My torrid reading year continues.

And still recommending roughly 1 in 10 books (scoring of 4/5+).

5/5
“What About the Bodies” – Ken Jaworowski (Loved all three of the characters driving the three intersecting stories)

4.5/5
“Blood Ties” – Jo Nesbø (Immersive, grounded character-driven story)
“Coram House” – Bailey Seybolt (The ending genuinely surprised me)
“Friends Helping Friends” – Patrick Hoffman (Great character work)
“Kill Your Darlings” – Peter Swanson (Told in reverse but it bookends with a nice little twist)
“Leo” – Deon Meyer (A pulse-pounding ride – 2025 translation)
“Poor Girls” – Clare Whitfield (One of my top crime reads of 2024 gets its 2025 North American release)
“The Impossible Thing” – Belinda Bauer (Great characters, a compelling story, and a wonderful sense of humor)

4/5
“A Beautiful Family” – Jennifer Trevelyan (A terrific POV protagonist in 10-year-old Lucy)
“A Novel Murder” – E.C. Nevin (Fun and funny. A surprising delight.)
“Crooks” – Lou Berney
“Dead Money” – Jakob Kerr (Not a fan of legal thrillers but this one delivered some terrific twists)
“Fine Young People” – Anna Bruno (Well drawn characters and an interesting cold case mystery)
“Girl Falling” – Hayley Scrivener (Solid twist ending)
“Hang on St. Christopher” – Adrian McKinty (Grounded, gritty and great)
“Her Many Faces” – Nicci Cloke (Minor quibbles in an otherwise gripping novel)
“Karma Doll” – Jonathan Ames (Not wholly on board with the ending, but getting there was a blast)
“Kills Well with Others” – Deanna Raybourn (Good mystery and great fun)
“Let the Bad Times Roll” – Alice Slater (Enjoyed how it came together in the end)
“Marble Hall Murders” – Anthony Horowitz (The second ending is a little anticlimactic but otherwise a very enjoyable read)
“Murder at Gulls Nest” – Jess Kidd (A standout protagonist in former nun Nora)
“Oxford Soju Club” – Jinwoo Park (A fascinating exploration of the immigrant experience)
“Red Water” – Jurica Pavičić (Bleak yet compelling – 2025 translation)
“Summerhouse” – Yiğit Karaahmet (A suspenseful little yarn)
“The Good Liar” – Denise Mina (An interesting character study and an intriguing mystery)
“The Impossible Fortune” – Richard Osman (The writing is clever and the characters are a lot of fun)
“The Silver State” – Gabriel Urza (Tiny quibbles in a fairly absorbing story)
“The Summer Guests” – Tess Gerritsen (A well-written mystery from the consistently great Gerritsen)
“The Trouble Up North” – Travis Mulhauser (Fascinating dysfunctional family dynamics)
“The Wolf Tree” – Laura McCluskey (Small island community mystery done right)
“What Kind of Paradise” – Janelle Brown (Touching)

3.5/5
“A Particularly Nasty Case” – Adam Kay
“Anoxia” – Miguel Ángel Hernández (Alternately fascinating and frustrating – 2025 translation)
“Broken Country” – Clare Leslie Hall (Compelling story that is really more of romance)
“Command Performance” – Jean Echenoz (Alternately hilarious and tedious)
“Fox” – Joyce Carol Oates (Solid)
“Galway’s Edge” – Ken Bruen (Solid but stylistically clipped)
“Havoc” – Rebecca Wait
“Malma Station” – Alex Schulman (Melancholic – 2025 translation)
“Murder at Mount Fuji” – Shizuko Natsuki (A little stilted and dated but well-structured)
“Nightshade” by Michael Connelly (Great character work)
“One Good Reason” – Emma Salisbury (Solid)
“Oromay” – Baalu Girma (Main characters shine but supporting players suffer – 2025 translation)
“Pro Bono” – Thomas Perry (Perry is another consistently great writer)
“The Art of a Lie” – Laura Shepherd Robinson (Enjoyable up until itst tonally disconnected conclusion)
“The Glass Eel” – J.J. Viertel (A very satisfying small-town thriller)
“The Mailman” – Andrew Welsh-Huggins (Fun, humorous, but an overly complicated third act)
“The Secrets We Keep” – Amy Lillard (Interesting first book in a series)
“The Understudy” – Morgan Richter (An utterly delightful read until it shifts into standard investigative territory)
“Victorian Psycho” – Virginia Feito (Delightfully dark and gruesome but at times a little too tonally dismissive)
“Welcome to Murder Week” – Karen Dukess (A lot of fun despite the fact there is no actual murder)
“Where the Bones Lie” – Nick Kolakowski (Wonderful character and humor, but had a hard time buying the late twist/reveal)

