As Kerrie of Mysteries in Paradise warned in mid December, she is collecting our best crime fiction reading for 2012. She would like us to list our top crime fiction reads with their dates of first publication. I've read a lot of crime fictions this year--no surprise there and I've handed out a lot of four star ratings or better. I wasn't quite able to keep the list to a Top Ten. But a Top Fourteen isn't too bad. What I find quite striking is how many of these are 2000+ books. Given that I'm such a huge fan of the Vintage/Golden Age Mysteries, six out of fourteen is a pretty big chunk. But enough musing...without further ado, here are the top reads from the My Reader's Block files for 2012:
Five Stars
Four 1/2 Stars
Four Stars
The Morning After Death by Nicholas Blake [1966]
The Problem of the Green Capsule by John Dickson Carr [1939]
The Fifth Man by Manning Coles [1946]
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet [1930]
The Fifth Man by Manning Coles [1946]
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet [1930]
Slowly, Slowly in the Wind by Patricia Highsmith [1979]
The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes [1940]
A Good Death by Elizabeth Ironside [2000]
The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes [1940]
A Good Death by Elizabeth Ironside [2000]
A Spark of Death by Bernadette Pajer [2011]
The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart [1932]
Such Friends Are Dangerous by Walter Tyrer [1954]
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas [2005]
The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart [1932]
Such Friends Are Dangerous by Walter Tyrer [1954]
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas [2005]
Oh I loved The Three Evangelists...don't like Fred Vargas' series books but that one is a treat. Sadly most of your other titles are unknown to me...or read so long ago my ageing brain can't recall a single thing!
ReplyDeleteAn interesting list. You don't see a lot of lists with Vintage mysteries included. I will follow up on some of those. So Blue Marble is the only one I have a copy of. I just received Nine Man's Murder in the mail, will be reading that this year. I have Some Danger Involved and A Good Death in my TBR stacks, so it is good to hear you liked them.
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