{"id":6273,"date":"2016-12-14T07:44:24","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T12:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6273"},"modified":"2016-12-14T07:44:24","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T12:44:24","slug":"best-of-the-best-in-crime-fiction-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6273","title":{"rendered":"Best of the Best in Crime Fiction &#8211; 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4725\" style=\"width: 295px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4725\" class=\" wp-image-4725\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/8727759029_da83b55058_z.jpg?resize=285%2C216\" alt=\"chalk outline, body\" width=\"285\" height=\"216\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4725\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(image: pixabay, creative commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Been accumulating a list of year-end lists of \u201cBest Mystery\/Crime\/Thriller Novels of 2016.\u201d A total of 75 books appears on the eight lists I researched. More than 60 of them appear only once, suggesting not only the tremendous volume of good writing in these genres but the wide range of reviewers\u2019 personal tastes. \u00a0I\u2019ve read and reviewed 30 new crime books in 2016, and my favorites aren\u2019t on any of these lists. They are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><a href=\"vweisfeld.com\/?p=5541\">Dodgers<\/a><\/em> by Bill Beverly \u2013 Los Angeles teenagers embark on a murder mission and much, much more<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"vweisfeld.com\/?p=5926\">The Heavenly Table<\/a><\/em> by Donald Ray Pollock \u2013 ne\u2019er-do-wells in the early 1900\u2019s South meet the inevitable; not for the squeamish<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"vweisfeld.com\/?p=5778\">The Far Empty<\/a><\/em> by J. Todd Scott \u2013 local law enforcement in Big Bend country fighting (or is it helping?) the Mexican drug cartels<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Below are the books that appeared on three or four lists; tomorrow the books appearing on two and where to find these lists, if you want to investigate further.<\/p>\n<p><em>For reviews of great new crime\/mystery\/thriller releases year-round, bookmark the U.K. website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crimefictionlover.com\/\">CrimeFictionLover.com<\/a>.<\/em> I\u2019m one of the site\u2019s reviewers, and the team there does a fantastic job!<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Four Mentions<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vweisfeld.com\/?p=6024\">You Will Know Me<\/a><\/em> by Megan Abbott \u2013 a book that surely benefited from exquisite timing. This story of an elite gymnast and the sacrifices she, her teammates, and their families must make coincided with the summer Olympics and enthusiasm around the gold-medal-winning U.S. women\u2019s gymnastics team. The story is told mostly from the point of view of the young gymnast\u2019s mother, and it\u2019s full of teen-age angst, parental fixation, and gym-rat rivalries. But are they strong enough to precipitate and cover up murder?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Three Mentions<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer: I\u2019ve not read any of these. Note to self: get busy!<\/p>\n<p><em>Charcoal Joe<\/em> by Walter Mosley \u2013 Mosley is in his element here, writing about Los Angeles in the uneasy aftermath of the deadly 1960s Watts riots. Says the <em>New York Times<\/em> review, Mosley\u2019s protagonist, Easy Rawlins, is \u201can unconventional hero who\u2019s unafraid to lower his fists and use his brain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>A Great Reckoning<\/em> by Louise Penny \u2013 the twelfth outing of Penny\u2019s popular Chief Inspector Gamache (I\u2019ve listened to two of the audio versions and every time the narrator says \u201cGamache,\u201d I hear \u201cGanache\u201d and must go eat a piece of chocolate). He\u2019s ensconced with his pals in Three Pines, Quebec, and charged with searching out corruption within the police academy, an investigation soon confounded by murder.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Woman in Cabin 10<\/em> by Ruth Ware \u2013 The blurbs make this sound like Agatha Christie\u2019s classic train case, <em>The Lady Vanishes<\/em>. In this story, a passenger on a luxury cruise ship thinks she hears and sees the body of a woman hit the water and sink beneath the waves. She swears she met this woman in Cabin 10, but <em>no one believes her<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Have you read any of these \u201cbest books\u201d? Were they among your favorites of 2016?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Tomorrow: the ten books that received two votes and how to find mention of the 60 others.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Been accumulating a list of year-end lists of \u201cBest Mystery\/Crime\/Thriller Novels of 2016.\u201d A total of 75 books appears on the eight lists I researched. More than 60 of them appear only once, suggesting not only the tremendous volume of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6273\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Best of the Best in Crime Fiction - 2016","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,3,126,32],"tags":[89],"class_list":["post-6273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-mystery","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Db","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6274,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273\/revisions\/6274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}