3/5
“10 Marchfield Square” – Nicola Whyte
“A Death on Corfu” – Emily Sullivan
“A Killer Motive” – Hannah Mary McKinnon
“A Murderous Business” – Cathy Pegau
“A Shipwreck in Fiji” – Nilima Rao
“A Twist of Fate” – Se-Ah Jang
“Allegro” – Ariel Dorfman
“All the Other Mothers Hate Me” – Sarah Harman
“All We Trust” – Gregory Galloway
“Ballerina” – Patrick Modiano
“Battle Mountain” – C.J. Box
“Bitterfrost” – Bryan Gruley
“Carnival of Chaos” – Richard Kurti
“Ceylon Sapphires” – Mailan Doquang
“Clay” – Franck Bouysse
“Cold as Hell” – Kelley Armstrong
“Creep” – Emma van Straaten
“Dead of Summer” – Jessa Maxwell
“Dark Maestro” – Brendan Slocumb
“Death at the White Hart” – Chris Chibnall
“Death of a Smuggler” – M.C. Beaton
“Doll Parts” – Penny Zang
“Don’t Let Him In” – Lisa Jewell
“Dying to Meet You” – Sarina Bowen
“El Dorado Drive” – Megan Abbott
“Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter” – Samantha Crewson
“Fagin the Thief” – Allison Epstein
“Flashlight” – Susan Choi
“Forged” – Danielle Teller
“Forget Me Not” – Stacy Willingham
“Guess Again” – Charlie Donlea
“Gunner” – Alan Parks
“Hamburg Noir” – edited by Jan Karsten
“Heartwood” – Amity Gaige
“High Season” – Kate Bishop
“Hollow Spaces” – Victor Suthammanont
“Hot Wax” – M.L. Rio
“Hunting in America” – Tehila Hakimi
“I Did Warn Her” – Sian Gilbert
“Jill Is Not Happy” – Kaira Rouda
“Joy Moody is Out of Time” – Kerryn Mayne
“Julie Chan Is Dead” – Liann Zhang
“Kaplan’s Plot” – Jason Diamond
“King of Ashes” – S.A. Cosby
“Letters from the Dead” – Isabella Valeri
“Leverage” – Amran Gowani
“Matchmaking for Psychopaths” – Tasha Coryell
“Mississippi Blue 42” – Eli Cranor
“Mob Queen” – Virginia Bledsoe
“Mrs. Christie at the Mystery Guild Library” – Amanda Chapman
“Murder by the Book” – Aime Schaumbe
“Murder in Paris” – Matthew Blake
“Murder Takes a Vacation” – Laura Lippman
“Never Flinch” – Stephen King
“Night Watcher” – Daphne Woolsoncroft
“No Rest for the Wicked” – Rachel Louise Adams
“Nobody Knows You’re Here” – Bryn Greenwood
“Not Quite Dead Yet” – Holly Jackson
“Notes on Surviving the Fire” – Christine Murphy
“Old Soul” – Susan Barker
“One Death at a Time” – Abbi Waxman
“Our Last Wild Days” – Anna Bailey (Deux ex alligator)
“Pariah” – Dan Fesperman
“Parents Weekend” – Alex Finlay
“Peter Miles Has to Die” – Katie Collum
“Photograph” – Brian Freeman
“Plays Well with Others” – Lauren Myracle
“Presumed Guilty” – Scott Turow
“Rage” – Linda Castillo
“Runaway Horses” – Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini (2025 translation)
“Ruth Run” – Elizabeth Kaufman
“Saltwater” – Katy Hays
“Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell” – Gillian French
“Sister, Butcher, Sister” – K.D. Aldyn
“So Happy Together” – Olivia Worley
“Someone in the Water” – Sarah Clarke
“Son” – Johana Gustawsson and Thomas Enger
“Stillwater” – Tanya Scott
“Streets of Nashville” – Michael Amos Cody
“Suspicion” – Seicho Matsumoto
“Sweet Fury” – Sash Bischoff
“Tell Them You Lied” – Laura Leffler
“The Ascent” – Allison Buccola
“The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre” – Philip Fracassi (Deus ex machina jaguar)
“The Bachelorette Party” – Camilla Sten
“The Big Empty” – Robert Crais
“The Death of Us” – Abigail Dean
“The Doorman” – Chris Pavone
“The Empress Murders” – Toby Schmitz
“The Felon’s Ball” – Polly Stewart
“The Final Chapter” – January Gilchrist
“The Game is Murder” – Hazell Ward
“The Gatsby Gambit” – Claire Anderson Wheeler
“The Hitchhikers” – Chevy Stevens
“The House at Devil’s Neck” – Tom Mead
“The Intruder” – Freida McFadden
“The Killing Stones” – Ann Cleeves
“The Last Ferry Out” – Andrea Bartz
“The Last Room on the Left” – Leah Konen
“The List” – Steve Berry
“The Listeners” – Maggie Stiefvater
“The Locked Room” – Sara Pekkanen
“The Man Made Of Smoke” – Alex North
“The Marriage Rule” – Helen Monks Takhar
“The Medusa Protocols” – Rob Hart
“The Memory Ward” – Jon Bassoff
“The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer” – Ragnar Jonasson
“The Naming of the Birds” – Pariah O’Donnell
“The Paris Express” – Emma Donoghue
“The Perfect Divorce” – Jeneva Rose
“The Perfect Stranger” – Tara Lyons
“The Queens of Crime” – Marie Benedict
“The Quiet Librarian” – Allen Eskens
“The Reluctant Sheriff” – Chris Offutt
“The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne” – Ron Currie Jr.
“The School Gates” – A.A. Chaudhuri
“The Snares” – Rav Grewal-Kök
“The Stolen Heart” – Andrey Kurkov
“The Surf House” – Lucy Clarke
“The Tokyo Suite” – Giovana Madalosso
“The Unlucky Ones” – Hannah Morrissey
“The Vanishing Place” – Zoë Rankin
“The Vow” – Stefanie London
“The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant” – Liza Tully
“This is the Day they Dream Of” – Robert Goddard
“Tokyo Express” – Seicho Matsumoto
“Too Old for This” – Samantha Downing
“Unbury the Dead” – Fiona Hardy
“Under the Skin” – Susanna Rogers
“Until Alison” – Kate Russ
“Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)” – Jesse Q. Suitanto
“We Are All Guilty Here” – Karin Slaughter
“We Are Watching You” – Alison Gaylin
“We Don’t Talk About Carol” – Kristen L. Berry
“Welcome to Cottonmouth” – Jay S. Bell
“When She Was Gone” – Sara Foster
“Wild Dark Shore” – Charlotte McConaghy
“Wolf Hour” – Jo Nesbø
“Women Like Us” – Katia Lief
“You Are Fatally Invited” – Ande Pliego
“You Belong Here” – Megan Miranda
“Your Steps on the Stairs” – Antonio Muñoz Molina

