December's Wrap-Up & P.O.M. Award

Onward in my monthly statisic-gathering and a combo post with Kerrie's Crime Fiction Pick of the Month over at Mysteries in Paradise.

Finished all the books and all the challenges! Hurray!  And here we go, the final monthly round-up of 2013 (yearly round-up coming soon):

Total Books Read: 18
Total Pages:  3,950
Percentage by Female Authors:  33%
Percentage by US Authors:  67%
Percentage by non-US/non-British Authors:  11%
Percentage Mystery: 50%
Percentage Fiction: 67%
Percentage written 2000+: 22%
Percentage of Rereads: 0%
Percentage Read for Challenges: 100% {It's easy to have every book count for a challenge when you sign up for as many as I do.}
Number of Challenges fulfilled so far: 34 (100%)



AND, as mentioned above, Kerrie is sponsoring a meme for those of us who track our reading. What she's looking for is our Top Mystery Read for each month.  This month  of the books I read count as mysteries.  

 

The Tragedy of Z by Barnaby Ross [Ellery Queen]  (3 stars) Murder Your Darlings by J. J. Murphy (3 stars) The Quiet Road to Death by Sheila Radley (3 stars) Maigret's Christmas by Georges Simenon (3.5 stars)
 A Habit for Death by Chuck Zito (3 stars) A Christmas Promise by Anne Perry (3 stars) Wycliffe & the Guilt Edged Alibi by W. J. Burley  (3 stars) Ransom Game by John Buxton Hilton (3 stars)

The Bamboo Blonde by Dorothy B. Hughes (2 stars)

 

And I read two non-fiction mystery-related books:

The Armchair Detective Book of Lists by Kate Stine, ed (12/29/13) [267 pages] Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books by H. R. F. Keating (12/31/13) [219 pages]

 

It looks like December was one of the most mediocre mystery-reading months of the year.  Nearly all of the novels came in with a middle-of-the-road rating of 3 stars. The highest rating earned was a mere three and a half stars and that went to December's Pick of the Month: Maigret's Christmas by Georges Simenon.  Simenon is excellent at description and captures the atmosphere of Paris exactly.  He also gives us good psychological studies of his characters--both the pursuer and the pursued. Decent mysteries and clever solutions.