujata-massey","tag-william-kent-krueger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3473,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions\/3473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}