2.5/5
“A Sharp Scratch” – Heather Darwent (Muddled narrative)
“Believe Me Now” – S. M. Govett (Fairly standard)
“Claire Darling” – Callie Kazumi (Underwhelming unreliable narrator)
“Everyone is Lying to You” – Jo Piazza (Formulaic)
“Five Found Dead” – Sulari Gentill (Some of the reasoning is hard to swallow as are the dated covid elements)
“Gunpowder Creek” – Alex Dook (Hard-to-swallow premise and ludicrous plot developments)
“House of Lies” – Anita Waller (Clunky dialogue)
“Left Behind” – Martine Kropkowski (Annoyingly ambiguous ending)
“Lime Juice Money” – Jo Morey (Deus ex machina snake)
“Love You to Death” – Christina Dotson (Plot propelled by bad decisions)
“No Body No Crime” – Tess Sharpe (Deux ex machina peacock)
“No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done” – Sophie Hannah (Absurd turns and ghost dog narrator)
“Our Last Resort” – Clémence Michallon (Not buying the ending)
“Retreat” – Krysten Ritter (Too far-fetched)
“Runner 13” – Amy McCulloch (Interesting premise but execution lacks)
“Strange Houses” – Uketsu (A little labored and a lot ridiculous)
“Sunburned” – Katherine Wood (A tad tedious)
“The Cleaner” – Mary Watson (Contrived plotting)
“The Compound” – Aisling Rawle (Clunky in its social commentary)
“The Dead Husband Cookbook” – Danielle Valentine (Stretches credulity)
“The Deepest Fake” – Daniel Kalla (Not buying it)
“The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club” – Gloria Chao (Silly)
“The Family Inside” – Katie Garner (Too much hinges on coincidence)
“The Ghostwriter” – Julie Clark (Predictable)
“The Grand Paloma Resort” – Cleyvis Natera (Clunky social commentary)
“The Killer Question” – Janice Hallett
“The Lost House” – Melissa Larsen (Increasingly far-fetched)
“The Midnight King” – Tariq Ashkanani (The final reveals are pretty silly)
“The Ones We Love” – Anna Snoekstra (Rough ending)
“The Other People” – C.B. Everett (Meta nonsense)
“The Perfect Home” – Daniel Kenitz (Tad tropey)
“The Proof of My Innocence” – Jonathan Coe (Meta nonsense + clunky political and social commentary)
“The Serial Killer Support Group” – D.B. Stephens (Increasingly silly and far-fetched)
“The Stalker” – Paula Bomer (Asshole narcissist gets his comeuppance)
“The Washup” – Nicole Crowe (Silly network t.v. ending)
“The Wasp Trap” – Mark Edwards (Absurd plotting)
“This Stays Between Us” – Sara Ochs (Reads a little like parody)
“What A Way To Go” – Bella Mackie (Did not love the ghost narrator)
“You Deserve to Know” – Aggie Blum Thompson (Implausible plotting and convenient ending)

