MY FAVOURITE READS OF 2008
The books I read during 2008 were of a very high quality with only a few exceptions therefore it was a hard task to come up with only five outstanding reads. My favourite reads all had that extra special something about them and all had memorable characters.
They were:
The fifth in the Bernie Gunther series was set in Peron's Argentina in 1950 but with a lengthy brilliantly evocative back story of Germany in 1932. An outstanding detective story as Bernie investigates a murder with similarities to a case in his past. But it is also a novel with a message and warning from history that is relevant to the present day.
Commisaire Adamsberg and his disparate team of detectives investigate murders in Paris and strange events in Normandy. Gallic quirkiness and individuality abound in this mixture of modern mystery and medieval history.
Harry Hole investigates a bank robbery and then makes an unfortunate choice of female dinner companion in this book which is the sequel to The Redbreast and prequel to The Devil's Star. The opening of Nemesis is absolutely stunning and the narrative grips right through to the end.
This winner of the Best Swedish Debut Crime Novel has a brilliantly different investigator in the elderly Gerlof Davidson and is a master class in the use of a gripping decades long back story. But the main star of the book is the atmospheric setting on the beautiful bleak Baltic Island of Oland.
A sensational start to this novel is a prelude to a police procedural that is both humorous and intriguing. The ten books in the Martin Beck series written between 1965 and 1975 are all masterpieces and a pleasure to read.
posted by Uriah Robinson at 6:00 AM
2 Comments:
Nemesis would at least be on my top ten (I never make lists, however, I like far too many of the books I read).
Dorte, so do I and I really struggled this year but when Karen of Euro Crime requests I obey. ;O)
I see Maxine was clever in doing one translated list and one English.
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