16) Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce This was recommended to me sometime ago by my wife Katie's cousin's wife Rachel - thanks Rachel - and I bought it after stumbling across it in the local Oxfam bookshop. It's the first of a series of books by Malcolm Pryce, and is a wry, funny and… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 16: Aberystwyth Mon Amour
Category: crime
Year 4 / Book 14: Tell No Tales
14) Tell No Tales by Eva Dolan I read Eva Dolan's first Zigic & Ferreira novel, Long Way Home, a while back and really loved it. First off, she's an excellent writer, with a great command of plot, narrative arc and character creation. Second, she's focused in on immigration, particularly East European immigrants, as the… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 14: Tell No Tales
Year 4 / Book 12: Love Like Blood
12) Love Like Blood by Mark Billingham Tom Thorne is one of the most celebrated and consistent detectives featuring in crime fiction today, and I've read (I think) all of the novels by Mark Billingham that feature him. This one had been on the Kindle for a while, and I felt like something light-ish after… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 12: Love Like Blood
Year 4 / Book 10: My Sister, the Serial Killer
10) My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Well this was quite a gear-change from anything else this year. I described it to my wife Katie as like a Netflix crime series spliced up for the millennial generation and repackaged into chapters. It is dark, darkly funny, funnily disturbing and disturbingly dark; not necessarily… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 10: My Sister, the Serial Killer
Year 4 / Book 8: The Hunting Party
8) The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley I was excited about reading this; a bit of light, crime relief after some heavier reading. The premise was good too: a bunch of posh-ish friends going away for New Year's in a secluded country house somewhere in Scotland, and then a body is found as they find… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 8: The Hunting Party
Year 4 / Book 5: Brothers in Blood
5) Brothers in Blood by Amer Anwar This is a fast-paced thriller in which we are introduced to Zaq Khan (and later his friend Jags), who is plunged into the middle of a family feud which escalates rapidly into a tale that is darker, more violent and more complex than it first appeared. I struggled… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 5: Brothers in Blood
Year 4 / Book 2: Force of Nature
2) Force of Nature by Jane Harper I very much enjoyed Jane Harper's runaway bestseller The Dry (see my review of that from Year 2) with its tale of small-town murder in a parched, drought-ridden Australia. This follow-up, Force of Nature, finds the same policeman (Aaron Falk) working in the finance department, tracking down money… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 2: Force of Nature
Year 3 / Book 52: The Defenceless
52) The Defenceless by Kati Hiekkapelto Holidaying in Helsinki, and for my final book of Year 3 of Dogeared Man, I wanted to read a Finnish novel and remembered I had downloaded this many moons ago on to the Kindle. It’s the second novel by Hiekkapelto to feature Anna Fekete, a policewoman whose origins lie… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 52: The Defenceless
Year 3 / Book 51: The Midnight Line
51) The Midnight Line by Lee Child It wouldn’t be a year of reading if I didn’t slip in a cheeky Lee Child along the way. This was the latest that I’ve read (I know there are others already released) and I would place it firmly in the upper middle of the Jack Reacher canon… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 51: The Midnight Line
Year 3 / Book 50: Fatal Remedies
50) Fatal Remedies by Donna Leon Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti series is one of the most enjoyable and long-running set of crime novels, as satisfying as they are well-written. Someone in sunny Acton is donating a few Donna Leon’s to the community bookshelf, and this is the latest one I picked up on the way… Continue reading Year 3 / Book 50: Fatal Remedies
Dog-eared Man: a book a week 