2/5
“A Map to Paradise” – Susan Meissner (Too pat and predictable)
“Beautiful Ugly” – Alice Feeney (Ludicrous twist)
“Breathe In, Bleed Out” – Brian McAuley (Made no sense)
“Close Your Eyes and Count to 10” – Lisa Unger (A little clunky in its critique of social media)
“Count My Lies” – Sophie Stave (Preposterous twist)
“Fair Play” – Louise Hegarty (Meta nonsense)
“Famous Last Words” – Gillian McAllister (At times nonsensical)
“I Make My Own Fun” – Hannah Beer (An exceptionally uninteresting serial killing anti-heroine)
“It Should Have Been You” – Mara Andrea (Contrivances and conveniences abound)
“Jenny Cooper Has A Secret” – Joy Fielding (Repetitive and predictable)
“Kill Creatures” – Rory Powers (At times nonsensical)
“Killer Potential” – Hannah Deitch (Preposterous)
“Nothing Serious” – Emily J. Smith (Insufferable protagonist)
“Remember” – Patricia Shanae Smith (Convenient amnesia)
“She Didn’t See It Coming” – Shari Lapena (Implausibilities abound)
“Smile for the Camera” – Miranda Smith (Rough ending)
“The Fact Checker” – Austin Kelley (Short yet interminable)
“The French Honeymoon” – Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau (Absurd)
“The Last Session” – Julia Bartz (Nonsensical)
“The Missing Half” – Ashley Flowers (Preposterous twist ending)
“The Note” – Alafair Burke (Clunky political and/or social messaging)
“The River Is Waiting” – Wally Lamb (Clunky political and/or social messaging)
“The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau” – Kristin Harmel (Coincidences abound)
“Their Double Lives” – Jaime Lynn Hendricks (Coincidences and contrivances abound)
“This Book Will Bury Me” – Ashley Winstead (Ludicrous ending)
“We Had A Hunch” – Tom Ryan (Weak dialogue and final reveal. At times credulity stretched too thin)
“With a Vengeance” – Riley Sager (Plot holes abound)

DNF
“A Botanist’s Guide to Rituals and Revenge” – Kate Khavari
“A Campus on Fire” – Patrick O’Dowd
“A Killer Wedding” – Joan O’Leary
“A Lethal Engagement” – April J. Skelly (Not my cuppa)
“A Long Time Gone” – Joshua Moehling (Trouble buying in)
“A Proposal to Die For” – Molly Harper
“Antique Hunters on the Red Sea” – C.L. Miller (Simply not for me)
“Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds” – Allison Brennan (Insufferable protagonist)
“Beartooth” – Callan Wink
“Behind Sunset” – David Gordon
“Blood on the Vine” – J.T. Falco
“Darkenbloom” – Eva Menasse
“Dead in the Frame” – Stephen Spotswood
“Death at an Irish Village” – Ellie Brannigan (A little too twee for me)
“Death on Ice” – R. O. Thorp
“Dust” – Michael Brissenden
“Fever Beach” – Carl Hiaasen (Clunky political and/or social commentary)
“Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave” – Elle Cosimano (Simply not for me)
“Flashout” – Alexis Soloski
“Gray Man: Midnight Black” – Mark Greaney (Simply not for me)
“Guilty by Definition” – Susie Dent
“Hard Town” – Adam Plantinga (Shoot the dog? I’m out)
“Hidden in Smoke” – Lee Goldberg
“High Rise” – Gabriel Bergmoser
“Hot Ground” – Lisa Ellery
“In Deadly Company” – L.S. Stratto (Did not work for me)
“Mean Moms” – Emma Rosenblum (Not for me)
“Party of Liars” – Kelsey Cox (Narrative treads a lot of water)
“Schooled in Murder” – Victoria Gilbert
“The Black Highway” – Simon Toyne
“The Cut” – Richard Armitage
“The Girl with Ice in Her Veins” – Karin Smirnoff (This one lost me)
“The Librarians” – Sherry Thomas (Not for me)
“The Man Who Swore He’d Never Go Home Again” – David Handler
“The Poet’s Game” – Paul Vidich (Simply not for me)
“The Retirement Plan” – Sue Hincenbergs
“The Serial Killer Support Group” – Saratoga Shaefer (Nonsensensical)
“The Vanishing Kind” – Alice Henderson (Coincidence-driven)
“The White Crow” – Michael Robotham (Not for me)
“There Will Be Bodies” – Lindsey Davis (Love the premise but this one lost me)